Nurturing the tender years

4th of July pipe cleaner leis

2011-06-28T04:19:00.001-10:00

With the 4th of July just around the corner, I thought I would share the red, white, and blue pipe cleaner leis we made last year as gifts for the daughters of our friends who had us over for a barbeque on the 4th.

For a tutorial on how to put these pipe cleaner leis together, look here.

Now, back to our summer fun… :) Hope you are all have a fantastic summer break!

A break of sorts

2011-06-08T15:19:00.001-10:00

You may have noticed I have only been blogging once or twice a week for the past few weeks. Summer is finally upon us here, and after a very long, very hard first mid-western winter during which the boys and I got every cold and flu that past through (our bodies getting used to the new climate and location?), I realized that all we really want to do is be out of the house, enjoying every minute of summer and all that is offered here during the summer time (lots of fun looking events coming up from concerts in the park, to festivals, and fairs, etc).

So, I am going to be taking some time of off blogging. That said, I have at least 10-15 posts half finished in my drafts folder, so every once in a while when a rainy day strikes and I feel like sitting down in front of my computer again, I will try to finish one off and share it with you. Some of the posts that are pending include: learning about ancient Egypt and our new history curriculum, our continent studies on South America and Australia, additions to our Baha’i calendar time (there will be a bunch of printables in that post), our 2011-2012 curriculum, etc, etc. So, stick around, I will be here every once in awhile – you can connect to this blog via Facebook, Google connect, RSS, or email, so you’ll know when I do post something.

Wishing you all a glorious summer filled with swimming, barbeques, sidewalk chalk, fresh yummy fruit, ice-cream, bike riding, picnics, ice-tea and lemonade, and lazing on lawn chairs with family and friends! That’s what we will be doing! :) Until next time…

Preschool fun: “G” for goose week

2011-05-31T16:00:00.002-10:00

Since we have our own little goose family growing in our backyard, we decided to do G is for goose. Here is a roundup of our G week:

~ G is for goose coloring sheet and writing sheet

~ Goose coloring sheet which we did using glitter (for g, of course!)

~ Damian played with these cute egg shape sorters that we took out from our local library (our library provides these awesome “story bags” that come with a set of books on a given topic, along with corresponding puppets, puzzles, and other related toys. LOVE our library!).

~ Connect the dot number sheet

~ We read through the Canada Geese page on National Geographic Kids and on Animal Planet

~ We met our own backyard baby goslings when they hatched.

~ Goose label/color sheet

~ Do-a-dot Gg sheet – we have to do this for every letter because Damian loves the do-a-dot sheets and markers!

~ We built our foam G, used our g sandpaper letter, made Gg playdoh letters, and made Gg’s on the peg board.

~ We did this cute letter g craft from Homeschool Creations.

~ We used various parts of Jolanthe and Carisa’s Bird Preschool Pack.

~ The boys put together and played with their Playmobil farm complete with a goose family (oh, and a sea serpent, of course, because all farms have them, right?)

And of course the end of the week would not be complete without adding Gg to our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Science Unit: our complete Solar System study

2011-05-24T17:10:00.001-10:00

We have had an incredibly fun journey into space over the past month (actually a little longer because of the sick days in between!). Here are the highlights of our trip:

~ Boy did we read books! We read a whole collection of books on space, from easy picture books to space encyclopedias. We usually read the more basic books out loud together, so that the material was more accessible to Damian. Then I put the more complex reading in Rylan’s workboxes for him to read on his own. If he had questions, we discussed it together during my one on one time with him. He also reads the more complex books with his Dad during bed time (he stays up a little later than Damian these days). Here are some of the books we read, Amazon limits you to 10 items per carousel, so I couldn’t fit them all in without turning this post into a long series of book lists! :)

~ We also watched several DVDs:

Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Planets
Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Sun
Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Moon
Eyewitness The Planets

~ We read the Magic School Bus book about the Solar System, watched the related DVD, and then completed all the experiments/activities in the Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space science kit. You can see a couple of these below (most of them involved flashlights and therefore being in dim light, so I did not take many pictures):

{build your own telescope and solar system model}

~ To learn about the phases of the moon, or the lunar phases we built and used this model and read up about it on wikipedia, which also has a very cool animation of the lunar phases. For a tutorial on how to make this model, look at this post.

~ We put this solar system puzzle together.

~ As with all our unit styled studies, we keep all the books and manipulatives (that can be reused) from our learning in our “feature study” area. You can see in the picture below all the books, posters, lacing cards, roll a rocket game, space songs, puzzles, lunar model, earth orbit model, etc. The boys are encouraged to use this material throughout the duration of the unit (for more on our school room layout see this post).

~ I created several sensorial tubs and activities which I spread out over the course of the month. With the tubs, I left them put together for a couple of weeks each, so they could revisit the tubs and play.

{tub contains: rice base, “space” letter cookie cutters, star and moon cookie cutters, a mini earth globe, star bursts, black pompoms, “moon rocks”, sparkly star and moon paper cut outs, rocket ships, and the contents of the Safari space tube}

{tub contains: moon sand base (I could only find green and yellow when I went shopping for moon sand, would not have been my first choice, but worked none the less), mini ax and rock mould, magnifying glass, rocks made from moon dough, cookie cutters, and the contents of the Safari space tub.}

{space playdough play}

~ I used the A is for astronaut pack materials from Spell Outloud for Damian (I laminated them, and used stick on magnets at the back of each item so they could be used on our white boards and the fridge).

~ Damian did this A is for Astronaut do-a-dot sheet from Making Learning Fun.

~ Rylan completed various worksheets and coloring pages in his workboxes throughout the course of our study, here are some examples:

Space word jumble
Space word search
Space crossword
The planets coloring sheet
Rocket coloring sheet
Planet word search
Dover Coloring Book: Exploring the Solar System
Writing practice:

~ We put together a glow in the dark solar system, stuck it to the ceiling with putty, closed the blinds to make the room dark, laid down on the floor, and “star gazed” up at the ceiling (we did real star gazing in Hawaii, but here in a big city it is not so easy, especially when the sun sets after the boy’s bedtime these days!).

~ In trying to bring more music into all our learning time, we listened to the classical CD, The Planets, by composer Gustav Holst. While listening we discussed the Roman/Greek gods that the planets had been named after, and how the music conveyed the characteristics of these gods.

~ I used parts of the Astronaut preschool pack from Homeschool Creations for Damian. Both boys especially loved singing the “Climb About the Spaceship” song, which we added actions to and sang many times to begin our day’s exploration.

~ I also used a few of the activities from this pack for Damian.

~ I made this earth lacing card for the boys to use (found the earth picture on Google images). Make sure to laminate or stick your picture onto cardboard (actually I did both), so it is sturdy enough for lacing.

~ To help the boys understand and visualize how the earth rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun, giving us day and night and the seasons, we made this model, which they could manipulate themselves to get a sense of how it all works. They wanted to add the moon on to it too, the second picture shows that addition. For a tutorial on how to put this together go to this post (it also explains other activities we did to reinforce this concept using a globe and flashlight).

~ I created this solar system concentration/match up game for the boys to play with. You can download the cards from here, and read about how we used them in this post.

~ We created a large scale model of the solar system on our reading room floor. We used planet cut outs, yarn to create the rings of orbit, black pompoms to create the asteroid belt, and at the end the boys added labels to each planet.

~ Of course we had to build rocket ships! We built two different kinds, at different times during the month long study. The boys built both set of rockets entirely by themselves:

{To make: paper towel roll, sheet of paper for tips, construction paper wings, tissue paper streamers. Put together with tape and decorate.}

{Idea for these from Kid Craft Weekly}

~ The boys drew solar systems using rainbow scratch paper.

~ Rylan created his own constellations on black construction paper, and wrote his own mythical stories behind their names.

~ Just for fun, the boys wanted to play with this “galactic ooze” that we found at our local teacher resource center. :)

~ Websites we visited together:

We plan to visit a planetarium this summer, otherwise, that’s a wrap (hope I remembered it all!). Happy space exploration!

A homemade balance for learning about weight (non-standardized measurement)

2011-05-18T15:51:00.002-10:00

We recently covered non-standardized measurement in math. I do not have balance at home, so I decided to make one from items we already had in our home. It turned out to be so easy, and worked just fine for our purpose of comparing the weight of different objects, as well as using units of weight (for example marbles or clothing pegs) to compare the weight of different items (for example, a pen weighs 2 units and a toy car weights 5 units).

Here’s how we did it:

Stick a ruler onto a table, with the end jutting over the edge of the table.

Tie two paper cups onto either end of a hanger. Make sure the string is the same length, so the cups balance out nicely. Then hook the hanger onto the ruler, and you have a functioning balance.

Easy and the kids had a lot of fun with it too.

We have goslings! And where did the week go?

2011-05-17T15:04:00.002-10:00

I did not mean to fall of the face of the earth for an entire week! But I have to say, the boys and I had gone through a nasty six week period (yes, six weeks straight!!!) of coming down with one illness after another other. Never have we been so sick before (thank you mid-western winter!), but then last week we were all finally feeling good, and we just didn’t want to be inside the house any longer, so we have been out literally every day, all day long, and I just never got round to posting!

It has been a good week, not only have we been feeling great, but I think spring has finally decided to make an appearance in mid-May and everything is wonderfully green and blossoming. Should I point out that our spring temperatures now are still colder than the worst of winter days in Hawaii? Or would I just sound bitter (ahem). Needless to say, we must have acclimatized somewhat, because it’s only in the 60s most days and we are out in t-shirts praising the glorious weather!

One of the wonderful things that we did this week, was watch our goslings hatch! We have been watching mama goose care for her nest for a month, sitting dutifully on them while it snowed and rained, and then on the first hot day (over 80F) we had all spring, they hatched.

Aren’t those little babies cute swimming between their mama and papa? Neighbors told us that this same mating pair come to our pond every year and usually nest in the same spot (our backyard). It will be fun to see if they come back next spring.

Hope you are all enjoying springtime too!

And here is the rainbow felt alphabet!

2011-05-09T14:28:00.003-10:00

Last week I posted about our rainbow felt numbers, and promised to share the alphabet when it was finished.

You will notice the whole alphabet is in repeated rainbow colors, except I made the vowels light blue, just so they would be highlighted.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Musical ABC cards (printable)

2011-05-06T14:31:00.004-10:00

In follow-up to my post yesterday about how I am trying to channel Damian’s learning more through music, I wanted share these ABC cards that I made for him last week.

He loves singing and dancing, watching concerts and videos on You Tube(like Yanni, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bochelli, Enya, Celtic Woman, the Riverdance, etc), but he is also very fascinated with instruments and how they make music. Some days (most days) he will line various objects up from pots and pans to toys and drums and use his tapping sticks to play music on them. He will walk around the house using his hands or tapping sticks to hear the sound that various surfaces will make. Really a musical beat is just coming out of him all the time it seems.

So anyway, back to the cards :). I thought what better way to appeal to him, when learning the ABCs and phonics, than to do a set of alphabet cards that are instrument themed. Now let me tell, finding A-Z in instruments was not easy! I made them a mixture of classical instruments and folk instruments from around the world. I had to cheat a couple of times and use musical terms instead of instruments, because I could not find an instrument with the short vowel sound of the letter. And let’s face, X is near to impossible. I decided to go with xylophone, even though it is not the correct first sound.

You are welcome to download the cards, I suggest laminating them before cutting them out, to give them some durability. Here is the link, enjoy!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5k too!

Incorporating music into our school days

2011-05-05T10:44:00.002-10:00

I have been working, over the last few months at incorporating more music into our daily school time. Every member of our family loves music, so it has always been a part of the daily rhythm in our home, but lately I have been giving it a lot more thought. Why? As I watch Damian grow, I am seeing in him a very keen interest in music and a natural aptitude for it.

One of the advantages of homeschooling is that I can cater to my children’s specific interests during the course of their learning. With Rylan it has always been through his love of reading and animals, and I have had several years now of figuring out how best to orient his learning around those passions, but music is a new slant for me. It has always been there, but now I need to make it more of a focus, more of a vehicle for Damian’s learning, because it definitely lights a spark in him and makes his concentration keener.

Damian started Music Together classes around 12 months, and we have been going strong ever since. I have no doubt that these classes are giving him a good foundation in music, and have definitely made music a lot of fun. We also sing these songs together at home and in the car during the week, and as a result have accumulated a box full of instruments which he plays with every day.

You may have noticed that we sing a lot as a part of Damian’s school time, I am always looking for songs related to the theme or topic he is learning about. Also our circle time is filled with song, in fact, we sing most everything from our prayers, to our school song, to the calendar songs, to our virtue quotation memorization. Not only is it a wonderfully cheerful way to start the day, but it aides memorization.

I also incorporate music into our geography studies. It gives a glimpse into the culture and “vibe” of the people we are learning about.

Another thing I have started doing in the last few months is playing classical music during our school time. After we have completed our circle time, and Rylan moves onto his workboxes and I am doing one-on-one time with Damian, I turn on some classical music. It plays quietly in the background while we are all working. I can say, without a doubt, that it has the most wonderfully calming effect on our school time. It aides in quiet concentration, it is uplifting, and it helps to feed Damian’s passion because he is definitely happier when music can be heard. On the weekends Ramtin gives the boys little tidbits of information about classical music – the composers, the type of music, etc; during the week we just listen to it and enjoy it.

I am just starting to research Suzuki piano lessons, as a possibility down the line for him. I have heard a lot of good things about this program, but I am uncertain about him starting so young in more formal lessons. I am going to try to attend a preview lesson with him this summer, so we can both see what it is all about.

To those out there who have musically inclined children, I would love to hear what you have done to nurture this interest in your children?

Some linky appreciation

2011-05-04T06:02:00.002-10:00

This is a really mixed bag of stuff, but I have been saving a few links and recommendations that I have wanted to share for a while and have not gotten round to putting it all together!

Firstly, there is this post from Motherhood and More in which she shares her prayer box idea. I love this idea, we have used something similar in the past for learning virtue quotations during our circle time, but I love the cards she has put together. They are great for children’s classes or for family use.

Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations, has been putting together fun preschool packs under a number of different themes that children will love (and she is making more). I plan to use some of them for Damian.

Two items which are making my housekeeping SO much easier. One is this nifty cordless vacuum cleaner that my folks bought for me (thank you, Mom and Dad!). I love this thing – it is light weight, swivels to get under and around things easily, does not break my back like those little handheld dust busters, and best of all no cords! I keep it in my laundry room, which is right off my kitchen, and it is easy to whip out and do a quick vacuum after meals or the end of the day. It works well on carpets too, which is fantastic for when I pull out a sensory tub in the school room!

The second item is my new bread machine which my hubby got for me. I prefer to make our bread, rather than use the store bread, but making it was taking too much time in my already too busy days. But this thing is awesome, it takes me 5 minutes to put the ingredients in, press a few buttons, and a few hours later I have a perfect loaf of healthy, fresh bread. This model has two kneaders, which I have been told makes all the difference, though I wouldn’t know, since this is my first bread machine.

This post from Deb at Living Montessori Now that provides a great list of free Montessori materials online.

And tell me these art supply pouches are not just the cutest way to organize your kids pencils and crayons?

Blog renovations mostly done

2011-05-03T05:13:00.003-10:00

Sorry to any of you who stopped by and found things all mixed up over the past couple of weeks, as I changed things around. You will see on the left column I now have direct links to some favorite posts or series of posts, with an image so you can get an idea of what the post is about.

I finally finished my long time in the works “printables” page, which you can find along the tabs at the top of my blog. It provides direct links to all the free downloadable printables that I have created and posted about, as well as a link to the post so you can see how we used the printable in our school.

You may have noticed my “Inspiration” page has disappeared, it is coming back, just in draft stage at the moment. I hope to have it back up and running in the next few days. And I hope it will indeed be a source of inspiration! :)

I moved things around a bit in the right column, a few things added and a few removed. You will notice that my “I also write for The Homeschool Classroom” has been removed. Between our move, starting and maintaining a new home, learning the ins and outs of our new city, homeschooling, Baha’i community commitments, and the “mystery” project I am working on, I felt like I had way too much on my plate, so I decided it was time to cut some things out, even if I enjoyed them, and writing regularly on The Homeschool Classroom was one of them. I may do the odd guest post, but will no longer be contributing on a regular basis.

And that is pretty much a wrap! I hope you all find the new layout easier to navigate! :)

In celebration of Ridvan

2011-05-03T04:39:00.002-10:00

Our family attends our local Baha’i children classes on weekends, and I have to say I feel blessed to be a part of this great group of parents and kids. The class is co-op style, so the parents take turns teaching the classes and they come up with the most fantastic ideas. This weekend the class was taught by my nephew’s wife, Elizabeth (in case you are wondering - my nephew is not that much younger than me and our kids are the same age), and it was the most wonderful class, so I asked her permission to share it with you all.

We arrived for class in the morning to find that their entire living room had been turned into a tent (chairs, sheets, and a big, tall tube in the centre to prop it up and give it shape), complete with twinkle lights around the edge of the tent, comfy cushions to sit on inside, and the sounds of birds chirping (on CD).

The children were welcomed into the tent, and after prayers and a welcome song, Elizabeth brought out a handful of fabric roses and a styrofoam base, so each child could “plant” a rose in the garden that was used to decorate the interior of the tent.

She gave them a blue sheet and river stones to create the Tigris river alongside the tent, and then brought out a bowl of rose water so each child could rub some on their hands and soon the room smelt of roses, birds were chirping, and we were sitting in a tent alongside the Tigris river.

Elizabeth’s mom (Grandma Julie) then climbed in the tent and told the story of Ridvan, at the end of her story she asked the kids to close their eyes, smell the roses, listen to the birds and imagine how they would have felt at receiving that wonderful message. They all sat there quietly, and soaked in the atmosphere, and I could see their little faces shining (the parents too!), when they opened their eyes Rylan even commented about how wonderful it felt.

I think what I liked most about this class was how it appealed to all the senses, I try to do this a lot in our homeschool, I am trying to do this with our growing Holy Day book, because if you can draw on all the senses, children make more connections with what they are learning and it leaves a lasting impression, a lasting sensation.

It made me think about how to use such ideas for the other Holy Days – the stained glass windows of the home of the Bab, candles on the Ascension of Baha’u’llah, and my mind was racing…

Would love it if anyone posts about a such a themed Holy Day celebration, if you would come back here and link up in the comment section below, so we could build up a collection of ideas together.

Hope you all had a wonderful Ridvan period!

Numbers you can hold on to ~ rainbow hand sewed felt numbers

2011-04-28T15:46:00.005-10:00

I sewed this rainbow set of felt numbers for my littlest learner to play with and have fun with while he learns all about numbers. We liked them so much I sewed an entire alphabet too, which is almost finished. I will share pics of that when it is completed.

I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs Counting Coconuts, but I actually stuffed my letters with toy stuffing to give them a real 3D look and feel.

Using them with math links.

Of course he could not resist counting while jumping on them! I think my jumping math and jump to spell activities really took in this house! :)

This has been added to: Preschool Corner and 5K too! and Show and Tell.

Preschool fun: a review of our letter F week ~ all about fish!

2011-04-26T05:52:00.003-10:00

We did our letter F week a few of weeks ago. Since then Damian I have taken a little break from our usual routine to focus on space related activities as a part of our solar system unit. All of which I will share with you in my summary post on the unit.

Our letter F week was a quiet-ish one, actually. We spent a lot of time reading fish themed books together, since Damian has, really just wanted to read a lot lately, and I am going with that. Since he is only 3 years old, I am very low key and easy going with his work, mostly doing something a little more formal because he loves being a part of our school time. I did not do any sort of planned school work with Rylan at age 3.

We did a couple of the activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler’s letter F. Damian played with this magnetic fish game, which he had a lot of fun with.

We also played this game together several times. Although it is, sadly, not a well constructed toy, it is really great for developing fine motor control and my boys both love it.

Both Rylan and Damian got to paint fish from this Melissa and Doug set. They love painting these animals, we have done them before with our letter D for dinosaur week.

We also spent a day at the zoo to see real fish in action! This is the tropical fish tank, all the fish we used to swim with every week. It makes me happy just to see them, but also a little “home” sick for Hawaii!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Learning about the lunar/moon phases (tutorial)

2011-04-22T05:41:00.004-10:00

We were supposed to be out attending some of the fun Earth Day events around the city, but alas our entire family is nursing a nasty cold. This has certainly been a winter of illness for us. I guess a new place, a new winter climate, we were bound to be hit badly, but this has been really bad!

Enough about our misery…onto lunar phases. This is another item I put together as a part of our solar system study (check out this post and this post to see some other highlights, summary still to come). This model illustrates the lunar phases – you can rotate the top piece around to view the different phases of the moon through the peek “window”. It was easy enough to put together and the boys have enjoyed using it. Here’s what you need to put it together:

~ two cardboard circles

~ pictures of the moon phases (I got mine from Google images under “lunar phases”)

~ A folder clip

~ Label (optional)

Here’s how to do it:

~ Cut out and stick the lunar phase pictures around the edge of the first circle.

~ Cut out a “window” to fit your pictures on the second circle.

~ Poke a hole through the center of both circles, and bind together with a folder clip that allows the circles to rotate, so the different phases can be viewed through the “window”. ~ Add a label on the top circle, if desired. And it’s done!

To my Baha’i friends – Happy Ridvan! To my Christian friends – Happy Easter! To my Jewish friends – Happy Passover! To all – have a great weekend celebrating with your families and friends!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too! and Show and Tell.

Preparing for Ridvan and other Baha’i Holy Days

2011-04-21T12:02:00.003-10:00

I wanted to create a special book on the Baha’i Holy Days with the boys, one that we could look back on every year in preparing for the Holy Days as they approach. We have been working on this over the past week or so, finding the information, quotations, prayers, and putting it all together. Here are our pages for the Festival of Ridvan. You will notice the little velvet pocket on the top of the second page, in which I placed a paper scented with rose oil, I also plan on adding a few rose petals from the Shrine of Baha’u’llah, which we received during our last pilgrimage, to our pages for the Ascension of Baha’u’llah. I felt sensory touches like these would enhance their understanding of and connection to these special days of the year.

We also did a spring inspired set of pages for the Baha’i New Year.

I will continue to share more throughout the year.

Happy Ridvan to all! :)

Solar System Concentration/Match Up Game (printable)

2011-04-19T10:38:00.011-10:00

Here is another installment in our solar system study – a solar system concentration or match up game which I made for my boys, and am sharing with you as a printable. As I mentioned in a previous post, I will share some highlights along the way, but when we are all finished I will provide a big summary post of the entire solar system study which we will be working on over the course of a month (or so…depending on whether the boys want to do more).

The game consists of a deck of cards which I made, printed, laminated, then cut out. We played traditional style concentration, laying all the cards face down and taking turns picking up two cards at a time, trying to find a match. We played several rounds of the game together, and the boys have played with the cards in various ways since then. They are sitting in our feature study area and available for play anytime.

~whole download includes a set each of all nine planets, the sun, and our moon~

I also took out the books we have been reading about each planet and had Damian match the cards and book covers. I will have him do this again once we lay our giant sized solar system across the school room floor (more on that later, though).

If you would like to download the game click here and enjoy!

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Preschool fun: Review of letter E week ~ elephants and earth

2011-04-15T15:53:00.008-10:00

We actually did letter E about three weeks ago! Sorry, my blogging time is limited these days, but I do eventually get things posted! :)

Since we cover a lot of the same activities every week, simply changing the letter, I will refer you back to our previous weeks to see some of what we have done, such as sandpaper letters, playdoh mats, building foam letters, learning numbers, patterning, sequencing from biggest to smallest, sensory tubs, do-a-dot letters, collages, puzzles, peg boards, chalkboard writing, etc, etc: letter A, letter B, letter C, letter D.

But I did want to share some highlights of this week that we have not shared before:

~ Sorting by first letter sounds with our alphabet box. I laid all the objects from our alphabet box for letters A to E on the ground, and put the drawers for those letters out as well. I asked Damian to pick up each object one at a time, same the name of the object, then say the first sound of the object’s name, then put it in the right letter box based on the first sound of the object’s name. We will do this exercise again periodically, adding more objects to it, as we go through the alphabet.

~ We made elephant masks!

~ We colored a picture of the earth with people holding hands around it (kind of like my “Nurturing Virtue” image) and memorized the following quotation from the Baha’i Writings:

The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. ~ Baha'u'llah

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I am most happy because my hubby will be home after being away for a week on business. Next week I will be sharing more details on our solar system study, including a printable game, highlights from our fishy letter F week, as well as a special project we are working on to prepare for Ridvan (and other Baha’i Holy Days in general). Hope to see you there!

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Jump to spell words game (and letter and phonics recognition for my preschooler too!)

2011-04-13T15:31:00.005-10:00

Since my math jumping game was such a hit around this house, I decided to use the same concept in our spelling practice time. I lay out floor letters for the entire alphabet (printed the letters from here), then give Rylan a word or phrase and he spells it out by jumping on the letters to form the word(s). If it is a phrase instead of a single word, as he switches from one word to the next he shouts out “new word”, if the word he is spelling is a proper noun, he shouts out “capital” as he jumps on the first letter of the name. When we use jump to spell for spelling practice, the comment at the end is usually, “Can we do some more spelling, pleeease?”. Got to love that! :)

Of course, not to be left out, Damian wanted in on the action, so he gets to do his own form of letter hopping to practice letter recognition (I call out the letter and he jumps on it) and phonics (I make the sounds of the letter and he jumps on the matching letter). All in all definitely a popular exercise in our home!

Now that it is warmer out, I think we will take this lesson outdoors too. I will have Rylan write out the alphabet in sidewalk chalk and then the jump spelling will begin!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too! and Show and Tell

Tutorial: making a model to illustrate the earth’s orbit around the sun

2011-04-11T07:44:00.004-10:00

Right now we are studying the solar system together. We plan to spend about a month focusing on it (we continue with our regular work during this time too). We have books, DVDs, experiments, crafts, sensory tubs, model making, space playdoh, games, puzzles, stickers, etc, etc lined up for our space exploration.

When we have completed the entire month of learning I will share a summary of all we covered, however, in the meantime I will be sharing from time to time the “how to” of some specific aspects of this exploration as we do them. Here is the first one:

To help the boys understand and visualize how the earth rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun, giving us day and night and the seasons, I made this model, which they could manipulate themselves to get a sense of how it all works.

We also used our globe and a flashlight (to represent the light coming from the sun) and took turns being the earth and the sun. The boys thought this was pretty fun.

I used cardboard to make the sun and earth (colored with markers) and the strip holding them together. I attached it all using those bending folder clips (I am not sure if they have an official name?), because they allow you to rotate the objects that you clip together.

After showing the boys this model, Rylan felt we should add the moon, so we could make it orbit around earth, so we did!

And after all was said and done, Damian took the model and used it as a “moon craft” rolling on three different sized wheels! :)

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

We have a mama goose!

2011-04-10T16:09:00.004-10:00

Well, not so much that we have a goose, as she chose our backyard for a nesting place. Luckily she chose a spot right outside the window, so we can watch the nest, without being noticed too much or scaring mama away. So far, we have counted 6 eggs. We are not sure if we are seeing all of them, because we just catch glimpses as mama goose moves around or covers them with leaves so she can go off to eat and swim.

Here is mama on her nest:

And here is protective dad, always watchfully swimming around our pond, guarding the nest.

We will be sure to keep you posted on our little goose family as they hatch and grow!

All About Spelling

2011-04-07T10:02:00.002-10:00

I had heard much positive feedback about this program from other homeschoolers, so I decided to give it a try. I purchased Level One at the beginning of the school year, and Rylan and I have been working through the program since then.

I can safely say that it lives up to the hype! This is a very well thought out, easy to use, easy to teach program. The multi-sensory approach to spelling (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic) is also a big factor in the program working for Rylan. He gets bored with monotony, so the fact that we sometimes work orally, then with magnetic tiles, or writing (and I change the materials we use with writing – dry erase board, chalk board, paper and pencil, paper and markers, etc) to practice spelling words keeps the interest level up and utilizes multiple skills.

~some of the different media we use~

Each level comes with a teacher’s manual (all you need to do is open the book and follow the instructions and steps which are clear and simple, couldn’t be easier for the teacher/parent), several sets of flashcards which are used for teaching and review (a box and dividing cards are provided to make it super easy to organize the cards and keep track of what skills are mastered and what needs to be reviewed), magnetic letter tiles, tokens for word segmentation, a phonogram CD-rom, progress charts, and a completion chart.

The thing I love the most about All About Spelling (apart from the fact that it is teaching Rylan how to spell, of course!) is that it takes a subject with the reputation for being boring, and makes it enjoyable and very straight forward to follow.

An old classic: the Lite Brite

2011-04-05T14:18:00.003-10:00

The other day we were over at my sister’s home, and since she has grandkids (yes, her grandkids are the same age as my kids, I was a late comer in my family!) she has a stash of toys in her house that my boys love investigating while visiting her. This time she pulled out something new for them – a Lite Brite, which she had just picked up from a garage sale.

When I saw it, it brought back a flood of childhood memories! I remember spending hours creating pictures and patterns on this toy. It was an equally huge success with my boys. They laid down on a rug and created together on the Lite Brite for the rest of our visit there. Since it uses small pegs to create an image it is excellent for practicing the pincer grip and fine motor coordination in general. And the reward when you switch off the lights and see your image colorfully glowing in the dark is bound to be a hit with the little ones. Win, win.

My sister had picked up an old style one at a garage sale, which was like the one I used when growing up. Does it look familiar to you?

When I got home that night I did an online search to see if they still made them. Sure enough they do, but they have been updated somewhat.

The newer one has a smaller board than the original one, which is a shame, but it still works nicely. It has a convenient little peg holder built into the board, so the pegs stay with the board all the time. It is also battery operated, so it does not need to be plugged into the wall, like the original ones. We bought one, and the boys have enjoyed many hours of creating on it! Me too! ;)

Activity boxes: my secret weapon in teaching multiple ages

2011-04-04T03:58:00.006-10:00

I promised in my school room tour post that I would give you more details on our activity boxes set up, because they work so well for us. I am sorry it has taken me so long to get to it, but as you would have noticed I don’t get round to posting every day, just not enough hours in the day! It is not for lack of things to post about, I have about 10-15 partially written posts just sitting and waiting to be finished and published!

So, what are activity boxes? They are my secret weapon in keeping two active boys, in very different stages of development happy while working one-on-one with only one of them. They are basically a set of boxes or plastic drawers in which I place a variety of activities, all educational in some way. The boys are only allowed to use the items in the drawers when they are finished with their work and waiting for me to finish off with their brother. The items in the boxes are kept only for this use, and I rotate the items every 1-2 weeks, depending on how popular an activity is.

Right now we have a set of six plastic stacked drawers which I bought from Walmart, but I am hoping to change them to a more open bin or trays on shelves set up when I next visit IKEA.

Here are some examples of the items I have placed in the drawers recently:

~Haba peg board~

~tactile numbers (like our sandpaper letters)~

~clothing peg number cards (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~Spanish color match up game~

~magnetic counting book~

~large peg pattern board~

~color match up game (downloaded from Confessions of a Homeschooler)~

~lacing cards~

~pattern blocks and boards~

~magnetic shapes book~

~rubbing plates~

~puzzles (this one is an infantino puzzle, but we use a lot of different ones)~

For more ideas refer to my Montessori inspired workboxes post, we use all the activities in that post in our activity boxes too.

Alongside the activity boxes, my boys are encouraged to look through the items in our feature study area of the classroom – read the books, or use whatever manipulatives are there – to become more familiar with the topic we are learning about, be it geography, science, or history (for more on our feature study area see our classroom tour post).

From time to time I will share more ideas for activity boxes.

This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Making dream catchers craft ~ part of our North American Continent study

2011-03-30T10:05:00.007-10:00

I promised to post about how we made the dream catchers for our North American study craft. This was a fun craft and actually very easy to prepare for (on my part) and to make (for the boys). So, here goes:

What you need:

~ paper plates

~ a hole punch

~ string/yarn (or even leather strips if you prefer)

~ beads (optional)

~ feathers

How to put it together:

Start by cutting out the center of your paper plate (at this point you could color or paint the paper plate, if you wanted to add more color to your dream catcher).

Then punch holes around the edge of the paper plate.

Take your piece of string (make it relatively long) and tie it to one of the holes, then start to make a web by lacing the string through the different holes around the plate (I used white string, because it is what I had on hand at the time, but you could use colored string or yarn, or even leather strips). During this stage you can add beads on the string if you want to add a little more color to the “web” of string.

Once you are happy with the string pattern you have made, tie off the string in the hole adjacent to where you started, so you can loop the two ends together to make a hanging hook for your dream catcher.

Punch three additional holes at the bottom of the dream catcher. Tie short strips of string here, so they hang down from the bottom of the dream catcher. Decorate with beads if you like, then tie a feather on the end, knot off to complete and hold the beads and feather in place.

And you’re done!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too and Show and Tell.

Geography: the North American Continent

2011-03-28T17:13:00.009-10:00

We just completed a week long study of the North American Continent. Here is a summary of what we covered:

We read various books on North America, some of which appear at the end of the post. Added to those at the end of the post are: Atlas of North America by Karen Foster and North America by Katie Bagley.

Rylan completed this North American themed math worksheet which I made for him. It can be downloaded here if you would like to use.

We made and ate Mexican food. We were out running errands all day Thursday and had to stop at McDonalds for lunch, I suppose that could count as American food, right (or just bad food!)? :P

We listened to various Putamayo CDs, the selection can be seen at the end of the post.

Rylan put together a North America poster based on our learning, which included a map, people of North America, animals of North America, and a fact sheet. We also added the USA flag that Rylan had colored during the week.

We made dream catchers (Native American) and read about what they are and how they are used (here is a tutorial on how to make them).

We added the Baha’i places of significance in North America to our wall of Baha’i Holy Places and Houses of Worship around the world.

We read about children of North America in Children Just Like Me.

We read the story from North America (the American Southwest) entitled “She Who Is Alone” from the book The Barefoot Book of Earth Tales. We also read a few stories from Around the World in 80 Tales, which I have to admit I edited somewhat, since some of the stories in that book are a bit (or a lot) mean spirited.

Rylan completed some pages in the Around the World Coloring Book.

To see our previous continent studies, click on these links: Africa, Asia, Europe.

This has been added to: Show&Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Preschool fun: a review of our letter “D” week

2011-03-23T11:58:00.004-10:00

For anyone who follows this blog closely, you will know that dinosaurs are pretty popular in this house! So our D for dinosaur week actually rolled over into two weeks, because we had so many fun activities to do! Many of them Rylan joined in on too. Here’s a round-up:

We started the week by singing a funny dinosaur version of the hokey pokey we called the dino hokey. Instead of arms and legs we used claws, teeth, tails, and yes, lots of roaring. The boys loved it! And asked to do it several times over during the week…since I was fasting at the time all the roaring gave me a seriously dry, sore throat…ahhh, the things we do for our kids, right? :)

We practiced the phonetic sound of D using the items from our alphabet box while singing the song from Leap Frog’s Letter Factory DVD for the letter D.

I put together this dinosaur sensory tub for the boys to play with, using rice as a base. I have done this for them before using sand, but this time there was a lot more in the tub to play with. This sensory tub has received hours of play time during the past two weeks.

Damian completed this “D is for Damian” collage by filling in the letters using a glue stick and tissue paper squares.

We made the letter D using our haba peg board.

We used our foam letter pieces to build D and our sandpaper letters to practice “writing” little d.

I asked Damian to identify all the Ds on the white board using our magnetic letter set.

We played letter match up and concentration using the dinosaur alphabet cards I made when Rylan was a wee one.

Damian completed many of the activities provided by Confessions of a Homeschooler’s “D is for dinosaur” week.

~using counters to make the numbers and a pointer to count them all~ ~lacing~ ~matching numbers with amounts~ ~size ordering, completing patterns, sorting big and little Ds~

The boys painted the dinosaurs from this Melissa and Doug paint your own dinosaur set.

The boys decorated these dinosaur cut-outs.

They also colored in do-it-yourself dinosaur stickers and then used them for other art work projects.

We made perler bead dinosaurs.

We did this cute craft using the letter D for form a dino, which I found on Homeschool Creations.

Damian completed this Melissa and Doug dinosaur puzzle.

We made playdoh Ds using the playdoh letter mats I made from Homeschool Creations.

We sang this song: I'm a Mean Old Dinosaur (Tune: I'm a little Tea Pot)
I'm a mean old Dinosaur (Make a mean face, the kids make the cutest mean faces) Big and Tall (Gesture hands big and tall ) Here is my tail, here is my claw. (Gesture hands behind your back for tail and make claw hands) When I get all hungry (rub your tummy) I just growl (have the kids exaggerate the grrroooowwwlll) Look out kids I'm on the prowl. (Here I tickle each one of the tummy and they all giggle)

I recited this rhyme for Damian and had him do the finger math along with me: Five enormous dinosaurs Letting out a roar-- One went away, and Then there were four. Four enormous dinosaurs Crashing down a tree-- One went away, and Then there were three. Three enormous dinosaurs Eating tiger stew-- One went away, and Then there were two. Two enormous dinosaurs Trying to run-- One ran away, and then there was one. One enormous dinosaur, Afraid to be a hero-- He went away, and Then there was zero.

As you can see it was a fun filled dino week (and a bit)!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too and Show&Tell.

Fun math game for reinforcing addition and subtraction

2011-03-22T15:34:00.003-10:00

I recently put together this math game for Rylan and I to play, which for now we are using to practice addition and subtraction, but eventually I will add multiplication as we continue to move through the math curriculum. The game was a big success, Rylan had a lot of fun! We were still playing when Damian woke up and he wanted to play too, so I think I will have to make a preschooler version of the game for him as well.

So, here are the details of the game:

Firstly I made these cards, which I actually copied out of the Singapore Math Books, but they are easy enough to make yourself. I colored the even numbers blue (Damian’s favorite color) and the odd numbers orange (Rylan’s favorite) and the equation signs are all yellow/green. Once colored, I stuck the paper onto cardboard using a lot of glue to make sure they would stick well, then laminated them before cutting them out into card shapes. I made several sets of the numbers from 0-10 and a mix of actual numbers and written numbers, just to add another dimension to the learning.

So now that we have a deck of number cards, how to play? This is what we did: I laid all the equation signs (+, –, =) in between us, then gave each of us 3 cards to start with and put the rest of the cards upside down in a pile between us. The goal of the game is to make as many equations as possible using the cards you pick up. So, you start with 3, if you cannot make an equation with your starting cards, you pick up one, and so one taking turns until you can make an equation. Once you make an equation, you put the cards you used aside, and carry on with what is left over. The winner is the person who has the most cards set aside (from making equations) when the deck runs out. If there were cards left over in our hands, we subtracted the same amount from our equation pile (I hope this is making sense to you all!).

We started by doing basic addition and subtraction.

Then we moved onto three number addition and/or subtraction equations (we started with 4 cards for these games).

Then we moved on to two sided addition and subtraction equations.

When we ended the game after many rounds, Rylan told me he was looking forward to playing again soon!

This has been added to: Show & Tell

Nurturing virtue: The Adventures of Mali and Keela

2011-03-17T11:10:00.002-10:00

I know it has been a while since I did a Nurturing Virtue post. There are two reasons for this, one is that I am working on a rather large project related to our virtue studies, which I will eventually share as a whole on this blog, and you will understand where my energies have been going (I just don’t have time at this point to duplicate my efforts into the project I am working on and posting it here too, but it will eventually be available to all of you in its completed form).

The second reason is that we have been taking a little break from our usual routine to work through the book Mali & Keela: A Virtues Book for Children.

It is a chapter book filled with stories about the adventures of these two friends. Each chapter/story incorporates four virtues. At the end of each chapter there are review pages where you can read the definitions of the virtues used in the story, reflect on how/when they were used in the story, and then questions which foster further discussion of the virtues and how we use them or what they look like in our own lives.

The book was not written by the authors of the The Family Virtues Guide, but it is based on this program and can definitely be used in conjunction with the Virtues Project cards and books.

We read a chapter once every 2-3 days, then spend the time in between chapters going through the review section and thoroughly discussing each topic and learning quotations related to these virtues (this part I have added myself).

This book provides another enjoyable way in which you can discuss and share virtue learning with your children. There are also many fun activities you could do with your children, building on the stories and discussion.

On a side note: for those of you who do not follow this blog on Facebook, I shared a link to an interview on Oprah with Linda Kavelin Popov, the co-founder of The Virtues Project. So, if you are interested in seeing that, hop over to my Facebook page.

Happy weekending to you all! We will be out enjoying the first wonderful signs of spring and celebrating the Baha’i New Year (March 21st) which completes our 19 day fasting period and ushers in the new year and new season…a change I have never experienced quite this acutely, spring here is really like a re-birth after a long, cold winter. It is truly a celebration!

Preschool fun: review of our letter C week

2011-03-16T10:14:00.003-10:00

We started the week reading our Baha’i Alphabet Book in which the letter C was for courtesy, so we spent our virtue time for the week learning about courtesy. For ideas on teaching courtesy, see this post.
We made the letter C using our new Haba peg board which Grandma gave to Damian recently (both boys love this peg board).

We went through the C items in our alphabet box. We practiced the phonetic sound of the letter C using the song from Leap Frog’s Letter Factory DVD.
We completed many of the “C is for caterpillar” activities from the Letter of Week curriculum by Confession of a Homeschooler.
I printed 2 copies of the Do-A-Dot sheet from the “C is for Caterpillar” post and made up this activity to add some pincer grip exercise: I put a glue dot into each of the dots on the sheet, provided Damian with chopsticks and container of pompoms, then asked him to tweeze the pompoms and stick them onto each glue dot.
We practiced writing Cs in rice. Damian loves this activity, so when he is finished I just leave him with the tray of rice and he draws and plays for while.
Damian sorted these little pompoms by color.
He watched the scholastic DVD version of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”.
We did the “C for caterpillar” exercise from Yoga for Kids, Vol. 2: ABCs.
We wrote Cs on magic scratch paper. I bought our pack of scratch paper from a local store, but I found this on amazon too.
I gave Damian this matching upper and lower case letters sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler to complete (it is laminated, so that we can re-use it).
We read Farfallina and Marcel going with the caterpillar theme.
We completed the week with our ceremonial reading of “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and added our Cs to the palm tree.

This has been added to Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Field trip: Medieval Court

2011-03-15T07:51:00.002-10:00

This weekend we attended a special “Medieval Court” day at one of our local museums, where the boys got to be knights on a quest, roar like dragons, play with silly jesters, and make several items of medieval themed crafts.

~some of the items they got to look at and try on~

Actually some of these items we needed to support while the kids were trying them on, they were SO heavy they almost knocked them over.

~Costumed dancers~

~Rylan working on his coat of arms~

~His completed shield with the symbol of first born~

~Stained glass window art~

Science unit: Studying the human body

2011-03-12T04:26:00.004-10:00

We have had a whole lot of fun studying the human body over the past month! When I started preparing for this unit I was thinking we would study it over the course of two weeks, but the boys were so fascinated, I added a lot more onto it. I was pleasantly surprised at how much Damian understood and how much he enjoyed it. He even explained to me how the white blood cells where fighting off his cold virus while he was sick a couple weeks ago…I am pretty sure I didn’t know anything about white blood cells when I had just turned 3 years old! ;)

Here is a round up of what we covered during our study of the human body:

We read a lot of books, and used them as a starting point for many of the aspects of our further research/activities. All the books are shown at the end of this post. The books vary in their level of difficulty, since I am teaching at preschool and grade 1 level at the same time.
For a fun start to the unit, and to get our bodies moving we sang and acted out “head, shoulders, knees, and toes”, getting faster and faster with each round (and more and more silly too!).
We read the Magic School Bus: Human Body, watched the Magic School Bus: Human Body DVD (Damian did not last long with the DVD, he thought it was a little gross, so Rylan watched the rest while he was napping), and did all the experiments included in the Magic School Bus: Journey inside the human body science kit.

{creating a ball and socket joint, with vegetable oil (synovial fluid) to make the movement of the “joint” more fluid}

{getting a feel for how muscles work}

{experiment aimed at comparing our different lung capacities}

{using iodine to test whether foods contain starch. We also did an exercise to identify the different areas of taste on our tongues, but I thought I would spare you photos of that one!}

{building our own stethoscope to listen to our hearts; we also compared restful and active heart rates}

{learning about the functioning of the diaphragm}

We completed the life sized poster included in the above science kit.
We did a few more experiments related to the human body from this book:
We put together a large skeleton puzzle, which can be downloaded here. And then sang “Dem Bones” (which the boys learnt from a scholastic DVD a couple of years back) just for fun.

We put together a glow in the dark skeleton that I picked up for $3 at our local science museum shop.

Both of the plastic and paper skeletons, along with all the books and other activities (that could be repeated by the boys on their own), that we did during the course of our study were placed in our “feature study” area of our school room, so the boys could come back at different times to read or work with the materials individually.

We drew diagrams of the eye after we read about the eye and how it works.

{Damian at work}

We made red and white blood cells out of construction paper after reading about the circulatory system.
Rylan read through and completed this book:

Rylan completed several worksheets on the human body during his workbox time in the mornings, here are some examples:

We went to our local science museum to visit their human body section and worked through all the different hands-on displays. This was a lot of fun (although a couple of the items really grossed the boys out! :) ).
After reading our last book Happy and Healthy the boys did the exercises in Yoga For Kids Vol. 2: ABC’s.

We will definitely be re-visiting a study of the human body in the future, when the boys are older and we can study the topic more in-depth.

This has been added to Preschool Corner & 5K too and Show & Tell.

A tour of our school room

2011-03-10T12:32:00.004-10:00

Since this is the first time we have had a dedicated school room, I wanted to share it with you. When I first started homeschooling my intent was to never have a school room, because in the many books and blogs I read, school rooms were often equated with “compartmentalizing” learning in one’s home.

However, as time went on I realized where we study really makes no difference to our mindset, because learning has become a very natural part of our daily rhythm whether we are at home, in the car, the grocery store, or at afternoon activities. I also realized that if I want to give my boys an organized, inspiring, and engaging work space that they can really make their own, we needed to have a dedicated room, otherwise the daily set up for me took time away from learning and our main living space was always piled with books, papers, and projects.

In Hawaii I split our office space with a school space, now in our new home we have a full room to ourselves. It has been great fun putting it together and now it is one of our favorite rooms in the house, because it is colorful, flooded with sunlight, and we have such a great time learning together.

We also use the dining area for art projects, the kitchen for science experiments, the play room for imaginative play, the reading room for story time…you see where I am going, having a school room has not prevented learning from happening elsewhere, it has simply allowed us to be more organized and use a lot of visual learning aids on the walls. So now, on with the tour…

Our Animals of the World map (bought at Costco), continental map for our geography studies, elements of drawing chart for Drawing with Children, writing chart for letters and numbers, Damian’s alphabet and number charts, our Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom palm tree with our two main alphabet books at the bottom of it.

Next to this area is a book case that holds supplies, reference books, work folders, and manipulatives. We also have a two door built in cupboard that has shelves for more storage.

Our school song, as decorated by my two boys. This is next to our circle time area, since we sing our school song every morning.

Calendar and weather portion of our circle time area, beneath this, which I forgot to take a photo of, is a rug and big floor cushions for us to sit on while we say prayers, do our virtue learning, sing our school song, and go through the calendar/weather activities. I am in the process of re-working our virtue learning poster which is usually in this area of our classroom, I will share it when it is completed.

Our white board, which we use for all kinds of things. I keep it at ground level so it is easy for the boys to work on too.

Our electronic globe which is still a favorite.

Our feature study area – whether it is a science, history, or geography unit we are working on – we keep all the books, posters, and manipulatives in this area, so that while we are studying the subject, the boys can easily come and do further investigation or re-use the manipulatives.

Our activity and work boxes – I did away with workboxes for Damian, since he and I work together through all of his work now, and converted them into activity boxes (I will do a full post on these soon, because they have proven to be very popular with the boys and helpful to me in teaching two students doing very different levels of work). The workboxes are Rylan’s and he works through them in the mornings after our circle time, while I am focused on working one-on-one with Damian.

My area labels as seen above were all done on my computer, laminated and I glued on the wood deco animals (or a castle, which you can see on our “reading nook” sign below), which I purchased from Michaels for 25c each.

“Education is the indispensible foundation of all human excellence”. A banner I made across the school room wall from a quotation from the Writings of Baha’u’llah. A reminder of why we work so hard to learn! I will change this quotation banner a few times during the course of the year, re-using the same letters.

Our Baha’i Holy Places and Houses of Worship wall which we are adding to as we study the continents in geography.

The Golden Rule poster – a quotation or verse from all the major world religions referring to the golden rule of treating others the way we would wish to be treated.

Our reading nook – this is just a small reading corner in our school room, we also have a reading/library room downstairs next to the play room.

And that is a peek into our school space!

This has been added to Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Making name bracelets and necklaces for cousins and friends

2011-03-08T08:48:00.002-10:00

This year for Ayyam-i-ha the boys made handmade name necklaces and bracelets for their cousins and friends. Although mom (that would be me) forgot to take pictures of their completed jewelry before I wrapped them. I did take pictures of the ones they made with their own names the next day.

We used alphabet beads and a pack of wooden and shell beads (I guess we still have the Hawaiian beaches in our hearts, we tend to do things with beachy themes…). It was a fun exercise in fine motor skills (beading on string), pattern/sequencing, and in spelling with the alphabet letters. Rylan did the spelling of the names (spelling practice) and called out the letters he needed to Damian, so that he could find them in the bowl of letter beads (letter recognition).

I had not made any conscious goal for this activity to be anything more than a fun craft, however, observing how it evolved into a joyful learning experience, made me stop and think about how naturally and seamlessly learning has become woven into the daily rhythm of our family life. Learning is a natural, enjoyable, and continuous part of my boy’s life, there is no underlying feeling that learning occurs only during “school”. I have never been anything but a homeschooling mom, so I don’t know if this is unique to the homeschooling experience, but it is something I am truly grateful for.

Spring time crafts to banish those winter blues!

2011-03-08T03:21:00.002-10:00

A few months ago we moved from Hawaii to the Midwest, and at the beginning of winter (I know call us crazy, you wouldn’t be the first!). While I do think the snow is very pretty, after over three months of looking at nothing but white, I find my eyes longing to see green and spring colors. Since it may still be awhile before the snow starts to melt, we decided it was time to create spring inside our home, so for anyone out there who wants to bring the change of season on a little sooner, here are some fun craft ideas for the whole family to get in on!

To see some of our spring craft projects take a peek over at The Homeschool Classroom where you can find me today.

Learning about the Baha’i calendar

2011-03-05T04:53:00.003-10:00

The boys and I start most of our days with circle time (the reason I say “most” is because some days we have activities in the morning outside of the home, like Damian’s Music Together class, so those days we only have prayers together). Our circle time has always included calendar time, during which we learn about the days of the week and the months of the Gregorian calendar.

I have taught my boys about the Baha’i calendar before, but I wanted to make it a more regular part of this calendar learning time. I made this Baha’i calendar to add to the circle time area of our school room to illustrate the 19 months of the year (each made up of 19 days).

I decorated a clothes pin which we will use to mark the months as we go through the year. On the first day of each month the boys will take turns moving the clothes pin to mark the new month. We will learn about the name and meaning of the name of that new month (the months of the Baha’i calendar are all named after the attributes of God, such as Splendor, Glory, Grandeur, Knowledge, Love, Mercy). On a regular basis (maybe daily, because the boys love the singing part of our circle time) we will sing the Baha’i calendar song “Song of the Months” by Doug Cameron so we memorize the names and order of the months. I have other calendar activities planned for the year, which I will share with you as we go through them.

I printed the calendar from this site, glued it on to cardboard and laminated it for more durability (please note: you must glue the paper and cardboard together prior to laminating them, because if they are not glued, when you cut the calendar out, the paper and cardboard will separate, each being laminated on only one side).

For the clothes pin: I took a regular wooden clothes pin, colored it blue using a permanent marker, wrote “This month” on it using a black permanent marker, and then made and laminated a small 9 pointed star, which I stuck to the end of the clothes pin using a glue dot.

A beautiful, colorful addition to our circle time.

A homemade book

2011-03-04T09:49:00.002-10:00

For Ayyam-i-ha Rylan made a beautiful book for his Dad. Complete with a hardcover, copyright information, and signed by the author! ;)

Geography: learning about Europe

2011-03-03T08:16:00.004-10:00

As always, we started our new continental study with looking back on our travels, this time through Europe – Rylan has travelled in England and Italy (oh, how I would love to spend a few weeks in Italy again…).

{Rylan (18 months at the time) pointing to the intricate ceiling inside the Vatican, Rome, Italy…I believe his exact words were, “Mommy, WOW!”}

Our learning activities included:

Reading the True Book “Europe”. I read it to the boys over the course of the week, we stopped to discuss and research more in depth certain aspects of the book as we went along. At the end of the week I gave Rylan the assignment of reading the book again himself while I put Damian down for a nap, then I gave him a short oral quiz (styled like a game) to see how much he remembered.
We made and ate European food…to be honest this is no great thing in our home! A lot of European styled dishes are a part of our ordinary diet, especially Italian pastas!
We watched Celtic Woman and the Riverdance together.
We listened to various Putamayo CDs with a European flavor, you can see the list at the end of this post.
We put together a European poster based on all our learning, which included a map, places of significance, people of Europe, and a fact sheet.

We practiced our Spanish (since this is the second language we are learning in school) and learned how to say hello in other European languages.
We added Baha’i places of significance in Europe to our wall.
We read about children of Europe in Children Just Like Me.
Rylan built the Eifel Tower out of Lego for fun.

To see our previous continental studies click on these links: Africa and Asia.

This has been added to Preschool Corner and 5K too.

Ayyam-i-ha and some of our handmade gifts

2011-03-02T16:26:00.003-10:00

We had a wonderfully fun Ayyam-i-ha weekend, filled with lots of family and friends. I am amazed my kids kept up with all the parties we were invited to (one every morning and afternoon), although I must admit we were all kind of tired the first half of this week (but it was definitely worth it!). We have also had Grandma and Pa staying with us since Thursday last week, so it has been a very special time.

As we have done in the past, one of our days of Ayyam-i-ha was themed as a handmade gifts only day. Here are a few picture frames the boys made for Grandparents and Daddy: {the top one is made of foam, decorated with foam stickers and glitter glue; the bottom two are wooden frames decorate with permanent markers and wooden animals/beach theme added on with the help of glue dots (can I just say that I recently found and now love glue dots!)}

Over the next few days I will be sharing other handmade gifts that we made, in between the posts I promised for this week, including our European study, our human body unit, and the layout of our new classroom…with the late start I am getting on the week, however, these posts may carry us into next week as well!

Right now the adult members of this family, along with all the Baha’is over the age of 15 around the world are beginning on a month (a Baha’i month, which is 19 days long) of fasting. No food or drink from sunrise to sunset. The Fast is a period of spiritual focus and renewal. Since pregnant and/or breastfeeding women are exempt from fasting (for obvious medical reasons), this will be the first time I am fasting in 7 years! My husband is most happy to have company again! :)

Wishing all my Baha’i friends a truly blessed and inspired Fast!

Ayyam-i-ha and all our spring time crafts

2011-02-24T19:55:00.002-10:00

To all the items we made last year, we added a few more this year. It was not so difficult to achieve a spring feeling living in Hawaii, because it was pretty much spring and summer all year round there, but here it was a little more challenging, so we needed to add some more spring-time crafts to the mix!

Working on and putting up these decorations was all done while listening to the Ayyam-i-ha CD, and was part of our “countdown to Ayyam-i-ha activities”, among many other fun activities (which are pulled out on a daily basis from our countdown star calendar).

We found a new place for our Ayyam-i-ha banner, which I made out of aloha fabrics last year in Hawaii.
And a new home for our Ayyam-i-ha virtue tree, above the boy’s teddy chair in our reading room (which is right next to the play room. I think we need to add some birds and other creatures to brighten up the surrounding bare, white walls…hmmm).
We created a flower garden along the floor trim in our entrance area using pre-cut flower boards. We decorated them with markers and glitter glue.
We made an “Ayyam-i-ha garden” of flowers and butterflies using pre-cut craft foam flowers and then I cut out leaves, stems and grass to go with them. The butterflies were cut out of cardboard. We decorated everything using markers and glitter glue.
We made a bouquet of tissue paper flowers to put on our dining room table.
We strung butterflies from the hanging lights around the house.
The boys made flying foam butterflies, which we attached by ribbon to doorframes and from the ceiling in the play room.
We made butterfly finger puppets to play with too!

To all my Baha’i friends, wishing you a very happy and joyful celebration!

I will be away from this space for a few days while I spend time with family and friends, see you next week when I will be sharing the details of our European study, our science unit on the human body, and a look at the layout of our new school room.

Jumping math

2011-02-22T07:25:00.003-10:00

I have two active boys who love to move. While I believe it is important for them to learn to sit still and have quiet working time, I also think it is important to bring fun movement into school time, especially with subjects its not expected.

Last week we did an addition review, to make sure all the number bonds under 10 were still clear in Rylan’s memory, and part of the review was “jumping math”. I used the large floor numbers from Letter A is for apple on Confessions of a Homeschooler (I had already printed them for Damian’s letter A week), laid them across the floor of the school room and had Rylan jump his addition. For example if I said 6 + 4 =, he would start on “6” and jump 4 numbers to land on his answer “10”. By the end we had practiced our number bonds, and he was breathless and laughing. Mission accomplished!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner and 5K too.

Preschool fun: a review of our letter “B” week

2011-02-21T11:53:00.002-10:00

We started the week by reading the section on letter B in the Baha’i Alphabet Book.
Then we took all the items out of our alphabet box under ‘b”, practiced sounding out the words with an emphasis on the bah sound.
We used many of the activities listed under Letter B for butterfly on Confessions of a Homeschooler. I am focusing more on the hands-on activities right now.
We made Bb’s out of playdoh.
We used letter “b” from the sandpaper letters I made for my boys.
Damian traced over chalk Bb’s that I had written using a small wet sponge.

We made butterfly finger puppets (cut out of cardboard, make finger holes, and decorate).

We read stories about Baha’u’llah and the Bab and made pictures of the Shrine of the Bab.

We ended the week with the ceremonial reading of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and I lifted Damian up so he could stick his big B and little b onto our letter tree.

A change in our math curriculum: Singapore Math

2011-02-16T16:38:00.003-10:00

At the beginning of our kindergarten year, math was going well, we were using Math-U-See and Rylan seemed to enjoy it. Unfortunately, it did not last…the further we got into the curriculum the more he started to dislike it. I tried all kinds of things to make it enjoyable for him, and he did enjoy all the games and manipulatives we used, but as soon as I pulled “the book” off the shelf he was moaning. Even though I thought the curriculum was good, and liked several aspects of the program, it clearly wasn’t working for him. So I called it a day and started looking for a new curriculum as we began first grade…enter Singapore Math (which I had almost gone with in the first place!).

We have been using Singapore Math for several months now and Rylan is still enjoying it. He relates to and understands their method of teaching very easily. He likes the colorful and fun textbooks and workbooks, the games they suggest to reinforce learning, and believe it or not, he really likes doing the tests in the additional test book they provide. He loves the challenge of working on the clock and the sense of accomplishment in seeing how well he does on a test.

Fingers crossed it continues to be an enjoyable subject for us both!

Preschool fun: a review of our first week

2011-02-15T15:21:00.002-10:00

So Damian had his first week of preschool last week – letter A week! Here is a round up of what we did:

We started the week by reading the section on letter A in the Baha’i Alphabet Book.
We used many of the activities listed in Letter A for Apple on Confessions of a Homeschooler. I am focusing more on the hands-on activities and less on the worksheet type activities.
We did “A is for Allah’u’Abha” and posted it up above our school room door.
We made small framed photographs of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. Damian asked to put his photograph over his bed so that ‘Abdu’l-Baha could watch over him while he slept. :)
We used letter “a” from the sandpaper letters I made for the boys.
Damian watched the new Leap Frog DVD The Amazing Alphabet Amusement Park.

We put up Ayyam-i-ha decorations this week (after all “A” is for Ayyam-i-ha, why not tie it into the school week too!).
We made “A” and “a” out of playdoh, and also with our bodies (e.g. for “A” I was one side, Rylan the other, and Damian the middle line). I have found with boys movement is an important part of learning.
We ended the week with the ceremonial reading of Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and I lifted Damian up so he could stick his big “A” and little “a” onto our letter tree.

Happy heart day!

2011-02-14T16:12:00.002-10:00

{heart shaped pancakes made with my sweet boys today}

Hope your day was filled with sweetness too!

There’s a preschooler in my home again!

2011-02-09T16:47:00.002-10:00

And a proud one at that! I decided it was time to focus on a slightly more formal curriculum for Damian, mostly because he wants to get in on the school action! :) I was getting all excited about creating a whole curriculum for him, preschool is such a fun stage, and there is so much to work with, but honestly after looking around I decided there was no point in re-inventing the wheel! There is a wealth of fantastic material online for this age group. So, instead I am going to be pulling from various sources, and just adding a few personal touches when necessary to create his curriculum.

He will continue to participate in our circle time – memorizing prayers, learning about virtues, calendar time, charting the weather, etc. – then Rylan will set off to work through his morning workboxes while I have focused time with Damian. During this one-on-one time with Damian we will be working through the Letter of the Week curriculum created by Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler. It is a curriculum that helps preschoolers learn and perfect many basic skills with an alphabet focus. To this I will be adding Baha’i inspiration (e.g. A Baha’i Alphabet Book), Montessori activities, and special projects/themes I know will appeal to him. Since Damian loves the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we will definitely be working on adding to the alphabet palm tree as we work through the Letter of the Week curriculum, as Erica shared on her blog. In fact, we just put our tree up!

We started this week with Aa is for apple – Erica has very generously provided all of the Letter of the Week activities for free download in the drop down menu “ABC’s & 123’s” or under the “My printables” tab on the Confessions of Homeschooler site, or you can purchase the whole curriculum, so you have everything organized in one space (with a few extra bits and pieces) here for only $10.

Damian will also be participating in some aspects our geography studies and science experiments. Right now we are studying Europe for geography and the human body for science, both of which I will share with you when we have completed the units.

Other great preschool resources that we will be using often:

I love Counting Coconuts filled with the most amazing Montessori activities.
Homeschool Creations – check out Jolanthe’s “Preschool Corner” and “ABC’s” tabs which provide lots of fun activities, printables, and other resources for preschoolers up to kindergarten.
Kids Learning Station – a site I am excited to have just found because it will save me hours of making printables of my own!
Pre-Kinders
Totally Tots

A trip to the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, IL

2011-02-07T13:22:00.002-10:00

We recently paid a visit to the Baha’i House of Worship in Wilmette, IL. Ramtin and I had been there before, but it was our boys first visit. When we first got there, it was just our family inside the Temple, so we were able to sing prayers together and walk the boys through the interior. It was VERY cold the day we were there, but I managed to spend long enough outside to snap a few pictures of this exquisite building to share with you.

Below is the interior of the dome, when you are inside and looking upwards (photo credit).

Preparing for Ayyám-i-há

2011-02-02T16:17:00.003-10:00

Ayyám-i-há is just around the corner, so I thought it would be a good time to look back at last year and share some of the things we did in preparation for Ayyám-i-há and in celebration of it. For those who are new to my blog - as Bahá’ís we don’t celebrate Christmas, but we do celebrate Ayyám-i-há. This is the Bahá’í period of celebration with family and friends, a focus on charity and service projects, and gift giving. It is held on the last three days of February and the first day of March.

So here is a round up of some of our Ayyám-i-há projects and celebrations:

Our Ayyam-i-ha advent calendar.
Making cards to send to family and friends.
Our Ayyám-i-há banner.
Our virtue tree.
Hanging flower ornaments that we used for decorations.
Our handmade gift giving day tradition: handmade book and money box, Rylan’s nesting doll set made for Damian, my gifts for the boys – tool belts and mini dino puppets.

We made Ayyám-i-há cookies together.
The boys chose some of their own toys to give away to a family in need.
One day of Ayyám-i-há is treasure hunt day, the hidden treasure are the boy’s presents for that day. For Rylan the clues are written, for Damian we use pictures.

Since we will keep our spring theme for Ayyám-i-há this year (after all we need some color to brighten up this LONG, white winter we are in!) we may revisit making our pipe-cleaner leis and paper flowers as fun crafts to do in preparation.

I have pulled my Ayyám-i-há box out of storage and am getting things ready to go up soon. But right now I am thinking about what to fill our advent calendar with….hmm…what special things are you planning for Ayyám-i-há?

Field trip: Firehouse Museum

2011-02-01T19:04:00.003-10:00

We recently spent a morning at a Firehouse Museum. The boys had a great time exploring old to new fire trucks, sliding down fire poles, and sounding off the fire alarms.

{fire truck from 1919}

{fire truck simulator}

{wheee!}

{sounding off the alarm}

{taking it for a drive}

Montessori Activities for Multi-Age Teaching

2011-01-31T03:59:00.001-10:00

I homeschool my two boys, who have a 3 year age gap between them. This means that I have to keep two children at very different skill levels happy and focused on learning at the same time. I have found many Montessori activities fall naturally into this category, because often Montessori classrooms are comprised of students of multiple ages...to read more pop over to The Homeschool Classroom where you can find me today.

Our “school song”

2011-01-26T15:38:00.003-10:00

I thought it would be nice to have a school song that we could put up on our classroom wall and sing every morning during our circle time. We wanted it to be something meaningful, something to guide our behavior and motivations. We chose this quotation from the Baha’i Writings:

“Strive that your actions day by day may be beautiful prayers. Turn towards God, and seek always to do that which is right and noble. Enrich the poor, raise the fallen, comfort the sorrowful, bring healing to the sick, reassure the fearful, rescue the oppressed, bring hope to the hopeless, shelter the destitute!”

- ‘Abdu'l-Baha

I printed and laminated the quotation, and put it up on the wall in our circle time area, but in the next couple of week, the kids are going to be decorating a larger version of it for our wall. I will share this with you when it is completed.

Nurturing virtue: “The Good in Me from A to Z by Dottie”

2011-01-24T06:42:00.002-10:00

I apologize, I know it is not good form to say I am back and then disappear for a week! BUT the kids and I were hit with a nasty bug that has kept us home and in bed for a whole week! So, we really haven’t been up to much this past week, but I wanted to share something we did together the week before.

We spent several mornings during circle time reading through the book “The Good in Me from A to Z” and working on the accompanying workbook. It is a sweet little book, easy to read and understand. We read through the book once, then we went back to the beginning and discussed in detail the virtue each page was describing. I also asked them for examples on how they used that virtue in their own lives.

The next morning I pulled the book out again and read through it. This time I gave each of them a copy of the page at the back of the book, which asks them to write or draw the good in them. I asked them to tell me about one of their good qualities. Damian said the “good in me is my heart” and Rylan said “the good in me is that I love to read and learn”. These are the pictures they drew to illustrate these qualities.

“The Good in Me from A to Z” has a workbook that goes along a with it too. We used several of the activity sheets during the course of the week, and I am sure I will use them again as we continue to work through specific virtues in more detail.

Learning about children around the world

2011-01-17T16:27:00.004-10:00

We took things slowly this past week, to ease ourselves back into the school day rhythm. I planned some themed activities, that both my boys could comfortably participate in together. We dedicated the greater part of one day to learning about children around the world. With a focus on our similarities, despite outward differences – unity in diversity.

We read several books, spread out in-between the different activities I had lined up for the boys on the theme. Here is our book list for the day:

In addition to the books, we put together this Melissa and Doug “Children of the World” puzzle.

We made paper people, the idea for which I got from Counting Coconuts. You could also make a paper doll chain and color them to look international.

While we worked we listened to a mix of international music with our Putumayo world music.

The boys completed a worksheet from The Baha’i Children’s Workbook about the oneness of humanity.

Then I pulled out a set of international play figures that I had purchased at the Lakeshore Learning Centre. The boys loved this set. After we discussed where the different children came from, and used them for a couple of formal activities, they took them all downstairs to the play room, built a city for them out of blocks and played together for a couple of hours.

This has been added to Preschool Corner & 5K too.

Still here, believe it or not!

2011-01-13T11:52:00.003-10:00

Yes, I am still here…never meant to be gone for SO long, but this move has been a tough one. I have spent my life moving all over the world, and yet this move really threw me for a loop. It wasn’t the weather (although various people from a DMV clerk to a Target associate have actually shrieked at me and called me ‘insane” for moving from Hawaii to the Midwest, and “in winter, of all times”!). We were just displaced for a long time, and had lots of things go wrong. I will not bore you with the details, but the good thing is that, after three months of being in limbo, we have settled in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood, and just spent three weeks with visiting family over the holidays. So, thankfully, life is on the right track again!

I am still unpacking boxes and hanging pictures, but the important areas are finished– including a dedicated school room upstairs (hooray!) and a dedicated play room right off the kitchen and living area, which has already seen many, many hours of play.

As to school, let’s just say, we have been un-schooling it for the past three months, for the most part. Rylan reads anything I put in front of him, so he has been feeding his mind non-stop, but the more formal learning activities have been far and few between…until this week! We are finally getting back into our school routine, with great excitement! And this time around I have a 6 year old and a 3 year old (when last I posted I was teaching a 5 and 2 year old!), which means I now have a proud, little preschooler in my midst! :)

So, I am back and it feels good, and I am looking forward to this new year. Hope you have all had a blessed start to 2011!

{our world now}

I will be back!

2010-10-18T15:15:00.002-10:00

To all those who have asked or are wondering…I will be back, just not yet. In a whirlwind of changed plans, the kids and I, and all our stuff ended up leaving Hawaii a week ago (it was originally supposed to be mid-November)! We are staying with family, looking for a home, and trying to begin a new life in a new place. This all means we are super busy and also taking a break from school (at least in the more routine kind of way, but there is still plenty of learning going on). The boys are in cousin and grandparent heaven right now, so they are very happily preoccupied.

As soon as life develops some kind of normality again I will be back, fingers crossed it will be SOON! :)

Nurturing virtue: Learning about compassion

2010-09-28T20:19:00.002-10:00

Part of learning how and when to show compassion is learning how to understand and read other people’s emotions. When we recently spent a week studying compassion, I made a stack of “emotion cards” for the boys (examples in the image below).

I laid them out and taking turns I would ask them to “please pick up a card that shows someone who is excited”, or angry, sad, happy, confused, worried, etc.

Some of the images lead to discussions about why or how the person ended up feeling that way, and how we could show compassion to someone in that situation.

Several times during that week Damian chose to pull out these cards again and work with them, sorting them, and asking me questions about them. Boys especially need to be encouraged to understand emotions at a deeper level, as society rarely affords them this opportunity (actually often the exact opposite, they are encouraged not to feel or show emotion!).

Alphabet Box

2010-09-23T19:23:00.007-10:00

A few weeks ago I made a Montessori alphabet box for Damian to use during our school time in the mornings. I have been dying to share this great idea with you all, and finally found a moment to finish this post!

As soon as I saw this idea, I started putting the pieces together, I knew Damian (and Rylan for the matter) would LOVE this learning tool. Even I love it! :) Just wait until you see it, I know you will be running out to put one together for your little ones…

So, you start with a box (I have also seen the use of envelopes) with lots of little drawers, labeled with the letters of the alphabet. I got my box from Walmart for $10 in the hardware section. And the alphabet labels are stickers from the craft store.

Then the fun part, you fill the drawers with little miniature objects that start with the corresponding letter. For example a little apple in the “a” drawer. Here are some examples from my drawers (I am still adding to some of the boxes):

~Bb: bone, basket, butterfly, bird, boy, baby, binoculars, broom, bowling pins and bowling ball~

~Dd: dolphin, deer, dish, dog~

~Ff: flowers, fox, fork, fire truck ~

~ Hh: hedgehog, heart balloon, heart, hammer, hydrant, hay, hat~

~Pp: plate, pineapple, penguin~

~Rr: rooster, rabbit, raccoon, rake~

~ Ss: spades, squirrel, square, sign, skeleton, stool, strawberry, saw ~

~ Tt: tea set, triangle~

Most of the object I used to fill these boxes I already had in the house. My boys love Playmobil and we have several different sets, so I just picked out bits and pieces from the Playmobil box. Another great resource I found are the Japanese Iwako erasers. They are a craze right now for older kids, but they have everything imaginable in miniatures, they are cute, and non-toxic (read the safety info for Iwako brand here, be careful of other brands, they may not be of the same quality or safety). Of course, just remember, little toys such as these can be choking hazards, so you need to be present and judge if your little one is ready to use them. The cute capital letter cards I downloaded from 1+1+1=1.

Really the learning possibilities with this alphabet box are endless, and I am sure we will be using it for a very long time during many different stages of Damian’s learning, plus because it is so fun, Rylan also loves using it with Damian, and I can just sit back and watch big brother teach little brother! :)

I first got this idea from Cindy at Along the Way (super cute blog!), but for a great resource on the alphabet box from how to put one together, to activities you can do using the learning tool, check out Counting Coconuts (I LOVE Mari-Ann’s blog, it is filled with the most amazing Montessori ideas, I just found it recently and have a whole bunch of stuff bookmarked to try out!).

Now, admit it, you want to put one together too, right?

Raising Children Who Feel at Home in the World

2010-09-21T08:23:00.002-10:00

With globalization, international travel, and the internet it seems like the world is getting smaller. Businesses are seeking out people who feel comfortable working with those of different cultures and backgrounds, and people willing to travel and live in other countries. Besides the world is just becoming a more complex place, and it is more important than ever for us to get to know our neighbors and understand where they are coming from. So, how can we prepare our children for entering into this global society? ….to read more stop over at The Homeschool Classroom where you can find me today.

Best birthday present

2010-09-20T08:07:00.002-10:00

This weekend my sweet, wonderful husband chartered a helicopter to fly our family over our beautiful island in honor of my birthday! It is an amazing experience, not only to see the mountains and waterfalls up close and personal, but also for us to see the parts of the island we have never seen before because they are inaccessible by car, and the hiking trails are too dangerous to take the kids on. It was a great way for us to see the island really well before we have to say goodbye to it. The ride was a magical experience for all of us…here are some images from the tour.

{I got to sit up front, with windows all around!}

{inside the canyon}

{coastline riddled with sea caves and waterfalls tumbling straight into the ocean}

{one of our favorite beaches as seen from the air: the wave pattern is cause by the coral reef}

{more waterfalls than you can image!}

I am still here…sort of

2010-09-17T08:36:00.002-10:00

I did not mean to disappear for such a long period of time. It is not because of a lack of things to share, I even have a bunch of half finished draft posts on various things we were doing in school before our life got turned upside down about two weeks ago! My husband was offered a promotion, and so we are moving AGAIN! We are trading our snorkel gear for snow boots and moving to the Midwest! Don’t get me started on how much we are going to miss the great weather and natural beauty of Hawaii, but in every other way this move will be better for us. For starters there are the grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins that my boys will have all around them…and that is no small thing for us, since it has been 14 years since I lived near any of my family and my boys have never experienced it. I am so happy that they will be able to benefit from developing those relationships. And then there is a wonderful Baha’i community, all the homeschooling resources and options, museums, zoos…and I could go on and on about all the positives of this move, but I won’t. For starters I have so much to do, and then there is the nasty cold the kids and I have. Second bad one in the last two months, total bummer. As if we want to spend our last days in Hawaii sick at home, right?

So, I am here, and I will be stopping in to share things when I am able. It may not be every week day…at least not for a while. But I will do my best.

{image from my husband’s recent raft trip around part of our island}

Science: oil and water don’t mix, turned into a lava lamp

2010-09-07T20:42:00.002-10:00

Last week we did a fun little experiment to illustrate the fact that oil and water don’t mix. I started with a little introduction about how water molecules are polar and oil molecules are non-polar and what that means and why they don’t mix as a result. And that oil will always float on top of water because it is less dense (weighs less), which lead to a discussion about oil spills in the ocean and the negative impact on animals (with Rylan everything gets related to animals and/or conservation! :) ).

As we discussed all the facts about, we moved through the steps of the experiment:

add water to an empty, clean, clear bottle
add a few drops of food coloring to the water for better visual effect

Add (cooking) oil and shake well. Our mixture actually turned a light green, which doesn’t show well in these pictures.

Watch as the water and oil separate again.

After we completed this, for some extra fun, I gave the boys a few half tablets of alka-seltzer, which they took turns dropping into the bottle, so we could watch the water and oil move with the bubbles rising, like a lava lamp.

Geography: Asia Study

2010-09-03T19:39:00.004-10:00

Over the past couple of weeks we have been studying Asia as a part of our general introduction into world geography (then we will go on to specific countries). Before our summer break we had just completed Africa.

We have had so much fun studying about Asia, I have to say that geography is fast becoming one of my favorite subjects to do with Rylan (and Damian joined us for many of the activities too). Here is a list of the activities we did and the resources we used:

We read the True Book: Asia together and created a fact sheet from it. We also read parts of several country specific picture books.

We read about children living in Asia in Children Just Like Me.
We colored and labeled a map of Asia.
Rylan drew pictures of some Asian animals and colored in a Japanese lion mask.
I printed off pictures of Asian people from Google images, and Rylan cut them out and glued them onto our Asia poster, as we discussed where the people came from.
We put together an Asian poster of all the info we collected above, to put up in our school area.

We read folktales from various Asian countries (some are in the book list shared at the end of this post).
We listened to Asian music (see recommendations below) and learnt how to say hello in several of the languages (a fun song to use is the “Rapp Song” on the DVD Hooray for the World! by Red Grammer).
We ate Asian food. I made khoresh bademjoon (a Persian dish), the boys helped me make fresh humus (Israeli/Arab food), we went out to a Chinese restaurant, we made havesh polo (a Persian styled rice with carrots), and we also ate a Japanese inspired meal together.
I put together an Asian sensory tub for the boys to play with, in rice of course! I had envisioned a lot more going into this tub, but Asian items proved hard to find on this little island!
We made Chinese lamps and origami sea creatures. We were also going to make a Japanese kite, but didn’t get round to it with the flu bug visiting our home during that week!

We used our homemade tangram set (tangrams originated in Asia).
Rylan completed Asian themed math worksheets, which I shared for download here.
Asia is of special significance to Bahá'ís, since it is the birth place of our religion (much like all the other major religions in the world), so we read stories about the beginning of our Faith, learnt about pilgrimage (which Rylan has been on, but was very young), and we also started to create a wall of pictures and facts about Bahá'í places of significance, which we will add to as a part of our “travel” through the continents.

We had fun going down memory lane as we looked through our pictures from our seven years of life in Israel.

{setting off on a several hour camel ride through the mountains along the Red Sea…that’s Grandpa with the cap on}

Website resources:

Asia Kids Society
GEO Puzzles - Asia
Printable worksheets for use with Children Just Like Me: from Jolanthe at the Homeschool Classroom

A walk down memory lane – the beginning of our Asian study

2010-09-01T20:14:00.003-10:00

Over the past couple of weeks we have been studying Asia as a part of our general introduction into world geography (before we go on to specific countries). Before our summer break we had just completed Africa.

As a lead into our study about the continent the boys and I first took a little walk down memory lane, just like we did in preparing for our African study. You see Asia, and more specifically, Israel, hold some very dear memories for us! Israel is, as for many major world religions, the Holy Land and place of pilgrimage for Bahá’ís. It also happens to the place I have spent 9 years of my life (7 with my husband, 2 with my parents when I was child), and it is the spot where both of my sweet boys were born. So, lots of memories!

{images of the Shrine of the Báb and terrace gardens around it – a Bahá’í Holy Place in Haifa, Israel}

Below are images taken from our apartment in Haifa. {The Shrine of the Báb at sunset}
{Bahá’í buildings and gardens}

{our last Haifa sunset before leaving our home of 7 years}

We loved living in Israel, and miss it often. While there we tried to see as much of the country as was possible. Despite its small size, there is SO much to see because every step you take (literally) there is a piece of history. There are some historical sites where you can actually view the layers of different civilizations that were built on top of each other.

{3 year old Rylan running down an ancient Roman street}

We also visited many of the other religious holy places in Israel.

{The Western Wall and Dome of the Rock in Old Jerusalem}

{The Church of the Beatitudes on the Sea of Galilee}

Tomorrow I will share the learning activities that we did during our study of Asia.

Turning Your Children’s Artwork Into Heirloom Quality Crafts

2010-08-31T08:00:00.002-10:00

If your house is anything like mine you have an abundance of children’s artwork to deal with. Now this post is not about how to organize it, but rather how to take some of your favorite pieces, those you are most sentimental about, and turn them into treasures that will last for a long time and be well loved… to read more hop over to The Homeschool Classroom where you can find me today!

River boat ride with my boys

2010-08-30T21:13:00.002-10:00

Yesterday the boys and I spent a very pleasant morning doing a little river boating.

{paddle boarders}

{on board entertainment}

A wonderful way to spend a weekend morning with my sweeties…

One year gone by

2010-08-27T13:07:00.002-10:00

Yesterday we spent the evening at our county fair. We had a whole lot of fun on the rides together and then the boys won armfuls of prizes in the game area.

But the fair coming round again (it happens once a year) got me thinking about this blog, and the fact that the second post I published in this space was about spending a day at the fair. The post was dated 6 September…which means it has been almost a year since I started Nurturing the tender years. 223 posts later, here I am!

It’s been a good year. I have enjoyed meeting and getting to know so many of you wonderful people out there in the blogosphere, and sharing what I am learning in turn…here’s to another good one!

Nurturing virtue: cleanliness concentration game (printable)

2010-08-26T12:28:00.003-10:00

This past week the boys and I have been learning about the virtue of cleanliness. There are so many great activities to do with this virtue, we have had a lot of fun. This morning we played a cleanliness concentration game that I made for them over the weekend.

Below are some sample cards from the game (cards are 4x6 size).

There are more cards included in the download. I printed them out on cardstock and then laminated them using 4x6 sized laminating pouches, so they last through a lot of use.

My boys loved this game! Rylan helped Damian find sets and he told me at the end that it felt really good to work as a team instead of trying to win (mommy smiled inside BIG TIME)!

You can also use these cards as flashcards, to make a cleanliness flip book, to play a “go fish” card game, to play a matching game (like concentration, but with the cards facing up, so it is easier for younger children). There are probably lots of other ways to use them too!

You can download the cleanliness concentration game here. Have fun!

Added to Preschool Corner and 5K too.

Sick days...

2010-08-25T19:55:00.005-10:00

Kiddos and I have been sick...but will be back soon. When I am, this is some of what I will be sharing:

A report on our Asia unit study, which we have had loads of fun with (even sick)

A Nurturing Virtue post (back after the summer break!)

A fun science experiment

A report on our coral reef/Hawaiian fish study that we did as a summer project

And some changes to the layout of the blog

Hopefully starting tomorrow...hope you all have been staying well!

A sweet addition to our circle time

2010-08-20T20:01:00.002-10:00

Just a few days ago I posted pictures of our circle time area. A couple days later I spent some time looking through one pretty thing because it feels like ages since I have been crafting…and I found these super cute posters.

I printed them straight away, laminated them, and added them to our circle time area.

Now we also sing from 1-10 (I am going to make a 10-20 chart to go with it) and the ABC song for Damian. Although he knows both already, and can identify some of the letters and numbers, as we sing I am pointing to the corresponding number/letter so that his confidence grows in this area. Eventually I will ask him to do the pointing for us, when he is good at that, then we will make a game out of it, Rylan and I calling out a number or letter and see how fast he can find the right one. I think we will have lots of fun learning time with these cute charts.

You can download these charts from Sprik Space blog, and there are even several colors to choose from, how cool is that!

Happy weekend to you! :)

Asian themed skip counting and addition printables

2010-08-19T20:14:00.003-10:00

While I am on the topic of math, I thought I’d share another set of math worksheets I made up for Rylan. We are studying the continent of Asia right now (just a general introduction, like we did with Africa before our summer break). I made a few math worksheets with an Asian theme to add to his workboxes this week, and I wanted to share them (I will be posting separately about the Asian study and everything else we are doing). Here are some sample pages:

Skip counting worksheets, which can be downloaded here or by clicking on the picture below:

Addition worksheets, which can be downloaded here or by clicking on the images below:

Added to: Preschool Corner and 5K too

Greater than-less than dinosaur worksheet printable

2010-08-17T20:17:00.004-10:00

I wanted Rylan to practice the concept of greater than/less than and learn about using the symbols < >. To make it a little more fun I made these worksheets for him, using a dinosaur’s mouth instead of just the symbols. Because you know dinosaurs will grab Rylan’s attention anytime! Here are some sample pages from the worksheets:

If you would like to use these worksheets you can download them here.

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Our first day of first grade!

2010-08-16T22:20:00.003-10:00

We had a great first day! Both boys were super excited to be getting back into our school routine. I wanted to make the day special, so after our morning prayers I gave each of the boys their own prayer books, which I had made for them, all wrapped in golden wrapping paper (remember I posted about making them a while back? Well, I decided to keep them for a special occasion…which turned out to be back to school day!). They loved them and Rylan wanted to read the entire prayer book, after two, though, Damian told him it was time to move on! ;)

Here is a look at the corner of our school area, which is devoted to circle time:

Our circle time usually goes something like this – we each say a prayer and then all sing the one we are currently learning together, then we sing our calendar song (I modified this one a little, it no longer involves ice-cream, but is rather about loving each other all the days of the week/months of the year, we also sped it up a bit), at the beginning of the week we add the dates and activities onto the calendar for that week.

After the calendar song we sing the “every week” song and Rylan and Damian stick the days of the week onto the laminated charts at the bottom of the picture (they come on and off with the use of velcro dots). The charts and song can be found at 1+1+1=1. Then we move onto skip counting. Those charts can be found at Homeschool Creations. To finish off circle time we have the daily installment of our virtue lessons (you can see the current Virtue Project card up in the top right corner). This week we are studying “caring”. As the year goes on we will add different things to calendar time as needed (the rest of our 2010-2011 curriculum can be found in this post).

Here is the other side of our school space. Map (animals of the world) from Costco, animal evolution time line beneath it from Zoobooks (the dino chart over the map is also from Zoobooks), the two little charts next to the timeline are a Handwriting Without Tears guide to writing capital and lowercase letters and numbers and a copy from Drawing With Children on the elements of drawing. There are our workboxes which I bought at Walmart, with an abacus (cannot remember the brand) and our Oregon Scientific Smart Globe. The bookshelf next to the workboxes contains all our supplies, books, additional materials, schedules, etc. Oh! And the table and chairs are from IKEA.

Although we have this space, we still do our learning in other areas of the house as well. All depends on what we are doing and where we feel like working.

We ended our first day back to school (after swimming lessons, and dinner) with a yummy spice cake which we made using another of my Grandma’s recipes. The boys went to sleep with happy hearts and happy bellies, and I have to say, despite my total enjoyment of our unplanned summer break, I am loving being back into our routine again!

Weekending and what we’ve been up to…

2010-08-16T08:55:00.003-10:00

Yesterday we spent a fabulous day on this lovely beach.

We snorkeled, swam, splashed, built, had water fights, and fish nibbling our toes while we sat in the shallow water at the shore. A perfect family day and the last of our summer vacation!

I have been posting a lot about our summer travels and not so much about what we have been doing the last couple of weeks. That’s because I had nothing completed to write about. We were waiting for curriculum to arrive, and it did, all on the same day. My hubby came home from the post office with five boxes piled in his arms and Rylan and I squealing with excitement.

Since that day I have spent hours and hours familiarizing myself with the material, planning our new daily schedule, and planning in detail the next two months of school. I now have planned lessons, materials ready (or notes to remind me what to prepare for a particular lesson the night before), even craft projects planned for the next two months (I am planning to have one afternoon for a planned craft project every week). I am sure I will make adjustments to the schedule as the year goes on, but for now we have what we need to make a good start. And I have lots to share here!

We are all very excited about beginning the new year together, Rylan has been counting down the days all of the past week! Gotta love an enthusiastic learner!

More to come on our first day of first grade and what our school area looks like (I have been working on that too, since it became a bit of a storage area over the summer!)…hopefully a little later today. Stop in and take a peek!

Punalu’u Black Sand Beach

2010-08-12T13:45:00.002-10:00

I have been on salt-and-pepper sand beaches before (a mix of volcanic sand and regular beach sand), but never before had I seen anything like this beach, which was pure black volcanic sand.

We stopped and spent a little time here on our way from Kona to Volcano Village. It was the oddest sight, and the sand had a feel to it that is hard to explain, definitely unlike regular sand.

The boys found it fascinating and it took no encouragement for them to explore and dig and play.

And that is the last installment on the highlights from our week on Big Island!

Super fun (and green) water toy: Yookidoo Flow ‘N’ Fill Spout

2010-08-11T12:21:00.004-10:00

Do your kids love to play with running water? Mine definitely do, but I definitely don’t like the water bill that goes with it (in Hawaii everything is expensive), or wasting an important natural resource for that matter. But kids are definitely mesmerized by flowing water and it is a great tactile form of play for them. Enter the Yookidoo Flow ‘N’ Fill Spout – it has a little battery operated pump that you submerge in water and then recycles the water to keep the faucet flowing, it also comes with a few fun water toys that work with it. You can use it in a bath tub, a kitchen sink, a big plastic tub, etc. We have been using it for two weeks now and the boys love this thing, especially Damian. He cannot wait to get into the bath every night to play with it.

I purchased this product myself and am sharing it with you because we enjoy it. Amazon link is affiliate.

A little note about Twitter…

2010-08-11T12:19:00.002-10:00

I opened a Twitter account a few months ago, but honestly, I just cannot get into it. I have found that more than anything, it is just an extra thing to update and with so much going on, I need to decide where my time is best spent, and Twitter is not it for me, at least not for now. So, I have removed the link from my sidebar, and I won’t be updating my account. For those who follow the blog via Twitter, I am really sorry to stop updating there, but you are most welcome to follow via Google friends connect, Facebook, RSS, or email (all links can be found on my right sidebar), I always love the support!

Grandpa’s mugs

2010-08-10T13:10:00.002-10:00

My Dad is in his early 70s and just a few years ago he took up a new hobby – pottery – proving that it is never too late to start learning something new!

He now has a studio in the downstairs of their home, and against the wall he has shelves filled with what he calls his “duds”. Mostly he keeps them as samples of what the glaze combinations look like. Well, I love those shelves, and have raided them many times. One time was after he completed a batch of practice mugs, trying to figure out the right shape for a set of mugs that my Mom wanted for their home. He ended up with a bunch of too-small mugs. I snapped them up in a second!

Why you ask? Because they are perfect cups for little hands.

I am not a big fan of plastic for food use, in fact I avoid it as much as possible. I use glass and stainless steel for just about everything, including food storage in cupboards and the fridge. It is better for us and the environment. And these mugs are perfect for Damian to drink out of. They are just the right size for his hands, they are hardy, and he thinks he is super special to have exclusive rights on “Pa’s mugs”.

Time to open an Etsy store, Dad! :)

Manini'owali/Kua Bay and swimming with the endangered green sea turtle

2010-08-09T09:20:00.002-10:00

This is another installment from our Big Island trip – we spent a morning at Manini'owali/Kua Bay in the Kekaha Kai State Park. I have to say that this is one of the most breathtaking beaches I have ever been on.

Beautiful white sand, turquoise water, black volcanic rock, and as if that wasn’t enough of a reason to hang out there, we also got to go snorkeling with four green sea turtles who happened to be eating off the rocks near the shoreline.

We swam right next to them, they were quite relaxed with our presence, and in fact with the waves we bumped into each other several times as well.

Needless to say we had some rather pleased traveler’s after this visit!

An old favorite: sand painting

2010-08-06T09:46:00.002-10:00

My Mom used to do this craft with me as a child and I loved it. I have no idea why I have never tried it with my boys, especially since we live with an abundant supply of beautiful sand around us! Yesterday we went to a children’s show at the mall, and before the show they had crafts out for the kids to do, and my boys did these sand paintings. First you do a drawing with craft glue, then you pour the sand over the glue, and then shake the excess sand off to reveal your sand picture (good idea to do this part into a pan or bucket to contain the sand and re-use). Do one color at a time. It’s just like using glitter. They only had about 5 minutes to make these, but I think we will be doing this at home again so they can really explore this craft.Simple and fun. Happy weekend to you!

Fun learning books: The Cat in the Hat Learning Library

2010-08-04T20:13:00.003-10:00

I am not saying these books should replace the more scientific and serious books you will use as resources for learning with your children, but these are certainly a fun thing to add to your reading selection on a variety of subjects. We have used many of them, they are factual, and filled with the usual Dr. Seuss styled rhyming fun (though, they are not written by Dr. Seuss himself). And why not add a little humor to learning?I often stick them into our reading selection on a particular subject, usually as a lead in to the topic because they are a lighthearted way to start, and Damian finds them appealing and easy to follow as well. I have purchased a couple packets of these books from Costco (they usually come in bundles of three for about $10.99, if my memory serves me correctly), but they are also available from Amazon, and probably your local library. They cover a large selection of subjects: various animal families, weather, maps, the human body, money, the solar system, plant life, etc so they are easy to work into many topics of learning.

I purchased these books myself and am sharing them with you because we enjoy using them. Amazon links are affiliate.