Homeschool Theme of the Week: Scarecrows!

For those who have been wondering if I will be posting Thanksgiving activities anytime soon, the answer is - YES!  I had not planned to post those until next week but will try to speed up the process so I can post something earlier for those of you interested in ideas for your own class or homeschool.  Until then, please enjoy our humble scarecrow theme and activities...  :)

We made these guys to go along with our wooden spoon scarecrow activity (see pics below).

Cute, are they not?  And easy to make - just paint some clothespins black, add black feathers, wiggly eyes, and a paper beak.  Yes, I know crows don't have orange beaks.  However, my daughter pointed out that if we made the beaks black, they would be hard to distinguish from the rest of the crow body.  So, orange the beaks remain.  :)

Here is our very own small scarecrow we made from a wooden spoon and one of my daughter's doll dresses.   I attached a craft stick (popsicle stick) to the wooden spoon to make the arms, and we dressed her and stuffed her.  :)

Isn't she lovely and friendly looking!  Even the crows seem to enjoy her amicable presence!  :)

This was our "crow" (as in "exult") can.  We wrote down all sorts of things my daughter is able to do and at least a couple of skills that she has not quite yet achieved.  The ones she has already accomplished, we glued to the can.  The skills which we are still working on are being held onto by the crows until she proves she has mastered them at which time we can add them to our "crow" can and rejoice together!  :) 

This type of thing might be a good activity and eye-opener for a parent and a child (especially for one who is struggling) of how accomplished the child really is.  Sometimes we forget how far our children have come and how much they have learned - it is good to be reminded (for both parent and child).  :)  By the way, not all of what we wrote on the can is academic (I can play nicely, I can do my chores, etc.).

My daughter is not often called upon to write her last name, so this is an area I know needs a tad bit more practice.  Thus, the crow is hanging onto it for us until we can happily add it to the other mastered skills on the "crow"can.

This was a fun accordian style book  made from paper bags and snippets of items (I was inspired in part by this gorgeous blog:  www.katherinemariephotography.com).  Each page contains a descriptive sentence stating what the reader sees.  The final page - the surprise - is that all of these items have come together to make a scarecrow (BTW - I believe all those black squiggly lines are crows flying away).

Scarecrow Pete is a really cute story we read about the friendship between a boy and a scarecrow.  The scarecrow helps to instill in the boy a passion for reading as the two embark on imaginary adventures with the help of many wonderful books!

This activity became an extension of that tale.  I call it "scarecrow painting" because the point of it is to wrap up a bunch of straw, raffia, etc. and use it to paint with (pretending you are a scarecrow painting with your arm - your arm is the brush).

In this case, we talked about where Scarecrow Pete might like to go if he could get down off of his pole.  My daughter thought the beach would be a good destination for him, so we pretended she was the scarecrow painting a picture of where he would like to travel.

This was a watercolor painting my daughter made.  We then did some texture rubbings of things and used the rubbings to cut out a small scarecrow, gluing him to her picture.

This is a picture of one of the stories we read and also of our fun little pointer for the week!  Basically it is a small autumn pick and we just use it for a calendar pointer (or anything else which might need to be pointed out).  

We have several different "pointers" which range from decorative picks to fun eraser toppers on pencils.  I try to keep them somewhat seasonal, and it just seems to add to the excitement of a new theme when I pull out a new pointer.  (Picks are great because if you get them for sale at your local hobby store, they are SOOO inexpensive.  I think this little scarecrow only cost $.50 to $.60!!!)

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Friendly Friday: A Pumpkin Surprise!

For our Friendly Friday - we made a Pumpkin Surprise to give to some friends of ours whom we don't get to see very often.  My daughter painted the outside of a paper bag orange (we left the top part brown for the stem), and the brown pumpkin lines are actually the message we wrote to the family (my daughter thought of something nice she would like to say, and I added a few friendly words as well).  We then stuffed it with hot chocolate packages and a small bag of pumpkin marshmallows and twisted the top closed, using a green pipe cleaner for a vine.  :)  Very easy and very friendly!  :)

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Cute Pumpkin Book and Tea Painting Activity!

I bought the sweetest little book the other day to go along with our pumpkin theme!  The title of it is, The Very Best Pumpkin, and you can find my story synopsis near the bottom of the post.  If you have never seen it or read it, I think it is definitely worth finding, borrowing, or buying a copy (there is also a link below if you are interested in reading more reviews about it).

The tea-stained, rich illustrations especially caught my eye, and I decided we would attempt our own at some point during the week.  :)  And that is exactly what we did!  Both my daughter and I chose our favorite illustrations in the book and attempted to make a copy of them (mine is the pumpkin one).

I took step-by-step pictures of mine so I could post them here for those interested in making one of these kinds of paintings as well.  :)  See below...  

First we used tea (just make a cup and then use it to paint instead of drink) to paint over the entire picture.  I sprinkled some regular coffee grounds on top of the wet paper but found later on that instant grounds work SOOO much better for getting those smaller dark splotches of stain (so we added the instant grounds after we tried the regular grounds).

After the tea stains had dried, we watercolored our sky and ground.  When that dried, we drew our pictures and then traced over them heavily with crayon (this creates kind of a wall effect which helps keep the paint from spreading to other areas if you are using watercolors).  If you have younger children, you may need to help them (as I did with mine) with this part to make sure the crayon is heavy enough, AND to just give those little brains and fingers a rest.

Then we painted our pictures with watercolors!  I LOVE how they turned out - especially my daughter's painting!  BTW - she needed some white for the snow so I used some acrylic paint and just watered it down a little because her small tray of paints did not contain white.  This worked really well for us!

Hope you enjoy the pictures and feel inspired!  :)

Story Synopsis:

Peter is a young boy who lives with and helps his grandparents at Pumpkin Hollow Farm. One day, as he is tending the pumpkins, he finds and follows a vine which leads him to a pumpkin all by itself in a field. He faithfully tends to it and is so busy that he apparently does not notice when new neighbors move in. Their daughter Meg, loves to read and quietly watches Peter from her yard as he cares for his pumpkin.

When the pumpkins on the farm are ready for picking, Peter helps various people find the perfect pumpkin for their needs. One day, Meg and her family show up. Meg searches the pumpkin patch but cannot seem to find the right one until Peter leads her to his lonely (but now beautiful) pumpkin and offers it to her, confessing he knew she was watching him all along. Meg and Peter become friends, and the next summer finds them tending pumpkins together! :)

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Homeschool Theme of the Week: Pumpkins!

Our "Pumpkin" homeschool theme has to be one of my favorites.  :)  Of course, I could probably say that about almost every theme we do that is autumn related.  :)  Here are some pictures of a few of our activities:

When I caught sight of a pumpkin carved house on Pinterest, my imagination took off and I knew we should make one.  Can't you just see all the possibilities for fun dramatic play, writing stories, etc.!  :)  I wasn't disappointed - my daughter loved it!

I knew a story activity would be just the thing to go along with our pumpkin home so I gave her a little writing prompt and this is where she ended up (see picture below - and yes, she wrote  this herself with very little help from me)...

During the week, we also made and used three spinners and a graph to decide how we would carve the classic pumpkin face.   We chose four different eye, nose, and mouth possibilities.  Each day we spun the spinners and graphed the results.  At the end of the week, the eye, nose, and mouth with the most squares colored were declared the winners and carved into another of our pumpkins!

I had been eyeing the dyed pumpkin seed pictures and jewelry showing up on blogs and Pinterest and finally decided our pumpkin themed week would be a great time to try making something as well.  I dyed the seeds (I found that the method of boiling them for about 15 minutes in food coloring and water worked best for us), and my daughter used some watercolor paints to make a sky, ground, and bare tree.  When the painting was dry, she began gluing the colorful seed "leaves" to her picture and I just love how it turned out!  Notice all the leaves falling from the tree...

We enjoyed some free printables from www.2teachingmommies.com and www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com and used some fun pumpkin marshmallows for one of the graph activities.  Of course, sampling these delicacies was a must following the activity's completion!  :)

For a fun and simple math activity, I made a pumpkin patch out of candy pumpkins and some twisted green pipe cleaners (I wrote the words on the plate using food safe markers).  Each day my daughter would have to brainstorm an idea of how one pumpkin was lost or taken from the patch.  I would write down her idea on a story form I had made up beforehand, and she would write a number sentence to match it (see pictures below).  Then she would eat the pumpkin!  :)

For a bit of science and computer fun, we made a pumpkin book from a piece of thick cardboard, and my daughter typed out words describing the inside and outside of a pumpkin.  We then printed, cut, and glued the words into the appropriate places of the book.  My daughter also added some yarn for pumpkin strings and real pumpkin seeds onto the portion of the book depicting the inside of a pumpkin.  Finally, we added the sticker letters to the front to make a title for the book.  I was super pleased with how cute it turned out!  :)  See for yourself...

We also completed an art activity to go along with one of our pumpkin books:  "The Very Best Pumpkin".  This is such a sweet book, and I love the tea-stained style illustrations!  We each chose a favorite picture or part of the story to illustrate and then made our own copy of the picture using real tea and paints and crayons!  I hope to post a more detailed tutorial later this week...  

This is a picture my daughter painted of her favorite illustration in the story!  I LOVE it!  

Definitely a keeper...  :)

Need some good book suggestions?  Take a look at some of these!  :)

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Eats & Reads: The Very Best Pumpkin!

For our pumpkin theme, one of the books we enjoyed was The Very Best Pumpkin by Mark Moulton.  A small portion of the story depicts various people coming to Pumpkin Hollow Farm trying to find the perfect pumpkin for their particular needs (decoration, prize pie making, etc.).  The main character in the story, a young boy named Peter, helps them to do just that!  :)  This is a very cute book with beautiful illustrations and well worth a snack along those same lines!

Why I Like This Book:

I love this sweet story which follows a boy who faithfully tends a lonely pumpkin he finds on his grandparent's farm and which tells of the friendship which develops between himself and his new little neighbor.  The book's tea-stained style illustrations are a beautiful complement to the text as well!  :)

NOTE:  Later this week, I plan to post about an art activity my daughter and I did together to go along with the story.

Snack Details:

Main pumpkin - cream cheese and brown sugar dip (colored orange) with Nutella details and fruit roll up vines sitting on a patch of peanut butter "soil" (peanut butter for dipping or just eating straight).

Muffin cups # 1 & 3:  mandarin "pumpkins" with pretzel stems.  I found the cute idea of using mandarins here:  http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/2011/10/muffin-tin-monday_16.html

Muffin cup # 2:  orange slice "pumpkin" with pretzel stem.

Details:  Nutella wording and mini candy pumpkins.

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Friendly Fridays: Sharing S'more Bars!

Wouldn't it be nice to end each school week thinking of how to enrich someone else's day?  

I would love for my daughter to know the joys of encouraging and and appreciating someone else!  SOOOoo, I have decided to start a series of "Friendly Friday" posts showing something we made or did to help or encourage someone else or just to give them a happy surprise!  Note:  I cannot promise a post EVERY Friday - I just don't have that kind of time and life right now with homeschooling, family, etc.  BUT, I will try to get something up at least one or two Fridays a month and maybe more.  :)

Here was what we did for our "Friendly Friday" during our camping theme.  There was a burn ban where we went for our camping trip at the end of the week which meant no campfires thus making it rather difficult for many campers to make s'mores.  I knew this in advance so we made s'more bars to take along and share with our friends at the campsite.  I found this great recipe here:  http://www.endlesssimmer.com/2011/08/30/smore-than-you-can-handle/

I encourage you to consider making your Fridays friendly ones too!  :)

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Homeschool Theme of the Week: A-Camping-We-Will-Go!

I know camping is sometimes considered more of a summer activity - but if you lived where we do and stepped outside into the intense heat of just one summer day, you would probably turn tail and wait for autumn's fine weather as well!  :)  Thus, we found ourselves planning a camping trip with some friends, and I knew a "A-Camping-We-Will-Go" theme would be just the right one for this particular week!  See for yourself...

To get us started off on the right foot, I slipped a "map" into one of my daughter's workboxes.  Not just any map - but a map directing her to a campsite in our very own living room!  I selected a special spot and there I secretly placed a real cooler, a flashlight, a campsite sign, a faux fire, sleeping bag, and items to make a tent.  This went over VERY well when the map was followed and the camping treasures were discovered.  Thus, our camping week began with a flourish!  :)

Our fishing pond near the campsite...  :)

Of course no camping trip would be perfect without a little stargazing, so we made a few of our own constellations using glow-in-the-dark paint (I printed some dot-to-dot constellation pages on black paper and we just used the paint on top of the dots/stars. If I could not find a printable page for the constellation I wanted, I just tried to draw the dots/stars myself).

It is always wise to be aware of your surroundings and know a little about what NOT to do when camping, so we made a little folding accordian book titled "Be a Safe Camper".  Some "DON'T" pages were:  Don't touch poison ivy, leave snakes alone, don't eat berries and mushrooms, etc.



Another fun camping themed activity was to identify and make animal tracks using some free printable cards from http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/. 

We also enjoyed using some FREE camping printables from http://www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/ and some online games here:
http://www.kidsastronomy.com/  (Find constellations in a night sky.)
http://funschool.kaboose.com/preschool/amazing-animals/games/game_animal_tracks.html (Match animal tracks to the animal which made them.)

Of course, the culmination of our week was when we went on our family camping trip to a beautiful park!  Joining up with some friends, we had a wonderful time!  :)

Below are some books we read for our theme as well as some that seemed like they would be a good possible addition for the future.  I also added a camping game and a play set that looked like a lot of fun!  :)

Check back Friday for our first "Friendly Friday" post which goes along with this theme!  :)



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