Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Homeschool preschool: fairy tale theme

In January, I started doing additional structured activities at home with Ellie. These follow my ideal way of learning for her: it's child-led, theme-based, and play-centered. See more about our first month here.

Each month, she chooses a theme. I find or create activities for her in that theme, around broad educational categories. Many of those overlap, but I try to identify a primary learning objective for each one and hit a number of categories each week. Each day we (usually) do one or two activities, depending on our schedule.

MONTH 2 THEME: FAIRY TALES 

Literacy
  • Write (brainstorm, write, revise) and illustrate our own fairy tale

  • Mixed up fairy tales: Ellie picked four fairy tales. For each one, we made a small card (2" x 2" or so) with the protagonist, antagonist, setting, conflict, and resolution. Then we turned each set face down and drew one card from each story element. She LOVED this. We revisited it multiple times throughout the month. She really began to understand how to describe story structure, and it helped in writing our own story as well. 
  • Perspective retelling: We used the Melissa and Doug Three Little Pigs set to retell the story. Then, we each picked a character and told it from his or her perspective (she chose pig 3, the girl, and told it as the big sister. HILARIOUS).

  • Write a letter to a Disney princess. Apparently, if you mail any Disney character a letter, they'll send back an autographed photo. We haven't gotten ours yet, but it's only been a couple weeks. Send them to: Walt Disney World Communications P.O. Box 10040 Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830-0040


Math 

  • Cinderella bar chart: Using our Cinderella stories from around the world (below), we graphed how many included common Cinderella elements Ellie brainstormed (stepsisters, glass slipper, a prince, a ball...).

  • Jack and the Beanstalk more or less game: We rolled two die, got two different colors of beans, added them together, and determined more and less. 
  • Word problems: I wrote a couple simple, single-digit addition word problems, then had her illustrate and solve (if the princess has three gowns and four necklaces, how many things does she have total?)
  • Making 10: I printed out a sheet with sets of 10 blank princesses. She picked how many she wanted to color blue, and I colored the rest red. Then we wrote our equations to equal 10.

Science 

  • Potion brewing: Ellie and Sam did this together for an hour. An hour, ya'll. I gave them about 10 bowls filled with random stuff I found in our pantry and fridge. I think I had baking soda, vinegar (dyed green), apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, milk (dyed red), cornstarch, flour, coconut flakes, sprinkles, salt. They each had three "potion jars" to work with, pipettes, and measuring spoons. This was a hit. Notice Ellie wearing her witch wig...



  • Free Anna: I froze Ellie's little Anna doll in a block of ice, then gave them salt, warm water, regular water, and spoons, and challenged them to free her. They worked together on this while I made dinner. I would have given them the sink if Sam could have reached it -- our floor was SOAKING wet when they were done (and I had two towels down!).

Engineering
  • Building block castles
  • Three Pigs experiment: We built houses out of paper strips (straw), popsicle sticks (sticks) and blocks (bricks). We hid a pig inside and teamed up to be the Big Bad Wolf! I had her predict which one would last the longest, but it was a great challenge building things that could be considered a "house" with the first two materials.


Art: We did sparkly princess painting. I know, I know. I'm not into crafts though. And she picked "Artists" for the next months, so I knew we'd be doing tons of art...



Music: We listened to "Peter and the Wolf"

Sensory: Fairy foam during bath, with their fairy house and fairy toys



Fine motor: Lego challenge. Ryan and I made Belle's rose, Merida's arrow, and Rapunzel's tiara out of Legos, then gave her the same pieces to figure out how to build a match. She's big into Legos and we were confident she could find the pieces if they were all mixed together, but if you're just starting, I'd keep each set separate. She also had labels to assign to each piece when it was done.




Geography

  • Around the world with Cinderella: We read Cinderella stories from around the world. We used the books for a math activity too (see above). After reading about two dozen books, I landed on the following as ones that were age-appropriate for a four-year-old, represented a variety of cultures, and were recognizable fairly easily as a Cinderella story: Princess Furball, Adelita, Cendrillon, The Gift of the Crocodile, Jouanah, and The Golden Sandal.


History: This one annoyed me. I thought I would get out some biographies of historical princesses, but they were all either WAY too text-heavy for my active preschooler, or were so out of touch with the reality of the princess's life (I'm looking at you, Pocahontas) that I gave up. If anyone has read any good biographies for preschoolers, let me know.

Cooking/kitchen: I loved this one! We paired it with a geography and literary activity. We made three special meals, each representing the country where one of the three pillars of western fairy tale literature was from. As we ate, we listened to an audio story from Story Nory.

  1. Sauerbraten from Germany, for the Brothers Grimm (Rapunzel, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, the Frog Prince, etc.).
  2. Smørrebrød, an open-faced sandwich from Denmark, for Hans Christian Anderson (The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, The Princess and the Pea, The Little Match Girl, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, etc.)
  3. Cassoulet (holy smokes, this is rich and delicious) from France, for Charles Perrault (Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast)

She asks for this sandwich about once a week now. I did NOT predict that.


What's great is that Ellie has started inventing her own activities for themes. She came up with a game that involved vague rules about matching princess letters and names. She made an Olaf out of sticks "for fairy tale theme," and made up a way to make a dragon with an old egg carton, then had Daddy make one too :-)





Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Homeschool preschool: horse theme

In January, I started doing additional structured activities at home with Ellie. These follow my ideal way of learning for her: it's child-led, theme-based, and play-centered.

Each month, she chooses a theme. I find or create activities for her in that theme, around broad educational categories. Many of those overlap, but I try to identify a primary learning objective for each one and hit a number of categories each week. Each day we (usually) do one or two activities, depending on our schedule.

We're on month three, and it's working because I'm planning and prepping EVERYTHING the month before. I've tried planning without prepping beforehand, and then I end up quitting after a few days because I get behind.

Here are links and photos of month 1, week 4!

MONTHLY THEME: ANIMALS

WEEK 4: HORSES


Math: 
Horse race game

Measure things around the house in hands

Science: Horse anatomy

Music: Rhythm cards

Fine motor: Clothespin horse color matching (she discovered these could stand up!)



Geography: Dress up a horse (File 1 and File 2. So. Much. Cutting. So worth it.)


History: Horse gait flipbook with early photography


Cooking/kitchen: Carrot-apple-cinnamon oatmeal (Ellie peeled the carrots and measured the oatmeal; Sam dumped in the ingredients)

Monday, March 16, 2015

Homeschool preschool: dog theme

In January, I started doing additional structured activities at home with Ellie. These follow my ideal way of learning for her: it's child-led, theme-based, and play-centered.

Each month, she chooses a theme. I find or create activities for her in that theme, around broad educational categories. Many of those overlap, but I try to identify a primary learning objective for each one and hit a number of categories each week. Each day we (usually) do one or two activities, depending on our schedule.

We're on month three, and it's working because I'm planning and prepping EVERYTHING the month before. I've tried planning without prepping beforehand, and then I end up quitting after a few days because I get behind.

Here are links and photos of month 1, week 3!

MONTHLY THEME: ANIMALS

WEEK 3: DOGS

Literacy
Alphabet construction to spell dog breeds (using prompt cards)


First letter sound sort (I put pieces of paper on the ground with initial sounds for "bowl," "leash," "food," "treat," and "collar." She had to place those items on the right letter).

Math: Patterning with dog food and treats (we discussed AB, ABC, and ABB patterns, and she experimented with creating her own)


Science: Dog hair under the microscope


Engineering: Design a machine to feed the dogs (I was quite impressed. It was a simple drawing but a great concept!)

Art: Paint with dog treats

Music: I made the worst-ever (don't judge!) color-coded sheet music, then put post-it note flags with the corresponding color on our piano keys. We learned how to play B-I-N-G-O (or E-I-Ban-Gee-Oh as she calls it) on the piano.


Geography: Placing breeds on their country of origin on our big world map


Cooking/kitchen: Homemade dog treats


Sunday, March 15, 2015

Homeschool preschool: seahorse theme

In January, I started doing additional structured activities at home with Ellie. These follow my ideal way of learning for her: it's child-led, theme-based, and play-centered.

Each month, she chooses a theme. I find or create activities for her in that theme, around broad educational categories. Many of those overlap, but I try to identify a primary learning objective for each one and hit a number of categories each week. Each day we (usually) do one or two activities, depending on our schedule.

We're on month three, and it's working because I'm planning and prepping EVERYTHING the month before. I've tried planning without prepping beforehand, and then I end up quitting after a few days because I get behind.

Here are links and photos of month 1, week 2!

MONTHLY THEME: ANIMALS

WEEK 2: SEAHORSES

Literacy: "Mr. Seahorse" by Eric Carle


Science: Seahorse anatomy 




Sensory: kinetic sand (aka, moon sand) play


Fine motor: seahorse transfer (I set up a 6-section chip-n-dip serving tray from the Dollar Tree with water and mini seahorses. Ellie would roll a die and use a spoon to move that many seahorses. The goal was to get them all in the middle together.)

Geography: Clay landforms and bodies of water (we made a peninsula and an island). We did this for about two hours! She loved playing in the clay, talking about what we were making, and then using our mini seahorses to hide in the ocean! 

Cooking/kitchen: Seahorse-shaped sandwiches, and I gave the kids fruits and veggies to make an underwater habitat. Ellie loved making seaweed and coral!

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Homeschool preschool: bear theme

In January, I started doing additional structured activities at home with Ellie. These follow my ideal way of learning for her: it's child-led, theme-based, and play-centered.

Each month, she chooses a theme. I find or create activities for her in that theme, around broad educational categories. Many of those overlap, but I try to identify a primary learning objective for each one and hit a number of categories each week. Each day we (usually) do one or two activities, depending on our schedule.

We're on month three, and it's working because I'm planning and prepping EVERYTHING the month before. I've tried planning without prepping beforehand, and then I end up quitting after a few days because I get behind.

Here are links and photos of month 1, week 1!

MONTHLY THEME: ANIMALS

WEEK 1: BEARS


Math

Symmetry with counting bears: I made a line of symmetry with a bead necklace. I placed a bear, then she had to place one symmetrically. Then it was her turn to place a bear first. She began experimenting with facing different directions, stacking, etc.


Probability: I put 5 each of two colors of counting bears in a cup. We talked about probability, then she closed her eyes and pulled one out. We repeated over and over. This was good for subtraction practice too.

Science

Shortening and ice water experiment (mimics polar bear insulation)


Engineering: Moveable teddy (she did this 100% independently after I had the pieces cut out)



Art: "Old Bear" collage. We did a two-step art project. First, we did four large pages with two colors each, based on the colors in the artwork of "Old Bear" by Kevin Henkes. Then, we found pictures representing each season in nature magazines and made a seasonal collage for each one. Then, we read the book and walked our little model bear through each scene.



Music: I made a Spotify playlist of music from the 1900s, around when teddy bears were invented and became popular.


Gross motor: Teddy bear toss: we collected all their teddy bears and tried different ways of tossing them into our laundry bin. 

Fine motor
Torn paper cave: Ellie hated making this because she was really bored. But she loved pretend play with it later!

Imaginets bear

Geography: Bear-habitat-map match game: I made cards to play a match game. We took turns turning over one card in each set. I wanted to focus on the geography part -- the habitat and map exploration -- more than the memory part, so when we turned them over, we left them face-up. If any of our cards completed a set, we could take them. Most sets wins, of course :-) We played this LOTS of times.


Cooking/kitchen: Bear-themed dinner of salmon, berries, mushrooms and a drizzle of honey

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

More healthy movie nights

As I said in my first movie night post, I'm a huge fan of the fun of theming movie night dinners. But eating healthy at home is super important to our family, and I've struggled to find ideas that work.

For us, eating healthy on movie night looks like:
  • Appropriate ratios of vegetables, fruit, protein, and whole grains (when possible)
  • Trying new foods
  • Limiting high-fat foods
  • Limiting sugar
  • No food dye
Here are some more of our recent menus.


The Incredibles

  • Mr. Incredible power protein pork
  • Elastigirl twisty pasta with Jack-Jack’s fiery sauce (simple syrup + red pepper flakes -- the little bit of sugar balances out the red pepper and creates a nice spicy sauce kiddos will still like)
  • Dash's fast fruit salad
  • Violet's violet veggie stack (roasted eggplant, purple potato, purple carrot, cabbage force field)
  • Frozone's frozen banana swirl (just blend frozen banana chunks until it's smooth like ice cream -- the kids have no idea there's no sugar in it. It's DELICIOUS)

Brave

  • “Turkey” legs (chicken drumsticks)
  • Carrot ribbons for Merida's hair
  • Neeps and tatties (potatoes and turnips)
  • Red pepper bow with asparagus arrows
  • Sweet buns (cinnamon rolls)
  • Chocolate teddy grahams


Sleeping Beauty

  • Chicken cordon bleu with toothpick “spindles"
  • Berry baskets
  • Pretzel rod wands
  • Broccoli forest
  • Pink sorbet


Toy Story 3

  • Woody’s badge star frittata
  • Buzz Lightyear salad
  • Mr. Potato Head baked potato with veggie faces
  • Lotso strawberries
  • Jessie’s braid Twizzler


Wreck It Ralph

  • Felix's chicken pot pie
  • Sour Bill peas
  • Round apple slice medals
  • Candy cars (Swiss cake rolls for the base, icing to hold stuff on, mini Oreos, etc. -- I bought what was on sale and let the kids decorate!)