We are offering computer classes for … Beyond the code 6th-12th grades. STEM classes focused on technology including digital forensics, cyber security, IoT, and Linux.
Busy Bag Swap Loot
I have had the opportunity to participate in something called Busy Bag Swap this past month. I must admit that this term was foreign to me and I’m still learning! I have written in a previous blog post about Learning Stations and these Busy Bags will work VERY WELL with the stations!
So what’s a Busy Bag Swap? A group of ladies each choose an activity to make that would fit a predetermined age group. The activities either teach an academic skill (like ABC’s or counting/number matching), fine motor development (like tracing or Pincher grasp by using tongs), or are visually entertaining (like I Spy or discovery type things). These activities are designed to keep the little ones “busy” and each one is put into a zip bag making it easy to grab one and go–thus the name Busy Bags! The key is that each mom makes enough of THE SAME ACTIVITY for each lady participating.
Our group had 18 ladies and the age range of 2-3 year olds was chosen. We created a sign up sheet to ensure there weren’t any duplicate activities. I checked out several idea sights on the Internet and chose the “Discovery Bottles” as my activity (after checking to be sure I could find AquaPods water bottles!) Because a picture is worth a thousand words, check out the following websites to get a better understanding of the types of activities.
“Discovery Bottles”
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/crafts-by-age/toddler-crafts/discovery-bottles-675306/
http://secondstorywindow.typepad.com/home/2011/10/toddler-time-busy-bag-series-part-2.html
http://therigneys.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/toddler-busy-bag-swap/
Check out this website for instructions & pictures of homemade Geoboards- used with 2-7 year olds:
http://planetoftheapels.blogspot.com/2011/09/busy-bag-swap-day-7-geoboards.html?m=1
http://planetoftheapels.blogspot.com/p/our-busy-bag-swap.html?m=1
Here are some items that we received in our Busy Bags with a few comments and suggestions based on our experiences.
- Gel Bag and Marble Maze
Gel bag and Marble Maze – The gel bag is appropriate for 4-5 year-olds. The gel bags need to be tapped with clear packaging tape. The marble maze is great to attach to a stroller for toddlers. It is a marble sown in between two pieces of cloth with stich lines added to create a maze to move the marble through. I even bought one as a birthday present for a 1 year old. Our son Caden’s occupational therapist (OT) went bannas over the marble maze and plans to use it as a finger warm-up exercise with her patients.
Popsicle Stick Puzzle and Pom-Pom Stuff It In – The popsicle stick puzzle can be covered with clear packaging tape to make it more durable. This one was a challenge for a 4 1/2 year old. The Pom-Pom stuff it in is another finger strengthening exercise tool. I’ve used it with all ages from toddler (2 yrs) and up.
Color Match Pins – The Color Match Pins are paint sample strips from your local home improvement store or Walmart. The older ages (4 yrs +) had fun with this one. The pins were a little too difficult to squeeze for our little 2 year old.
Letter and Number Match – The number match used a clear velcro dot in the center of each number tile. That made it very easy for a toddler to grasp the number tile from any angle.
Eye Spy and Egg Crate Pom-Pom Sort – Both of these items have been enjoyable for all ages. I like the compact nature and transportability of the eye spy. Toddlers will grow into the use of the tongs with the Pom-Pom sort. Right now he enjoys putting the Pom-Poms in the holes with his fingers. (over and over and over again)
Chalk Blocks – I love the creativity of this item for preschoolers. These are simply square blocks of wood painted with chalkboard paint. I would recommend that the blocks be a little larger for the younger ages and ensure that all sides are sanded smooth before painting.
Magnetic Pom-Pom – This is very entertaining for my toddler. The Pom-Poms have magnets hot-glued to them. Our next chore is to find a way to make this one portable without having to carry a cookie sheet in the diaper bag. Please post your ideas in the comments below. Here are a couple of links to download two more Pom-Pom mats. You will need Adobe Reader to view them.
Pasta Sort – My toddler spent the better part of an hour filling and dumping the cups. He tried to string the pasta by himself but required some assistance. I will try using a pipe cleaner next time.
Con-Tact Paper – I used Con-Tact paper to laminate some of the paper items to increase durability.
LESSON PLANS
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS
Podcast Episode 16 show notes.
This week we had a few homeschooling families over for dinner and the topic of school planning came up. As I shared how my method has changed over the years, my husband noticed the nodding heads (of mostly the husbands!) How is it that us wives stress out so much over lesson plans?! I have a couple of theories and some possible solutions.
Theory 1
Temperaments! I know that I go back to this frequently but it is integral to understanding how God wired us up AND to understanding our strengths/weaknesses. If you will recall from episode 10, the Choleric & Meloncholoy temperaments are the task focused temperaments and they like to have a PLAN! Melanchologies are also perfectionists and love their Sticky Note “to do” list. I believe it is a natural tendency to be stressed when life (AKA school planning) is unplanned. Yes, God does work on our weaknesses but it is a process!
Theory 2
I think our goals/purpose for homeschooling causes (or at least contributes to) the stress we experience in the area of school planning. This goes back to our discussion in episode 2. When our purpose in homeschooling is academic greatness rather than training their hearts and character in the ways of the Lord, then a natural side effect is pressure- sometimes extreme pressure- to find THE BEST curriculum, plan out GREAT lesson plans, and implement those plans! A good antibiotic for this is realizing that NO MATTER how hard you try, you WILL have gaps in your child’s education because it is not possible to teach your child every academic knowledge and skill there is. Despite the effort of “trained educators”, the same is true for them too- I’ve also been in that camp! But what you can teach them is how to love the Lord, obey HIM and exhibit Godly character…knowing that these things will follow them well in life and any laking skills or knowledge can be quickly obtained. Employers can’t train character but they can train skills.
THE “SCHOOL” METHOD
My college training ingrained in me a method of creating lesson plans where it was written out what would be accomplished everyday in each subject and the learning objectives/state standard for each lesson. These plans were kept in a book on my desk where the school administrators could view them at any point in our day. In addition to the weekly plans, I also had a “long range plan” of the skills I had to teach and how that was going to fit for the year.
There is nothing wrong with this type of planning in your homeschool, if it works for you. This is how I started in my homeschooling until I started spending more time revising it than I did implementing it or creating it in the first place! You can look at an example of those plans on the shownotes. This method of planning will be more difficult if you have a lot of context situations (as discussed in episode 11). Another difficulty to this level of detail and planning in advance is that it works for the Choleric & Melancholy (task oriented) temperaments but not so well for the people oriented.
The Lord revealed another method that has been working well for me. I like to call it a “Completed Work record”.
COMPLETED WORK RECORD – for daily plans
I started writing down everything we did in a school day AFTER it was completed. I have found that my life is much easier when I am electronically connected so I started using Google Docs to keep a record of daily work completed for each child. I will print these records out at the end of the year to include in their school work portfolios.
Benefits:
It has reduced the amount of frustration and time I spend revising daily written lesson plans–tremendously! I can edit the electronic record any where (and any time I have a few minutes). Plus I can cut and paste…a nice feature to have!
The best benefit has been the relief of stress to “keep up with my plans”. (Again, this is coming from a task-oriented temperament as opposed to a people-oriented person who actually does need more structure.) Using this method, I have been better able to put a halt on school to deal with attitudes of the heart which need training- which is my primary focus for home educating my children. I don’t get so frustrated and overwhelmed at seeing my week of beautiful lesson plans crossed out or with arrows marked all over simply because I had to deal with outright defiance, temper tantrums, or lack of personal responsibility!
PLANNING FOR THE WEEK OR MONTH
History and science are the easiest for me to plan because they naturally lend themselves to units or sections. These smaller chunks can be broken down into a weekly flow of activities. To give myself flexibility, I write down the order of activities to complete a unit and sometimes I break it down to “Day 1”, etc. If I don’t complete all the activities for that day, or I over plan, then it is at the top of the list to do on the next day. It can be likened to creating a sequence. I try to plan a unit at a time but sometimes life gets in the way and I end up planning a week. I do try to know where I am heading in the curriculum. Math gets done one lesson at a time and is little planning though that varies by curriculum. I tend to use history and science books for me to read aloud or for my child to read to me/brothers. I do a phonics/spelling/handwriting program, called STEPS, that is already broken into lesson and activity and easy to plug in wherever I need. Piano is practiced daily with a lesson once per week. “Daily GRAMS”(English/editing) and Bible are done almost daily. Other subjects like art, writing, PE, Geography, Latin, Bible/Character Club are done at our co-op once a week with the homework being done at home (but NOT ALL of these subjects are done every year!)
WHAT I AM NOT SAYING
I am not saying you should not plan at all. To think that you can embark on such a huge task of home educating your children without any plan at all is hugely nieve and risky! I am not saying you should be lazy in your planning or not teach your children valuable skills. They must learn the basics like reading, writing, and math. But does that mean your child is doomed academically if he/she doesn’t know all his vocabulary, know where Tanzania is in his/her head, or doesn’t remember all the facts of the Golden Age of Greece? No. Be wise, be purposeful, but also flexible.
What a relief to trust in my Lord and Savior to equip these children in skills they need to fulfil His purposes.
Links mentioned in this episode: Donna Young’s Lesson Plans
Subscribe:
You can subscribe to this podcast via iTunes and/or RSS below:
Busy Bags for Preschoolers
These discovery bootles are our contribution to a busy bag swap with our local home school support group. this busy bag swap is for items appropriate for 2-3 year olds.
My boys and I had so much fun making these bottles! They kind of evolved from ‘just’ a neat thing to look at to a challenge for an older child. Because this change of gears happened after I started making them, the bottles don’t have all of the same items (which adds to the challenge). I thought I would create a check list that you can print out for any older siblings.
- ABC letters- Can you spell a word with your letters?
- pony beads- How many different colors?
- bowling pin
- domino- Add the two numbers to find the sum.
- die
- marble
- car Squinkie
- frog
- buttons- How many can you count?
- star beads
- gold stars
- car, airplane, and train buttons
- aquarium rocks
- sea shell
- zoo animal
- whale
- heart
- 2 googly eyes
- shimmery ribbon
- sequins- 3 colors (one is hard to find)
- Lego- It may not look like a typical piece!
- ring
- penny & dime (one has 2 pennies & dimes- a little helper lost track)
- ladybug button
- circle sparkle “gem”
- nail
- Lite Brite piece- look hard!
- ice cream/dessert
- smily face ball
The next posts on Busy Bags will provide pictures of items we received in the busy bag swap as well as tips on making items durable without breaking the bank.
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- …
- 13
- Next Page »