Weather Tracking / Sept. 2014

 

Types of weather for the month of Sept. 2014:  

Sunny, Partly Cloudy with no rain, Partly Cloudy with rain, Cloudy with no rain, Cloudy with rain

 

Learning to Graph information for comparison:

 

My Favorite Care Bear (art), Number Line Math, & Learning to Read...

 

My Granddaughter is always proud of her work!

She has just begun her second year of Pre-School / Pre-K.

 

My Grandson is so excited that he has finally learned how to draw a star!

He has just begun grade 1 at age 5.  

My Grandson has learned how to add and subtract single digit numbers using a number line, his fingers, blocks, or whatever is handy.  (Memorizing the addition and subtraction facts will come as time goes by.  Understanding must come first!)  

  

My Grandson can now read many simple, short-vowel words.  He has recently taken a practice Spelling test (his first one) and scored 80%.  How encouraging it is to see your efforts as a homeschooling parent bearing fruit!  

Fun with Pattern Blocks...

 

I absolutely love Melissa & Doug wooden educational toys!

They are colorful, durable, and so much fun! 

This set comes with 5 boards, each having a picture printed on both the front and the back, making 10 pictures in all from which to choose.

 

My three year old granddaughter likes matching the shapes to the pictures.

My five year old grandson prefers doing his own thing!

  

You can see how much my little granddaughter likes playing with this toy.

She kept on playing with it long after her older brother had moved on to something else.

"M m" is for "Mittens"...

 

 

We have been learning the letter "M m".  "M m" is for "Mittens".  Today we learned the poem / story about the "Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens" (literature / reading).  My two young students and I made a large poster depicting these kittens wearing their mittens (art).  The kittens represented each of them, as well as their baby brother.  This poster makes a great visual aid for learning the story, learning rhyming words, recognizing the letter "M m" and the sound it makes (phonics), learning the opposite words "lost" and "found", learning colors (brown, black, tan, etc.),  and learning to recognize the numbers 1-2-3 (math). I suppose the story of the three little kittens could also be counted as a social studies lesson as it shows how irresponsible behavior will result in a negative consequence. 

 

"M m" is also for "Mammal".  We discussed the characteristics of mammals (science).  They are warm-blooded, have hair / fur, give birth to live young, and they produce milk to feed their babies.

Our poster is almost as large as the children's school table, which will comfortably seat 4 small students.

"R r" is for Rocket ( lift-up book ) craft project...

Fold a piece of cardstock in half to make a tall, slim book approx. 11 and a half inches tall and 4 and half inches wide.  Copy a free coloring picture of a rocket from the internet, color, and glue to the front of the book.  Give your book a title.

On the inside of the book / card stock sheet, color the right half black (outer space).  Add star stickers or dabs of glitter glue, and a partial picture of the moon (to the top of the page). My moon picture was cut from a magazine.  If you prefer, you could copy a picture of the moon (to color) from the internet.  

Next, color half of another piece of cardstock black.  Cut the black section away from the whole page. Cut about 1/5 of the length off of the top of the black section.  Put glue on the back of the lower 1/4 of this piece and attach it to the bottom of the black, colored side of your book.  Add a partial picture of the earth to the bottom.  My earth picture was cut from a magazine.  If you prefer, you could copy a picture of the earth (to color) from the internet.  

Fold this black section in half toward you.  Then fold the upper half (also in half) away from you.  Attach a small picture of a rocket to the top fold with the tip of the rocket and the exhaust from the rocket extending slightly past the upper and lower edges.  

Unfold the loose, black section and color in some exhaust fumes ascending upwards from the earth to the rocket.  Add more star stickers or dabs of glitter glue.  On the left-hand side of the page/book, add some facts about rockets, the moon, the first man to walk on the moon, etc.  Add a "countdown to blast-off" if you'd like.  This would be a good way to bring numbers/math/counting backwards into your lesson.  After everything has dried well, fold down the rocket section, then unfold it back up to demonstrate how it travels to the moon.

Curriculum covered by this project:  Science,  Math,  Art,  History / Social Studies.  You could even add a Geography lesson by finding on a map and/or globe the location of the blast-off.

A fun way to do school!

I got this idea from the Teacher Resource Book entitled How to Make Books with Children, Volume 2  by: Joy Evans & Jo Ellen Moore.

Cotton Swab Snowflake (shows symmetry)

Cotton Swab parts used:

4 with the tips of one end cut off / save tips

2 cut into halves / use all 4 halves

16 tips / you already have 4 tips saved - cut the tips from 6 more swabs

A total of 12 swabs will be used.

Glue pieces onto construction paper or colored card stock