Animal Classification: Enrichment and Extensions

We have been working very steadily on our animal classification and adding to our bulletin board(which is really the bi-fold doors to the closet)

Up to now we have learned

• the difference between living and non living things
• kingdoms of living things
• vertibrates and invertabrates and how to tell the difference. 
• we have also subdivided the animal kingdom into mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds and fish

At this point we are having fun adding extensions to our learning with lots of fun activities.

We played with puzzles to learn all about the different animals

We played folder games. The top folder games I made from Primary Partners and the bottom one came from File Folder Fun.

These were the selections pulled for silent/independent reading.

We sang Kindermusic songs about the creatures in our backyard

We played with animals and their habitats

We sorted mini animals into their different groups

We did our math using a barrel of monkeys(besides who says you have to count beans!)

We played fish games. (These came from Nana!)

We read the book Froggy gets Dressed. (The boys love these books, they are simple and sweet and fun)

We used the materials from Kizclub to add to our reading experience.

These activities were so fun and my kids really enjoyed them. It was also a nice way to step away from worksheets for the day.

Let's make some music!

   Those who know me know how much I love to listen to music. It leaves an impression inside of a person. It can impact how a person feels, help generate ideas and much more. One of the Chinese symbols for the word "joy" also means "music". I find it amazing how music can indeed bring joy. In our home it often allows us to express how we feel without having to search for the right words.

      I like to implement music where ever and when ever I can, knowing how important music is. I often play music during free choice, seat work, book nook time and any other time I can. I also like to set time apart just for music. I have the children practice violin, but we also do spend time learning about music. Many people think you have to be an expert at piano or have a music background to have music part of their homeschool but that is just not true. Most people are good listeners and can help their children become good listeners too.

Things I include in a music lesson:

• how to listen-Is the music fast or slow? Is it high or low? Is it quiet or soft? I often use a picture of a lion and a picture of a mouse mounted to a craft stick and have the kids hold up the right stick.
• when and how to participate- using egg shakers or rhythm sticks to the beat of the music
• moving to the music-moving fast or slow, etc. This would be a great time to use scarfs or ribbons or any other item to help exaggerate the movement. My boys especially love bouncing hula hoops.
• recognizing notes on the treble clef and and what rhythm they represent.

 While you can pop in your favorite tunes and learn these concepts, we have been very blessed to be able to use Kindermusic books and Cd's for our little classroom. It is a great curriculum that I took Jacob to and am now using our materials at home for both children.

    
   Items that we use for music are

• egg shakers 
• animal shakers
• bells
• kazoos
• harmonicas
• beanbags
• any kind of drum like instruments
• sand blocks

 Not pictured is a game I made for the kids for music. I made it from white felt and put strips of black felt on it to make a treble clef. I then made little black circular bean bags to toss onto the treble clef. It is a great game for learning the notes. I also have different types of rhythm notes to put on it and have the kids make the rhythms using small instruments. It is a great game and was very inexpensive to make and has certainly enriched our learning experience. Most everything I found for low cost or made for low cost. It is worth every penny and I am never surprised when my kids are most excited for this portion of our learning day.

Resources:  

• A great place for bigger kids is http://www.classicsforkids.com/ they have games and more                  
• Another great place that has free printables is  http://www.makingmusicfun.net/

So break out those shakers and that Beach Boy music and groove with your kids and teach them music and that music is fun!

I like to look for rainbows.....

This year for Sunday school/primary, one of the songs the kids are learning to sing is called "When I Am Baptized". The song is as follows:

I like to look for rainbows when ever there is rain

and ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again.

CHORUS:

I want my life to be as clean as Earth right after rain

I want to be the best I can,

and live with God again.

I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away,

and I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.

CHORUS

I love the sentiment of the rainbow and how just like it was God's promise to Noah, it can be a promise unto us that if we can be clean and good "like earth right after rain" that we can live with God again. 



With this song in my heart I decided to make this the theme of today's learning.

I got a wonderful flip chart from sugardoodle. I used the one by Jolly Jen, but both of them work and both are filled with beautiful pictures to help your child learn the song.

We will sing along with this wonderful version I found on youtube:


We will read two books about rainbows:

We will hunt for letter Rr's *

We will sort upper and lower case Rr's*

We will line up the rainbows largest to smallest, smallest to largest and learn 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.*

We will learn how to spell the word rainbow*

We will color the number 24 Car from Nascar which is traditionally in a rainbow theme.

We will do-a-dot the letter R*

We will also graph rainbows*

We will also have centers set up so they can find how many different ways they can make rainbows using different materials.

• little vehicle counters
• buttons
• bottle caps
• play food like ice cream and the felt fruits and veggies
• beads
• legos
• linking cubes

We will also have this lesson on preparing to be baptized. I don't do a lot of "theme" lesson days, but this one left an impression on me that we should do this lesson at this time.

*All of these activities can be found at confessions of a homeschooler

The Ugly Duckling- A literature Lesson

For literature we read the story of The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Anderson. This story is very dear to me and am so glad my children loved it too. I love how my kids understood that everyone needs love and that everyone is special.


We read the story together(I found some really neat printable visual aids here)
After the story we did a story map, drawing pictures of what happened at the beginning, middle and end.

We learned about grammer. I chopped up some sentences and then had the children put the words into the right order with the sentence starting with a capital letter and ending with a period.

We made a "literature word wall". We picked words from the story and put them on to a folder. And then practiced writing them. We will continue to add new words with each story we read.

Other activities we did:

• play duck, duck goose
• sing the song "six little ducks"
• we talked about feelings and about how it isn't ok to tease others.

And the winner is...

Callie


 I'll call you and double check your address and send your new goodies off to the post office.

If you didn't win, don't be sad, I have tons of stuff to give away, just look at the clutter in the pictures of the school room and you'll know what I am talking about.

My very first give away! Sing Spell Read and Write phonics songs materials and music

This give away is closed

Enter Today through Valentines Day!

That's right! I am going to share something for free.
I am going to give away a complete(still in the shrink wrap) set of phonics songs and all the charts and props that go with them. Upon getting organized, I noticed we had some extras and I will be giving them  away during the rest of the school year although this could take to the end of summer to clean out the extras!















Rules:

• You have to leave a comment on this post and just one other post on the blog,  or for a second entry become a follower of my blog.         
• Contest starts today, February 7th  and ends at midnight on February 14th. 
• A winner will be picked at random and announced on the following day (the 15th) and you can contact me for where you want your cool new stuff shipped. 
• have fun!

First Frets from Simply Violin

A product we do have and use.....

I found these little goodies while surfing the suzuki parent forum when a parent got sick and tired of the tape falling off their kid's violin and what's better is the price....a whopping $2.45 each regardless of size and they come in all sizes. oh and did I say no shipping, because there is no shipping folks! I got them very quickly too in my regular mail. When you get it just peel and stick...It says to loosen the strings but I didn't have to, even on Benji's 1/16th size, so I can imagine most everyone can shimmy it up into place.

Want one too? I found mine here:Simply Violin They are a great web resource for not only this product but for other great products and much more....just check them out!

Things 4 Strings™: Violin and Viola Bow Holds

Cool stuff on the web that I found!

Things 4 Strings™: Violin and Viola Bow Holds

this product is fantastic for the young who are learning to have the correct hold and the old who need support! I consider it to be on the pricey side but it is a "one size fits all" so no matter what they would only need one set for life.....maybe some day down the road this will be more than a whim on the web for us.

Today's Featured Website

                                                                

http://kizclub.com/   

This website has great reading resources. The best part is they are colored or black and white and ready to go.....fun, easy and unique like their abc clothesline and their story time props. And like most everything I find on the web, these are free. I downloaded the color version of the old woman who swallowed a fly to sing at circle time. She was fast and easy to assemble and then I printed black and white ones for the kids to color, cut and paste themselves. 

The Old Woman Who Swallowed A Fly

Violins

So here are the little squirts playing their violins. It was Jacob's idea, and then whatever Jacob does, Benji wants to do too. Jacob plays a 1/10th and Benji is playing a 1/16th size violins. We are learning the Suzuki music.
















Here is Jacob




















Here is Benji