The Leaves are Falling!
Autumn is by far the best season ever! The weather is chilly, but not too cold. The foliage is amazing, too. Then there are all of the great fall activities that we love to do like apple picking and hiking. We have focused on nature and the seasons this year, so we’ve read many books about fall so far. There is a downfall to this great season, though. The raking that needs to be done is a huge burden for us. Our yard is surrounded by our neighbors’ trees, and all of those leaves fall into our yard. That means lots of work for us in the autumn. My hubby and I decided to make a little game out of it with the kids, and it turned out to be a great teaching opportunity.
We had the kids walk around the yard and put leaves into their buckets to put them leaves into our compost pile. As they were doing this, they noticed that the leaves were not all the same. Daddy showed them what a maple leaf looks like. We have two other kinds of leaves in our backyard, oak leaves and an
other one that we didn’t recognize. Daddy suggested that the kids walk around the yard and sort the maple, oak, and unidentified leaves. They emptied the sorted leaves into the compost pile, and on our way back into the house, I brought several leaves inside for an art project. When we got inside, we found an interactive website at About.com to help us identify the last leaf and discovered it was an elm. Then I had the kids sort the leaves into oak, elm, and maple leaf piles. Then we used the leaves to make collages of the different types of leaves. The kids were so excited about this project from start to finish, and we all had a lot of fun!
I liked a lot about these particular activities. One thing that stands out is the kinesthetic nature of the work. The kids sorted the leaves in a very active way by collecting them in the yard, and then they re-sorted them when we got inside. I was able to show the kids how they can research on the internet as well. I also like the visual and tactile piece that came with making the collages. The kids manipulated the leaves in order to make their collages, and touching the leaves in this way gave them a clearer picture of the shape of each type of leaf. They also have these art pieces to refer to now to remind them what the different types of leaves look like. In the end, they will remember how to identify these leaves particular leaves in the future.
Filed under Lesson Plans | Comments (2)Fall: Apples and Pumpkins, Oh My!
In New England it is a tradition to go apple picking, and we definitely take the opportunity to enjoy this tradition. We think that it is really important that the kids see how apples grow and experience picking them on their own. We love the beauty of the foliage and the apple orchard, too. We wouldn’t miss the chance to make memories like these! If you can, try this out with your family.
Since I knew that we were going to the orchard, we started talking about apples and pumpkins a few weeks ago. In anticipation of our favorite season, we attempted to grow pumpkins in our garden this year. I’m not sure that we will ever get pumpkins, but the flowers on the plants did bloom. We have great plans to follow up on this trip, too.
Apples:
- We will bake an apple pie together. All of that measuring, pouring, peeling, and cutting is great for kinesthetic and tactile learners to learn about math and science.
- We’ll cut an apple in half along the equator. There is a star shape in the middle of the apple. We’ll use that as a stamp with paint.
- We will learn about what oxidization is by cutting an apple and watching the color change.
- We will also read the book, How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, and make a lapbook to go along with it.
Pumpkins:
- Of course we will carve our pumpkins. This is a great kinesthetic and tactile learning experience. We will learn what the seeds are like inside the pumpkin, and see if one pumpkin has more seeds than another. After we’ve cleaned the seeds, we will group them by 10’s to count them. We’ll roast them, too.
- We have the book called Pumpkins by Ken Robbins. It has beautiful photographs of pumpkins. It tells how pumpkins are grown and gives some information about how they tie into the season.
- We will bake pumpkin pies with fresh pumpkins. (Pies made with roasted pumpkins are so tasty!) This is another opportunity to teach math and science.
If you have never gone to an orchard during the fall, I encourage you to look into it. It is worth the experience!
Filed under Lesson Plans | Comments (3)Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and distinguish between sounds in spoken language, is important to the process of reading. There are many fun ways to give your children opportunities to practice this skill.
This week we are studying “p”. We created a box of things with the sound/letter of the week. We searched through our toys and found things to fill our box up. The kids need a lot of guidance and some direction in order to think of items that start with the focus sound. Our box was filled with people, pigs, pajamas, a princess, a puzzle, a purse, a pony, peas, a pot, and a policeman. The next day we went through our box carefully saying the names of the items and focusing on the initial sound, /p/. I wrote a list with the names of the toys. We read the list together focusing again on the initial sound.
In addition to the “sound” box we made a collage for /p/. We leafed through some of those catalogs that keep piling up in my house to find pictures of things that start with /p/. Catalogs are nice because they don’t have any inappropriate ads in them, and the pictures are organized. We cut the pictures out and glued them to pink paper (another “p” word). This is some great fine motor practice.
We combined phonemic awareness with handwriting practice as well. We made the letter “p” using die cut paper shapes (scrapbooking paper). I wrote the capital and lower case “p” onto a piece of construction paper. We glued the paper shapes along the outline of the letters. Then we traced over the outline with our fingers. Since the paper has a texture to it, it provides a nice tactile component to the activity. We also made the letter “p” out of play dough. Again, this is tacticle and kinesthetic.
Home School Handwriting without Worksheets
The beauty of home education is flexibility. You are free to try different teaching strategies to meet your children’s particular learning needs. I prefer to limit worksheets. They do have a place, and we do use them, but I want to engage my children in more active learning that is fun. It is also hard to motivate me and the kids to do repetitive practice that can be very boring. If you have an unmotivated, kinesthetic, or tactile learner, it can be particularly difficult to get him/her to do all of the practice that will help achieve mastery of skills.
This summer we have been practicing handwriting and have tried to practice without using worksheets. These strategies are quite useful and fun. Most of these ideas are great for unmotivated, kinesthetic, and tactile learners.
- Use several pieces of string to form a letter. Trace over the string as you say the name of the letter. Sometimes I talk about the direction that your finger goes as we are moving along the letter. You could do the same thing with spelling.
- We use tub crayons to write all of the letters that we know. We write both capital and lower case letters. We try writing the letters in different colors and sizes.
- We form letters with play dough. All of the rolling, smoothing, a movement helps my kinesthetic and tacticle kids stay engaged in the work. (Try making numbers, too.)
- Write letters in the sandbox using your finger or a stick. It is less intimidating because you can easily smooth the sand if you make a mistake. This is a great strategy for kids who are perfectionists.
- We have a “magic wand” to write letters in the sky. Ours is filled with colorful sand and sparkly stars that float in some liquid. I think that watching the floating things is good for developing eye tracking skills and adds visual interest. Any kind of pointer that looks magical and fancy will do, though. Girls in particular like the magic wand.
- Finger paint is another way of getting tactile learners involved in handwriting. You can mix colors and make the letters any size you like. It also works for the artist in your family.
- We use sidewalk chalk for handwriting practice. If you are like me and can’t find a place for all of the practice the kids do, the rain washes away the work. I think that the resistance also helps build certain muscles.
- Make the shape of a letter with your body. It highlights all of the parts of the letter so on paper the kids include all of the parts. This is particularly good for kinesthetic learners.
- We have a foam alphabet floor puzzle that has different textures on it. We trace those letters while laying on the puzzle. This position also helps build arm muscles and helps with motor control. The colors and the textures add interest and helps the kids remember the work.
Have fun with handwriting!
Filed under How to, Lesson Plans | Comments (4)
