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...

Bead Belt Craft for Kids {Native American Unit}

Last month, I started an eight week unit on Native Americans with the kids (ages 3, 5, 5).  Every week we read a story about a little Native American boy or girl from a different tribe in the book Eight Little Indians by Josephine Lovell.  The book belonged to my husband when he was a young and despite being published in 1936, it depicts the Native Americans in a very positive light and is a wonderful resource for educating children on the varying traditions of the different tribes.

The first story we read was about Leaping Trout, an Iroquois boy who loved to swim and built his own canoe.  When Leaping Trout's father sent out a messenger to invite others to his party, he gave the messenger his wampum belt to show that the message was really from him and not a trick (the large amount of purple shells on his belt indicated his power and wealth).

For a fun handicraft to go with the story, the children made their own wampum belts.  My 5 year old twins were able to make these with only minimal assistance.  This would also be a great craft for kids for the Thanksgiving holiday!  Here's how we did it..

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 Africa in Homeschool Kindergarten

This week our theme was "Africa".  I'd like to do some activities for Black History Month later in February, so I thought a good start would be to learn a little big about Africa first.  This involved a lot of crafts (like the African mask art pictured above) which the girls really enjoyed.  Here's more of what we did..

Kindergarten Unit: All About Me!

Last week's thematic unit in Homeschool Kindergarten was "All About Me!"  It was a lot of fun for the girls to learn more about both their physical bodies and their personalities.  As usual, I had so many ideas that we didn't get to, but the activities we fit in were a lot of fun and I know that we have many years of homeschooling to come for revisiting the subject!  Here are the highlights of our week:

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..