Have fun with this FREE Nature Study with Trees and Leaves that lets upper elementary and middle school students draw, label, color, and more!
Grab this free tree unit study and lapbook and learn all about amazing trees!
Due to a recent Google+ hangout about writing from the iHomeschool Network and a super long thread about writing on the Well-Trained Mind Forums, I was inspired to make a rough scope and sequence for writing instruction in grades 1-8. I’m sharing it because I want to encourage you to think about doing something similar. It’s a very basic view of where I want my children to be as writers entering high school. It has made me more deliberate and focused with our writing instruction time during the school day. 1st Grade: Copy work (focusing on mechanics): Learn great sentence construction by copying great sentences. Narrations: Tell me everything you can remember from what we just read. I will write it down.2nd Grade: Copy work: Begin copying multiple sentences at one time. Narrations: Tell me everything you can remember from what we just read. I will write down a few sentences, and then you will copy it.3rd Grade: Beginning summarizations: Instead of telling everything you remember focus on the main points or plot. Narrations: Begin writing your own. Teach and practice paragraph construction: Teach the basic paragraph construction of main idea with supporting sentences, and write one paragraph every couple of weeks on a topic or book. Focus on writing strong sentences: This is the theme of the year. Every sentence should include strong word choice and vocabulary. At the beginning of the year this will be modeled through writing workshops with me. By the end of the year, it should be done independently. Strong sentences should be reflected in the paragraph that is written every two weeks.4th grade: Written narrations and summaries: All narrations and summaries are done independently now at the rate of about two-three a week. Basic three paragraph compositions: Basically a report or essay without introductory or concluding paragraphs. Be sure and keep the strong sentences from last year. Write one composition every couple of weeks. Start out slowly with one paragraph and moving up to three by the end of the year. Focus on writing strong paragraphs: This is the theme of the year. Focus on transition sentences between paragraphs and more advanced paragraph construction. Focus on descriptive writing: Most of the compositions written this year will fall into this category.5th grade: Written narrations and summaries: About 3-4 a week. Basic five paragraph compositions: Adding in the introductions and conclusions to the three paragraph from the year before. Write one composition about every two weeks. Focus on strong introductions/conclusions: This is the theme of the year. Learning how to hook the reader into your work and write a strong conclusion. Focus on persuasive writing: Learning how to write persuasively and continuing descriptive writing from last year.6th grade: Written narrations and summaries: About 4-5 a week. More advanced compositions of varying lengths: Average about one every six weeks. Focus on supporting quotes: This is the theme of the year. Finding and citing quotations and using quotations to make your writing more powerful. Focus on comparison and contrast writing: Learn how to compare and contrast. Continue with descriptive and persuasive writing as well.7th grade: Written narrations and summaries: Five a week. Compositions from each type of writing: Practice writing descriptive, persuasive and compare and contrast compositions. Write 3-4 during the school year from a list of literature, history,and/or science topics. These should be in-depth and researched with quotations where useful. Focus on refining all elements: This is the theme of the year. Focus on bring everything together: sentences, paragraphs, introductions and conclusions, and quotations.8th grade: Written narrations and summaries: Five a week Compositions from each type of writing: Practice writing descriptive, persuasive and compare and contrast compositions. Write 5-6 during the school year from a list of literature, history,and/or science topics. These should be in-depth and researched with quotations where useful. Focus on refining all elements: This is the theme of the year. Focus on bring everything together: sentences, paragraphs, introductions and conclusions, and quotations. A few caveats about my list: 1. This list is compiled with Chipette in mind. I don’t even know if it will work with Magpie and Monkey. Your scope and sequence for your family or child should look different than mine. 2. I adhere to a mixture of Charlotte Mason and classical methodologies when it comes to writing philosophy. For that reason you won’t see a lot of writing instruction in the lower elementary grades. 3. I purposefully don’t list curriculum in my scope and sequence. This is for two reasons: new products hit the market every day and different kids might need different things. I do have ideas of what I want to use for each year, but I don’t hammer them in stone. Feel free to use my ideas as a jumping off point to create your own. And I highly encourage you to watch the iHomeschool Network’s Google + Hangout about writing instruction in your homeschool. So much good information is there. Proving the pen is mightier than the sword in the tree house,
Learn how to plant a peach seed and grow your own peach tree with this step-by-step guide. Discover how to gather and prepare peach seeds, as well as care tips for successful growth.
ALL ABOUT EARTH Get ready for a month filled with so many fun activities to teach your kiddos all about our planet Earth . I teach this unit in April so it coincides with Earth Day. I’ve loaded up this blog post post with read aloud book ideas, free videos you can share with your students,
Find Help on this Homeschool Journey; Freezer Recipes, Organization, & Encouragement
Everyday Scholé is back!!! We’ve taken quite a few months off as all of us were wrapping up blogging projects or writing projects, but this month we are beginning a yearlong series that is sure to inspire you and your homeschool. We are taking an in-depth, practical look at the eight essential principles of classical pedagogy (make haste slowly, much not many, repetition is the mother of memory, embodied learning, songs, chants, and jingles, wonder and curiosity, educational virtues, and scholé, contemplation, and leisure). Each month we will focus on a different principle and how to practically implement that principle in your homeschool. Can you tell I’m excited?!? I think what I’m most excited about is that I’m not a true classical homeschooler. I’m a Charlotte Mason homeschooler. It’s true that Ms. Mason had much in common with classical homeschoolers {some even consider her a classical homeschooler in her own right}, but on the surface a few of the eight essential principles seem to fly in the face of what Charlotte Mason homeschoolers promote as a “true” Charlotte Mason education. So for the each of these eight principles I’m going to be focusing on how to use classical pedagogy as outlined by Dr. Perrin in the link above, but in a Charlotte Mason way. Before we start this journey through classical and Charlotte Mason, I wanted to mention something that Dr. Perrin states at the beginning of his video. He says, “Principles should support our practices.” Basically the thrust of that statement is that the things you do in your homeschool should have a principle that supports them. For example, if you are a Charlotte Mason homeschooler why do you engage in nature study? Because you are supposed to do so if you ascribe to Ms. Mason’s philosophy? Because the curriculum you bought says to do it? Do you really even know why Charlotte Mason was such a huge proponent of nature study for all students throughout their school years? These are important questions to ask about any homeschooling philosophy whether it’s classical, unschooling, traditional, etc. If you don’t know what various educational practices are trying to accomplish in your homeschool, it is pointless to do them. While I’m focusing on these eight principles in a Charlotte Mason homeschool, I hope that you will look at them through whatever philosophy influences your homeschool because I truly believe these eight essential principles of classical pedagogy are fundamentally just really great educational practices in general that can be applied to whatever method you use. I can see how all methods of education can be tweaked and manipulated in such a way to benefit from the use of all eight principles. The hardest part, as Dr. Perrin states toward the end, is that changing our mindset about education to one that encompasses these ideals is work for us. It is not natural for those of us who are graduates of the public school system here in the United States. The most difficult challenge you will have is not the vision, but the implementation. You might have noticed that scholé is the last principle listed. I firmly believe this is because as you focus on the other seven, teaching from rest will become a natural byproduct of your endeavors. It doesn’t mean that it comes naturally, as I mentioned above, but it will be apparent that schooling your child with these principals in the forefront of your mind will reap a calmer, restful, leisurely approach to education in your home. I’ve seen this lived out in our homeschool and I’m excited to share some practical ways I’ve achieved this in the coming year. Be sure and check out my fellow Everyday Scholé bloggers and their thoughts about the principles of classical education. What educational philosophies influence your homeschool the most? Let me know in the comments. Chelli
Try this simple photosynthesis experiment for kids to show your students the process of a leaf and plant producing oxygen.
Learn how to integrate art into your plant science activities by having students make chlorophyll paintings. Similar to leaf rubbings, this simple science based art project is a fun and creative extension for teaching kids about photosynthesis.
5 Benefits Teaching from Rest Brought to Our Homeschool Whenever you start a new venture in life it’s always helpful to do a cost-benefit...
This post contains affiliate links which helps support this blog. See full legal disclosure here. Now that we’re a good three months into our school year, I wanted to do a short series on our Morning Meeting time for this year. It usually takes me a couple of months to iron the kinks out of everything we’re using, get the scheduling down just right, and replace resources that didn’t work for ones that will. Hopefully that’s encouraging to some of you that despite seven years of homeschooling I still need a few months to get things clicking on all cylinders! The first major change for the year was that Morning Meeting had a name change. Grace would always tease me that Morning Meeting would usually occur in the afternoon and sometimes even at night: “It’s not really Morning Meeting, Mom, if we don’t do it in the morning.” Point taken. So I began to think about new names for that time of our school day when I came across the term Power Hour from Jen’s blog, Forever, For Always…No Matter What. I loved the name and it addressed something else that had been bothering me about our Morning Meeting time: length. So the next change I made was being determined to pare down our Morning Meeting time to fit within an hour time constraint. While our normal time of an hour and a half to two hours wasn’t necessarily bad, it just took a large part of our day, and I felt like I needed a nap after all that reading to the kids and keeping Levi from running amok. After some trial and error, I’ve been able to trim everything down to fit within an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes. I even set a timer for the first few weeks to make sure that I was keeping true to my vision for our new and improved Power Hour part of the day! So now for the fun part: book list! Listed below are the resources that I'm using with my kids this year during our Power Hour time. These resources are for the ENTIRE year so don't look at the list and panic. In the next post about our Power Hour time, I'll show how all of these are scheduled over the week and over the year. Believe it or not this is the list that's been culled to keep restful learning happening around here. Bible Study Bible Study Guide for All Ages: We have used and loved this Bible program since we started homeschooling. You can see my review here. Sweet Speak by Elizabeth Jimenez: While this book is geared toward teenage girls, the content is fabulous for anyone to learn how to let their words be words that build instead of destroy. I chose this for us to read through and discuss together because we ALL need this study around here! Poetry Poetry for Young People: Emily Dickinson and Poetry for Young People: Edward Lear: The Poetry for Young People series is one of my most favorite finds since we started homeschooling. These books make studying and reading poetry painless since they have notes about the poems, bio about the poet, and definitions of words included in the text. Sing Song by Christina Rossetti: This collection of poems should be a staple in your home if you have younger children. Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People by Walter de la Mare All of the above poetry books are meant to be read for enjoyment over the course of the year, but to actually study poetry I'm using the following book from Memoria Press. Poetry for the Grammar Stage: We'll only be covering the third grade poems this year, one each term. Geography Visits to the Middle East by Sonya Shafer: I've been so impressed with how easy these books make learning geography. This year we are focusing on the Middle East, but I plan to continue the series with my kids because it's so effective. The Complete Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton: I grabbed this book about two years ago and immediately fell in love with this amazing living geography book. Copies are sometimes difficult to find and can be pricey, but it's well worth it if you can find a copy within your budget. The Glorious Adventure by Richard Halliburton: In this book, Halliburton, an adventurer from the early 20th century, follows the path of Odysseus' journey from Troy back to his home in Greece. I thought this would be the perfect way to finish up our study of geography for the year. History Builders of the Old World by Gertrude Hartman: I mentioned this series of books when I talked about my favorite living history books and I still love The History on the March series just as much. We're finishing the last 1/3 of this book before moving on to the next one..... Makers of the Americas by Marion Lansing: This is the American history overview book from the History on the March series. This series is out of print, but you can usually find copies of the books for pretty cheap on the internet. Science The Burgess Seashore Book for Children by Thornton Burgess: Since our main science focus this year is on the ocean, adding this book to Power Hour was a no-brainer. It's a classic! Lives of the Scientists by Kathleen Krull: I discovered this book at our library and fell in love. It's fun, informative, and has great pictures. Literature Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin: A classic book that covers famous myths and tales. The World's Best Fairy Tales (Reader's Digest Anthology): I know, I know. A Reader's Digest book? Honestly, though, this collection is fabulous and you can find the book for cheap! It is actually a two volume collection, but I only have the second volume which is awesome by itself. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin: An amazing book that weaves Chinese folktales into a great adventure story. Art and Music Appreciation Artists we are covering: 20th Century Artists (Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Wassily Kandinsky, and Jasper Johns), Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe, and Claude Monet. I use Mike Venezia books to give background on the artist and choose five paintings for us to study from each artist, except the 20th Century Artist study where we only study two painting from each artist. 21 Lessons in 20th Century American Music by Gena at I Choose Joy: This is probably one of the things I'm most excited about this year! While I want my kids to know about the greats of classical music, American music did some amazing world changing things during the 20th century and this curriculum makes it easy to teach and learn about the different genres, composers, and artists that lived during this time. A fun, modern way to do music appreciation! Miscellaneous Getting Started with Latin by William E. Linney: We are having so much fun using this book. It's easy to teach even for someone with no previous Latin exposure (me!) and presents Latin in small bite size pieces. Philosophy for Kids: 40 Fun Questions That Help You Wonder About Everything! by David White: We're only doing one question each week, but this book has brought some great discussion about right, wrong, truth, ethics, etc. to our Power Hour time. Highly recommend! How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig: I think this book has become a staple of homeschool families. It's wonderful for introducing children to the Bard and helping them memorize passages from his most famous plays. It looks like a lot to get through, huh? I promise that it's not with a little bit of scheduling, so stay tuned for part two where I show how I take all of this and turn it into a workable plan that doesn't feel rushed or strained. What’s your favorite Morning Meeting/Power Hour resource? Let me know in the comments below because I’m always looking for new resources! Chelli
Learn about amazing trees with this fun, and free hands-on unit study. Free nature unit studies for homeschooling from The Crafty Classroom.
Ask any herbalist just beginning their journey into herbal education, and everyone I've met says they wish they'd been exposed to the wonders of plants as a child. All those days spent carefree playing in the
Pinay Homeschooler is a blog that shares homeschool and afterschool activity of kids from babies to elementary level.
Free Carnivorous Plants Notebooking Pages. Science or science fiction? Carnivorous plants have intrigued homeschoolers for years.
Plant the Trees Sensory Bin is a fun and easy sensory activity to help teach kids the importance of trees for Earth Day or any day!
Pinay Homeschooler is a blog that shares homeschool and afterschool activity of kids from babies to elementary level.
Charlotte Mason’s educational philosophy is all about those books, so it’s no surprise that one of the most frequently asked questions I rec...
When I just had one child to teach, planning how our homeschool day would flow wasn't that important. We squeezed in lessons during naps or just plopped Little Magpie in front of the television for an hour or so to finish (I admit that I am that mom!). But a trifecta of craziness happened this year to my blissful, no planning, homeschool life: a toddler, two students, and second grade. Monkey was 18 months old when we started school this year, big enough and smart enough to cause mayhem, but young enough to not know that mayhem would be the result of climbing up the bookshelf, dumping out the fish food, banging on the sheetrock with a wrench, etc. Magpie was ready to do school like big sister, and since I did Pre-K with Chipette, I promised Magpie she could do a Pre-K program as well. Since I've never been an elementary teacher, I discovered that the jump in the abilities and expectations for second grade is quite a bit compared to first. Chipette's school day was going to take about an hour longer than it had the year before. Add all of these things together and you get=DESPERATION! So like any savvy homeschool mom of the 21st century, I hit the internet, scoured homeschool blogs, and developed a plan. Now I share with you what I've learned worked for us this year when it comes to planning our school day. Keep in mind that I am a very visual person, so I need to "see" our day instead of just think about it! Step One: Write down what subjects you want to get done each day for each child and any shared subjects. Use a different colored pen/pencil or different colored paper for each child and another color for shared subjects/activities. I know that on some days, you might do certain subjects and on other days different subjects in that same slot. In that case you would write on one line: art/Spanish/science experiment/math lab. Those are our same-slot subjects. Here is a picture of all the color-coded subjects. Chipette's are on green paper, Magpie's on yellow paper, and subjects/activities they do together on orange paper. I cut them out so I can manipulate them until I get them in the order I want (learned this trick from writing my senior thesis paper in college!). It's easier for me to do it this way than to draw lines and arrows all over my notebook paper. Step Two: Work on ordering each individual child's subjects. I like to rotate subjects between more intense, brain power, sit at the table, kind of subjects (math, grammar, writing, handwriting, spelling) with more fun, creative, enjoyable subjects (science, history, notebooking, art). Some parents let their children choose the order they do their subjects each day which I think is awesome, but not feasible for us right now due to Chipette's meltdowns if school takes too long or proves too difficult. She is quite a perfectionist (like her mother), and, yes, we're both working on it! But she likes the way we rotate subjects so I'm not getting any complaints from her...yet. Here is a picture of Magpie's subjects placed in order: I always put Bible first so the girls know that learning the Bible is the most important thing we will do all day. Then I do phonics (intense), rotation box (relaxed), fine motor skills (intense), read aloud (relaxed), math (intense), and science (relaxed). Rotation box is a category in our Heart of Dakota curriculum, fine motor skills is where Magpie works on cutting, pasting, tracing, etc. to build up hand strength for formal handwriting next year, and read aloud is when she chooses a book and I read it to her. Here are Chipette's subjects placed in order: Notice Bible is first again (and always!), history (relaxed), math (intense), rotation box (relaxed), grammar (intense but short), writing (intense but short), read to mom (relaxed), read aloud (relaxed), spelling (intense), poetry (relaxed), handwriting (intense), and science (relaxed). I explained most of these subjects underneath Magpie's picture, but read to mom is where Chipette reads outloud to me from her chapter book that I have chosen for her. I choose the book intead of letting her because I pick a chapter book that is slightly above her reading level and usually coordinate it with history or just choose a really good classic literature book. I use this time to help Chipette reading slowly, enunciation, expression, and informal vocabulary. Step Three: Decide on your style and goal for each day and move the subjects around accordingly. When it comes to how your family's homeschool looks there is no right or wrong scenario. I struggled greatly this spring with trying to figure out how to one day combine all of my children for Bible, history, and science. It is quite common among most homeschooling families to combine children for these subjects. I worked out on paper about a million scenarios of how I could combine them but I never felt at peace about it. Then one day I just realized that my children would not do well combined. They will all be three grades apart once they are all in school and every idea that I considered basically had me teaching them all together from a spine and then sending them off on their own to do follow up work or extra reading. I didn't see how this would save time in my day, so I went back to my original plan to not puposefully combine them. I say "purposefully" because Magpie sometimes joins us for some of Chipette's activities and vice versa. The reason I tell you all of this is because the fact that I don't combine for most subjects is how I plan our day. It actually flows very smoothly. I laid out the planned order for each child side by side: Immediately I notice that Chipette has twice as many subjects as Magpie. This makes my division of the day easy! We always start school with Circle Time. Then I will work with Chipette for one hour, then work with Magpie, and finish up with Chipette. All of our messy, together subjects will be done during Monkey's nap; that's a no-brainer! Here is a picture of our finished plan for our day: Some quick things worth mentioning about the picture above: Just because Chipette's subjects are separated into two specific sets does not mean that it will play out that way. I just have it like that for convenience. I am a timer mom! What I mean by that is the timer is my best friend when it comes to school. I set the timer to one hour for Chipette and we begin to work on her list. When the timer goes off, she is done for that teaching block. I might have her finish the subject if we are very close to being done, but other than that, she is free for her break time. I try to do 30 minutes of teaching time for Kindergarten and the first semester of first grade, then increase to 45 minutes of teaching time for the second sememster of first grade. When Monkey goes down for his nap, the schedule is put on hold and we immediately begin our together subjects even if it's in the middle of Chipette or Magpie's teaching block. I wait until I know he is asleep, then we begin our memory work. After memory work we do art on the first day, Spanish on the second and fourth days, science experiment on the third day, and math lab on the fifth day. Once we have finished our together time, then we go right back to where we were in the schedule. Chipette has a green independent label because once she is done with her two teaching blocks with me, she begins her independent work that is in her weekly binder. I only plan our day around what I am teaching to them. Their independent work (Magpie obviously doesn't have any yet!) is on their own time when we are finished. Independent work takes as long or as short as the child takes to complete it; I do not set a time for them to have it completed (before supper is preferrable!), but it must be done before they can have screen time. The most important labels to make my system work are these: These tell Chipette and Magpie what they are doing while I am teaching the other one: taking care of and playing with Monkey. They don't have to be actively hands-on playing with him, but they MUST stay with him in the backyard, in his bedroom, or in the living room. They are not allowed in the dining room where we school unless someone is severely hurt (blood, bones protruding from skin, etc.). It takes training for sure, but the girls know to stay out of the dining room while someone else is having school time with mom. There are days that Monkey and/or Magpie wanders into the dining room and sits in my lap or at the table with us. I don't make a big deal out of it unless they start to interrupt my teaching time, then they have to leave the room and go back to playing. Step Four: Make a chart so everyone knows where they are supposed to be and what they are supposed to be doing. I use the free chart from Simply Charlotte Mason. Click on the "downloadable set of charts" and the chart I use is the "Daily Schedule with free floating time boxes". Here is a picture of my chart all filled in with the daily schedule I worked out above: I usually only display the chart for the first week or two until everyone gets the routine down. And that is what it should be...a routine. I purposefully do not assign specific start and stop times. This schedule works whether we start school at 8 AM *snort* or at 10 AM *more likely*. You just go with the flow! Step Five: Make workboxes work for you! About a year into my homeschooling journey I heard about workboxes. I loved the idea so I immediately started gathering my boxes. After about one month of using the system the way it is outlined by Sue Patrick (the inventor), I was ready to pull my hair out. The boxes took up too much space with just Chipette. I couldn't imagine trying to find a way to fit more sets of boxes into our little home! I also didn't like the way the plastic shoeboxes didn't hold things properly. The books didn't fit into the box. I found online where people used those rolling carts with drawers to replace the shoeboxes, but those things were expensive (!) and still took up too much space for three children. Next, I tried using super huge Ziploc bags filed in a plastic milk crate. We used that system for most of first grade. I liked that the huge Ziploc bags (I think they are three gallon size) fit everything into them. I didn't like that it was a pain to file everything in them each night and by the end of our first grade year the bags had gone by the wayside. I was just piling Chipette's things into the milk crate and telling her what to pull out. But I still liked the idea of letting her know what was on the agenda for the school day (What's next, Mom? When's art, Mom? When will we be done, Mom?). However, I knew that I did not want to be filing things every night for school the next day, and I needed it to take up very little space. So with some inspiration from Homeschool Creations, I created my own workbox system for people who are poor, lazy, and don't have a lot of space. I made one grid that works for each school day. The grid has sixteen squares on it so that gives you room for sixteen subjects or activites for your child. You can download the grid here. I let each of my daughter's choose some fun 8.5x11.5 scrapbook paper to print it on. Then I laminated it and put velcro dots in each square. Next, I printed out the workbox cards from the Homeschool Creations blog. I also had to make some of my own using clipart because I needed some workbox cards that weren't on the blog. I laminated the cards and put the other half of the velcro dot on the back. Here is a picture of some of the workbox cards: Now I use the daily schedule for each child that we developed above to "fill up their chart" as I call it. I put the workbox cards on their board in the order of their work with me for the day. Here is a picture of Chipette's board loaded for the day: The floating art workbox card at the bottom is to let Chipette and Magpie know that art is what we will be doing today during Together Time while brother is asleep. Here is Magpie's board loaded for the day: Once they have finished a subject, they remove it from their chart and put it in a plastic container that I keep on the computer desk. After they are done with school for the day, then I "fill up their chart" for the next day. I feel like my system keeps the spirit of workboxes (they can see what they have to do and track when they will be finished), but is not as complicated or costly. Their books and workbooks are stored in their school bins, and they know what to pull out for each subject on their chart. The charts are even clipped to their bins so everything is right at their fingertips. Easy, simple, cheap, and a space saver! I changed the way we use this system this year to combine my workbox charts with our daily routine chart. You can see the awesome result in this post. Please feel free to ask any questions about our system and happy homeschooling from The Planted Trees! MY PLANNING SERIES: How I Plan Our Homeschool Year How I Plan Our Homeschool Week How I Plan Our Homeschool Subjects
Kids will love learning about the life cycle of a plant with this free Plant Life Cycles reader. Color, read, and learn about plant life cycle for kids!
Learn what plants breathe through with this easy leaf & tree science experiment as kids get hands-on with the process of photosynthesis!
Learn about plants with this 80 page botany lesson for kids! Information, worksheets, experiments, and more for elementary age!
👦🏻 “Mama, why are all leaves green?” 👩🏼 “The chlorophyll inside the leaves makes them green.” 👦🏻 “Chloro….what did you say???” 👩🏼 “Chlorophyll sweet …
Have your children or students ever wondered how high a particular tree is, but felt they had no way to measure it? Never fear, you don't need a crane, hot
Have your kids ever asked "Why do the leaves change color?" or "How come the leaves fall off of some trees, but other trees are green all year long?" These printable nature journal
Pinay Homeschooler is a blog that shares homeschool and afterschool activity of kids from babies to elementary level.
Learn how to integrate art into your plant science activities by having students make chlorophyll paintings. Similar to leaf rubbings, this simple science based art project is a fun and creative extension for teaching kids about photosynthesis.
Summer time and the living is easy! For those who don’t quite agree on the second part of Ella Fitzgerald’s line, we got a little proof for you. Nothing screams “sunshine” as much as berries, and people are going crazy about the beauty of their life cycles.
It is the gift-giving season in many parts of the world and I have a ton of gifts to share with my amazing blog subscribers! I will be uploading one new free printable every day until Christmas. Today’s Freebie Parts of a Tree 3-Part Cards Your basic Montessori 3-part cards for Parts of a Tree. Just […]
Join the Free Hub for access to our free notebooking pages sampler and other resources. Start today with our Notebooking QuickStart Guide!
This EVERGREEN TREES Unit Study includes convenient printables, suggestions of books to read, ideas to write, crafts to create, more to explore, snacks to enjoy and other ways to learn about EVERGREEN TREES! #TheWOLFePack #UnitStudies #EvergreenTrees
A seed unit study can be completed any time of year. Plant and seed worksheets ready for download - seeds, flowers, beans, sunflowers, and more.
Here are some great ideas, tips, and resources for teaching botany to your homeschoolers to inspire a lifelong love for plants and nature.
Hi Friends…I don’t know about you….but BOY OH BOY…I am super busy! I truly need at least another 10 hours in EACH day in order to accomplish everything that needs to be done! Unfortunately, I don’t get an extra 10 hours…so some things have to go to the wayside..sadsville 🙁 But, … Animals, Biomes, and HOLIDAYS..OH MY! Read More »
My kids have always been fascinated by seeds, whether it's seed packets for planting in the spring or seeds on the ground in the fall. How many of your kids
Montessori-inspired plant learning activities and free printables for kids.
My school is set up in 4 Pods. Each pod has about 8 classes with a common area in the middle for projects and parents to work with students in small groups. I was walking through my pod this week and was totally loving all the projects that my fellow podmates have up. So I decided to share them with you. Four of the classes are kindergarten and the other 5 are first grade. Ok so this one isn't in the Pod but it's a 1st grade class that down the main hallway and everyday that I have passed her class I have to check out these socks. They are working on skip counting and she hung a clothesline across the room and attached pairs of socks - genius!!! These are some posters that she made in her classroom for skip counting. And these are even and odd candy corns decorating her door. A unit first grade teaches in science is on leaves and Deciduous and Evergreen leaves. Her students brought in leaves and she made this anchor chart. Here is a project to go along with the book Chrysanthemum. Some patterns on the other door. Cute hallway decoration with Bats!!! :) Our Kindergarten Family Project - decorating a pumpkin. Labeling the parts of a tree. Check out the cute squirrels! Fall poems. I hope you enjoyed these pictures as much as I do everyday! Christina Mauro :) Oh and Facebook Frenzy starts tomorrow morning - so remember to go over to my facebook pages to get 44 - that's right 44 K-1 freebies that me and my Facebook peeps have made for you! :) https://www.facebook.com/ATaleofTwoKTeachers There is also a hop for grades 2-3 and 4-5 and I'll post a link on my Facebook page so you can check those ones out too!
