3-5 Year Old
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: Up the Rhine to Switzerland!
Book for this month’s kids’ book club: The Overall Boys in Switzerland (This link is for the kindle or hardback version. DO NOT buy the paper book! I did and immediately returned it. It was terrible! No pictures, tiny print. I ended up just printing a pdf of this Google ebook.) This book is a sequel to this reading primer. I don’t know if I’d actually read it again. My daughter loved it, but it was really basic. So, not really a classic. Just old. 🙂 But, it’s great as a secondary reader. And, it’s a great informative story. We had a Swiss book club get together, so a mix…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: First Stop! China with Little Pear
Books for this month’s kids’ book club: Little Pear Little Pear and His Friend I found some translations, as well!! Petit Tang (French Edition!) Petit Tang et Ses Amis (French edition!) Der Kleine Shang (German Edition!) The book is a high 4th/low 5th grade reading level and would interest kids 3-10ish. There are two more books in the series. We did not read them, but plan to in the future: Little Pear and the Rabbits More About Little Pear The author, Eleanor Lattimore, actually wrote tons of books!! And they all look great! Many are out of print. I found a few at my local libraries and some reasonably…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Guest Posts, Interest Led Homeschool, Parenting, the Give Way, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Squashing Boredom: Scavenger Hunt Style!
Photo Credit: Rachel Samanyi We were stuck in a rut. The “I’m bored bug” was crawling out far too often. I could suggest an activity, but rarely did it spark a creative fire in my kids. I decided that instead of waiting for them to be bored, I would send them on an adventure to start the afternoon. We are blessed to live on a farm with plenty of space, but I think this can be done in any space…just use what you have! It took me about 10 minutes or less to write up short clues for outside and inside. The only problem…they were a little too excited! They ran…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Kids’ Book Club: All Aboard with The Boxcar Children
This month’s kids’ book club book: The Boxcar Children The book is a 3rd/4th grade reading level and would interest kids 3-11ish. We met at a park near a train museum for most of the activities, and then headed over to the train museum. If you are in the Los Angeles area, Travel Town Museum at Griffith Park is a free museum with a boxcar the kids can look at and passenger cars they can roam in and trains they can see. (Here’s a list of train museums in North America.) Because the book is about independence, I tried to set up most of the stations to give the…
- 12-14 Year Old, 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Teen Book Club, Theme
Kids’ Book Club — Destination: Wonderland!
This month’s kids’ book club book: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland This book is about a 7th grade reading level. I’d say it is appropriate for some 4 and 5 year old’s, but generally speaking probably 6 and up. My four year old understood most things, but, of course, the jokes and puns were beyond her. The only questionable part for us, was the “off with their head” aspect. Fortunately, the queen never actually does it, and we were able to talk about how very silly it is that she’d always say that. We did have to show her a deck of cards as we were reading, since we realized…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, Curricula, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Teen Book Club, Theme
Kids’ Classics Book Club
I started a classics book club for myself and my kids. For those who are like me and would like to start one up, but don’t have enough friends who are interested. LOL! I joined a few meetup.com groups in my area and posted each book club meeting and started a secret private Facebook group for those who I knew to join in as well. (Ultimately, it became just a Facebook thing. After about six months on meetup, we had about 40 members on the Facebook page, so it ended up starting to just be new people being added by word of mouth or if I met people at homeschooling…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Science, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme
Butterfly Life Cycle Party
At the end of our study of butterflies, we had a party with a few family friends. Initially I was going to have them do tons of butterfly activities, but as I started really delving into info about butterflies, I changed it to have them go through the life cycle of a butterfly. I was amazed at all the things I didn’t know about butterflies! I learned so much planning all this. And, the kids had fun too! (Ages 3 1/2 to 11) You can find the directions I used for each of the stations here. The only thing I told them to do was to bring an extra shirt.…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Interest Led Homeschool, Science, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Butterfly Life Cycle Party: Directions
Here are the directions I had at each station. This site, Learn About Butterflies, is great for printing any images you want to show them. It’s also really interesting and will give you a greater understanding of the whole process. Station 1: Make antennae Here are your supplies. Make an antennae that will stay on your head throughout your metamorphosis. When you finish, help the younger kids finish theirs. Head over to the next station. (Put out: any kind of craft supplies and headbands if you have any, pictures of antennae) Station 2: Egg Curl up in a ball at the starting point. (if you had an egg, you’d come…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Science, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Unit Study
Butterfly Study
My wonderful sister-in-law set us up with a sweet deal for a caterpillar so we could watch the transformation to a butterfly (note: this was almost a year ago!! We’re coming up on time to get a new one and do this all over again!). We got our caterpillar in its little cup. And almost immediately it attached itself to the paper towel that had been placed under the lid. So, we moved it to a laundry basket…and not one of those netted ones. This is just a regular old plastic basket. We don’t keep the butterfly, so I’m not worried about it getting out. (This is a fine example…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Letter of the Week, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way
Letter of the Week – Letter W
Day 1 Find w stickers and put on W Color and assemble Letter W Book Go to library and get w books Put out W words (wall, washer, washcloth, window…I highly recommend using masking or painting tape so nothing is ruined when you pull it off) Activity Sheet 1 Video: Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew Day 2 Color in W Outline and w Outline with: She decided to draw windows in one and watermelons in another. (Other options: watercolors, walnut shells, white, wallpaper, watermelon seeds, wire, wood [could be wooden toothpicks], waxed paper) Now that school has started, I watch a friend’s kids after school, once a week. They…
- 12-14 Year Old, 15-18 Year Old, 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Focus, English, Historical Fiction Book Lists, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way
Historical Fiction: The Great Depression
[Part of an ongoing series of historical fiction book lists for students and teachers. For the full list and to see more info, click here.] Lower Grades (K-3) Angels in the Dust-Raven (4.2/0.5) The Babe and I-Adler (3.2/0.5) Born and Bred in the Great Depression-Winter (no level) Don’t Forget Winona-Peterson (2.8/0.5) The Dust Bowl-Booth (3.8/0.5) Dust for Dinner-Turner (2.4/0.5) Finding Daddy-Harper (no level) The Gardener-Stewart (3.9/0.5) Hannah’s Way-Glaser (2.4/0.5) Home Run: The Story of Babe Ruth-Burleigh (2.0/0.5) Lucky Beans-Birtha (4.0/0.5) The Lucky Star-Young (4.6/0.5) The Man Who Walked the Earth-Wallace (3.4/0.5) Mimmy and Sophie All Around Town-Cohen (2.9/0.5) My Heart Will Not Sit Down-Rockliff (4.4/0.5) Nobody Owns the Sky-Lindbergh (3.8/0.5) Potato: A…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Letter of the Week, Preschool, Science, Teaching, the Give Way
Letter of the Week – Letter V
Day 1 Find v stickers and put on V Color and assemble Letter V Book Go to library and get v books Put out V words (vacuum, vase…I highly recommend using masking or painting tape so nothing is ruined when you pull it off) Video: How It’s Made: Violins Video: 3 Year Old Violinist Video: Shake It Off – Chargaux Violin Cover Video: Mark Ronson Uptown Funk Viola Cover Day 2 Fill in V Outline and v Outline with: velvet, vines, vowels, violet, vegetables (cut out pictures from grocery coupon mailers) or use vegetable prints Starfall Computer activity Video: Olive and the Rhyme Rescue Crew Activity Sheet 1 Day 3…
