(More) Activities with Money

Our money tray has been a big hit this week- I though I would share how Bear has been using it. 

On our tray:

A jar with 100 pennies, a few quarters, dimes and nickels. 

Money Cards from Counting Coconuts (free)

Printable Money Flashcards from Math Salamanders (free, us and uk version)

We reviewed the names of coins and amounts with the cards from Counting Coconuts.

Bear has been taking the cards with the amounts printed and adding up the coins to match. Pretty simple! 

This is a lot less frustrating if they can add tens and fives and ones. We tried this a few months ago and he was definitely not ready. Numbers up to 10 or 20 also work well (just take those cards out of the set to use)

 How we introduced money:

(click)

Botany: Flowers

We had a really fun time exploring some of the common flowers around us last week. I tried to keep this unit as simple as possible- we collected as many flowers as we could from the yard and than spent time identifying them. We also REALLY wanted to some tempura dandelion flowers for snack but it just never happened. Ok, I wanted to make them. The kids thought I was crazy....

 It was a barefoot afternoon I think we all very much enjoyed! 

Botany: Seeds

We are still using the free cards from The Helpful Garden. I took out the set that contained the parts of the seed. I also poured some birdseed into a container for the kids to examine. Also really helpful are the types of seeds cards (follow the same link.)

After introducing the terms we found the parts on some sunflower seeds. They worked really well! Sunflower seeds tend to be a bit larger so it's easier to spot the parts. 

Next, we planted a mini "garden." We used a clear glass container, potting soil, a small clay pot (for a pond), water and alfafa seeds. I used the alfafa sprouting seeds because they tend to shoot up fairly quickly and will fill in most of the dirt. You could totally use any seeds though. It makes for great messy play. In retrospect, I would have made on a "sensory" tub for Indie to mess with and another for Barrett to actually plant. 

DIY Fire Extinguisher (Science)

This was by far one of the coolest things we've done in a while. Barrett LOVES watching Popular Mechanics for Kids and one of the episodes that he watches all the time is all about fire safety.

 

He has been asking for a while to make one and today we were finally able to get to it! The directions were dictated to me by Barrett. Hope you enjoy!

Materials:

empty peanut butter jar with a lid

small jar (that fits in the pb jar, no lid)

water

baking soda

vinegar

spoon

stirring stick

hammer

nail

Directions:

1. fill peanut butter jar with water (make sure to only fill how far your small jar goes, so that the water will not go into the small jar)

2. add baking soda to the water. Keep adding baking soda until it stops dissolving

3. fill small jar with vinegar

4. gently place into the peanut butter jar

5. hammer a small hole into the lid with the nail

6. put lid on jar

7. start a fire and then shake the jar and then it will put out the fire.

Obviously, use proper precautions around fire...

What I've Learned after 2 Years of Homeschooling Preschool

As this school year starts winding down and we start getting ready for kindergarten (officially) I've been re-evaluating all the things we've done and all the things I've learned as a home educator. Home schooling for preschool was not necessarily something I had planned to do but I am so very grateful for the chance to experience it. 

1. Try lots of different methods. You may think Waldorf is the best thing in the world. Your engineering minded son may not. One of the best methods I discovered for our family was Montessori. I was astonished how much time Barrett worked on pouring beans as our very first activity two and a half years ago. It was simple. It minimized my prep time. It made things fun again.

2. Find a rhythm. Do your kids work really well from 7-9? Do they work better from 3-5? Just because regular school starts at 8 and ends at 3 doesn't mean you should too. 

3. Have a simple environment. I love the book Simplicity Parenting. Just because it's educational or the best toy ever doesn't mean it should be out. I have maybe 25 % of our materials out for the kids to access. If it hasn't been touched in a month, I take it away. It's OK to be minimal!

3. Live at your library. Know your librarians. Spend your afternoons there. Be regulars at story time. Our best lessons and memories come from picking out books that interest the kids and building extensions from there. 

4. Read. This builds on the first but one of the pivotal moments in our home school was when we started reading for an hour together in the afternoon. Everyday. My son went from hating phonics to reading chapter books with little traditional intervention from me. We just read. and read. and read some more. I love the book, A Family of Readers. It's a book about what makes a good children's book with a few recommendations from birth to teenagers.

5. Utilize screen time to your advantage. Starfall and Reading Eggs have been lifesavers for me. Giving me a chance to breathe, catch up, or just drink a cup of coffee. There are awesome programs out there- use them! 

6. Live your classroom. Our home school group is called the Living Classroom. I love this! Just because you are doing "school" doesn't mean it should be a mini school. Go outside. Read on the couch. Explore your local museums. 

7. Give yourself a break. Seriously. I try to take time on Sundays to meander the thrift store. Or drive around in circles. Just something that doesn't involve kids. Anything.

8. Never, ever, ever cancel a play-date to work on a worksheet. Seriously!

9. Have a safe place that's not your home. For my kids it's the child watch at the gym. We can be having a horrible morning and I can take them there and it totally turns our day around. They love the ladies who work there and I can't imagine not having them in our weekly/daily lives. 

10. Involve them in your day to day. They are around. So they can help. And yes, it can count as school.

We have good days and we have horrible days but I am in love with our routine and rhythm and wouldn't trade it for the world. I hope this ends up being a sense of encouragement somewhere. You are not alone! 

And in full disclosure: during the course of my typing this, my daughter escaped totally naked- just boots, my son ate almost an entire bag of m&m's and I feel as though I may have a heart attack at the state of the school room.

Botany: Fruit

We are working our way through some introductions in botany this week. Monday we went over Trees and Plants. 

 Today we went over the parts of a fruit using the cards from  The Helpful Garden. 

Barrett is matching up the terms to the blank picture cards. 

We also matched them to a cut up apple. 

For a fun extension we used the apple as a stamp to stamp on a paper and labelled a few of the parts. 

Next up: Seeds.

Botany: Trees and Plants

While Bear was working on all the hammering and building this morning, I had a chance to work with Indie a bit. We haven't had a chance to work on Botany yet (with either of them) so I thought in lieu of earth day, it would be a great week to start. 

We downloaded these amazing free printables from The Helpful Garden.

 I pulled out the parts of the tree and the parts of a plant from the Botany Nomenclature Set for Indie. We went over them using a three period lesson and I was so excited to see her attention span continuing to increase. 

A little after that we went upstairs to examine a flower up close. I pointed out the parts we learned about and big brother even came over to point out some other terms I didn't know he remembered. We'll go over some of the more complex nomenclature later this week.

More Botany!