Irish or Not, St. Patrick's Day Celebration Is A Must!

We are fortunate to be part of a coop of very relax but awesome kids and moms whose always ready to explore and learn.  Our coop's theme revolves around Catholic Saints and I would say the Irish luck was on my side to facilitate our St. Patrick's lesson which I'm excited to share with you.
We started by reading the biography of St. Patrick and then the kids moved to various stations to do activities related to St. Patrick or Ireland.
In the second half of our class, I also read to them the "Three Brave Mice" which tells a story about the mice who helped St. Patrick get the miraculous bell back from the last snake in Ireland.

1) Senses, Food and Science
St. Patrick is usually depicted as wearing green so I used green foods for our taste test. Some are brave enough to try broccoli, green beans, peas, pickles, lettuce, spinach chips, celery sticks and pears.  The kids decided if they like or dislike the food they tasted and figure out if the food has sweet, salty, sour or bitter taste.  This was also a good chance to talk about the science behind different taste, the structure of the tongue and the functions of tongue for other animals beside to taste.
Taste Test Chart

For those who opt out from the taste test, I also provided the kids with various fruits which color correspond to the colors of the rainbow.   The kids made some "rainbow Kebob" or "snake Kebob" since one of  the most popular legend about St.Patrick is that he drove away the snakes from Ireland using a miraculous bell. One of the mom also shared her experience when she was in Ireland that she actually saw three rainbows in one day.  I used this opportunity to review the colors of the rainbow and the kids enjoyed making rainbow patterns with their fruits, or making a snake design with the fruits in a skewer.

2) Painting with marshmallows and Creating a paper snake
The children showed their creativity by making St. Patrick day cards using mini- marshmallows for painting. Everyone enjoyed this activity even my 4yo son who doesn't really like doing art projects.   Marshmallow painting not only promotes creativity but also helps in the development of fine motor skills.

I also printed some Irish blessings that they put inside their cards.  If time permits, kids can also try to make their own Irish blessing that they can put inside their cards.

Another art project that the kids enjoyed making was creating a paper snake using colored construction papers.  The kids decided what pattern to use in their snake body and some didn't follow any pattern at all. It doesn't matter how they design their snakes, or what patter they used, the results are some colorful paper snakes or in one case, a dragon snake.

3) The kids practice sorting, counting and graphing using 'Lucky Charms' cereals.  This is a fun and yummy way to develop some math skills.
Lucky Charm Sorting Mat
Lucky Charm Graphing and Measuring

4) Milky and Gooey Science
One of the mom volunteered to share this experiment where the kids had a chance to observe surface tension of a liquid.  Still tying it with St. Patrick day, she used the blue and yellow color to review how to make color green (the color associated with St. Patrick) by mixing up blue and yellow,  and she also added red food color to teach them that cardinals usually wear red (St. Patrick was a bishop when he returned to Ireland to convert the people to Christianity). Then using s q-tip coated with oil, the kids observed how surface tension is broken when oil touches the milk surface and the food colors spread away from the oil.

The kids also made some green slime (or whatever color that the kids want) by mixing white glue, food color and borax water.  They just enjoyed seeing the glue clumped together into a slime and squeezed the goo with their hands which is a very good sensory activity and play.
Green Slime Recipe with Borax

5)  To cap our lesson, moms and children played  hot potatoes as we sing a song made by one of the mom that explains how St. Patrick used shamrock to teach the Irish people about the Holy Trinity.  Almost everyone got a chance to toss the 'hot potato' around and didn't even mind to be the 'it'.

Check out one of our coop mom's blogspot for more ideas on St. Patrick's day.  You can also find here the song we sing about the Holy Trinity while we play hot potato.
Holy Trinity Song (in the tune of "I'm a Little Tea Pot")

We were not able to finish everything that I planned for the coop class (which is the only expected thing to happen if you work with children) but the smiles in their faces is enough to feel accomplished and blessed for such a great St. Patrick day celebration.

Surviving Winter... things our family love to do in this cold weather!

On Februray 2, Groundhog Phil saw his own shadow which means we have to endure six more weeks of the cold snowy winter.  It is only February and temperatures are continuously to be below freezing, it seems that there is snow storm advisory almost every week and schools days are extending beyond mid-June (which is not really a major concern as homeschoolers).  Being from a tropical place, I still struggle to survive in this wintry condition.  Below are some activities that we did so far (I have to dig for more ideas for the next six weeks), to keep my kids and my self sane. I have to make a conscious effort not let winter stop us from having FUN while LEARNING at the same time!

1) If you can't beat the cold, join it!  With the help of my down coat, and layers of clothing, I was able to join the kids with some outdoor fun even in the freezing or sometimes below freezing temperatures.

Everyone loves snow man.  To make it more fun (and learn colors and spell words too), we did some snow painting using various food colors, squirt or water bottles and water.  The kids raced on who can 'dress up' their snowman first.  The final verdict... some colorful masterpiece!

Aidan experimenting with colors

A fun way to practice spelling or in this case writing a nice note to mommy.

"Dressing up" their snow man

We punch a hole to the cap of an 

empty water bottles and use it 

as our 'water brush'.

The kids also ventured into making snow caves, snow fort, snow angels and playing snowball fight or just simply going to a local place to enjoy snow sledding.

Believe it or not, the best time (at least for me) of the year to go on trails are during late fall and winter times since you don't have to deal with bugs or bugs spray.  I find this a great way for the kids to spend their energy and to check out some forest inhabitants at this time of the year.  In addition to enjoying nature, going on trails is a perfect venue to investigate tracks left by wild animals or even try some wild edibles that are only seen in the cold weather.  Make sure to check out events in your local Audobon Society or nature parks websites for similar events.

A nice and quiet spot at Betty's Neck
(East Freetown, MA)

Exploring of what's left from
an old barn in Frank Knowles/
Little River Reserve (Dartmouth, MA)

2) Keep warm and cozy! There are days that we just feel staying indoors in our PJ's.

One of the thing we all love doing is cooking besides eating the food we made.  Who doesn't love the smell of freshly baked bread or cookies or pies or whatever is simmering on the stove.  The kids love to help in the kitchen and get their hands dirty.  Cooking, baking, measuring and cutting stuff come pretty handy in teaching my 6 year old fractions and my pre-schooler counting.  Involving kids in the making of their own food also teaches them about eating healthy, safety in the kitchen, builds confidence and promotes creativity.

"I  scream for an ice cream"
Healthy option using yogurt, frozen
berries and some milk and honey.

Getting their hands dirty mixing dough while
learning fractions, how to divide the dough
into equal parts.

Teaching them about fire safety.
is best achieved by letting them experience
 first-hand cooking.

Rolling bread dough for our "Sun"bread
helps Aidan to improve his fine motor skills

Practicing their knife skills 

 

The kids prepared this fruit platter for our breakfast.

Read, Build and Create!

We started to adapt a "Five-In-A-Row"  (find out more about this program from fiveinarow.com)  culture in our learning as a way to approach certain topics of interest.  Currently we are doing Volume 1 of the FIAR series but in addition to the listed books in this series, we also borrow books from the library that the kids want to explore.  After reading a book (could be many times), we use the information that are presented in the book to explore other subject areas such as but not limited to:

• geography-setting of the story, locating it in a map, popular land marks, topography
• history- time period when the book was written and how it is evident in the book, historical characters or events in the book
• social studies - culture ans traditions of a particular place, values and morals of the story
• art -medium used by the artist, type of art, symmetry, or craft connected to the book among others
• math -looking for patterns, counting images in the illustration, symmetry
• science -cooking food related to the place and time period of the book, plants and animals (habitat, behavior, adaptations), buoyancy, senses etc.

We use this world map to identify various places in the books we read.
Coloring  a blank map/countries and drawing a prominent feature
of that place is also a nice alternative to identify various places  from our readings.

From the book "The Story About Ping"  we looked at various ways
to denote movement in drawings, reflection  on water
and lines.

The kids also tested buoyance of various materials in water
as part of our "Ping" lesson.

We read several versions of the "Nutcracker"
and watched a play of it afterwards.  The kids learned
to love the characters in the book so the play
became an enjoyable experience for everyone.

 

 

To celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. We read this book about the struggles of black people just to learn to read and write.  We also used the book to discuss how we are fortunate to have free access to education and tied it with Dr. King's speech through the "I have a dream...mobil shown above.

After reading the "Sun Bread" book, the kids got inspired to make their own sun bread (recipe at the end of the book) which we enjoyed for lunch later that day.

 

In this book "Madeline" the kids explore to divide to make equal groups, the symmetry in art and making their own art showing symmetry, the various structures and architectures in Paris, classic literature among others.

 

Since our visit to New York City couples of years ago, my son was fascinated by the Statue of Liberty.  He was really curious how it was built.  We were fortunate to find this book in our library which has very good illustrations, and thorough discussion of why and how it was built.  The boys also got some very good inspiration from this book in building things using cardboard boxes, Knex, Lego or even using Minecraft creation mode.

It doesn't matter what kind of books interest your child, fiction or non-fiction, modern or classic books,  you will always find ways to extend and connect these books with various subject areas or real life experiences that would have a more lasting impressions in your child's mind (plus the fact that they will develop the love for reading).

Also check out the unit we did for China and Chinese New Year
http://dasilvahomeschooljourney.blogspot.com/2014/01/celebrating-chinese-new-year-with-bang.html

How do you try to survive winter?

Celebrating Chinese New Year With A BANG!

My eldest son's interest in China, specifically the Great Wall led us to this celebration.  Part of our weekly schedule is going to our local library and borrowing topic books that the boys are interested in.  As easy as it is nowadays to 'google' everything (which we do as well), I still make it to a point that we still utilize information from actual books and make internet searches supplementary.  Anthony asked me, 'What is the largest structure ever built?' (he is really into building stuff now...LEGO's, Minecraft, KNEX, among others) so  I told him about the Great Wall of China.  By coincidence, one of the mom from our home school group posted an event about a Chinese Festival celebration.  That's how we ended up doing a week lesson about Chinese New Year and you can tell, the rest is history.

How do we approach a topic of interest?  We always start with a book or books.  Usually we just ask our librarian for recommendations or sometimes other moms from our home school group for suggestions (both are great resources). We picked this one since the information are presented in a very child-friendly way, lots of pictures, concise but very informative.  It has even additional section for art activities, recipes, and vocabulary words that we all utilized.

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Circle snakes using different colored construction papers.  In addition to Aidan developing his fine motor skills (cutting papers), we also used this art activity to review colors and shapes, make patterns with the snake's body and promotes creativity.

We've learned about the customs and traditions on how Chinese celebrated New Year and the reasons why they do it that way.  Since the Philippines (where I'm from) celebration , of New Year is very similar to the Chinese (ours is celebrated however during January 1st), I was able to share my own childhood experiences to my boys and relate them to our readings.  Below is a list of some similarities between the Philippines and Chinese ways of celebrating New Year.

• Cleaning the house the day before New Year but not on the day- to remove 'bad' luck from the previous year and to give way to the 'good' luck of the coming year.
• Wearing red (putting red signs on windows and doors)- Red is a color for good luck.
• Having bright and loud noises (fireworks, fire crackers)- to chase away bad spirits.
• Serving sweet and sticky dishes- to please the gods
• Having round fruits on the table- round shape of coins, tangerines-color of prosperity; in the Philippines we make a basket with thirteen round fruits to represent the twelve months of the year and the extra fruit for prosperity.

Anthony enjoying the rice cake (recipe taken form the book shown above) with dried fruits that he helped make.  Cooking and baking is a great opportunity to teach/review math concepts like counting and fractions..

Some of the foods we tried at the Chinese Festival
(dumpling, fried mushroom and bean ball with
sesame seeds)

The fruit basket I made this year for the New Year 2014
with thirteen round fruits.

Aidan in front of the food my mom made for New Year celebration (rice cake- puto and cutchinta, rice balls in coconut sauce-bilo bilo).

As an extension, for Literature, we discussed what is a 'legend' since in the book, it told a legend of the bad dragon and how the villagers chased it away from their place (which is a key feature in the celebration of Chinese New Year- dancing dragon on the streets).  I also used this to teach the boys about the phases of the moon, the rotation of the earth and the revolution of the moon around  the earth; since Chinese New Year follows a Lunar calendar.
To pursuit Anthony's initial question about the largest structure on Earth, we also looked at the history of the Great Wall and the engineering behind it.  As an icing on the cake, we went to a Chinese Festival where we were able to enjoy some Chinese customs through traditional dances, food and crafts.

Drum dance

Aidan with the dragon in the back ground.

The boys posing in front of the 'golden' lion.

FYI: For 2014, the Chinese New Year Celebration is on January 31.  Unlike Western New Year celebration, the date of the Chinese New Year changes every year depending on the appearance of the first new moon of the new year.
We hope this can help you celebrate Chinese New Year with a BANG!
 It's just around the corner ... Gong Hei Fat Choy!