Phases

During the past few months, we have been spending our time learning our style and rhythm of school.  Discovering who I am as a teacher to my kids, and how my kids learn the best has been intriguing as well as challenging.  I spent a decade learning how to know my 6th grade students, but we didn’t have to deal with whether they focused better in the morning, afternoon, or evening.  Or whether they needed playtime in between each activity or if they could do several activities all together.  The day was scheduled and I had my students for an hour.

Period.

I am glad to announce that we are learning!  We are learning both content and more about who we are as people and learners.  In that light, I am not sure where this blog is headed, or what it will morph into; however, for the time being, my goal is to post fun and valuable lessons we have completed, or are working on.  I am thinking of it almost as a journal, something we can look back on to track our journey together.  I invite you to come along with us.

So, let’s get started…

Currently we are taking a trip through the Solar System using Lapbooking through the Solar System by Paige Hudson.  It is a great resource.  I grabbed it as a freebie, but I believe it is worth the $4.50.  It has provided a great structure for our space exploration.

We spend two to three days learning about each planet and complete a fun activity to go with it.  Once you get into the planet portion of the lapbook, it tends to become a little repetitive.  So, I have been making sure to add one or two of my own (or found) activities to beef up the fun factor for a K-1st grader.  The information for this lapbook comes from whatever books you may have on hand or can find at the library.  So before starting, I would recommend finding two or three books to cover the solar system and/or each planet.  The lapbook gives suggestions for several books.  Since I didn’t have the books recommended, nor did my public library, I used what I (and a friend) had on hand: The Solar System by Rosalind Mist, and planets by Gail Tuchman.

Today, we finished up the section on the moon.  The lapbook has a Phases of the Moon Diary page where you observe the moon for 27 nights and record a picture of the moon as well as the phase that it is in that night.  I found this really cute Phases of the Moon book over at teachinginbroncocountry.blogspot.com.  Mason had a lot of fun putting it together.

Tonight will be our first night to observe the moon.  So, we will head outside with binoculars in hand and Mason will be able to refer to his Phases of the Moon book and fill in his moon diary.  He is very excited and I love that.

Freezing Fun

Thanksgiving was a wonderful time of family and fun.  We took a break from “formal” activities and focused more on preparing to be with family.

A few days before Thanksgiving, we had a bout of cold weather.  Since seasons are a hot topic with us right now, I thought it would be fun to add to our weather knowledge.  So, we did a science experiment.

One morning I checked the outside temperature and it read 31 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mason loves to check the temperature outside so he knew this was on the cold side.  I then asked the baiting question…

Do you know what happens to water below 32 degrees Fahrenheit?

This, as planned, sparked his curiosity.  I put roughly an inch of water in a plastic bowl and set it outside on our porch.  I told Mason that water turns to ice when the temperature is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  (In hindsight I would have let him discover this on his own rather than telling him.)  His eyes grew wide and a huge smile crossed his face.  He wanted me to put the bowl where he could see it and keep an eye on it.  After two hours I brought the bowl inside and the top had frozen, but there was still liquid underneath.  He thought that was neat.  We put it outside for another hour and brought it in to observe it once again.  This time all of the water was frozen.

This brought on more curiosities, and he asked if he could take it out.  He spent a good deal of time feeling it, turning it over, and yes, even licking it!  We talked about why it was beginning to melt since we brought it inside and he was touching it.  He decided he wanted to wrap it in some towels to see what would happen.  Once we did, it took a longer time to melt since it was now insulated.

All in all, this was a great teachable science moment

– both for seasonal changes and for a liquid turning to a solid.  I had such fun watching him observe and experiment and investigate.  He was soaking up knowledge and I was soaking in the moment.  (of course I was so into this, I didn’t even think to take pictures)

Here are a few activities we did over the last two weeks…

Week-in-Review

Handwriting:

Assess Writing Uppercase Letters

• I was curious to know where Mason was in free writing his uppercase letters A-Z.  I knew he was improving on tracing dashed letters, but I wanted to know if he could produce them correctly without the aid of tracing.  To assess this, I had him write the letters on a chalkboard as I named them.  I was looking for if he knew how to form the letters as opposed to neatness, so the chalkboard and large chalk did just fine for us.  > He did great. =)

Reading:

Sight Word Sundaes

• This is a cute printable that gives another fun way to practice sight words.  This week, Madison (2 yrs) would build the sundae and Mason would read the words as we put the pieces away.

(click here for Sight Word Sundae download)

Geography:

Identify Oklahoma

• I found a very nice printable map of the United States at mrprintables.com (click here).  I had been looking for a map that I could print on cardstock to keep around as a reference, and/or cut apart as a puzzle – though we haven’t gotten to that stage yet.
• I wanted to assess if Mason could recognize the state of Oklahoma (our home state).  He did and was also able to identify two other states.  A+ for that assessment!

Science:

Season Recognition

• We did the water experiment as described above.
• We also found an activity that consisted of 12 pictures representing all four seasons and Mason had to sort the pictures into the correct season.  (I would give recognition of where I found this activity, but I cannot remember where I found it!)

Icicle image courtesy of Suat Eman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net