Holland {Netherlands} Learning Unit

The twins (homeschool Kindergarten) and I just finished reading The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins.  It's the first book in a series about twins from different countries.  Since it was written in 1911, it's in the public domain and we read about The Dutch Twins on Google Play free on my iPad.  My own twins absolutely adored the stories of Kit and Kat (the Dutch twins) as they went to market with their father, churned butter with their mother, drove the milk cart, learned to ice skate, and met St. Nicholas.  The book also taught them a little bit about Holland, so I decided to include some Holland-themed activities: craft windmills, painting tulips, baking Dutch apple cake, and more..

Learning About Desert Habitats - Pre-K/ Kindergarten Unit

The Geography workbook we're going through (Evan-Moor Beginning Geometry Grades K-2) includes overviews of the various types of animal habitats, and I wanted to extend this into a series of mini-units.  After watching The Magic School House Dries Up, the girls and I explored desert habitats further with some fun hands on activities and crafts..

Journey Through Colorado History {Booking Across the USA}

I am very excited to be part of the Booking Across the USA project hosted by Growing Book by Book.  Today I am joining over 50 other bloggers in sharing a children's book and activity for my state.  The Rocky Mountains always come to mind when people think of Colorado, but I wanted to cover a different aspect of the state.  I was happy to find a new picture book called Dreaming of Colorado: A Children's Bedtime Story, written by Grant Collier and illustrated by Stephanie Lowman.  The book takes its characters through a magical canoe ride backwards in time through Colorado's history.  So the girls hopped into their own magic canoe (laundry basket) and we set off on our own historical adventure...

Introduction to Maps

Yesterday we used sand and water to make various natural formations.  Today I wanted to show the girls that we can use symbols to represent some of these land and water forms.  I drew some examples of symbols and invited L and E (33 months) to try to copy them or to make up their own...

Land and Water Forms

I'm going to start a Geography unit with L and E (33 months).  Today we did a variation of the Montessori Land and Water Forms activity using real sand and water.  Since the girls have no need to know the difference between a Peninsula and an Isthmus (as in the Montessori curriculum), I made up my own variation.  We made mountains and valleys, islands, lakes, rivers, forests, and other natural formations that the girls were already familiar with...