Hands-on Learning Archives - Page 11 of 19

Piecing Together Anatomy

August 2, 2012Tracy4 Comments

This school year, I’m wanting to introduce the kids to anatomy and nutrition. For one, Oldest has been hounding us with questions about how do we eat, where does food go, what is sweat, what do our bones do, and tons more. And conveniently, year one of the classical cycle recommends a study in anatomy since this is the “science” that this time period was most familiar with (think mummification and preserving body organs).

Purchasing a science curriculum would have been very appealing, but it wasn’t really in the budget and probably isn’t in our time-frame either. To fit it in, anatomy and nutrition will need to be very relaxed—once or twice a week and rainy days. I really liked the look of Apologia’s anatomy; but once again, my children are young, and a full curriculum wasn’t really a wise stewardship of funds right now. So, I’ve worked to piece together some resources for our study.

(I did have a friend loan me Answer in Genesis’s God’s Design for Life books and will be using the human body book as a read aloud.)

Usborne’s See Inside Your Body (I already owned.)

Notebooking Pages (my only purchase)

Toddler-size skeleton poster

Experiments, worksheets, and lots of other ideas (Spell Out Loud blog)

Little D’s Nutrition Expedition lesson plans/activities and My Plate printables

For my own prep, I read Gary Thomas’s book Every Body Matters. The book gives a great Christian perspective on why health is important for your spiritual growth.

Thomas illustrates how becoming physically fit can lead to:

increased sensitivity to God’s voice

renewed energy for God’s work

greater joy for living

a fortified soul better able and more willing to serve and love others

The goal in this pursuit is not sculpting thinner or more athletic-looking bodies. The goal is to cultivate stronger, well-nourished bodies that are primed to become, in the words of the apostle Paul, ‘instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the master and prepared to do any good work.’ –(from back cover)

As we embark on these lessons of how are bodies are made and what our bodies need, I want to have the right perspective and I want to teach from the right perspective. Healthy bodies are not a priority so that we live longer or have more energy, because it makes us feel good or it makes us feel better about ourselves; we were created to bring glory to God. Understanding our bodies and what our bodies need is important, not that we can serve ourselves better but that we might serve God better!

I hope to post a little bit more about this book in the month’s ahead, and I can’t wait to share this journey—both with my children and with you!

Watercolor Water lilies

July 30, 2012Tracy

Continuing our study on Monet, we absolutely had to do something with water lilies. I’ve been brainstorming all summer and slowly the project came together in my head. Finally, I was ready, and on a warm summer day we tackled our watercolor water lily project.

First, we did a picture study from an online gallery. We talked about what the kids saw in the picture and what colors Monet used. We talked about our favorite parts of the picture, and then I showed them a photo of real water lilies. We talked about why Monet’s waterlilies looked blue and pink and purple instead of just green, and we discussed how light can change how we see colors.

Next, I had them go to the window and look out at our pond. What color was the water—not “what color is water supposed to be” but “what colors do you see?” Brown, green, blue, and white were the answers. We looked at Monet’s painting once more, at the colors that we saw in his “impression” of the water lilies. Then, we were ready for our project.

For the first step, I had them draw the lily pads and lily flowers in crayons. I encouraged them to layer their colors, as Monet had done, and to use many different colors. I also encouraged them to press hard with their crayons so that we got a good layer of wax on the paper. Once our lilies were ready, we headed outside for the actual painting.

Purple, blue, and green were the watercolors they could choose from. I helped get paint on the brushes and rinsed the brushes when a new color was needed; they did all the painting. And it was so cool to see our Monet paintings take shape.

Claude Monet

It was a very imprecise project; those are the kind of projects that Middlest really flourishes at. Oldest struggles with imprecision. He kept wanting to painstakingly paint around each lily pad, even after I assured him that the paint wouldn’t cover them. Eventually, he relaxed a little and let the brush sweep a little more freely. Middlest swept her brushes across wildly, mixing and layering colors and having a fabulous time creating.

The end result? A fun summer memory and an age-appropriate fine art project that really brought Monet to light!

Mud Memories

July 26, 2012Tracy1 Comment

I remember the time my sister and I decided to make chocolate milk.

Our ingredients were dirt and water.

Unlike other older sisters who wisely have their younger sibling sample the fare for them, I indulged right alongside.

We both ended up with a mouthful of mud—and vivid memories.

So when Middlest came into the house with her pail of dirt and asked for some water so that she could make a cake, you bet I cringed. But then, I also couldn’t resist. After all, every child needs a mud memory, right?

I was surprised when Oldest, my neat-freak OCD child, decided to join in the fun.

And though I tried to just set them loose on their mud escapades, I soon realized that my daughter needed a little instruction in the art of mud-caking. I had to empty her pail of rocks, bark, and leaves and help her add dirt to the right consistency. She couldn’t make up her mind at first what to make. First, it was cake; then it was tea; back to chocolate cake; and finally a batch of cookies.

Oldest wanted to make a cake and keep it in his pail until it had “baked” in the sun. Then he emptied his creation into his wheelbarrow for minimal mess. But I was proud when I saw his hands caked with dirt.

Then, Oldest suggested some music. Last summer we had a Handel’s Water Music party; this summer, it’s Bach and mud cakes! And after all that hard work making decadence you can’t eat, there’s got to be some refreshment.

(By the way, the popsicles were made from instant pudding! Make the pudding according to box directions, pour into molds, and freeze! So simple and so delicious!)

The life of an amphibian

July 25, 2012Tracy

We’ve made it to amphibians in our summer study of animals and their classifications. Because we spent quite a bit of time last summer on frogs and toads, I hadn’t intended to spend a lot of time on it this summer. But it’s always fun to study tadpoles and polliwogs.

So I picked up a book at our library, printed off some notebooking pages, and sat down with some cool science goodies that my mom sent us a few weeks ago.

First, I read the book to them while they held up the piece that matched the story. Then, I let them look through the book and play with each piece of the frog’s life cycle.

amphibian life cycle lesson for preK and K5

After the kids had touched, held, and played with the pieces for awhile, I pulled out our notebooking page. They studied each stage and then drew it in the boxes of their notebooking sheet. Most of the “art” was pretty easy.

Egg: draw a circle and color a dot in the center; for a spawn, draw several eggs with sides touching.

Tadpole: draw a circle; draw a tale; add a face

With back legs: draw a circle and tale; add back legs and a face

Front and back legs: draw a circle and tale; add back legs, front legs, and a face

Frog: (this is where it got more difficult)

Both of them bawked when I suggested drawing a frog. So we got out our I Can Draw Animals book, turned to the frog page, and drew two very cute frogs!

Notebooking for younger children

But even after the lesson was over, it wasn’t really over. Middlest had all sorts of imaginary adventures for the little frog family; and every time I get them put away, they show up somewhere else.

Littlest love — Even Littlest had a frog to love

Disclaimer: This post contains a link to my consultant site for Usborne books.

Concluding our World Tour

July 24, 2012Tracy1 Comment

Our geography is finally coming to a conclusion. We got really derailed with the arrival of Littlest, which took us much further into the summer than what I expected. But it’s been a fun journey, and no one has complained that our tour has taken a few extra months.

We just wrapped up South America with a study of Peru, Brazil, and the rainforest. Expedition Earth has a fantastic rainforest diorama to construct, but it was just a little bit more than what I’m capable of tackling right now: deconstructing and organizing the school room, preparing next year’s plans, trying to salvage my milk supply for Littlest, plus the “normal” every day that Life throws at ya’.

So, I opted for this rainforest app from Britannica.

We’ve had a ton of fun with this app. It comes with lots of games and puzzles that feature animals of the rainforest. There are also tons of articles about the rainforest and its plants and animals. Another big favorite were all the photos and videos of the rainforest.

Then we let the kids watch an episode of I Shouldn’t Be Alive that featured a couple of guys lost in the Amazon rainforest.

The kids also learned the different layers of the rainforest: emergent layer, canopy, understory, and forest floor. It would have made a terrific notebooking page, but I tell you, I’m just having trouble getting to everything right now. So we studied from our app and a few pictures. Maybe another day we’ll be able to make our diorama and notebooking page.

Finally we turned our binders into bound books. Since my pro-click binding is editable, I can add the last pages once they are completed. (But I needed the kids binders to get ready for next year, so this helped free up some space.)

North America is our last continent. We’ll cover Canada and Mexico. Then, conveniently, our church is putting on a music camp and performing a musical about America. It will segue perfectly into the tail end of our tour. It’s been a fun and memorable journey. Nobody’s asked me, but our geography study was definitely the favorite part of MY school year!

Notebooking Fine Art

July 17, 2012Tracy2 Comments

I’ve been adding some lapbooking elements to our notebooking pages. It was exciting to see how much it spiced up just a plain piece of cardstock.

The main elements are from Confessions of a Homeschooler’s artist study, but I also added my own element from Homeschool Share’s free editable lapbooking templates (subscribe to their blog and get the templates for FREE!). I’ve mentioned how much I liked the “how to spot” information in the book Monet and the Impressionists for kids. So, I took the information from “how to spot a Monet” and “how to spot a Renoir” and typed it into this lapbooking template.

Oldest helped cut, Middlest helped paste, and they both had a blast working the artist puzzles.

I was thrilled to see how much my son remembered from last year’s Van Gogh study, even remembering the names to some of the art pieces, like the Potato Eaters. They especially enjoyed that piece, and I think both of them will forever remember Van Gogh and his “potato eaters.” For one, it’s such a great piece of art to bring up at the dinner table when someone complains about eating potatoes.

Lapbooking the Orchestra

July 16, 2012Tracy7 Comments

We’ve been sprinkling in a little music and art appreciation this summer. I will admit that it’s been tough to get to everything this summer with Littlest joining the fun. I’m really glad I opted for relaxed lesson planning (it was more like rough weekly goals than actual lesson plans); this way, I avoid the overwhelming feeling of being behind. It’s summer, after all, right? Who gets behind on summer school!

We’ve been listening to Classic For Kids stories about Bach and adding elements to our music lapbook. Oldest has his periods of music down: baroque, classical, romantic, modern.

We’ve also been learning the seating chart for an orchestra, learning the different instrument families, and trying to identify certain instruments by sound.

orchestra seating lapbook