Anchor Charts
Have you heard about anchor charts? An anchor chart is a chart that you make with your kids/students to help illustrate a concept. Once it’s created, the chart/poster is placed in an area so that it can be seen and referred to as needed.
I have seen many, many examples of anchor charts, and differing views on how they’re made. I’ve implemented a couple of techniques – from making them up before hand and presenting them to the kids, to working out a concept with the kids, taking notes and then making the final chart for display purposes. That seems to work better – making the chart together. I do admit to going online and finding an example of the chart I want to make and guiding the conversation in the right direction though!
A few months ago, I found a large wall chart pad at a school supplies store on clearance about bought it. Anchor chart pads are usually larger, but in a homeschool setting, this size creates smaller, more manageable sized charts that are idea for our space. The pad I use is a Bemiss Jason 24″ x 16″, 1.5″ ruled notepad, similar to this one at Amazon. We have a chalkboard on one wall and I just open the pad to the right chart and lean it against the board in the chalk tray.
Since we’ve been using anchor charts, I do think it’s helped. Most of them have some sort of catchy phrase to them that make the concept easy to remember. Some of our charts include:
- Reading Aloud (reading fluency chart)
- Reading Fluency (similar to our Reading Aloud chart, but less rhyme-ish. I actually like the Reading Aloud chart, used with the hand signs, better)
- Rounding Numbers
- Math Doubles (‘If you don’t know your doubles, you’re in ‘Double Trouble’)
- Math Strategies for Adding and Subtracting (8 ways to add and subtract: fingers, number line, abacus, tallies, memorize it, use a grid, count objects, put one number in your head and ‘add on’ or count the difference)
- Plot (like a roller coaster – beginning, middle (highest point), ending)
- Math Phrases (what phrases mean ‘to add’ – like ‘how many, altogether, plus… ‘subtract’ – remaining, left, take away, difference between… etc.)
- Math Fact Families
Warmly,
~h
The Leaves on the Trees… and Owls
So… rather than doing schoolwork today, my kids have been playing outside most of the day. Like they did yesterday. And Monday. And Thursday and Friday of last week.
Slacker mom, much?
I posted a very similar message to one of my awesome homeschooling groups on Facebook (you guys rawk, seriously) and got lots of reassurance that I am not screwing up my kids educational futures by taking some time off. I know it seems like we’ve been taking a lot of time off lately, but those days are well-earned, I assure you.
Darn it all if I am still trying to let go of the feeling that we ‘have’ to do school the way we’re ‘supposed’ to. Who says we ‘have to’, and who dictates ‘supposed to’, I ask? ME! That’s who! (throws devil horns à la Ronnie James Dio and screams ‘Yeah!!’)
We’re taking off next week (DH’s vacation), so I am feeling all guilty and indulgent as I play on the computer (I say play; I’ve been working on our homeschool group’s newsletter, which is not exactly playing. Close though; and adding stuff to my DeviantART page, which is completely indulgent in every way). We only have a few more weeks left in this school year, and the kids are only about 5 weeks away from being done with ‘this grade’s work in grammar and history and their workbook math. Their spelling and regular math will take longer, but since we school all year, one grade sort of rolls into the next in most cases. So lesson wise, we’re good – on schedule; a little ahead, even… and yet still… the feeling that I’m not doing enough is bugging me.
{shakes it off}
I have to say that although we didn’t do any formal sit-down learning today, there was still learning going on. The kids are deeply involved in building a fort in the back of our property. I haven’t been back there yet, but they assure me that it is both safe and awesome. They’ve been hauling stuff out of the house for a few days now, so I can only imagine what I’ll find when I do get invited back to see the results of their labors.
After spending a relaxing morning with some lovely Earl Grey and flipping back through my completed art journals in preparation for posting them, I got all inspired to do crafty stuff with the kids, so I called them in and we worked on this year’s Thankfulness Tree. We made one last year – just out of construction paper and had it taped up to the cabinet door. It was lovely (and kinda bare in the picture – wish now that I’d gotten a picture closer to the end of the month), but not as jazzy as I like, so this year we’re kicking it up a notch.
I’ve been saving toilet paper rolls for ages with plans of making some sort of crafty thing, and since Pinterest is the end-all, be-all of crafting ideas, I checked out what they had to offer and found the most adorable little owls. Ours turned out quite differently than the inspiration pieces, but the kids had fun and I think they turned out great! We also used coffee filters and markers to make leaves. The kids drew on the filters then got them wet do the colors would bleed and we cut out leaf shapes – voila! Fantastic fall foliage! Now to figure out how to attach them to my tree without ruining the branches in the process… and yes, those are Halloween pumpkins in the background there. Those suckers have lasted a LONG time this year!
In any case, he’s what we have so far. More to come when the project is completed (possibly tomorrow – one can just never tell around here). We’ll add things we’re thankful for to the beautiful leaves, then add them to the tree as we go along. The owls will be hung from the branches when they’re dry as well.
What about you – anything crafty you’d like to share to do with toilet paper tubes or other all crafts?
Warmly,
~h
Pick-up Stix
Once upon a time, there was this awesome Blogging Goddess. She promptly updated her blog after every significant and/or picture-worthy event, and was especially diligent about writing and sharing holiday-related blog posts.
….. Aaaaaaaad *clearly*, we’re not talking about me, here. {wink} We now join our fair Minor Blogging Deity Slacker Blogger a week after Halloween to re-cap the newsworthy events of the past week.
Much as I wish I could say that there haven’t been any, there has, and as much as I wish I could say these events aren’t newsworthy, they are. But first, let me sprinkle some holiday cheer (umm…er… cobwebs?)
I may have mentioned before that I was raised in a religion that does not celebrate holidays. Being the somewhat gothy chick that I am, anything dark and mysterious and/or creepy and spooky has always attracted my interest, and Halloween in particular has always held intense fascination for me. Now that I’m all grown up with kids of my own, I’m able to indulge myself in all the fancy fun that is decorating, making creepy food and dressing up.
We had a small gathering of friends over last weekend to celebrate; grown-ups and kids. This was our first holiday party to host, so it was very exciting. We had a full house ( a mad house, I tell ya!) and everyone had a pretty good time, I think. The kids spent a great deal of time outside waiting for new guests to arrive so they could pop out and scare them, then playing chase and hide and seek in the dark. We kept the adults warm and conversation flowing with sangria and party games, with the occasional child running through the house (often yelling). We wrapped up the evening close to the witching hour with poker and Rock Band. Since we don’t often have many guests over at one time, this was a lot of fun!
Last year, my awesome peeps came over to my house and we crafted Halloween trees from branches, tall glass containers, rocks from the yard, scrapbook paper, Mod Podge and spray paint. They turned out really well, so I decided to keep mine for further holiday use. I kept up with it until Easter-ish of this year, then packed the tree away… it’s back out again (complete with the orange eggs from Easter, even) with spooky decorations. As of this moment, it’s still on the table (de-Halloween’d) and waiting for a new craft. I’m thinking fall leaves made out of coffee filters and watercolors and the ‘thankful’ leaves that we put on a paper tree last year…. stay tuned for pictures!
The kids’ little pumpkins are also still on the table – we’re considering making pies. I’ve never made pies from real pumpkins before, so this should be interesting!
A Pinterest find… Chocolate cupcakes with white icing and sugar glass with syrup blood… the pictures really don’t do them justice! We also attempted to carve faces in apples for shrunken heads to float in the bloody sangria (Apothic Red wine, cran-strawberry juice and sprite with berry jello ‘globs’ for blood clots. It was disgustawesome.), but only managed two, and they were… not so great. I plan to practice my apple-carving skillz in the coming year and try again next year.
Kids’ costumes: PeaGreen is the Green KNight from Castle Crashers (video game) and LBB is ‘a ghost named Scream’. He’s never seen the movies (that I know of) and it occurs to me that this is the third year in a row that he’s dressed as a serial killer. There was Jason, then Grim Reaper, and now Scream… we banned weapons for the future at Halloween this year, so hopefully next year he will plan his costume based on something other than the weapon said character carries.
And this is my costume… well, part of it. I saw this video by Klaire de Lys for ripped nails and thought they’d make excellent zombie or fresh-from-the-coffin-baby-vamp nails. Considering that I am a huge fan of Vampire and Z-pocalypse themed anything, I figured I should take notes. Notes turned into a trial run, and my trial run turned into fabu, which, doing the math, = pictures. So, yay! I only did one hand and posted the picture to Facebook to gauge effectiveness and am quite happy to report that this method of nail-crafting does, indeed, elicit the expected sympathetic and/or grossed out responses! I did both hands for Halloween (after all the food was prepared, naturally) and again – lots of positive feedback (which, in this case includes comments like, ‘sick’, ‘so real looking’, ‘gross’, ‘nasty’ and ‘that’s seriously making me ill’.) {does happy dance}
In other news, we’re a mere four weeks away from being DONE with our second year of homeschooling!
{fanfare}
You can expect a countdown from here on out, pretty much. While most people are finally settled into their year, ours is winding down. I am debating the wisdom of doing less academic related stuff and more crafting/holiday related stuff, but I think we can probably work both in. We’ll have off the last 3 weeks of December before we start the new year in January; I’ll be planning next year’s schedule in the near future as well.
We’re currently in the middle of Peter and the Starcatchers (with two more books in the series on the table waiting to be read) and about to start a Thanksgiving unit study and lapbook. I’m working without a printer at the moment (am considering inventing a printer that runs on blood; it would be cheaper than buying ink/toner), so I will be putting all of my craftiness into making a lapbook without a printer. We’re going to use collage and notebooking, so it will look quite different from our previous lapbook samples, but still fun, I hope. Combined with the Yule lapbook that we started on but never finished last year, that’s quite a bit of crafty stuff in and of itself.
So that’s pretty much it. I have more to say, but will post again tomorrow.
Warmly,
~h
*post title has absolutely nothing to do with the content of this post. It was just a word that sounded fun in my mouth and so now it’s the title of this post.
Cinco de Mayo
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
I’m continually amazed at how holidays tend to sneak up on me. I mean, I am not a spontaneous person; I have my calendar well planned out months (sometimes years) in advance. It is fairly safe to say that things do not sneak up on me. But freaking holidays…. they just show up unannounced and still expect to be awesome.*
In stark contrast to the above statement, this particular holiday did not sneak up on me. Our homeschool group had planned a lovely big party several weeks in advance. We combined one of our twice-a- month park day with a Cinco de Mayo potluck lunch party/theme and our 4H project meeting plenty far enough in advance so that we’d all be super-prepared for the day. With the price of gas being what it is, and our members living as far apart as they do (30+ minutes for most of them), we’ve been trying to combine as many things into one outing as possible. So we planned this big party day with some group lessons (we’re doing a pizza garden for 4H – the kids are planting oregano, basil, tomatoes, onions and garlic) and lo and behold, our hostess’s daughter fell sick last night … so even though the holiday didn’t sneak up on me, having to do something at home, with just us, totally did.
I think we pulled it off though – we celebrated with Paper Bag pinatas and a tasty chicken enchilada casserole for lunch. Last year, we scoured the internet for some educational videos and worksheets, but we’re keeping it simple this year. We’ve been so busy with house stuff over the last couple of weeks that school has been ‘math drills here, science lesson there’ in between painting and de-cluttering (Jess, I TOLD you I would need those paper bags!!). I did have to clear up a few mis-connections though. LBB was insistent that Cinco de Mayo was the Mexican New Year, and PeaGreen made his pinata with green and white scales and dragon wings based on the idea that Mexico has Chinese Dragons. He didn’t say anything about thinking this until afterwards, but his pinata is still pretty awesome.
Hopefully next week, we’ll be a little less distracted and a little more focused, school-wise. The boys are both almost finished with this ‘grade’ (not to say that really means anything) and are excited to get to move on to bigger and better stuff. We’ve been working on multiplication quite a bit lately – they even asked to do a multiplication color sheet for fun after they finished their regular math today, so we must be doing something right.
Other than that, we’ve been taking it pretty easy. The rest of the afternoon will likely be spent outside. We had a cool front come through in the past couple of days, so the weather is absolutely divine right now and we are making the most of it!
Warmly,
~h
* Confession: we have un-dyed Easter eggs in the fridge and the dye kit opened on the kitchen counter. It’s been there for a week because we didn’t get it all out until 3 days after Easter. {sigh} I suck at holidays that happen before October.
Cranes for Kids
If you haven’t had the opportunity before now to make a crane or two, grab a sheet of paper and whip one up. The deadline is today, but since the day ain’t over yet there’s still plenty of time to do something good. Here’s a really good instructional video if you’re at a loss on how to make them.
When you’re done, you can post a picture of your crane collection to Osh Kosh B’gosh’s Facebook page so that it counts in their Cranes for Kids program. For each paper crane that you make, OKB will donate one item of children’s clothing to the relief effort in Japan. For my boys, this has been a tangible link between action and result. The boys each made 4 cranes on their own – socks, pants, undies and a shirt – for a child in Japan. Now, I don’t know if OKB is actually donating complete outfits, but if thinking of it that way helped my kids link doing something with their own hands to physically help another person on the other side of the world, then I’m calling that well done.
If you check out the comments on that video, there is a link to Paper Cranes for Japan via DoSomething.org. While their paper crane challenge is over (raising $400,000 for rebuilding efforts in Japan), DoSomething is still going strong with other opportunities for involvement, including the EpicBookDrive to re-stock school libraries affected by Hurricane Katrina (and yes – schools, businesses and residents are STILL suffering adverse effects from Katrina). You can donate books through the EBD for free through June 1.
There are a ton of other awesome opportunities to act, both on websites like DoSomething and in your community. Find something you’re passionate about – something your kids are passionate about – and do it. Talk to other people about it. Every little bit helps.
Thinks to think about:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” — Margaret Mead
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.“ — Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” — Elie Wiesel
“A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.“ — Barack Obama
“I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.“ — Malcolm X
“It does not take a majority to prevail … but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.” — Samuel Adams
“New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled the humiliating question arises ‘Why then are you not taking part in them?“ — H.G. Wells
“Think about it: virtually every atrocity in the history of humankind was enabled by a populace that turned away from a reality that seemed too painful to face, while virtually every revolution for peace and justice has been made possibly by a group of people who chose to bear witness and demanded that others bear witness as well.“ — Melanie Joy
Warmly,
~h
Living Playhouse
Sunday morning I went over to my BFF’s house for coffee and brunch (she made this and cooked up some deer link sausage – so tasty. She’s an amazing portrait photographer; here’s her Facebook page – tell her I sent you!). During the course of the afternoon, she mentioned that they were about to plant sunflowers for a living playhouse.
Naturally, being the curious and sometimes copycat crafter that I am, this piqued my interest. I’d never heard of such a thing, so we got online and started looking them up. They’re so nifty! When I was little, we used to make play-spaces underneath bushes and in low to the ground trees, but I’d never thought of actually creating a frame and then planting or encouraging vines to cover it to make a playhouse.
Loverly Husband and I have seen the websites that ‘grow’ furniture and art pieces many times. We have a couple of mimosa trees in the backyard that he intertwined to make an archway, and the kids have adopted that space as a fort-making spot. It’s had several different versions of a base (of operations, I presume), but they recently vacated it for another corner of the yard (leaving a huge hole in their wake…) so I thought that this would be the perfect spot to try to make a playhouse since we already had the arched mimosas.
Now, we wait… and hope that in a yard that is positively teeming with vine growth, the frame will not be the only vine-free spot. Actually, I guess ours is more of an arbor of sorts. We’ll not have sides per-se – more just a lovely shady spot once the flowers and vines grow up.
Once you have the basic idea in place, there are infinite ways in which to accomplish this project. I hardly think you’d need a step by step process, but here’s what we did: We have box hedges that have just grown wild. They make lovely straight and flexible stalks, so I cut a bunch of them to make the corners. PeaGreen and I dug holes and planted the stalks, two in each hole. We also used several mimosa branches that were out of place (we have a bunch of those, too), then bent the stalks together to create the arches. I used a few plastic zip ties to hold some of the more stubborn/sturdy branches in place, then added more cut branches on top of the structure. I used cotton string to create the framework for the vines to follow and to secure the rest of the branches in place.
We planted two types of sunflowers (American Giant Hybrid & Summer Evening Mix from Burpee) and climbing sweet peas (Early Multiflora Mixed Colors) around the legs of the arbor, and we have a ton of fast-growing vines all over our yard, so I dug up a few and replanted at the base of the vines as well. Since they grow so fast, we should have a fully shaded arbor in a few weeks while we wait for the flowers to grown and bloom. We also have several wisteria vines around; I may see if I can relocate a couple onto our frame. They smell so good this time of year and have such pretty purple flowers; that will make a fragrant and shady little hideaway when summer really hits.
Total cost: $6 (for the seeds). I could not believe that this was so inexpensive. We had everything already here. That, plus a little bit of work (we still have to fill in the hole in the ground) and add a blanket and a few pillows and we’ll have a great little spot to read or just relax in. All in all, this is one of our faster projects – the whole thing was up and planted in a few hours (over the course of 2 days). You could take as long as you want with it, but I’m a fan of instant gratification.
Here are some links if you’re interested in seeing how else they can be made:
BecomingDomestic: How to build a living willow dome playhouse for under $40
NatureMom’s Blog: Gardening Inspiration for Children
Sunzilla Sunflowers They were bred to grow 12-16 feet tall – imagine how cool that would be for the kids to play under!
Kiddie Gardens Bean_Teepee I’m intrigued by the idea of a completely enclosed space, and the beanpole teepees are super cute – we may make one out of bamboo stalks in the near future. I could see the need/delight in each of the boys having their own creative and created space. There’s another example at Artful Parent: Beanpole Teepee.
The willow playhouses are neat too, unfortunately, I don’t know anyone with willow trees that we could help trim… AcornPies’ Willow Playhouse is really cute.
Anyone else making a living playhouse this summer?
Warmly,
~h
Winter Crafting at THE Academy
With cooler weather comes all kind of indoor crafting inspiration, it seems. Several blogs are featuring ‘show and tell’ of the various crafts that they’re working on, so I thought I’d join in with an update on what we’ve been working on around here. It helps, I think, to get into the spirit of things.
H’s Drums
I really wanted a drum, but I’m cheap so buying one (especially as a beginner) is not on my menu. I’d like to have one for a while and play with it a bit before investing in a ‘real’ one, so I started looking up ways to make one. I found this website, which talks about making them from concrete forms. Then I found these videos, which go into detail about how to make them. And so I did…
I couldn’t find packcloth, so I was going to use deer hide, but no one shot anything on opening day of deer season, so I used oiled canvas. I used an 8″ form because I wanted it to sit comfortably between my knees if I was sitting in a chair. I also made 2 smaller ones (for the kids… kinda) that are easier to use if you’re on the ground. Now that they’re made,I actually like the smaller height drums, and I think I’d go with a 10″ or 12″ tube instead of the small one for an adult. The 8″ ones are great for the kids. Good thing this is a cheap craft! The tube was $8, the hoops were $1, the Gorilla glue was $6 and the fabric was $6 (but I’ll get multiple uses from the glue and fabric). So each drum was about $7.
The oiled canvas has a deeper sound than the material in the videos, which I happen to like. I tacked the fabric with staples, then covered the staples with electrical tape to hide them. I left the staples sticking out so that if I need to remove them, I can easily pull them out with pliers. I still need to paint them (or cover the bodies) and cut out the feet so the sounds can get out, but here’s a glimpse of what they look like. I’m a fan of the hounds-tooth head. Tres chic!
PeaGreen’s Shield
I must say, an old aluminum trashcan lid makes an excellent shield for a kid. PeaGreen has often brought home loot that other people have tossed out. Every time he goes for a bike ride, he brings back some treasure that will go into his ‘building pile’ in the backyard. He’s a pretty creative kiddo, and the shield is only a small example of that imagination and ingenuity. We’re getting him Crazy Forts to encourage this interest in construction. Here’s our ‘how-to”:
- clean up and spray paint the ‘inside’ of the lid with silver spray paint.
- We used this shield pattern (it’s a Hylian shield, from Legend of Zelda) as the main decoration. Since his shield is round and the Hylian one is not, we’ll shade the areas that were outside of the pattern and embellished a bit.
- I sealed it with an acrylic sealant, but I think waterproof ModPodge would work too, and might give some added texture. The ‘beat up-ness’ of this shield lends authenticity, I was told.
Now we need a helmet.
Birthday Fun and Gingerbread Men
LittleBoyBlue’s birthday was this past Friday, so we joined some friends at Adventure Kingdom – a medieval themed mini-golf establishment, for cake, golf and bumper cars. Contrary to what this picture might suggest, they had a blast. I’m always amazed at how little minds work. He got it into his head at one point that all of his friends only came to do the fun stuff, not to be with him. After some reassurance that this is not so, he was fine, but I wonder where he got that idea from.
I’ve never made gingerbread cookies before, so we decided to make some yesterday. We found a recipe that promised tasty and not too firm goodies and went to town. They rolled nicely between freezer and parchment paper, and cut beautifully once I got the hang of rolling dough. Then we iced them with a lovely royal icing (made with lime juice instead of vanilla; I think next time I make it, I’ll add another egg white or maybe some cream of tartar to make it a tiny bit more firm, but overall it was great). I let the kids use a new marinating syringe (sans needle) to pipe the icing – worked great! We still have 2 packs of dough left to make, so this will be an on-going craft, I’m sure.
On the menu for the next few days is candy-making and more baking and sewing; I found a craft blog with mittens made from old sweaters that I might like to try. The ‘dragon mittens’ are super cute and I can think of a few kids who might need a pair. I have some fleece blankets and outgrown sweaters that might be great for this.
What’s on your craft table?
Warmly,
~h
Wrapping up M6 with Arts and Crafts
We spent our last ‘school day’ of M6 in a crafting extravaganza… although, truthfully, I’m not sure how much of that can really be attributed to the kids. They definitely got plenty of exercise and social interaction, and a little engineering what with varying groups of them taking off on bikes to salvage materials from a construction trash pile that was about a mile away from our house. Getting large pieces of lumber back to our house surely required some problem-solving skills of the highest caliber!
We took off for the back of our property for branch-gathering, with the intent of making lovely little (and porch-sized) Halloween trees. I’ve been eying them for some time and am happy to finally have one gracing my kitchen table (or at least it will once I get it cleared of the incredible pile of crafting supplies that currently obscures its surface).
Warmly,
~h
