Saturday, October 6, 2012

Jet Pack Costume

For youth group last Tuesday we had to dress up with the theme of the unit we had been teaching on: Space Quest! I knew exactly what to make for "A"-a jet pack costume! The greatest thing is I had all items on hand using recycled items and it was completely free. I originally saw the idea on Pinterest and a different variation at Classy Miss Molassy. Mine is a lot less fancy because I am a no fuss type of gal. So without further adieu...

Blast Off!!!

Directions:

Take two 2 Liter soda bottles and I taped them together with clear packaging tape. Then tape them to a cardboard piece (I used a flap). Punch holes in the four corners of cardboard. Add string to be able to put it on like a backpack. Add red & orange tissue paper for flames. Viola-easy peasy you are done!!!


"A" also wanted to make a space man "helmet". He just cut a hole in a box (the same one we got the flap off for the jet pack) and he decorated it with space drawings and "buttons".



Friday, October 5, 2012

How to Make an Apple Pie (FIAR)


A little fun with lots of learning-1st try at apple bopping 
So we have finished our first week of homeschool and my first book of Five in a Row: How to Make an Apple Pie and Travel the World by Marjorie Priceman. It is a cute book about a girl who travels the world to get the ingredients to make apple pie. So here is our row:


Math:
Various farm theme math sheets for cheap Grade 1 workbooks 
3 part apple math cards from 1st Grade Parade 
Measuring Trees printable from 2 Teaching Mommies
Odd & Even Apple Trees from 1st Grade Parade
Ripe Math was also a printable from 1st Grade Parade
We asked 25 people what their favorite type of fruit pie is and then made a pie graph. We also did a lot of introduction to fractions as well. 
Social Studies:

This idea came from Delightful Learning. We took the manipulatives from our sensory bin (you can see that here) and placed them on our world map.
Paper Plate Globe from Mrs. T's First Grade 
We did all the maps from the How to Make an Apple Pie lapbook from homeschoolshare and the Vermont coloring sheet from Crayola
We love this song on Youtube to teach the names of the continents

We also studied about Johnny Appleseed (John Chapman). What a truly amazing American. Here "A" is writing about how he would throw a party for Johnny Appleseed. He had to know some of his likes to answer the questions. 
We also filled out this Look Who is Famous informational sheet. I think we will use this sheet for all amazing people we learn about. You can find it at homeschool creations.

Literacy:
This is our poetry journal which I will do a complete post about in awhile. He highlights high frequency words and illustrates it. Here is with apple paint prints. 
Our apple picking sight word game. I took the idea of my popcorn game and wrote our high frequency words on apple prints and wrote the word Rot for the word to send the apples back. Check out my popcorn post on how to play.
We had a vocabulary word each day that he wrote on apples and defined: harvest, acquaintance, crop, coax 
I love this KWL chart from 1st Grade Parade
Sequence Cards from Fiarcircle
We did a comparison of the All in Just One Cookie to How to Make an Apple Pie and mapped where the books got their ingredients. 
This isn't the best picture but he had to write an alternate ending to How to Make an Apple Pie. What if he really wanted vanilla ice-cream. What would he need and where would he go. The only thing extra is vanilla which in All for one Cookie we learn he could go to Madagascar if he wanted-s that is what he did.
Science:
He labeled the parts of an apple. This printable is from here 

I got this idea from Mrs. T's First Grade. I love the art component. 
This is a salt evaporation experiment that is in the Five in a Row Volume 1 book. The worksheet is part of the lapbook at HomeschoolShare.
This experiment I read on Pinterest and can't find the owner. Let me know if it is you. Take one clean apple slice and then drop another, rub your hands on it, etc and see which molds fastest. Great way to discuss germs!
Of course we made an apple pie! This is part science and math. We also made homemade applesauce because I love it! 
We also had to do an apple tasting. This is great to do for once for everyone. "A" loved the sour and hated the sweet-me complete opposite!
Art:
We studied still life paintings. Did you know that apples symbolized knowledge and in religious paintings it represented temptation? Here is our set up-we ran out of red apples so we had to imagine.
Here is"A's" finished piece using watercolor pastels. 
Here is my still life. I love how this is something we can learn to do together. We are both students. 
Other Resources we used:



Thursday, October 4, 2012

Tot School-Apples

This week I have attempted once again to start up Tot School. As I have mentioned many times before my tot is behind in speech and some other cognitive development areas due to his Sensory Processing Disorder. Previously, I would print out tot school pages and suggested activities and it just brought to light all that he couldn't do and not what he good. It made me feel frustrated and grieving the fact he wasn't where other kiddos were at. I am going to do things I know he can succeed and like-period!
A is for Apple Color sheet from Twisty Noodle with our color of the week RED! 
Going on a red hunt. I had these in a basket for the week. I had to help with this because he has a hard time sorting and matching. That is why we are staying on one color and trying to saturate him with it!
Montessori-open and closing containers with different trinkets inside. This he excels at and loves it! 

Apple prints. I put a corn on the cob holder in the apple so all he had to do was stamp it. 
Another thing he recently learned to do and enjoys is stickers.I colored the tree for him. 
This week was his first time using a glue stick. He LOVED it but had some difficulty. 
He did the bingo paint plotter. We both loved it and will keep doing it. I definitely had to model it by guiding his hand for the about half of the sheet. 
He tried apple bobbing after watching brother. Then we did an apple tasting. He has trouble chewing so this was a sensitive activity but he did great under TONS of supervision.

A red collage-Mommy precut the pictures and he helped put them on the page. 
Matching-this is REALLY hard for him so it took about 3 days. 
All that he achieved in his first week. A lot to be proud of!!! 

We used the awesome Aa is for Apple pack from Allfordays. We will be linking up with Tot School at 1+1+1=1. She is the go to for anything and everything tot school related and such an inspiration.