India Unit Study is here!!!

I am so happy to announce that I've completed the India Unit Study and it is available for purchase and download.

Purchase India Unit Study by clicking on the title.

The India Unit Study is a comprehensive lesson plan for the classroom or homeschool. 

It is based on a cross-curricular approach to learning, covering topics such as geography, math, language arts, science and foreign language to name a few. 

Included in the India Unit Study are: lots of information organized by topic, detailed teaching notes, lots of vibrant photos, games, and hands-on activities. 

Kids will immerse themselves in the Indian culture.  More than 100 pages of information!

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

How to Make a Rainstick (Easy)

We decided to make a rainstick to go along with our Lesson about Brazil (You will be able to purchase my complete lesson here shortly).

We spent a few weeks learning about Brazil.......... from the Amazon to Rio de Janeiro......

                  
                          ......from soccer to capoeira   
                                                                   
                                                  ....from folklore to real stories about famous Brazilians....
          

We had an amazing time researching, reading, exploring!       

One of our fun projects for the Brazil Lesson was to make a rainstick and it was surprisingly easy to do, so I'm sharing how we did it.


How to Make a Rainstick

Materials used:

• Glue
• Scissors
• Tape
• Paper towel roll
• Brown wrapping paper
• Beans, lentils, rice
• Aluminum Foil
• Crayons, color pencils, feathers, stickers for decorating 

Instructions:

Cut out two rounds, each a little bigger than the opening of the paper towel roll.

 Make small cuts all around the circle (this will make it easier to attach to the roll).

 

Attach one of the rounds to one end of the paper towel roll. We used tape to attach it.

 

Cut an 8 inch strip of foil and accordion fold it (do this twice)

 

Twist each strip of foil so it looks kind of like a snake, then twist the two strips together at the ends

Place the foil into the paper towel roll (this will slow down the movement of the beans making for better rain sound).

Attach the 2nd round to the open end of the roll.



This is before it was decorated

Now, let your child go crazy decorating it! Oh, you can cover the roll with paper before decorating, although we didn't do this.



Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

Columbus Day Activities for 1st and 2nd Grade

It's Fall and school is back in session and in full swing, whether your kids go to traditional schools or they are homeschooled.

With that in mind, I soured the web for some fun, interesting Columbus Day activities to include in your homeschool program or as a supplement to school.

Here are my favorites:

Columbus Day Race from Education.com

http://www.education.com/activity/article/columbus-day-boat-race/



This next one is awesome from Busy Teachers Café

http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/themes/columbus.html

There are so many activities to choose from. Since they span almost all subject areas, I'm thinking this would work great as a Unit Study.

Apples for the Teacher has a nice timeline of the events surrounding Columbus' adventure.

http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/columbus-day/facts.html

Enchanted Homeschooling has some neat ideas!



http://enchantedhomeschoolingmom.org/2011/10/columbus-day-activities/

Here are some things we'll be doing besides reading about Columbus' travels. We will be working on a maze, doing a word search, and putting Columbus Day words in alphabetical order. These are all ideas that you can do yourself and will be lots of fun for the kids.

Check out what we did last year HERE! and Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

Changes coming to Adventures of a Homeschool Mom

I abandoned my blog recently... And my readers. Life has taken an interesting path for our family which led me temporarily away from the blog. But I'm back even if sporadically over the next few months.

I want to update you all on whats going on over at Adventures of a Homeschool Mom.

First, we continue to homeschool Buttercup who just finished 2nd grade. As Buttercup gets older, she works much more independently and so I found myself with less ideas to share. I was also in a slump so that probably explains better why I haven't been on here much.

I'm feeling better and ready to jump back in.

Second, I will post my 2nd grade curriculum as a FREE DOWNLOAD, sometime in August. I'll keep you posted.

Third, and most important, Adventures of a Homeschool Mom is going on the road. We will be moving to the UK in August and I will be homeschooling there initially. I would like to put Buttercup in school because it will be important for her to help with the adjustment in a new country. But, we will homeschool in the beginning until we get settled......and I plan on documenting this whole process.

This move was something we wanted for a long time, but it did come suddenly. So now we're scrambling to get everything in order to go across the pond. This chaos also contributed to me putting this blog on the back burner. I will share more about the reason for this move in another post.

Right now I need to go pack some boxes!

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

Russia Unit Study!

 

Here's my newest unit study - Russia!

I'm so excited about this one because it was a country that was completely new for me. Until I did this unit study I knew very little about Russia; just bits and pieces from Russian students I had in the past combined with some very basic information.

The Russia unit study was Buttercup's idea. I don't know why, but she is fascinated with Russia, so when I asked which country she wanted to study, she did not hesitate to ask for Russia.

In order to prepare for this unit study, I had to do lots and lots of research. I read books and other resource material to come up with an 8 week program that would cover enough information.

We started with some basic information about Russia; location, size, language, currency.

 

Next we read this great book "Introduction to Asia" which had lots of stuff about Russia's climate and different climate zones.

We learned about Russia's favorite pastimes and some of the foods they typically eat.

We really got into the part about music and art and I found a YouTube video of Swan Lake for Buttercup and me to watch. The video was 2 hours long and we watched in 1/2 hour increments, but Buttercup loved it. We would pause to talk about what we thought was happening based on the tone of the music, the dances, the scenery and the dancers' facial expressions. It was a lot of fun and made watching a ballet an interesting experience, that was not at all boring.

Nesting doll template included in unit study

Buttercup's nesting doll activity

 

As the end of the year approached, I was able to find a local production of The Nutcracker ballet, so I took Buttercup. My recommendation for anyone taking their children to the ballet would be to read up on the story before you go; do some activities pre-show. We didn't do that and honestly we were kind of confused about the story. I'm sure we would have had a much better experience had we done a little research prior to seeing the ballet. We still enjoyed it and will do things differently next time!

The Russia unit study is perfect for the classroom as well as homeschool. It covers most subject areas:

·        Math

·        Social Studies

·        Geography

·        Science

·        Foreign Language

·        Reading

·        Writing

You can get this comprehensive unit study right here for a small fee. I hope that by charging a small fee for some of the lessons I offer will allow me to continue to offer other things for free, like my printables.

 I want to buy the Russia Unit Study

I welcome feedback on the study units, if you would like me to add something of interest to you, please let me know and I will do my best to include it in an upgraded version.

 Thanks for your support!

2nd Grade Art Lesson - Henri Rousseau

Buttercup and I like to do a lot of art projects in our homeschool and with my guidance, I let Buttercup choose the artists she wants to study. So off to the library we go in search of a book in The World's Greatest Artists series. Buttercup knew she wanted to learn more about Henri Rousseau (she was already familiar with his work). Much to our surprise, Rousseau is not one of the artists in the series. We did find another book about him that seemed geared toward children, so we checked that one out from the library. It turns out the book was more of a novel and while it did mention Rousseau it wasn't really what we wanted.

I turned to the internet for some information about Henri Rousseau and was able to come up with a pretty fun lesson plan for Buttercup.

Our Lesson Plan:

• Research the Rousseau and his work
• Find out where Rousseau is from, when he lived, what his artistic style is
• Discuss with your child the life and works of the artist
• Look at some of his/her art work on line
• Choose a piece that your child would like to do on her/his own
• With the appropriate materials in hand, let your child do her own artist inspired art work
• If possible, visit a museum to see some of the artist's work in person.

Buttercup chose Tiger in a Tropical Storm.

We started out with three sheets of white paper. On the first one, Buttercup drew the backgroud scene, the trees, branches, and leaves.

She then colored that using oil pastels (presently her favorite medium). One the 2nd sheet of paper, Buttercup drew the tiger. And on the 3rd sheet, she drew the big leaves that are in front of the tiger.

We then put the whole thing together to make the tiger kind of pop out of the page while still being hidden by the big green bushes.

Here's a short biography about Henri Rousseau.

Henri Rousseau was a French painter born in 1844.
Rousseau was born to a poor family. His father’s debts even caused the family to lose their home at one point. Rousseau served in the army for four years before going on to become a customs officer at the edge of Paris. He worked until he was 49, painting on the weekends, until he could retire and focus fully on his art. He gave painting lessons, performed as a street musician, and did other odd tasks to earn enough money to live as he painted.

He was completely self-taught and this showed in his work. He wanted to paint flawless, realistic works but a naivety, a simplicity, persisted that he couldn’t shake. The traditionalist painters mocked him but he remained confident in his talent.

Many of Rousseau's paintings are depictions of tropical forests, fauna and flora. The problem is that Rousseau was never at any of the places he painted. All of his ideas came from books. This made his paintings unrealistic because, in his paintings, he uses animals in the same scene that would never be found in the same habitat. He also paints plants and fruit from different parts of the world together in one scene. For example, in Tiger attacking buffalo, Rousseau paints bananas growing upside down from trees.

All in all we had a lot of fun with this art lesson.

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

2nd Grade Christopher Columbus lesson

This week we focused our History lessons on Christopher Columbus (quite appropriate, wouldn't you say?)

I would love to say that I planned this informative, fun filled week of history. But I can't. Since I decided at the last minute to do a unit on Christopher Columbus, I really didn't have enough time to plan out a great lesson. So off to the internet I go in search of kid friendly information and some fun activities.

I was so lucky to come across a couple of free sites that had some really great information. So, I compiled what I liked and put together my own lesson to make a complete study of Columbus. Everything you need to teach your kids about Christopher Columbus at the elementary school level is right here. Buttercup is doing 2nd grade work, but I think this lesson would be great for a 1st grade level or even a 3rd grade level.

And I am thrilled to let you know that I found the story here and the puzzles and coloring pages here.

I gathered information and activities from both sites and here's what I got:

• A simple story with illustrations
• A worksheet with fill in the blanks and matching activities
• A lesson on past tense verbs
• Two word scramble games
• A search and find word game
• Three pages for coloring (Columbus' three ships)

 

I thought the story was a little simple for my 2nd grader, but it was fun talking about what she read. We took it a step further and got out a huge map of the world and Buttercup showed me where Columbus left from and where he wanted to go. Then she showed me where he wound up.

 

I really liked the writing activities; they were not too long or boring, just enough to keep her interested. Since Buttercup loves puzzles, I knew she'd have no problem with the 3 that were included. Puzzles are like a treat for her, she doesn't think of them as work, even word puzzles! Yay, I love that about her.

 

Of course, her favorite part was the coloring. Even I got in on the fun!!

So if you're looking for some great but simple ways to teach your kids about Columbus, I highly recommend this lesson.

 These are the free sites I used, TeacherVision and Classroom Jr.


Disclosure: I found these sites on my own and was not asked to do a review. I'm simply spreading the love, because I truly think this was an awesome find.

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!

Teaching Contractions in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd grade

Contractions are a funny thing, because once you know how to use them, you don't even think about it, it becomes second nature. But until then, it takes practice. Contractions are not easy for young children to master.

When Buttercup was in 1st grade, I introduced contractions and she initially had a hard time with it. I wanted to find a way to reinforce the idea without repetition or too many worksheets. There wasn't anything interesting on the Internet or in books, so I had to create an activity myself.

I came up with these flash cards that Buttercup and I use to play games. The flash cards come in pairs, so one of the pair has the two words written out (you are) and the other card has the corresponding contraction (you're).

• The first game we played was simple. I showed Buttercup the words card, and asked her to read it. Then I showed the contraction card and I read it. We played his game until we got to the point where Buttercup would read both cards.
• Another game we played was one where I would "flash" a words card and Buttercup would say the corresponding contraction. This was a favorite activity for her.
• Then I would change it up and "flash" the contraction and she would tell me the words.
• Contractions Match Game - I spread out the flash cards face down on the floor and we took turns flipping over two cards. If the words card matched the contractions card we keep the cards, if not turn them down again and another player would take a turn.
• Sometimes Buttercup liked to play with the flash cards on her own and she would line them up side by side in two columns randomly (words cards in one column, contractions cards in another). The she would pick a card from one column and try to find its corresponding card in the other column. 

There are many ways to use these flash cards and they can be purchased in my shop for only $2.00. Once you print them, they can be laminated and will last a long time.

By making some of my original products available for a small charge, I can keep this site going and offer many more things for free as I already do.

Happy Homeschooling Adventures!