Theme Thursdays - Apples

A few weeks ago, I wrote up my first Theme Thursday, documenting what we do on our theme days in homeschooling.  Here's the next one in the series.

 

Here on Temporary Insanity, I will be posting Theme Thursdays each week to share what activities we did and what resources we used on our special day. All of the instructions and links will be right here so please feel free to use them. I am including lots of extra ideas as well - no need to do them all, of course! Keep in mind that my activities are tailored to two kindergarteners and one second-grader; you can adjust them to fit your family.

This week, the theme is apples.  You can find previous themes here. 

BOOKS:

1.  The Life and Times of the Apple by Charles Micucci.  This read is full of interesting facts about apples and how they grow.  The hand-drawn illustrations are fascinating!

2.  Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins.  Fun counting book!

3.  How Did That Get in My Lunchbox? The Story of Food by Chris Butterworth.  We just read the part about how apples are made into apple juice and put in juice boxes. 

4.  Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.  This is the book that gave us the idea for our craft project. 

     Here are some other apple reading suggestions:

5.   How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro

6.  The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons

7.  Apple Fractions by Jerry Pallotta and Rob Bolster

8.  Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo LeSieg     

 I drew up some pages for the kids to make their own apple book.  They colored the cover, and we worked on the pages together.  We reviewed the sound a makes and made a list of words with a in them.  We labeled the parts of an apple on another page and did some apple math problems on the next.  We talked about how the apple tree changes throughout the seasons and colored a page to go along with that discussion.  Just click on the pictures below, save them to your computer, and then print them out for your apple book activity. 

 ART PROJECT: 
     The kids really enjoyed making star stamps with apple cores.  As you can see in the photos above, we cut an apple in half horizontally, cut out the center, removed the seeds, painted the apple stamp with white paint, and then carefully stamped in on colored cardstock.  When the prints dried, the kids folded their paper and made cards for their grandparents.  (handwriting practice!)
Some other apple-themed arts/crafts:
1.  Fingerprint Apple Tree
2.  Paper Plate Apple
3.  Apple Shrunken Heads

 KITCHEN ACTIVITY:
     We decided to make baked apples for our snack.  Simply take your apples (we used Pink Lady apples) and core them almost down to the bottom.  Make a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon and let the kids fill up their apple with it.  Cut some small pieces of butter to top off the apples.  Put a few inches of water in a pan and place the apples in the water.  Bake for fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. 
Some other apple-themed kitchen activities:
1.  Applesauce
2.  Apple Pie Party Dip
3.  Caramel Apples

HISTORY:
    A natural history study for an apple theme is Johnny Appleseed.  There are lots of printables and other activities on the internet that you can use to learn more about Johnny Appleseed as well as many books available.  The Drama Queen happened to have a story about Johnny Appleseed in her reader that she read aloud to all of us, and then we reenacted his story in the living room. :)

Have fun;  our next theme will be Spiders!

Theme Thursdays - Pigs



In our homeschooling adventures this year, I am seeking to break free of traditional school methods and curriculum.  As a classically-trained teacher, just the thought of shying away from the familiar and the "normal" frightens me.

 

But we are doing it.

 

And the more we venture out of MY comfort zone, the more relaxed and more excited I become.  THIS, I realize, is exactly why - the intangible reason why - I wanted my kids home with me in the first place.

 

As part of our new adventures, we are doing a theme day once a week in which we abandon our regular activities, take up a theme, and focus all of our activities on the theme.  I plan the day in advance to be sure we will get in mathematics and reading and all the important subjects (all in theme of course).  I also plan a kitchen activity and an art project as well. 

 

Here on Temporary Insanity, I will be posting Theme Thursdays each week to share what activities we did and what resources we used on our special day.  All of the instructions and links will be right here so please feel free to use them.  I am including lots of extra ideas as well - no need to do them all, of course!  Keep in mind that my activities are tailored to two kindergarteners and one second-grader;  you can adjust them to fit your family.

 

This week, the theme is pigs. 

 BOOKS: 
      One of my favorite things about theme days is the amount of books we delve into together.  Here's what we read:
1.  Pink Pigs APlenty by Sandy Nightingale (a counting book - great for practicing math skills)
2.  Piggies in the Kitchen by Michelle Meadows 
3.  Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud by Lynne Plourde (lots of onamatopoeia and silly words - fun for new readers!)
4.  If You Give a Pig a Pancake by Laura Numeroff
And here are some other book ideas:
5.  Any of the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems.  My daughter LOVES reading these books aloud to her brothers, and her brothers think Piggie is hilarious.
6.  Perfect Piggies by Sandra Boynton
7.  Any of the Mercy Watson books by Kate DiCamillo (great for early readers!)
8.  ABC - I Like Me by Nancy Carlson (super cute alphabet book)
9.  Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (just read a few excerpts from this longer book - can't miss with this classic)
10.  Do Not Open This Book by Michaela Muntean
 READING:
     Of course, we read books #1-4 together.  After reading Pink Pigs APlenty, we talked about the letter P and the sound it makes.  The kids helped come up with a list of twenty words that started with P, and the Drama Queen practiced her writing (and spelling!) by putting them up on the white board.  The Drama Queen got to read If You Give a Pig a Pancake  aloud to all of us.  We talked about actions and consequences, and then made up our own "If you...then" story. 
MATHEMATICS:
     The boys are still working on counting and identifying numbers.  So, I told them the story of the three pigs.  Then we made houses out of "sticks" (toothpicks) and counted them, practicing writing the numbers on the paper next to the houses.  The Drama Queen worked on her "skip-counting" with the same project.  I had her focus on counting by twos, fives, and tens. 
KITCHEN ACTIVITY:
   

     We decided to make Perfect Piggie Eggs to learn kitchen skills and make a snack.  Making perfect hard-boiled eggs is a great kitchen skill to learn.  I taught the kids to put the eggs into the pot first before covering them with cold water and a dash of vinegar.  When the water came to a full boil, we removed the pot from the hot burner and covered it for fifteen minutes.  (Science lesson here:  If the eggs cook too long, the iron in the egg yolk and the sulfur in the egg white react to form a grayish-green color.)  After fifteen minutes, the kids helped me move the eggs immediately into ice water to stop the eggs from cooking any further.  Peeling the eggs proved to be too stressful a task for the boys; so I did that myself before we got to the fun part.  We deviled the yolks with a simple mix of mayo, yellow mustard, and salt.  I cut the carrots into ears and nostrils while the Drama Queen cut string cheese into pig snouts.  We put the peas, carrots, cheese snouts, and deviled yolk mixture on the table, and everyone got to creating their pigs.  And eating them. 
Some other kitchen activities to go with a pig theme:
1.  Pigs in a Blanket
2.  Piggie Cupcakes
3.  Pig Cookies

ART PROJECT
     I like to keep art projects simple, especially for the Beast.  He gets easily frustrated with complicated projects.  These paper bag pig puppets were super easy to make.  The kids practiced cutting and gluing skills to make these, and then they had the opportunity to demonstrate their drama skills to their baby sister.
Some other pig art projects you might consider:
1.  Piggy Bottle Bank
2.  Egg Carton Pigs
3.  Balloon Piggy
SCIENCE
     We borrowed National Geographic's Really Wild Farm Animals dvd from the library and watched it during lunch.  The kids learned that farm pigs have relatives in the wild (warthogs) and a host of other pig facts that even I didn't know.
Other science activities in a pig theme:
1.  Fun Pig Fact Website
2.  Experiments based on The Three Little Pigs

The kids loved it.  They can't wait for Theme Day every week!  I usually tell them on Monday what the theme is so they can look forward to it all week. :)

Next week is Apples! 

First Day

 Planning, praying, perspiring, more planning, pondering. . . The decision to homeschool our three oldest this year was certainly not easy.  Although I am beyond certain that we made the right decision, it still doesn't take away the butterflies and the "what-if's" and the uncertainties.  Technically last year was our first year of homeschooling, but it was only the Drama Queen.  She is bright and loves school; so it really was an easy year overall.  Being pregnant with Little Sprout did complicate things a little, and towards the end, we were both agonizing through endless worksheets and books.  I am learning a lot about homeschooling though.  It's not "school at home."  You don't have to do every. single. worksheet.  If she can spell all the words on her list without looking on Monday, there's no sense in dragging it out for the whole week.  If curriculum isn't working, I have the power to ditch it and find something that does.  Anyway.

 We had our first official day of school yesterday.  The Nerd had steam-cleaned the carpet in our "school-room" the night before; so I got up early to move furniture back in, look over lesson plans, make pancakes, soothe an unhappy baby, push the unfolded laundry to the end of the couch, etc.

 When I came out to the living room, I found Little Miss Drama Queen curled up on the couch asleep.  As soon as she smelled the pancakes sizzling on the griddle, she shot up from under her blanket and asked if it was time to start school yet.  I was tickled to see that she had gotten up in the middle of the night and changed into her "back-to-school outfit" before going back to sleep.

 Since no day passes around here without some drama, our first day of homeschooling certainly had its share.  Spud woke up sobbing that he didn't feel good and spent all his time at the breakfast table crying that his brother was "looking at him."  The Beast was of course overstimulated with the excitement and difference in schedule.  He spent a lot of time running into walls and causing general chaos.  No one was particularly thrilled to be posing for so many first day pictures, but obviously they did a great job faking it.

The school day went well enough.  It helped me see where my planned schedule didn't work and where I could cut time.  I got the same tingle of excitement that I got every year as a school teacher before I had my kids.  When asked what their favorite part of the day was, The Drama Queen responded with "math class" and the Spud favored coloring the American flag in history class.  The Beast's favorite?  Sharpening pencils and making sure everything was in his pencil box.  Obviously we have lots of room for progress. :)  Afterwards, we headed out to the library to check out books on the topics we are studying in history and science.  Then I took them to the park to burn off some extra energy.  (I had no extra energy at this point).

Here's to another successful day today.  Hey, I'll settle for a pretty average day.  Also, I need to write in "Teacher Nap Time" on the schedule.

We Made It!

If you are thinking that the girl in the photo is looking entirely too grown-up these days, I am in complete agreement!  The Drama Queen is 6-going-on-16 some days, I'll tell you!

We started off our first year of homeschooling as a kindergartener.  I took photos of her on her first day of kindergarten, because that's what grade she was supposed to be in.

However, I had purchased first grade curriculum since it seemed a more appropriate subject level for her.  The girl flew through the curriculum with ease.  Therefore, we are considering this past year her first grade year after all.

Her favorite subject was arithmetic for sure.  She learned about money and measurements;  she memorized addition and subtraction families up to 13.  She learned how to carry when adding large numbers, but most importantly, she learned how to apply all her new math skills to real-life situations.

Her least favorite subject was handwriting.  (I love handwriting, but I am pretty sure I am in a very small minority there!)  I had decided to teach her cursive mainly and work on her manuscript on the side.  In retrospect, I think I might have skipped the whole cursive thing.  It was taxing, trying, and agonizing to say the least.  But hey!  The girl can write in cursive now.  Her manuscript letters do need some work; so I know what we will be focusing on this summer. 

The best part of the year for me was watching my little reader blossom!  She started off the year faltering through her favorites like Amelia Bedelia and the Berenstain Bears;  now she eagerly devours anything readable in her sight.  Yesterday she read several pages to me from her new book about the human body, pronouncing words like immune, system, and disease with no trouble.  I know that learning her special sounds in phonics helped a great deal; but I would be remiss if I didn't mention video games as an important tool also.  If the Drama Queen had a productive (and non-whiny) day of school, oftentimes the Nerd would reward her by playing some Legend of Zelda with her in the evenings.  For any of you that may have played this game "back in the day," you will know that it involves a lot of reading the screen to find out what you have to do next.  At first, the Nerd mostly read the directives out loud as they played; now she reads them and excitedly tries to solve whatever problem Link is facing.  She adores the Legend of Zelda (hence the shirt in the picture!) and has branched out to other games as well.  Our local library allows us to borrow select titles for the Wii - I think she has benefited most educationally from the Build a Bear game and the Jump Start game. 

For our first year, I mostly stuck to the curriculum (A Beka Book) that we had purchased.  Now that I have had a little experience with this, I plan on branching out, putting together a curriculum that works best for my three oldest and trying to be a little more creative with my resources.

I plan on having the kids do some review in math, reading, and writing over the summer, but for now we are on "vacation."  Of course, the Drama Queen is busy right now rounding numbers to the nearest ten on her Jump Start game...

(Just realized that it might look like this post was sponsored by the game companies I linked to.  No such luck - I just put the links up in case anyone reading this post wanted to find the games we use.)

Art Project #5 - Thankful Turkeys

This week's project is in preparation for Thanksgiving coming up next week. You should already have all the materials on hand, and the steps are super easy!

Project Title: Thankful Turkeys

Materials Needed: white paper, crayons, scissors, glue stick, pencil or pen

Purpose: To practice coloring and cutting skills as well as express the things one is thankful for.

Aren't these just the cutest turkeys?

First, you will need to trace your child's hands and one foot on the white paper. (The photos show a turkey made from an adult's hand and footprints; of course a child's prints will be smaller.) Have your child color the foot shape brown for the turkey body and the hand shapes in multiple colors for the turkey feathers. Assist them in cutting out the three shapes.

Make the other shapes needed to complete the turkey. Three triangles colored yellow will serve as a beak and feet. Two skinny yellow rectangles will be the legs, and don't forget to cut out two little eyes and a wattle. (Googly eyes would be cute too if you have them on hand).

Using the glue stick, have your child glue the two hand shapes together as shown. Cut off the thumbs - they won't be necessary for the project.

Then, help your child glue the rest of the turkey together. The foot shape comes next as the turkey body, glued on top of the hand shapes. Next, glue the facial features to the turkey's head. Finally, glue the legs to the back of the turkey body and glue the feet on the ends of the legs.

If your child is old enough to write, have them write down eight things they are thankful for. Cut out the words and glue to the turkey feathers. Write "(Name) is thankful for" on a small circle of white paper and glue to the turkey's tummy.

Then of course, don't forget to display the resulting cute turkeys for your Thanksgiving celebration! Save them afterwards, as they will be permanent reminders of the size of your little one's hands and feet at this age. :)

Art Project #3 - Pointillism Apples in a Bushel

Project Title: Pointillism Apples

Materials Needed: white paper, school glue, glue stick, craft paint, q-tips, sticks/twigs, leaves, brown crayon, scissors

Purpose: To teach students about the art form of pointillism. Also is helpful in cutting and gluing practice.

First, gather all of your materials. For the bushel basket, I printed off this image here and cut it out as shown (minus the apples). For the apples, I printed off this image here and traced it six times on a sheet of white paper. The kids helped me gather small leaves and twigs for the project.

Next, set up the painting station. I used a divided plate for our three colors - red, green, and yellow, and gave each child three q-tips. I should mention that although it is not pictured, I did end up setting everything out on newspaper to protect the table! :) (If you have older kids, you can teach them how to mix red with various amounts of white to make different shades of red for their apples, and so on.)

Demonstrate how to dip the Q-tip into the paint and then make a dot in the apple shape without dragging it around like a paint brush. Have your child fill up the apple shape with as many dots as they can without blending them together. Your child may wish to do two or even three colors on their apple to make it more realistic looking. Explain that pointillism is painting with tiny dots so that they become blended in the viewer's eye. You can even demonstrate that putting a bunch of blue and yellow dots close to each other will make it appear green from a distance.

Once your child finishes painting her apples (or gets tired of it!), set them aside to dry. Have your child glue the bushel basket to the bottom of a blank sheet of white paper and then color it brown.

Next, use the school glue to make thin lines on the bushel basket and attach the twigs. Break the twigs to a smaller size if necessary. Remind your child that this glue does not dry instantly; thus they must be careful not to bump the previously placed twigs on their basket.

When all glue and paint has dried, give your child a safe pair of scissors and instruct them to cut out their apples. This is good practice for following a curved line with scissors. Help them if they get frustrated.

Use the glue stick to glue the apples wherever the child chooses in the bushel basket.

Finally, squeeze large dots of school glue to the top of each apple and gently set the stem of each leaf in the glue dot. Set the whole project in a place where it will not be disturbed until the glue has dried.

My daughter chose to write "A is for Apple" on her project, and we hung all three projects up as pretty fall decor when they finished.

I say "A is for Adorable"! :)

Art Project #2 - Dyed Rice Flag

Project Title: Dyed Rice Flag

Materials Needed: white poster board, crayons (red and blue), ruler, pencil, 4-5 cups rice, food coloring (red and blue), rubbing alcohol, school glue, mini marshmallows

Purpose: To teach students to explore different textures in art.

(I chose to do an American flag with this project since we studied it in history class and also since this art class closely followed the tenth anniversary of September 11th. The technique in this project however would be perfectly suited to any design or shape.)

First, gather your materials. You will also need two bowls and spatulas for the dying of each color of rice.

Then, dye your rice. For the red rice, we put two cups of rice into a large bowl. We added two teaspoons of rubbing alcohol and stirred it until all the rice looked wet. Then we added several drops of red food coloring and stirred until we were happy with the red color we achieved. For the blue rice, we used one cup of rice, one teaspoon of rubbing alcohol, and considerably less food coloring.

Spread each color of rice on a cookie sheet or pan with edges to dry. I put our trays on top of the stove and turned the oven to low to speed the drying process. The color on the rice dried very quickly.

While the rice was drying, I had the Drama Queen color the red stripes and blue field on the poster board flag I had drawn up the night before. The flag I made measured 13 inches by 22 inches. Each stripe was one inch wide, and the blue field measured 7 inches by 9 inches.

Now, it was time to add the rice. I squirted some school glue onto the blue field first and spread it into an even layer with a paint brush. Then we took handfuls of the blue rice and pressed them into the glue, covering as much of the area as possible.

We did the same thing with each red stripe. We found it was important to press the rice in firmly and put more rice on than you would think was necessary.

As the blue and red areas dried, I used another clean paint brush to carefully sweep away any rice that had fallen into the white stripes.

Finally, we added the white rice in between the red stripes. Don't stress if some white or blue rice makes it into the red stripes - you can remove those later with tweezers or just let it be. :)

When the project was completely dry, I tilted it up on one end and let all the loose rice fall off. ( I saved it all in a container for my autistic son to use in his sensory activities.) The Drama Queen helped me arrange the marshmallows on the blue field before I hot glued them in place. Before I could get the camera to take this last picture, however, the Spud managed to swipe a few marshmallows from the flag.

I haven't decided yet how we will display our flag - I probably will spray it with some sort of adhesive to make it more durable and then hang it in an area where a few grains of fallen rice here and there don't really matter.

The Drama Queen's favorite part was dying the rice*; so we plan on dying more colors of rice and making a big sensory box for the kids to dig and play in.

*You can also use this dying technique with any kind of pasta. Just be aware that the pasta takes much longer to dry than the rice does.

Homeschool - First Day

Well, we took the plunge and started our year of homeschooling the Drama Queen on Tuesday. This decision to homeschool our daughter did not come without its share of inner turmoil, fears, anxieties, and general "What-if?"s. Still, I know it is the absolute best thing for our family this year, and I looked forward to the first day almost as eagerly as our little scholar. I was nervous about time management and little-boy-wrangling on the side, though.

The Drama Queen started the day off by posing for a bunch of first-day photos and exploring the writing instruments and shiny new textbooks in her desk. Although she is technically in kindergarten, her academic skills are far beyond that of a kindergartener; so I purchased first grade curriculum to teach to her this year.

I wrote out some rough lesson plans for our first day for each of her subjects, not knowing how much time it was going to take to teach one child each of these things. I am used to planning out lessons for classes of 15 or more students! During our first day, I recorded how much time it took for each subject to use for future lesson planning. Disregarding sibling interruptions and other distractions, actual class time was about 2 1/2 hours - much faster than I anticipated. We made time for a "recess" break and a snack as well. The Drama Queen soaked it all in, especially science class, which is her favorite by far.

We set up a large white board in the dining room for the teaching times. I have always enjoyed "board work" as a teacher and would take hours in the evenings to set up my boards for the next day of school. now I get to do that again - on a much smaller scale of course, but it is so fun to see the Drama Queen's reaction when she comes out for breakfast in the morning and sees the exciting things we will be learning that day.

Of course, we don't want to leave the Beast out of all of this. As I mentioned before, he has been approved for a blended class at the local community school this semester (a mixed class of both "normal" kids and kids with autism or attention deficit disorder.) He started his first class with his new teacher, Miss Alison, today. He went right into the classroom but then the shyness and nerves took over. He headed straight for a chair in the reading corner and hid behind it. When I picked him up two hours later, he kept hugging and kissing me and asking me to hold him. I tried to talk to him about what he actually did in school that day, but as usual the vague little man left me hanging. All I know is that there is a class pet turtle.

In the meantime, the Spud tries to horn in whenever he can. I caught him singing today, "A,E,I,O,U, I can sing my vowels to you." I do try to include him in Bible time as well as art time and other activities as much as possible.

Of course, we are in the midst of first-week-of-school-euphoria. I am fully expecting a stubborn Drama Queen to melt down at some point in the future, crying that she can't do it, and also anticipating that this growing-ever-more-tired-by-the-day preggo momma will have a day or two when I just don't want to do it. Welcome to real life, peeps!

And with that, I had better get some rest. We are facing basic addition in arithmetic tomorrow!