Wizard of Oz Unit

 

When I went to bed last night I had no idea what we were going to do in school this week.  We just finished studying about India last week and I didn't feel the need to stretch that out any longer.  So, we have this one week left before we take off two for spring break.

What to do.  What to do.

We have spelling, math and writing and Bible to continue in.  Those can all be stand alone sujects just fine.
B has been asking us to help him grow crystals (a Christmas gift) and that sounds like a good school activity to me.  Additionally, I had also begun reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to B&S off my Kindle while we were waiting for appointments.  And they've really been enjoying it.

If crystals can be dyed green they might resemble emeralds... hmmm.

And so began our Wizard of Oz Science Study for the week.
...growing our own Emerald City.
...soda bottle tornadoes.
...animal (lion), vegetable (scarecrow) or mineral (tin man) classification.
..."Witch" dissolves in water?

And because our vacation in May will be in Santa Fe where the Georgia O'Keefe museum is AND poppies show up in the next chapter of the book we'll work on a huge O'Keefe poppy mural I just purchased from Art Projects for Kids.  It will be huge and B is so excited to get into my pastels.

I love it when all things converge.

 

A Great Thing

We have begun a new unit study about India that should take us well into March.  Its purpose is twofold:
1. to expose the boys to a completely different culture, its inner workings and curiosities.
2.  to help me grow in knowledge for a trip there this summer.

These are my favorite studies to do; those in which we are all students together.

However, as I put my "teacher" hat on all of my lesson plan ideas were essentially me telling B what he needs to know about the country.  Yet I have never been to India.  Aside from a class in Hinduism in college, I have very little insight into the way the country thinks and works.  Yet, I embarked to teach him.

We started out with the geography of India.  B drew his own outline map of India (and did a beautiful job) and then over the next few days he filled in mountain ranges, rivers, bordering countries and bodies of water, major cities, listed all of the states, and drew the flag.  That was a fair enough assignment for a fourth grader, but he was still relying on me to give him the resources he needed and I'm not sure he was super interested in the process.  I was still at the center of the lesson and it didn't seem right to me.

As I was reading The Courage to Teach by Parker J. Palmer, I had a brainstorm of sorts.  In his chapter on teaching in community he said this:

Passion for the subject propels that subject, not the teacher, into the center of the learning circle -- and when a great thing is in their midst, students have direct access to the energy of learning and of life.

I reviewed again the two purposes of our unit study.  What would help B and I move into the subject itself so that we both take hold of "the energy of learning and of life?"  And it hit me.  He shouldn't spend his time doing what I think is important for him to do and know.  He should explore India for himself.

I'm going to let him create and submit an itinerary for my trip.  He can research and compare plane ticket costs, find locations of religious or cultural significance, tell me how to take the train, what the money exchange looks like, and how I should respectfully dress.  He'll be my tour guide through India and present me with a little portfolio.  Anywhere within a day trip on the train from Delhi is fair game.  I'm certain the Taj Mahal will be in the mix.

We are reading YWAM's biography of Amy Carmichael aloud and will work on a journal project to go along with that.  This week we'll also begin working on some Indian embriodery  (yes, my son loves to sew).  And for a culminating activity we'll have to splurge on a little construction project:  These Nanoblock sets are perfect.

More Than I Thought

I've been thinking lately, "We need to get real with school."

No longer can I try to squeeze in just a little more summer. No longer can I use my bag of excuses. No longer can I blame my distractedness on warm, sunny days.

Though we began in mid-August, we've had plenty of stops and starts and tons of bonus field trips.  It's been a beginning that felt very much like I wasn't able to finish a sentence.

Case in point, I only have two documented weeks of lesson plans and four (or has it been six already?) that I haven't even filled in.  It feels to me like we haven't really accomplished much.

But we have.


Last week we finished our study of Royalty and as it turns out, we accomplished more than I thought.

• B (grade 4) colored a map of the word highlighting about 6 different empires in different places and eras.  
• We spent time reading information about each ruler, including Xerxes in the whole book of Esther.  
• He's identified the different titles for monarchy at various places and times around the globe.  
• We've read fables and stories of kings (like Midas and Gilgamesh and Arthur) to compare to the real guys.  
• We moved into a little study of knights and castles simply because that was where his interests lay and he filled a lapbook with castle diagrams, weapons and armor.  
• We read the abridged Knights of the Round Table and a Door in the Wall.
• He read The Magic Tree House Research Guide on Knights and finished the Time Warp Trio:  Knights of the Kitchen Table. 
• He wrote his own story about Kings.
• We worked up a timeline of major rulers and world events to put it all in perspective.  
• Art activities included making a Rice Krispie castle and a tile mosaic crown.
• He's moving through fourth grade math at tenmarks.com and is doing very well in our first year of Spelling Power.

S (grade K) is happy to do anything.  We've been plugging along with several things in addition to daily life skills:

• Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  It's perfect for him.  He's so full of excitement and his knowledge base is right where it should be to begin this study.  
• Making Math Meaningful.  We've been doing something out of it every week and so far he's completely ahead of where the curriculum is, but he enjoys the quick hands-on activities.  Math has also included dot-to-dot pages, mazes and puzzles. 
• Writing.  I have never pushed my boys to write.  But S wants to.  We practice just a couple letters a day on a wipe-off lap-board.  And he's doing beautifully.  It's amazing.  Maybe I'll actually have one child with good handwriting.    
• He made his own age-appropriate lapbook about knights and we're tossing in some occasional study of the seasons. 
• He spends time each week on starfall.org practicing more reading skills.  Loves it.
• He's done a zillion other activities:  things to move and manipulate, things to cut and color, pasting, painting, shapes to play with, measuring tapes, and play dough.  

It's pure fun teaching Kindergarten level to S.  All in all, his daily time logs in at around 45 minutes.  It's much more than his oldest brother ever did and it's also much more structured than his other brother did at this age. He's definitely eager and ambitious. I've also noticed that he's much more patient this year.  We've turned a corner there and overall our days are so much more manageable and enjoyable.  So, for you mothers with distracting and demanding preschoolers, there's hope that they'll eventually get it.

Money Unit for Elementary

This is our last week of school before we take our Spring Break.  We're finishing up a unit on Money and this is some of what we've covered:

• We found a very cool online site at www.minyonland.com.  It teaches B about spending, saving, and investing by way of some really fun games and strategies.
• Aside from that we've worked through the Kids Money Book that I found at our library (but can't locate on Amazon to link to).  It's taken him into big ideas like inflation and recession as well as more easily grasped topics like credit and ATM's.   It also covered the history of money.
• I printed out some blank checks and a register and gave him bills to pay.
• We're reading Lawn Boy by Gary Paulsen aloud and learning about some fantastic economic principles as we go.  I highly suggest it for 3rd grade and up.
• Tomorrow we'll toss in some geography and highlight what other countries call their money.
• Everyday, he has the opportunity to "earn" money as we completes his school tasks...about $10 a day. At the end of each week I've given him a couple bills to pay, had him save 10%, give 10% and then I set up a little "store" that he can choose to shop from or save his money, or give more.  The giving money will turn into actual cash and be given away for real this week. The second week, I also gave him the option to borrow money if there was something he really wanted to buy, but the credit card bill would come the following week.  He chose not to overspend or borrow.  That's my boy!
• We set up a grocery store and I had him attempt to guess what the prices for each item would be (Mountain Dew was worth $5 to him!).  Then he practiced making change with his brothers.  
• Naturally, we've done many, many money word problems.  
• We're finding verses in Proverbs that talk about money and think through their principles before he copies them down and illustrates them.  
• He is mastering some vocabulary such as counterfeit, value, currency, money, and denomination.  
• This week he is writing a "how to" essay entitled "How to Save Money to buy the Lego Star Wars Death Star."  I'm using his interests to help build up his weaknesses.  Having him write anything is a challenge.  But he's been wishing he could buy the Death Star for a couple years now so he's inspired.  Last week we did a graphic organizer of his ideas and this week he's doing the writing.  

It's been a good study and while I'm a little tired of picking up all the play money laying around I think that B really has a grasp on what good stewardship looks like and I see him putting his knowledge into practice.    

Cookie Unit for Preschool

Cookies are a ton of fun.  And in December we seem to make a different kind every week.  This is a great unit to get your kiddo into the kitchen with you.  It's only fitting that the activities in this unit require the consumption of lots and lots of cookies, but you can use whatever you like when an activity calls for a reward.

Cookie Unit for Preschool

Verse: Psalm 119:103  "How sweet are your words to my taste.  Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth." Create hand motions for the keywords:  Sweet=use your pointer fingers to draw your mouth smiling a big, sweet smile.  Words =Shape your hand like it's operating a puppet and make it talk. Taste = Stick your tongue out and point to it while you say the word.  This makes them laugh every time.  Yes, sweeter = Nod and then do the motion for "sweet" again. Honey = use your pointer fingers and buzz them around like bees in front of you.  Mouth = close your mouth and point to it.

Letters: C (cookie) +  O (oatmeal) + Z(zoo) + J (Jesus)
Use 9x15 construction paper.  Cut out a large chunky letter.  Your child will be decorating each letter with things that start with it.  After he does this, I attach it to a different colored full size sheet of construction paper, and write the capital letter, the small letter and the word underneath it.
C = Cut out cookie pictures from magazines and glue them on.
O = Use white glue to cover the letter O and let your child sprinkle on some oats.
Z = Animal cookies work great for this activity.  Glue them on a big letter zoo with white glue.
J = We glued on candy canes, turned upside down to represent Jesus (and read the Legend of the Candy Cane). But you could use nativity stickers or a rubber stamp creche image if you have them. 

Books and Activities:

1.  Cookie Trail.  Use anything to create a trail through your house to find a cookie at the end.  I have a whole hoard of miniature erasers, but you can use beans or Legos or whatever you want.  Just wind the "crumb" trail around the furniture, under a table, or up and down stairs to make it fun. Have them collect all the crumbs as they go and let them have the cookie at the end.

2.  Sniff Around.  Hide a real or a fake cookie from your child.  Have him try to find it by asking you as many as twenty questions requiring "yes" or "no" answers.  

3.  Make the Big Letter C.

4. '10 Little Cookies' Flannel Board Song.  Cut out 10 brown flannel circles.  As you sing the song, you can let your child either put them on the flannel board, or put them on ahead of time and let your child pull them off.  

(To the tune of 10 Little Indians)  

1 little, 2 little, 3 little cookies. 

4 little, 5 little, 6 little cookies. 

7 little, 8 little, 9 little cookies.  

10 little cookies with milk (and pretend to glug down a glass of milk).


Similarly, if you use glue to make your flannel cookies sparkly you can do this rhyme:
Ten little cookies in a bakery shop,
Shining bring with the sugar on top.
Along come (Name) w/ a nickel to pay,
He buys a cookie and takes it away.
Nine little cookies...

5.  Cookie Mobile.  Cut out a big cookie shape out of brown construction paper.  Provide tiny black triangle shapes for your child to glue onto their "chocolate chip cookie."  OR let them use a hole puncher all over the cookie to let the light through.  Write their memory verse on the back of the cookie and hang it by a length of string from the ceiling.  

6.  Ding Dong! Game.  You'll need to make some playing cards by drawing six cookie shapes so that you fill a piece of white cardstock.  Do it again on another piece of cardstock.  Now, you'll draw a chocolate chip on one cookie.   Draw two chocolate chips on the next cookie.  Keep adding a chocolate chip to each cookie as you draw until you have a cookie with 10 chocolate chips on it.  Leave one cookie blank and on the last cookie write DING DONG!  You'll need two sets of these cards, so make a copy of what you've just made and cut them all out.  You can discard on of the Ding Dong cards as you only need one.

Play the game like you'd play Old Maid.  Deal out all the cards.  Lay down any matched pairs you have.  In turn, each player draws a card from any opponent, trying to avoid the "Ding Dong" cookie.  If you draw a card that matches on of yours, lay down the matched cards.  Then, the turn passes to the next player.  Play continues until a player gets rid of all of his cards.  

7.  Cookie Division.  You can use the cookie cards from Ding Dong! to practice division.  Use a dozen cookies and figure out how many different ways you can evenly divide them.  Add more cookies and figure out how many ways you can evenly divide two dozen.  

8.  Make the Big Letter O.

9.  Cookie Gifts.  It was nice of the Grandmother to bring over a gift of cookies in this story.  Collect a couple empty Pringles cans and clean them out.  Cover the outside of the can with white or colored paper and let your child decorate it.  Then, help your child make a batch of cookies, sizing them to fit in the canisters.  Stack the cooled cookies in the canisters and give them as gifts.   

10.  Story Sequencing.  Make up some sequence cards that go with this book.  On blank 3x5 card draw draw one of each item:  a cookie, a glass of milk, a straw, a napkin, a mirror, a story book, a pen, a piece of notebook paper, crayon, scissors, broom, matchbox bed, and scotch tape.  Use clip art or let your child help with the drawings.  Then have your child retell the story by only looking at the cards.  Similarly, you can mix the cards up and let them put them back in the order of the story.

11.  Bake Cookies.  If you haven't baked cookies yet, don't wait any longer.  Get in the kitchen and let your child help you measure and mix.

12.  What's Next?  Practice sequencing in real life.  Give your child an instruction.  Let them follow it.  Then give them the same instruction and add on one more.  Do it again.  Generally, this age can follow up to four instructions fairly well.  Make it as difficult as you think your child can manage without frustrating them.  Make the instructions fun, physical acts and this should be a favorite skill building game.

13.  Cookie Cutter Matchup.  Trace 6-8 Christmas shaped cookie cutters and cut them out.  Lay the cut outs on a cookie sheet and set the cookie cutters nearby.  Let your child match up the cookie cutters to their correct shape.  You can also do this activity by cutting out play dough shapes with the cookie cutters instead of using paper cut outs.    

14.  Stuffed Gingerbread Man.  Find a clip art outline of a gingerbread man to use as a pattern.  You'll want your pattern to fill an entire sheet of brown construction paper.  Copy the pattern onto two piece of brown construction paper and cut them out.  Stack them  and use a hole puncher to make holes all the way around the Gingerbread man about an inch apart.  You'll also need a shoelace, some tissues and some construction paper scraps.  Let your child decorate the gingerbread man with the construction paper scraps. When dry, let them wad up the tissues and sew them inside using a simple stitch with the shoelace.  


15.  Gingerbread Man Chase.  Set up an obstacle course for your child.  This works best outdoors.  Prepare about five stations where your child is across, crawling under, skating over, running through, or hopping between something.  Have him start out by saying, "Run, run run as fast as you can!  You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man!"  Then let him take off and say outloud what he's doing as he goes.  "I jumped across the sidewalk, I crawled under the swing, I skated over the driveway, I ran through the garden, I hopped between the trees and I can run from YOU I can, I can!"  Then it's your turn!  (or another sibling).


16.  Make the Big Letter Z.  You could connect it with the animals in the story of the Gingerbread Man if you want to.  My boys were just excited to work with animal cookies.  

17.  Compare and Contrast.    The Gingerbread Man and the Gingerbread Boy are two very similar stories.  I used this opportunity to put them side by side and let my sons tell me what was similar and what was different about the two stories.  Then I let them make up their own version with different characters by asking,  "Who would your gingerbread man run away from?"


18.  Recycled Paper Ornaments.  Using your Christmas-shaped cookie cutters and an old phone book you can make some cute little homemade gifts for Grandparents.  Let your child rip pages out of the phone book.  (Ripping is a great skill they need to practice).  Then let them put the pages in a bowl of water, one at a time.  Squeeze them out and start wadding them up together.  Stuff them inside of a cookie cutter being sure to push the paper all the way to the edges.  Once these dry in a day or so, you can push the paper out in one solid shape, thread a needle with some pretty thread and push it through the top of the ornament, looping it around to make a hanger. 

19.   'Christmas Cookies' Flannel Board Song.  Make 10 cookies out of felt:  Green, red, yellow, round, square, white, striped, big, small and the last one a creation of your choice.  As you recite the poem, let your child remove the cookies from the flannel board.  


Ten Christmas cookies
All in a line.
(Name) ate the green one,
Then there were nine.


Nine Christmas cookies
Cooling by the gate.
(Name) ate the red one, 
Then there were eight.


Eight Christmas cookies
There never were eleven.
(Name) ate the yellow one,
Then there were seven.


Seven Christmas cookies
That were really fun to mix.
(Name) ate the round one,
Then there were six.


Six Christmas cookies
Guess who should arrive.
(Name) ate the square one,
Then there were five.  


Five Christmas cookies
Who could ask for more?
(Name) ate the white one,
Then there were four.


Four Christmas cookies
Smell good as can be.
(Name) ate the striped one,
Then there were three.


Three Christmas cookies
There are just a few.
(Name) ate the big one,
Then there were two.


Two Christmas cookies
Now we're almost done.
(Name) ate the small one,
Now there's only one.


One Christmas cookie
As yummy as can be.
(Name) at the last one,
Now there's none left for me.
-- Natalie Hill


20.  Gingerbread Man Chain.  You'll need a gingerbread man pattern to trace around.  Accordian ford long strips of construction paper to fit the size of your pattern.   Draw the pattern so that the arms go off the folded sides of the paper, so that when you cut the pattern out and unfold the paper, all the men are attached at the arms.   You can make your chain as long as you like.  On the gingerbread men you can write out the days of the week, months of the year, ordinal numbers, or just use it to countdown to Christmas.  

I'm sure you can find so many more activities to go along with these books by searching the web.  I bet this doesn't even scratch the surface.  Remember, too, that baking cookies with your child can help them practice all kinds of necessary skills and you can even practice the letter sounds with your child by baking letter-shaped sugar cookies.  Enjoy.

Turkey Unit for Preschool

It dawned on me that I hadn't posted this unit, so I'm about a month overdue.  These ideas are pieced together from all over the place.  If you did a quick internet craft search you can easily find tutorials to make a turkey out of different materials every day of the month.  I grew tired of making turkeys and took a couple different turns in our study.  On your nature walks this month, scout out a real feather to use with the fourth book in the list below.   If you don't already have colorful craft feathers you'll want to pick some up from the craft store.


Turkey Unit for Preschool


Verse:  Genesis 1:21 "God created every winged bird after its kind and God saw that it was good."  Create hand motions for the keywords:  God = point upward.  Created = work your fingers together like you're kneeding clay (we use a lot of playdough so this was an easy way to visually connect to the idea of creating).  Winged Bird = flap your arms out wide like your flying and keep doing it until the word "kind".  God = point upward again.  Saw = make glasses around your eyes with your hands.  Good = thumbs up.


Letters: T (turkey) +  F (feathers) -- still more voiceless sounds.
Use 9x15 construction paper.  Cut out a large chunky letter.  Your child will be decorating each letter with things that start with it.  After he does this, I attach it to a different colored full size sheet of construction paper, and write the capital letter, the small letter and the word underneath it.
T = I bought a pack of turkey shaped stickers and he decorated his T with them.
F = We glued colorful craft feathers all over the big letter F.


Food Ideas: 

• Make turkey sandwiches for lunch.  If you cut the sandwich into different shapes or use a turkey shaped cookie cutter, you can do this several days out of the month.
• Turkey Track snack:  Buy the dry chow mein noodles.  Coat a cracker with peanut butter or cream cheese and arrange three noodles on the spread to look like a turkey footprint.  
• Turkey nuggets. If your kids like chicken nuggets, you can make these (especially with leftover Thanksgiving white meat) just as easily.  
• Turkey cut out cookies. Get a turkey cookie cutter and make some sugar cookie cutouts.  Or if you have letter cookie cutters, spell out t-u-r-k-e-y.
• Turkey cookie place card.  We made big chocolate chip cookies, wrapped them in saran wrap, then glued a construction paper turkey head to the front and colorful feathers to the back of it.  The kids wrote on the feathers telling Grandpa what they loved about him, and placed it at his place on the Thanksgiving table.

Books and Activities


1.  Hungry Turkey Picture.  The turkey in this story eats and eats and eats.  Glue a simple turkey cut-out to a piece of construction paper.  With brown or black ink pads let him make "fingerprint" feed all over the ground around the turkey.


2.  Eaten Letter.  Put 4 - 6 letter flash cards in front of your child (letters he's learned so far).  Have him close his eyes while you quickly take away a card.  Ask him to open his eyes and identify which one the turkey ate. 


3.  Plastic Spoon Turkey.  Use permanent markers to draw a turkey face on the underside of the bowl of a spoon. Or glue on googly eyes with construction paper beak and waddle. Create a fat, brown construction paper body and glue on colored craft feathers for the turkey's tail. Poke the spoon through the body.  From the back side, tap the end of the spoon and make him peck at some make-believe seed on your table.  Or tape the spoon to the back of the paper to keep it stationary.


4.  Make the Big Letter T.


5.  Turkey Trot Game.  To make three Turkey gamepieces I adhered three turkey stickers (the ones he used to make his big letter T) to craft foam and cut each one out.  I made a gameboard filling a 9x15 sheet of construction paper with 3 columns and 13 rows.  The bottom row in each column says Start.  Place the game pieces on start and race the turkeys.  Use a die to determine how many spaces each turkey goes at a time.  First one to the end,  wins. 


6.  Colorful Turkey Tail. DLTK-holidays.com has a really cute Turkey craft online. The feathers are all little spaces for your child to cut out and paste 15 different color swatches.   Use your color ink cartridge and print it on your 'best' quality so you can tell the difference between shades like gray and silver.



7.  Color a Tom Turkey.  I found one on Enchanted Learning that labels the parts of the turkey. 


8.  Bird Sounds.  Print out pictures of different farm birds (rooster, chick, duck, hen, turkey, goose, etc.).  Hold up each one and say the wrong bird sound.  Let your child correct you.   You can add to this activity by reading "Cock-A-Moo Moo" by Juliet Dallas-Conte.


9.  Turkey Bingo.  Print out a blank bingo card which you've fit into the outline drawing of a turkey.  Slip it into a page protector.  With a dry erase pen, fill in the spaces with the letters you've worked on so far.  Write the letters again on the white board or a piece of paper and point to them as you call them out.  Let him erase one letter each time until he has a bingo.  My son always wanted to erase all of his letters -- which was just more good practice for him!


10.  Shaving Cream Art.  Spray a couple handfuls of shaving cream onto a dish or tray.  Drop four or five drops each of red and yellow food coloring into the cream and slightly swirl it in with a craft stick.  Cut out an outline drawing of a turkey and gently press it face-down into the shaving cream.  Let dry to see the bright swirly print your child made.  You'll have a lot of shaving cream left over, so you could do this with several cut-outs of the different farm birds. 


11.  Turkey Nest.  Use some die cut leaves, or cut them out of magazines.  Let your child glue them to a piece of brown construction paper.  Write "Turkey's build their nests on the ground."  Then type 'Turkey Nest Picture' into Google images and print out your favorite one depicting a clutch of turkey eggs.  Let him cut out the picture and paste it onto his nest on the ground.


12.  Turkey Puzzle.  Using whatever large turkey picture you like, print it out or glue it to cardstock.  Cut it into about 6 different jigsaw pieces and then let your child put it together.  Unless you have an avid puzzler, I wouldn't make it more than six pieces.  And making sure you print or draw a border around the edges might be helpful for your little person as well. 



13.  A Turkey is a Bird Booklet.  It's a good time to drive home that turkeys are birds.  Cut out several identical copies of a turkey outline.  Staple them together to make a booklet.  On the front write 'A Turkey is a Bird.'  Then, use this list on First-school and cut out each picture and it's caption (i.e.: the little yellow duckling graphic and "D is for Duck") Draw a "D" on the page for your child to trace.  Let him glue on the captioned duck image and then do the same thing on the other pages for as many birds and letters as you want to practice.


14.  Flying Turkey Mobile.  To practice our memory verse, we wrote each phrase of the verse on little turkey die cuts and glued a fluffy feather on the backside.  We glued two popsicle sticks together to make an X.  Then, we punched a hole in each turkey, tied it with strings of various lengths to the sticks and hung the whole thing from the ceiling.


15.  Make the Big Letter F.


16.  Feather Painting.  Pull out a few colors of tempura paint and let him paint with a real feather instead of a paintbrush.  You can then leave the feathers stuck to the paint on the page.


17.  Find the Turkey.  I have a turkey shaped cookie cutter that worked well for this, but you could just use a picture.  Simply hide it somewhere in the room and have him find it.  This activity never gets old. 


18.  Flannel Board Story.  There are a lot of fun turkey flannel stories you can find online.  I've used "Turkey in the Brown Straw. Ha! Ha! Ha!" (sung to Skip to My Lou) with all my preschoolers.  You can find the instructions and the song a little ways down the page here.  There's other great ideas on that site as well.



19.  Turkey Headband.  You simply have to make one of these from Family Fun. 


20.  Feather Bookmark.  Simply take a real feather (washed) and adhere it between clear contact paper.  Punch a hole and put a ribbon through to finish the bookmark. 


21.  Two Turkey Handprints.  #1 It's time for the traditional turkey handprint craft!  Paint your child's hand and press it to paper.  Draw a beak, eye and wattle on the thumb and glue craft feathers over the fingers.  THEN  #2 make a Mayflower ship.  Stamp his hand again in the middle of yellow construction paper.  Cut out a wavy ocean from blue paper and adhere it just covering the bottom of his handprint to look like a ship in the ocean.  Then cut out a few squarish sails and glue them to his "mast" fingers.  Add a sun and clouds if you like.  It's adorable. 


22.  Thankful Card Stamping.  I have an acrylic turkey stamp that I let my son use to make little notecards.  We printed "Thankful for you" on each of them.


23.  Pine Cone Turkey.  You can google several different ways to make one of these.  Essentially, get a pinecone and lay it sideways.  Adhere googly eyes, a beak and wattle to the front of it.  Use chenille stems to make some turkey toes for it to stand on and then insert craft feathers for a tail.  Alternately, you can use chenille stems to form tail feathers if you like.  



24. Turkey Sandwich Game.  Using craft foam cut out the following sandwich pieces: two pieces of bread out of white, two or three pieces of sliced turkey out of pink,   two or three tomato slices out of red,  one squiggly line of mustard out of yellow, two pieces of cheese out of orange, two pieces of ruffly lettuce out of light green, two connected pickle pieces out of dark green, and anything else you can think of with any other colors you may have.  Alter a die to cover three of the sides with the letter "T."  Give your child a piece of bread to start.  Let them roll the die.  Every time a "T" comes up he can add a piece of turkey or tomato to his sandwich.  Any other number allows them to pick from the other items.  After three "T" rolls finish the sandwich. 


25. Feather Float.  Take a fuzzy craft feather and hold it over his head.  Have his blow up under it to keep it afloat.  See how long you can keep a feather in the air.  


26.  Thanksgiving Meal.  As you get magazines throughout November cut out pictures of traditional Thanksgiving dishes that your family might enjoy.  Let your child glue them to a paper plate to create his own Thanksgiving dinner.  


As always, this list is not exhaustive and the ideas aren't even original to me.  I've been doing some of them so long I just don't know who to give credit to.  If you want to link back to my Apple or Popcorn units you may find more instructions there for typical activities as well. 

Popcorn Unit for Preschool

We've wrapped up another month of preschool activities at home and, as promised, I'm sharing them with you.  I received a lot of hits for the apple unit for preschool last month, so I hope this popcorn unit is just as helpful.  Refer back to the apple unit for more instructions on some recurring ideas.  You'll also need to put your glue sticks away and pull out your white glue for this one.

Popcorn Unit for Preschool

Verse: John 4:35(b) (NASB)  "Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest."  Create hand motions for the keywords.  (Behold!:  Do a fist pump with your arm.  Such a fun way to start.  Say:  touch your lips.  You: point to each other.  Lift: point to your eyes and bow your head and lift it up as you say the next few words.  Look:  shade your eyes with your hand and survey the room.  White: hold your arms out wide and circle them in together as you gather the 'harvest.')  Then explain to them that corn is a grain that has to be harvested.  (Remarkably, there are no verses about popcorn in the Bible). 

Letters:  P (popcorn), K (kernel), Q (queen). -- all voiceless sounds.
Use 9x15 construction paper.  Cut out a large chunky letter.  Your child will be decorating each letter with things that start with it.  After he does this, I attach it to a different colored full size sheet of construction paper, and write the capital letter, the small letter and the word underneath it.
P -- we popped some popcorn and glued the white kernels all over the P with white glue.
K -- glue a zillion unpopped kernels to the K with white glue. If you have Indian corn kernels that adds some interest as well.
Q -- Since Q is so hard to put words to I put it in this unit because we read the book Popcorn at the Palace and tied it into the story.  I printed out photos of the current and pretty recent reigning queens as well as some crown clipart.  He cut them out and glued them to the Q after reading the story.

Food Ideas:

• Pop some microwave popcorn.  Let him watch.
• Pop some popcorn on the stove with oil.  Let him stir.
• Make cornbread.
• Pop some popcorn (either method) and add different seasonings.  We liked cinnamon sugar, but you can also do Parmesan cheese or something spicy if you like that.
• Make popcorn balls.  I make them like you make Rice Krispie Treats with marshmallows and butter, but you can use your own recipe.  When the balls were put together they were cool enough to let my son roll them in chocolate sprinkles. 
• Eat sweetcorn for dinner.

Books and Activities
1. Copy Pop. Clap a short, simple rhythm and see if your child can copy it. If it's too easy, add to it.

2. Colored Kernels File Folder Game. Find a popcorn piece of clipart and copy and paste it six times onto a piece of paper.  Then make photocopies on colored cardstock:  1 red, 1 yellow, 1 blue, 1 pink, 1 purple, 1 green, 1 orange, 1 white.  Cut them out.  On 3 red pieces write "r" "e" and "d."  Spell out all the other colors in the same way.  Create a file folder game by stapling the back side of a file folder to the front side of another one, making a "page" in the middle.  Create 8 pockets out of colored construction paper  clearly writing the name of the color on each one. Tuck the popcorn pieces into the pockets for storage.  To play, pull out the pieces, point to each letter on the pocket and have your child find the matching letter, putting them in the correct order to spell the word.  They don't need to know that they're spelling, just that they're matching (or sequencing).

3.  Flannel stories.  There are a lot of good popcorn flannel board stories found online to do with your child.  One easy one is to cut out five yellow triangles and do this one:

Five popcorn kernels sitting in a pot

They snuggled together and got very hot

They danced all around with all of their might and

Out popped a kernal all fluffy and white

...

Four popcorn kernels...

You just can't practice counting (backwards) too much.  I incorporate other rhymes regarding corn/corncobs  as well.




4.  Make the Big Letter 'P'. 

5.  Kernel Counting.  Make a workpage with 5 numbers down the left side (whatever numbers you want to work on) and down the right side put five empty circles.  The child can simply use white glue to fill the circles with the corresponding number of unpopped kernels.

6.  Letter Bingo.   Print out a blank bingo card.  Slip it into a page protector.  With a dry erase pen, fill in the spaces with the letters you've worked on so far.  (We had done A, L, W and P).  Write the letters again on the white board or a piece of paper and point to them as you call them out.  Let him erase one letter each time until he has a bingo.  My son always wanted to erase all of his letters -- which was just more good practice for him!



7.  Growth Cycle Cards.  Create 6 sets of cards.  Each set of cards should have a graphic of 1. a popcorn kernel, 2. a corn stalk, 3. an ear of corn and 4. a popped kernel. Adhere each set to 6 different colors of cardstock (choose the colors you want your child to practice) leaving a border around the edge. You can use these in several ways.  First, teach your child the growth cycle of corn (from kernel/seed, to stalk, to an ear and then popcorn.  This is basic science. If you want to get more specific, choose different images, because a popcorn ear of corn looks very different from a sweet corn ear).  Go through each set of cards telling him the growth sequence.  Once he understands it, mix the cards up and have him put the sets in order again.  He can also match the images and make stacks of them, or match the colors. You can play "go fish" with the cards or even concentration.  Use them over and over again.

8.   Raccoon Mask.  Kids love pretending to be something.  Copying the cover of the book, we made a mask out of a paper plate, paint, construction paper and elastic.  With my first son, we then went through a cornfield maze.  My third son, just wore it around the house -- for about a minute.  And then we turned it into his costume for Halloween with gray sweats and a fuzzy striped tail.

9.   Fingerprint Corn.  Using yellow ink, have him stamp his fingerprint in rows on some white construction paper.  Then cut it into a corn cob shape.  From green construction paper, cut out husk leaves and tuck the ear behind them.  Tape some dental floss to the top for "silks."



10. Make the Big Letter 'K'.

11.  Indian Corn Sequencing.   Purchase some real Indian corn from a craft or grocery store.  Let your little person push the kernels off the cob into a bowl.  Separate them out into the different colors (brown, red, yellow, etc.). Then pick up a few kernels and create a pattern such as brown, brown, yellow, red then start over with brown and let him continue the pattern as long as he can.  Start with a new pattern and do it as many time as he has interest.

12.  Canister or Frame.  Use white glue to affix either Indian corn or yellow (or both) kernels to the item.  You can put a pattern on it if you like.  We did my son's initial.  When dry, coat it with Mod Podge.  It could become a gift for grandma.





13.  Make the Big Letter 'Q'.

14.   Kernel Timbrel.  You can put two pie plates on top of one another, punch holes in the edges, fill them with kernels and tie ribbons through the holes to keep the tins tightly together. Or you could hot glue them together.  Let them actually play with it, as annoying as the sound is. ;-)

15.  Corn Husk Doll.  Make a doll like "Victoria" in the story.  Use the husks from your Indian Corn or you can buy some separately at a craft store.  Find some instructions online that suit you.






16.  Colored Popcorn Dragon.  You'll need to print out an outline of a dragon head and get your hands on some powdered tempura paint. You'll only need about a quarter of a cup of one or two colors.   Pop some popcorn and, in a zip lock bag, shake to combine about a cup of popcorn with the powdered paint.  Let your child glue the popcorn to "Dexter's" head with white glue and then thoroughly wash their hands.  No eating this popcorn!

17.  Corn Cob prints.   We used those cobs we exposed for painting.  Cut them into about three inch pieces, let them roll them in paint and stamp or roll them on paper.
 
18.  Dice Counting.  Have a bowl of popped corn, a die and a movie popcorn bag or bucket ready.  Let your child roll the die and put that many popped kernels in the bag/bucket.  Keep going until they can't stand not eating the popcorn any longer. 

As always, review letters daily and back up your letter learning with other activities. Letter Bingo is a great re-useable and changeable activity as is the Monster Munch I mentioned last month.  I also have little booklets for each letter that my son can color in.  There are a zillion things you can print out from online resources just like it.

Apple Unit for Preschool

When my first son was a preschooler he had turned into a very picky eater.  It was (and still is) frustrating to feed him.  At that time we had dipped our toes into learning at home and he was excited about everything we did together.  So, I put together a curriculum with a monthly food theme to see if his excitement would motivate him to try a few new things.  What developed was a fun preschool curriculum that I have used with all three of my boys now.  It's my plan to post each month's "Food Fun" unit on the blog as we finish in case anyone is interested in using a fully developed and tested literature-based curriculum for your preschooler(s) at home.  Here we go:

Apple Unit for Preschool

Verse: Proverbs 7:2  Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye.  Create hand motions for the keywords.  (Keep: give your body a hug. Commandments: hold your hands like a book. Live: lift your arms up high like a cheer. Teaching:  use your pointer finger.  Apple:  try to shape one with your hands.  Eye: point to your eye.)  They remember hand motions before they remember words.  The words come with repetition, so say this with them every day. 

Letters:  A (apple), L (leaf), W (worm).
Use 9x15 construction paper.  Cut out a large chunky letter.  Your child will be decorating each letter with things that start with it.  After he does this, I attach it to a different colored full size sheet of construction paper, and write the capital letter, the small letter and the word underneath it.
A -- we cut open a crabapple cross-wise (so you could see the seed star inside) and stamped the image with tempera paint onto the A.
L -- I have a small rubber stamp leaf image and he stamped the L with green, red, and yellow ink. You could, of course, glue actual leaves to the L after a little nature walk.
W -- We glued gummy worms to the big letter W after we thought together about what other things, besides people, like to eat apples.


Books and Activities:

• Free Art.  Cut out a full page apple outline and let him color it, paint it, fill it with apple stickers, or rubber stamp all over it.  Choose whatever he enjoys the most.
• Apples up on Top.  Buy or make 10 apple die cuts and place them on his head, one at a time, counting aloud.  See how many he can keep up there. Take a few steps with them. Giggle.
• Apple Stack. Try stacking some apples. We have a crabapple tree which is great for this.  We stacked about 4 or 5 at a time. Then we got out the glue-gun and strong-armed a stack of 10. 
• Apple puzzle.  A teacher gave me an extra large die-cut apple. I cut it into jigsaw pieces and let him put it together.
• Apple mobile.  Use your full-page apple outline again.  Cut it out of cardstock.  Cut out the inside leaving a broad border around the outside.  Cut out a cardstock "core" for the middle that you can hang inside with string so it dangles within the apple outline border.  Glue real apple seeds into the core.  Hang it up from the ceiling.
• Apple Mosaic.  Print out your full-page apple outline.  Give him a sheet of red construction paper (or green or yellow). Let him tear pieces of construction paper off and glue it to the apple page.  Tearing is a great small motor skill.
• Make the Big Letter "A."   

• Make a Season Book.  Fold a regular size piece of construction paper in half and in half again to make the little book.  Use a marker to draw a bare tree on all four sides of the book.  On the front write "The Seasons of (child's name)'s Apple Tree" at the top.  Under each tree write one of the four seasons.  Your child will decorate his tree for each season: Spring (crumble up squares of pink/white tissue paper and let him glue them on the branches), Summer (tear small pieces of green construction paper for "leaves" and glue them to the branches), Fall (Ahead of time, cut yellow leaves out of craft foam.  Let him glue them to the branches followed by red apples you can make with a hole puncher), Winter (shred a cotton ball and let him glue it to the branches.  
• Family Apple Tree.   Use a 9x16 sheet of construction paper as a background.  Cut out a brown rectangle "trunk" and glue it to the bottom of the paper.  Let your child use green ink or tempera paint to put fingerprint leaves all over the paper to make leaves.  When dry, give him circle or apple diecuts.  He can tell you the names of all your family members, write one on each "apple."  Let him glue them to the tree.
• Make Apple Pie. The recipe in this book is a good one!
• Growth Cycle Cards.  Create 6 sets of cards.  Each set of cards should have a graphic of 1. apple seeds, 2. an apple blossom, 3. a tree full of apples and 4. a single apple. Adhere each set to 6 different colors of cardstock (choose the colors you want your child to practice) leaving a border around the edge. You can use these in several ways.  First, teach your child the growth cycle of an apple (from seed, to flower, to a tree full of apples and then picking them.  This is basic science. If you want to get more specific, choose different images).  Go through each set of cards telling him the growth sequence.  Once he understands it, mix the cards up and have him put the sets in order again.  He can also match the images and make stacks of them, or match the colors. You can play "go fish" with the cards or even concentration.  Use them over and over again.
• Make the Big Letter "L."
• Leaf Match Scavenger Hunt.   Use die cut leaves in different colors (two of each).  Hide them around the room/house. Let him go hunting for them.  Then he matches his pairs up when he's done.
• Apple Seed Match. Save those seeds from all the apples you'll cut up for lunches.  Write big numbers down one side of a paper (use 4-6 numbers).  Then have him glue the number of seeds next to the cooresponding number.

•  Flannel Board!  If you don't have one of these tools you can make one.  (Mine is a wooden drawing board to which I thumb-tacked a flannel baby blanket).  I never thought I'd be doing flannel board stories with my kids, but they always love it, without fail. Surf the web for apple flannel board ideas and you'll find several.  Buy lots of different sheets of colored flannel from your craft store and spend an hour cutting out the shapes you need to do the rhymes you found. For this sequential book I made: an apple pie, an apple, a tree, tree roots, raindrops, a cloud, a swath of blue sky, a sun, an earth and flowers to "bloom" on the earth.  As we read the book, he puts the correct image on the board.  Then, I mix them up and see if he can put them back in the right order according to the story.  
• Bake for a Friend.  The characters in the story share their pie with "friends."  What can you bake with apples and take to a friend? 
• "Monster" Munch. Take an empty laundry detergent box (with the "flip top" cardboard lid) and transform it into one of the animals from the story with construction paper.  My son chose a lion... was there a lion in that book?  When it's done have the animal "eat" things that start with the letters you've learned.  Do things that start with "A" one day (applesauce, apples, airplane, alligator...whatever you have in the house that will fit in the monster's mouth).  Do things that start with L on another day (Legos, lipstick, lizard, lion, etc.)  Only things that start with that letter will satisfy the monster.  And he always says, "Thank you."
• The Biggest Apple.  Cut out different sized images of apples and have him put the apples in order by size.  Try it with actual apples too.
• Leaf Rubbings.  If you don't know how to do a rubbing look up how to do it online.  Your preschooler will think it's magical. 
• Leaf Counting. Nature walks are an easy part of this unit.  Pick up leaves as you go.  Make a collage of them or separate them out and write how many of each you found.
• Leaf Booklet. Cut out six matching oversized leaf images. Staple them together to form a book.  Ideas for the pages include: cut out magazine pictures of leaves and glue them down with a statement like, "Leaves are important to trees."  Measure a leaf, glue it down and write how many inches it is.  Toss a leaf in the air and write down how high they can count to before it hits the ground, then glue the leaf in too.  Glue in your leaf rubbing and a statement that tell about what the veins of a leaf do.  Make a picture out of leaves and glue it in the book... you can do anything.  Put a big letter L on the cover and let them admire their work.

• Take a Field Trip.  Visit an orchard, apple farm, roadside stand, natural food market... anything that revisits the theme of the month. Try the cider, doughnuts or  other things they sell. 
• Make applesauce cake or cider doughnuts.  Look for recipes online.
• Matching Apple Colors.  I found a neat apple colors file folder game online and made it for my son.  If you are apple savvy, you can even put the names of the kinds of apples they might be next to each one. The color differences are subtle so it's a great tool to use over and over again.
• Apple Prepositions.  Use your monster munch creature and an actual apple.  Have your child put the apple on the monster, next to the monster, inside the monster, above, below, over, under, into, out, around, etc. 
• "Little Red House with a Star Inside."  Go here to see the story.  I made little "puppets" for the characters and put them on popsicle sticks.  That way I can tell the story and he can tell it back to me using the puppets. 
• Make the Big Letter "W."
• Wormy Apple Match.  After talking about what else likes to eat apples (besides people), we played a file folder game that I made.  I cut out 8 cute clipart images of a worm and 8 outlines of apples about three inches tall.  On each worm I printed a form of transportation and on each apple I printed the building that vehicle would go to.  (Gas truck/gas station, car/garage, etc.)  You can do any kind of association you like and have him match the worm to the apple. 

Birthday party.  You can have fun with apples in a few different ways at your own birthday party for John Chapman (Sept. 26th, 1774).

• "Bobbing" for Apples.  In about an inch of water I put in about 4 crabapples and let him grab them with his teeth.  After he was soaking wet we added more water to see of apples would float.  
• Apple painting.  Use a baking pan with sides or a big box with sides.  Put a 9x16 piece of construction paper in the bottom and dollop some tempera paint around the paper.  Put 3 crabapples in the pan/box and tip it from side to side, letting the apples roll through the paint all over the paper.
• Apple planting.   Cut apart a paper egg carton, add soil and an apple seed. Tend them with sunlight and water.  When they sprout, give them to friends to plant in their yards.
• Apple Bingo.  On your computer, use that full page apple outline graphic and create a bingo game table inside.  Fill each square with a small letter (if your child is adept at his alphabet already). Show him the Capital letter on your whiteboard/scratch paper (or use flashcards if you have them) and have him cover his matching small letter on his Bingo card.  Have a treat for him when he gets a bingo.  Instead of letters you could do colors, shapes, numbers... whatever he's ready for.
• Smash the Apples.  Get 10 apple die cuts or cut out red circles.  Write numbers 1-10 on them.  Scatter them around the floor and call out the number. Have him jump on the correct apple.  
• Apple Dips.  Make several different kinds of dip for apples:  peanut butter, caramel, yogurt, toffee, etc.  Slice different kinds of apples and let them eat.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of everything we've ever done.  We add some workpages as we find them, cutting practice, and other activities.  There are a lot of other apple themed books and websites out there so go exploring and enjoy the unit!

Bird Unit Study

Creation, being such a tangible thing, is easy for young children to grab hold of. We're basing our whole year's unit studies on the six days of creation and thinking hard about each day and the corollary outcomes of what happened on that day. I think we spent a month each looking at light, atmosphere, geology and botany. Now we're speeding up and so we spent two weeks on oceans and sealife, and now two weeks on birds.

One of J's (6th grade) favorite subjects is birds. Because he has such a vast prior knowledge of them, I just gave him a big ol' project to complete in the next two weeks. As a result, he's totally engaged and loving it.

His project has three parts:

1. Research and make a poster on one bird of your choice.

• Draw and color the bird accurately. Pay attention to details in its markings, beak shape, feet structure.
• Label the parts of the bird and describe what that part does. Use interesting facts specific to your bird rather than obvious uses.
• Classify it into the Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species in which it is placed.

2. Create a habitat/biome map.

• Carefully, color a map of the world to show these different habitats: rainforest, temperate deciduous forest, boreal/taiga forest, chaparral, grassland, savanna, desert, tundra.
• For each habitat, include a brief paragraph of information about two birds that live there (its habits, biology).

3. Migration Essay.

• Write a short essay about one species of bird and its migration. Include an introduction with a topic sentence, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

I was concerned that this would be too much to do in 7 days (we have a planned field trip and two days of Options classes, so it's not even two full weeks). But after just two days he's done with the first part of the project. Here's his poster.


And then my budding artist, B (grade 2) decided to do this amazing woodpecker picture. He's drawn it three times now in different mediums and sizes.


Last night, before bed, they both just wanted to sit and draw birds. I'm just going to go with it and give them every opportunity to do this unit the way they want to.

Other things we're doing:

• Read Aloud: There's an Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead George. We're four chapters in and there's already a good discussion going on about the tension between loggers and environmentalists during the Spotted Owl issue in California. I love having this conversation with my kids. Their mama is a pure tree-hugger.
• Second Read Aloud: Bright Wings edited by Billy Collins. This is a new book of poetry all about birds. I just read them one each day and ask what they think it's about and we talk about the descriptive words. It's a light poetry study, but it's good for us.
• Animal Life in Action videos about birds.
• J is reading about John James Audobon and doing a Famous Person Report.
• Bird sighting records. We don't get a lot of birds in our yard, but we're going to go out a few days and observe them.
  
• B is studying birds mentioned in the Bible, and not just the ones that are called unclean.
• B is reading Magic School Bus books to me.
• B has chosen to do a project on Woodpeckers similar to J.
  
• We'll go on an Audobon nature walk on Monday.
• A field trip to the nature center to learn about Birds of Prey in a couple weeks.

There's a ton of websites to use, but we've found that these are pretty user friendly:
www.whatbird.com (find birds in Colorado)
www.allaboutbirds.org (find birds by name)
www.biomes.org/biomes_map.htm (habitat map)
www.youtube.com (we looked at golden eagles attacking a wolf and pulling goats off a cliff!)

A Summer Geography Lesson

My husband surprised me with a trip for two to Great Britain to celebrate our 15th anniversary. We leave soon and I'm so excited.

One of the neat things about this trip is that the boys and I studied Great Britain last year and so we are familiar with some of the sights and history of it.

• We studied the life of George Mueller and all that was happening during the Victorian era.
• We searched online for some of the more mysterious places in GB (and there are quite a few!).
• We learned that England gave us the magnifying glass, the Christmas card, the stapler, the piggy bank, the postage stamp and the television.
• We read "Daffodils" and wrote our own poetry.
• We colored maps of the area and even learned how far reaching the Victorian Empire was.
• We learned that twice as many of its people claim to be of no religion than those who claim to be Christian.
• We learned the difference between the British Isles, Great Britain and England/Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland.
• We put ourselves in the shoes of a Victorian servant and a 19th century coal miner.
• We learned about the life of Queen Victoria.

Homeschooling has been so beneficial for the boys for so many reasons. And now I'm reaping a personal benefit having been prepared a bit to experience a culture firsthand. I wish I could take the boys so they could see it all firsthand as well. But that's not the purpose of this trip.

If I can figure out HOW, I'll try to post pictures.