We started school the day after Labor Day, and I haven't posted because I've been SO busy. I am teaching my two (6 and almost 5) as well as a sibling pair which are 7 and 8. I am also watching a 3 year old and a 9 month old who are brothers. (See why I've been so busy?!) Life would be so much easier if it were just my two, but the two older children really needed a Christian environment in which to learn, and God told me I was the one to fulfill that need. Sometimes God asks us to do things which are not easy, and boy is this one of them!
We have done a couple of activities that I wanted to share because all of the children loved them. The first was last week, when I was out but had a "sub" fill in for me. Each child received a brown sandwich bag with his/her name on it. Inside the bag was a little figure as well as instructions they were to use to build with blocks. Here are the instructions:
Thomas: Build a house for this little man using only blocks that have not been painted. Anna: Build a house for Snoopy using only blocks that have been painted. John: Build a house for your spider using only blocks with curved sides. Vanessa: Build a house for your bear using only blocks without curved sides. I knew this was a hit because they kept wanting to do it over again! Unfortunately, I didn't think to have the sub take pictures so I don't know what the houses look like, but I will have to do that in the future!
The other activity, we did today in honor of 9/11. We talked about the flag, what it meant, and we put our American flag out where our Snoopy flag usually hangs (that reminds me, I need to bring it back in...) Then I gave each child a red, white, and blue piece of paper. They could make anything they wanted, but could only use these three colors, scissors, glue, and paper punches. We later added white and red string as they were "needed." I ended up getting three variations of our flag, and one plane, which pulled an American flag. They were all unique and each child definitely used their own ideas for his/her project. I love open ended crafts like that. They were all given the same tools, and three different projects emerged. In most schools, children are given the same pieces/parts to assemble and they all pretty much have the same outcome. Not my idea of "art!" Anyway, I hope these ideas are useful to some other homeschoolers out there!
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