Nurturing the tender years

A break of sorts

2011-06-08T15:19:00.001-10:00

You may have noticed I have only been blogging once or twice a week for the past few weeks. Summer is finally upon us here, and after a very long, very hard first mid-western winter during which the boys and I got every cold and flu that past through (our bodies getting used to the new climate and location?), I realized that all we really want to do is be out of the house, enjoying every minute of summer and all that is offered here during the summer time (lots of fun looking events coming up from concerts in the park, to festivals, and fairs, etc).

So, I am going to be taking some time of off blogging. That said, I have at least 10-15 posts half finished in my drafts folder, so every once in a while when a rainy day strikes and I feel like sitting down in front of my computer again, I will try to finish one off and share it with you. Some of the posts that are pending include: learning about ancient Egypt and our new history curriculum, our continent studies on South America and Australia, additions to our Baha’i calendar time (there will be a bunch of printables in that post), our 2011-2012 curriculum, etc, etc. So, stick around, I will be here every once in awhile – you can connect to this blog via Facebook, Google connect, RSS, or email, so you’ll know when I do post something.

Wishing you all a glorious summer filled with swimming, barbeques, sidewalk chalk, fresh yummy fruit, ice-cream, bike riding, picnics, ice-tea and lemonade, and lazing on lawn chairs with family and friends! That’s what we will be doing! :) Until next time…

Preschool fun: “G” for goose week

2011-05-31T16:00:00.002-10:00

Since we have our own little goose family growing in our backyard, we decided to do G is for goose. Here is a roundup of our G week:

~ G is for goose coloring sheet and writing sheet

~ Goose coloring sheet which we did using glitter (for g, of course!)

~ Damian played with these cute egg shape sorters that we took out from our local library (our library provides these awesome “story bags” that come with a set of books on a given topic, along with corresponding puppets, puzzles, and other related toys. LOVE our library!).

~ Connect the dot number sheet

~ We read through the Canada Geese page on National Geographic Kids and on Animal Planet

~ We met our own backyard baby goslings when they hatched.

~ Goose label/color sheet

~ Do-a-dot Gg sheet – we have to do this for every letter because Damian loves the do-a-dot sheets and markers!

~ We built our foam G, used our g sandpaper letter, made Gg playdoh letters, and made Gg’s on the peg board.

~ We did this cute letter g craft from Homeschool Creations.

~ We used various parts of Jolanthe and Carisa’s Bird Preschool Pack.

~ The boys put together and played with their Playmobil farm complete with a goose family (oh, and a sea serpent, of course, because all farms have them, right?)

And of course the end of the week would not be complete without adding Gg to our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Science Unit: our complete Solar System study

2011-05-24T17:10:00.001-10:00

We have had an incredibly fun journey into space over the past month (actually a little longer because of the sick days in between!). Here are the highlights of our trip:

~ Boy did we read books! We read a whole collection of books on space, from easy picture books to space encyclopedias. We usually read the more basic books out loud together, so that the material was more accessible to Damian. Then I put the more complex reading in Rylan’s workboxes for him to read on his own. If he had questions, we discussed it together during my one on one time with him. He also reads the more complex books with his Dad during bed time (he stays up a little later than Damian these days). Here are some of the books we read, Amazon limits you to 10 items per carousel, so I couldn’t fit them all in without turning this post into a long series of book lists! :)

~ We also watched several DVDs:

Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Planets
Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Sun
Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Moon
Eyewitness The Planets

~ We read the Magic School Bus book about the Solar System, watched the related DVD, and then completed all the experiments/activities in the Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space science kit. You can see a couple of these below (most of them involved flashlights and therefore being in dim light, so I did not take many pictures):

{build your own telescope and solar system model}

~ To learn about the phases of the moon, or the lunar phases we built and used this model and read up about it on wikipedia, which also has a very cool animation of the lunar phases. For a tutorial on how to make this model, look at this post.

~ We put this solar system puzzle together.

~ As with all our unit styled studies, we keep all the books and manipulatives (that can be reused) from our learning in our “feature study” area. You can see in the picture below all the books, posters, lacing cards, roll a rocket game, space songs, puzzles, lunar model, earth orbit model, etc. The boys are encouraged to use this material throughout the duration of the unit (for more on our school room layout see this post).

~ I created several sensorial tubs and activities which I spread out over the course of the month. With the tubs, I left them put together for a couple of weeks each, so they could revisit the tubs and play.

{tub contains: rice base, “space” letter cookie cutters, star and moon cookie cutters, a mini earth globe, star bursts, black pompoms, “moon rocks”, sparkly star and moon paper cut outs, rocket ships, and the contents of the Safari space tube}

{tub contains: moon sand base (I could only find green and yellow when I went shopping for moon sand, would not have been my first choice, but worked none the less), mini ax and rock mould, magnifying glass, rocks made from moon dough, cookie cutters, and the contents of the Safari space tub.}

{space playdough play}

~ I used the A is for astronaut pack materials from Spell Outloud for Damian (I laminated them, and used stick on magnets at the back of each item so they could be used on our white boards and the fridge).

~ Damian did this A is for Astronaut do-a-dot sheet from Making Learning Fun.

~ Rylan completed various worksheets and coloring pages in his workboxes throughout the course of our study, here are some examples:

Space word jumble
Space word search
Space crossword
The planets coloring sheet
Rocket coloring sheet
Planet word search
Dover Coloring Book: Exploring the Solar System
Writing practice:

~ We put together a glow in the dark solar system, stuck it to the ceiling with putty, closed the blinds to make the room dark, laid down on the floor, and “star gazed” up at the ceiling (we did real star gazing in Hawaii, but here in a big city it is not so easy, especially when the sun sets after the boy’s bedtime these days!).

~ In trying to bring more music into all our learning time, we listened to the classical CD, The Planets, by composer Gustav Holst. While listening we discussed the Roman/Greek gods that the planets had been named after, and how the music conveyed the characteristics of these gods.

~ I used parts of the Astronaut preschool pack from Homeschool Creations for Damian. Both boys especially loved singing the “Climb About the Spaceship” song, which we added actions to and sang many times to begin our day’s exploration.

~ I also used a few of the activities from this pack for Damian.

~ I made this earth lacing card for the boys to use (found the earth picture on Google images). Make sure to laminate or stick your picture onto cardboard (actually I did both), so it is sturdy enough for lacing.

~ To help the boys understand and visualize how the earth rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun, giving us day and night and the seasons, we made this model, which they could manipulate themselves to get a sense of how it all works. They wanted to add the moon on to it too, the second picture shows that addition. For a tutorial on how to put this together go to this post (it also explains other activities we did to reinforce this concept using a globe and flashlight).

~ I created this solar system concentration/match up game for the boys to play with. You can download the cards from here, and read about how we used them in this post.

~ We created a large scale model of the solar system on our reading room floor. We used planet cut outs, yarn to create the rings of orbit, black pompoms to create the asteroid belt, and at the end the boys added labels to each planet.

~ Of course we had to build rocket ships! We built two different kinds, at different times during the month long study. The boys built both set of rockets entirely by themselves:

{To make: paper towel roll, sheet of paper for tips, construction paper wings, tissue paper streamers. Put together with tape and decorate.}

{Idea for these from Kid Craft Weekly}

~ The boys drew solar systems using rainbow scratch paper.

~ Rylan created his own constellations on black construction paper, and wrote his own mythical stories behind their names.

~ Just for fun, the boys wanted to play with this “galactic ooze” that we found at our local teacher resource center. :)

~ Websites we visited together:

We plan to visit a planetarium this summer, otherwise, that’s a wrap (hope I remembered it all!). Happy space exploration!

A homemade balance for learning about weight (non-standardized measurement)

2011-05-18T15:51:00.002-10:00

We recently covered non-standardized measurement in math. I do not have balance at home, so I decided to make one from items we already had in our home. It turned out to be so easy, and worked just fine for our purpose of comparing the weight of different objects, as well as using units of weight (for example marbles or clothing pegs) to compare the weight of different items (for example, a pen weighs 2 units and a toy car weights 5 units).

Here’s how we did it:

Stick a ruler onto a table, with the end jutting over the edge of the table.

Tie two paper cups onto either end of a hanger. Make sure the string is the same length, so the cups balance out nicely. Then hook the hanger onto the ruler, and you have a functioning balance.

Easy and the kids had a lot of fun with it too.

We have goslings! And where did the week go?

2011-05-17T15:04:00.002-10:00

I did not mean to fall of the face of the earth for an entire week! But I have to say, the boys and I had gone through a nasty six week period (yes, six weeks straight!!!) of coming down with one illness after another other. Never have we been so sick before (thank you mid-western winter!), but then last week we were all finally feeling good, and we just didn’t want to be inside the house any longer, so we have been out literally every day, all day long, and I just never got round to posting!

It has been a good week, not only have we been feeling great, but I think spring has finally decided to make an appearance in mid-May and everything is wonderfully green and blossoming. Should I point out that our spring temperatures now are still colder than the worst of winter days in Hawaii? Or would I just sound bitter (ahem). Needless to say, we must have acclimatized somewhat, because it’s only in the 60s most days and we are out in t-shirts praising the glorious weather!

One of the wonderful things that we did this week, was watch our goslings hatch! We have been watching mama goose care for her nest for a month, sitting dutifully on them while it snowed and rained, and then on the first hot day (over 80F) we had all spring, they hatched.

Aren’t those little babies cute swimming between their mama and papa? Neighbors told us that this same mating pair come to our pond every year and usually nest in the same spot (our backyard). It will be fun to see if they come back next spring.

Hope you are all enjoying springtime too!

And here is the rainbow felt alphabet!

2011-05-09T14:28:00.003-10:00

Last week I posted about our rainbow felt numbers, and promised to share the alphabet when it was finished.

You will notice the whole alphabet is in repeated rainbow colors, except I made the vowels light blue, just so they would be highlighted.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Musical ABC cards (printable)

2011-05-06T14:31:00.004-10:00

In follow-up to my post yesterday about how I am trying to channel Damian’s learning more through music, I wanted share these ABC cards that I made for him last week.

He loves singing and dancing, watching concerts and videos on You Tube(like Yanni, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bochelli, Enya, Celtic Woman, the Riverdance, etc), but he is also very fascinated with instruments and how they make music. Some days (most days) he will line various objects up from pots and pans to toys and drums and use his tapping sticks to play music on them. He will walk around the house using his hands or tapping sticks to hear the sound that various surfaces will make. Really a musical beat is just coming out of him all the time it seems.

So anyway, back to the cards :). I thought what better way to appeal to him, when learning the ABCs and phonics, than to do a set of alphabet cards that are instrument themed. Now let me tell, finding A-Z in instruments was not easy! I made them a mixture of classical instruments and folk instruments from around the world. I had to cheat a couple of times and use musical terms instead of instruments, because I could not find an instrument with the short vowel sound of the letter. And let’s face, X is near to impossible. I decided to go with xylophone, even though it is not the correct first sound.

You are welcome to download the cards, I suggest laminating them before cutting them out, to give them some durability. Here is the link, enjoy!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5k too!

Incorporating music into our school days

2011-05-05T10:44:00.002-10:00

I have been working, over the last few months at incorporating more music into our daily school time. Every member of our family loves music, so it has always been a part of the daily rhythm in our home, but lately I have been giving it a lot more thought. Why? As I watch Damian grow, I am seeing in him a very keen interest in music and a natural aptitude for it.

One of the advantages of homeschooling is that I can cater to my children’s specific interests during the course of their learning. With Rylan it has always been through his love of reading and animals, and I have had several years now of figuring out how best to orient his learning around those passions, but music is a new slant for me. It has always been there, but now I need to make it more of a focus, more of a vehicle for Damian’s learning, because it definitely lights a spark in him and makes his concentration keener.

Damian started Music Together classes around 12 months, and we have been going strong ever since. I have no doubt that these classes are giving him a good foundation in music, and have definitely made music a lot of fun. We also sing these songs together at home and in the car during the week, and as a result have accumulated a box full of instruments which he plays with every day.

You may have noticed that we sing a lot as a part of Damian’s school time, I am always looking for songs related to the theme or topic he is learning about. Also our circle time is filled with song, in fact, we sing most everything from our prayers, to our school song, to the calendar songs, to our virtue quotation memorization. Not only is it a wonderfully cheerful way to start the day, but it aides memorization.

I also incorporate music into our geography studies. It gives a glimpse into the culture and “vibe” of the people we are learning about.

Another thing I have started doing in the last few months is playing classical music during our school time. After we have completed our circle time, and Rylan moves onto his workboxes and I am doing one-on-one time with Damian, I turn on some classical music. It plays quietly in the background while we are all working. I can say, without a doubt, that it has the most wonderfully calming effect on our school time. It aides in quiet concentration, it is uplifting, and it helps to feed Damian’s passion because he is definitely happier when music can be heard. On the weekends Ramtin gives the boys little tidbits of information about classical music – the composers, the type of music, etc; during the week we just listen to it and enjoy it.

I am just starting to research Suzuki piano lessons, as a possibility down the line for him. I have heard a lot of good things about this program, but I am uncertain about him starting so young in more formal lessons. I am going to try to attend a preview lesson with him this summer, so we can both see what it is all about.

To those out there who have musically inclined children, I would love to hear what you have done to nurture this interest in your children?

Some linky appreciation

2011-05-04T06:02:00.002-10:00

This is a really mixed bag of stuff, but I have been saving a few links and recommendations that I have wanted to share for a while and have not gotten round to putting it all together!

Firstly, there is this post from Motherhood and More in which she shares her prayer box idea. I love this idea, we have used something similar in the past for learning virtue quotations during our circle time, but I love the cards she has put together. They are great for children’s classes or for family use.

Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations, has been putting together fun preschool packs under a number of different themes that children will love (and she is making more). I plan to use some of them for Damian.

Two items which are making my housekeeping SO much easier. One is this nifty cordless vacuum cleaner that my folks bought for me (thank you, Mom and Dad!). I love this thing – it is light weight, swivels to get under and around things easily, does not break my back like those little handheld dust busters, and best of all no cords! I keep it in my laundry room, which is right off my kitchen, and it is easy to whip out and do a quick vacuum after meals or the end of the day. It works well on carpets too, which is fantastic for when I pull out a sensory tub in the school room!

The second item is my new bread machine which my hubby got for me. I prefer to make our bread, rather than use the store bread, but making it was taking too much time in my already too busy days. But this thing is awesome, it takes me 5 minutes to put the ingredients in, press a few buttons, and a few hours later I have a perfect loaf of healthy, fresh bread. This model has two kneaders, which I have been told makes all the difference, though I wouldn’t know, since this is my first bread machine.

This post from Deb at Living Montessori Now that provides a great list of free Montessori materials online.

And tell me these art supply pouches are not just the cutest way to organize your kids pencils and crayons?

Blog renovations mostly done

2011-05-03T05:13:00.003-10:00

Sorry to any of you who stopped by and found things all mixed up over the past couple of weeks, as I changed things around. You will see on the left column I now have direct links to some favorite posts or series of posts, with an image so you can get an idea of what the post is about.

I finally finished my long time in the works “printables” page, which you can find along the tabs at the top of my blog. It provides direct links to all the free downloadable printables that I have created and posted about, as well as a link to the post so you can see how we used the printable in our school.

You may have noticed my “Inspiration” page has disappeared, it is coming back, just in draft stage at the moment. I hope to have it back up and running in the next few days. And I hope it will indeed be a source of inspiration! :)

I moved things around a bit in the right column, a few things added and a few removed. You will notice that my “I also write for The Homeschool Classroom” has been removed. Between our move, starting and maintaining a new home, learning the ins and outs of our new city, homeschooling, Baha’i community commitments, and the “mystery” project I am working on, I felt like I had way too much on my plate, so I decided it was time to cut some things out, even if I enjoyed them, and writing regularly on The Homeschool Classroom was one of them. I may do the odd guest post, but will no longer be contributing on a regular basis.

And that is pretty much a wrap! I hope you all find the new layout easier to navigate! :)

In celebration of Ridvan

2011-05-03T04:39:00.002-10:00

Our family attends our local Baha’i children classes on weekends, and I have to say I feel blessed to be a part of this great group of parents and kids. The class is co-op style, so the parents take turns teaching the classes and they come up with the most fantastic ideas. This weekend the class was taught by my nephew’s wife, Elizabeth (in case you are wondering - my nephew is not that much younger than me and our kids are the same age), and it was the most wonderful class, so I asked her permission to share it with you all.

We arrived for class in the morning to find that their entire living room had been turned into a tent (chairs, sheets, and a big, tall tube in the centre to prop it up and give it shape), complete with twinkle lights around the edge of the tent, comfy cushions to sit on inside, and the sounds of birds chirping (on CD).

The children were welcomed into the tent, and after prayers and a welcome song, Elizabeth brought out a handful of fabric roses and a styrofoam base, so each child could “plant” a rose in the garden that was used to decorate the interior of the tent.

She gave them a blue sheet and river stones to create the Tigris river alongside the tent, and then brought out a bowl of rose water so each child could rub some on their hands and soon the room smelt of roses, birds were chirping, and we were sitting in a tent alongside the Tigris river.

Elizabeth’s mom (Grandma Julie) then climbed in the tent and told the story of Ridvan, at the end of her story she asked the kids to close their eyes, smell the roses, listen to the birds and imagine how they would have felt at receiving that wonderful message. They all sat there quietly, and soaked in the atmosphere, and I could see their little faces shining (the parents too!), when they opened their eyes Rylan even commented about how wonderful it felt.

I think what I liked most about this class was how it appealed to all the senses, I try to do this a lot in our homeschool, I am trying to do this with our growing Holy Day book, because if you can draw on all the senses, children make more connections with what they are learning and it leaves a lasting impression, a lasting sensation.

It made me think about how to use such ideas for the other Holy Days – the stained glass windows of the home of the Bab, candles on the Ascension of Baha’u’llah, and my mind was racing…

Would love it if anyone posts about a such a themed Holy Day celebration, if you would come back here and link up in the comment section below, so we could build up a collection of ideas together.

Hope you all had a wonderful Ridvan period!

Numbers you can hold on to ~ rainbow hand sewed felt numbers

2011-04-28T15:46:00.005-10:00

I sewed this rainbow set of felt numbers for my littlest learner to play with and have fun with while he learns all about numbers. We liked them so much I sewed an entire alphabet too, which is almost finished. I will share pics of that when it is completed.

I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs Counting Coconuts, but I actually stuffed my letters with toy stuffing to give them a real 3D look and feel.

Using them with math links.

Of course he could not resist counting while jumping on them! I think my jumping math and jump to spell activities really took in this house! :)

This has been added to: Preschool Corner and 5K too! and Show and Tell.

Preschool fun: a review of our letter F week ~ all about fish!

2011-04-26T05:52:00.003-10:00

We did our letter F week a few of weeks ago. Since then Damian I have taken a little break from our usual routine to focus on space related activities as a part of our solar system unit. All of which I will share with you in my summary post on the unit.

Our letter F week was a quiet-ish one, actually. We spent a lot of time reading fish themed books together, since Damian has, really just wanted to read a lot lately, and I am going with that. Since he is only 3 years old, I am very low key and easy going with his work, mostly doing something a little more formal because he loves being a part of our school time. I did not do any sort of planned school work with Rylan at age 3.

We did a couple of the activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler’s letter F. Damian played with this magnetic fish game, which he had a lot of fun with.

We also played this game together several times. Although it is, sadly, not a well constructed toy, it is really great for developing fine motor control and my boys both love it.

Both Rylan and Damian got to paint fish from this Melissa and Doug set. They love painting these animals, we have done them before with our letter D for dinosaur week.

We also spent a day at the zoo to see real fish in action! This is the tropical fish tank, all the fish we used to swim with every week. It makes me happy just to see them, but also a little “home” sick for Hawaii!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Learning about the lunar/moon phases (tutorial)

2011-04-22T05:41:00.004-10:00

We were supposed to be out attending some of the fun Earth Day events around the city, but alas our entire family is nursing a nasty cold. This has certainly been a winter of illness for us. I guess a new place, a new winter climate, we were bound to be hit badly, but this has been really bad!

Enough about our misery…onto lunar phases. This is another item I put together as a part of our solar system study (check out this post and this post to see some other highlights, summary still to come). This model illustrates the lunar phases – you can rotate the top piece around to view the different phases of the moon through the peek “window”. It was easy enough to put together and the boys have enjoyed using it. Here’s what you need to put it together:

~ two cardboard circles

~ pictures of the moon phases (I got mine from Google images under “lunar phases”)

~ A folder clip

~ Label (optional)

Here’s how to do it:

~ Cut out and stick the lunar phase pictures around the edge of the first circle.

~ Cut out a “window” to fit your pictures on the second circle.

~ Poke a hole through the center of both circles, and bind together with a folder clip that allows the circles to rotate, so the different phases can be viewed through the “window”. ~ Add a label on the top circle, if desired. And it’s done!

To my Baha’i friends – Happy Ridvan! To my Christian friends – Happy Easter! To my Jewish friends – Happy Passover! To all – have a great weekend celebrating with your families and friends!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too! and Show and Tell.

Preparing for Ridvan and other Baha’i Holy Days

2011-04-21T12:02:00.003-10:00

I wanted to create a special book on the Baha’i Holy Days with the boys, one that we could look back on every year in preparing for the Holy Days as they approach. We have been working on this over the past week or so, finding the information, quotations, prayers, and putting it all together. Here are our pages for the Festival of Ridvan. You will notice the little velvet pocket on the top of the second page, in which I placed a paper scented with rose oil, I also plan on adding a few rose petals from the Shrine of Baha’u’llah, which we received during our last pilgrimage, to our pages for the Ascension of Baha’u’llah. I felt sensory touches like these would enhance their understanding of and connection to these special days of the year.

We also did a spring inspired set of pages for the Baha’i New Year.

I will continue to share more throughout the year.

Happy Ridvan to all! :)

Solar System Concentration/Match Up Game (printable)

2011-04-19T10:38:00.011-10:00

Here is another installment in our solar system study – a solar system concentration or match up game which I made for my boys, and am sharing with you as a printable. As I mentioned in a previous post, I will share some highlights along the way, but when we are all finished I will provide a big summary post of the entire solar system study which we will be working on over the course of a month (or so…depending on whether the boys want to do more).

The game consists of a deck of cards which I made, printed, laminated, then cut out. We played traditional style concentration, laying all the cards face down and taking turns picking up two cards at a time, trying to find a match. We played several rounds of the game together, and the boys have played with the cards in various ways since then. They are sitting in our feature study area and available for play anytime.

~whole download includes a set each of all nine planets, the sun, and our moon~

I also took out the books we have been reading about each planet and had Damian match the cards and book covers. I will have him do this again once we lay our giant sized solar system across the school room floor (more on that later, though).

If you would like to download the game click here and enjoy!

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Preschool fun: Review of letter E week ~ elephants and earth

2011-04-15T15:53:00.008-10:00

We actually did letter E about three weeks ago! Sorry, my blogging time is limited these days, but I do eventually get things posted! :)
Since we cover a lot of the same activities every week, simply changing the letter, I will refer you back to our previous weeks to see some of what we have done, such as sandpaper letters, playdoh mats, building foam letters, learning numbers, patterning, sequencing from biggest to smallest, sensory tubs, do-a-dot letters, collages, puzzles, peg boards, chalkboard writing, etc, etc: letter A, letter B, letter C, letter D.

But I did want to share some highlights of this week that we have not shared before:
~ Sorting by first letter sounds with our alphabet box. I laid all the objects from our alphabet box for letters A to E on the ground, and put the drawers for those letters out as well. I asked Damian to pick up each object one at a time, same the name of the object, then say the first sound of the object’s name, then put it in the right letter box based on the first sound of the object’s name. We will do this exercise again periodically, adding more objects to it, as we go through the alphabet.

~ We made elephant masks!

~ We colored a picture of the earth with people holding hands around it (kind of like my “Nurturing Virtue” image) and memorized the following quotation from the Baha’i Writings:

The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. ~ Baha'u'llah

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I am most happy because my hubby will be home after being away for a week on business. Next week I will be sharing more details on our solar system study, including a printable game, highlights from our fishy letter F week, as well as a special project we are working on to prepare for Ridvan (and other Baha’i Holy Days in general). Hope to see you there!

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Jump to spell words game (and letter and phonics recognition for my preschooler too!)

2011-04-13T15:31:00.005-10:00

Since my math jumping game was such a hit around this house, I decided to use the same concept in our spelling practice time. I lay out floor letters for the entire alphabet (printed the letters from here), then give Rylan a word or phrase and he spells it out by jumping on the letters to form the word(s). If it is a phrase instead of a single word, as he switches from one word to the next he shouts out “new word”, if the word he is spelling is a proper noun, he shouts out “capital” as he jumps on the first letter of the name. When we use jump to spell for spelling practice, the comment at the end is usually, “Can we do some more spelling, pleeease?”. Got to love that! :)

Of course, not to be left out, Damian wanted in on the action, so he gets to do his own form of letter hopping to practice letter recognition (I call out the letter and he jumps on it) and phonics (I make the sounds of the letter and he jumps on the matching letter). All in all definitely a popular exercise in our home!

Now that it is warmer out, I think we will take this lesson outdoors too. I will have Rylan write out the alphabet in sidewalk chalk and then the jump spelling will begin!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too! and Show and Tell

Tutorial: making a model to illustrate the earth’s orbit around the sun

2011-04-11T07:44:00.004-10:00

Right now we are studying the solar system together. We plan to spend about a month focusing on it (we continue with our regular work during this time too). We have books, DVDs, experiments, crafts, sensory tubs, model making, space playdoh, games, puzzles, stickers, etc, etc lined up for our space exploration.

When we have completed the entire month of learning I will share a summary of all we covered, however, in the meantime I will be sharing from time to time the “how to” of some specific aspects of this exploration as we do them. Here is the first one:

To help the boys understand and visualize how the earth rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun, giving us day and night and the seasons, I made this model, which they could manipulate themselves to get a sense of how it all works.

We also used our globe and a flashlight (to represent the light coming from the sun) and took turns being the earth and the sun. The boys thought this was pretty fun.

I used cardboard to make the sun and earth (colored with markers) and the strip holding them together. I attached it all using those bending folder clips (I am not sure if they have an official name?), because they allow you to rotate the objects that you clip together.

After showing the boys this model, Rylan felt we should add the moon, so we could make it orbit around earth, so we did!

And after all was said and done, Damian took the model and used it as a “moon craft” rolling on three different sized wheels! :)

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

We have a mama goose!

2011-04-10T16:09:00.004-10:00

Well, not so much that we have a goose, as she chose our backyard for a nesting place. Luckily she chose a spot right outside the window, so we can watch the nest, without being noticed too much or scaring mama away. So far, we have counted 6 eggs. We are not sure if we are seeing all of them, because we just catch glimpses as mama goose moves around or covers them with leaves so she can go off to eat and swim.

Here is mama on her nest:

And here is protective dad, always watchfully swimming around our pond, guarding the nest.

We will be sure to keep you posted on our little goose family as they hatch and grow!

All About Spelling

2011-04-07T10:02:00.002-10:00

I had heard much positive feedback about this program from other homeschoolers, so I decided to give it a try. I purchased Level One at the beginning of the school year, and Rylan and I have been working through the program since then.

I can safely say that it lives up to the hype! This is a very well thought out, easy to use, easy to teach program. The multi-sensory approach to spelling (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) is also a big factor in the program working for Rylan. He gets bored with monotony, so the fact that we sometimes work orally, then with magnetic tiles, or writing (and I change the materials we use with writing – dry erase board, chalk board, paper and pencil, paper and markers, etc) to practice spelling words keeps the interest level up and utilizes multiple skills.

~some of the different media we use~

Each level comes with a teacher’s manual (all you need to do is open the book and follow the instructions and steps which are clear and simple, couldn’t be easier for the teacher/parent), several sets of flashcards which are used for teaching and review (a box and dividing cards are provided to make it super easy to organize the cards and keep track of what skills are mastered and what needs to be reviewed), magnetic letter tiles, tokens for word segmentation, a phonogram CD-rom, progress charts, and a completion chart.

The thing I love the most about All About Spelling (apart from the fact that it is teaching Rylan how to spell, of course!) is that it takes a subject with the reputation for being boring, and makes it enjoyable and very straight forward to follow.

An old classic: the Lite Brite

2011-04-05T14:18:00.003-10:00

The other day we were over at my sister’s home, and since she has grandkids (yes, her grandkids are the same age as my kids, I was a late comer in my family!) she has a stash of toys in her house that my boys love investigating while visiting her. This time she pulled out something new for them – a Lite Brite, which she had just picked up from a garage sale.

When I saw it, it brought back a flood of childhood memories! I remember spending hours creating pictures and patterns on this toy. It was an equally huge success with my boys. They laid down on a rug and created together on the Lite Brite for the rest of our visit there. Since it uses small pegs to create an image it is excellent for practicing the pincer grip and fine motor coordination in general. And the reward when you switch off the lights and see your image colorfully glowing in the dark is bound to be a hit with the little ones. Win, win.

My sister had picked up an old style one at a garage sale, which was like the one I used when growing up. Does it look familiar to you?

When I got home that night I did an online search to see if they still made them. Sure enough they do, but they have been updated somewhat.

The newer one has a smaller board than the original one, which is a shame, but it still works nicely. It has a convenient little peg holder built into the board, so the pegs stay with the board all the time. It is also battery operated, so it does not need to be plugged into the wall, like the original ones. We bought one, and the boys have enjoyed many hours of creating on it! Me too! ;)

Activity boxes: my secret weapon in teaching multiple ages

2011-04-04T03:58:00.006-10:00

I promised in my school room tour post that I would give you more details on our activity boxes set up, because they work so well for us. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get to it, but as you would have noticed I don’t get round to posting every day, just not enough hours in the day! It is not for lack of things to post about, I have about 10-15 partially written posts just sitting and waiting to be finished and published!

So, what are activity boxes? They are my secret weapon in keeping two active boys, in very different stages of development happy while working one-on-one with only one of them. They are basically a set of boxes or plastic drawers in which I place a variety of activities, all educational in some way. The boys are only allowed to use the items in the drawers when they are finished with their work and waiting for me to finish off with their brother. The items in the boxes are kept only for this use, and I rotate the items every 1-2 weeks, depending on how popular an activity is.

Right now we have a set of six plastic stacked drawers which I bought from Walmart, but I am hoping to change them to a more open bin or trays on shelves set up when I next visit IKEA.

Here are some examples of the items I have placed in the drawers recently:

~Haba peg board~

~tactile numbers (like our sandpaper letters)~

~clothing peg number cards (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~Spanish color match up game~

~magnetic counting book~

~large peg pattern board~

~color match up game (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~lacing cards~

~pattern blocks and boards~

~magnetic shapes book~

~rubbing plates~

~puzzles (this one is an infantino puzzle, but we use a lot of different ones)~

For more ideas refer to my Montessori inspired workboxes post, we use all the activities in that post in our activity boxes too.

Alongside the activity boxes, my boys are encouraged to look through the items in our feature study area of the classroom – read the books, or use whatever manipulatives are there – to become more familiar with the topic we are learning about, be it geography, science, or history (for more on our feature study area see our classroom tour post).

From time to time I will share more ideas for activity boxes.

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Making dream catchers craft ~ part of our North American Continent study

2011-03-30T10:05:00.007-10:00

I promised to post about how we made the dream catchers for our North American study craft. This was a fun craft and actually very easy to prepare for (on my part) and to make (for the boys). So, here goes:

What you need:

~ paper plates

~ a hole punch

~ string/yarn (or even leather strips if you prefer)

~ beads (optional)

~ feathers

How to put it together:

Start by cutting out the center of your paper plate (at this point you could color or paint the paper plate, if you wanted to add more color to your dream catcher).

Then punch holes around the edge of the paper plate.

Take your piece of string (make it relatively long) and tie it to one of the holes, then start to make a web by lacing the string through the different holes around the plate (I used white string, because it is what I had on hand at the time, but you could use colored string or yarn, or even leather strips). During this stage you can add beads on the string if you want to add a little more color to the “web” of string.

Once you are happy with the string pattern you have made, tie off the string in the hole adjacent to where you started, so you can loop the two ends together to make a hanging hook for your dream catcher.

Punch three additional holes at the bottom of the dream catcher. Tie short strips of string here, so they hang down from the bottom of the dream catcher. Decorate with beads if you like, then tie a feather on the end, knot off to complete and hold the beads and feather in place.

And you’re done!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too and Show and Tell.

Geography: the North American Continent

2011-03-28T17:13:00.009-10:00

We just completed a week long study of the North American Continent. Here is a summary of what we covered:

We read various books on North America, some of which appear at the end of the post. Added to those at the end of the post are: Atlas of North America by Karen Foster and North America by Katie Bagley.

Rylan completed this North American themed math worksheet which I made for him. It can be downloaded here if you would like to use.

We made and ate Mexican food. We were out running errands all day Thursday and had to stop at McDonalds for lunch, I suppose that could count as American food, right (or just bad food!)? :P

We listened to various Putamayo CDs, the selection can be seen at the end of the post.

Rylan put together a North America poster based on our learning, which included a map, people of North America, animals of North America, and a fact sheet. We also added the USA flag that Rylan had colored during the week.

We made dream catchers (Native American) and read about what they are and how they are used (here is a tutorial on how to make them).

We added the Baha’i places of significance in North America to our wall of Baha’i Holy Places and Houses of Worship around the world.

We read about children of North America in Children Just Like Me.

We read the story from North America (the American Southwest) entitled “She Who Is Alone” from the book The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales. We also read a few stories from Around the World in 80 Tales, which I have to admit I edited somewhat, since some of the stories in that book are a bit (or a lot) mean spirited.

Rylan completed some pages in the Around the World Coloring Book.

To see our previous continent studies, click on these links: Africa, Asia, Europe.

This has been added to: Show&Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too.