Kinderboys - Construction workers and Carpenters

Our class with the Kinderboys was really fun this week. We started by reviewing the meaning of a community. This book was very helpful in doing that.



Letter C in this book covers community AND construction worker.  So it's a perfect lead in.

We colored a picture http://www.oncoloring.com/construction-coloring-pages_2.html
while I read and discussed two different books with them



and



From there I let the boys take turns dressing up as a construction worker.  We talked about the use for each part of their gear and tools.  I asked each boy to name one thing a construction worker or carpenter does when they came up for their turn.  The hats are something we already had at home.  We live in earthquake territory, so I keep hard hats, gloves, and flashlights under everyone's bed.  I should have thick soled slippers under there too...but somehow those never stay put!    The vests I ordered on amazon

They were anxious to use some of those tools!  So I used an idea that I got from this book


I prepared a board for each boy that looked like this.  You can see that I left only ONE nail for them to hammer in, which was perfect.  Any more than that would have taken way too long.

The boys who were waiting their turn to hammer were sanding their boards with those blocks that have grit on all sides.  Much easier than using sand paper. They loved feeling the change in the wood.  A great time to talk about texture.

Here's a finished project

From there we referenced back to the books we had read and pointed out the drawings that architects prepare for buildings before construction can start.

My brother happens to be a civil engineer. So I asked him to send me some of his old plans so I could show them to the boys.

Then I gave each boy 3 blocks, some black paper and some chalk. THeir task was to draw plans for an building they could make with their blocks.  We then shared our plans and our buildings with the group.

Then we settled down for a story of Thea House that Jack Built.  I gave each boy one of the items or characters from the story and let them add it to the house as we went along.

The little house is my 2yo's toy.  She loves it. So it was hard for her to see the boys using it. But her agony was only momentary.  I put some barely in a plastic baggie for the "malt" and I used animals from my older girls' farm set. There was no cat, so I printed a free Google image and stapled it to some craft foam.

I was going to give the boys malted milk with snack. But time was short so we stuck with home made mini banana muffins and sliced oranges.The boys gobbled them RIGHT up. 

Here's the recipe. I keep it taped inside of my spice cupboard because it's one of my favorites. It's the one my mom always used and I think she got it from her friend Pam.

Pam's Banana Bread
1/4 cup crisco (I always just use vegetable oil)
1 cup sugar
3 large or 4 small mashed bananas
1 egg
1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda


I think I baked them at 350. And since they were mini muffins it didn't take long. Just keep an eye (and your nose) on them.   This recipe made 24 mini muffins and one mini loaf.  Each mini cup held one scoop of batter using this scooper


                            



I should  add that I had planned to let the boys go out to the garage and saw a log that I got  from my backyard, but we ran short on time. I let my own son do this when class was over and it was by far his favorite part!  He worked hard at it and did it all by himself after some initial instruction.

Frontier Girls Induction

I remember going to meetings with my Brownie troop when I was in second and third grade.  And I remember loving it.  I have always wanted my girls to experience something similar, but I have had increasing concerns about the Girl Scouts and their progressive agenda.  They just aren't the same organization that they used to be.  You can check out some info for yourself and see what you think.  This might be a place to start
http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/girl_scouts_the_awful_truth.html

I had really no intention of getting involved in a badge earning club of any kind.  I felt too overwhelmed already.  But then an aquaintance introduced us to Frontier Girls and I fell in LOVE wtih it!  It was everything we needed:

• Solid values and principles 
• Unapologetic patriotism
• Motivation to learn and explore
• Flexible requirements that are age appropriate 
• Family friendly adaptations (you don't have to join a troop. You can do it alone as a family)
• Affordability
• Best of all, no cookie sales! Hurray!

Check it out at www.frontiergirlsclubs.com

There are several of us in our area operating as "pioneers", meaning that we don't have an official troop. We are earning badges individually in our families. But we plan to get together for service projects or group activities now and then.

One of the moms graciously offered to do an induction meeting to make our journey with FG official.
Here's how it went.
The girls lined up and some were asked to read the
Mission: Raising women of honor to be the mothers and leaders of the future, through life skills, leadership, characterbuilding, team work, and service to others.
Promise: I promise to love God , Be loyal to my country , and to love my neighbor as myself.

Motto: If you see a need, take the lead.

Then the girls gathered around a table.  Each girl read a line of the FG Creed.  AS they did so they used an already lit candle to light a smaller tea candle.
As a Frontier Girl
I will be Loving, treating others as I would like to be treated.
I will be Joyful, finding the blessings in every situation.
I will be Peaceful, respecting others opinions and beliefs.
I will be Patient, persevering toward my goals despite obstacles.
I will be Kind, respectful to all and willing to help others at all times.
I will be Good, pure in all I do, think, and say.
I will be Faithful to my God and loyal to family, friends, and country.
I will be Gentle, taking special care of those weaker or less fortunate than I.
I will have Self Control, using my time, materials and talents wisely, and being accountable for my own actions.

The mothers presented the girls with their vests and level pins.

Then they sang the FG creed song

 

We ended with cookies and conversation.  Quick and simple. My kind of meeting!

There is an off shoot of FG for boys/co-ed that my son is excited to join called Quest Club.
 You can check it out here
www.questclubs.com   

 

 

Taking A Ride Downtown to the Station

So, I told the kids that this better be the ONLY time they ever see the inside of a holding cell (JAIL!)  and they all agreed that it would be.

Our trip to the police station was better than expected!  The officer who gave us the tour went way above and beyond to show us every inch of the facility including office space, departments, break rooms, lockers, interrogation rooms, gun lockers and more exciting places like briefing rooms, the 911 call center, the crime lab (evidence room) the shooting range, the situation training area,  the holding cell (scary!) and the tunnel leading to the courthouse. We got to check out the radar guns and the breathalyzers.  We met the animal control officer and squeezed inside a patrol car.  YEP!  They got to honk a really loud horn too.   All of it was super cool. I learned more than the kids did, I think.  enjoy the photos.

It tied in well with the class we had because we got to correlate our own target practice with the shooting range, our exercise game with the workout room, our fingerprinting activities with their new digital fingering system. etc.

FYI: Here in WA the state has just recently  legalized recreational marijuana.  I didn't vote for it, just so you know.  I asked the office what he thought this new law would do to his workload.  And he explained that the major repercussions will come in the form of DUIs.  And they don't make breathalyzers for marijuana yet, so it means a trip to the ER for a blood draw.  yeah. That's got to be cheap.  and efficient.  and tax-payer friendly.  ug. 

Kinderboys - Police Detective Lesson Plan

I have four children.  My third child, the only boy, is five right now.  Since he lives in a house full of girls, it's important to me that he has plenty of time to hang with other boys and just BE a boy.  So I created a class for him called Kinderboys. 

I started teaching Kinderboys this fall at our co-op. But things didn't exactly go as planned, and it ended up being just a 3-week session.

So starting today I began a new session of Kinderboys, held at my home.  We currently have 5 boys in the class and I think that's pleeenty for now. :)  Love their energy!  This session we are focusing on Communities and Community Workers.    My theme was inspired by some curriculum I bought from Moving Beyond the Page.   It's an ok curriculum.  I don't love it as much as I was hoping too.  It's a little too School-ey, if you know what I mean, and doesn't really seem tailored to the home schooled child.  It's supposed to be for "Gifted" kids, but I'm not sure which part of it is supposedly "gifted".  The only part of the lesson that I incorporated  today was a printing page for the letter P.

Anyway, it served as a guide to spark some ideas and I took off from there. Actually, let me say that the internet did most of the work for me and I just added a few of my own ideas to it.  I'm so grateful to all of you moms and teachers who post your work and your ideas to share with the world. 

So today I introduced the concept of Community and defined it as "a group of people who live and work together."  We talked about different levels of communities all the way from families to nations.

We started by reading



I asked the boys to count all the different jobs they saw people doing in the book. At the end I asked them what their favorite job from the book was. 

Then I asked if they had seen any police in the book (no).  I asked them to close their eyes while I pulled out a police hat



They thought that was pretty cool.  I let them each try it on. I asked each boy, as he took his turn to wear the hat, what he thought police officers do for work.  Some of their answers were interesting.  "Put people in chains!" was my favorite answer.

So to clarify what officers, and especially POLICE DETECTIVES do, we read this book



That helped!

From there we practiced doing things that police detectives do. 

First, we talked about the importance of keeping your body fit if you're going to be chasing bad guys.  We did some Alpha Exercise!  I have cards that have exercises on them corresponding to each letter of the alphabet.  So we spell the child's name, and do the exercise for each letter of the name.  I think I Have a post on this blog somewhere about those cards.

Then we did some target practice.  That was fun.  We used a dart gun to shoot at this target drawn on a white board and keep track of our points.  Each boy got 3 shots.

Next we talked about fingerprints.  I got my ideas for this part of the class from this site:
http://www.squidoo.com/detectives-lesson-plan 

We took finger prints using washable ink, classified their patterns (loop, whorl or arch). Using the magnifying glass to look at finger tips was fun.

Then we lifted our own finger prints off of a mirror and added those to our folders as well.  To lift our finger prints, I had the boys press a greasy finger onto a hand-held mirror, dust the print with cocoa powder, and cover it with a piece of clear tape.  I found that the best way to remove excess powder without destroying the print was to use the ends of my hair as a brush.  Sounds crazy, but it really worked well. Every other brush I tried removed too much of the print.  Then we lifted the tape and put it on an index card which we added to our files. Here are some pictures of the file folder I put together for the boys with their finger print books i.  You can see the cocoa powder print on the bottom left.


Here are some pictures of the file folder I put together for the boys with their finger print books in them. 

We didn't' have time to color the Nate the Great hat during class. I sent that home with each boy. But we did have time to make badges.

And we took mug shots of each boy.  Here's my kiddo's "bad guy face"

I think one of our favorite activities was the shoe print matching game.  We talked about foot prints being clues for detectives.  Then I showed them the paper with all the shoe prints on it and gave them a bucket of shoes. As a group, I asked them to match the shoe to the print.  It was fun to watch them discuss it and come to a consensus.  They got most of them right!

At the end of class we read Nate The Great



while eating popcorn and applesauce.  Yum!  We had a great time and it took the entire 90mintues. Our Kinderboys meet every other week, with field trips in between. So next Friday we're going to tour the police station.  Then we'll have a class on construction workers and carpenters. 

Memorization: April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

The poem we are just about finished memorizing is titled above.  Although we are not in April, we are still getting a fair share of rain this month.  Today even our 20 month old was trying her hardest to do the hand motions with us.

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalks.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep song on the roof at night.

And I love the rain.

Memorial Day 2012

This is a holiday that means a lot to me.  And unfortunately,  it also seems to be a holiday that is largely remembered only for BBQs and beach trips.

It just so happens that a friend recently recommended a fabulous book to me called  Unbroken.

Watch THIS VIDEO about the book.

I'm in the middle of the book right now. It's so compelling I can't stop talking about it, even to my kids.  It's been a fabulous way to help them understand some of the Herculean  sacrifice that our Veteran Heroes have made for us.  It has created an incredible amount of empathy in my eldest, who is 9.

She wants to do something special to remember current war heroes on Memorial Day. We have decided to make a Donation to the USO, which you can do here.

And we also plan to visit a military cemetery to leave flowers on graves.  There will also be a ceremony at our local library that we hope to attend.

How ever you plan to remember our national heroes on Monday the 28th, I recommend that at some point you pick up this book.  It will change you.

Organizing a History Club using Story of the World

I'm late blogging about this.  SURPRISE.

But towards the beginning of the year, I started a new "history club" at our home based on Story of the World Vol 2.  Do you know it took us 18 months to do Vol 1?  But I don't feel bad.   I was pregnant with no. 4 and had a newborn during that time.

The club is small this time.  Just my 4 kids and 5 other girls that are the ages of my oldest two.  Is nine kids still small?  (Some time I'll tell you about the fun club we ran a couple years back based on Kaya from the American Girls Series).

Anyway, I made it extra low-key this time, because the last time I ran a club for the girls it was too big, too much work, and I got burned out really fast.

Here's how it's set up:

Each family is supposed to study 1 chapter per week at home.  We do this for 3 weeks in a row.   Every 4th Tuesday, we get together at my house to do related activities and projects from the book.  I don't do any of the coloring or map work or narratives during group. That all happens at home with the family.  During club, we get right to the hands-on portion of the units.  I try to pick one project from each chapter but it doesn't always work out that way. I try to schedule 30 mins. for each activity with a total of 3-4 activities per meeting.  We meet for 90 minutes.  Two hours would probably be better because I often run out of time, but then it starts to cramp lunch and naps.

So far it works really well for us.  It's not over-taxing for me.  But it's enough variety and social interaction to keep the course interesting for the kids.  And the once-a-month meetings are spaced far enough apart that I don't mind putting my best effort and a little time into making it super fun for the kids.

Here's a picture from our first meeting when we dressed up like Monks.  Each girl chose one of the different Monk professions to act out (teacher, writer, carpenter, doctor).  I don't think this particular activity was in the book. Turned out fun!

Here's the teacher being portrayed in our living room.  We had one of the girls being director and another being camera person.

Here's another day when we dressed like Celtic warriors and then acted out our attack on the Romans.  This was before the face paint. Too bad I don't have a pic WITH face paint.  It was pretty intense.

During the weeks when it's just us studying at home, I pick one activity to do with the kids.  Of course, I make sure it's not one that I've got planned for the club.

Here's an activity we did on our own at home.  We made an oasis from a variety of mediums including pipe cleaners, legos, playmobiles, gram crackers, counting cubes, and clay.

We all very much enjoy this curriculum. It's our favorite class of the week.  I'll try harder to blog about our fun club meetings as well as our family history activities.

And when I get my other pics downloaded, I'll have to show you the Viking Funeral that we had in our turtle pool, complete with wild and crazy flames!!  Too fun.

American History-The Great Seal

This year my third grader has used the Paths of Exploration from The Trail Guide to Learning Series.


 We've enjoyed it for the most part. I love the emphasis on literature and American History. We especially enjoyed the task to learn more about the Great Seal. It's on every dollar bill. But how much do we really know about it? We spent some time doing a little extra research in addition to what was in the text and here are a few resources that you may find interesting on this topic:
http://www.greatseal.com/symbols/index.html

Here's a fun coloring page: http://www.classbrain.com/artteach/uploads/greatseal.pdf

And then we used the last page of this packet to make Great Seal bookmarks. http://www.americanheritage.org/AHEF_Elementary_Extraction_04_6_Great_Seal.pdf

After learning more about the symbolism emblazoned in the Great Seal, both front and back, it really hit home to me how desperately our Founding Fathers were trying to convey the essential concepts of American Exceptional-ism, Peace through Strength, National Unity, and the influence of divine guidance on this never ending American Experiment. I believe that if our current policy makers would take time to remember these things and apply them to their decisions we'd see some very positive changes in government.

I Love My Country The United States!

One of my top priorities in our HS is to teach a love of Family, God and Country. Not only do we say the pledge and pray each morning, but we also sing a song from the Wee Sing America CD.



It has taken us WEEKS...but we have finally mastered song 17 on the CD which sings the 50 states in alphabetical order (mostly alphabetical).

This is not my daughter singing (although I also have a 4yo who successfully learned this song). But it's the same song we learned. Our version is slightly snappier.




Thanks Youtube.

To help us learn this song, and a little geography, I printed out a blank political map of the USA for each child. We worked on memorizing 4-6 statesin the song each day. Sometimes it worked out to do the states that all start with the same letter. (Ex: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas). We colored in the states on our maps that we were trying to memorize in the song that day.

The kids like doing that and I do think it helped with a bit of geography at the same time.

The only downside is that our whole family can NOT get this song out of our heads. We sing it in our sleep, at meals, while driving, at the store, during school, on the trampoline, at the pool...you get the idea. So, if you plan to learn this song...don't say I didn't warn you.