The First Robin of Spring - Connecting Learning to the World Around Us.

We had our first robin sighting of the year.

And, whether it's with a good book (like the one we're reading today)...

...or a craft or two (borrowed from the last few years)...

Cereal Box Robins

Robin Skip Counters

Fork Weaving Robins

...or even with a batch of cookies...

Gingerbread Robins

 ...or nest themed snack...

Bird Nest Snacktivity

...spotting the first robin of the season is not just a hopeful sign of spring (in our neck of the woods, anyway), but an easy bridge from the world around us - what's happening right now - back into a fully engaged classroom experience.

What's happening in your backyard today?

Homeschooling Multiple Ages - Teaching and Reteaching Subjects

When teaching multiple ages at home, especially if you do a lot of group lessons and activities, it can be easy to fall into the trap of teaching a subject once, and thinking you "have it covered".  Of course, what you've really done is "teach" to your older students, and allowed the younger students to tag along.  They will most likely not remember the entire lesson, and will need to have it retaught as they get older.

That is how, even though we've had a few fairly thorough lessons on countries and continents through the years, that I could find myself in a conversation about the continents this week, and discover a large hole in the learning of my youngest.

"What continent do we live on?" I asked, for some reason that escapes me now, but went with our conversation then.

I received blank stares as an answer from my youngest two.

"Okay what country do we live in?

That one they knew.  "The United States of America."

"Good, and what continent is the United States a part of?"

Blank stares again.

"Can you name any of the continents."

"Canada?"

At that point one of the teens yelled, "Oh come on!" from the the living room, and I realized it was time for another lesson on the continents.  Looking back, I realized the last time we'd really covered the continents in earnest was the better part of four years ago, when E was 6 and C was 4.  A review was in order.

I dug our Ravensburger Discover and Learn Continents Puzzle (non-affiliate link) out from the back of the game cupboard...

...and had the girls put it together, and trace the map included with the puzzle...

...to make wax paper templates for cutting sugar cookie continents - again.  In fact the two pictures above, and the one below were from our 2011 cookies, but the process was just the same this time, so I didn't bother with photos.

This time around, the younger girls did all of the tracing cutting, frosting...

...and arranging.  And, just to shake things up a little, I had the them watch a BrainPop clip on the continents, and found a terrific (and free) online mapping game for them to play as well.

T (age 17) wandered through the kitchen about the time the girls were arranging the cookies on the table, and asked why we were making "those" again.  I assured him it was them and not we who were making the cookies.

He thought that was fair, even if his little sisters did demand that he "name the continents" before they let him eat one.

At any rate, the moral of the story is when teaching multiple age groups at the same time, don't forget to cycle back through the lessons as younger children grow up.

Pass the Soma?

After a week of post-sickness lethargy, laying on the couch hopelessly binge watching whatever series happened to pop up first on Netflix, I opened my email this morning to find a somewhat convicting video word from John Stonestreet.

I'm not sure I agree entirely with the message, especially when it comes to citing fictional novels to warn of being "over-entertained" (after all, aren't novels just another form of entertainment?), but there is ring of familiar truth. 

How many times have I gone to click on a serious news headline, only to be distracted by some entertaining bit of fluff posted to the side of the page?

How often do I spend as much time as a chore would have taken, browsing through my audiobook library to find something to listen to while I work?

Is my desire to enrich the educational experience for the children with fun and activity,  really driven by an impulse for more entertainment in disguise?

And, while I'm not actually worried about a week or two of sickness induced sloth, I couldn't help but be reminded of other words I have read...

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. Ezekiel 16: 49-50 (ESV)

or

You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. James 5:5 (ESV)

...and sadly (or maybe ironically) of a few I have heard...

I am heartily ashamed of myself...But don't despair, it'll pass; and no doubt more quickly than it should. - Mr. Bennett, Masterpiece Theater, Pride and Prejudice

Richardson's Ground Squirrels

The lingering effects of a semi-serious bout of some sort of stomach bug coupled with seesawing winter/spring/winter weather has left us lethargic, and under-interested in school work.  Fortunately, nature has once again come to the rescue with a free, low prep, highly entertaining science lesson, that we've been able to observe through pretty much every window in the house.

At first we thought the cute little creature scampering through our yard, and digging holes in the vacant lots around us were prairie dogs.  That would have been pretty awesome, because I have the perfect book to go with prairie dogs for a history tie in...

...but a quick check of the Montana Fish and Wildlife site pointing us back into the Montana Field Guide, and then a quick viewing of the "Just Little Varmits" episode of Wild America on Amazon Prime (non-affiliate link)...

...convinced us that we have Richardson's ground squirrels rather than prairie dogs.  Either way, they are terribly cute to watch.   And, not feeling up to much else, we've been watching them quite a lot.  So far we've learned that Richardson's ground squirrels:

• come out of hibernation in February (babies should start appearing sometime in June)
• live in groups, and seem to be fairly prolific
• eat grass, and look for water in the downspouts of houses

• dig lots and lots of burrows (making them unpopular with our pellet gun toting neighbors)

• run very fast, with a funny little back-leg-up kind of hop

• are not afraid to come right up on our back patio to check things out, as long as they think no one is watching

• also are not afraid to run out in front of cars (unfortunately for them)
• are drawing the attention of couple of hungry looking hawks
• and are terribly, terribly cute.  

I might have already mentioned that last one, but really they are cute.  And, as so far they've chosen to dig their holes in the vacant lots, and have left our yard in tact, they are a welcome diversion from stomach bugs, and snowy days.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Engineering for Children - Compression, Tension and Toilet Paper Tubes

The children have been doing a lot of building with the empty toilet paper tubes we have out this week.  Watching them experiment with different towers and techniques...

...I realized they were really working through their own sort of lessons on the forces of gravity, compression and tension.  For instance, they learned quickly that they could build a taller vertical tower if they added supports around the base...

...and after watching a BrainPop video on skyscrapers (which I innocently suggested they might enjoy) they realized the problem they had encountered while building pyramids, of having the sides push out and collapse...

...after the third or fourth layer of tubes were added...

...could be solved...

...by simply placing a sheet of toilet paper...

...between the layers of empty tubes...

...to act as girders...

...dispersing the compressive force of gravity on the structure.

In fact, even one layer of paper, between the first and second layers of tubes, was enough to stabilize the entire construction.

The BrainPop video I referenced above is part of a subscription service, though there is a free trial available for the site.  BrianPop does not reimburse me for recommendations, but I do recommend the site every so often.  It's one of the few subscription services we've found useful enough to renew year after year.  It is filled with short, educational, animated videos on a wide variety of topics, that come in handy for quick reinforcement of lessons just like this.

Exploring Perimeter and Area

While we still had the cardboard tubes out, we used them for a quick lesson on perimeter and area to go along with an episode of PBS' Cyberchase...



...exploring the possibility of shapes with the same area having different perimeters.

Toppling Toilet Tube Towers - The Scientific Method

I noticed, this week, that our recyclables were starting to overflow in the craft room, especially the toilet paper tubes.  With eight of us in the house, those sorts of things can really pile up.

Before clearing them out, I thought we should put them to some use for fun, and maybe a little learning, too.

First off, I built the tubes up into a tower (triangles on top of triangles) and asked the younger children (ages 8-12) if they were to fling a pompom into the tower, which size pompom would they use...

...and where would they need to hit the tower to do the most damage?

They each picked a spot on the tower to hit...

...and explained, based on what they knew about gravity, and stacks of items, why they thought hitting that spot would do the most damage to the tower as a whole.

After a few practice shots with a hairband...

...for a slingshot...

...they were ready to take on the tower.

Finally, after several turns, destroying...

...and rebuilding the tower...

...they leaned enough about how a tower of cardboard tubes actually acted when hit by pompoms...

...in contrast to how they had originally thought it would come down, to be ready to use the information gathered through their experiments to modify their original assumptions.

In the end, they found that hitting the tower low in the middle was a good plan, but that they needed something heaver and wider than a pompom (like an extra toilet paper tube) to throw at the tower, if they really wanted to topple it over.