ABC and 123

Telling Stories: Prompting Creative Writing

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Whimsical Ways helps young writers get creative with story stones. A simple and fun way to encourage character, setting, and plot development.

Teach Beside Me made color coded blocks labeled with interesting nouns, verbs, and places to set writers up with a story idea.

TLSBooks offer several creative writing prompt ideas, similar to this Serious Question activity.

With a few fun pebbles and a sharpie marker, First Grader at Last will inspire creative writing.

meg writes uses a simple jar to inspire creative writing.

I may have mentioned it before, but my favorite resource for creative writing prompts is Rip the Page by Karen Benke. {fyi: not an affiliate link, just a fave}

I also really like the idea of these story cubes from The Literary Gift Company. What do you think, do you have an idea for a DIY version of these cubes?

Bilingual Wednesdays- Cognates part I

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:00:00 +0000

Cognates are words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling and pronounciation.

30 -40% of English words have a related word in Spanish.

For learners of Spanish as a second or foreign language, cognates are a bridge to the new language.
Cognate awareness is the ability to use cognates as a tool for understanding a new language.

Children can be taught to use cognates as early as preschool. They feel confident when they can master cognates because they are very similar to their mother tongue.

There are many cognates, but I choose the most familiar for my kids such as chocolate, pizza, pasta, television, computer, sofa,etc

In this picture children choose their favourite cognate, draw and then we sort them by objects, people or animals.

You can download the labels here, just right click on the picture, save as. It is a .jpg

Teaching cognates help children to transfer knowledge from one language to the other and to build anchor charts.

I made this posters with the letters of the word COGNATE . I use the posters not only to build the word but also to sort cognates according to beginning sounds.

We look for cognates in magazines, cut them and hang them from each letter using a ribbon or yarn.Whenever we learn a new cognate we add it to the list.

Stay tuned! Be sure to register as a Follower.

Show and Tell #89

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

You guys! Seriously, there were so many neat ideas in last week's Show and Tell Linky. If you missed it, you are going to want to go back and check it out. My three little highlights are not going to do it justice. Thank you to all of you who add your ideas to our party!

Our Feminisit Playchool used a piece of tempered glass to draw portraits with her preschooler.

The Post-It Note math scavenger hunt set up by Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational is a fun way to keep a busy little body busy learning!

My Shae Noel shared the books, an art project, and a reflective writing prompt they used to learn about Martin Luther King Jr.

It's your turn!

If you are new to Show & Tell or need a quick recap, here are the rules:

~Post your favorite lessons, crafts, traditions, kid friendly recipes, field trip recap, learning games, experiments, DIY organizational projects, holiday related activities, or Ah-Ha moments.
~Direct link to your post, not your home page.
~Include a link back to us or include our link button in your post or sidebar.
~Please try to visit and comment on at least three links. This adds to the positive collaboration that makes our learning cooperative a success!
~Each week we will feature three links from the previous week's party. Some weeks these are chosen at random, sometimes by theme, and other times according to linky tools stats.

Teaching with Ticia: Rhode Island and Vermont

noreply@blogger.com (Ticia) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:23:00 +0000

I apologize for being late getting this post out this morning. We've been sick for most of February and I got distracted enjoying our first non-sick days in two weeks.

So, here we go:

Rhode Island

I figure it is rather apt that Rhode Island is a small state, so I found only a few things on it in our library.

Nathaniel Greene- He was a Revolutionary War hero and has many different roads, cities, and schools named after him. However our library had nothing on him, so I designed something from Wikipedia. Does anyone have some book suggestions for him?

Rhode Island State Symbols-Rhode Island is one of the few states that has fairly unique state symbols.

Finding Providence-This is a great book about the founding of Rhode Island. If you are Christian it's a great opportunity to talk about your faith and having trust in God. Our activity for this book was to write down how we can know God's Will in our lives.

Carousels- There are some great carousels in Rhode Island, or so I've been told. We read "Carousel Cat," but "Feivel's Flying Horses" is supposed to be about the actual carousels Rhode Island is famous for, it was sadly checked out at the time we were studying Rhode Island.

Other Activities:

Study clams- there are many interesting things you can learn about how they are formed and how they make pearls. This could be followed up by trying clams.

Make a "Cabinet-" this is the state drink. It's supposed to be quite good from what people have emailed me.

Vermont

I was very lucky to find some GREAT books for Vermont.

Tricking the Tally Man- This is a very cute book that is a combination of local legend and truth. My opinion leans more towards legend. Afterwards we "tallied" the people in the different towns. This was a great way to work on making tally marks.

Champy- Vermont has a legend that Lake Champlain has it's own version of the Loch Ness Monster, Champy. While there are books about this animal available, they weren't available to me, so I used Stephen Kellog's book "The Mysterious Tadpole," which is really about the Loch Ness Monster. Afterwards we drew what we thought Champy looked like.

Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream- Any activity that includes eating ice cream is a hit. We read about how ice cream is made and then discussed the unusual names Ben and Jerry's uses. Afterwards we came up with our own flavors and created our own unusual names.

Nora's Ark- About 80 years ago Vermont had some very bad flooding that resulted in several towns being washed away. This story is how one family was able to save many of the people in their town because of where their house was located. After reading we tried to fill our houses as full as Nora's house was.

John Deere- He was born in Vermont, but the factory is actually located in Illinois, so you could also study him there. I didn't figure all of this out until I was looking up more information for him later.

After reading a rather compicated book book about tractors by Gail Gibbons, one of the few times I didn't like her book, we created our own farming vehicle to help farmers. The kids all enjoyed this activity. If you were doing this at home you could have them create it out of recyclable material.

Vermont State Symbols- I always find amusing when I find an ocean animal as the state fossil. I don't know why.

Additional Activities:

Apple Pie-Vermont has a state pie, apple pie. So you could make an apple pie.

Justin Morgan had a Horse- If you have older kids, this is a great book for a 3rd/4th grade kid. It's all about the original Morgan Horse, Vermont's state horse.

Books Used in Both Units:

Handwriting Tool: Word Spacing

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

My daughter is a Kindergartener , which means she is also a beginning writer. It has been delightful to watch her figure out the sound/symbol relationships and now she is becoming more aware of writing conventions. In the past few days she has been analyzing the spacing between words in all types of print media. She is quite concerned that some magazines don't have a big enough "finger space." Her interest in this developing skill encouraged me to check into the type of tools you are all using to teach this beginning writing skill.

Thoughts from a Kindergarten Teacher explains how to use Mr. Spacey to teach Kinders the importance of spacing between words.

Debbie's Resource Cupboard has a downloadable Space ship.

Remind students to use proper spacing with this 5 Finger Rubric from Kindergarten Crayons.

The Long Way Around introduced some cute little Spacemen.

The Enchanted Homeschool submitted a wonderful link for a Helpful Handwriting Tool. She explains:

Learning Objective:
The general purpose of this tool is to help children with spacing. I know that the rule of thumb is to teach children that they need a “finger tip” of space between each word in their writing but my kids lost that concept within a week or two, especially my son who struggled with handwriting initially due to lack of interest and being left handed. So I came up with this tool!

Materials:

- 1 Sticker (either leave the manufacturers backing on it or place the sticker on a piece of paper so there is no sticky side left)

- Elmer’s glue

- 1 Large sized regular old paper clip

- Small piece of wax paper

- Scissors

Show & Tell #88

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Happy Valentine's Day! Wishing you a day of hugs & kisses, pinks & reds, friendship & love!

The Princess and the Tot shared a post full of Valentine themed work centers. Several of the ideas are simple enough to put together for your tot to enjoy yet today.

The heart day photo props from Little Wonders' Day are bookmark worthy for next Valentine's Day!

At The Golden Gleam they practiced measuring area and perimeter using non standard units of measurement.

It's your turn!

eBooks to Enhance Your Homeschool

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:41:00 +0000

Happy Monday Friends! While doing a little bit of searching today for links to share with you, as well as some resources for the grad class I am currently enrolled in, I came across two resources I was excited to share with you.

Holy Spirit Led Homeschool is offering a free eBook to all of their facebook page likers. The book titled 100 Indoor Activities for Kids {TV Not Included} looks promising. I just downloaded it myself and look forward to browsing through it for some ideas for our children. Once you have liked the page you will see a tab under their sidebar image that says "Free eBook"

Simply Living for Him is also offering two free eBooks to those who like their facebook page. The book, Simply Homeschool: Having less clutter and more joy in your homeschool, is written to be a great encouragement for homeschool parents. The second free title is Unplug You Mind and Recharge Your Soul. Again, I have not read either of these yet, but am anxious to take a look.

Neither of these pages are advertisers or affiliate links, just interesting resources I thought you might enjoy. I'd love to hear if you know of other free eBooks to enhance teaching and learning!

Also, if you haven't done so already we would love if you like ABC & 123's Facebook page as well!

Have a great evening!

Terrific Teeth: Dental Health Month Activities

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Toddler Bites submitted a thematic unit about health teeth.

Mrs. Wheeler put together some toothy grin math games

The Popes enjoyed many clever activities while exploring dental health. I especially love the flossing activity using yarn, mega blocks, and play dough.

The Teacher's Corner shared several writing prompts that are appropriate for February, with some of them focusing on healthy teeth.

1st Grade with Miss Snowden used eggs in a healthy teeth science experiment.

Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos also has a great thematic dental health unit. Her post is stuffed with great toothy links! I especially appreciated his list of appropriate books.

For a fun craft extension perhaps your students would enjoy making their own Teeth Monsters like these from Long Thread.

Valentine Writing Prompts

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Sub Hub has shared a free Valentine's Day poetry writing activity that can easily be downloaded.

Classroom Freebies has a downloadable Valentine themed lined paper for you to use for any of you classroom writing projects.

Kindergarten Freckle Teacher posted a Valentine poem freebie for shadow writing.

Practice writing with prepositions following this Lilly's Chocolate Heart writing project from Suite 101.

Journal Buddies suggests 77 love themed writing prompts for elementary students.

Elementary Technology Lessons used Party Printer to turn writing assignments into Valentine shapes.

Connect a Blog offers free Valentine's themed stationary for writing projects.

Bilingual Wednesdays - Love in Spanish

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:00:00 +0000

St. Valentine is around the corner and I decided to make a new set of Spanish cards

for your word wall.

What can you do with these cards? These are some ideas:

Word walls cards can be used:

To provide reference for children during their reading and writing.
To support the teaching of important general principals about words and how they work.
To provide a visual map to help children remember connections between words and the characteristics that will help them form categories.
To foster reading and writing.
To promote independence on the part of young students as they work with words in writing and reading.
To develop a growing core of words that become part of a reading and writing vocabulary.

You can also sort words by:

the number of letters
the number of syllables
the number of consonants
the number of sounds
if they have a certain vowel
if they have a certain rhyme
if they begin with the same letter

you can read more about word work here

I also made these tic tac toe for my Spanish group in my church

¡Feliz San Valentin!

Show & Tell #87

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Simply Designing linked up to last week's Show and Tell with a clever Valentine activity or gift.

Creekside Learning used a favorite winter time storybook, The Mitten, to encourage a scientific experiment.

Mom to 2 Posh Lil' Divas used a winter favorite - snowmen - to practice sorting long and short vowel words.
It's your turn!

Teaching with Ticia: Biographies

noreply@blogger.com (Ticia) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:00:00 +0000

This would normally be the post I would give you a couple of more states to study. However, there's some things that happen all month long that I want to spotlight first, so come back later in the month for that post.

February boasts President's Day and Black History month. Both of those require finding a good source for children's biographies. During my trek through the United States I've found some great sources that I will always head to first if they exist.

David Adler "A Picture Book Biography" series- He has written or co-written a book for almost every major historical figure in American history, and most people you would cover in Black History month. This is my go to biography books right now, it provides a fair amount of information for early elementary without overloading.

Rookie Reader biographies- These are great for preschoolers, or for a first/second grader doing a report on their own. Most of them are geared for later first grade readers, and it gives them the right amount of facts for an independent report. These also sometimes venture into athletes occasionally.

Jean Fritz biographies- These are mostly the biographies of "dead white guys," as my history teacher used to say. She specializes in American Revolution time period and a few Civil War books, but most of hers are the American Revolution. These are written at a 3rd grade reading level and are great early chapter books. When I was that age I nearly wore out my copy of "Shhh! We're Writing the Constitution." These books are great for a third or fourth grader writing a report. It provides a lot more meat to them and is written in a conversational style.

Do you have any biographers that you really enjoy? There's several other authors who have written some great books, but they are more of the one shot type of books.

Show and Tell #86

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Mama and Many Blessings created a crystalized snowflake tree as a lovely winter centerpiece.

I Heart Crafty Things came up with a colorful hook activity for the book A Bad Case of the Stripes.

Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational used the measures and notes of music to practice mathematical skills. It's your turn!

National Puzzle Day: Why Puzzles?

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Brain Health & Puzzles explains the importance of puzzles for learning, maintaining, and improving your brain. Puzzles improve our focus, attention, flexibility, and memory.

Most students also think they are fun, so puzzles are a great way to sneak in extra learning and skill review!

Maria has devoted an entire site to solving number puzzles. The site, The Math Mom's Puzzles, focuses on math that is applicable to life.

According to Ann Bower's article, Teaching With Puzzles, puzzles made of wood or heavy cardboard are effective for encouraging motor skills in children ages 1-8. For older children, jigsaw puzzles with small cardboard pieces encourage problem solving skills.

Lisa's Craft Blog shares a fun snowflake craft your children may enjoy making today out of puzzle pieces.

Grandmother Hen used craft sticks to create Remember When puzzles. These would be nice to also use as story starters.

Happy Birthday Mozart

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Arts Alive has put together a resource packet for teachers to use when exploring the life and music of Mozart.

Bright Hub Education has a Kindergarten lesson plan for introducing students to Wolfgang Mozart. The lesson objective states:

The objective of this Mozart lesson plan for kindergarten is to provide students with an introduction to this classical composer through discussion and hands-on activities. At the end of this lesson, children will have an understanding of what classical music is and know who Mozart (among other composers) was.

Making Music Fun has a home school lesson plan to be used in teaching students about Mozart. You will find a printable word search and multiplication practice sheet at the link.

Make a special treat in honor of his birthday - a Mozart cake.

Read excerpts from The Official Weblog of W.A. Mozart.

The Music Kit has posted a list of children's books about Mozart.

Older students might like to try Mozart's Musical Dice Game for composing a minuet.

Share a familiar song with your children. They may be surprised to learn that Mozart was the composer.

Learning About Australia in Honor of Australia Day

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Mama Smiles is the host for a wonderful post written by another one of our favorite contributors, Elise. The post is about exploring Australian geography and is a fantastic resource.

Counting Coconuts put together a Continent Bag full of activities for learning about Australia.

Inspiration Surrounds, Creativity Abounds shared some examples of activities she will do with her own children on Australia Day to teach them about their home.

Storytime Source Page shares a great list of book titles, flannel board activities, and songs about Australian Animals.

Check out the official Australia Day website for more information if you are interested.

Bilingual Wednesdays - Brr..it is cold outside! part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Brr..it is cold outside- Part 2

Here we are working with snowmen. We love snowmen! Maybe because it never snows where we live, so we enjoy just playing with them in our games.

Snowhite was patterning here. Visual discrimination is an important skill. We learned about

same / different - igual / diferente

and here she was sorting snowmen by size

big/ small - grande/ pequeño

and her favourite games, puzzles!

you can download the second part here

Show and Tell #85

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

As part of their Little Mathematician series of posts, Raising the Cameran Clan rolled a giant die and graphed Trains.

Meremade is going to be practicing basic computation using a wooden math block. The tutorial for making your own math block is included in the post.

Waddle-ah-chaa explains a Make Ten Math Game that uses a deck of playing cards.

It's your turn!

Movement and Music: Heart Healthy for Valentine's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Jedda) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:12:00 +0000

Each year around Valentine's Day I like to take some time to teach about how to help our hearts be healthy. Everything seems to be centered around hearts at this time of year so it's great timing for some movement and music learning that's focused on making sure we have happy and healthy hearts.

Staying active is one of the best ways to help our hearts be healthy. So today's music links are about active music-making, with some heart science and games at the end!

This one is, appropriately, "HEART and Soul." Wouldn't it be fun to have a big piano to dance on like this? Turn on some music and pretend your feet are making the tune like they do!

heart and soul

I think this "Stomp Song" is lots of fun. Trying stomping your feet to the music. You could use this song or any song that is fun to march around the room to make your own "stomp song."
Stomp Song

This is a famous "love song" that is great for kids to be able to recognize and name. It is said that Beethoven loved Elise and wrote this song for her. What kind of movements or dance does this song inspire in you?
"Fur Elise" (For Elise)
Learning is even more fun when your heart is involved and for some kids, the movement makes the learning happen even more efficiently. So get ready to jump out of your chairs to learn!
These Heart-Heatlthy Games gets you moving around while you spell, learn the sounds of letters, and some Valentine Words--LINK to the games.

And for more about the science behind how our hearts work, check out this game and this site.
Try these fun ways to get your heart involved with your math:Math "exercises" are really exercises when you get up off your chair!

Greater/less than number recognition game: use a deck of cards to play "war." The number that is higher wins and kids take turns doing that many jumping jacks (or sit ups, etc.)
Exercise your Answer: When you find the answer to your addition, subtraction, or multiplication problem you can "exercise" the answer. Take that many seconds to skip, jump, or dance. Or do like above, and the answer to your math problem tells you how many jumping jacks or sit-ups to do.
For more fun Valentine's and movement ideas stop by This Little Project for the Music @ my House series.
Have fun taking music and movement to heart!

Muffin Tin Playing, Learning, and Skill Reviewing Activities

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Thanks to Michelle from Muffin Tin Mom, families all over the blog world are using tins for serving more than just muffins.

More than just for eating, muffin tins are a great tool for organizing materials and teaching basic skills in new and creative centers.

When starting a Lego project with her son, Muffin Tin Mom sorts the small pieces into muffin tins to make the project more manageable.

Making Learning Fun explains two early childhood games that use muffin tins to teach basic skills.
Using tins, picture cards, and pom poms preschoolers can practice visual discrimination.
The second game using tins, dice, and pom poms effectively practices counting and color recognition.

At Happy Brown House muffin tins and colorful foam stickers are the materials needed to practice sorting skills.

Growing Book by Book explains 4 great games for practicing literacy skills with elementary students: Toss and Answer, Match-a-Roo, Three in a Row, and Sort-a-Roo.

The Wonder Years encouraged collaging by providing interesting materials in a muffin tin.

Meaningful Mama uses coins, cards, and muffin tins for a skill review activity than can be adapted to whatever skill you are teaching.

Pre-K Pages used a muffin tin to create a magnet exploration station.

Here's to never having too many muffin tins in your collection!

Valentine's Day Math Ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Rachelle) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

I wanted to give you some fun ideas for Valentine's Day that had to do with math. I already posted about them on my blog last year, but why reinvent the wheel, right? Here's some fun games you can play in your classroom or at home! :)

{Click the picture for the download ALL of the math activities-Free ;)}

Here is the same Candy Heart graph that is in packet, but this one has the color blue instead of white (it just depends on what brand you buy, usually the boxes have white and the bags have blue)

Clipart and/or fonts copyright DJ Inkers and used with permission. www.djinkers.com

For more math ideas, check out my "It All Adds Up" posts {here}.

Show and Tell #84

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Happy Tuesday! Winter has finally found it's way to our part of the world. My children are LOVING the snow. I guess that means it is a good time to get winter-y with our learning.

Fun Frugal Mommy shared a winter themed preschool math unit.

I love the snowman lunch created by Kitchen Fun with my Three Sons.

Math with marshmallows. Mmmmmm! Thanks for sharing Bubble Gum Tree.

Since I am really enjoying all the great winter themed math activities, here is one more idea rich post from Mom's Heart.

It's your turn!

If you are new to Show & Tell or need a quick recap, here are the rules:

~Post your favorite lessons, crafts, traditions, kid friendly recipes, field trip recap, learning games, experiments, DIY organizational projects, holiday related activities, or Ah-Ha moments.
~Direct link to your post, not your home page.
~Include a link back to us or include our link button in your post or sidebar.
~Please try to visit and comment on at least three links. This adds to the positive collaboration that makes our learning cooperative a success!

~Each week we will feature three links from the previous week's party. Some weeks these are chosen at random, sometimes by theme, and other times according to linky tools stats.

Teaching with Ticia: New York and North Carolina

noreply@blogger.com (Ticia) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:00:00 +0000

NEW YORK

I have to admit I'm a sucker for New York City because I visited there as a young girl and very much enjoyed seeing Ellis Island and seeing my first Broadway Musical. So, I really enjoyed looking for some fun ideas for it.

What's in the lapbook, as you can see it took a few pages to glue it into.

Norman Rockwell is from New York, and this was a fun writing activity. Write a story about the picture you got. I did a google search for the images and got more than I could use.

My Ideal Park- Teddy Roosevelt is from New York, my library did not have a good book about him, but it had a truly delightful book about his daughter with wonderful illustrations, and fabulous vocabulary. If you can find a copy of "What to Do about Alice?" I'd highly recommend it. Afterward we discussed Teddy Roosevelt founding the National Park system, and designed our ideal park (link to printable).

Under New York- This is a charming story about what there is under the city and the many layers. It was a great way to think about what is going on that you can't see. Inside the Under New York printable they drew what was going on under NYC.

Tenth Avenue Cowboy- A boy moves to NYC and dreams of growing up to be a cowboy, his dream comes true but not the way he planned. This was a great way to talk about dreams coming true in ways that aren't expected.

Statue of Liberty- I found a list of how tall different parts of the statue's body were. We went outside and measured it out. In my experience you can tell a kid how big something is, but until they've actually seen it measured out in real life they don't understand it.

Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt flapbooks- for these I used a picture I'd googled and had them write one sentence about each of the presidents. As I mentioned my library did not have any great books about either Roosevelt or their wives.

Building Manhattan- I used a photocopy of the final page of the book to create a timeline of what happened.

New York State Symbols

NORTH CAROLINA

Back when I was in junior high I had to do a state study about North Carolina. I thought I was oh so clever and called it "Have you ever heard of the Tar Heel state?" My history teacher was not as amused and my grade was rather bland, probably a low B.

North Carolina is rather printable light......... That's being kind. The books for the state straggled in over the course of 2 months and I just was not able to cover them all.

Design your own plane- Obviously a very popular idea. Afterwards they really enjoyed flying them outside.

Best way to waterproof paper- North Carolina is known for exporting tar (hence the name Tar Heel state), so we enjoyed trying different ways of waterproofing paper.

North Carolina state symbols-I continued to be amused at what states pick for the state animals, surprisingly enough squirrel is not too common.

OTHER ACTIVITIES not in the book

Greensboro sit ins- my kids really enjoyed designing protest signs. I did not enjoy as much their deciding to protest later while circling and yelling loudly.

Blackbeard's Last Fight- Several states claim him, and since he plundered up and down the Southern United States it is valid, but he died in North Carolina, and so I put him here. The kids very much enjoyed making a puppet of him sinking.

I know there is a lot more I could do for New York, but we had spent three weeks on it, and I could tell the kids were getting antsy about it. For those of you who have visited there or live there what is your favorite thing in New York?

Bilingual Wednesdays - Brr..it is cold outside!

noreply@blogger.com (Ana) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Winter arrived in the North Hemisphere. As I live in South America I am having my summer holidays but I gathered some of my winter resources to share with you.

Here we go..Snowhite is working with some concepts such as numbers and shapes recognition, matching colours and beginning sounds in Spanish.

Do you remember them?

1 / uno 2/ dos 3/ tres 4/ cuatro 5/ cinco 6 /seis 7 / siete 8 /ocho 9 /nueve 10/diez

What about the colors?

read/ rojo yellow / amarillo blue/ azul green/ verde orange/ naranja purple/ violeta

Shapes are easy!

triangle / triángulo square / cuadrado circle / círculo oval / óvalo rectangle/ rectángulo

you can download the free pack here

Show and Tell #83

noreply@blogger.com (Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:00:00 +0000

The Book Ambulance shared by Growing Book by Book is a clever idea for teaching children to take good care of their books.

The Spice Painting suggestion from Play Create Explore looks like a unique way to introduce the 5 senses.

This soapy experiment from Making Memories is on my list of things to try with my kids this week.

It's your turn!

If you are new to Show & Tell or need a quick recap, here are the rules:

~Post your favorite lessons, crafts, traditions, kid friendly recipes, field trip recap, learning games, experiments, DIY organizational projects, holiday related activities, or Ah-Ha moments.
~Direct link to your post, not your home page.
~Include a link back to us or include our link button in your post or sidebar.
~Please try to visit and comment on at least three links. This adds to the positive collaboration that makes our learning cooperative a success!

~Each week we will feature three links from the previous week's party. Some weeks these are chosen at random, sometimes by theme, and other times according to linky tools stats.