Category: Hands-on Learning

South Africa Study: Day 1 and 2

Tracy4 Comments on South Africa Study: Day 1 and 2

We have officially launched into our geography study, heading first to the continent of Africa. We’ve memorized the continents, thanks to some really fun Geography Songs. Now, we’ve headed to the country of South Africa.

Day 1—We found South Africa on the map and listened to our new song on the countries of Southern Africa:

Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambiqu,

Namibia, South Africa,

Lesotho and Swaziland—these are the countries of Southern Africa.

Comoros and Seychelles and Madagascar

and Mauritius are islands to the east.

Then, we read our library book A is for Africa. And stamped our passports!

Day 2—We reviewed our songs and looked at Africa in our atlas.

Then, we studied our geography terms for South Africa: cape, plateau, and grasslands. Last, we spent about five more minutes coloring the country of South Africa for our notebooking page.

Each day we spent about 15 minutes, so I was thrilled that my plans actually fit into the allotted time. That’s always a relief!

And not only are the kids learning a ton already (more than I expected), we are having an absolute blast. I can’t wait to share the rest of the adventure with you.

 

Preschool’s First Week

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The little one’s workbox pockets are full, and she is back to school! Here’s a peak at what we’ve been doing.

She’s threaded buttons, and it was hilarious to listen to her. As each button slid down her string she  whispered, “I gotcha!” I’m not sure if she was fishing or capturing “emeny” soldiers, but either way she was winning.

Matching "A" to "a"

We reviewed the letter A last week, and began working with the letter B this week. In this activity, from Erica’s Letter of the Week printables, she is putting the ants back together. It’s a good review of color sorting, as well as matching the capital letter to the lower case letter.

Another one of Erica’s fun activities are her clip cards that coordinate with the Letter of the Week: B for butterfly. With this activity, I wrote the numbers 1-10 on ten mini clothespins. Then, she matched the numbers on the butterflies to the numbers on the clothespins as we said the names of the numbers together. This was a nice twist on our usual activity of clipping the correct amount of clothespins to the cards and helped her with what she struggles with, number recognition.

Next up for the little one, some coloring pages, letter puzzles, sticker dot activities, and a new magnet sheet activity.  No wonder she was so disappointed with her empty activity pockets this summer!

Nature Study: a Frog’s Life

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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.

Nature Study: Frog File Folder Book

Tracy

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.

frogs nature study | frogs file folder book | mini books | lapbooks

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.

frogs nature study | frogs file folder book | mini books | lapbooks

 

frogs nature study | frogs file folder book | mini books | lapbooks

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.

frogs nature study | frogs file folder book | mini books | lapbooks

frogs nature study | frogs file folder book | mini books | lapbooks

Toddler Activity: Alpha necklace

Tracy

I’ve happened upon a new favorite toddler activity: threading alphabet beads onto pipe cleaners!

I love our alphabet beads and have used them and reused them for a number of  activities, but the pipe cleaner necklaces were a huge hit with the little one. The stiff wire made it easy for her to thread the beads, and then afterwards, she gave her necklace to her princess dress-up doll.

Planning Geography: Our trip Around the World

Tracy10 Comments on Planning Geography: Our trip Around the World

I’ve been so excited (and overwhelmed) about planning our geography study this year. I wanted to get the kids familiar with basic geography before we head into Tapestry of Grace curriculum next year, and I wanted to emphasize missionaries and the need for missions.

But I couldn’t make my mind up between Expedition Earth and the lessons from HomeschoolCreations.com. In the end, I decided to morph the two together. Yes, there were moments when I wondered what was wrong with me. I can’t ever take the easy way, it seems. Always have to customize. But now that it’s in the works, I’m really excited, and it was totally worth it.

First, I looked at both plans and chose the countries they had in common. That worked out to about 3 per continent (5 for Europe). Next, I looked at the books they recommended. The ones that they both used, Children Just Like Me, for instance, were easy to decide on. But then, I had to look at where they were different and choose my favorites. Around the World in 80 Tales, recommended by HC, looked like so much fun and right on my kid’s age level. But both of them recommended atlases that were rather expensive. So I found a cheaper alternative to that with Usborne’s Essential Atlas of the World ($10.99 and available as a giveaway right now). Geography A to Z was an EE recommendation that, again, looked very appropriate for my kids learning level.

So, after I pieced together my countries and my booklist, I had the mounting task of how to merge the plans. And here’s where I again complicated my life. EE does each country in one week; HC takes about 8 days; I wanted two weeks. So here’s what I decided on: one week of geography, and one week of culture and missions.  Plus, EE comes with an animal study: six animals from each country that we study and their classifications. I love that we’ll be able to touch on some science on our trip around the world.

I hope you’ll join us in our journey this fall. I really am excited, not just about what we’ll learn, but about how the Lord will use this study in our lives.

Up next: tomorrow I’m blogging about our Art plans. Come see the fun!