Adventures in The Great Outdoors with Poppins Book Nook

 This month's theme for the Poppins Book Nook (more info here) was "The Great Outdoors"

Chickadee and I had a wonderful time reading books about the great great outdoors and doing our activity together! Some of the books we chose to read this time included the following:

Curious George goes Camping 
A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee
Birds (a nature book all about Birds)
Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee
 .... and several others!
   
    After we had read several books, we chose one book to focus on for our lapbook components that go along with each month's theme. Chickadee and I chose "Curious George Goes Camping" for this aspect. Chickadee filled in the answers to each booklet or colored pictures as it suggested. She is really liking making this large lapbook so far and we like to look back at each month's themes each time we pull it out! It will be a great keepsake for our school year!

After we had finished that, I gave her the activity I had created. I made up a "Nature Scavenger Hunt"  and she was so excited!  This is the scavenger hunt I created:

   We read over the list together first so that she knew what she was looking for, then Chickadee and I headed outdoors! As soon as we opened our front door she exclaimed: "I hear birds chirping!" and checked that off her list. We walked around our neighborhood for a bit and found the things we could there. The next day we headed to our local nature park to find a few of the harder things. 

Here you can see her "Smelling something Beautiful; finding a cool stick; wildflowers; 2 different types of leaves;  feeling something smooth (a rock); and something rough (tree bark)"
We had a wonderful time enjoying the great outdoors and spending time together as a family! We also headed to a local campground with some friends for the day during this month and enjoyed a hike on one of the trails and just being in "The Great Outdoors" for awhile! We had a wonderful adventure this month exploring this topic and are excitedly looking forward to next months Pirate theme! 

Until our next adventure,

The end of an adventure...

 Our first official school year (Kindergarten) has come to a close! It has been a crazy fun adventure this year as Chickadee and I (and my husband) waded through the waters of homeschooling! We had many ups, a few downs, and lots of fun memories! Here are a few highlights from our year:

August: First Day of Kindergarten! 
September: Trip to Disney World!
October: Charlotte's Web Unit Study
November: Learning to Read!
December: Truth in the Tinsel Christmas Study!
January: 100th Day!
February: Animal Secret's Homeschool class at the Children's Museum!
March: Fairy Tales Unit Study!
April: Road Trip USA study (begin)

MAY:  

I can't believe that I have a first grader now, but I know that beyond a doubt, homeschooling her this year was the right choice! We have all learned so much from this experience and are excited to see what the next year holds!  Overall I was pleased with our curriculum and only had to make a few tweaks. Along with literature studies, a social studies magazine, and resources from our library, our Core Curriculum we used this year included:
Horizons Math K
All About Reading Level 1
Starfall Learn to Read
Elemental Science- Exploring Science
Home Art Studio
Writeshop Primary Book A
A Reason For Handwriting K
What's In the Bible with Buck Denver? (complete series)

We have now wrapped up our school year, are in the process of reorganizing and cleaning our school room to get ready for next year, and we are enjoying the summer!  We have already made a trip out of state (for my sisters wedding!), gone swimming at our local pool, played in the sprinkler numerous times, read many many books, joined our library's summer reading program, and done some cool science/art projects! Summer is in full swing and we are living it up!

Until life's next adventure,
~B


*If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to ask. I would be more than happy to answer them!

**Disclosure: All links are only for your benefit. I do not receive any type of endorsement or reward for my opinions/links above. 

Animal Secret Adventures!

   One of the Children’s Museums near our home is currently having a temporary animal secrets exhibit. They also offer special classes for homeschoolers. Chickadee and I decided to try our first class with them learning about Animal Secrets! Chickadee is an animal lover through and through. (If she could move to a farm tomorrow she would do it in heartbeat! And we can’t seem to take enough trips to the zoo in her mind!) Anyways, we headed into the museum a bit early as I wanted to give Chickadee time to explore the new exhibit before the class actually began. It is definitely an exhibit worth seeing! 

Here she is measuring a bear cub and she could tell me that it was shorter than her, but longer than she was!

 This area was a waterfall/creek play area with lots of animals that live near a river or creek. She had fun playing with the eagles and putting their nests in the trees!

This was a cave you could look inside! You could also go in an find different things that live/hide  in caves!

This was one of chickadees favorite parts- a tree! She got to dress-up like a chipmunk and collect acorns to store in her tree! She had a lot of fun exploring the exhibit and we have been back to visit again before they take this excellent exhibit away!

After awhile it was time for the class to begin! We met with all the other participants and headed to where we would hold class. Chickadee was given a "top secret" envelope and told she was not an Animal Detective! Included inside was a passport of sorts that had 7 different stations she had to complete and get stamped. They included: "Math the feces to the Species," "Find Your Furry Friends," "Make a Geode," "Eat Like an Insect," Making Tracks to a New Species," "Owl Pellet Dissection," and "Animal Interaction."  Some of her favorite activities were the Geode making (an art project), stamping animal tracks, matching animal skulls and pelts, and seeing the real owls they brought in! 

   We saw two different owls- a screech owl (the tiny one in the above picture- it was FULL grown!) and a barred owl (in the picture below). Both of the owls had been rescued from injuries and now live at a State Park animal center. It was very informational and neat to see the owls up close! 

Overall, we had a wonderful day and learned a lot! We will definitely be participating in more homeschool programs through our local museums! 

Until life's next adventure,

~B

Adventures in teaching Science!

How we teach Science in Pre-K and Kindergarten

 Pre-K:
   We had no set science curriculum for our PreK year. During this time we taught science in different hands-on experiences and everyday situations. One big aspect was talking about the weather and the different seasons each morning during our calendar time. We checked the weather each day and then found a matching picture card to hang. By doing this, we used a lot of science vocabulary words that Chickadee was hearing and learning. There were basic words like sunny, cloudy, rainy, hot, cold, but she was also introduced to other words not common of a 4 year old like foggy, cool, warm, partly cloudy, humid, sleet, hail, etc. We also discussed the differences between the four seasons and different weather we may find in each season. 
   We also did many hands-on activities like cooking, making homemade play-dough, making homemade moon sand, experiments, and observations. We took nature walks and discussed different things we saw or observed outside. One of my favorite things we did last year were observation sheets like this one from 2 teaching mommies' Ice Cream pack. Several of their printable packs have observation sheets in them which walks the young student through using each of their five senses to observe something. Chickadee enjoyed doing these as much as I enjoyed their educational content! We also did a variety of science activities included in printable packs found on the internet to go along with our weekly theme. 

Kindergarten:
  Again, we discuss the same science concepts during morning calendar time and I am hoping to get a large thermometer to place outside so we can start charting the daily temperatures. We also added Elemental Science's "Exploring Science" preschool series. I opted for the printed combo as I wanted to have it all bound and not worry about printing off weekly plans and student pages. It was worked out wonderfully! This program comes with a 2 or 5 day lesson plan which we have morphed into a 3 day/week plan. Chickadee's favorite thing about this science curriculum is that her Dad usually does it with her! The program is simple enough that most daily activities only take 20 minutes or so which allows us to wait to do this until my husband comes home in the afternoons to complete. I love the time they get to spend together learning and watching them interact together during the experiments. I usually pick up a few extra books from the library that pertain to the particular subject being taught each week and we read these throughout the week. Using this curriculum, we have also made a nature journal that we record in from our nature walks. 

Water Wonder Necklace from "Exploring Science"

   We also incorporate different science activities through our unit studies that we do. For example, this week we have begun our Fairy Tale unit. One of our activities will be to find 3 materials to build houses with (3 little pigs activity) and see which material will hold up best to "wind." Another way we learn science is through fun kits. For instance, this year, Chickadee received a "Bubble Experiment Kit" for Christmas from a family member. We can't wait until it warms up enough to get outside and try it out!

   We also use field trips to learn about science! Places we have gone where we are able to learn about science include: Local Science Museums (Children oriented), the Zoo, Nature Parks, State Parks, Camping Trips, 

Feeding the Birds

Petting Zoo

Pumpkin Patch... she discovered a caterpillar

Carefully Choosing a pumpkin

Something caught their eye in the tree...

Nature Walk

Nature Walk

Science is best learned through hands-on, fun activities and we make sure we do a lot of these! Thanks for reading! As always, questions/comments are welcome!

Until our next adventure,

~B