Theme
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California State Parks Checklist
After this last year plus of quarantine, I’m itching to get out more. But, not too far out for now. So, as I plan for next year, I was thinking we could start a couple longterm goals. 1. Get to all the national parks in the U.S. and its territories.2. Get to all the California State parks (and future goals of many state parks of states we don’t live in…not sure we have enough time in our lifetime to hit them all!) So, I easily found a free checklist for national parks here. But, I had a much harder time finding a checklist for the state parks. All the ones…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, Curricula, Elementary Level, English, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Math, Science, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme
Learning Plan: Age 6
Well, the new year has started! This is our first official year, paperwork included, as a private school here in California. California doesn’t have homeschoolers. Those who are homeschooling without the support of a public school system (like a charter school), file paperwork just like any private school here in the state. So, we decided to have a name for our school. It took us awhile to decide, as we wanted something we could use until they’re out of school. We also wanted something meaningful to our mission as homeschoolers. It took us two days of lots of not so great ideas to come to one that, knowing us and…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School
Tot School: Community Worker (Helper) Theme
Another post that fell to the wayside with my second pregnancy…so mainly pictures here. 🙂 But, hopefully you’ll get some ideas and be inspired for your own look into it. I put “helper” in the title to help for those searching for ideas, but I always said “worker”. I think it’s a misnomer to call people “helpers,” because their job involves helping people. Pretty much any job does, but nobody ever says a community helper is a cashier. Yes, firefighters help people, but they also get paid to do it. They’ve chosen it because they like the job, and they get paid to do what they like. As is the…
- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, Book Clubs, Book Focus, English, Interest Led Homeschool, Kids' Book Club, Preschool, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School
Kids’ Book Club: Oh, the Places We’ll Go with Dr. Seuss
Books for this month’s kids’ book club: Any by Dr. Seuss (I’ll link all of them at the end of the post. We almost got to them all!) I tried to do some Wacky Wednesday things. Balloon tree — wacky! Shoe tree – wacky! She dressed up as a wacky Daisy-Head Mayzie. That was a real flower! 🙂 Here’s the star machine from the Sneetches book (my favorite!) I put sticky stars out for the kids to put on (and take off). 🙂 Then they colored a picture I found of Hop on Pop on the Seussville website. I also set up flowers and pipe cleaners for them to make…
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Tot School: Airplane Theme
It’s been over two years since I did this theme. I got pregnant that year and a lot of my tot school posts went to the wayside. So, I figured at least I could post the pictures I have. We were planning a trip on a plane. She was 2ish, and hated things of hers being taken away. So, I figured it might be helpful to talk a lot about the airport experience and prepare her for the loss of her stuff for a little while and during the security check. We did some dramatic play with her dolls going through the airport. Going through the metal detector. Sitting in…
- 3-5 Year Old, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Science, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School, Unit Study
Tot School: Fall Theme
It’s been over two years since I did this theme. I got pregnant that year and a lot of my tot school posts went to the wayside. So, I figured at least I could post the pictures I have. Fall Bath — I had my husband cut out leaves. I remember trying myself, and if you look closely you can probably tell which two I did. 😉 That’s shaving cream with orange dye. Playing in leaves. Collecting leaves for gluing onto a paper. Playing in the rain. We visited a pumpkin patch. We don’t do Halloween, so I’ve never really gone to these, but during the week, they’re pretty benign.…
- 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, 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…
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- 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, Interest Led Homeschool, Preschool, Science, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Tot School, Unit Study
Camping
There was a camping trip planned with our church, and I was five months pregnant and sick…every day!!! So, I decided to not go camping with my daughter and husband. And, although it was almost as much work planning and packing, it was definitely nice to have a little break while they were gone. The few days before they left, I did a short (very simple) camping theme, just to help prepare my daughter for what was to come. We did a few fun activities. By the time we were done, she was so ready to go and had a great time with everyone and bonding with her dad. We…
- 12-14 Year Old, 3-5 Year Old, 6-8 Year Old, 9-11 Year Old, History/Social Science, Interest Led Homeschool, Science, Social Activities, Teaching, the Give Way, Theme, Unit Study
California History Field Trip: Native Americans and Exploring
My sister-in-law is homeschooling her 4th and 2nd grader. She is not a fan of California history (crazy!), so I offered to try and put together some field trips for the kids. We live in the general LA/San Gabriel Valley area, so you won’t be finding us taking any Sacramento trips. I love my niece and nephew, but I’m definitely not taking them that far. 🙂 For our first trip, we focused on the Native American group in the area (Tongva) and exploration by the Spanish, by means of the LA River and Arroyo Seco. This lesson plan can also be used for any area, you’d just have to find…
