 US Geography Activities Mapping Our Junk Mail into a Wall Map I recently got the book Geography Crafts for Kids: 50 Cool Projects & Activities for Exploring the World. It’s been a reassuring to see it does indeed have lots of really cool ideas for very fun projects. Most require just simple materials yet provide a hands-on, out-of-the-box approach to learn about maps, time zones, grids, topography, weather, and much more. We have picked the Mail Map project. We use all the junk or other relevant mail that comes daily and map it into a wall map. The enthusiasm that this simple idea has produced in Super Hero is delightful to see. He looks forward to clipping another address to paste into our map. I did modify the exercise by [...] Read morePosted by: Patricia |
Archive for ' Family Games '
 Real Life Math Games to Reinforce Math Skills As you may recall, we are using RightStart Mathematics for our homeschool math curriculum. Both, Super Hero and I love RightStart Math. It relies heavily on games to reinforce and cement understanding and knowledge. We have often played store, pretending we are at the supermarket or post office where we need to pay for our purchases. So I thought, why not have Super Hero pay at the real stores? He’s already very well prepared to pay for some things for real instead of make-believe. So this is just what we’ve been doing these last few days: He’s paid our bill at parking garages, La Vaquita, aka Farm Stores, Evos and Milam’s. This exercise is not only advancing his Math skills through [...] Read morePosted by: Patricia |
 Moving Beyond the Page 6-8 – Concept 1, Unit 3, Lesson 1: Living and Non Living Today we learned about the living and non living things that form our community. We went through the house, inside and outside, to collect or pinpoint things that are living and non living. Then we classified the items on a chart, answering questions such as does it change, move, grow, etc. We created a Living and Non Living collage, illustrated and described 3 attributes per item, and read “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble”. We had actually had this book for a while and had read it many times before so AA was already familiar with the story. It was easy for him then to get where we were going –what was living and what [...] Read morePosted by: Patricia |
Moving Beyond the Page 6-8 – Concept 1, Unit 2, Lesson 3: Diversity in the Community Today we learned the people that make up a community can have differences and similarities. We reviewed the fact that the United States of America is made up of people that have arrived from all parts of the world. Large groups of people from Europe arrived a long time ago, and eventually people from around the world have moved here, making the US one of the most, if not the most diverse country in our planet. Going over the book “What the World Eats” by Peter Menzel provided a fascinating pictorial depiction of the usual diets of people in several countries throughout the seven continents. Foods consumed across the world not only gave [...] Read morePosted by: admin |
Moving Beyond the Page 6-8 – Concept 1, Unit 2, Lesson 2: A Good Citizen Today we went over cause and effect concepts. We reviewed actions and consequences again in a little more detail than we had done previously (in Unit 1, lesson 12). We role played different situations to learn what kind of consequences each would generate. The most enjoyable activity was reading “Lilly’s Plastic Purple Purse” by Kevin Henkes. It’s a delightful story about a happy, vivacious, little mouse eager to learn and share with others, even if not at the most appropriate times … What a lovely way to learn about the consequences our actions will lead to. We then reviewed the story’s different situations, and compared how AA and Lilly were alike or different. Lastly, we [...] Read morePosted by: admin |
Both my son and I, are loving our RightStart Math program. What a great way to present Math to young kids. Having a bachelor’s in Mathematical Science, I can totally appreciate the amount of research Dr. Cotter and Activities for Learning have put into developing this curriculum targeted specifically for children. RightStart Math discourages counting, relying rather on mental strategies to understand the concepts. If the child already has a grasp on the material, the methodology presented will allow him to go even deeper. Rote memorization is a no-no, emphasizing cementing addition (and later subtraction, multiplication, etc.) facts by using the abacus, other manipulatives and playing games. Which child doesn’t want to play games? My son often begs to play one more time, please. It’s so well organized, the appendices [...] Read morePosted by: admin |
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