Home-Made Bread Day

What a great reason to celebrate on November 17th. Find ideas for crafts, games, and other activities.

Crafts to Make:

• Make a collage by cutting out pictures of different breads and grains out of magazines.


• Try this Bread Painting Activity.


• Make creations using this Bread Clay Recipe.


• Make a Chef Apron.


• Make a Bird Feeder out a piece of bread.

Other Things To Do:

• Bake Bread!


• Visit a bakery.


• Set up a dramatic play area depicting a bakery.


• Talk about different shapes and textures of breads (for example, bagels, tortillas, bread sticks, pocket bread, etc.)


• Compare the tastes and textures of different kinds of bread.


• Make some Bread Pudding!


• Learn about the kids' food guide pyramid.

Teddy Bear Poem

A poem for your Teddy Bear

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear
Teddy bear turn aroundTeddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn around.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, touch the ground.Teddy Bear touch the ground
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, show your shoe.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, that will do.
Teddy Bear run upstairs Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, go upstairs.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say your prayers.Teddy Bear saying prayers
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, turn out the light.
Teddy Bear sleepingTeddy Bear, Teddy Bear, say “Good night.”

Balloon Day

Tomorrow is National Balloon Day and in honor of such…
Balloon Vampire Bat

Get two black balloons. Inflate one of the balloons fully; inflate the second only half way. Duct tape the tied ends of the balloons together so they form the body of a bat. Instruct the child to cut out two oval eyes and two triangular fangs from white construction paper. Have her cut two small pupils to sit in the center of the bat’s eyes, two triangular ears and a pair of wings out of black construction paper. Assist her in attaching these features to the body of the bat with black duct tape. Use the tape to attach a ribbon where the balloons meet. Attach the ribbon’s other end where you’d like the vampire bat to hang.

Balloon People

After your kindergartner chooses a balloon, inflate it. Direct the child to form a face by decorating the balloon with markers or stickers. Cut out a base shape to resemble a pair of feet from construction paper. Ask the child to color and decorate these feet with markers. Place a small hole in the center of the feet-shaped base, and thread the tied end of the inflated balloon through the hole. If the balloon does not stand up correctly, tape a coin to the bottom of the feet to balance it.

Balloon Octopus

Cut up several colored drinking straws into 1-inch lengths. Direct your kindergartner to thread these straws over eight separate pieces of string. Tie a bead at the end of each string to prevent the straws from falling off. Next, inflate a balloon. Assist the child in taping the strings around the balloon to act as arms of the octopus. He can then draw a face on the balloon to complete this fun octopus.

Balloon Bean Bags

Blow up a balloon to stretch it, then allow it to deflate. Attach a funnel to the balloon neck, then allow your child to pour in dry lentils until the balloon is completely full. Tie the neck of the balloon in a knot, then cut off any excess. Get a second deflated balloon. Cut off the neck completely and throw this away–making sure to save the bottom half. Using the bottom half of the second balloon, stretch it over the lentil-filled balloon. Make sure you are covering the knot you tied on the first balloon. Add more layers for extra security.

Hot Air Balloon

Place two long pieces of ribbon crosswise on a flat surface. Tie a knot where they meet. As your child to decorate a paper cup with paints or markers. It will act as the hot-air balloon’s basket. Pierce four equidistant holes around the paper cup’s rim. Thread the four ribbon ends through these holes and fasten with knots. Position an inflated balloon inside the ribbons. Glue the ribbons to the balloon surface to fasten.

Preschool Art

Have the children decorate blown-up balloons at the art table. Balloons can be decorated with glue and sparkles, beads, or other colouful shiny items. Have children use items of their choices as well. A list of Art-Shelf ideas can be found in our online E-Book available on our site.Once dried, the childrens’ balloon creations can be hung around the room. Or you can paper mache newspaper strips over the balloons and have children decorate them once dried. Pop balloons inside mache and pull out. Their balloon creations will never deflate.

Preschool Math

Keep a record and count how mant days it takes for the balloons to deflate. Count how many balloons you are waiting to deflate.

Science Experiment

Blow up a few different shapes of balloons. Place balloons side by side on top of a shelf but still visible to the children.If needed, tape or sticky tack to surface to prevent the balloons from falling or being blown around. Record how long it takes for the balloons to start to deflate.Does one balloon deflate faster than another? Have children draw pictures of what they see happen as the balloons deflate.

Sensory Activity

Once the balloons are deflated, place them in a sensory bin with other balloons. The other balloons can be filled with air, water, rice, popcorn kernels, oatmeal, etc.
Let the children FEEL the difference in the balloons;HEAR the sounds they make; SEE the difference in size, shape and colour and SMELL the balloons (4 out of 5 senses used)

Academic

MATH

An ability-appropriate level math textbook for each child. 4 days per week. — I am completely against math texts for young children, instead I would recommend a workbook, or series of worksheets.

Drill work on math facts, 3-10 min/day, 5 days per week (while learning math facts). — Starting as simple as rout counting.

Math reading: Each Friday or 2nd Friday of the month, as needed.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Phonics: (for beginning readers), daily.

Handwriting: (while learning penmanship), 2 days per week, Tuesday & Thursday.

Spelling: Monday, Wednesday & Friday. —To begin only AFTER ‘cvc‘ words have begun to be mastered.

Grammar: 2 days per week, Tuesday & Thursday.

Reading Practice and Literature: (read-alouds, personal reading, fluency reading, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, american and world literature) daily, integrated into other subjects.

Composition: 2 – 3 days per week, Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Use compositions to reinforce grammar instruction as well as for additional handwriting practice while your child is learning penmanship. —-NOT until fluency in reading is established.

Vocabulary: daily integrated into reading/literature, as well as other subject areas as needed.

HISTORY/CITIZENSHIP

Use a grade-level history (textbook daily or) complete 3 to 6 history history units per year. If doing units, spend 1-1/2 to 2 hours per day, 2 days per week (Tuesday and Thursday) for 36 weeks, incorporating reading, hands-on activities, art, music, and composition, as appropriate.

Integrate citizenship into history curriculum or complete one or two special classes per year.

Geography and Mapping Skills: Mondays

Current Events: daily

SCIENCE

Use a grade-level science (textbook daily or) complete 3 to 6 science science units per year. If doing units, spend 1-1/2 to 2 hours per day, 2 days per week (Monday and Wednesday) for 36 weeks, incorporating reading, hands-on activities, lab work, art, music and composition, as appropriate.

ART

Each Wednesday, as needed.

MUSIC

Each Monday, as needed.

COMPUTER SKILLS

Each Saturday and/or integrate into other subjects, as needed.

Keyboarding: daily (after child has learned to write in cursive and until he can type a minimum of 40 wpm with only 1-2 errors).

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

Keep track of 75 minutes of physical activity per week.

Attend one or two special classes on Tuesdays, as needed.

HEALTH/SAFETY

Integrate into science curriculum.

ELECTIVES:

Bible: daily

Foreign Language: briefly integrate into lessons daily, as needed.

Field trips: Fridays or occasionally substitute for Monday – Thursday school day, as needed.

Social Activities: daily play time with friends after school, during field trips, Fridays, special classes, or weekends

Scheduling for Homeschooling

A traditional school year is five to six hours a day, 5 days a week for 36 weeks or 180 days.

As a home-schooling family, we could have chosen to follow the same schedule of the local school, but we chose to customize a schedule to suit our family’s needs.

According to the state of Connecticut, we do not have to do every subject every day of the school year.

I have been struggling with the amount of activities in which to enroll my children and just beginning to face the realities that I do not have to enroll my children in every class or outside activity that their/my friends do.

I have decided to enroll each child in in only one pay activity per week. Of course I will schedule play dates and the like, and invite other children to sit in some of our activities and lessons, but I do not want these things to interfere with the educational purpose of home schooling.

Our Fridays will continue to be left for field trip days whereas, Monday through Thursday will hold the highest concentration of academic study. I do however, plan on teaching some things on Fridays and Saturdays.

I am such a planner that I cannot help myself about planning out everything. Of course, I do not anticipate a play-by-play daily run-down, but I will specify subject area topics for each day.

The amount of time spent on each subject depends upon the age, small motor skills, learning style, and abilities of each child (ranges as follows: 3-5 minutes for preschoolers, 10-20 minutes for 1st -3rd graders, 20-45 minutes for 4th – 6th graders, 45 minutes or more for 8th – 12th graders). Although Jonathan is at a preschool age, his attention-span, learning style and abilities enable lessons to run approximately 10-15 minutes.

The total number of hours spent each day in one-on-one instruction ranges as follows: thirty minutes in Kindergarten (broken up into several five-minute sessions), one to two hours in grades 1 – 6, two hours or more in grades 7 – 12. Again, more can be accomplished orally than handwritten for children with handwriting difficulties. In our planning, our TOTAL home-schooling daily agenda is two hours — which conveniently is the amount of nap-time for the baby.

The remainder of our school day is spent in independent book exploration, free play activities with his siblings and friends, complete own “chores”, exploring an instrument, create an art projects, and/or participate in any other activity that can be done independently. The television and computers are not available during the school day, and are limited to ninety minutes weekly, other than for educational purposes.

Some states require an excess of four to five hours of home schooling daily, thankfully Connecticut is not one of them. However there is a difference between “actual teaching time” and “school attendance” time.

Talk like a PIRATE day

PIRATE’S TREASURE MAP

Tasha started kindergarten this year and has been in “craft overload” a bit so we don’t do as many projects at home as we used to. But every once in awhile, I come up with something to intrigue her and “making” the paper for the treasure map definitely did! CLICK HERE to see a full sized photo of the craft. Close the photo window when done viewing.


Pirate's Treasure Map

You’ll need cold coffee or tea (about 1/2 cup), piece of white paper, a blowdryer, a little imagination and some markers.

Take a piece of nice white paper and rip off all the edges (don’t cut them with scissors, rip them!) If you rip the paper a bit more than you meant to, it’s not the end of the world.

Crumple the paper up as tightly as you can into a ball.

Flatten the paper out again and put onto a plate or cookie sheet. (if you haven’t told the kids what you’re doing, they’ll start thinking you’re really weird right about now).

Pour coffee or tea over the paper. Swoosh around with your hands to make sure it covers everything.

If you’re doing this with a large group of smaller kids, you may want to get it to this point and set them aside for a couple minutes (get the children arranged at the table for drawing their maps). Then pull out some finished, dried sheets that you premade. It keeps the kids from having to sit through the “waiting” parts of the project.

Let it sit for about 5 minutes (if you’re doing it with a group, you don’t have to let it sit so long… 2 minutes is enough to give it some colour)

Pour the coffee off into the sink.

Blowdry with a hand held blowdryer on high for about 5 minutes (leave it sitting on the plate while blowdrying or it will tear to pieces). When it’s pretty dry (and starts to lift a bit) switch the blowdrier to low to finish off (about another 2 minutes).

Now… take some markers and draw your map. There should be a big X in the middle, a dotted line trail that winds around and maybe a title that says “Pirate Island” and a North, South, East, West arrow in the corner.

Once you’ve drawn the trail and X you can draw and label some “obstacles”. Some ideas are:

Bloody Beach

Waterfalls of Doom

Skull rock

Monster Mountain

Skeleton Jungle

Captain’s Cave (Captain’s Cavern)

Serpent Pass

You can roll the map up and slip into a 1/4 tp roll holder or tie with a ribbon, stick it into a bottle or just hang it up on your wall!

Eat an Apple Day

The picture above is a photograph of the finished craft. The diagram instructions are drawn. (drawings load faster than photos over the internet)

Stamp the side of your hand in brown paint and stamp it on the paper as the trunk

Stamp your index finger in green paint and stamp it many times on the paper for the leaves (re-dipping in the paint as necessary)

Stamp your pinkie finger in red paint and stamp it lightly on the paper for the apples (light stamps make rounder prints)

Good for Adam and Eve, Johnny Appleseed, Arbor Day and Summer themes.