We’re back today with another edition of our ASL Lesson series! Today, we review 15 ASL signs for food. In this clip, we go over the signs for:
Keep Reading…
Using Pinterest for Unit Studies
Today we’re linking up with iHomeschool Network to share our five favorite Pinterest boards! As you can tell here, here, and here, I love unit studies! They’re so flexible that they’re adaptable for just about any age, grade level, and subject, which makes them a perfect choice for eclectic homeschoolers.
Pinterest is a HUGE help when it comes to unit study planning. I can find a topic I like and then pin several resources to use when we cover our units. I have a lot of Pinterest boards, but five of them play a major role in our unit study planning.
Pinterest Board #1: Seasonal Learning
Follow Selena @ Look! We’re Learning!’s board Seasonal Learning on Pinterest.
Our Seasonal Learning board is home to loads of great resources for unit studies! If you’re basing a unit around a particular season, it’s simple to take a few lessons, experiments, and crafts and combine them into one ongoing study. I got the inspiration for our All About Snowflakes unit study from several of our Pinterest finds. Since we’re coming up on spring, here are a few of our pins that would be great for a spring unit study:
Spring Tulip Painting with Forks
Spring Butterfly Craft with Toilet Paper Rolls
30 Indoor Activities for Spring
Pinterest Board #2: Learning for Little Ones
Follow Selena @ Look! We’re Learning!’s board Learning for Little Ones on Pinterest.
We have three learners aged five and under, so even with unit studies, it can be tricky to find activities for them all. Often, I can find an activity on Pinterest that’s geared toward young kids, and then adapt it for my oldest student (or vice versa). In fact, we’ll be breaking out the busy bags and such for Piglet soon! Some of the fine motor activities I’ve found are even good for older kids, especially those who have ADHD like Tigger and like to fidget during class. 🙂
Here are a few of our favorite pins for little learners that lend themselves to unit studies:
Sight Word Treasure Hunt (Pirate unit)
DIY Play Beach Sand (Beach unit)
Ice Cream Cone Letter Activity (Ice Cream unit)
Woven Paper Plate Rainbow (Weather unit)
Pinterest Board #3: Living History
Follow Selena @ Look! We’re Learning!’s board Living History on Pinterest.
I’m a huge history buff, so history makes up a large part of our homeschooling curriculum. A lot of the unit studies we do are based around historical figures or events, and we’ve found great history resources on Pinterest. Since we have so many active learners, weaving in activities and crafts with history helps our kids get more involved in our lessons. This is where the crafts in the other boards really come in handy. Here are a few of the ideas for teaching history that we like on Pinterest:
Lewis and Clark Expedition Study
Dinosaur Activities for Kids
Smithsonian Natural History Museum Virtual Tour
Pinterest Board #4: Seeing the World
Follow Selena @ Look! We’re Learning!’s board Seeing the World on Pinterest.
Geography is a natural tie-in for history, so it’s fairly simple to add it into a unit study. When we did our series on ancient Africa, we naturally talked about the geography and people of the continent as we covered the historical events. But sometimes I find separate geography resources that are too good NOT to include in a unit study…lol. As much as I love history, I find geography kind of boring, so the geography lessons and units I’ve found on Pinterest have been a big help.
Here are a few of our favorite geography pins for unit studies:
30 Ideas for Studying the World
Free Printable State Notebooking Pages
50 Books for 50 U.S. States
Pinterest Board #5: Unit Studies
Follow Selena @ Look! We’re Learning!’s board Unit Studies on Pinterest.
Naturally, here’s where I keep pins that are for completed unit studies. I like to make up our own, but I’ve also found lots of great unit studies written by other homeschoolers on Pinterest. Here are a few of our favorites, including one of our own:
Early Elementary Canada Unit Study
Inuit & Arctic Circle Unit Study
And that’s how we use Pinterest to help us plan unit studies! How do you use Pinterest in your homeschool? Do you have any particular topic you search for on the site? What are your favorite pins for homeschooling? Let us know in the comments!
This post is part of the Our Pintastic Pinboards linkup from iHomeschoolNetwork! Click on over to visit our fellow bloggers and see their favorite Pinterest boards!
The Living History Series: Duke Ellington
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy for details.
If you’ve been following along with our blog for a while, you’ve probably caught on to a recurring theme in our Living History series for the past few months. We’ve learned about Nat King Cole, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis so far. Naturally, we’re focusing on giants of jazz! Of course, we can’t do a jazz series without talking about Duke Ellington, so he’s our focus for March. 🙂
I’m a little more familiar with Duke’s work than I have been with the previous artists in the series. I’ve heard his music pretty often. In fact, “In a Sentimental Mood”, which is one of my favorite jazz songs ever, was on an episode of The Cosby Show. I’ve loved that song ever since.
We’ll be learning more about Duke Ellington’s life, career, and legacy this month, and we’ll be using some of the books below to help the kids get to know his music.
Books about Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra
Duke Ellington: His Life in Jazz with 21 Activities (For Kids series)
Duke Ellington (Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers)
Stay tuned to find out how you can grab our Duke Ellington Biography Unit!
ASL Lesson 4: ASL Family Signs
We’re back this week with another installment of our American Sign Language lessons on YouTube! We’ve already covered letters and numbers in ASL, basic ASL greetings, and days of the week in ASL, so it’s time to learn family signs in ASL!
In this video, we cover the signs for:
Simple Science Experiments: Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment
Winter is coming to an end, but we wanted to sneak in one last winter-themed activity this school year. Tigger is a science fanatic, and she’s always up for an experiment, so it was a great time to learn about condensation and frost. 🙂
I was reading through one of our science workbooks and found this super easy Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment, so we got to work!
Coffee Can Condensation Science Experiment
We picked up the workbook Science Projects & Experiments: Grade 2-3 at Target a while back, but I’d totally forgotten about it. (It was recently unearthed during a School Supply Scavenger Hunt.) One of the experiments in the book uses a coffee can, salt, and ice to create frost.
What often puts me off from science experiments is that they often seem to consist of things I don’t have on hand. I just happened to have an empty coffee can, though, so this was perfect!
We put several ice cubes in the can, then added 1/2 cup of salt.
Tigger stirred the ice and salt together, then closed the lid.
The experiment instructions said to observe the can at 10 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes to observe what would happen. After 10 minutes, I looked at the can and wondered why nothing was happening.
Then I realized that we’d never see anything with the wrapper still on it. Duh, Selena.
This was 20 minutes in. Frost was clearly developing on the outside of the can.
Not only was frost developing, but there were a few drops of water at the base.
After 30 minutes, the entire bottom of the can was frosted over. As the book explained, the ice inside the can made the outside of the can extremely cold. As water vapor in the air touched the can, it immediately condensed and froze, becoming frost. Pretty neat!
Tigger wanted to see what happened to the ice inside the can. We observed that the ice was melting, because of being mixed with the salt – which explains why road crews are always using salt to de-ice roadways!
This was a super quick and simple experiment, but Tigger loved it. So I’ll count that as a homeschooling win. 🙂
Miles Davis Biography Mini-Unit
Good morning y’all! We made it through yet another week! 🙂 It’s the end of the month, so it’s time for another entry in the Living History series! This month we’ve been learning about Miles Davis.
Miles Davis had a comfortable upbringing, but a very troubled life. Ironically, his experiences seemed to help him grow and change as a musician, which is what led to his extremely long jazz career. He also made some terrible choices, eventually managing to rebuild his life with the help of his family and his love for music. He is most certainly not a role model, but his perseverance in the face of serious problems offers a great lesson for kids.
We’ve put together a free Miles Davis Biography Mini-Unit that you’re welcome to use with your family! In this pack, you’ll find:
- A kid-friendly biography of Miles Davis
- Review questions to help kids remember what they learned
- A Miles Davis crossword puzzle
- And copywork based on an interview with the jazz great!
To download your copy of the Miles Davis Biography Mini-Unit, click the image or link below!
Essential Skills Advantage Review
Good morning! It’s a new day at Look! We’re Learning! because today we’re featuring our first-ever sponsored post from our good friends at Educents!
The program we’re highlighting is Essential Skills Advantage and it’s an excellent reading and language computer program for children aged 4 to 12! In the past Essential Skills Advantage has been used in the public school system, but the program is now available for homeschoolers and tutoring!
This is a sponsored post. I received access to this program in exchange for this review. See our Disclosure Policy for details.
Essential Skills Advantage Review
A quick rundown of what the Essential Skills Advantage program consists of:
- Thousands of activities for grades K-6
- Reading, Language, and Spelling activities
- A $7.99 monthly membership that includes access to all seven grade levels
The multi-grade level access is what really won me over to the program. We decided to start Roo out with the kindergarten level, just to see how he did. He did so well at it that we’re going to go right into the first grade level with him afterward! Since Essential Skills Advantage allows parents to work on any grade level with their children, it’s simple to go up or down a level as you need to.
As soon as we started, I noticed that the program has a constant background sound of crickets and birdsongs. It literally sounds as if you’re sitting outside while you’re working. It’s very peaceful and relaxing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that didn’t contribute to Roo’s ability to sit still during the lesson, especially since he has ADHD.
We began with the “Picture Vocabulary” unit in the Complete Reading Grade K program. Rather than working on sight words and phonics right away, ESA starts with simple picture words that are paired with spoken words and related sounds.
For example, in the Animal Names lesson, students are shown a picture of an animal while they listen to the name of an animal being said. If the animal name and picture match, kids click a checkmark. If they don’t match, they click an “X”.
After the Animal Names lesson, we went on to Animal Sounds where Roo matched animal pictures with the sound they make. Since the program shows one picture and plays one sound at a time, it was easy for Roo to concentrate without becoming overwhelmed.
He could also click a picture of an ear when he needed to hear a sound again. The screen uses picture icons and very few words, so he was able to navigate it himself.
In the Food, Transportation, Action, and Clothing units, kids get to play a memory concentration game. They’re asked to flip over cards that match a picture with a written word. The program says the written word as well, which is great for kids who are still working on their reading skills (like Roo).
As they match cards, they get to see part of a picture below the puzzle. For Roo, that was a big incentive to finish the activity, since he wanted to see the finished picture underneath.
While Roo was working on the Transportation unit, he had to listen to transportation words to see if they matched the pictures of transportation vehicles such as bicycles, cars, and vans. After the word played, Jay would try to distract him by saying “He didn’t say ‘motorcycle’. He said ‘Popsicle’.” or “He didn’t say ‘truck’. He said ‘duck’.” Each time, Roo would say, “No, he said ‘motorcycle’.” or “No, he said ‘truck’.”, which just goes to show how well the program held his attention.
At the end of the Human Body unit, there was a word search activity. Initially, Roo was a little confused about how to do a word search, since it was his first time. We showed him how to look for the beginning letter of each word in the puzzle and then spell out the following letters to make sure he chose the correct word.
It wasn’t long before he got the hang of it. And the look on his face when he found his first word all by himself was priceless. 🙂
What was even more impressive to me about Essential Skills Advantage is that it was so engrossing, Roo sat at the computer for a solid hour and did not move ONCE. We’re talking about a boy who cannot utter a single sentence without turning around in a circle. And he sat in the chair for an hour working on this program. Incredible.
Happy four-year-old learner for the win!
One more thing I loved about Essential Skills Advantage is that it presents small challenges to kids to keep them on task. For example, in the Action Names lesson, Roo was asked to match pictures of action with spoken words. When the program would say a word like “walking”, he would have to look at three pictures and select the one that showed walking.
Of his three choices, two of the pictures rhymed. One picture showed someone walking, and another showed someone talking. That kind of challenge requires kids to practice active listening skills and deliberate attention on their tasks.
We absolutely loved using Essential Skills Advantage! It was a wonderful program that even managed to keep a four-year-old ADHD learner’s attention! If you’d like to learn more about ESA or sign up for a free trial, visit the Essential Skills Advantage website today!
Like this post? Check out some of our other curriculum reviews!
Follow our Homeschool Curriculum Choices board on Pinterest for more ideas!
Free Printable Flashcards: Spanish Opposites Flashcards
¡Buenos días! I hope you’re all enjoying your week so far! As I’ve mentioned before, I’m back in school myself and one of my majors is Foreign Language, so I’ve been learning Spanish for the past few months.
The whole family has been interested in learning Spanish as well, so I thought I’d whip up a batch of free printable flashcards featuring Spanish opposite words! That way, the kids can build on their budding Spanish vocabulary.
What’s In the Free Printable Flashcards: Spanish Opposites Flashcards Set?
In this pack, you’ll find vocabulario de español for several opposite words, including:
- big and small
- old and young
- happy and sad
- day and night
- plus a pronunciation key to help kids say the words correctly!
You can even use the English opposite cards to help toddlers and preschoolers learn basic opposite words. 🙂
To grab your free copy of Los Opuestos (The Opposites) flash cards, visit our Store!
More Resources for Learning Spanish
Songs and Books to Teach Kids Spanish:
Encourage your kids to learn even more Spanish with these great Spanish kids’ books and songs!
- My Big Book of Spanish Words by Rebecca Emberley
- Songs in Spanish for Children by Elena Paz Travesi
- The Complete Book of Spanish: Grades 1-3 by American Education Publishing
- The Everything Kids’ Learning Spanish Book by Cecilia I. Sojo
More Printable Spanish Flashcards:
Learn even more español with even more of our free flashcards!
- Free Spanish Days of the Week Flashcards
- Free Spanish Family Flashcards
- Free Spanish Food Word Flashcards
- Free Spanish Number Flashcards 1-10
Helping Kids to Choose Good Friends
It all began when we sat down to have lunch as a family a few weeks ago. We decided to let the kids choose their own fruit for an after-lunch snack. Roo chose a banana, Tigger chose an apple, and Pooh chose a clementine.
We had purchased a crate of clementines a couple of weeks earlier, and there was one left. But it had sat in the crate for a few days, so Jay and I were a little skeptical about it still being good. Pooh insisted it was still good to eat, so we said okay.
As he peeled it, he said, “See? It’s still good, Dad!” And sure enough, it looked good.
But when he pulled it open, he found this at the very center.
As you can see, he didn’t think it was so good to eat then.
Jay decided to use the opportunity to talk about why it’s so important that we look at the inside qualities of our friends before we assume that they’re good people, simply because they look good on the outside.
After we discussed the importance of being selective about choosing friends, we watched the video “What’s a Real Friend” to learn which qualities we should look for in our friends. Most importantly, we want to have friends who will “stick closer than a brother”. (Proverbs 18:24) As the video showed, it’s important for kids not to just choose good friends, but to be good friends to others by taking a “personal interest” in them. (Philippians 2:4)
So, a regular midday meal turned in an impromptu lesson on friendship. But that’s the homeschooling life for you! 🙂
How do you help your kids to choose good friends and be good friends to others? Let us know in the comments!
12 Months of Sensory Dough: Cloud Dough
Hey everyone! It’s time for our 12 Months of Sensory Dough linkup! Every month, I’m honored to co-host this linky with 11 other bloggers, including Dayna at Lemon Lime Adventures, Val & Alex at Glittering Muffins, Devany at Still Playing School, Sarah at Little Bins for Little Hands, Kimberly at Natural Beach Living, Melissa Ann at The Eyes of a Boy, Nicolette at Powerful Mothering, Amy at Wildflower Ramblings, Rachel at I Heart Crafty Things, Michelle at Delightful Learning, and Jennifer at The Life of Jennifer Dawn!
This month, we tried our hand at making cloud dough. It was a complete and utter fail…lol. So as you read our experience below, remember DO NOT DO THIS.
I got the original idea from PBS.org, where they feature a very simple recipe for cloud dough using flour and oil. I had my first college biology exam last week and I spent most of my time studying. So – I looked at the cloud dough recipe and saw two ingredients: flour and oil. I did not realize that the original recipe called for baby oil. Mistake #1.
Here’s what I used: flour, vegetable oil, and red food coloring.
I started with 4 cups of flour, which is actually what the recipe called for. But instead of reading the recipe to find out the proper flour to oil ratio, I figured I could just mix it until it “looked” right. Mistake #2.
I put 1 1/3 cup of vegetable oil in it, then mixed it up. (The recipe says 1/2 cup, by the way.)
Right about here is when I started to think “This doesn’t look right”. But I was not about to use another four cups of flour.
I added 20 drops of red food coloring, and the dough looked so pretty that I had a tiny bit of hope.
That was shattered when we actually touched it. It was slick and oily to the touch. For a while, the kids just poked it.
Like this.
Tigger, bless her heart, tried to make the best of it by forming a “smile”.
Jay’s been studying the brain with the kids, so I thought I’d make a brain. By the time I got the picture, my brain had settled into more of a tongue.
Roo kept saying “Can I wash my hands please?” I mean, I know it’s a sensory experiment and all, but they’re not supposed to dislike how it feels on their hands.
Pooh made two lungs, and that’s about all we could make out of this stuff.
But it was neat to look at!
So if you decide to make cloud dough, don’t be like me! Read the instructions and pick a time when you’re not studying biology…lol.
Next month, we’ll be making edible play dough!
We’d love to see your sensory dough experiments! Feel to link up your sensory dough fun below!
Please read the following guidelines before linking up.
Share family-friendly posts related to the month’s theme. Feel free to link old or new posts that highlight your favorite recipes for sensory dough. Failures and unsuccessful attempts are welcome.
We ask that no posts are linked with copy/paste recipes from other sources. If you use a recipe from another source, please link back to the original recipe.
By linking up, you give permission to share your post and one photograph in future posts and through social media channels.
Visit 2-3 other posts that others have shared. Discover new ideas and meet new friends!
The linky will remain open for two weeks. On the 12th of each month, all co-hosts will post a new dough with their spin, highlighting at least one post from the month before and pin each post to the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Board.
If you would like to, please grab the 12 Months of Sensory Dough button for your blog. And be sure to stop by and visit our co-hosts to get their take on the featured dough for the month!
The Living History Series: Miles Davis
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.
Image courtesy: Tom Palumbo via Wikimedia Commons
We’re feeling “kind of blue” this month, so it’s time to learn about famous jazz trumpeter Miles Davis for the Living History series! Besides knowing that his name is almost synonymous with jazz, I don’t know much about Davis at all. I can only remember hearing one or two songs of his, so he’s next on our list!
Speaking of “Kind of Blue”, here’s one of the songs from Davis’ landmark 1959 album called “So What”. This one features John Coltrane on the tenor sax. (In fact, Coltrane will be one of our future history series figures.)
As part of our unit, we’ll be reading a few books about Miles Davis this month, including:
Lookin’ for Bird in the Big City
Milestones: The Music And Times Of Miles Davis
Miles: An Autobiography by Miles Davis
Come back on February 28th to see what we learned about jazz legend Miles Davis!
Happily Homemade: Super Simple Fleece Blankets
Good morning! Hope you’re all having a great week so far! Today, I thought I’d share a really simple DIY fleece blanket that’s perfect for sewing newbies!
To make these, you really only need two pieces of fleece and some thread. That’s it. You can make your blankets as large as you want, just be sure to include at least an inch all around for seam allowance.
Ella Fitzgerald Biography Mini-Unit
Happy Friday! We’re wrapping up this week with another entry in our Living History series. You might remember that we were supposed to talk about Ella Fitzgerald in our Living History unit last month. Well, Finals Week happened and work happened and, well….better late than never, right?
We started by covering our mini-unit study about Ella Fitzgerald’s life and career. She had a very difficult childhood, but she still managed to make great music. What was especially interesting to me was the fact that Ella didn’t even realize that she was such a great singer. Her real love was dancing. But when she went to audition at the Apollo Theatre, she got intimidated by her dancing competition, so she sang instead. That makes me wonder how many people have hidden talents they don’t even realize.
In the mini-unit, there is a short Ella Fitzgerald biography, along with a crossword puzzle, review questions, and copywork from the song “Take the A Train” – a song that Ella recorded.
We also spent some time watching some of Ella’s classic performances, including this incredible video of her singing and scatting “It Don’t Mean a Thing”.
After we watched the clip, we talked about scatting and how it’s really like making music with your voice instead of an instrument. Jay made the point that beat boxing is essentially a form of scat. Sounds like a new series to do later! 🙂
To grab this Ella Fitzgerald Biography Mini-Unit for yourself, just click the image or link below!
Collage Making with Kids
Have you entered our Lego Game Giveaway yet?
Hey everyone! Today, we’re linking up with the Kids Get Arty linky at Red Ted Art! Each month, families focus on an artist and then do a project inspired by that person’s work. We decided to focus on the art of Romare Bearden. In fact, some good homeschooling friends of ours went to see an exhibit of his, but since we couldn’t make it, we got to work on a project of our own at home.
Romare Bearden was an African-American artist, who became famous for his mixed media collages. He did a lot of paintings, but his collages were most notable, because he often used pictures, paint, and fabric together. On a visit to the High Museum of Art, Jay and I got to look at some of his works in person and they were very fascinating. It seemed like the longer we stared at the work, the more we saw in it.
We decided to help the kids make a collage of their own. We based it on God’s promise of a paradise and we chose pictures that reflected that hope – beautiful scenery, happy families, and animals.
Along the way, we gave Tigger some help in gluing things without making a mess. She got the hang of it, which means (hopefully) less messy projects. 🙂
On one side of the collage, we focused on land. We used the other side for the beach and sea life.
I wouldn’t mind sitting in one of the rocking chairs on that deck right now.
And we’re finished! That looks like the kind of world I want to live in! 🙂
Today, we’re linking up with Red Ted Art’s Kids Get Arty linky! Be sure to stop by and get a look at the kids’ art projects shared by other bloggers!
How I Teach Fine Arts to My Kids with ADHD
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.
It’s Friday and that means it’s time for the final post of our winter hopscotch on ADHD Learning! We’re ending the week with a look at how we teach fine arts to our kids with ADHD. If you’ve been following along for the past few days, you probably already know what’s coming: unit studies, activity, and field trips. 🙂
Kids Art Activities
I cannot say enough about the value of letting kids experience art at an early age. I didn’t really paint or draw or use clay much as a child and, as a result, I didn’t think much about having our kids do so either. I would buy art supplies, but then they would just sit there because I didn’t want to deal with the mess of cleaning it up afterward. Eventually Jay said “Just put down newspaper and then teach them to clean up.” Problem solved.
Now it’s true that playing with Play-Doh or making flour clay does not qualify as “fine art”, but I feel like fine artists all started somewhere and that kids can always get structured art lessons as they get older. We don’t want to make them feel that “fine art” is something that is out of their reach, so we encourage them to explore art mediums and experiences whenever we can.
One way we encourage the kids to experiment with art is to paint with various items. We’ve used finger paint, paint brushes, and even kitchen sponges to create art. It’s been interesting for them (and us) to see that art can be made into anything with just about anything!
Unit Studies
Yes, unit studies are making yet another appearance here…lol. When we cover a unit, we attempt to include at least one artistic activity – such as painting, drawing, coloring, or music. We got the chance to focus on transportation activities last summer and we created train wall art with pastels as a family. That idea was sparked by something we liked on Pinterest, so don’t discount the Internet when it comes to art inspiration!
Field Trips
Looking at the work of other artists is a superb way to help children (and adults) appreciate the power and flexibility of fine arts. It’s fascinating for them to see that, unlike many other subjects, fine arts can serve as an expression of anything. There are no rules to it at all, which makes it a great diversion from our more structured subjects.
At the same time, we notice and appreciate the skill levels of accomplished artists who dedicate themselves to improving their craft. It’s an interesting balance between freedom and discipline, which makes it a good metaphor for kids who want the independence of adulthood with the security of childhood. (We’re entering that phase with Tigger now.)
When we visited the High Museum of Art last spring, Tigger was surprised to find out that art is subjective – it’s open to just about any interpretation. Several times during the tour, she’d turn to Jay and I and ask us what a painting or sculpture meant. Nearly every time, we’d reply by asking her “What do you think it means?” She’d think about it and then guess. We were happy to see her trying to observe and think about the works herself, which helped to keep her attention on the tour.
Now that the kids are getting older, we’re looking to add more structured art lessons to our curriculum. So we picked up The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas from Amazon. Look for us to share our experiences with it soon!
The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas (Usborne Art Ideas)
We hope you’ve enjoyed this series on how we approach language arts, math, science, history, and fine arts for our children who have ADHD! If you have any questions or comments, we’d love to hear them below!
This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach fine arts in their families!
How I Teach History to My Kids with ADHD
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.
Hey y’all! It’s the fourth day of our ADHD Learning series and we’re on to how we teach history for our kids with ADHD! Have you noticed that we’ve been using the words: movement, unit studies, and books a lot? Well, they’re back again today. 🙂
History Timelines
We’ve been eclectic homeschoolers for several years now, which means we take bits and pieces from several homeschooling philosophies. Strictly speaking, history timelines are generally a classical homeschooling method, because they stem from a sequential approach to learning history – that is, you learn everything in the order it happened.
I actually love the classical history approach and we’ve used it fairly often with our kids. Whenever we cover a topic or an area of the world, we proceed in order and we make a timeline. We did a timeline in our study of Nelson Mandela to help the kids understand the events in his life. We also did an African kingdom history timeline in our African History series last year. Even Roo got involved in completing it!
History Unit Studies
As with our other subjects, we try to incorporate history into our unit studies whenever possible. If the subject is a person, we look at his or her early life and career before we get into their famous accomplishments. If we’re covering an area, we try to examine the history of the region as a basis to understanding the particular events or people in it.
We’ve been covering the Living History series on the blog for the past few months and we’ve gotten to know a few famous musicians better by completing history units about their lives. We try to include a children’s book about the artist and then we create our own biography and activity pack for the kids to complete. If you’d like to see an example of our history unit studies, check out our Dizzy Gillespie printable mini-unit! We read the book “Dizzy” and then listened to his music while we completed the unit. The phrase “Salt Peanuts” became quite popular in our house for a while. 🙂
Field Trips
It’s easy for history to become very dull for kids, especially those who prefer to move around while learning. We’ve attempted to avoid this by getting our kids out to look at historical exhibits, rather than just listening to us talk about past events. As we learned about the history of slavery, we took a trip to the APEX Museum in Atlanta. Tigger, in particular, was interested to see that slavery really happened and that even children were affected. It definitely helped her relate to our lesson much easier.
During a recent trip to the Atlanta History Center, the kids got to learn more about the history of northern Georgia. They even got to walk through a 19th-century cabin and see what life was like on an 1800s farm for themselves! They talked about that trip for several days afterward. 🙂
During our fall hopscotch, we held a 10-day series on African History for Kids that highlighted African empires, events, and movements. True to our unit study approach, we included books, crafts, cooking, and history in each lesson. Feel free to take a look and let us know what you think!
That wraps up our look at teaching history to kids with ADHD! We’ll be ending the series tomorrow with an overview of how we cover fine arts in our homeschool. We hope to “see” you here then!
This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach history in their families!
How I Teach Science to My Kids with ADHD
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.
Happy Wednesday, y’all! We’re back with another look at how we teach our kids with ADHD – this time we’re focusing on the teaching methods we use to cover science.
Unit Studies
If you haven’t noticed yet, I’m basically a fanatic about unit studies. 🙂 We’ve completed several together and we’ve found them to be great ways to help the kids connect science concepts with other subjects. For an example, check out our unit study based on the movie The Aristocats. We managed to include geography, history, art, and biology in that one!
Experiments
Nothing makes active and kinesthetic learners happier than movement and we try to make that a constant in science class. One of the best ways to do this is by simple experiments. And I’ve found out that they don’t have to be outlandish experiments either. Plain old baking soda volcanoes will do just fine…lol.
Nature Study
Whenever it’s possible, we try to take science class outdoors with a Charlotte Mason technique called nature study. As the name implies, you spend time studying science in the nature around your home. The idea of doing nature study was pretty overwhelming to me at first, so I was thrilled to try a simple program called Nature Study Printables for Toddlers and Preschoolers with Pooh and Roo a while back. We simply completed the activities and let the kids record their own observations. It was a big hit!
Interactive Work
This one, I have to say, was all my husband’s idea. When he covers science lessons with the kids that are from a textbook, he literally gets the words off the page by making the diagrams into interactive work. The picture above is one he drew from a diagram of the brain. As he covered the different parts of the brain and their functions, the kids found the matching labels and glued them in place. It was definitely a great way to help them understand the lesson. Just another reason why I’m thankful for a supportive homeschooling spouse!
Field Trips
I would venture to say that our kids’ favorite way to learn science is by going on field trips. We’ve gotten to explore some great places, including aquariums, museums, and nature trails. One of the highlights of last year was a trip we took to Callaway Gardens. The kids got to learn about birds of prey, exotic plants, and butterflies without sitting at a desk!
During a recent trip to Zoo Atlanta, we introduced several other scientific concepts, such as taxonomy, reproduction, and ecosystems. Plus, it made for great family bonding time. 😉
That’s our approach to science! We hope to see you back tomorrow when we talk about history for kids with ADHD!
This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach science in their families!
How I Teach Math to My Kids with ADHD
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.
Hi everyone! We’re on to Day 2 of our Winter Hopscotch and we’re continuing with our theme of ADHD learning with a look at how we teach math in an ADHD-friendly way. Like with all of our subjects, we find that short lessons, movement, and multi-sensory learning are critical to helping our kids follow along and retain what they hear. Here are a few of the methods we use for teaching math in our homeschool.
Anchor Charts
I’ve previously shared a post about my love for anchor charts, but they deserve another shoutout here. I’m a bit of a type A personality, so making detailed charts and graphs is right up my alley…lol. But we find them to be great for the kids, since they make it easy for them to visualize abstract concepts, especially those involving math. We used the above anchor chart to introduce Tigger to multiplication last year and it was much easier for her to grasp when she could see it represented visually.
Math Curriculum
We don’t use packaged curriculum often, but math is a subject where we definitely find it best to follow a structured program. Tigger struggles with confidence in math and she tends to rush through concepts without taking her time to work through the steps or check her work thoroughly. Working with her on computer math software seems to help her become more involved in the process, so that she’s less likely to rush through it to get to something she’d rather be doing.
This year, we’ve been using A+ TutorSoft Math – both the printed version and the software – and we like the program a lot. It’s a very simple, uncluttered way to present facts without overwhelming her with too much information at once. The individual lessons are short, which keeps her from getting too intimidated to begin.
If you’d like to get a look at A+ TutorSoft Math programs for kids, you can visit the website by clicking the image above. You can even get a month-long trial of the online math program for homeschoolers absolutely free! If you decide to subscribe, be sure to use the coupon code LOOKWERE to save 20 percent! You can also pick up downloadable copies of A+ TutorSoft Math curriculum on Currclick.com!
A while back, we got a chance to try out K5 Learning, a supplemental online math and language program for kids. Tigger thoroughly enjoyed that program as well. It organized the math lessons into themed adventures that did such a good job of keeping her interested she forgot she was even doing schoolwork. 🙂
You can grab a free 14-day trial of K5 Learning by clicking the link above!
Math Storybooks
As I mentioned yesterday, we love to read in our family! We keep that thread going with books and stories that involve mathematics as well. Arithmetic Village offers a very nice set of downloadable math storybooks that is absolutely free! We reviewed them a while back and our kids just loved reading the stories and learning how to multiply and divide! Even Roo, our four-year-old ended up doing a division problem on the board after reading the stories. 🙂
Math Manipulatives
We also make use of math manipulatives with our children. Counting bears, Unifix cubes, and snap cubes are all useful for giving active kids a way to “see” the math problem and involve their sense of touch during the lesson. All of our kids, even Tigger, prefer to use manipulatives as they work on problems.
We also put together a short video a while back about how we specifically focus on third grade math for Tigger, which you’re more than welcome to view below!
And that’s how we teach math in our homeschool! We’ll be covering science tomorrow, so feel free to come back and see how we approach science with our active learners!
This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach math in their families!
How I Teach Language Arts to My Kids with ADHD
This post contains affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy here.
Good morning! Today we’re beginning a five-day series on teaching school to kids with ADHD. As you might know, we’re homeschooling at least one child with ADHD (and possibly more), so we try to accommodate their learning styles throughout our lessons.
In fact, one of the biggest reasons why we stick with homeschooling is that we don’t want to use ADHD medication (yet), so we really work to adapt our curriculum to make it more ADHD-friendly. That means short lessons, variety, and lots and lots of movement. Throughout this series, we’ll be mentioning those three factors again and again.
Regular Reading
A big part of our language arts curriculum is reading. We read to and with our kids every day. We’ve shared our homeschool reading list for this year previously. Our 9-year-old, who has been diagnosed with ADHD, began reading at age 3. Our boys, ages 5 and 4, are also reading, though they started a little later than her.
Honestly, we haven’t used many structured reading programs with our children, at least not to get them started reading. We do, however, use some reading programs to help them improve their skills.
Phonics Practice
One program we’ve used this year is Reading the Alphabet, which we reviewed a while back. It’s a great, affordable program that lets kids practice phonics while completing lots of sight word activities, which makes it perfect for ADHD learners! You can pick up the entire program for just $10 below!
Reading the Alphabet Early Reading Program
Visiting the Library
Another way that we try to make reading fun for the kids is by regular visits to the library. All of the kids love going inside, picking out their own books, and bringing them home. In fact, on occasion, we’ve gotten to attend live storytelling sessions, such as an African storytelling performance we got to experience a while back.
Hearing books read aloud with feeling and movement seems to help the kids get involved in the stories and “see” the events as real life, not just words on a page. When we engage more than one sense with our kids, they seem to stay interested for a longer period of time. (A big issue for most people with ADHD)
Physical Movement
As I mentioned earlier, movement is a big part of our homeschooling lessons. With Roo, we did a Sight Word Stomp activity last summer that involved reading, running, and writing with sidewalk chalk. It was a huge hit! But really, any time we can add a physical activity into a lesson, we find that the kids remember it better.
Unit Studies
Unit studies are a huge part of our homeschooling lessons. And a big reason why we love them so much is that they are perfect opportunities to add art, crafts, music, movies, and play into our curriculum. When we cover a chapter book on our reading list, we turn it into a unit study that involves a craft project, a movie (if possible), and some food. We did something like this with our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory unit from earlier this school year.
Games and TV
On a day when a structured language arts lesson just isn’t cutting it, we are not above resorting to games. We’ve used MadLibs to teach parts of speech and the kids were so excited to come up with outlandish verbs, adjectives, and nouns that they forgot we were having class!
We also love to use songs and television programs to reinforce language arts skills. Our three oldest kids have memorized several of the grammar songs from SchoolHouse Rock and we use them to remind them of their essential grammar concepts. One of their favorites is the “Verb Song”. (I have been known to sing along to this one myself.)
Schoolhouse Rock! (Special 30th Anniversary Edition)
And that’s a look at how we teach language arts to our kids with ADHD! With these and other resources, we manage to keep them interested and engaged in our lessons, which is a big help to their comprehension. Be sure to stop by tomorrow to see how we teach math to our ADHD learners!
This post is part of the 2014 Winter Hopscotch hosted by iHomeschool Network! Be sure to stop by and visit our fellow bloggers to learn how they teach language arts in their families!
12 Months of Sensory Dough: Foam Dough
Hey everyone! It’s time for our 12 Months of Sensory Dough linkup! Every month, I’m honored to co-host this linky with 11 other bloggers, including Dayna at Lemon Lime Adventures, Val & Alex at Glittering Muffins, Devany at Still Playing School, Sarah at Little Bins for Little Hands, Kimberly at Natural Beach Living, Melissa Ann at The Eyes of a Boy, Nicolette at Powerful Mothering, Amy at Wildflower Ramblings, Rachel at I Heart Crafty Things, Michelle at Delightful Learning, and Jennifer at The Life of Jennifer Dawn!
This month, we’re all focusing on foam dough. I got a great recipe for two-ingredient foam dough on Instructables and we decided to try it out with the kids. On Friday, we shared our unit study based on the movie “The Aristocats” and our foam dough activity was our own kid-friendly sensory version of Plaster of Paris. Without the actual work and serious mess, though. 🙂
As the recipe shows, this foam dough literally requires two ingredients: cornstarch and shaving cream. That’s it.
We poured the cornstarch onto the table – slowly. Don’t dump it all out at once, unless you like not being able to breathe…lol.
Then we added the shaving cream. You know, it’s not until you actually squeeze out an entire can of shaving cream at once that you realize just how much is in each can.
We went a little bit crazy with the shaving cream. 🙂
The interesting thing about making this dough is that when you first start to combine it, it looks like the cornstarch won’t stick to the shaving cream. We ended up using a rubber spatula to combine it. But the longer you work with it, the firmer it becomes.
Until, eventually, you have foam dough!
Interestingly, Jay decided to add a bit of water to his batch. At first, it got slippery, but as he worked it, it got firmer and firmer until it was almost solid like chalk. The kids did the same thing and thought it was very, very cool.
It seems like if you were to add enough water and form the dough into a shape, you could probably actually make a sculpture – like you could with real Plaster of Paris. Just don’t expect it to last as long…lol.
What I really liked about this recipe is that it’s fairly easy to clean. When we were done, we just took a wet cloth and wiped the table down. Easy peasy!
We’d love to see your foam dough experiments! Feel free to share your foam dough fun below!
Please read the following guidelines before linking up.
Share family-friendly posts related to the month’s theme. Feel free to link old or new posts that highlight your favorite recipes for sensory dough. Failures and unsuccessful attempts are welcome.
We ask that no posts are linked with copy/paste recipes from other sources. If you use a recipe from another source, please link back to the original recipe.
By linking up, you give permission to share your post and one photograph in future posts and through social media channels.
Visit 2-3 other posts that others have shared. Discover new ideas and meet new friends!
The linky will remain open for two weeks. On the 12th of each month, all co-hosts will post a new dough with their spin, highlighting at least one post from the month before and pin each post to the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Board.
If you would like to, please grab the 12 Months of Sensory Dough button for your blog. And be sure to stop by and visit our co-hosts to get their take on the featured dough for the month!
The Aristocats Unit Study
Let’s face it: Kids will always love to watch TV. There’s nothing we can do about it. But we can turn TV into a way to learn and that’s why we put together a fun The Aristocats unit study! This is a neat way to weave learning into movie watching, especially if kids are obsessed with classic Disney movies (like mine are).
Since The Aristocats takes place in France, you can talk about geography. But you can also learn about pedigree cats, art, and much more! Read on to see what kinds of activities we did to go along with this children’s movie!
If you enjoy this lesson, try some of our other unit studies, including our Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs unit study!
The Aristocats Unit Study
This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.
Naturally, we got started by watching The Aristocats. It was our first time seeing it, so we let the kids get comfy on the sofa.
That’s the life, isn’t it?
We watched it on Netflix, but if you don’t have Netflix, you can rent it from Amazon for just $2.99.
The kids loved it, but we wanted to make watching the movie into a learning experience. So we decided to spend some time learning about pedigree cats and the city of Paris!
We created a set of notebooking pages featuring several pedigree cat breeds, including the Siamese Cat, the Persian Cat, and the Japanese Bobtail Cat. If you want to use it with your kids, feel free to download our Pedigree Cats notebooking pages by clicking the image or link below!
>>>>> Pedigree Cats Notebooking Pages <<<<<
To do our research, we made liberal use of the Internet. About a month ago, we bought an HDMI cable for our television and now we do most of our online research in the living room using the TV. It’s much better than trying to crowd everyone around the computer screen.
As we looked up the basic information about our cat breeds, Tigger wrote down the vital statistics on the notebooking pages. By the way, all of the facts in the notebooking pages can be found on Wikipedia.
It must be pretty nice to have school in your robe.
After we finished our research into the world of pedigree cats, we decided to take a virtual tour of Paris. A lot of the iconic sights of Paris appear in The Aristocats, including the Eiffel Tower, the River Seine, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
We watched a playlist of Paris travel videos from Rick Steves to learn more about these and other sights of Paris.
After that, it was time to make our own pretend “Plaster of Paris”! We used a great recipe for foam dough. And the kids loved playing with it!
We all loved learning with the movie “The Aristocats”! We had a great time learning about cats, the city of Paris, and how to make foam dough!
Ready to try some other homeschool unit studies?
Plus, see more fun thematic units on my Unit Studies Pinterest board!
This post is part of the Movie and a Big Idea linkup from iHomeschool Network! Click over to read more fun movie-themed homeschool lessons you can use!
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 32
- 33
- 34
- 35
- 36
- …
- 38
- Next Page »