10 October 2009

Language Arts Sheets
We find some of these grammar sheets are good to use alongside Queen Homeschooling & Writing With Ease, also with the occassional reader, for early grammar review.
And these free grammar pages (scroll down) from Notebooking Pages are great to use for copywork or dictation, while practicing a grammar term.
Grammar Terms with sentence examples
Grammar Terms

02 October 2009

Australia
Australian Geography, Australian History and Australian Animals unit cont...)

We are still meandering our way through the Australian States and early Australian history creating some lapnote pages as we go and incase anyone is interested below are some more of the Australian lapbook lapnote creating (etc..) links from our files.

Australian Animals & Nature
Australian Nature Study Downunderlit Paid

Lapbook Australian Marsupials
Australian Animals Fact File

Australian Animals Paid
Tasmanian Devils Printable
Tasmanian Devil click bright green Video tab
Australian Nature
Platypus Printable
Platypus 1 - Click bright green video tab
Australian Animals Paper Craft
Colour in - Kangaroo
Colour in - Koalas
Australia Notebook Pages (used title page for our project)

Australia Notebooking, mini books etc..
Australia Lapbook for youngers
Farmer Shultz Ducks Unit study
Australian Geography Unit Study Five in a Row Style. Paid from Downunderlit

Click bright green video tab for Aboriginal Art
Australian Paper Money
Australian Flags Lapbook
Australian Memory Match or other card younger years

For Australian Maps please see previous posts.
HSShare - Pumpkin Runner Lapbook Could use this map for youngers :-)
Australian States & Territorities Review Game

Australian Paper Dolls (again)
Outback Paper Dolls
Australian Guide Paper doll
Australia - Explorers Clothes
Australia - Doll set 1
Some 1920’s Paper Dolls

21 September 2009

Australian Craft
We enjoyed a few days 'glancing' at Australia with a dear friends children - All the children crafted some work they enjoyed, but here we'll just show our families offering.








Our nature study walk, with a Gumnuts baby theme, produced the crafts above & just below . (Bobbi's L.O.T.R's hand was his free-lance contribution (-: Both of our children love self-hardening clay but we haven't quiet mastered the 'art' of getting the creations to s.t.a.y. together.)











Next was Aborginal Art .

We printed out a page of symbols and had a trial run before painting a symbol on gumtree bark.

Not 'perfect masterpieces' (much to one child's disappointment) but the children really enjoyed themselves and learnt. For me that counts the VERY most!
I wish my friend had a blog (hint hint) so we could show the wonderful idea of what she's done with her children's paintings. (Cut them up and created a craft page with explanations of the symbols the children painted)


Our source links are found in this post. ( Our not.a.workbox ideas)

16 September 2009

Australia
(For links to the book titles not linked in this post, please refer here )
This is our week , or so, for enjoying a small study on this continent - I thought we'd better pause 'here' for a small look around since my parents immigrated from there :-)

Now is a perfect time for us to start reading the pages we have of Janette Casey’s book & history timeline figures/colour-in C/D…. here

I'm sure Janette's narrative will tie in beautifully with SOTW 2 - Chapt 10.1

For Mapping along side our SL map, & our flag sticker map we'll use these:
Geography Songs - Track 19

Around the World Coloring Book (Dover) - Pg 2


Evan More ~The World Reference Maps & Forms - Pg 94
Australia colour in code (mum calls, the children colour):
New South Wales (NSW) Bright Green
Victoria (VIC) Bright Pink
Queensland (QLD) Yellow
Western Australia (WA) Purple
South Australia (SA) Pale Blue
Tasmania (TAS) Dark Green
Northern Territory (NT) Brown
Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Red

Here is a blank black line map if you need one. (Coloured in and cut up that map would make a quick puzzle for a lapnote pocket, or you could just print this ).

We are hoping to create lapnotes adding the lovely pictures we've googled, like the Gang Gang Cockatoo below, using the list of Australian States/Territories emblems listed here
Downunder Literature has this free Australian flag book.

Other books and items we have lined up so far are:

  • DK Children Just Like Me - Pg 76
  • Wee Sing Around the World - Song 42
  • String Games From Around the World (Klutz) -Pg 14-23
  • The Voyage of the Poppy Kettle by Robert Ingpen (Daisy really likes this story, so we're revisiting it along with the book below & C/D)
  • Waltzing Matilda by Banjo Paterson. Freya Blackwood sing-along by John Williamson (thanks Aunty S !!) This folk song along with the book is a slightly more sobering study to 'Queensland history'. Great tool to use!

The same Aunty purchased us an audio set of Mary Gibs Snugglepot and Cuddlepie which the children have enjoyed *often* and have been a wonderful 'pre-learning' tool for us to go off hunting to find just what each of the characters in the stories actually are. ** Some stories would be too much for a sensitive younger child.

And to that end .... today during our walk/nature jaunt we collected some gumnut 'hats' to make clay Cuddlepie faces tomorrow for geography art.

The scanned picture below makes a perfect print out to add chalk pastels colour to.

This blog has some lovely nature sketches relevant to "Banksia Men" & the Gum-nut babies.

Here are 2 nature study type colour in go-alongs which we ended up watercolor painting.

I know Bobbi will enjoy crafting the kangaroo, &, koala-go-round 'for Daisy' which is sourced from here )


And I think we'll stop there with Australia, until next time :-)

Just a few extra links first though ....
This site has a few free printables that may be of interest to others.

Waterford Press have some worksheet type pages also, be sure to look under the Games & Activities tab - you will need to sign in first.

And Homeschool Shares Australia Resources

Downunder Literature , do stop by and take a look at the wonderful resources Michelle has!

Here, and Art Links has more than just Aboriginal art . New - added 18 Sept

New Zealand...
history, flora, fauna, general geography, and, literature studies?

Someone(s), have asked about more NZ related posts... yes! we do have a few 'things' we're still polishing before we hit PUBLISH POST :-)
We're just about to start a small jaunt through Australia's earliest history first, ... then NZ follows after that.

11 September 2009

The Chronicles of Narnia Unit Study
We've be slowly getting this 'idea' streamlined for our Narnia study at the end of Core 2, I'm not actually sure we are going to use it - there's so much else we want to do more.
You'll all know, eventually, whether we decided to immerse ourselves into Narnia as a study and not just for listening/reading enjoyment.

I'm sure the end result would/will be different than this rough type up which we're sharing in advance incase our musings are of interest to others.
This small list is exhaustive, but here you have it :-)

Black line picture from here.


Audio:
Audio C/D's Focus on the Family (These are Daisy's very favourite audio C/D's)Audio C/D's BBC

Extra Resources and Crafts:
Narnia Resources collection
(Games down load includes paper dolls and black line map)
Narnia Map coloured
Colouring Book Pages
Make a Centaur
Narnia Meal Ideas
Lucy Learns
Study Questions for each book
WW2 Children gentle intro to children living during WWII
Game ration spending
Crafts make your own
Disney Crafts and Treats
Activity Village - Scroll down a little once you're there

Guide books:
A Christian Family Guide to the Chronicles of Narnia – ROAR
By Heather Kopp
Lapbooks to consider:
Homeschoolshare

Hands of a Child With type it in feature for Bobbi (?)
Live n Learn Check with LnL - are the picts cartoony(??)

**happy homeshooler, Sl forums, shared this guide with us Further Up and Further In

Games: Board Game both our children, and their collection of friends enjoy playing it (ages range from 6-12) .

Most are ideas easy to add to our folders / workboxes

10 September 2009

Geography Update

This is what we are currently doing, and the children and I are really enjoying ourselves.
I'll make our example, below, using the study we have just done on Canada, since happyHSer helped birth this post with her question ... thanks A {{smile}}
Canada
SL - Geography Songs pg 43

We use the Twister Game discs set out as a hop, skip, &, jump morning exercise game to assist in learning our geog songs.
We alternate the way the game is played to keep it interesting.
This morning we sang along to the C/D and used our skipping ropes - Yes, inside :-)


Wee Sing Around the World (Song 2 Going Over the Sea)
(not singing to learn just listening to for enjoyment while we load/empty the dish drawer some mornings).

World Sticker Atlas (match flags to correct country - wall map)
I can't find a sellers link for this book, we purchased from a bargain bin. The ISBN is 13:978-1-7415-7711-2 and is produced by Hinkler Books

Around the World – Colouring Book by Winky Adam. Page 5
Sonlight’s Markable World Map (we have the older black line one).

We use the 4 items, above, in conjunction with our atlas/book first (!) and what we're doing, though very simple, is just making the lessons an enjoyable referencing ‘find xyz’ game for Bobbi and Daisy.

How it looks in action....
1: Find the right country/page in the atlas, taking note of Canada's shape.
2: Using World Sticker Atlas locate the correct flag sticker for Canada, run out to the hallway and place it on our wall map.
3: Colour in just the flag on the corresponding Around the World Colouring Book - Canada page 5 .
4: They help me to find the land area on SL’s markable map & call out/tell me the correct spelling of Canada.

5: Evan Moore World Ref Maps page 27
(We are using select maps from this very in a Story Of The World-ish style – getting the children to identify by colour the areas being studied.
This could be done inside the Geog songs book, but I wanted those pages left clean for when we go through our geography review at the end of Core 2.)

Colour in Code For Canada
1: Novia Scotia - Lavender
2: Manitoba - Bright Blue
3: Ontario - Red
4: Prince Edward Island - Dark Brown
5: New Brunswick - Orange
6: Newfoundland - Blue
7: Alberta - Lime Green
8: British Columbia - Pale Pink
9: Yukon Terrritory - Pale Blue
10: Nunavut - Brown
11: Saskatchewan - Dark Pink
12: Northwest Territories - Bright Yellow
13: Quebec - Flesh

The next are books and are enjoyed on different days.
6: DK Children Just like Me Page 23

7: Material World (not scheduled just a casual pick up)
These 2 make good comparison viewing when both have the same countries. No page for Canada

8: Adding in at least 1 picture book to go with the country we are ‘learning’ about.
Five in a Row and Homeschool Share are excellent sources to start with though living in a smaller NZ township does make it rather a challenge for us to quickly source some of the lovely picture books, or chapter books, that are so readily available elsewhere to go with Canada:-)

The ladies on Sonlight gave us some excellent suggestions (!!) and so Anne of Green Gables (the Dvd) was a great visual substitute tie - in.

Homeschool Share - Canada Unit Studies and other books