Hands-on Learning Archives - Page 9 of 19

Up Hill Battles

March 20, 2013Tracy

We’ve been struggling through long vowels with Middlest over the last several weeks. It’s a battle I remember having with Oldest, too, the mental struggle to separate short vowel words from long vowel words. Except Oldest was extremely motivated to learn to read, and Middlest? Middlest likes to play and to be fast.

After several teary lessons, I drew her a picture on our whiteboard, a colorful picture of a little girl at the bottom of a big hill. I explained, as I was drawing, that sometimes in life and in learning we have to go up big hills, like the hill in front of our house. It’s hard work. And sometimes, we have to take breaks. Sometimes, we have to look for other ways to get up the hill. We might have to get off our bicycle and push our way up the hill. But one thing we never do is give up and decide not to go up the hill at all.

Then, I went “back to the drawing board” (or rather, Google and pinterest) to look for new and different ways to teach her this concept. I also called my mom, who is an ever-present wealth of homeschool know-how. We pooled ideas, and I had an inkling of what I needed for Middlest.

I made up a few worksheets from the words in her reader that were giving her trouble. I also made up a few games from resources I’d found on the internet.

Long Vowel practice

Marking and reading her words (without pictures, so she can't guess) — Marking and reading her words (without pictures, so she can’t guess)

By the end of the week, she was making some progress. And by the next week, she was reading her story to Daddy and clipping along through her game, even after I added new cards. But I knew that we really had made some significant progress, when I saw a picture she was drawing at the end of that week.

Look who made it to the top of the hill!

It brought me to tears, folks. Those up-hill battles are totally worth it.

Core Tour: Homeschooling a Bouncing Baby

March 13, 2013Tracy

We’re wrapping up our short tour through the core of what I do with my kiddos: first grade, K4, and today you’re getting a sneak peak at baby’s schedule.

I’ll be honest, I try to do most of our school while Littlest is out of the way. So during his morning nap is when we get the bulk of our lessons done. And, to stretch that nap a little longer, I give him his independent play time right before his nap.

By noon, he’s rarin’ to go! He has his lunch, and play time is on. Thankfully, the older ones are wildly eager to play (legos or outside if it’s a pretty day). While they reunite with all of their toys, Littlest and I have our one-on-one time. I love getting out our Music Together cd with him, and he’s usually jamming before the music starts.

I use this time to work on his skills, too, an early homeschool routine. We stack tupperware lids, pull greeting cards and lids out of cooler bags and then stuff them back in again, bang spoons to the beat of the music, balance cups on our heads, pull small toys out of muffin tins or cups, play hide-a-toy, etc. (Pinterest has great ideas, too. Check out the baby pinterest ideas I’ve been collecting.)We also play the typical baby games: stacking blocks, peek-a-boo, and walk along the edge of the couch. Our playtime lasts the length of the cd. By then, he’s worn out and ready for his bottle.

Littlest favorite activity right now is putting things in this empty tupperware. It was a double-winner to play with a muffin tin, too! — Littlest’s favorite activity right now is putting things in this empty tupperware. It was a double-winner to play with a muffin tin, too!

We cuddle up for a bottle and snuggles, and then he’s off to bed once more by around 2 p.m. usually. Sometimes, if I have a noisy household chore like vacuuming, I’ll put him in my wrap, and we’ll do the chore together. He loves this, and I must admit that it makes housework a lot more fun with a snuggle-buddy. Then, he naps for another couple of hours, waking up all ready to empty my tupperware cabinet once more.

I’ve loved having this time with Littlest. He’s the first baby I’ve had since staying at home, and I so enjoy an all-day routine with him. And though I’m sure I can come up with lots of ideas on my own and with the help of Pinterest, I will admit that I have been curious about the Flowering Baby curriculum that includes daily activity ideas as well as story and music suggestions from an “early childhood development” perspective. Especially since Littlest will be joining our school routine next year as a whopping 18-month old! (Can’t believe how time flies!!!)

But now, for your input. What are your best tips for keeping your baby busy? And would you invest in a product to give you some additional ideas?

Core Tour: Keeping K4 Busy

February 20, 2013Tracy

This is post 2 of my short tour through our core subjects, what I’m using for phonics, reading, and math for my first grader and my preschooler.

Most of this year has been, in a way, free for Middlest. She has been using a great deal of Oldest’s left over pages from both K4 and the beginning review in K5. But she has absolutely flown through the material, which left me in a bit of a straight. Should I purchase new material and move her into kindergarten or push through this year with free pages I could find and print off the internet? We chose the free option.

So, my two primary sources of free work pages has been here and here. I’ve also made a few of my own when we’ve needed them and scoured both pinterest and the internet for other resources. Phew! It’s a lot of work and a lot of time, but it can be done. K4 has been virtually free of charge!

For phonics she worked through left-over pages in A Beka’s ABC-123 book and Letters and Sounds K5 (review pages). Now, she is working whatever I can find from the internet. Right now, we are working on long vowels in two-vowel words, silent e and silent second letters. I’ve googled both long vowels and silent e for activities and found quite a few resources. We’ve also used the little A Beka K4 readers.

For math, she used the left-over ABC-123 pages for this, too. Then whatever I could scour off the internet. I either look up kindergarten math (much of which she is ready for) or will search for particular concepts (time, pennies, beginning addition). For our time together, we count to 100, sing skip-counting songs that I’ve downloaded on iTunes, go through some flashcards, and maybe review a concept or two with clocks or money, etc.

Her day is not long at all. I probably keep her busy with handwriting (again, left-overs from K5 and even 1st grade manuscript books) and other worksheets for about 30 min. Then, we spend another 30 minutes together (15 min. for phonics and reading, 15 min. for math). She is my flighty little butterfly, and it’s really all she needs and all she is ready for right now. The rest of the time, she plays while I work with Oldest. She uses the ZooWhiz subscription that we got for free as a review product, or she plays at one of the activities I have pre-approved for her. She listens in on Oldest’s stories and lessons; she cuddles up for our Tapestry reading; and she memorizes our Scripture as well as quite a few of the history and science facts right along with Oldest.

Now, I’m really desperate to know—how do you keep your kindergarten-ready preschooler busy? Where do you go for free resources?

Notebooking Egypt

October 31, 2012Tracy

Last year was our first year to delve into notebooking with our geography study. But this year, I feel like I’m really embracing the process—adding more lapbooking elements, letting the kids create, and weaning ourselves from pre-made pages.

The result has been beautiful, in every sense. My son has really taken ownership of the process, letting me know what he’d like to do. I still have narration elements for some of the more complicated ideas that I want him to remember. But overall, he learns, he creates, he remembers.

Two of my favorites lately have been his Pharaoh page, which he completed shortly after our double-crown craft, and “The 10 Plagues” that included a flip book he colored and cut out (totally his idea, I just folded the paper to help him cut it out evenly).

And I will add that I am now a huge fan of colored paper for notebooking.

Little Pharaohs

October 26, 2012Tracy1 Comment

Another fun Egypt activity that we’ve done was to make the double-crown of Egypt that represented the Upper and Lower kingdoms. (idea from Pyramids! 50 hands-on activities to experience ancient Egypt)

This was super easy: wax paper, construction paper, and aluminum foil (for the cobra). No patterns or templates. I basically free-handed the entire thing, which is why the cobra is not recognizable on its own without explanation. Though the project wasn’t difficult, it made a huge impression on the kids who instantly ran off to play Pharaohs. (I was later told that one of my daughter’s dolls had been selected to be mummified, and they were using the baby-doll cradle as a sarcophagus.)

Honestly, just to be open and vulnerable, I don’t always feel like making the mess and doing the crafts. But when I see how much the kids learn, and I watch their studies come alive for them, I never regret the sacrifice of time, energy, or orderliness. We’ll only have this day once.

Flooding the Nile

October 24, 2012Tracy

We’ve had so much fun with our Egypt geography. Some of our ideas have come from the Tapestry of Grace curriculum, and some we’ve added from other sources.

One goldmine of a source has been the book Pyramids! 50 hands-on activities to experience ancient Egypt which I picked up from our local library.

Since we’ve been studying about the importance of the Nile and it’s annual flooding, the idea of building our own Nile River and flooding it was extremely appealing. And anything that involves mud is high on the list of FUN at our house right now.

Detailed directions are provided in the above mentioned book, but here’s the gist. Find a pan, fill it with sand. Add black soil for the fertile flood plains or Black Land. Build a Nile River from aluminum foil. Wedge it into the dirt and weight it with stones. Add grass seed or other fast-sprouting green to the “Black Lands.” Flood regularly.

hands-on Egypt study — Planting seeds along the Nile

What a blast! The kids regularly beg to “flood the Nile,” and we were all just giddy when our grass started to sprout.

Eating Egypt

October 19, 2012Tracy2 Comments

We love geography: maps, globes, atlases, all of it! But we’ve definitely taken our geography to new heights with our Egypt study. It’s one thing to make a map, but it’s something entirely different to get to eat your map after you’ve made it!

We’ve been working on learning the map of Egypt. Each day we’d review the different places on the map that I wanted them to remember. The first couple of days, we do this with the Teacher map that includes the names and locations. We finished the week reviewing with a blank student map. Finally, I finish the map work by having each of the kids label a blank map. I got the idea from The Jobe Journal to actually create labels for the kids to stick onto the map, since neither of my kids are really at the age for filling out blanks on a map. This has worked great! They love “stickers” and it gives me a good idea of what they are remembering.

But then came the real fun. I baked some cookie dough and got out the frosting.

Eating Egypt

We frosted the entire cookie first. Our desert or “Red Lands” were decorated with colored sugar sprinkles. The kids (with a little oversight and direction) frosted the fertile flood plains (or Black Land), the Nile River, and the Nile River Delta. I had originally planned for our pyramids to be chocolate chips, but it wasn’t until after we finished frosting our cookie that I realized I was out of chocolate chips. After a brief moment of panic, I remembered that I did have tootsie rolls. So I pinched off tootsie roll and shaped it into pyramids for the kids to place on their cookies.

After all that hard work, I was barely able to get pictures before the kids were begging to “eat Egypt.” Let’s just say, this is one map they won’t forget soon.