Q is for Queen

We chose to do the Queen of Sheba, but you could read about the story of Queen Esther.

Memory Verse: Jesus said, "Behold, I Come Quickly." Revelation 22:7


Reading: Read the story of the Queen of Sheba in 1 Kings.


Listen to the "QU Song" by They Might be Giants.


Q is for Quilts. Research different quilt patterns. Look online, in library books, or a local museum. We had several at our home that we looked at. Discuss the time era when it was made, what design it is. Talk about what kind of person made the quilt. Why do you think they chose this pattern or colors?


If you are really talented, you could make a quilt with your child.


Plan B: Make a quilt square from colored construction paper.


Or Plan C: (We chose this one). Go here and chose a printable quilt design color sheet, enlarge the square and print it off. Then color it. We read The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco. (reading, art, social studies)


Q is for Quarters. We practiced identifying quarters from other coins and counting by 25's (to $10). We talked about what was on the original quarter and some of the state quarters. We played several rounds of guessing heads or tails. *BTW: I think my child is part psychic. She got 8 of the 10 times right. We looked at an original quarter and several state quarters and we made rubbings of some of the quarters. (fine motor, math, art)

Q is for Queens. Study some of the famous queens of all time. Which country did they rule over? (social studies) I wasn't able to find anything really age appropriate. Later we will read the Dear America: Royal Diaries series. (They are historical fiction books about Cleopatra and other royalties throughout history).


You could also make a crown and have your child be queen for the day! (art, imagination)


Q is for Quill pens. Explain that there was a time before pens and school supplies. Discuss what people used instead. Ok, we had to improvise a little here. We used feathers from the dollar store and dipped them in ink to write with. I used ink from an inkjet refill kit that I had on hand.(writing, social studies)

Q is for Quail. Read Exodus 16:13 and Numbers 11:31. Then research the quail bird. Kidzone has a cool quail coloring page. You could even try eating some quail eggs! (science)



Q is for Quarter Pounder With Cheese. It's dinner time. I'm thinking FOOD! That would be a good snack, or you could quarter up a cookie, apple or other food. That would be some more math, fractions.


Q is for Quarantine. I so did not plan this one! We could have skipped this activity. Morgan came down with a 103 degree fever. No other symptoms, so I quarantined her to her room! We did have fun coloring her pictures and making her a get well card, though.


Dltk has a treasure trove of Q activities.

O is for Obadiah

Memory verse: 1 Kings 18:12. "I your servant have worshipped the Lord since my youth."

O is for Octopus. We read about the octopus and then played this great toss game. (science & large motor skills)

We also counted the legs and took the time to discuss the prefix "oct" meaning eight as in octopus having eight legs and octagon having eight sides. (math)

Ok, here's a question my 8-yr-old asked. Why is October the 10th month, instead of the 8th? Good question!

O is for Oxygen. We read the book Air Is All Around You by Franklyn M. Branley. I substituted the word oxygen for air. She didn't try to correct me on this. Then we blew a pinwheel and did some experiments with the air and crepe streamers outside. (science)

We also studied that there is oxygen in water by filling a glass with water. After a short time the bubbles that appear in it are oxygen. This allows the fish to breathe. Another experiment was fill a bowl with water. Stuff a paper towel at the bottom of a glass. Put the glass directly upside down in the bowl of water. The paper towel will not get wet. You have to put the glass in the bowl at an angle for the oxygen to get into the cup and allow water in.

O is for Ornaments. Cut various colors of yarn pieces and let sit in a bowl of liquid starch or white glue. Next, blow up a balloon. Cover the balloon with the yarn pieces. After drying pop the balloon, you will have a pretty ornament. (art)

O is for Owls. We read about owls here. And then made several owl crafts. (art) Preschool Express has a whole mini unit on owls.

O is for Obedience. What a great character trait to work on. We needed work on this. We read a book about obedience and discussed what it means to obey. We discussed complete obedience vs. disobedience (or partially obeying) and we reviewed expectations. By including a children's story it makes a good discussion tool and the kids don't seem to be defensive about discussion.

Mother Goose Fun

Shayla is going into 2nd grade, but she still loves Mother Goose rhymes, and particuarly these Barney books:

I can't remember a time when she didn't know nursery rhymes. We said them to her when she was just a baby.

We also spent time watching these nursery rhyme videos:

We had a fun time saying the rhymes and snapping beans. Yes, I'm already teaching multi-tasking. LOL! Actually, I'm not a slave driver, she was doing the movements to the rhymes. I was snapping the beans.

Another good resource for learning nursery rhymes is Dr. Jean's Nursery Rhymes and Good Ol' Times CD. Young children seem to learn best with music - repetition.

Write your own nursery rhyme or copy your favorite and illustrate. (handwriting & language)

There are some nursery rhyme printable pages at DLTK. You could make a cute book with them.

We breezed through this because in the past we did a more in depth look at nursery rhymes. She did an activity and nursery rhyme for each day.

Do you have any more nursery rhyme suggestions or links. Please share.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - Updated

Sorry, I hit that post button too early. My brain isn't back into the swing of things either! LOL!


Does anyone know if this movie has been released yet? I was hoping to see the movie soon after completing this mini-unit.


After several weeks off of homeschool, we are starting to get back into the swing of things. Although, I don't think Shayla is ready to start again. We quickly went through this literature unit study. It was very hard to hold her interest. UGH!

We started out by playing Sgetti Scatter.

After reading the story, we completed the packet from Literature Activities For Young Children - book 7.

Here we made a paper "Grandpa."

Health/fine motor skills/sorting: We discussed nutrition and sorted plastic food into food groups. No plastic food, you could always cut pictures out of the weekly grocery ads and glue them onto paper plates. We didn't spend much time doing this since we have done it many times before.

Bible: We read in Exodus the story of God feeding the Israelites manna from heaven.

Food: We finished off with porcupine meatballs for dinner, (of course!)

I had all these grand illusions of doing a whole weather related unit, but there was no interest. I did find some cool ideas for a lapbook of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs at Homeschool Share.

Japan Studies

This is the last country we did for earning 3 Brownie Scout badges.

Shayla did not enjoy learning about Japan because we learned that they eat lots of seafood, including sushi and octopus, but she did love the kimonos they wear at festival time.

Geography

We started off by locating the Japanese islands on a globe. We learned that Japan is made up of almost 4,000 islands. *Note to self: Maybe this is where I could find my own private island that I always tell the kids I need!

Here is a printable map of Japan for a lapbook. DLTK has a whole section on Japan including a printable flag.

Japan was probably first inhabited by people from Siberia, and later from Korea and China. Japan has elements from each of these cultures, but has developed it's own culture.

Reading

Japan: A Portrait of the Country Through its Festivals and Traditions

Country Insights: Japan: City and Village Life

Language Hunt

• Hello - Konnichiwa



• Good-bye - Sayonara



• Thank you - Arigato

Games

Sumo wrestling, baseball, soccer

I was stretching my creativeness here. Since we played baseball and soccer for other countries that we studied, sumo wrestling was it!

We put on our sumo bellies by attaching pillows with our "kimono" wraps. Then we took turns wrestling around. It was hard to do this because we were all laughing so hard!

For more fun, we watched some real sumo matches on you tube.

Stories: Folk or Fairytales

Since my favorite resource (Childcraft Encyclopedia) apparently sprouted feet and ran away, we looked online and found these Japanese folktales.

Brownie Scouts in Japan

Brownie Scouting has been in Japan for 90 years. The Brownie level is similar to ours (grades 1-3 or ages 6-8). There are also the Juniors, Seniors, and Ranger levels. We enjoyed the official Girl Scouting of Japan site and the unofficial site by Japanese Girl Scout Leader, Kimie Yokoi.

Family Life

It used to be common for three generations to live under each roof, but since the 1950's the growth of already crowded cities means that homes are only large enough for parents and children. The home typically has a kitchen, small living room, one bath and two bedrooms (for a two child family).

The Japanese home usually includes the many high tech gadgets including, washing machines, numerous kitchen appliances, tv's, dvd players, and heated toilet seats.

It is still common for families to sit around a kotatsu, or low table in the winter. This table has quilts for covering up and cushions placed on the floor.

Each night the family takes a soak in a square cedar box filled with very hot water. They do not actually bathe in it because the water is shared by all members of the family, so they wash before soaking. Before it became common for homes to be equipped with these tubs, people used to take a community bath at the sento. In some parts, there are still sentos.

Japanese sleep on futon-like mats. In the morning they roll them up and put them away. This allows for the room to be used for something else.

Education

Most children begin attending nursery school at age 4, and are required to attend school between ages six and fifteen.

At age twelve kids enter junior high school. At fifteen , 90% go to senior high for four years. About a third of these kids go to college.

In addition to the normal school subjects, Japanese children are taught music, arts, crafts, games, swimming, and athletics, including martial-arts.

Religion

Most believe in the Shinto religion, but there are also many Buddhists.

Foods

Fermented soybeans (miso), fresh seafood including sushi and octopus, rice and veggies at almost every meal.

Since none of these meals sounded very appealing, we decided to eat our lunch in Japanese traditional style.
First off, we wore our I made a kotatsu or low table using a cardboard box turned upside down and put a larger tote lid on top. Hey use what you have! We used pillows and a beanbag chair for our seats. And of course we wore our "kimonos." Technically, they were our bathrobes, but it worked!

Craft

This is our finished kokeishi doll. It was made using an empty toilet paper tube with a crumpled piece of aluminum foil for the head. Then cover it with paper mache, paint it, and make a kimono out of scrapbook paper.

Holidays/Festivals

New Year Festival - end of December to January 3 - Very similar to the Chinese New Year festivities

Setsubun - February 3 or 4 - Includes the ritual of bean throwing to chase out demons

Cherry Blossom Celebrations - Each Spring

The Doll Festival (or Girl's Festival) - March 3 - Parents celebrate their daughters.

Shayla was really interested in this and thinks we should celebrate this holiday, as well. I told her that in our family we celebrate our daughter's every day!

Children's Day (or Boy's Day) - May 5 - Parents celebrate their sons.

Shrine Festivals - Each shrine has it's own festival at some time during the year.

Shichi-Go-San - November 15 - a festival for girls aged 3 and 7 and boys aged 5. These numbers are thought to be so unlucky in the Japanese culture, that they celebrate the children live through these unlucky ages.

China studies - Updated

Geography
We began our study of China by locating the country on the globe. We also named the continent it is located on and other countries surrounding China. (geography)

If you would like to add a map page to your book, here is a printable map of China.

As always for a whole slew of China activities, visit http://www.dltk-holidays.com/china/index.htm.

Reading
We read several library books about China to learn about the culture, including:

• Letters From Around the World: China


• A Taste of Culture: Foods of China


• China ABC’s: A Book About the People and Places of China


• A Child’s Day In A Chinese City
  

Language Hunt – Mandarin Chinese

• Hello – ni hao – (nee how)


• Ping-pong – ping pang qiu - (ping pang chew)


• Panda bears – xiongmao – (shung-mau)


• Bad – boo-how


• Cat – mao – (rhymes with wow)


• Dog – go


• Good luck – (jew-nee-how-yun)


• Good morning – (zow-chen-how)


• Good night – (wahn-abn)


• Great – (tie-how)


• Tea – cha


• Thank you – (shee-shee)
  

Games
Chinese enjoy playing ping-pong ball. Ping-pong is a national sport in China.

Many Chinese also participate in tai chi a martial arts.

Jian (Shuttlecock). Looks like a badmitton game.

For more sports and activities in the Chinese culture, go to
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/focus/sport-aerial.htm

For Chinese kids games:
http://chineseculture.about.com/library/weekly/topicsub_game.htm

You could also play Chinese Checkers or Chinese Jump Rope.

We played our own variation of ping-pong and Chinese checkers, using supplies we already had on hand.

Songs
We listened to some traditional Chinese songs here: http://www.laurasmidiheaven.com/International/WorldMusicChinese.shtml

Stories: Folk or Fairytales

The Five Chinese Brothers.

Brownie Scouts in China
According to Wilipekia, Girl Scouting is no longer in China, with the exception of Hong Kong and Taiwan (which are separate from mainland China). When the Communist Party took over China in 1949, Scouts were officially banned.

Instead, children are a part of the Young Pioneers (Shaoxiandiui) of China and the Communist Youth League organizations.

China is only one of 6 countries without the Scouting program.

These are the from the Taiwan scout programs:


Guide Promise
On my honor,

I promise that I will do my best:

To do my duty to God and My country;

To help other people at all times;

To obey the Girl Scout Law.

Guide Law
A Girl Scout's honor is to be trusted.
A Girl Scout is loyal.
A Girl Scout's duty is to be useful and to help others.
A Girl Scout is a friend to all and a sister to every other Girl Scout.
A Girl Scout is courteous.
A Girl Scout is a friend to animals.
A Girl Scout obeys orders.
A Girl Scout smiles and sings under all difficulties.
A Girl Scout is thrifty.
A Girl Scout is pure in thought, in word and in deed
Guide Motto
Be Prepared
Do a good turn daily
The greatest aim in life is to serve.

Children and Family Life

The surname (family name comes before the given name (first name) in China.
Because of the large population of China, it is typical for couples to only have one child. One book even said there was a government law of one-child-per-family rule.

Because China is so populated, most families live in small apartments. There are some cars, but many still travel by bicycle, buses, or taxis.

Education
School starts at 8 am. Children wear a uniform, including a red neck kerchief for the Young Pioneers. The children must stand up at their desks before giving an answer, when called upon by their teacher. Morgan's pen pal from China said they attend classes seven days a week - almost every day of the year!

A typical Chinese school day schedule is as follows:

Chinese lessons, English, handwriting, recess, arithmetic, outside eyesight exercises, Noon-3pm lunch break, art, music 5:30pm school is over

Politics/Government

Communist government.

Religion
Most are Buddhists or Taoists, but there is a small population of Christian and Muslims. Ancestor worship is by far the most popular religious practice.

Food

There were several suggestions for traditional Chinese foods in The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook that we used.

Here's some of their suggestions:

• Birthday Noodles with Peanut Sauce


• Shark's Fin Soup


• Salted Duck Eggs


• Bird's Nest Soup


• Seaweed Jellyfish Salad

Do I hear a big EEEWWWW! Um, no thanks! It won't get eaten in our house. I'm pretty daring when it comes to trying new foods, the only one I would even consider is salted duck eggs, but where to get those around here!?!

Using what we have, we decided on Chinese fried rice with chicken. I'm not sure how traditional that dish really is, but we tried eating it with chopsticks!

Craft

This is the beginning of a model of a Chinese New Year Dragon. Take a paper towel tube and tape a paper cup to the front for the mouth. Cut three parts of an egg carton and tape to the paper towel tube. This is it's back. Cut another two egg cartons for feet (tape to tube). Then take some scrap aluminum foil and make a tail. Cut an arrow shape from cardboard and glue to the aluminum foil.

Next, cover the whole thing with paper mache. We used the recipe of 3 parts flour to 1 part water. Tear newspaper into strips or pieces and cover. So far we have put 3 layers on it. You have to allow it to dry thoroughly between layers.

Here's our lovely Chinese New Year's Dragon with a nice coat of paint and other details.

Holidays/Festivals
Spring Festival at the start of Chinese New Year
Guoqingjie (National Day). The birthday of China on October 1. It has been celebrated since China became People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949.

China was a fun culture to learn about! Have you ever studied the culture? Do you have any ideas to share?

Congratulations, Shayla, for Hiding the Word in Your Heart!

Last year during one of my couch moments, we discovered a cute kids program on the Christian Network Channel. It is called Star Family Singers. They have a program where kids earn badges for memorizing and writing out 10 verses of scriptures.

Shayla loves the idea of earning badges, so much that she doesn't even mind the work of writing out these verses.

Quickly, I replaced our formal handwriting curriculum with this, (which she actually enjoys doing).

No more tears over handwriting!

Shayla finished badge 2 at the end of May. We mailed off the verses. She has been eagerly awaiting her package. She was very excited when she received her awards last week. Here's what she received:

1 Jonah beanie baby bear

1 color book

1 music cd

1 DVD of their show

and badge 2 (on the beanie baby)

Did I mention it is free to join this club? It is appreciated if you can send a donation to cover shipping and handling, but it is not required.

If you are interested, go to Heart Club. There you can watch several of the shows, print color pages, and learn how you can join the badge club.

The Heart Club makes handwriting work for us (even through the summer). For more ideas that work, visit We are THAT Family.

Summer Fun Schooling 2009 - Week 1

We have been doing lots of educational fun. I love not being restricted by any curriculum. She has been completing about half a dozen workbook pages daily. These are just little consumable books from Sam's and the dollar store. Some are at preschool level, but they are still valuable for brushing up on skills.

Now, I'm not a mean teacher. . .

We've been doing lots of other fun things. Like earning brownie badges. . .

Making and blowing bubbles. . .

and other educational activities!

When painting my bedroom last week, I came across a bunch of old homemade games I made and consumable workbooks. So, we're going to enjoy them one last time before passing them along.

Playing Bingo

Letter Hound

This is an easy homemade game. Just find a printable dog color page online, color it, cut it out and then in half. I glued mine to cardboard to last longer.

Then write an upper and lower case letter on an index card.

The object is to make letter hound grow by putting the index cards in alphabetical order.

(letter recognition)

*Note to self: I think I might make a variation of letter hound - a book worm for the wall. For each book she reads aloud to me, she gets to add a circle with the book name in it on the wall. Hopefully, this visual reminder will encourage reading!

Count the Buttons

or beans, or pieces of paper, whatever. Shayla loves to play with my jar of buttons, so we chose to use them. Use whatever you have.

Make dots on index cards 1-10 (or you could use dice). Count out buttons or other objects to match the same number of dots on the card.

(math)

Fun With the Letter B

Read a story with multiple b letter sounds in it. We read B.B. Bunny. When child hears b sound they can bounce on a ball or jump up and down, whatever.

Print images from google image clip art that begin with letter b. Some examples are book, ball, box, boy, bone, bird. Cut them in a triangle shape and make another corresponding triangle with letter Bb on it. Make butterflies using springy clothespins.

(letter recognition, fine motor skills)

Other Bb ideas:

• Build a building with blocks.
• Toss beanbags into a basket.
• Blow up balloons.
• Blow bubbles.
• Talk about beautiful things or being bossy.
• Make bugs on a bed. (Spread peanut butter on bread, put raisins, nuts, cereal, or candies on top for "bugs.")

Walking Along (Counting/Number Recognition)

Trace your child's feet or shoes. Cut 10 of each out. This would be a fun time to measure the paper feet, talking about growth. Read Dr. Seuss's Foot Book.

I wrote numbers 1-20 on each of the feet. Shayla put these in order.

I have to say that I was surprised that she had difficulty with the numbers 12-19! UGH!

More things to do:

• Dot-to-dots
• count cars as driving, pennies, blocks, marbles, toys
• Use a calendar to count days. How many days til a special day?

(math)

Summer Fun Activities

So far this summer has been kind of a disappointment. It definately has not went as I planned. We haven't been able to do anything spur of the moment. Morgan has had driver's education for 4 hours a day 3 days a week.

Despite this schedule, we have found the time to continue to attend Crocodile Rock Children's Church.

The snack looked so cute, I took a picture of it!

Gametime!

As you can see, we've had a lot of fun!

Nature Detectives at the local state park. The topic was bugs. Because June is the month of graduations and baby showers, we've only gotten to attend one.

She made the dragonfly at Nature Detectives and the butterfly at Crocodile Dock.

We've also attended two programs at a library:

The Spoon Man. He puts on a fun musical show and shares how his daughter was cured of cancer at St. Jude's Hospital.

Harpbeat

This was perfect timing. We were just working on/finishing up our Brownie badges for music, countries and cultures. Donna introduces geography, foreign language, and music instruments from around the world.

*We were debating on whether or not to attend this show since we've been so busy lately. I googled the performer before attending the show. Shayla did better with her behaviors because of the familiarity factor. On the Harpbeat website we were even able to listen to clips of the CD we bought at the show!

*Another thing we've been doing is attending the evening shows when possible. This is because it is not nearly as crowded as the afternoon session. Local daycares usually pack the place in the afternoon - the noise and confusion level is high.

And a few visits to the playground.



What fun things are you spending your time doing with your families?

Sounds of Music Brownie Badgework

Make Your Own

Make your own instrument. We made several shakers. We took empty dish soap bottles and filled one with cheerios and one with uncooked rice.

We also tried making one using paper plates with beans inside. Let's just say, it didn't work too well. In fact, it made a huge mess!

Single String Swing

We made our own strumming instrument. It was easy. Put a hole in the bottom of a can. (We used a cashew can) We made a hole by tapping a nail into the bottom of the can. Take the nail out and put yarn into the hole. Knot, so that the string will not come through the hole. Make the string about three feet long. Tie it to a pencil and wrap around the pencil several times. Hold onto the pencil and put one foot on the can. Strum.

You can make different sounds by tightening/loosening the yarn on the pencil.

Sliding Air

Before you do this experiment, you should look at and learn about a trombone. Then take a plastic water bottle and fill about 3/4 with water. Put a straw in the water bottle and blow across the top of the straw.

You can make different sounds by raising/lowering the straw in the water.

Blowing Air

This experiment was a flop for us. You cut holes in a straw so it is like a flute. Maybe that's why I never played in the band at school. LOL!

Yahoo, a Kazoo

Decorate an empty toilet paper roll with markers. (You don't have to, but it keeps little fingers busy for a few minutes). Punch a hole at one end of the tube. Cover the other end with a square of wax paper (cereal or cracker liner, if you don't have waxed paper). Secure with a rubber band. Hum away!

Strike Up the Band

We gave a performance of all our band instruments - homemade and store-bought. The poor dogs did not ask for an encore.

We also recently attended Morgan's band concert and witnessed her playing the clarinet in preparation for her end-of-the-schoolyear playing test for band.

We really enjoyed this badge! Shayla loves anything to do with crafts and music. When you put them together, what's not to love!

Sounds of Music is the 21st Brownie Try-it that Shayla has earned.

Making Music Brownie Badge

This is the 20th Brownie try-it, Shayla has earned!

I tied this in with the M is for Moses lesson we were doing. I kind of rushed through this badge, mostly just following the guide because we have done so much with music already! In fact, we had already done all of the badge requirements, but we did them again for fun because Shayla loves music!

Move to the Music

We turned on the music channels on our Dish Net. We flipped through a variety of tunes, from reggae, island beat to big band. From kid tunes to ballet music. We listened to each kind and told how it made us feel, then made up dances to the beat.

Rhythm Instruments

We got out Shayla's big box of toy instruments and made beautiful music. Ok, I don't know if it was beautiful, the dog starting howling - literally! We had a good time anyway! Disclaimer: We don't have any close neighbors (besides Grandma, who is used to our quirkiness). So, if you have neighbors, you might want to close the windows and doors first!

Singing in Rounds

We tried singing Loopty-Loo and Bingo. Shayla just didn't get it. This doesn't surprise me, since they tried this activity at Kings Kids and none of the kids got it.

Action Songs

Ok, aren't all songs action songs? They are in our family. Let me rephrase that, in our home! We sang Bingo and The Brownie Smile Song with hand movements.

Melody Glasses

We have done this activity several times. Put different amounts of water in eight glass jars to make a musical scale. I allow her to put food coloring in for fun. Then play your water xylophone with a spoon.

Instead of this we spent time playing with the new musical bells Shayla got for her birthday.

Music Around the World

We attempted to sing the Brownie Friend Maker Song from Israel. We have been learning new songs, fairytales, and more on our Around the World Badgework (which is a combination of 3 badges).

If you have anymore fun music ideas, please share!

Hatching Out Chicks

Our love of science projects are continuing through the summer months. I wanted to hatch out some chicks from fresh chicken eggs, but I didn't want to pay the price for an incubator. The cheapest I found was $60 - not a very frugal science lesson. So, I found how to make a simple incubator on you tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCfdvClWUWo


I had most of the materials already on hand, but you could probably build it for $10-$15.


If you decide to try hatching out your own eggs, here are some general guidelines.

The main things to remember is:

• Don't touch the eggs with your hands.
• Remember to turn the eggs several times a day.
• And make sure your incubator is at a steady temperature of 99-103 degrees. *We had to leave ours plugged in for 24 hours before the temperature regulated.

Here's a whole lot more information on hatching chicks:

• Incubating and Hatching Chicks by Texas Agriculture Extension Service. This contains some charts that would have been great to use for homeschooling.
• Hatching and Brooding a Small Number of Chicks. In a few days, I'm looking forward to candling the eggs to see if we have any chicks.

We have also been reading several children's library books about chicks and hatching out.

Have you ever tried hatching out eggs? If so, please share any advice. What else are you doing to keep the learning going this summer?

Good Food Brownie Scout Badgework (nka Eat Right, Stay Healthy)

Much of this was review for Shayla because we often talk of food in our home. But she had fun doing it anyway.

Smart Shopper

Although we eat mostly healthy and organic in our home, there are several nameless individuals that have to have a "good snack" every now and then. Thus, we have junkfood, too. I don't have to worry about myself or Shayla being tempted to eat it. We both remember how yucky we felt before so, it's not even an option to "sneak" it.

With that said, we got several products out of our stash. We looked at the packaging, read it, discussed it. I explained where to find the ingredients on a package. The items are listed on the label in the order of what it contains the most of. I read the ingredients and Shayla determined them to be ok or junkfood. We compared ingredients of homemade vs. packaged. We discussed the hidden names for corn, milk, wheat and gluten and other unhealthy ingredients. She asked a good question, why do they put those things in?

She became confused on the kool-aid. It claimed to be an antioxidant, contain large amounts of vitamins, and be gluten-free. This was also a good opportunity to talk about truth-in-labeling.

(health, science)

Great Groceries

We discussed what we needed at the store this week while looking at the store ads. We discussed meals and what kind of foods go together. Shayla cut out items needed and glued them on a paper. She took this to the grocery store with us.

She also helped put things into the cart and onto the conveyor at the checkout. This is a big step for her because usually she avoids being an active participant in our grocery shopping.

(health, fine motor skills, homemaking life skills)

Dairy Foods

Shayla identified different foods that belong to the dairy category. Unfortunately, we were unable to sample any because of food allergies to all dairy products, but instead, we did enjoy some Rice Divine (comparable to ice cream).

Proteins

Shayla identified several types of proteins, including meats, poultry, and dry beans and seeds.

Next, we looked at every kind of dried bean in our house. We had about every bean imaginable. We read labels on some packages and talked about the vitamins/minerals each bean contained. Shayla enjoyed feeling and smelling all the beans!

Then, she assisted me in making her one of her and her dad's favorite meals: soup beans! While doing this, I explained the importance of soaking the beans.

Plenty of Pasta

Similar to the activity we did with beans, we pulled every type of pasta out and looked at them, touched them and identified them.

We discussed how pasta can be made from different things, such as wheat, rice flour, spinach, etc.

She really enjoyed playing in a container of macaroni. We used to do this frequently as a sensory activity.

She will also be assisting me in making a meal of spaghetti & meatballs for our family dinner tonight.

(health, sensory)

*Note to self: If I were a supermom, I would teach my child to make homemade pasta to go with this activity, but, I'm not a supermom!