Homeschooling My Kinetic Kids

The music of the Nutcracker seems to dominate the Christmas season.  Even for those of us without ballet performances this month, the music still plays in our favorite Christmas movies and from store speakers.  My kids love the Nutcracker and get so excited every time they hear the music.  They nag me all year long for "Nutcracker season" and the ability once again to do all their favorite themed activities again. All school year, I've been focusing on fine motor skill building activities, both in the general sense and with specific themes.  Since my kids love the Nutcracker so much, I knew this would be a great opportunity to assemble some fine motor tasks with a special theme. For families new to the story, I highly recommend "The Nutcracker" book by Susan Jeffers.  Each beautifully illustrated page contains a few sentences describing the story of the ballet.  I read the book with the kids and understood the flow of the dances for the first time ...

We don't have snow on the ground yet, but my kids are anxiously awaiting that day.  Now that it's almost Christmas, they're getting even more impatient.  It's a great time for some snow learning activities, while they're still eager to spend all day inside. This snowflake building activity is perfect for a busy bag and helps kids strengthen their pinch grip.  Because it uses Q-tip s as a creative material, it's cheap and easy to reproduce for a large group, too.  Bring a baggy of them to a restaurant, family dinner, or appointment to provide some easy STEM work whenever you need a few minutes of fun. It's such a simple activity, but one that allows kids to use their imaginations to make different things.  Challenge them to make faces, shapes, letters, objects or whatever you can think of.  The kids can make something for you to guess.  When the q-tips start getting worn or dirty, just replace them with new ones! > > > Click Here...

This year, our family has been enjoying "Our Star Spangled Story," a living history style curriculum for early elementary kids.  Every day, Skimmer (age 7) asks to do history class and is disappointed when I tell him we only have a few lessons a week.  All three kids are remembering quite a bit of history.  We have a large US map on the wall of our kitchen classroom and have been working on geography a bit as we learn about each new place. We're now in about the 1840's and did a chapter about the Industrial Revolution.  The book focused on cotton and the process of getting cotton from the plant to the fabric and contrasting the labor of working by hand vs the efficient mechanization of factories.  Since we live in a part of the country where cotton isn't grown, we watched a few Youtube videos. Handpicking Cotton The above 1948 documentary shows sharecroppers picking cotton and how important "King Cotton" is/was for the automobile industry...

This blog post has been two years in the making.  I created this 100-chart (actually 100 plus) last summer for our homeschool classroom, but I never got around to blogging about it.  I'm glad I waited because my original poster didn't last the kids, so I am trying again this year.  All the kids are ready for the 100-chart, and we've already gotten more use out of the poster this month than we did all last year. > > > Download 30x40 Inch Poster < < < If you're in the market for a super huge poster, this 30x40 inch poster is just what you need.  I recommend getting the posters printed at your local office supply store.  Although they don't advise you to print posters in the "architectural blueprints" mode, but I've found that it works pretty well and is a lot cheaper than an official "poster" print.  Then, I have the store laminate for it for us (last year, I framed it- that was bad) and use 3M adhesive strip...

At Christmas, my daughter, Dragonfly (age 7) got the movie Hidden Figures  as a present.  The video tells the story of three female mathematicians, who stood against racism, sexism, and helped the USA win the space race.  The movie is a great introduction to the history of NASA, racial segregation, and women in science, while still managing to only be rated PG.  It's a great video for moms and daughters to watch together (although my husband enjoyed it as well).  If you haven't yet seen the movie, I highly recommend it. One of the inspirational women was Katherine Johnson, worked long mathematical equations by hand in the years before computers were in wide use.  Even after the first "calculating machines" were available at NASA, Katherine still double-checked the computers work!  I love how Hidden Figures shows women working complicated math problems, as it encouraged my own daughter in her math learning.  As a mom, I'm always looking for...

For Christmas, my kids received a Domino Junior play set.  The Jr dominoes are slightly wider on the bottom than the top so they're a bit easier to set up.  Since they are particularly destructive, setting up dominoes runs is both fulfilling and challenging for them.  It's a great activity for them to all do together as well, encouraging communication, cooperation, and sometimes separation. We've been enjoying some domino sequence videos on Youtube, too, which has greatly inspired their play time.  I wouldn't be surprised if they don't try other types of chain reactions soon.  Here's one of our favorite videos: What the kids don't know is how much physics they're learning as they watch these chain reactions!  Each domino is potential kinetic energy stored inside of it and waiting for a force to act on it.  When the child touches it with his finger, he sets off a sequence where one domino affects the other and the next one and the next one until the la...

We live in a normally snowy part of the country, but it's been a very warm winter with very little snow.  My kids are anxious to play in it, which prompted me to put together this Kid Blogger Network list of ways you can learn about snow.  Most of them can be accomplished even if you don't have access to snow, and focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, or Math (STEM).  These ideas and printables are great for hands-on and nontraditional learning for a variety of ages. Build a Snowflake // Sixth Bloom Sensory Snow // Life with Moore Babies Melting Snow Experiment // Creative Family Fun Melting Water Density Experiment // STEAM Powered Family Exploring Polymers // From Engineer to SAHM Winter Snowstorm in a Jar // Little Bins for Little Hands Snowball Soap // Glue Sticks Blog How do Snowflakes Form // Kitchen Counter Chronicles Snow Slime // Best Toys 4 Toddlers Some great books to read while you study snow! Dr...