Vegetables

We took a break from homeschooling for Christmas, as I'm sure many of you also did. I decided to start back up again with school today as it seemed like we all needed more of a structured routine again after being away from it for awhile.

We began our unit on vegetables about a week before Christmas, and didn't finish it until today. In our lessons, we talked about how "God gives me all that I need". Just as he created the plants, and gives rain and sunlight so they can grow, we discussed specifically how he provides all that we need in life as well.

"He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate - bringing forth food from the earth." Psalm 104:14

There were a number of suggested activities in our curriculum that we didn't do. For example, it isn't the ideal time of year for planting a garden around here, and I just couldn't convince myself to buy a bunch of vegetables, only to cut them up and use as paint stamps. (Groceries are expensive these days!) We did go to the grocery store a few times and we looked at the variety of vegetables in the aisle. But mainly, we read a bunch of books about vegetables and kept our lessons simple. Like I said, we started the unit just before Christmas, and at that time, my creative juices were lacking due to the brain power being used to accomplish everything else on my Christmas To-Do List.

Here is what we did accomplish though...

Our carrot badge

The two nonfiction books we read were "Vegetables" by Nicola Edwards and "The Vegetables We Eat" by Gail Gibbons. I especially liked the latter of those. The book described and gave examples of the eight groups of vegetables, how they are planted, how they get to the stores, and how to plant and tend your own vegetable garden. It had great illustrations as well. I'd highly recommend it!

We read "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter. As I read the story, the kids had to raise their hand each time I read the name of a vegetable. Then we made a list of all the vegetables mentioned in the story and Madison drew a picture of Mr. McGregor's garden based on our list.

We read "The Carrot Seed" by Ruth Krauss and Madison illustrated her own pictures from the story.

We read "From the Garden" by Michael Dahl, which is a counting book about growing food. A fun feature about this book is that on each page, you can search for the hidden number in the picture. It also had some fun facts about vegetables at the end of the book.
We also made our foam, lowercase "v" in the shape of a couple vegetables (a pea pod and a carrot).

We read a fun book titled "Scarlette Beane" by Karen Wallace. It's a story about a little girl named Scarlette, who possesses the power to grow huge vegetables in her garden. Scarlette decided to grow a big vegetable castle for her parents to live in, so for our snack, we had a variety of vegetables in the shape of a house.

Madison also drew her version of the vegetable castle.

In the book "Frog and Toad Together" by Arnold Lobel, we read the chapter titled "The Garden".
We also read "The Vegetable Group" by Mari C. Schuh and reviewed The Food Pyramid, with an emphasis on the vegetable group of course.

Letter V Word Search
(http://www.first-school.ws/t/word-search/alphabet/v.htm)
Letter V Tracing Page
(http://www.dltk-teach.com/t.asp?b=m&t=http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/image/btracev.gif)

I found these vegetable pictures on www.makinglearningfun.com, and we used them to play a game of "Go Fish".

Exceptional X

Our "X" lesson dealt with foxes. We talked about how in many stories, the fox is typically portrayed as sneaky and tricky. He tends to lie and isn't someone to be trusted. We discussed how we can always trust God's Word to be true. If we listen and obey his Word, God makes us wise. Our words to remember with this lesson were: "God's Word makes me wiser than my enemies."

"Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me." Psalm 119:98

We read "The Gingerbread Man" by Sue Graves and made little stick puppets of the characters from the book.
(the stick puppet pictures came from www.makinglearningfun.com)

We then put on a puppet show (several times, actually) of the story, using our stick puppets.

A Gingerbread Man dot-to-dot and drawing grid page
(Both pages from www.makinglearningfun.com)

I had forgotten that we had a bingo dobber until the kids found it one day recently. The dobber has now found its way into our school supply drawer and I discovered that a great way to keep Noah entertained during school time is to let him use it with these great alphabet printable sheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

The two nonfiction books we read:
"Fox Magic for Kids" by Judy Schuler
"Foxes" by Mary Ann McDonald

After learning that foxes are in the same animal family as dogs, we compared and contrasted the two.

We discussed where foxes live in the world, and also about dens in general.
After reading the nonfiction books shown above, Madison colored areas on a world map, showing where the various types of foxes (Kit Fox, Red Fox, Gray Fox, Arctic Fox) live.
(http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs32465/fox/map.pdf)

Madison drew a picture of a den on the second page. She was also practicing writing some of her letters in fancy-form, in case you were wondering about that!
(http://www.homeschoolshare.com/docs32465/fox/dens%20%282%29.pdf)

A fox math worksheet
(www.homeschoolshare.com)
and a fox/letter x dot-to-dot page
(www.makinglearningfun.com)

We read "Three Aesop Fox Fables" by Paul Galdone, which included The Fox and the Grapes, The Fox and the Stork, and The Fox and the Crow. We discussed each fable's lesson and what it meant.
To go along with The Fox and the Crow, Madison did a word search using words from the storyline.
(Word search found on http://pbskids.org/lions/cornerstones/pdf/foxactivities.pdf)

We read "Rosie's Walk" by Pat Hutchins, which actually had easy enough wording for Madison to sound out the words and read to me.
We made our foam lowercase "x" into a fox.

Fabulous Frogs

Our lesson on frogs helped us learn about being wise with our tongue. God created frogs to know just when to keep their tongues very quiet and still in their mouths, and also to know just when to flip them out to catch their supper. We would say that they use their tongues just right, or wisely. Likewise, God gave us tongues too, and we need to know how to use them wisely in our everyday lives.

"With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be." James 3:9-10

We talked about what the verse means and we gave example of how we might use our tongue wisely and unwisely. We also sang the song, "Oh, be careful little tongue what you say..." and we made our frog badges with our words to remember written on them: "I use my tongue wisely."

Our frog-themed math worksheets:
Fly Addition (www.makinglearningfun.com)
Green Addition (www.tlsbooks.com)
Frog Dot-to-Dot (www.makinglearningfun.com)

A sight word game where Madison's frog picture jumped on each lily pad as she read the word printed on it.
(www.makinglearningfun.com)

Letter F Word Search and Letter Tracer
(http://www.first-school.ws/t/word-search/alphabet/f2.htm)

Lily Pad Letter Tracer
(www.makinglearningfun.com)

We learned about the life cycle of frogs in a few different ways. I had some pictures that I printed from www.makinglearningfun.com, and after reading some books about a frog's life cycle, I had Madison put the pictures in the correct sequential order.

Our books that we read to learn about the frog life cycle:
"Growing Frogs" by Vivian French (a fun, fictitious story about a little girl who watched frogs grow from eggs)
"Frogs and Tadpoles" by Anita Ganeri

I also had Madison draw the stages of a frog's life cycle. In the top left corner you can see the eggs in the water. Next to that are her tadpoles (And in case you can't tell, those are gills on the tadpoles, not fins or legs). The bottom left corner are her froglets (tadpoles with legs). And in the bottom right corner are all her frogs.

I thought I'd give you an enlarged view of her frogs because this picture made me chuckle a bit. The frogs at the top of the page are jumping out of the water, so that is why they look like they are upside down and flying. The mama frog is at the bottom of the picture, laying more eggs. Her tongue winds all the way up above the surface of the water, to catch the same fly that all the other frogs in the picture are catching as well. The daddy frog is on the left, with his head popping out of the water. What are the lines coming down from his body? According to my daughter...that is his sperm.
Yes, my 5 year old daughter has a pretty good, basic sense of the bird and the bees...and the frogs.

I checked this DVD out from our library and even though the case says it's for grades 3-6, it was pretty easy for my 3 and 5 year old to follow and understand.

We read a couple "Frog and Toad" stories by Arnold Lobel. One of them had a CD that went along with it, and Madison really enjoyed listening to the audio book during her rest time.

We read a Rainbow Fish book "The Copycat Fish" by Marcus Pfister, and we made our lowercase "f" into a Rainbow Fish.
I know this book and craft don't have anything to do with frogs, but we were able to find examples in the book of how the characters were using their "tongues" wisely and unwisely.
(http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/07/now-i-know-my-abcs-f-is-for-fish.html)

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

This week was crazy busy around here with so many non-homeschooling activities going on. We did manage to accomplish school most of the days, but not all. However, I feel like we accomplished what needed to be accomplished, and we had a lot of fun learning about butterflies.

The theme for this lesson was "God can make me new". Just as God makes a new creation when he forms a butterfly from a caterpillar, he also makes us new creations when we are in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). We talked about what that meant and ways that we can demonstrate that concept in our lives.

My printer was out of ink all week so I was unable to print off any extra butterfly-themed worksheets/activities, except for one. I felt like we had enough activities to do without them, even though there were several other great ideas I had found online to do.

Butterfly snacks made from apples, carrots, grapes, and raisins

This was the one page I had printed prior to my ink depletion.
One side of this butterfly was already drawn and Madison had to draw the other side to look the same.
(www.tlsbooks.com)

We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and Madison created her own version of the book.

Showing the egg on a leaf

A caterpillar is born, and he eats through one strawberry...

...two blueberries and three watermelons...

...four ice cream cones and five chickens...

...six apples, and then he builds his cocoon.

In the end, a beautiful butterfly emerges.

"Fancy Nancy Bonjour, Butterfly" by Jane O'Connor

"The Butterfly Alphabet" by Kjell B. Sandved - an AWESOME book where we could see each letter of the alphabet hidden in the patterns of real butterfly wings.

We made our lowercase "b" into a butterfly.
(the idea for the letter "b" butterfly was from http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/06/now-i-know-my-abcs-b-is-for-butterfly.html, but I did modify our version a little)

All great books that talked about the life cycle of a butterfly:

"Bella: A Butterfly's Story" by Joanne Randolph
"The Life Cycle of a Butterfly" by Colleen A. Sexton
"Caterpillar to Butterfly" by Camilla de la Bedoyere

We made a craft depicting the life cycle of a butterfly.
Egg: I cut out some leaves and the kids glued hole-punched pieces of paper on them.
Caterpillar: I cut an egg carton in half and the kids painted it. We added pipe cleaners for the antennas.
Pupa: I cut an egg carton into a section of three, and glued two of those sections together. The kids painted them brown and we hung them from a tree branch.
Butterfly: Another three-section from an egg carton, painted and glued onto construction paper wings.

Madison's life cycle of a butterfly craft

One final activity that we did to demonstrate the life cycle of a butterfly was a reenactment. I had the kids curl up in a tight ball for the egg stage. Then when they became caterpillars, they slowly unfolded and crawled around on their bellies pretending to eat a lot. They made their cocoon out of a blanket and covered up with it. When they emerged from their cocoon, they wore my daughter's dress-up butterfly wings. They absolutely loved this game and we played it many times over. Even today, having moved on from our butterfly lesson, they still asked if they could play the "butterfly game". They definitely have a good grasp on a butterfly's life cycle now!