Homeschool at the Beach

Spring is a great time to homeschool at the beach. It isn’t too hot and there aren’t many folks around. The sound of the ocean and the texture of the sand are soothing. Recently I took C5, A2, and P4 (my nephew) to the beach, and we had a great experience. Here are a few things that we did that you might want to try out.

~Go for a walk along the beach. It is really great exercise. Read more about the benefits of walking on the beach at Discover Walking.

~Skip rocks on the water. You can find out how to skip rocks at wikiHow. If you want to know why stones skip on the water, you’ll find information about the physics behind it at The Library of Congress.

~Collect rocks and shells. In addition to what I have included here, you can find more information about geology and art with rocks at Suite 101.

-Categorize the rocks and shells by size, by color, by shape, etc.

-Examine the rocks to find different geometric shapes. We found rectangles and trapezoids.

-Use the rocks that you collected to build with. The kids built a really great tower together.

-We used those shells and rocks to “write” the kids’ initials.

~Build sand castles. You can research the physics behind why sand castles sand at BNET. This post also includes an experiment for you to try.

Have fun and make memories at the beach with your kids!

Photo courtesy of MyAngelG

Make Way for Ducklings Lapbook: Duck Related Literature

As we are working our way through Make Way for Ducklings, we are also reading lots of other books to compliment the different themes. Here are a few titles that I have found interesting, enjoyable, and helpful.

1. Hunwick’s Egg by Mem Fox – This is a sweet book about how Hunwick finds an “egg” and everyone waits for it to hatch.
2. Cold Little Duck, Duck, Duckby Lisa Westberg Peters – This simple book is about the change of seasons and Mallard Duck migration in rhyme.
3. Dilly Duckling by Claire Freedman – Dilly loses a feather, chases it, and learns about molting.
4. Cock-A-Doodle Quack Quackby Ivor Baddiel and Sophie Jubb – This is a fun book about a young rooster who doesn’t know how to wake everyone up in the morning. It reviews the farm animal sounds.
5. Dawdle Duckling by Toni Buzzeo – This is a cute story about a duckling who doesn’t stay close to Mother duck until… Explore the number 4 with this book. Also try Ready or Not, Dawdle Duckling by the same author.
6. “Behold the Duck” by Ogden Nash – This is a simple, rhyming poem about duck behavior.
7. Duck at the Door by Jackie Urbanovic – This book is about a mallard duck who chooses not to migrate with his flock during his first winter. He knocks on Irene’s door in the middle of the night and stays for the winter. (My kids love this book! We have read it many times.)

Happy reading!

A Traditional Literature Theme: Nursery Rhymes & Fables

March is a month filled with inspiration for themes for learning in your homeschool. This month many people will be taking advantage of St. Patrick’s Day. Perhaps you don’t want to read all about Irish history and culture, but you can twist that theme and read traditional literature instead – myths, folktales, fairy tales, fables, and legends.

My Favorite Author is using this theme this month, too. Stop by that blog for interviews with authors and reviews of books related to this theme. “What can you do with a traditional literature theme?” you ask. It is one of my favorite literature studies because it is truly a rich topic. Today I am sharing a few ways to engage your children in this study with Nursery Rhymes and Fables:

Photo by aturkus

Nursery Rhymes

Nursery Rhymes are very short, funny, poetic stories. They are often historically and politically significant.

• Your little ones can participate in this study by reading Nursery Rhymes. These funny rhymes build phonemic awareness and are easily
  memorized. Have your little ones choose a few to commit to memory.
• Make and Break words from the rhymes. Use words such as Jill/hill, down/crown. Use the onsets and rimes to build new words (spill, fill, mill, bill).
• You can have your children illustrate several Nursery Rhymes and bind them into a book. Those illustrations are a great way to teach visualization, and they help you see if your child comprehends the text.
• Teens can research the political and historical significance to each of the rhymes. Then they can write their own Nursery Rhymes that have political and historical messages cleverly hidden in them.

Fables

Fables are short stories that have a moral or a lesson at the end.

• Since fables are so short, you can use them to practice oral reading. Have your children read them aloud with the goal of making the reading “sound like talking”.
• You can focus on memorization skills with Fables. Choose shorter ones that your older children can memorize and have the younger children memorize the moral.
• The lesson can spark an interesting discussion about morals. Ask your children what they think is the right choice in each situation.
• Fables can help you gauge your children’s comprehension because they are short and have a moral. Did your child predict the outcome based on the clues in the text? Did your child make connections to other stories or situations?

Look for more posts about using folklore in your homeschool.

A Cat in the Hat Day

Have a Cat in the Hat day in your homeschool. Make stovepipe hats to learn about patterns and play a Seuss inspired indoor P.E. game. You can also practice handwriting, phonics, and spelling. These projects are appropriate for preschoolers and kindergartners.

Stovepipe Hat

Supplies (makes 1 sample and 2 hats)
3 pieces red construction paper     3 pieces white construction paper     2 pieces large drawing paper
glue sticks     scissors     permanent marker

How To
Cut about one inch off of the long edge of three pieces of red construction paper and three pieces of white construction paper. Trace one of the remaining rectangles onto a large piece of drawing paper. Then trace the cut off piece of paper onto the base of the large rectangle to form the brim of the hat. Make one tracing for each child.

Give each child the tracing of the hat. Have each child glue the one inch white strip to the brim of the hat. Have the children fold the red paper in half hamburger style twice and cut the paper along the folds. Do the same for the white paper. Now create a pattern with the colors on the tracing by gluing red, white, red, white. (Each child will have 2 extra pieces of red and 2 extra pieces of white paper. Reserve these for another project.)

Have your children help spell the words “Cat in the Hat” and write them as a title at the top of the page.

Word Work

Supplies
remaining strips of red and white construction paper     permanent marker    pencils

How To
Use the remaining strips of paper to write the words “cat”, “in”, “the”, & “hat”. As you write the words (except “the”, which you write out and explain that it is a sight word), have your child say the sounds in the words and tell you the corresponding letters. Then have the kids trace over the letters. Your children can play “Concentration” and “Go Fish” and also practice spelling the words with these flash cards.

Indoor Seuss Inspired Frisbee

Supplies
2 dessert size paper plates (per child)     red marker     read crayons

How To
Draw a stovepipe hat on the back of each of the plates. Draw lines for your child to color in with red crayon. Once the Frisbees are decorated, toss them around. We played Frisbee down our hallway and even played relay races. Be creative!

Homeschool “Seuss-itivity” with The Sneetches

I hope that you are planning on “Seussing Up” your homeschool for Read Across America Day on March 2. The Sneetches can help you to do just that by opening a conversation about “Seuss-itivity” – tolerance. The Sneetches is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books! I have included activities here that appeal to a wide variety of ages.

~Read the book together. Take this opportunity to teach your children about racism and tolerance. Try this Star Belly activity at Teaching Tolerance. The activity can be modified for your homeschool by planning to do it with another family.

~The setting of The Sneetches is a beach. Put that sand to good use and make sand paintings. Kaboose has a plan for this activity.You can learn about Navajos as well since sand painting is important to their culture.

~Be an inventor! Sylvester McMonkey McBean was an inventor. Unlike McBean’s inventions, you can invent something that is helpful instead of harmful. Teacher Vision has lots of great ideas.

~This is a great opportunity to study geometry specifically looking at stars. Crayola has a great geometry lesson plan involving making 3D stars.

~Teach phonograms to your younger children with this fun game that I found at Hot Chalk’s. The game is similar to BINGO.

I hope you can share this very special book and its important message with your children.

Photo courtesy of evaxebra

“Seuss Up” Your Homeschool with The Lorax

Continue to “Seuss Up” your homeschool with these ideas for The Lorax. I have included curriculum ideas appropriate for all ages here.

~Read The Lorax. Have your children create a diorama of what the land looked like before the Once-ler chopped down the Truffula trees and what it looked like afterward. Be sure to include Brown Bar-ba-loots, Swomee-Swans, and Humming-Fish in their habitats before and after the Once-ler came.

~Write a sequel to The Lorax. Tell what happens after the last Truffula seed is planted. Do all of the animals come back? Is the air and water clear now? Do new animals come? Make sure you reread The Lorax several times to help you when you plan your sequel.

~Study seeds by observing them sprout. The Watching Seeds Grow experiment will allow you to closely observe the seeds. Older kids might like to try an experiment about the affects of water quality on seed germination found at Salt Lake County Storm Water Quality Education Lesson and Activity Plans.

~Learn about how plants help our environment. Start a garden from seeds. Since it is still too cold to plant them outside in most areas, you can start growing your seeds inside your home. Make observations in a journal as they grow. Talk about how plants breathe. You can find a good summary of plant respiration at The Open Door Web Site. This science fair project idea is great for ‘tweens and teens.

~Learn to knit since the Once-ler and his family knitted the Thneeds in the book. There is a great tutorial at Crafttown including illustrations and definitions of vocabulary. This video from Expert Village shows you how to cast on.

You can also learn the knot stitch with this video.

I hope these ideas make learning fun!

Photo courtesy of Maine Coast Semester

“Mary, A Mother?” Homeschool Advent Activity

Yesterday we finally finished decorating our tree and put our angel on top. I thought it would be appropriate to talk about the Annunciation, the time when the angel, Gabriel, visited Mary to tell her she would be Jesus’ mother. The homeschool activity I chose to do is simple, but the ideas in the discussion are big. Because my children are kinesthetic learners, I have included some movement in the activity. There are also many ideas listed at First-School.

1. What do you know about angels?
2. Fly around like angels for the next couple of minutes.
3. Did you know that an angel visited Mary to tell her about Jesus? This is the story.
   
4. Read the story of the annunciation. As you read, discuss these ideas to discuss and ask these questions: ~Do you remember Mary? When this story happens she is very young like when Mommy and Daddy were waiting to get married. She was waiting to marry Joseph.~Can you imagine seeing an angel? How would you feel if you did see one? Make a frightened face. When an angel talks to a person in the Bible, the angel always tells the person to not be afraid. We read that the people are afraid at first when they see angels. It must be pretty amazing to see an angel!~ Who is Jesus’ mother? Who is His Father?~Mary tells the angel that she will do what God tells her to do. How do you think she felt?
5. Have the children color the story page. Hang the pictures in a prominent place.
6. Memorize this verse this week: For nothing is impossible with God. Luke 1:37Luke 1:37
   English: World English Bible - WEB
   37 For everything spoken by God is possible.”
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This video is a nice compliment to this lesson. The art in the video is beautiful, too.

“Deck the Tree” with Applesauce Ornaments This Advent

We had some homeschool friends over to do our Advent activity today, making cinnamon applesauce ornaments. They smell so good! The best part of this project is that all of the ingredients are non-toxic, so this is perfect for young children. However, if your children are very young, I recommend having another adult with you to supervise since my friend and I found this activity difficult to do alone. I also advise you to let the children play with the dough before you cut out the ornaments. I set up all of my supplies ahead of time, too. This project is well worth the planning and time that it takes to do, though.

Supplies

Lyrics to “Deck the Halls”
“Tree Ornament – Spicy Apple Sauce” recipe from Craft Bits (Note: I added 1/4 cup more applesauce than this recipe calls for. The dough was too dry otherwise.)
Bible
Your Favorite Christmas Storybook (I used The Story of Christmas by Patricia A. Pingry.)

Objectives

~To understand that our Lord is beautiful.
~To make the connection that since God is creative and beautiful, we are and people enjoy being surrounded by beauty.

I wrote the following on the index card inside the Advent calendar.

Bible Verse

One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4Psalm 27:4
English: World English Bible - WEB
4 One thing I have asked of Yahweh, that I will seek after, That I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life, To see Yahweh’s beauty, And to inquire in his temple.

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Kids’ Activity

~Sing “Deck the Halls”
~Read your Christmas storybook.
~Read the Bible verse. Explain that this verse tells us that the Lord is beautiful. Since He is beautiful and Christmas is all about Jesus’ birth, we are making our Christmas tree beautiful.
~Make the cinnamon ornaments.

Family Activity

~Decorate your Christmas tree.