Fine Motor Challenge: Cat's Cradle

Every month I try to have a fine motor challenge for the student. This month I went "old school" with Klutz Cat's Cradle Book.

 According to the description: Great for building fine-motor skills and following directions

 

Week in Review: Wee Gillis, Migraines and Flag of Scotland Built From Legos

Pardon the corporate jargon but last week’s key learning was “learning happens all the time”. Praise God for the opportunity to homeschool first and for most. Last week was a struggle for both mom and student with a healthy dash of only child homeschooling guilt on my part. But let us start at the beginning….

We started the week learning about earth’s core in Co-Op. TS came home with a model of the earth made of clay and our job was to cut into the layers and discuss it as a family. It was so AWESOME!

However by midnight I felt like my planet was cracking in half. I had a blinding migraine headache. It was not your typical sinus relative migraine this happened after I took new allergy meds. First I had the chills, and then the migraine and the pièce de résistance I broke out in bumps and hives all over. After talking to the allergist apparently I had an allergic reaction to the allergy meds. So much for Mom being proactive and preventing down town.

The most I could handle was Read-A-Loud of Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You a Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis. We then drew “What-Ifs” of the story.
The week got better as we had a wonderful time on a nature walk and started Wee Gillis. In order to get fine motor skills into this unit I incorporated Legos. I built the flag of Scotland out of Legos, took a picture of it and challenged TS to rebuild it from the picture.
He had a BLAST! Now he wants to do all the flags of the world. Hmmmmmmmm let me work on that.

For Math we did more Horizons but also worked more on graphing. Then we read Stuart J. Murphy’s Lemonade for Sale introducing bar graphs. We took a Slinky and graphed how many stairs we could get it to go down. (I had so much fun with this….)

Additionally we:
• Daily Journal
• Handwriting Without Tears
• Redefined Chore Expectation Chart
• Workbook Reading Comprehension

I am now designing basic Capitalization Rules Chart Jedi style.

Blessings!

Lego Education Rocks!

The good people in the Education Division of Lego forwarded me my FREE Lego Education kit from the spring. We moved and it didn't get forwarded via the regular mail. After clearing my email box I realized "Hey, where are my free Legos?" So I sent a quick email and three days later free Legos.

We were to late for the contest but had a good time building some of the challenges.

Thanks Lego you live up to your name.

Lego Defined: The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well".

Wrapping up summer with a Lego-fest

We Love Legos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

During our exploration of our new environment we discovered the Lego store. Joy pure and utter joy! Dad and son were beside themselves. As were most of the kids in the store. This was a great find. As most of you know TS has been a Lego kiddo for about two years now. He takes the kits assembles them and then pulls them apart to make his own wonderfully inspired designs. So imagine his extreme pleasure to find this wall of spare parts.

(This photo is especially for my THL sister KK !)

"Mom I can create anything!!!"

2009-2010 1st Grade Homeschool Plan Version 1.0 (Subject to change based on life.)

After much prayer and review here is our official plan of record for the 2009-2010 school year. I wanted share this with the great folks at The Homeschool Lounge who have been a source of inspiration and support during our homeschool journey. Please click over to find the one of the best homeschool resources on the web.

Like everyone our challenge for this school year will be doing more with less money in a new location. However with some creative planning, sharing, swapping, re-purposing and fieldtrips I think it is going to be a year full of adventure. We will also be using Sue Patrick's Workbox System.

Also note that while technically TS is a first grader we will included some activities that are designated for 2^nd grade and above during this school year.

Core Curriculum

• Five-in-a-Row
  

Read Alouds

• TS choices from the library which right now includes the following series:
  
  • The Magic Tree House
    
  • Transformers DK Level 4
    
  • The High-Rise Private Eyes
    
  • Henry and Mudge
    
• Five-in-a-Row read alongs
  

Phonics

• Hooked On Phonics 2^nd Grade
  

Grammar

• Scott Foreman's Online Grammar
  

Handwriting

• Handwriting Without Tears 1^st Grade Printing Book
  
• TV Teacher for drawing Scenes
  

Math

• Horizons Math 1s Grade
  
• Stuart J. Murphy Math Start for Visual Learners
  
  • Collecting Data
    
  • Area
    
  • 3-Dimensional Shapes
    
  • Rounding
    
  • Subtracting
    
  • Regrouping
    
  • Timelines
    
  • Understanding Halves
    
  • Symmetry
    
  • Addition Strategies
    
  • Comparing Numbers
    
  • Calendars
    
  • Probability
    
  • Perimeter
    
  • Making Predictions
    
  • Counting by 2s, 3s, 4s
    
  • Measuring
    
  • Tally
    

Art

• Five-in-a-Row
• Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Styles of the Great Master’s

Music

• Classics for Kids Composer of the Month
  
• Local music venues
  
• Locate a drum class
  

Bible and Character Development

• Five in a Row Christian Character Bible Study Supplement
  
• Gotta Have God: Cool Devotions for Boys Ages 6-9
  

Geography

• Five-in-a-Row
  
• Lapbook in Virginia and Washington DC
  

Science & Nature

• Five-in-a-Row
  
• Fieldtrips to zoo, aquarium, natural science museum and nature walks
  
• Co-op
  

History

• Start Family Tree and timeline study
  
• Fieldtrips to historic venues
  

PE

• Tae
  Kwon Do
  
• Sports Galore Class
  

Fine Motor Skills

• Lego Creative Building
  
• Activities found at
  
  • My Montessori Journey
    
  • Skill Builders
    
  • Homeschooling The Chaotic Family

Our primary record keeping will be using Lapbooks with the exception of History which will be notebooking with the goal to turn it into electronic media for a family resource.

FIAR: Night of The Moonjellies Lapbook

Lapbook Resources

Homeschool Share

The Homeschool Mom (THM)

Enchanted Learning

Fine Motor Work Day 20 - Lego Racer and Stomach Virus

TS awoke last week with a pretty serious tummy virus which left him completely out of it for about 24 hours. Thanks to the kindness of friends we got supplies delivered to the front door. Love Homeschool Moms!

It was a long day filled with comforting, cleaning, comforting and more cleaning.

Exactly 24 hours later I became the next victim. You can't help but hold and kiss your child when they are sick but it will come back on you. TS was feeling better by then and was just weak but ready to get back to doing something. Thank goodness I prepared for Sick/Allergy Days and bought Legos when they were on sale.

TS assembled Lego Racer for six hours! He followed the directions, combined them, invented his own and built a city. I was so tired and weak and guilt ridden (I am praying to get over that.) but proud to see him work this much with his hands.

Fine Motor Skills Day 18 -Broken Crayon and Tiny Marker Testing

A good way to work the pencil grip and find out which markers and crayons should be tossed out.

Fine Motor Skills Day 17 -Legos

We love Legos. In the last two weeks we have built cities, hybrid cars that run on brussel sprouts and the space ship from Disney's Space Buddies.

FIAR: Make Way For Ducklings Lapbook & Fine Motor Skills Day 15-16

We completed "Make Way for Ducklings" earlier this month. Late one rainy night we had the following visitors in our front yard. The pond is three street over from our house so it was an adventure for them just like the book. TS was thrilled and began to write his own story of why the ducks traveled that misty evening.

During this unit study TS did most of the cutting and writing to beef up the fine motor skills.

We used word searches to help work on focus and concentration.



Another fine motor tool was cutting images out of magazines. TS loved this but he was given guidelines of which magazines were for cutting.

TS cut and assembled this duck puzzle himself. Always the beautiful individualist he varied the design by having his duck wave and giving it curly black hair. ;-)
Resources:
Homeschool Share

Fine Motor Focus Day 14 -Spinning Top Race

Fine Motor Focus Day 13 -Thera Putty Hand Exercise

Stretch the Theraputty out and any tiny objects in it. Then mush it up into a ball.

It is now the child's job to pull the putty apart and find all the objects you put in there (oh, make sure you count how many you put in there, because the child WILL keep asking if they found them all).

Just a hint... children can even do this whole "game" themselves; hiding the objects AND finding them.

It comes in many resistance levels.

Tan - X-Soft Resistance
Yellow - Soft Resistance
Red - Medium-Soft Resistance
Coral - Medium Resistance
Green - Medium-Firm Resistance
Blue - Firm Resistance

Fine Motor Focus Day 12 - Break, Recycle and Use Crayon

Got old crayon? Need a Valentine's Day Craft? Have we got a an eco and budget friendly fine motor option for you.

First step peel the paper from used crayon. This paper will be used later as part of a rip paper art collage.

TS broke the crayons into small pieces using his thumb only.

These are going to be melted down via this to make this neat V-Day Craft.

voilà

Ta-Da!

Fine Motor Focus Day 11 - Colored Glue Art

Tools for the job:

• Half empty glue bottles
• Food coloring
• Construction paper

Add two drops of your favorite food coloring to each glue container and shake well. Let the lil artist use his imagination to make wonderful designs while working those squeezing hand muscles. For a little extra fine motor work hole punch colorful paper to add to the finished design.