We're Going On a Leaf Hunt--- And so it begins!
Hey friends and family (near and far)!
Big Boy turned four in August and I finally feel like I'm in a place where I can start having more focused learning time with him. I've been searching and searching for curriculum and ideas for his age and have settled on giving "Before Five in a Row" a shot. We will pick a new book (from the book list) each week and focus on different lessons we learn from each book. Example: Blueberries for Sal... we can count blueberries, talk about storing food for winter, do science experiments with blueberries and sprite, and make jam! Each book we will read each day, five days in a row (hence five in a row), and then do different activities, field trips, and games that correspond in one way or another.
This week I went around town trying to find books from the book list while I wait for my teacher manual to arrive in the mail. While searching for books I discovered a fun fall book called "we're going on a leaf hunt" by steve metzger. Big Boy and I will go on "bear hunts" on our walks around camp all the time so i thought this book would be perfect for us!! The book talks about going on a leaf hunt, climbing a mountain ("can't go around it, gotta go over it"), walking through a forest, going around a waterfall, and across a lake, when they come to a skunk in their path, which sends them running for home.
We started slow by reading the book and then drawing a picture of a tree where the leaves were his hands. Each leaf we colored (he insisted that I do the coloring) according to the leaves from the book. We also talked about the letter "L" for leaf and played with our play dough mats (link below). This was on Wednesday. We took Thursday off because I had lots of shopping to do, and being 30 minutes from town means shopping is an all day affair!
Today, Friday, we had some of our dear friends come over to go on a leaf hunt with us. I printed out these adorable story retell visuals from "Teachers Pay Teachers"here, laminated them, then had the kids act out the story as we read. We donned our shoes and headed for the leaves! Although the kids didn't seem all that interested in the leaves themselves we had a great time exploring. It just so happened that we were able to see all the different landscapes from the books (on a smaller scale). We climbed a "Tall, tall, mountain" (steep hill), trekked through the "dark, dark forest" (well maintained and wide hiking trails), peered at several "swooshing, swooshing waterfall(s)" (little runs in the creek), and ended at the "cold, cold lake" (small little pond).
When we got home and Little Man went to sleep, Big Boy can up to me with his new play dough set and asked if we could "do school". So of course I said yes and got out his play dough mats that I printed from here.
Then we talked about the difference between a capital "L" and a lower case "l". He was very persistent that the lower case "l" was in fact a number 1. (He's not wrong...haha). With that, we transitioned into the next activity which was sorting through capital and lower case "L"'s on different leaves (found here). He did surprisingly well at this, considering it was our first time talking about lower case letters, but was so tired after our hike he wanted me to glue them on for him haha! We settled with me a adding the glue and him placing the picture. He thought it was hilarious to cover up the letters at the top with the leaf letters.
Next we worked on his scissor skills by cutting apart these leaves and then flipped them over and one by one tried to match them back up. We had fun using our new hourglass trying to race against time to match them all up.
We ended our day with reading the story one more time and then playing with the laminated visuals again. I had Big Boy close his eyes while I hid the skunk behind different scenes from the story. I then gave him hints like "they had to go across this" for him to know he should look under the lake. We played out the story for a loooong time. This was by far his favorite thing to do. He thought it was funny to have the skunk try and spray everything.
I think we will take the weekend off and continue on Monday with more "L" work and some arts and crafts with the leaves we collected today. I'm still waiting for my actual curriculum/ teacher's manual to come in the mail next week so I figured we'd just camp out with this book for a little while longer and get used to what school might look like for us. I just need to find a memory verse for him for next week. I'm thinking maybe Jeremiah 29:13a "You will seek me and find me"... or 1 Chronicles 16:11a "Seek the Lord and his strength."... Let me know if you have any good suggestions!! I would love to hear what you do/have done for your kiddos! Have you read this book?? Did you do any fun activities to go with it? Leave me a comment, even if it's just to say hi!
*UPDATE*
As i mentioned before we decided to continue our leaf hunt study, so my hubby and I took the boys to a pumpkin patch on Saturday! We talked about green plants vs. yellow/brown/dead and then pointed out which pumpkin vines were still alive and which weren't. We of course got a big pumpkin to carve later on this week.
Today (Monday) we finished up our leaf hunt book with several fun activities. We started out with some pre-writing/ tracing, then worked on scissor skills by cutting out the lines he had traced. I still haven't figured out how to teach him to hold the paper for himself while cutting, baby steps though.
We then found a little "waterfall" to listen to and enjoy for a little while. Big Boy asked great questions like "where does the water go?" and "where did the water come from?", so we talked about how water flows down hill into a creek or river because it needs somewhere to go ( I can't wait until he's old enough to understand a watershed better!). He then went up stream a little ways and floated sticks down the water, and even damed up a section. He was super excited that he stopped the water in that one spot. His excitement led us to a discussion about beavers and how when they build their homes they stop water with their dams.
Big Boy turned four in August and I finally feel like I'm in a place where I can start having more focused learning time with him. I've been searching and searching for curriculum and ideas for his age and have settled on giving "Before Five in a Row" a shot. We will pick a new book (from the book list) each week and focus on different lessons we learn from each book. Example: Blueberries for Sal... we can count blueberries, talk about storing food for winter, do science experiments with blueberries and sprite, and make jam! Each book we will read each day, five days in a row (hence five in a row), and then do different activities, field trips, and games that correspond in one way or another.
This week I went around town trying to find books from the book list while I wait for my teacher manual to arrive in the mail. While searching for books I discovered a fun fall book called "we're going on a leaf hunt" by steve metzger. Big Boy and I will go on "bear hunts" on our walks around camp all the time so i thought this book would be perfect for us!! The book talks about going on a leaf hunt, climbing a mountain ("can't go around it, gotta go over it"), walking through a forest, going around a waterfall, and across a lake, when they come to a skunk in their path, which sends them running for home.
We started slow by reading the book and then drawing a picture of a tree where the leaves were his hands. Each leaf we colored (he insisted that I do the coloring) according to the leaves from the book. We also talked about the letter "L" for leaf and played with our play dough mats (link below). This was on Wednesday. We took Thursday off because I had lots of shopping to do, and being 30 minutes from town means shopping is an all day affair!
Today, Friday, we had some of our dear friends come over to go on a leaf hunt with us. I printed out these adorable story retell visuals from "Teachers Pay Teachers"here, laminated them, then had the kids act out the story as we read. We donned our shoes and headed for the leaves! Although the kids didn't seem all that interested in the leaves themselves we had a great time exploring. It just so happened that we were able to see all the different landscapes from the books (on a smaller scale). We climbed a "Tall, tall, mountain" (steep hill), trekked through the "dark, dark forest" (well maintained and wide hiking trails), peered at several "swooshing, swooshing waterfall(s)" (little runs in the creek), and ended at the "cold, cold lake" (small little pond).
When we got home and Little Man went to sleep, Big Boy can up to me with his new play dough set and asked if we could "do school". So of course I said yes and got out his play dough mats that I printed from here.
Then we talked about the difference between a capital "L" and a lower case "l". He was very persistent that the lower case "l" was in fact a number 1. (He's not wrong...haha). With that, we transitioned into the next activity which was sorting through capital and lower case "L"'s on different leaves (found here). He did surprisingly well at this, considering it was our first time talking about lower case letters, but was so tired after our hike he wanted me to glue them on for him haha! We settled with me a adding the glue and him placing the picture. He thought it was hilarious to cover up the letters at the top with the leaf letters.
Next we worked on his scissor skills by cutting apart these leaves and then flipped them over and one by one tried to match them back up. We had fun using our new hourglass trying to race against time to match them all up.
We ended our day with reading the story one more time and then playing with the laminated visuals again. I had Big Boy close his eyes while I hid the skunk behind different scenes from the story. I then gave him hints like "they had to go across this" for him to know he should look under the lake. We played out the story for a loooong time. This was by far his favorite thing to do. He thought it was funny to have the skunk try and spray everything.
I think we will take the weekend off and continue on Monday with more "L" work and some arts and crafts with the leaves we collected today. I'm still waiting for my actual curriculum/ teacher's manual to come in the mail next week so I figured we'd just camp out with this book for a little while longer and get used to what school might look like for us. I just need to find a memory verse for him for next week. I'm thinking maybe Jeremiah 29:13a "You will seek me and find me"... or 1 Chronicles 16:11a "Seek the Lord and his strength."... Let me know if you have any good suggestions!! I would love to hear what you do/have done for your kiddos! Have you read this book?? Did you do any fun activities to go with it? Leave me a comment, even if it's just to say hi!
*UPDATE*
As i mentioned before we decided to continue our leaf hunt study, so my hubby and I took the boys to a pumpkin patch on Saturday! We talked about green plants vs. yellow/brown/dead and then pointed out which pumpkin vines were still alive and which weren't. We of course got a big pumpkin to carve later on this week.
Today (Monday) we finished up our leaf hunt book with several fun activities. We started out with some pre-writing/ tracing, then worked on scissor skills by cutting out the lines he had traced. I still haven't figured out how to teach him to hold the paper for himself while cutting, baby steps though.
After cleaning up from breakfast and play-dough, I needed to think of things to keep the boys busy. We've decided to have a TV detox week and Big Boy was getting a little antsy wanting to watch his new favorite show "The Ultimate Beast Master", so we decided to go outside. I packed a small picnic, and went out to enjoy the beauty of the Redwoods and the nature we are blessed to live in. We had such a good time enjoying the sounds of the birds and other animals! At one point all three of us were quiet and still, just listening. Big Boy and I had a great discussion about what a leaf sounds like when it falls. He first said crunchy then quickly (without prompting) changed his mind to "leaves don't make a sound when they fall, only when they hit the ground, then they crunch."
Big Boy is constantly on the move, we kept the beat while I sang the leaf hunt book to him, in between verses he would take a bite of his sandwich before I continued. We often go on a bear hunt while eating a meal, stopping to "open our backpack" and "take out our lunch" and "eat it" (thank you grandma for the fun idea!) After we finished the leaf hunt song he wanted to sing the bear hunt song, so we did. Little Man loved the beat and clapped along while we sang. We also started working on our memory verse with Sign Language, 1 Chronicles 16:11 " Seek the Lord, and His Strength." Big Boy had fun yelling it out as loud as he could, hearing the echo, who am I to stop the Word of the Lord from ringing through the forrest?? :)
After our picnic we decided to go on another leaf hunt around camp. Once again Big Boy wasn't too interested in actually pick up leaves, but we did pick a few lingering Blackberries and talked about some of the leaves we saw as we walked.
We compared the different textures of a Hazelnut tree and a Redwood. He described the Hazelnut as soft and fuzzy and the Redwood as soft (not sure I would have said soft but hey, I'm happy he was entertaining our discussion!)
We then found a little "waterfall" to listen to and enjoy for a little while. Big Boy asked great questions like "where does the water go?" and "where did the water come from?", so we talked about how water flows down hill into a creek or river because it needs somewhere to go ( I can't wait until he's old enough to understand a watershed better!). He then went up stream a little ways and floated sticks down the water, and even damed up a section. He was super excited that he stopped the water in that one spot. His excitement led us to a discussion about beavers and how when they build their homes they stop water with their dams.
We ended our leaf hunt by smelling the leaf from the California Bay tree which was described first as "yuuuum" then "yuck!".
We then spent the rest of the afternoon at the playground at camp. While swinging, we talked about different parts of a leaf (stem and vein) and different parts of a tree (trunk, branches, leaves). Big Boy asked if we could read the book again so we read it while the boys swung. At dinner when Big Boy was telling Daddy about our day we had another great discussion about leaves. Some of the questions I asked were: "If a leaf could talk what would it say? If a tree could talk what would it say? Would it have a voice like this (in a squeaky high pitched voice)? Or like this (in a deep, low voice)? What kind of stories do you think a tree would tell you about?... He had some really great answers and even included Little Man in his answers saying the leaf would say "Hi" and "I love you" to Little Man. I've really been enjoying listening and encouraging his creativity by asking questions that have no "real" answer.
Although our journey, in homeschool, is just starting I feel like I've already seen a new side of Big Boy that I haven't necessarily put to notice in the past. I am so excited to see what the Lord has for us in this journey and am happy that you're here sharing it with us! I hope Big Boy's adventures can inspire you, in one way or another, to go outside and experience the nature the Lord has blessed us with, wether in the Redwoods or the big City, there is soooo much to enjoy and explore!
Tomorrow we start our "official" experience with Before Five In A Row. We are starting with the book "Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?" by: Nancy White Carlstrom. Big Boy saw me creating some of the activities we will be using this week and wanted to start playing with them already! Hubby and I have agreed we don't want to tell him "no" when he asks about doing "school", so I let him play with it (spoiler alert: It was a bear I laminated and Velcroed with different outfit options). Stay tuned to find out what Jesse Bear decides to wear ;) and what Big Boy Decides to wear too!
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