Continuing the Story: Home Education

Sweep Your Love Away (K-3): Need 2 small brooms, 2 pairs of red socks, and tape for goal line. Divide into two teams and have players take turns sweeping red socks to goal line. First team who finishes first wins.
Heart Bingo (1-4): Need Bingo cards with word Heart substituted for the word Bingo and candy hearts for markers.
Heart Hunt (K-2): Need small colored paper hearts. About 8 for each child. Hide hearts about the room while class is out of the room. On your signal the children collect their 8 hearts only so everyone can participate.
Balloon Stomp (K-3): Need 2 balloons for each child in class and string already tied to balloons. Tie one balloon to each leg and then have children try to stomp each other’s balloons before someone stomps theirs.
Valentine Relay Race (2-4): Need one paper heart for each child. Write an action word on each, such as jump, crawl, hop, skip, walk backwards, clap hands, hop on one leg, tip toe, etc. Put hearts in the middle of the room face down. Establish starting lines for each team and have the players line up behind them. On go, signal the first 2 players from each team to run to the pile, choose a heart and then return to their team while doing the action. First team to finish wins.
How Many Hearts (K-6): Need small jar filled with cinnamon hearts candy & pieces of paper. Have each child guess how many hearts are in the jar.

Christmas Room Party Ideas

GAMES

The Christmas Stocking (2-4): Need stocking cut out of paper with word Stocking written on it. Have children write as many words as they can using the letters from stocking. Set a time limit.

Halloween Room Party Ideas

CRAFTS

Egg Cup Spiders: Give each child a cardboard egg carton cup and four 4” pipe cleaner pieces. Help the children poke their pipe cleaners through their egg cups to make spider legs. Have them bend the legs slightly downward. Let the children paint their spiders black and glue on plastic moving eyes.
Gourd Painting
Paper Bag Pumpkins
Pompom Spiders
Masks

GAMES

Pumpkin Bowling: Get 4-6 plastic pumpkin buckets and a small ball. Stack the pumpkins in a pyramid on a hard surface and let the kids bowl to their hearts content.
Pin the Nose on the Pumpkin
Mummy Wrap
Ghost Bingo
Halloween Tic-Tac-Toe
Musical Monster Mash: Musical chairs with spooky music

Classroom Parties

www.celebrateexpress.com

www.greatentertaining.com

www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/halloween

Sunday, August 12, 2012

For the 2010 Winter Olympics, the St. Louis County Library held a unit study as part of their Homeschool Exploration program. It was a great time of learning about Canada, doing science and math experiments, and learning more about the sports in the Winter Olympics. We came home and did a lapbook on the subject.

Coloring Pages: http://homeschooling.about.com/od/freeprintables/ss/olympiccolor_all.htm
One of the fun things about the coloring pages is that you can add facts about the sports for older kids. Have them do some research on the rules of the event, who is competing, etc. This is very easy to make age-appropriate.

Mascots: Look up the mascots for that year's Olympics. The kids can make a mini book in their lapbook that shows the mascots and their meaning or significance to the host country.

Olympic Medal Chart: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/olympic_medal_chart.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/olympic_printables.htm&h=306&w=240&sz=20&tbnid=ZvjHPbRyXPpITM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=71&zoom=1&usg=__uLyRm70KhNG5-NVbyOfZL9LLVps=&docid=0lO1wVJZRyxz5M&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Un4oUJPaAsWC2gX04oDYBA&ved=0CGoQ9QEwAA&dur=3092
I loved this idea of choosing 5 countries (or however many you choose) to follow during the Olympics. This is great for a chart-making lesson!

Metrics: This is a great time to do some conversions to metric for kids old enough to do so.

Both www.homeschooling.about.com and www.ActivityVillage.co.uk have some great printables to add to your activities, like word searches, craft ideas, snacks, etc.

This is a FUN unit study during an Olympic year! Implement all aspects of your lessons (math, science, language arts, history (influential people, etc.), p.e.) into this and have fun!!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Unit Study: Pancake Day

Pancake Day!!! (Mardi Gras, Shrove Tuesday) I'd celebrate pancakes. :)

Lessons from books...great options for a day of study:
http://www.lessonplanspage.com/lamdmardigras-pancakedayusingbooksk4-htm/

Unit Study: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Preparing a unit study has always been my favorite teaching activity. Below are links to print-outs for studying Martin Luther King, Jr. Consider these for a notebook or lapbook study:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Word Search, Vocabulary, Crossword Puzzle, Challenge, Alphabet Activity, Draw and Write, Coloring Pages: http://homeschooling.about.com/od/holidays/ss/mlkingprint_all.htm

Craft: http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/mmlk.html

"I Have a Dream" Collage/Ideas for Black History Month (especially for preschoolers): http://www.dltk-kids.com/viewers/dreamcollage.htm

"I Have a Dream" Speech Text: http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/mlk_speech.htm

Martin Luther King, Jr. Rainbow Pin craft: http://crafts.kaboose.com/martin-luther-king-jr-rainbow-pin.html

Continuing the Story

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Homeschooling Websites

Class or Co-op Party Ideas

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Unit Study: Winter Olympics

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Unit Study: Pancake Day

Unit Study: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

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