India Crafts for Kids

In our unit study on India this summer, we spent a couple weeks exploring Hindu holidays as well as the animals that live in India.  The kids (ages 5, 5, and 3) had a wonderful time making a variety of crafts...

Learning About Ancient Rome {Story of the World}

This summer we finished up The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times, and spent a lot of time learning about ancient Rome.  Here's a bit of what we did...

Paper Lamas {Latin American Craft for Kids}

One of the books I checked out from the library on Latin American crafts had templates for making these cute paper lamas.  The kids LOVED them.  They ended up making about two dozen of these in different colors and played with them all week.  Sometimes the simplest things are just as entertaining as the most elaborate homeschool lesson plans!

Molas craft {South America unit}

In our two-week unit on South America and Mesoamerica, we read a lot of traditional folktales from those regions and made crafts inspired by tradition handiwork from different countries.  The molas (blouses) of the Kuna women are just gorgeous, and the girls enjoyed making their own versions out of paper..

Greek Myths for Kids

The best part of our month-long unit on Ancient Greece was reading Greek myths together.  The kids enjoyed the myths so much that it became an integral part of their dramatic play.  Here's some of what we read...

Pin-punch Constellation Craft

The kids took a day learning about constellations as part of our week on ancient Greek mathematicians and scientists.  After reading some picture books on stars and constellations, we did this fun little craft...  I found some online printables of various constellations and the girls used sewing pins to punch holes in black construction paper..

Learning about Pythagoras

In our study of ancient Greece last month in homeschool, the twins (almost 6 years old) learned about Pythagoras and his followers (the Pythagoreans).  Here are some of the activities we did (many were from the book Classical Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in Ancient Greece and Rome by Laurie Carlson.  Here's a bit of what we did..

Grecian Vase from Paper Mache

The kids (twins are almost 6 and little guy is almost 4) have been learning about ancient Greece all month using Story of the World and other sources.  One of their favorite crafts so far have been these neat Grecian vases made from paper mache.  Here's what we did...

Making Purple Dye {Phoenicians, SOTW Chapter 15}

We studied the Phoenician traders last week in Story of the World.  The Phoenicians were well known for glass blowing and purple dye (made from boiling snail shells).  For our project, the kids (twins age 5.5, little brother age 3.5) made their own purple dye.  Much to E's relief, no snails were harmed in the process..

Writing Prompt: Food Chain

Lately I've been giving the girls (age 5.5) writing prompts and letting them get creative with their writing.  This is one area in homeschooling where we stray from classical education, which believes that children in the Grammar stage should only do copywork and dictation for writing until they have mastered grammar/spelling.  My girls absolutely love making up their own stories and are so proud of their creations.

This week we are doing a unit study on pond life, and read the picture book Pond Circle by Betsy Franco, which is about the food chain in a pond.  We also watched the Wild Kratts episode "The Food Chain Game" and discussed the topic.  I gave the kids a general writing prompt: write a story about any type of food chain.  I love how my twins have such different personalities and came up with very different responses...

The Middle Kingdom of Egypt {SOTW Chapter 12}

Instead of only spending a single day a week on ancient history, the kids (1st grade & pre-k) and I decided to do a full week unit study out of three chapters from Story of the World {Middle Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom of Egypt, and the Israelites Leave Egypt}.  We also threw some old kingdom in there since we covered that last year, and the girls read Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne.

Math Game {Sums of Ten}

Here's a fun math game to make with leftover plastic Easter eggs.  I've seen Easter egg activities for Preschool-age kids (matching capital letters with lower case letters, for example), so I thought I'd make a game for my 1st graders.. making sums of ten...

Snow Ice Cream

Although we've had a generally mild spring this year, here in the Rocky Mountains we can still get snowfall through May (and sometimes even later).  Lately, whenever it snows, the kids and I make snow ice cream.  It's an easy and fun treat...

The Brook {Poetry Study - Alfred Lord Tennyson}

E (age 5.5) loves learning about the natural world and has a passion for art.  Since she's also my early-riser, I decided to give her a special project that we could work on together in the mornings before the rest of the family woke up.   Every day, E would copy one stanza of Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "The Brook".  Unlike transitional classical education, I didn't require her copywork to be 'perfect' - I just wanted her to practice her writing and have fun with it.  We looked up new vocabulary words, discussed spelling rules, etc...  but the best part was to find pictures online of the plants and animals that were included and try to draw them (I made my own drawings, but E's turned out better).  Here are some highlights of her project...

Titanic Crafts for Kids {Tonight on the Titanic}

The twins (age 5.5) have been in a virtual book club all year as part of their Calvert online school.  Recently they read Tonight on the Titanic by Mary Pope Osborne, and had to present a project related to the book.  I described some ideas for crafts to the kids and then let them create them themselves...

Learning About Computers

I'm always busy trying to come up with fun unit studies for the kids.  Recently I had an epiphany - why not ask them what they want to learn about?  At the top of E's list was "How does a computer work?", so we decided to find out...

Easy Science Experiment: How Blubber Works

Back in December we learned about the Antarctic by reading My Season with Penguins: An Antarctic Journal by Sophie Webb (read aloud during Circle Time), and The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out by Jill Tomlinson (read independently by the twins, age 5.5).  One common theme was how animals who live in cold climates require blubber to keep them warm.  We explored this concept further with a simple but fun science experiment...

Learning about the Arctic

Last month we read two books about the Arctic.. The girls read Polar Bears Past Bedtime by Mary Pope Osbourne independently for their Calvert online school, and I read aloud The Eskimo Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins to all the children during our daily Circle Time.  My own twins (five and a half years old) did some fun crafts to go along with the Arctic theme, and even wrote their first book reports...

Read Aloud Books for Ages 2-5

I've always enjoyed reading aloud to my children.  When they were young, our reading sessions were more about spending quality time with my little ones and instilling a love of books in them.  Recently, I feel like the kids have not just been passively listening to the stories, but actually living them.  They played Aslan versus The White Witch (from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe) for weeks.  When one twin is being particularly demanding, the other tells her to stop being "Veruca Salt" (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).  The other day, their plastic toy horses were being used to reenact the barn fire in Black Beauty.  I could go on and on (not including all the literature-inspired artwork they have produced).  As a bibliophile myself, it warms my heart to see my children feel such a connection with the books they read.

Three years ago, when I was looking for ideas for read alouds for younger children, I looked to blogs and Facebook for recommendations.  I've been keeping track of the books we've read both for myself and also with the hopes of inspiring other families to create read-aloud traditions with their children.  Here's the list so far...