Lesson Theme: Hot Chocolate!

The last few weeks of winter seemed to stretch out further than I wanted to plan.  Cold, cheerless...well, maybe I am being a bit overdramatic.  But cold, definitely cold.  A vision of hot chocolate kept coming to mind - wouldn't a cup of that be nice right now... I couldn't seem to shake the unbidden thought.  So I decided to meet it head on by incorporating the idea into a unit about said steaming mug of chocolatey goodness.   Could something so delicious be educational as well?  Yes, dear readers - it could...

Right about now you are probably thinking,  are those dice marshmallows?

Y-e-p.

I used food safe markers to write the numbers on the sides and tops of two miniature marshmallows (I think larger marshmallows might have been better but we didn't have any larger ones on hand).

If you have large marshmallows, consider drawing pictures or writing words on them to use for story dice.  :)

We used the dice for our "Roll the Ultimate Mug of Hot Chocolate" activity.  Once Miss A acquired all the pieces, she helped to glue them down and wrote number sentences for what she rolled.

If you homeschool or have permission to bring in the ingredients for making hot chocolate in your classroom, something extra fun would be to roll a REAL mug of hot chocolate.  I wanted to do this but didn't get it together in time - plus, we had more than enough hot chocolate this week on other days.  :)  One more cup might have been over the top...or brim...;)

We made two kinds of hot chocolate (one from scratch and one from a mix) and taste tested both.  Miss A wrote comparisons and contrasts and documented which one she liked the best.

She also helped me make the hot chocolate from scratch, so using the "First, Next, Last" model, I had her write down directions for how one makes the perfect mug of hot chocolate.

We also played an activity I came up with called "The Hot Choc Spot".  Just like chocolate and milk combine to make a great cup of hot chocolate, different parts of speech combine to make a great sentence, right?  :)  Here's what we did...

Miss A trained to become a Master Hot Chocolate Maker.  The training consisted of sorting hot chocolate related words into mugs for different parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives).


Once she did that successfully, I gave her a certificate documenting her ascension to the rank of Master Hot Chocolate Maker.



She then took a job at "The Hot Choc Spot" where she helped complete orders for parts of speech mixes (an order might be "1 verb, 2 nouns", and she would have to find a verb and two nouns from the hot chocolate words to fill the order).


As her "supervisor" who wanted to make sure she knew what she was doing, I had her write a sentence using the words from one of the orders.  She chose to make it a silly sentence which was fine - just as long as I could see she knew how to apply the words appropriately in a sentence.

Have you ever wanted to be a marshmallow bag checker in a factory?  Well Miss A had the opportunity this week to be one at The Marshmallow Factory.

Again, as her supervisor, I would write a number at the top of her work station (paper) for the day.  She would then have to check the marshmallow bags (I put the "marshmallows" on beforehand) on the paper to see if they equaled that number.

If they did not, she was responsible for adding or subtracting enough marshmallows to/from each bag so that the correct number for the day was achieved.  She also had to document her work by writing corresponding number sentences showing what she had done.

When she completed balancing all three bags successfully for the day, I would "pay" her wage for the day into a small bag to give her at the end of the week on PAY DAY.  Her wage for the day = one pink heart marshmallow.

By the end of the week, she had enough heart marshmallows collected to top off one very yummy mug of hot chocolate for our dessert night (see bottom of post)!

Speaking of marshmallows....

Miss A graphed some of the mini-colored ones and then used the answers to finish up some math sentences.

These little guys also came in handy for spelling and sight word practice!  :)

During the week, we also practiced some of our math facts by matching some "stir stick" (popsicle stick) math sentences to the answers on the mugs.

Each stick had two math sentences - one in black on one side and one written in blue on the other side.  We would do the black math sentences one day and switch to the blue ones on another day.

We also had some fun measuring two different types of stir sticks (peppermint and cinnamon) and making observations about what would happen to each one once placed in some hot chocolate!

We discovered what kind of hot chocolate toppings some people in our family prefer by using this Venn Diagram.  Download it for FREE here.

We used a mug picture I made to create a bar graph showing what kind of hot chocolate people in our home prefer (mix or homemade).  I guess you can tell what our family's preference was - no contest there!

Not only that, but we could again see what people's favorite toppings were on this graph based on how they decked out the top of their hot chocolate (added cotton for whipped cream OR white pom poms for marshmallows OR both).  :)

I LOVE how this picture turned out!  I had seen a cute art idea (link is here), and wanted to do something similar.  This unit seemed to fit right in so Miss A went to work painting, and I glued some mittens (found on clearance) to her painting for a multi dimensional effect.

For the final day of our hot chocolate unit, I surprised Miss A with a hot chocolate bar for dessert night!  I used the bar graph to determine what kind of hot chocolate to make for the family!

So, you see?  Educational AND delicious!

Many of the games and items I used for this theme are available in my TPT store under the Hot Chocolate Mini Activity Pack.

Speaking of hot chocolate...guess who paid us a visit!  We found a little green mug topped with green marshmallows on the counter (and a bit of a mess too).  Now I wonder who that could belong too?  Guess we must have surprised someone in mid slurp because it doesn't look like he finished much of his hot chocolate!

Time to put on our leprechaun-catching thinking caps before the mischief gets out of hand!  To help keep track of the clues our little green-loving troublemaker leaves behind, I created a Leprechaun Detective Journal.   If you have any leprechauns about that need catching, you might want to print this for your kiddos as well!  Download for FREE here.

BTW - Don't forget to snap up your FREE Educents (educational materials) gift certificate before they are no longer available prior to their launch in April!  Click here to go to my post with the link to the site.

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Lesson Theme: Valentine's Day!

(Pretend this is February 14th) Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  ;)
Here are some snippets from our holiday theme...

We've been practicing fact families for subtraction so I made some fact families on heart doilies, cut them apart, and had Miss A figure out which ones went together.

This was a probability freebie from The First Grade Parade.  LOVE her site!  Very creative.  :)

We practiced symmetry by painting hearts on one side, folding them, and opening them up again.  As you can see, there was at least one heart where Miss A was getting a little carried away with painting and forgot about just doing one side.  :)

They turned out so pretty that I decided to string them up for some Valentine's Day decoration!

A while ago, I saw (wish I had pinned it!) an activity that was done using empty chocolate boxes.  Genius!  :)

While I cannot remember what the activity was or where I saw it - the idea stayed with me.  I loved the concept of using the empty boxes so much that I decided I would just have to come up with something on my own this year.  I cut out some brown paper circles, squares and rectangles for pretend chocolates.  On one side of each, I wrote things I wanted my kiddos to practice (math facts, spelling words, letters, etc.)  Using a blank heart with circles that I found here (with a different fun activity), I wrote the match of each chocolate on a circle.

Miss A and Mr. J enjoyed seeing what was on the back of their "chocolates" when turned over.  They would match the word or problem (the answer to the problem) to a circle on the heart paper which they then colored in.

Valentine picks to the rescue!  We used these as pointers!  :)

Of course, what would Valentine's Day be without a special love note or two?  It's the perfect time to practice letter writing skills!  :)

I set up a love letter writing center complete with heart stationary, envelopes (these had some pretend glittery heart stamps I drew in the stamp area), a bunch of different Valentine-ish pens/pencils in a fancy vase, and a mailbox.  I also included a cute printable I found that shows the parts of a letter so Miss A would have something to refer to when writing her letters - and write she did!!!  She LOVED it and encouraged others to use the center too.  :)

When the letters had been written and sealed, we dropped them in the pretend mailbox and Miss A helped me sort and deliver them into the appropriate individual household mailboxes the night before Valentine's Day.

Here's a picture of a couple of the cutest mailboxes we found at Target in the dollar section this year.  Perfect for stuffing with love letters!  :)

I also decided it would be neat to make a little fold-out heart book with Miss A.  I just love reading what she comes up with for activities where some of the writing is left up to her.

I had the book "Guess How Much I Love You" (see link below) in the back of my mind so this kind of goes along with that idea.  The heart book cover starts out with "I Love You" and then folds out with other pages continuing the thought (Miss A's responses in italics) "as long as ___(the world), as high as ___(the sky), as deep as___(the sea), as big as ___(a bear), as far as___(heven), as ___(nice) as ___(a flowr).

Here's how I made the book:  I cut out some hearts, wrote the text on one side of each (and added a border), glued them to a couple sentence strip pieces, folded it up, and tied it with a pink ribbon.

And now for my Valentine's gift to YOU!  :)  I finally bought a license and can now offer freebies I make!  Yippeee!  :)  I am pretty excited about that, and I hope you are too!

I have been working on a Hot Chocolate Mini Activity Pack (should be available in my TPT store soon) and decided to make one of the activity pages into a freebie that people could incorporate into a Christmas, Valentine's Day, or Winter theme.  Hope you LOVE it!  :)  Download it FREE here.

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Homeschool Theme of the Week: Valentine's Day!

As you can see, I am still running a bit behind on the posting - but better late than never, right?
Here's the fun Valentine snack my daughter enjoyed recently!

Snack details:

Nutella and strawberries in heart cookie cutters.

Red muffin cup 1:  vanilla yogurt with heart sprinkles.

Pink muffin cups 2 and 4: raspberries and dried cranberries mixed together.

Red muffin cup 3:  yogurt covered raisins and heart sprinkles.

Garnishes:  candied hearts and heart sprinkles.  

Our Valentine's Store was a sweet success!  My daughter thoroughly enjoyed selling and even purchasing Valentine packages for members of the household.  People would come to her and tell her what they wanted to send and dictate a message.  She would add up the cost on her little receipt form, give it to them, check the payment or help them come up with the correct amount, and then we would package it all up and set it on the shelf to await delivery for Valentine's Day.  Oh what bliss when the heart-filled event finally rolled around, and she delivered all of the packages!!!  It was fun for her as well as for the rest of us, AND it gave her practice with life skills, money, and writing (the dictated messages).  

To download your own deluxe store setup (there are two designs in the deluxe version as well as some fun extras not available in the free version) for only $1.50, head over here (I also have a smaller free version in my TPT store)!

Window clings are so much fun - but I wanted to do something extra with them so I glued some rhyming words to a few of the hearts and cut them apart.  My daughter then had to match the pairs that rhymed.

We were also working on compound words a bit this week, so I wrote some compound words on heart doilies, cut them apart, and let her match them up correctly.  Unfortunately I seem to have lost the photos of this activity.  :(

This was a fun matching symmetry lesson using mittens.  I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided it would make a cute winter or Valentine activity.   I drew a design on each of three mittens and then my daughter had to try to copy the design on another mitten to make a matching set.

For some handwriting practice, I had my daughter complete each "You are" sentence with the words from a candy message heart she randomly picked from a small bunch I had given her.  She would then write the words on the line to complete the sentences.

We graphed some candy hearts by color and.....

by message.  

And I leave you with a fun craft that is a great companion to the book "Guess How Much I Love You!"  I think these pictures show what we did better than I could tell in a bunch of words.
My daughter decorated this to look like herself.  We glued traced cutouts of her hands to the accordian fold sentence strip arms.  I wanted to make handprints and cut those out instead to attach, but it didn't happen.

She brainstormed her own way to say how much she loves mommy and daddy ("as fast as I can twirl"), and we wrote that inside the paper.  I loved her response  - it just sounds so much like her.  :)

BTW: I am participating in a blog contest for the top 25 creative mom blogs and would LOVE it if you would cast a vote for me!  :)  The button is on the sidebar and you don't have to be a member or sign up or anything to vote - just click the button which takes you to the site and cast your vote.  You can vote once a day so if you feel extra generous and want to cast a vote on another day - I would LOOOOVVVVEEEE it if you would!  Thanks so much!
(Note:  Since I posted this, I have been informed by some that they are unable to cast their votes for some reason - I contacted someone from that particular site, and they suggested trying a different browser which seemed to do the trick for at least one person that I am aware of.  Sooo, if you attempt to vote and it will not allow you to do so, it could be a browser issue.  Thanks so much to those who have tried and let me know!)

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