I love good science experiments that leave my first graders SHOCKED! And these two oldies, but goodies never disappoint!

Use this lightning diagram to go along with what your child is learning about weather systems in school!

I am so thrilled that we've made the leap to literature-based unit studies in our homeschool. They are such a wonderful, gentle way to learn! Papa Piccolo Activities This post contains affiliate links that help support Mama's Learning Corner. Visit Mama's Disclosure Policy for more information. This past week, my children and I enjoyed Papa Piccolo. Every week I say, 'This one is my favorite!' and this week was no exception. Some books lend themselves to so many learning opportunities that it's hard to choose which activities we want to do, and Papa Piccolo certainly falls in that category!

Papa Piccolo storybook five in a row ideas

Hi! Last week we completed our Five in a Row study on the book The Storm in the night, by Mary Stolz. I was going to start on P...

Our school has adopted the Next Generation Science Standards and one of my favorite units in 1st grade is our Sound Unit. NGSS asks that students conduct experiments to explain that vibrations make…

Learn more about floods, tornados, hurricanes and more with our free Extreme Weather Worksheets.

September 19th - 23rd "Who," I asked my father, "owns the sun?" He pointed to toward the sky and told me to look up. I raised my head...

Warning: this may very well be the longest Gettin' Skooled post in history...(which isn't really saying that much since I just started this blog a few months ago) Last week, we "rowed" a book for the very first time! If you are confused by the "row" part, you're not the only one. Apparently, there is an entire subculture of homeschoolers who use The Five in a Row curriculum and are die hard about it. "Rowing" simply means we used Five in a Row to study out one book for the entire week. The book we chose to start with is The Rag Coat. This is such a touching, touching story. I'm pretty sure that even the Grinch's heart would grow an extra size if he read this book. It is a story of a young girl who is very poor and can not go to school because she can not afford a coat. Her mother's friends, the "Quilting Mothers", decide to make her a coat out of their scraps. There is so much more to this story, but I'll leave it at that for simplicity's sake. There were three main parts of this book that we touched upon: the Appalachian region, coal mining, and quilting. Some of the subtopics we discussed were the relationships within the book, forgiveness, and art. Here are some of the things we did this week: Merrick put together his USA puzzle to help him identify the states in which the Appalachian mountains lie. After putting together the puzzle, Merrick colored a map for his lapbook journal. The printables for the lapbook were found here. Since I grew up in North Carolina, and have many memories of enjoying the Appalachian Mountains, I couldn't wait to learn more and share more about this region's culture with Merrick. On Pandora, a free internet radio, we listened to some Appalachian music. We also rented the movie Christie, which lasted for about 5 minutes before the kids ran off to play. There were also several books in the library on Appalachian folktales. I loved this one, The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday. This is basically the story of the 3 Little Pigs told in it's original Appalachian form. What that means, basically, is that the 2 pigs that didn't make their homes out of brick were eaten. No mercy! At first when I read this, I thought it was a bit harsh for children. But, upon reading the author's note, I realized the wisdom in the original story. Long story short, when told in its original form, it is a great tool for teaching stranger danger, being aware and cautious when we are outside our home, and that one should obey his mother (you know I like any book that teaches my kids to show a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t!). While discussing the Appalachians, we also made our own compass to reinforce learning about North, East, South, and West. One of the suggestions in the Five in a Row curriculum, was to make one of these little thingys. I'm not sure what this is called. It's basically just a circle of nails in a board. Merrick was able to use rubber bands to build about any shape we could think of. I used the info here to remind myself of the different polygons. To make the board, I just used a leftover scrap of MDF I had in the garage and painted it red (Merrick's favorite color). I traced a plate to make a circle, then hammered in 3/4 inch nails around the perimeter of the circle. Merrick has a blast with this board. I love the fact that it will come in handy for future math discussions as well. Coincidently, our bible story during this week was about Joseph and his coat of many colors. I think many would call this a "godcidence" instead of a "coincidence." This was perfect. Joseph and his coat are actually mentioned in the book The Rag Coat. Merrick's face lit up when he recognized the reference! Learning about coal mining was one of Merrick favorite parts of the week. Here are the two supplemental library books that were most helpful to us in learning about coal: For fun, Merrick and I went coal mining under our breakfast area. We got the idea here from my favorite homeschooling blog, Satori Smiles. Merrick went nuts all week over his coal mining hat (which was basically just a flashlight taped to the top of my rarely used snowboarding helmet). He even wore it sitting in bed reading: Merrick wanted to play "coal mining" over and over again. We did just like we read on Satori Smiles with a few exceptions. I turned the breakfast table and chairs into our "mine"... We made three different types of coal (recipe also from Satori Smiles) each worth different points. The lignite, or soft coal, was worth one point. The hard coals, bituminous and antracite, were worth ten and one hundred respectively. We turned out all the lights and drew the shades. I hid the pieces of "coal" under the table and Merrick had 3 minutes to find as many as possible. Believe it or not, it was a pretty decent challenge in the dark to find that dark coal. After the 3 minutes was up, he had to line the pieces of coal up according to its point value. This was a great way to teach Merrick place value (hundreds, tens, ones). He caught on right away. We also made coal cookies. Originally, I wasn't going to make these. I thought it was just a fancy excuse to eat tons of sugar (not that I need an excuse to eat tons of sugar). But, once I read that it was a good way to teach kids how coal was formed, I was in. Recipe found here. Yum... Lastly, and to my great joy, we discussed quilting. As I love to sew, I was thrilled about this aspect of the book. I started off my showing Merrick the quilts in our home, including a couple that were made for him when he was born. Here is a quilt that I made for Sawyer, my boy twin, when he was born. Merrick was three years old at the time. For one of the patches, I traced his hand and had him draw on the fabric a bit. Of course, we had to take a few photos together. :) Naturally, Merrick can not get in front of a camera without making a goofy face. To help teach him about quilting, we made our own little rag quilted pillowtop. Merrick and I went through lots of his old baby clothes as well as his dad's baby clothes. We chose a few pieces that we felt were appropriate to cut up, and put them in the pillowtop. We also used lots of my scrap fabric (yeah, gotta love getting rid of scraps!) I did the cutting and sewing. Merrick helped me baste. While I was on the sewing machine, Merrick went back to work making shapes. I encouraged him to make polygons. He ended up with pac-mans and funny looking duck things. After two days of cutting, sewing, basting, and more sewing, we had our pillowcase. There are pieces of my husbands baby clothes and baby blanket in there. There is also a piece from a onesie Merrick worn when he was a few days old in the hospital. And, a piece from a shirt he used to wear all the time when he was two years old. Also, a piece from a onesie I made for him when he was a newborn. I can honestly say that this is one of my favorite things in our entire home (yes, I am a sentimental sap). See the little red sailboat in the middle? That's from a tiny shirt my husband wore when he was an infant! And, of course, the lapbook... I definitely, definitely enjoying this kind of learning. It was a really great and much needed break from the workbook kind of learning we had been doing in recent weeks. Though I don't think we'll do this every week, I'm going to shoot for rowing at least 2 books a month. Wish us luck!

Pinay Homeschooler is a blog that shares homeschool and afterschool activity of kids from babies to elementary level.

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Hi! I'm excited to share a quick Must Read Mentor Text for Science! It's called Gravity by Jason Chin. It's great for introducing or re...

The Unlikely Homeschool is an online, faith-based site full of ideas, organizational tools, and printables for the busy homeschooling mom.

Check out this awesome set of engaging, 1st Grade Math and Literacy Worksheets. Practice Math, Grammar, Writing, and so much more in a fun way.

Learn about elect process and the president of the USA with these FREE printable Voting for Kids reader to prepare for November elections!

We have been enjoying learning and making memories with Five in a Row curriculum in our homeschool -- Our row of Night of the Moonjellies is one of our favorites!

A Madeline Five in a Row FIAR unit study is a fun way to explore Paris, France with your children. Take a peak into our week of rowing this book.

2.22, 2.24, 2.26, 2.28, & 2.29 Through compelling reminiscences of his grandfather's life in American and Japan, Allen Say delivers a...

Vey Last First Time Storybook Activities, Five in a Row Unit

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If you’ve stumbled here from Pinterest, or some other site … welcome! While each of these books/lessons can stand alone, they are also a part of a year-long series that we have taught at our homeschool co-op. Each lesson builds in part on the one …

First Grade Full Year Reading Skill Practice Work Book Ages 6-7 36 weeks of reading practice with different activities and workpages. Reading Comprehension pages, skill builders, and more. We have …

I created another worksheet to go along with the table that helps children gather data about inherited traits from their family members. I figured it would be fun to map out what they know o…

Center of gravity is a difficult concept for kids to grasp. This experiment can help, though. It's scientastic! Okay, that's not a real word, but it should be. What You Need An unsharpened pencil 1 piece of wire (ours was 16 gauge) about 12-14 inches long 2 wooden clothespins Prep Take a straight length of wire and put the pencil on top of it in the center, about an inch away from the end of the eraser. Holding the pencil and wire in place, bend the left "arm" of the wire over top the pencil. Do the same with the right "arm" of wire. Now arc the two ends of wire downward slightly and clip the clothespins on each end. Experiment Take the pencil and try to balance the eraser on your nose. Adjust the wire (closer to the eraser), its curve, or the position of the clothespins in necessary. Once you get the position right, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to balance ... for 10 seconds or even longer! Why it Works It's easier to balance something when you lower its center of gravity, which is precisely what the weights (i.e. wire and clothespins) accomplish. Another example of this is when high-wire walkers carry a long pole to help them balance better. This great idea came from Jordan D. Brown's awesome book. Check it out!

Go Along Activities and resources for the storybook, Storm in the Night.

Dive into this fun, classic book with our free Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel activities and printables!

We are making our way through the writing process and have come to the two trickiest parts- revising & editing. It always seems to hard to differentiate between the two-- during revising, I always see kids working on spelling or capital letters and the chance to really delve in and work on description and sensory details is lost. I came across some great help on Pinterest (of course!) and wanted to share my Revising (ARMS) and Editing (COPS) anchor charts with you: Analyze & Revise: Note: I didn't draw the cute guy, he's from Microsoft Clipart :) I also added the marks on the right-hand side so kids knew what to do to add (use the carrot), remove (cross off) or move (circle and use an arrow) a word or sentence in their piece. By the way, dead vs. alive words is SUCH a fun way to teach boring vs. exciting words. My boys, especially, LOVE to act out the fact that "said is dead" and hey, if that gets them to revise, I am willing to let them do it ;) Editing & Proofreading: Note: This guy is from Microsoft Clipart, too. I have also seen this done with "CUPS" where U=Usage, but that was a bit over my third-graders' heads, so I stuck with COPS and can now act like the Punctuation/Spelling/Capitalization Police if I want ;) We have a district-given "High Frequency Word List" for third grade that we use (it comes from Rebecca Sitton's 1200 High Frequency Word List). I also encourage kids to use their "best effort" spelling, especially on this first piece. As long as it's not on their High Frequency List (I have them glue that to the inside cover of their Writer's Notebooks at the beginning of the year for reference), it can be their best try and I'm ok with that. This also keeps my reluctant writers and strugglers from looking in the dictionary for one word for...the....entire.....writing...........period.... ;) And a great COPS display (that uses my favorite Scrappin' Doodles clipart!) can be found at The Eager Teacher- cuteness! What do you do to teach the difference between revising and editing?

We haven't yet gotten into that hard skill of drawing conclusions and making inferences. I don't know about y'all, but that's always a toug...

During our week-long Weather mini-theme we learned about the different types of weather (rain, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain), the types ...

Gather your children, get cosy, and make memories and connections together with this guide to a delightful winter season.

During our week-long Weather mini-theme we learned about the different types of weather (rain, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain), the types ...

100s of super simple hands-on science experiments for kids of all ages, all in one handy place. Free downloads, videos and worksheets.

My classroom game is on POINT this year! I am a secondary science teacher with limited wall space. I’ve wanted to figure out a way to spice up my classroom decor with authentic, colorful materials and anchor charts. As a science teacher, my wall space is covered with cabinets and whiteboards, leaving little room for […]

Work on ordering the months of the year with this fun, hands-on Months of the Year Activity using sequencing sticks for kindergarten.

We were so excited to row this book during the Christmas season, even though we didn’t finish until after our Christmas break. BIBLE: We chose to memorize Proverbs 17:17 for this row since th…

In February, we rowed The Rag Coat by Lauren Mills. This is the story of a little girl named Minna who lives in the Appalachian region wi...

Ever wonder what causes lightning to strike? Explore the physics of lightning with this striking physical science worksheet!

Dexter and I are having so much fun trying out RightStart Math (our math curriculum for next year) ‘early’, that I decided to go ahead and take on Five in a Row this week, too. Who says…

You've seen what our days look liked this week , and how I planned for this row , and now here is our finished row! (For those who prefer ...