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I mentioned in an earlier post how inspired I was by a friend’s blog to pull out our frog study and try a few of her links. This is another of the fantastic ideas featured on her post, with a few modifications.
Since I didn’t have the right kind of paper plates (all mine have dividers), I cut out pieces of blue construction paper and glued it to a piece of cardstock. The craft was easy enough, a cut and paste craft. But I was surprised how much it helped them to remember the basics of a frog’s life.
My son's having a mini show-and-tell with his craft.
Next up, we’ll go into a little more detail and fill out our notebooking page. I’d still love to find some actual tadpoles, if anyone has some suggestions for where to find them.
We’ve recently had a tree frog regularly visiting our living room window each night and eating bugs, which has been so fun to watch. And, it inspired us to do a nature study on frogs. Then, a friend of mine who just started her own blog, had some terrific ideas for a preschool unit study on frogs. From the links in her post, we got started this week with a frog file folder book.
Many of our frog projects, including the templates for this book, came from this link. To make the frog file folder book, paste the frog face to a file folder and cut the folder along the face outline. The eyes are glued to the back of the book, and the pages stapled to the inside.
What was most fun about this introductory activity, is that the story inside the frog file folder book was on my son’s reading level! He had so much fun reading the book he had made. There were only two sight words that he hadn’t learned, and he easily tackled them. Overall, it was a blast to make these, and the perfect way to open our long-delayed frog study.
In our nature study this week, I actually combined two lessons: bats and owls. So, we’re studying night fliers! I found a few great videos and websites to supplement our Harmony Fine Arts coloring pages.
The next step of our weather study was trying to explain the idea of thunder and lightning—positive and negative forces, magnetism, moving molecules. I admit, it was a lot for a four year old mind to handle. But we managed through it with a little help from a library book and some sidewalk chalk.
Thunder and Lightning
Inside our school room, we read the book, looked at magnets, and talked about the idea of opposites attracting. Then, we headed outside for a little more hands-on approach. We talked about lightning jumping from cloud to cloud or from cloud to the ground. They both loved jumping from cloud to cloud and then crashing their molecules together into a mighty “clap” of thunder.
Was most of it lost on them? Of course, but I’ve learned that right now, I’m giving them landmarks. Later on, they’ll remember these little moments and will understand the details more readily (I’m hoping, anyway). If not, well, we sure had fun.
Our Nature Study from Harmony Fine Arts has challenged us to explore the weather, and I’ve had a lot of fun with books from our local library.
We learned the three parts of weather: temperature, wind, and water. I puzzled for awhile over the fact that I didn’t have an outdoor thermometer. Eventually, I just went to weather.com and checked our temperature. Then, I pulled my thermometer chart from A Beka Charts, added a construction paper ribbon for the “mercury,” adjusted the “mercury” to match the temperature from the Weather website, and had the kids read our make-shift thermometer—voila! We were in business.
The next day, we learned about rain. We learned that when warm moist air mixes with cool air, it makes rain or water that we can see in the air. (Water that we can only feel in the air is humidity, or “humility” as my son calls it.) So, to illustrate rain, I pulled out the faithful “condensation” experiment with a pan of ice water held over a pan of boiling water. The kids were duly impressed.
I love this age, where Mom and Dad are always the heros and everything looks like magic!
We are so excited to be starting our summer homeschool schedule. We’ll be covering nature study, art/music appreciation, phonics, and numbers. But the schedule is so care-free and summer-ish!
Summer Homeschool Mornings
Open the Day–prayer, calendar, Bible verses/songs
Nature Study Indoors–reading, discussion, or notebook pages
Nature Study Outdoors–gather our journals, flower presses, and other supplies and head outdoors!
Art–Van Gogh study: activities will vary–bio study, picture study, down and and dirty with art itself!
My Book Fair Finds
Music–Handel study: activities will vary–bio study, music study and sequencing, instrument families, and (my favorite) a pool party with Handel’s water music!
Summer Homeschool Afternoons
Phonics/Numbers–worksheets and review time (I’ll be doing this with my son after the little one goes down for her nap.)
First Summer Homeschool Nature Study
For our first nature study, I actually began, not with lesson one in the unit study, but with just an overall introduction of the 5 senses God has equipped us with to explore His creation. Then, we went exploring, trying to find at least one object for each sense.
We tasted cilantro.
We smelled oregano and a few flowers (one stinky flower and another that smelled rather fruity).
Smelling Oregano
We heard birds (and an airplane, if that counts).
We touched a cactus (with Mommy’s help), some rocks, the wet ground, and sticks.
We saw some tiny fish…
“catching” fish
And later in the day, the Lord also blessed our study with a baby bird flight lesson. We got to watch and listen as a baby bird learned how to fly.
He was having a great deal of trouble, and the kids were a little concerned (okay, I was too). Daddy joined our observation group, and we prayed for the baby bird, then stood back to watch mommy and daddy bird give the lesson.
After our nature walk, we finished our entry in our nature journals. I wrote down what they reported about each sense, and then let them draw some pictures. My son drew a picture of a small fish and a picture of himself “exploring.”
Overall, it was a fantastic start to our summer. Next, we are focusing in on smells and learning about the mosquito.
