Kinda Thinking & Planning for the Fall....

Well, today, you get two posts for Monday...

Have been working on planning for the fall and have been toying with how we are going to do things this year and also because tomorrow, I have another blog post ready (am going to announce some award winners, so please be sure to check back tomorrow)...
We have play dates scheduled for Wednesday and Friday, and have to get some errands done on Thursday, so if I didn't give you a two for one day today, I would have had to have held off and posted this post over the weekend...

Well, if you read this and have any input / ideas / suggestions, would just love to hear from you!
Well, to get things kick started for the fall, I asked the boys to tell me what they would like to learn about, as well as any questions, ideas, or themes they would like to explore...
they are used to doing this, as it is something we have done since the very beginning...I actively involve them in the process of what we could / should study...sometimes, we do the good ole' standby, KW L...

What I Know, What I Want to Know, and then, What I Learned...

For the purposes of trying to flesh out what we could do starting in the fall, I had them focus primarily on what they Want to know...

Big Bro:
Have been working on putting things together for Big Bro..he wants to learn about the following:

"Chemistry...I like to do experiments with liquids."

"The Presidents...about the ones who were in when we have had wars and what they decided to do about them."

"The future...about robots and if we will use them and how things will work with more machines"

"Inventions...about all of them, actually...but we need to come up with one that works to clean up the oil spill. I want to come up with one..."

"Machines...from little ones to big ones...what is the smallest machine that can do the biggest job"?

"Native Americans...their homes, their weapons, and where they lived and how they got there...and what life is like on a reservation now versus way back, when they first went to one...and what life was like before reservations."

"Animal homes...how they build them and which ones are predators and which ones are prey."
"The Rainforest...who lives there...what grows there...how long ago did they start making poison darts from poison dart frogs..."

"Italian, Chinese, French, and Spanish...how to say some things in these languages and more about the countries and why other countries have people who also speak these languages."

Little Bro:
Little Bro wants to learn about all kinds of things, too...luckily, some of his interests cross over with Big Bro's interests...

"Frogs"

"Snow cones"

"Polar Bears"

"Penguins"

"How you make toys"

"Stuff in the sea"

"Shells"

"Dogs and the ones that help people"

"What's inside your brain"

"How you make glass and Legos"

"What's inside a wheel and how it works"

"How you make chocolate"

"How you get hot and sweaty from the sun"

"How you make a rainbow"

"How do you find gold"?

"What is inside a turtle"?

"Who lives in a barn"?"

"How does poop work...how does food know to turn into poop...how does it know to go through your body and end up that way..."

"How does your body know which tube things should go in...how does the air go in the right place and what you eat or drink go in the right place and how does your body use the food and the drinks and how does your body use air"?

Now, the poop thing threw me at first, but then, the more he talked, the more I realized that he wants to really learn more about the digestive system...
We will cover the systems of the body and will start with digestion when we do systems.

He is also curious about blood, and this is because he has Von Willebrand's.
Little Bro will have to undergo some additional blood tests soon, so we will discuss how blood flows through the body and a little more about the details of his blood disorder.

Have been working on putting things together to kind of tie in with all of their interests, where possible, as well as what our region has to offer, as far as field trips and other sorts of experiential learning opportunities that would tie in with these concepts...

Am most likely going to do:

Fall / Harvest / Farm
 
Body Systems

Polar Animals - will do both poles, but am going to separate them out, as doing them together makes it confusing for kids...

Will discuss Inuit / Eskimo, dog sledding while we do the Arctic Circle...will tie in French and Inuit language for Big Bro for this...

Rainforest - will tie in chocolate and frogs to this...will tie in Spanish, mostly for Big Bro, with this...will also tie in the future of the Rainforest...we had started this earlier this summer, but have not really done it in depth, as we have had lots of company and have taken off some time to have a more laid back sort of summer schedule...

Sea Life - will tie in beach glass, the future of the Gulf, machines to clean up the oil spill, how sea animals are being treated for Big Bro when we do sea life....

Will tie in snow cones and how toys are made with inventions and simple machines...

Will tie in working dogs ( Sheep Dogs, Border Collies) with Farm

Space - Neither one mentioned space when we were discussing this coming school year, which was almost a shocker, as they both LOVE learning about space...but I will ask them at some point in the future if they don't mention it anytime soon...am sure that we will be doing something about space, but just not sure when or what we will be doing for sure...

That is how far I have gotten...
Am sure that they will have other interests as the year goes on, but this is what they gave me for starters...the key is for me now to flesh out the "Essential Questions" that tie in with what they Want to know so that it ties in well with what they Need to know...for this, I use some materials by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, the creators of the concept of Understanding by Design...here is a pdf that highlights their work.

The exciting news is that friends of ours are also interested in doing some hands-on learning projects with us...
We are going to get together to plan and to try to loosely map out some field trips and other enrichment opportunities...

Friends who live here and are part of our co-op, as well as dear family friends who live in Canada...with them, we will share via Skype, email, phone calls, and photos...so it should be neat to be able to share in different ways...

Am getting geared up to make some hands on materials to tie in with these concepts.
We are going to focus on utilizing a bigger light table this year, too, as the boys liked the very tiny and portable one we had, but a bigger one will give us much more of an opportunity...

Both boys love making shadow puppets.
Both love working with translucent and transparent objects. Both also love working with color, light, and texture, so we will be bringing these into our day to day even more this year.

We used an atilierista (artist / art teacher) this past year, not consistently but for some of the major themes. We will do the same again this year.

Miss Laurie is going to do a end of the summer camp for us, and plans to explore the books and the artwork of Eric Carle, so I anticipate that we will be doing many hands on projects involving collage...can't wait, as I love Eric Carle's books and his artwork!

Laurie is a talented artist in her own right, but thought that doing a themed camp would really pull children into the art...so that is the plan.

Both Big Bro and Little Bro love Eric Carle, so it is going to be fun learning for all!

Well, hope that you all had a happy Monday!

Again, if anyone has some suggestions to go with any of these concepts  / essential questions / themes, would love to hear from you!

Big Bro's Cool Desert Project & Little Bro's Nice Spin Off Work

Big Bro had to choose a project to do for his science co-op class.
He chose to research, as he titled it, "Desert Life in All the Deserts of North America."

Seeing that we live in Florida, finding hands-on resources about the deserts of North America appropriate for a six year old  was a bit of a workout, to say the least...we ended up ordering several books from Amazon, as our libraries and bookstores in our area were lacking in materials.

We did manage to find some great North American Desert Biome books from Amazon...

We did not have three part cards for desert plants, but did manage to find a lapbook component, a mini-book about desert plants that both boys used for shelf work.

It can be a bit of a challenge to find resources that tie in with whatever your child is passionate about learning when you truly try to follow your child...but once we rounded up the materials, he was good to go.
We also found some neat larger sized plastic animals at Michael's.
We had to go to several Michael's Stores to find these, but they really helped to bring the animals to life for both Big Bro and for Little Bro.
The animals also worked well in our mini sand table that we had out as work while Big Bro was doing his desert project.
This made it possible to let Little Bro work on something related to the desert, too...
We found a tarantula, scorpion, desert tortoise, and a sidewinder snake...

Little Bro  just loved the book, Way Out in the Desert.

For Little Bro's work, since he has been working with learning to write his numbers, he was very intrigued that this book has numbers hidden on each page.
While Big Bro was working on his desert project, Little Bro worked at making a numbers book based on the numbers and the animals he found in Way out in the Desert.
 He enjoyed making his numbers book so much that on the following days after making his first numbers book, he made a second one, but then, he chose other items to count and to find on the pages.

Little Bro also did a numbers scavenger hunt with this book where he had to find the magnetic number to go with the number on the book pages.

He then chose to have me hide some numbers around our home for him to find. He had a great time looking for the numbers and then, putting them in order from 0 to 20.
He loves to do scavenger hunts so if he is in the mood to do one, it gets added to our day as his work...

It worked out so well that Little Bro was enjoying the various work on the shelves, but yet, with a totally different focus.

Big Bro pretty much ended up focusing on the Sonoran Desert, as we were able to find the most amount of materials appropriate for young children about the Sonoran Desert, as compared to the others.

We found two online resources that were especially helpful in giving his project some structure...

The first being a lapbook on Homeschool Share about Desert Animals.
This lapbook was designed by Jody Small...a big thank you to Jody for putting the lovely lapbook template together.
Instead of doing it as a lapbook, several parts of the lapbook were put out on trays as Montessori inspired shelf work that he then was able to choose.


This lapbook has nice classification cards that work well as three part cards if you make two copies and cut one stack into the photo cards and the labels.

Both boys enjoyed doing the desert animals three part cards...

The Homeschool Share Desert Animals lapbook components are all designed to work with the book, One Small Square - Cactus Desert by Donald M.Silver.

This author has a whole series of One Small Square books he has written and since this one was such a hit, we are most likely going to order the order ones he has written, as they were a great resource...interesting and informative, but not too overwhelming for a child just starting to learn to do research on their own...

Big Bro's favorite book though was Cactus Hotel by Brenda Guiberson.

This is an awesome book!
If she has written any other books, we are going to order them.
Cactus Hotel takes your child through a beautifully illustrated and nicely written journey of the life cycle of the Saguaro Cactus...it tells you all about the life cycle of this majestic cactus, as well as all of the different critters who make their home in and around the Sagauro...just a fabulous book!
So glad that we ordered it! Big Bro loved this book...he read it to himself, had both Dear Hubby and I read it to him during the day and then, as a bedtime story...he read it to Little Bro and then had us read it to both of them...he could not get enough of it.

The second resource that proved to be quite helpful was a Bilingual Webquest  - The Desert Animal Webquest created by Ms. Magee and Ms. Miller at Blattman Elementary School  and then translated into Spanish by Mrs. Pereda and Mrs. Neal from the Howsman Spanish Literacy Team. A huge thank-you to them for not only designing this very child-friendly, informative Webquest in English, but also in Spanish...
The Webquest was created back in 2004, so it is rather simple in its design, but all of the material is still very relevant and the format is perfect for a young one to do some hands on research about desert animals. Ms. Magee and the others really came up with a great resource for young ones just learning how to do research...

They created a nice research guide that you can print out and then, your child can complete on his or her own.

If your children are going to do any research about animals, regardless of the biome, this research guide is a keeper...they could use it for every animal they study...
This guide will serve your child well as shelf work time and time again as they research various animals. 

Big Bro loved integrating technology into his project, and this was perfect, as it was pretty straightforward...not too jazzy or cutesy...very factual and well done.
Their Webquest is designed for two children to work together as researchers, where they each would select one animal and would fill out one form about the animal.
Big Bro worked on this by himself and instead of just doing one page about one animal, he did all of the pages about all of the animals in both English and Spanish, as well as a few additional animals.

He then did some separate research on desert plants, as he wanted to let his co-op classmates know how the plants and animals are both necessary in the desert biome.

If you are trying to integrate Spanish into your English program, this Webquest would be great for you, as it lets your child hear the names of each animal in Spanish, as spoken by a native speaker.
The research form is also available in Spanish, so your child could actually complete their entire research in Spanish.
Big Bro really enjoyed learning about life in the desert, and I must say that Little Bro and I also learned a great deal as he was working...really had never studied about the desert biome before and we all found it to be fascinating.
Here are some photos of Big Bro doing his presentation for his co-op class.

This was Big Bro's first time ever doing a presentation in front of a group. He was a little nervous at first, but then, once he got comfortable with being in front of everyone, he seemed to enjoy the experience. He had fun explaining what he had learned about desert life to his classmates.

Learning about the desert biome was a fascinating experience...so glad that Big Bro chose it for his project, as we all ended up learning so much about the deserts of North America...makes me want to go visit the Sonoran Desert in person!