Isaac has been studying the War of 1812 this week, and I found this wonderful video on YouTube to show him. It’s Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans” song with Lego figures acting out the song. I grew up with Johnny Horton’s music, and I especially like his historical songs. This video is so neat that I had to share it!
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
Geography Travels: Colorado
Isaac chose Colorado mostly because his aunt and uncle go there every year, and his grandparents have also been in recent years. I enjoyed teaching Colorado, because I’ve been there at least 4 times myself, even though it’s been several years ago. It’s a beautiful state for sure!
Week 1
Located and colored Colorado on the map, and located capital and major cities.
Notebook page (from Homeschool Creations)
Flag page—We used construction paper for the flag this time. Isaac put the pieces together like a puzzle and glued it.
Listen to state songs (YouTube)
Geography from A to Z: mountain range, plateau, plains, river, butte, canyon, gorge, desert, dune, valley, forest, Continental Divide
Map page (from Enchanted Learning)
Discussed 14ers (all mountains over 14,000 feet in altitude), Pikes Peak, and the Rocky Mountain National Park.
You can watch another Adventure Crew (YouTube) video on Rocky Mountain National Park HERE. It covers Estes Park and Grand Lake.
Graphed Colorado’s highest mountains—I got this customizable bar graph printable at Teacher Vision.
Discussed Great Sand Dunes, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Royal Gorge, '>Continental Divide
Click HERE for a YouTube video on Black Canyon of the Gunnison…I couldn’t embed it.
Week 2
Discussed popular Colorado sports (skiing, whitewater rafting, etc.) and US Olympic Committee
I don’t care for the music on the following video, but it’s a good demonstration of snowboarding, so I just turned the music down.
Shaun White snowboarding in Colorado:
Click HERE for a nice ski map.
Discussed Colorado animals and labeled pictures:
Mines (gold, silver), Cripple Creek
The following video does contain a section about gambling and casinos if you’d rather skip that part.
Mesa Verde and Anasazi culture (click link to learn all about the Anasazi)
Discussed the Dinosaur National Monument, Colorado National Monument, Garden of the Gods, and Seven Falls.
Colorado Websites:
The best one is Colorado for Kids. It has a great interactive map with lots of info and games.
Colorado’s Kids and Students Page has a lot of links
Kids Konnect also has loads of links.
Here some other blogs I know of that have fantastic units on Colorado. Check them out!
Get Down and Get Your Hands Dirty
I’m linking this post to “Geography/History” at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.
NEXT UP: Montana and Texas!
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
April Sensory Tub: Easter
Let me start by saying that I celebrate Easter because of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I teach this to my children. However, I don’t have a problem with rabbits, chicks, and eggs…after all, God created them. I would love to have created a sensory tub more in keeping with the Resurrection story, but things to fill the tub are not easy to find here. How I wish England had an Oriental Trading Company or something similar! If anyone knows of a similar company in the UK, please let me know.
My Easter tub is very much like an Easter basket. I used Easter “grass” and small plastic eggs. The eggs contain tiny rabbits, ducks, fuzzy chicks and small chocolate eggs. I wanted a miniature straw basket, but I can’t find one. Instead I have a straw cart with a tiny stuffed sheep to put inside it. I also included some small toy rabbits the girls have and a tiny hat.
Here are some close-up photos of the items in my tub:
So far I think Gabriela likes the tub. She requested it today, which doesn’t normally happen with sensory tubs. But then I discovered why…as soon as I gave her the tub, she immediately went on a mission to find all the eggs that contained chocolate! At least that gives her more determination to get the eggs open. She had problems getting them open at first, but she’s improving. After realizing she had found all the chocolate, she went on to pick out all the rabbits to play with.
Carisa at 1+1+1=1 has a list of other bloggers who have made Easter sensory tubs. Check out the tub Carisa made and the links to the others HERE!
I’m linking this post to “Sensory Tub Ideas” at Our Worldwide Classroom. Find links to more great sensory tubs there!
Tot School Weeks 22-23
I’m doing 2 weeks in one post, because the 2nd week we really didn’t do much. All of us had miserable colds, so Gabriela mostly watched videos or played. I did have a theme for Tot School the first week, which is unusual for me. As much as I’d love to have a theme each week, it rarely happens simply because I don’t have enough time to plan and gather materials.
Our theme was Fruits & Vegetables:
1. Sorting fruits and vegetables (Macmillan Early Skills Manipulatives set):
Fruit and vegetable cards—I got these from an old health set that had been discarded by the school I used to teach at. We sorted, matched, and discussed names of the fruits and vegetables.
Cutting an apple--I first saw this activity at Counting Coconuts. I knew it was going to be hard for Gabriela, but at least she gave it a try. She had a hard time cutting the apple all the way, but I helped her finish it. I really need to find a small wooden cutting board for her to put the apple on. Also I think the table was too high for her to be able to push down hard enough. I’ll do this differently next time! While she ate the apple slices, I read her the book Apples by Gail Gibbons.
VeggieTales—I let her watch one DVD a day, and she really enjoyed them! It was a nice break from Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Tank Engine.
Cutting plastic fruits and vegetables—I had her cut them first, and then I mixed them up and had her find the matching halves to put them back together.
Peeling and slicing a banana—I helped a bit with the peeling, but she did most of this activity by herself. I really think she felt proud of herself when she finished. She was very determined to do it!
Other Activities We Didn’t Do--Because Gabriela and I were both feeling sick the second week, I didn’t get to do all the fruit activities I had planned. One I would liked to have done is squeezing juice from an orange. Mari-Ann at Counting Coconuts did that activity, too. In the same post, she also tells how to make Frozen Orange Cups, which sound really yummy. I must try this next time! Just click on the link to read her post. You can also make orange potpourri with the help of your tot—another activity I found at Counting Coconuts. I had also planned to do more art activities and make some cardboard fruit shapes to lace. Luckily, Gabriela’s preschool curriculum, which I’m using next year, has a week on fruits and vegetables (part of a food groups unit), so I’ll get another chance!
Play shopping—She loves doing this!
Fruit Skewers—I found this idea at Montessori Candy. The only difference is that I used toothpicks and only 2 types of fruit (strawberries and bananas)…it was all I had. Gabriela really did well with this activity.
Cutting and pasting practice—Gabriela cut red pieces of paper (from strips that I pre-cut) and pasted them on an apple page. I have trouble getting her to hold the scissors properly, but it’s something we can work on over time. I found this idea (and the apple print-out) at DLTK.
Bingo dauber grapes—from DLTK (they also have corn and watermelon)
Storytime--Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg is a very popular children’s book here in England. It won the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK for its illustrations (Britain’s equivalent to the Caldecott Medal). It’s geared toward tots and has a nice rhyme with characters to “spy” in the pictures. Of course it fit well with my fruit theme.
We also read a book we checked out of the library. It’s called Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett.
I pulled out Jamberry to read to Gabriela, but then I misplaced it before we could read it. It’s somewhere in my house, but I don’t know where.
I probably have more books I could have read, but I didn’t get to them this time. Oh well.
Treasure Chest Sensory Tub—Gabriela played with this one last time before I changed it out for our new Easter tub (post coming soon). If you haven’t read my earlier posts about the treasure chest tub, click HERE.
Paper plate watermelon—Gabriela sponge-painted the rim of a paper plate green. I helped her paste a red circle in the middle, and then she pasted the black construction paper seeds on that. Finally, we cut it in half (with a lesson on the concept of “half”). I found this idea at DLTK.
Library--Since it’s been a bit warmer and the daylight is longer, we’ve been going to the library (we walk, as there is no free parking near the library) more often. Gabriela loves choosing books. We plan to sign her up for her own library card next time. Here’s what she chose this time: 
Field Trip to Speke Hall, which is a Tudor-era house and estate right by the Liverpool Airport--Gabriela enjoyed the playground, the sand tables, and watching airplanes landing and taking off. There’s a path at Speke Hall that overlooks the airport, so we always watch the planes when we go. Because it’s a small airport, it’s not very busy, so we often have to wait awhile before seeing a larger passenger plane. We mostly just see very small planes. On this particular day, we watched fire trucks and fire-fighters practice putting out a plane fire in case of an emergency. Sort of a sobering thing to watch—even if it was just practice. We also toured the house and just relaxed in the gardens. It was a very beautiful day! The photo on the 2nd row below, on the right, is of Gabriela watching the planes.
I’m linking this post to “Tot School” at 1+1+1=1.
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