Homeschool Theme of the Week: Thanksgiving & Pilgrims!

My daughter and I had very different plans for the last small pumpkins upon our table.  She insisted we make more pumpkin houses with them, but I was able to convince her to wait as I thought she might enjoy what I had planned for them.  I was right!  :)  She was smitten with the little Pilgrim pumpkin people we made, and I don't think I've heard another peep about pumpkin houses (although it is probably only a matter of time).

As an extension of this activity, we brainstormed appropriate names for our pumpkin Pilgrims (I believe we finally settles on Loving-Merciful for the boy and Sarah-Love for the girl) and also spent a little time thinking about what we might ask them if they were REAL and could answer our questions.  It was neat to see what her little mind came up with!

One fun thing we learned during this theme/study was what the Pilgrim children would use for writing purposes.  Instead of a pen or a pencil, children used quills and made ink by mixing mud, water, and charred wood.  Intrigued, we decided to try it for ourselves. 

 My daughter used our homemade ink and our homemade quill to copy a Bible verse (I gave it a try as well - the word "complaining" is my handiwork).  After this exercise, we decided we were thankful for pens and pencils!  :)

This teacher's website has some great Thanksgiving ideas - her class must have so much fun!  http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2010/11/pilgrim-projects.html.  One such activity I really liked and decided to use this week was to give my daughter a paper trunk (the teacher used paper suitcases for her class) and have her write and draw inside what she would have taken on the Mayflower for the long journey to new lands.

Her items of choice:  clothes, toys, and pillows.  Hmmm, I think if I were to do one of these - maybe I would have to use some of that precious trunk space for chocolate.... ;)

Part of our week was spent completing "A Pattern Block Thanksgiving" which is a book that I designed and made.  It took a bit of work and by NO means is it perfect - but it was a fun idea!  :)

If you are interested in downloading a copy yourself - I have made it available for $2 on the Teachers Pay Teachers site here.

I ended our week of learning by surprising my daughter with a fun-filled day of Pilgrim pretend play & activities.  In one of her workboxes, I placed a letter I had written informing her that she was going to pretend to be a Pilgrim girl named "Patience" for the day, and then I detailed what her Pilgrim family looked like (a baby sister name Joyful, a brother named Determination - and trust me, this name really fits him, etc.).

Another workbox contained a list of her Pilgrim chores for the day as well as some costume items to help her get into character - as if she needed the help... ;)  Of course she was very pleased, and had fun performing her role and completing activities...

She began her Pilgrim day by mending her apron and helping me make homemade bread.  For the mending portion, I gave her a real needle and thread for this and she LOVED it!  I had left a very small part of her apron undone so she could finish it herself and I think she felt pretty accomplished when she was done!

One thing we learned this week was how the children sometimes made mattresses by stuffing linen bags with feathers or pine needles, etc.  So here my daughter is stuffing a "mattress" (it is a pillowcase) with pine needles.  The mattress was a good size for baby Joyful (a doll whom my daughter had to help tend as well throughout the morning).

Of course a trip to a nearby stream or brook was required for some fresh water to use for washing clothes.  Thus, I put our hose a little ways from the house so my daughter would have to walk a bit to carry her bucket to and fro.  As you can see in the above picture, Determination was living up to his name as he tried to help with the washing.





I put one of our pumpkins and a toy corn in what remained of our garden from spring and had my daughter "pick" vegetables from the garden.  She also picked some real oregano which we used to make a concoction to put on a scrape/cut that Joyful somehow sustained.  I did not have the kind of herb growing which we had read about in one of the books so I guess you could say that oregano was a stand-in.

That evening we enjoyed our homemade bread and homemade butter - yum!  A wonderful ending for my little Pilgrim's day!  :)  

Recipe for homemade butter:

1.  Pour heavy whipping cream into a sealed container (the amount is up to you).

2.  Optional:  add a pinch of salt.

3.  Shake!  Shake!  Shake!  (It may take several minutes of hard shaking before you see results but just stick with it!)

Linking to:
www.momontimeout.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
http://www.bearrabbitbear.blogspot.com/
http://www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/
http://www.sunscholars.blogspot.com/
www.fingerprintsonthefridge.com
http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com
This post is linked to No Ordinary Blog Hop
http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/
http://www.toysinthedryer.com/2011/11/introducing-fun-stuff-fridays.html

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!!!)

Linking up:
www.runwithglitter.blogspot.com
http://www.delicateconstruction.blogspot.com/
http://diyhshp.blogspot.com/
http://www.singingthreelittlebirds.blogspot.com/
www.makingtheworldcuter.com
www.letkidscreate.blogspot.com
http://www.abcand123learning.com/
www.momontimeout.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
http://www.amommysadventures.com/
www.bearrabbitbear.blogspot.com
www.whipperberry.com
www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com
http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/
http://www.sunscholars.blogspot.com/
www.fingerprintsonthefridge.com
http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com

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!  :)

Linking to:
http://www.sunscholars.blogspot.com/
www.tatertotsandjello.com
http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com

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! :)

Linking up to:
www.houseofhepworths.com
www.bearrabbitbear.blogspot.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com
www.amommysadventures.com
http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/
www.whipperberry.com
http://www.jdaniel4smom.com/
http://www.sunscholars.blogspot.com/
www.tatertotsandjello.com
http://craftymomsshare.blogspot.com
http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com
http://www.abcand123learning.com/

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!  :)

Linking up to:
http://www.abcand123learning.com/
http://www.cleanandscentsible.blogspot.com/
www.gingersnapcrafts.com
http://sweetpeasandbb.blogspot.com
www.bearrabbitbear.blogspot.com
www.momontimeout.com
www.houseofhepworths.com
www.noordinarybloghop.blogspot.com
http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/
www.whipperberry.com
http://www.sunscholars.blogspot.com/
www.tatertotsandjello.com
http://momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com