Category Archives: Education

Chalky Words

Posted on May 27, 2015 | Leave a comment

Today, after pulling a few thistles and picking some strawberries, we abandoned our gardening and got out the brand new sidewalk chalk.

The sun was out and the driveway a blank canvas for the boys to draw shapes and mazes.

After Joe wrote his name and drew a few circles, I went inside to get word and picture matching flashcards I had laminated earlier in the morning. I’ve started a “letter of the week” program that I found on Pinterest on a site called alittlepinchofperfect.com.

It’s a great program! The activities and lessons can be tailored to each boy. They are fun and fast and cover the following tot and preschooler curriculum goals:

Memorization
Exploration
Life Skills
Increasing attention span
Fine motor skills
Creative thinking
Problem Solving
Letters and sounds
Numbers
Handwriting
Science

I ran inside and grabbed the flashcards.

First, I wrote the words on the sidewalk, placing the matching picture above each word.

Next, I shouted out each word, asking the boys to race to find them. A little friendly competition never hurts to motivate two energetic boys.

They ran around looking for the pictures. Joe circled the picture before picking it up and handing it to me. Jake stomped on the cards as he found them.

After they found all of the pictures, I placed the word card above each chalk word and showed them each picture. Joe did a great job with this one. Jake followed him around and, after Joe found the word, shouted, “Here it is!”

Finally, without using the flashcards, I spelled each word out loud. They were on their scooters at this point, so I asked them to run the words over.

They both did a great job with all of these tasks. Jake did best when finding the pictures and both boys were able to find the words quickly as I spelled them out.

I had their full attention up until the last two words. Joe, finished with the game, took a piece of red sidewalk chalk and drew and “X” through each word.

“I’m done with this game Mommy.”

The fun learning lasted for about 20 minutes and then it was time to play and plant a few seeds before heading inside for lunch.

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Posted in 13 Skills, Education, For the Kids, Garden Stories, Life

Dreary Day Distractions

Posted on March 25, 2015 | Leave a comment

Last week, the days were gorgeous. We’ve been busy starting seeds, watering seeds, prepping the garden, taking care of the new pullets and the old hens, running through the backyard maze and finding any excuse to get outside and avoid housework. (As if I need help in that quarter.)

But…the weather has turned back to the dreary, cold and wet of early Spring and we are stuck inside. Again.

In order to keep busy and avoid insanity, we’ve been playing games.

Joe wanted to play the word shooting game. It took me a little while to understand what he was talking about.

“I want to play the word shot game.”

“What game is that?”

“You know, the game with the words.”

“What?”

“The game with the words and the red cups.”

“Oh!”

We have site word dice so I added a new element to the game. I wrote the words from the die and then taped them on red solo cups.

Then, Joe rolled the die, sounded the word out and then shot the matching cup. He recognized quite a few and was able to get a few more by sounding them out.

After all the cups were obliterated, he shot the die off the table and wanted to play again. This kept us busy and laughing for awhile.

Since Joe is getting back into bugs, I found a caterpillar phonics game on one of my favorite blogs – Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.

The point of the game is recognizing beginning letter sounds.

For the first round I showed both boys the word. Joe sounded it out and said the word (with help) and Jake said the letter. Then, if they had the letter on their caterpillar card, they covered it with Banangram tiles. The first to get all letters covered yells “Caterpillar!”

This part was a little difficult to explain. Jake yelled “Caterpillar!” after every letter was covered which frustrated Joe.

“He’s playing it wrong!”

“He’s learning buddy, help show him how to play.”

There were a lot of frustrated sounds and sighs before he started to help by modeling the rules of the game.

For the second round, I read the word phonetically but did not show it to the boys. Joe did a great job recognizing the letter . Jake, rather than playing, repeated the letter sound after I said it.

Joe even started to find the corresponding letter on the Banagram tiles.

We’ve also played Candy Land, traced mazes and started to learn shapes.

It’s been fun and a great distraction from the dull and drab weather. It’s been so fun that this morning, instead of asking “can we go outside yet?”, Joe asked me…

“What are we going to do today, Mom? Can we do an experiment?”

“Of course we can!”

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Posted in Education, For the Kids, Garden Stories, Life

Shake It Up

Posted on February 27, 2015 | 1 comment

Have I have mentioned how much I love the Bob Books we’ve been working through?

They may not look like much, but the simple drawings, short words and short sentences are the perfect next step for kids who already know the alphabet and are starting to “sound it out”.

Joe doesn’t read the books on his own yet, but he knows some of the words by sight and he has started to sound out words wherever he sees them.

“ss tuh ah puh…Stop!”

There are 12 books in Set 1, each with short sentences and three-letter words.

In Book 1, the only letter sounds introduced are M, A, T and S. Using these four letters, Joe can sound out (with a little help from Mommy) every word in the book.

We’ve played a bunch of games using these books and Joe’s interests: treasure hunts, measuring tape play, letter tracing, using scissors, driving monster trucks, making contraptions and deciphering secret codes.

And sometimes, like today, he wanted to make a lot of noise.

Ok…so that’s every day…but today I used that energy for learning words.

We used Bananagram letter tiles, the flashcards I made for the Bob Book words and empty M&M tubes.

I put the letters for three words in the tube and Joe shook the tube like a mad man. I think he ran and shook that thing for an hour (not really, but you get the idea).

After he had worn himself out shaking the tube, or when I had had enough of the noise, he dumped the letters out and I handed him the first card.

He pulled the matching tiles, put them in order and then sounded the word out.

I didn’t have to help him with many of the words and, even when I did, it was only to help him put all of the sounds together.

It was too much to ask him to read the books when we were done with the letter shaking and noise making. I guess he was worn out from all of the running and shouting.

I know I was.

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Posted in Education, For the Kids

Gravity Works

Posted on February 19, 2015 | Leave a comment

After watering the seeds we started yesterday, Joe, Jake and I had a mini science lesson. We made whirlygigs and airplanes using straws, cardstock, tape, paper clips and office paper.

I found the ideas on a blog called Deceptively Educational.

I love this blog! All of the activities are fun and appealing to students of all ages, and mesh perfectly with the idea of learning through play.

The first fun activity was to build whirlygigs out of paper, tape and paper clips. The detailed directions can be found on the blog mentioned above.

Basically, you cut and fold a piece of cardstock or printer paper into the shape of a whirlygig…a paper replica of a sycamore seed.

The directions tell you to attach a small paper clip for weight. I only had the large paper clips, which fell off with every flight, so we used brads instead.

Then, we held them up high and dropped them.

It worked just like a sycamore seed falling from a tree! Joe was a little short so he stood on a stool and raced the whirlygigs. He spent a good 5-10 minutes doing this while Jake dusted sand off seashells.

When he was bored with it, we made the straw airplanes.

For these, we used a straw, cardstock and tape. We cut a 1″ x 5″ piece and a 1″ by 10″ piece, taped them into a circle and taped each circle on the ends of the straw.

We made two, thinking that Jake would want to fly them also…but he was more interested in stomping around pretending to be a monster. The little cutie.

Joe was much more excited about this one. We’ve made paper airplanes before, but this type of airplane was by far more successful.

It kept both of us busy for about 15 minutes. We raced them, tried throwing them from different heights and tried throwing them while running down the hall.

Eventually, Joe was tired of throwing it so he grabbed the bigger end and “drove” around the house making honking sounds and crashing into furniture.

I tried to explain what made these two paper creations fly and flutter–gravity, lift, thrust and drag–but I only made it through gravity before he lost all interest in the activity and went to play monsters with Jake.

Of course, they convinced me to play too. I was the “Mommy Monster”.

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Posted in Education, For the Kids, Garden Stories

Audrey and the Bubblebath Kids – The Original Story

Posted on January 23, 2015 | 1 comment

Audrey and the Bubblebath Kids are a product of my 5-year-old imagination.

I vaguely remember the adventures we had together. My mom loves to tell me about the time we forgot them at the store. Luckily, they caught up and jumped in the car or we would have had to go back.

I’ve always wanted to write a story about them, but wasn’t sure how to put an educational twist on their shenanigans.

Then, it came to me. Just like with the mice in my Adventures in Homesteading series, I use the characters as a tool to teach about cooking.

Here’s the intro story.

***

Audrey and the Bubblebath Kids
Originally posted on 9/12/14 and illustrated by my mom.

In a yellow house with blue shutters lived a girl named Audrey.

Audrey liked many things.

She liked eating strawberries.

She liked swinging and sliding.

She liked twirling round and round in the sun.

But there was one thing she liked to do more than anything else…

Audrey loved taking baths.

Audrey would find any excuse to take a bath.

If she was eating icecream…she would bite off the bottom of the sugar cone and let the gooey mess drip drop all over her.

If she was playing outside, she would find a mud puddle and jump and twirl through the muddy mess.

Her mother would just shake her head as she started the bath water.

She would sigh as she poured the bubbles into the tub.

She would smile knowingly as she placed Audrey in the water.

And once Audrey was in the water…well, that was when the magic would happen.

***

It all started the day Audrey came home from school covered in chocolate.

Her mother just shook her head with a small smile.

She went upstairs to start a bath, Audrey trailing behind her.

“I bought some new bubblebath to try,” she said to Audrey.

Audrey looked at the bottle. It was a pretty purple bottle with the smiling, happy faces of little bubbly kids on the outside.

It smelled like grape bubble gum.

Audrey’s mom poured it in the tub and bubbles instantly bounced all over the water.

Big, beautiful bubbles with all the colors of the rainbow dancing across their surface. .

“Hmm,” said Audrey’s mom. “These bubbles are thicker than usual.”

Audrey smiled in wonder as she held a bubble in her hand. It was thicker than a normal bubble.

Maybe it was her imagination, but Audrey could almost see something floating in the bubble. No, not floating, swimming.

Audrey gasped in surprise and looked at the bottle again.

The little, tiny something looked exactly like one of the bubbly kids on the bottle.

Smiling face, webbed feet and hands with bright yellow crowns on their heads.

There was one in every bubble, all smiling, spinning and swimming around.

A smile spread over Audrey’s face. They were so cute, so tiny. Who were they? What were they doing in her bath?

In a squeaky voice, one of them spoke.

“Hello, Audrey! We are the Bubblebath Kids.”

“Bubblebath Kids?” she asked. “But where did you come from?”

Three bubbles bounced over to the edge of the tub and the kids in them pointed to the bottle of soap.

In a sing-song voice all of the Bubblebath Kids sang:

It’s magic kind of soap
It never runs dry
We’ll always be here
When the water reappears

And when the water drains
We all enjoy the ride
We jump and splash and play
But we never go away

Audrey looked at the bottle. The smiling faces that had been there just a few moments ago, had all disappeared.

“Wow,” she said in awe.

The Bubblebath Kids all laughed…a tinkling, jingly, bell-like sound.

“We are going to have lots of fun together, Audrey!”

The very next day, Audrey and her mom made cookies. Sugar cookies with sticky icing.

They got the recipe from a cookbook called Kids’ Treats.

First, Audrey made a fantastic mess with the cookie cutters.

Then, she got flour all over the counters and floor.

When it was time to add sugar, butter and food coloring…Audrey turned into a sticky pink and blue monster. She was covered head to toe in flour, sugar and food coloring.

While the cookies baked, Audrey and her mom headed up to the bathroom to clean up.

When her mom went to get a wash cloth, the Bubble Bath kids bounced to the surface with jingling laughter.

“Oh Audrey! What a wonderful mess you are!”

The water was already turning a light shade of green as the food coloring washed off.

They splashed and splished and sploshed until Audrey was squeaky clean.

“What were you laughing about?” asked her mom as she handed Audrey a towel.

“I was playing with my new friends,” Audrey replied.

“Oh,” her mom said with a twinkle in her eye. “And who are they?”

Audrey pointed to the pictures on the bottle. “They come alive when you put the soap in the water.”

“Ah. And what are their names?”

“The Bubblebath Kids!”

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Posted in Education, The Bubblebath Kids, Writing

Joe the Bug Hunter: First in the Series

Posted on January 22, 2015 | 3 comments

The inspiration for Joe the Bug Hunter, in case it is not obvious, came from Joe’s love/obsession with all things bug related. They officially started after he got a Bug Gun and Bug House from his grandma.

Just about every story is loosely–sometimes very loosely–based on actual events. Usually, Joe would either bring a bug to me or take me to a bug and a story would start unfolding in my head.

I would research, write and edit until I had a story that was educational and entertaining for the boys, and hopefully for others.

Joe loves to hear these stories.

First, the intro to the character–originally posted 10/13/2013.

Introducing Joe the Bug Hunter

Lissa’s cactus had finally bloomed.

One gorgeous pink flower that lasted a little over a day.

Joe stood on the deck admiring it.

By the next day, the flower had shriveled and fallen off onto the deck.

Joe frowned, staring at the spot on the cactus where the flower used to be.

He squinted, looking closer…something was moving on the cactus.

He looked closer still and saw a tiny black and gray spider crawling around a cactus spine.

He knew what he had to do.

He went into his room and, making sure no one was watching, opened the secret compartment in his toy box.

He pulled out his safari hat, bug house and bug gun. These are the tools he would need to investigate what had happened to the flower. Joe just knew that the spider had something to do with its untimely demise.

Joe the Bug Hunter was on the case!

***

Then, the first full story originally posted on 10/20/2013.

Joe the Bug Hunter: The Case of the Horned Worm

Something was eating the tomatoes.

Joe sat on the deck staring at the plants and wondering.

The plants were too close to the house for it to be deer so it must be a rabbit on stilts doing all this damage. He knew what had to be done so he went inside to get his tools.

Armed with the bug gun and bug house, he quietly walked through the tomato plants observing the bug life.

Ladybugs. Those were good to have around. They eat those pesky aphids.

Butterflies and bumblebees. Known pollinators…essential bugs for the garden.

Worms. Wait. Huge worms. Green, striped, GIGANTIC worms!

Joe slowly raised his bug gun and opened the house, ready for this unknown bug. He pulled the trigger and with a “thwap” the worm was contained safely in the house. He put some leaves from the tomato plants in with it so he could observe and discover its weaknesses.

Joe sat and watched.

At first, the worm just lay there. Probably too scared to move in the presence of such a skilled bug hunter, thought Joe.

Then, slowly, it started chomping, and before he knew it, an entire stem was stripped of its leaves and the horned worm was wrapped around a cherry tomato chomping away.

After finishing the tomato off, the worm lay back seeming to drift off to sleep. Satisfied that he had enough information, Joe went inside and started to research this type of wormy behavior.

At first, all signs pointed to the “tomato horn worm”. Big, green, striped and eats tomatoes. But on closer examination, the stripes were not quite right. The tomato horn worm had 8 v-shaped stripes while the worm Joe had captured had 7 diagonal gray and white stripes.

Then he found it. The tobacco horn worm had invaded the garden.

Joe looked at the mega-worm in the bug house, wondering how to exterminate this beast. What would scare it and its buddies away from the garden? The time had come to observe some more.

Joe went back out to the garden, carting his safari chair, a bottle of water and a snack.

It would be a long afternoon.

He set up camp behind a screen of tomato plants and waited with his binoculars at the ready.

Before long, the horned worms started slithering up and down the tomato plants, chewing and chomping away. It took all of Joe’s self control not to pull his bug gun out right then.

More time passed. Joe was just about to pack up for the day when he saw it. One of the worms had what appeared to be tiny white rice all over its body. He whipped out his magnifying glass to take a closer look.

The tiny white rice specks were actually tiny white cocoons. Not wanting to kill what could be a potential friend to the garden, Joe went back inside to do a bit more research…and it’s a good thing he did.

The cocoons belonged to a wasp that lay eggs just under the skin of hornworms, providing ready food for the baby wasps when they are born. The growing wasps pretty much suck the life out of the hornworm so that when they finally emerge, ready to start out on their own, the hornworm has no energy to continue its assault on the tomato plants.

Joe leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile on his face. The troops were already deployed…all he had to do was make sure that there was plenty of cilantro and dill planted to attract them to their prey.

Time for a tall glass of milk and a sleeve of Oreos.

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Posted in 13 Skills, Education, Joe the Bug Hunter, Writing

Silly Turtle-y Sounds

Posted on January 13, 2015 | Leave a comment

One of the games I mentioned in my Learning in January post was Robot Turtles. The game, originally launched on Kickstarter, is meant to teach preschoolers the fundamentals of programming in a fun, engaging and playful way.

Joe and I played it this morning and we both had a blast.

The object of the game is to get your Robot Turtle to the matching colored jewel in the middle of the board.

There is a Turtle Master (young players) who tells the Turtle Mover (older players) how to navigate through a maze using directional cards (right, left, forward).

The best part (for me at least) is that the Turtle Mover is required to make silly noises when moving the turtle. That’s right. The game commands me to be a goofball!

So far, we’ve been playing the “Basic Game” in which we create a maze using the stone wall tiles and Joe navigates to the jewel using the right, left or forward arrow cards.

As Joe plays the cards, he puts them in a line so he can look back and see the sequence of commands that got him to the jewel. He’s basically writing code.

As he gets better at navigating the maze, we’ll add in the ice wall and crate obstacle cards. The ice walls can be melted using a laser function card and the crates can be pushed.

And, when he is ready for the most complex part of the game, where he will try to write a program to get to the jewel using as few cards as possible…we’ll introduce the Function Frog.

Having so much fun
Games played with goofy noises
All giggles and smiles

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Posted in Education, For the Kids, Garden Stories, Writing

Step One: Writer’s Workshop

Posted on January 9, 2015 | 2 comments

I’ve taken the first step in my journey into publishing and registered for a writer’s workshop on how to write and publish a children’s book.

Could it be any more specific to the journey I’m on?

The workshop is an intro into the world of children’s books and genres, as well as a peak into the research behind and process of submitting work for publication.

The instructor, Dawn Malone, has been through the process and is the author of Bingo Summer, published in Spring 2014.

I’m excited for a number of reasons.

One, I will learn more about how to hone my skill, how to become a better writer.

Two, there might be an opportunity to share my work, get feedback and constructive criticism.

But perhaps the most exciting part? I’m not just talking about it, writing about it or thinking about it…I’m doing it. I’m actually taking that first step.

And that feels pretty good.

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Posted in 13 Skills, Education, Life, Writing

A Loose Schedule

Posted on January 4, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve decided we need some semblance of a schedule, if only to get us out of pajamas before 3:00.

Now, I like a good schedule. I function better with order instead of chaos. I’ve heard that kids thrive on a schedule too…then I look at my boys and wonder.

A rigid schedule would be disastrous for their creativity. I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I say it would break their spirit. Ok, maybe a little dramatic but you get my point.

But, a loose schedule would provide some structure and consistency without the stress of staying on task.

We wouldn’t have to rush to reading before fully grasping a math concept.

And, we wouldn’t have to stop playing outside because the schedule says it’s time to sit down for science.

A schedule would not have to dictate our days.

So, here’s our loose schedule

Rise and Shine
Breakfast, grooming, tv time

Morning Play
Educational games, reading fun, craftiness

Lunch and TV

Rest
Nap for Jake, hopefully a nap for Joe and downtime for mommy

Games
Outside games, board games

Free Play
Kids play while Mom cooks dinner, cleans, blogs or reads.

It’s sure to change or even get thrown out all together…but it’s a schedule for me and consistency without restriction for the boys.

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Posted in Education, For the Kids, Garden Stories, Life

Learning in January

Posted on January 2, 2015 | 1 comment

In December, we tried to get to everything on our list. We tried, but we failed miserably. Our time was taken up with Christmas shopping, decorating, baking, wrapping and a slew of other Christmas-related activities.

And of course, there were the elves.

But this month we’ll be playing and learning.

The boys got games for Christmas. A lot of games. They Zingo for learning site words, Robot Turtles for beginning programmers, Memory, Go Ape for matching, Mouse Trap for building contraptions, Busy Town Mysteries for I Spying and Count Your Chickens for working together.

They also got Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots and Toss Across for developing hand-eye coordination.

On top of that, they got a couple of cool kits such as Magic School Bus: A Journey into the Human Body science kit, a science lab kit, a dinosaur dig kit and a crystal dig kit.

And…they got a year’s membership to the Children’s Discovery Museum and to the Wildlife Prairie Park–gifts for the whole family really.

So…this month, we’ll play games and take a field trip or two, learning all the while.

New year and new goals
Experimenting and games
Fun learning through play

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Posted in Education, For the Kids, Garden Stories

Category Archives: Education

Chalky Words

Dreary Day Distractions

Shake It Up

Gravity Works

Audrey and the Bubblebath Kids – The Original Story

Joe the Bug Hunter: First in the Series

Silly Turtle-y Sounds

Step One: Writer’s Workshop

A Loose Schedule

Learning in January

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