Successfully Completed

I do a lot of planning for our little homeschool. Because I have chosen not to use much formal curriculum for preschool, Pre-K, and K, I spend a lot of time looking up ideas and laying things out. My lesson plans always rock...until we get down to the school room with real children! But sometimes, they do go off without a hitch.

A fun lesson we did this year was during our Weather unit; we learned about clouds. These activities took place over several days, and I thought I would share for anyone who wants to check them out or give them a try.

First we read Clouds and made shaving cream clouds on the kitchen table. I was impressed with this book, and we ended up using several others from the series throughout the unit (thunder and lightning, tornadoes, and volcanoes).

 

We read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, one of my childhood favorites. After we read the book, I asked Lee what foods he thought were yummy in the book. I used every ingredient on the list to plan a Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Day.

For breakfast, we ate chocolate iced doughnuts with sprinkles, pancakes with syrup, bacon, and orange juice.

Lunch was hot dogs, sliced cheese, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Dinner was meatballs, rolls, pizza, ice cream, and chocolate pie. Followed by family movie night to view the movie. I won't say it was the best kids' movie I've ever seen, but they did a decent job of sticking to the book, for book lovers like me out there.

The final activity was a cloud picnic. We laid out a blanket, ate a yummy snack, and used our cloud finder to identify the clouds that were in the sky. Hilariously, there was not one cloud in the sky when we got outside, but we had a few appear by the end of our picnic.

 I got on a kick of muffin tin meals (that I need to get back on), and I found this little snack idea. We all loved it. Think large marshmallows, peanut butter, and toppings, and you are on the right track. My favorite combos were PB + toffee and PB + rainbow sprinkles.

And, a little photo of our puny cloud. But the cloud finder made it easy to identify, for sure.

Not For Fun

My desire is not scare my children unnecessarily. Not to expose them to any materials that de-sensitize their little hearts earlier than I need to. I know the world will be happy to do this for me, so I have made it a point for this not to happen at home or through me, as far as it is possible.

I had a little wake up call last month at Safety Town. The City of Roswell puts it on each spring, and you really should go. There is a little town to practice pedestrian and driver safety, and the kids meet a real police officer and fire fighter, and learn tips from them. You really should go next year. It's for children ages four to six.

I have told my kids about strangers, and not to talk to strangers, and to stay with me. I have even told them that strangers may want to take them to "be part of their team," since we are The Hardman Team. But this is what the director of Safety Town had to say, "When Sarah goes to the car to look at this man's puppy, he will push her into his car, and she will never see her family again. Never play with her friends again. Never play with her toys again."

It was quiet in the room - a gymnasium full of four to six-year olds. At that moment, the light bulb went off. In this arena, it is not about sugar-coating the truth. It is about sharing the brutal truth with my kids, a truth that may save their lives.

Box Skating

A little more gross motor fun for the little lady.

Sinking In

One of my fears as a parent is that nothing I do will sink in. In particular, it is of utmost importance to me that they develop a relevant faith - one with which they can see that the principles in Scripture always come true. Then, they can know and trust God's perfect will for them, even if they don't see Him working, or even if His will doesn't seem "good" at the time.

Last week, we built structures out of food items from around the house, and we started talking about what makes a structure stronger. To illustrate the point, we did this little experiment: We built a cube out of linguine and marshmallows. We tried to balance a lasagna noodle on top. It fell down. We added "crossbeams" to our structure, then tried to balance the lasagna noodle.

It stood.

Little Man said, "The wise man built his house with triangles. The house on the sand did not have triangles."

"It was foolish for him to skip the triangles, wasn't it? To make his house stronger?"

"Yes."

I didn't expect it. I didn't plan for that to be part of our lesson. I am so thankful that it was.

KW-in-the-Box

{KW is 28 months old}

KW loved this little pop-up game. We put her in a box, sang a little song, and she popped out. As we played, she got better and better at waiting until I said, "pops." Of course, she had a helper...

Every couple of days, when she sees my Slow and Steady book, she looks for the page with the picture of a boy jumping out of a box and asks me to "sing" the "poem song." She is almost saying the whole thing with me now.

Finally, we had to play with the real Jack.

Check out other ideas for your little one at 1+1+1.

Newspaper Construction and Clothespin Snap

Little Man is learning about construction this month. The first week, we talked about blueprints. We talked about architects (and interior designers), and how you have to think through what you are going to build before you start. We looked at several different types of plans, and how everything that we make requires some thought. Then we built a fort.

We rolled newspapers*, two sheets at a time, and had about fifty rolls. When we tried to build our fort, however, the rolls wouldn't stand (especially with a toddler around). So we attached groups of seven with tape, then we were able to get to work.

I was impressed that after such a brief discussion, Little Man suggested we get chairs to make our fort stronger, and to hold the blankets more securely.

While Little Man worked, I had KW place clothespins on a box**. I had placed dots around the edge of a shoebox, and she was to slide the pin over the dot. I am always surprised how much she likes these activities, and how much I have to learn about learning.

The activity helps her with eye-hand coordination, one to one matching, and increased awareness of "on" and "off."

She was not able to clip the pins yet, but she has asked for the box at other times, and repeated the activity. I plan to add the clipping in when she gets bored with the current set up.

* Activity from Mudpies to Magnets, p.50.
** Activity from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, p. 97. Check out other tot school ideas on 1+1+1. You won't be disappointed!