Show & Tell: MFW K—M-m Moon

Mmm-hmm.  Y'all thought I was kiddin', didn't you?  I know I've been bombarding you with posts this week, but that's the way it works when you're an inconsistent blogger.  :) 

Last Thursday, Millie finished her M-m Moon unit in kindergarten.  Here are some of the highlights.

We learned that the moon doesn't make its own light, but it reflects the light of the sun.

We learned that the moon is made of dust and rock and has no light of its own.  To demonstrate this, we wrapped a ball in aluminum foil and went inside my closet.  Seems to be the trend these days, huh?  Remember we did a project in my closet last week, too.  Which can only lead to one question ... does this make us closet homeschoolers?! 

This is what the ball looked like in the closet with the lights off.

It had no light of its own.

Then we shined a light on it and ... voila!

Our "moon," which we just saw didn't have any light of its own, suddenly reflected the light of our "sun."

This helped us to understand our special words for the week:

I am the light of the world.

Jesus is ultimately the light of the world (we learned that last week), but when He shines His light on us, other people are able to look at us and see His light.  As they see His light shining on us, they know He's really there.

We learned that the moon doesn't always look the same.

We read The Moon Seems to Change by Franklyn Branley and Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle.

We discussed that, even though the moon seems to change shape, it's really always round.  It just looks like it gets smaller because, as it travels around the earth, we see less and less of its lighted-up side that faces the sun; then it looks like it gets bigger because we see more and more of its lighted-up side as it comes back.

We used chalk to color the phases of the moon on black construction paper and put them in order.

That was fun, but it was a lot more fun when we took Mrs. Yvette's suggestion and made them out of Oreos!

We learned that the moon is much smaller than the sun.

We shrunk the universe waaaaay down and saw that the moon is smaller than the earth and much, much smaller than the sun. 


In this model, the sun is a whopping 4'4", the earth (blue circle on the right) is a tiny 1/2", and the moon (white circle on the left) is a super-tiny 1/8".  Wowsers!

 So why do the sun and the moon look like they're the same size when we see them in the sky?  We went for a walk with our friends Elijah and Christopher to find out.  :)

If we really lived in a universe with a 4'4" sun, a 1/2" earth, and a 1/8" moon, the moon would be 14 inches away from the earth.  That's how far apart we glued them on our paper.  But the sun would be a staggering 461 feet away from the earth!  So we taped our sun to the mailbox and walked 461 feet with our earth and moon.  When we reached our destination and looked back, sure enough, the moon and the sun looked the same size!

See the sun waaaay back there in the distance?  It was kind of hard to see so I circled it in red and added a huge yellow arrow.

We also added to our Kindergarten caterpillar ...

... and we sang a sun and moon song to help remember how we measure days, months, and years.  (Sung to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell.)

The Earth spins around,

The Earth spins around,

Once a day, every day,

The Earth spins around.

The moon goes 'round the Earth,

The moon goes 'round the Earth,

Once a month, every month,

The moon goes 'round the Earth.

The Earth goes 'round the sun,

The Earth goes 'round the sun,

Once a year, every year,

The Earth goes 'round the sun.

And believe it or not, Millie actually got to practice handwriting in shaving cream last week!  Yes, this is my fourth year to homeschool, and we just did shaving cream handwriting for the first time!  She doesn't like to get messy, so I wasn't sure how much she would like it, but she loved it!



Another fun week of learning together!

Oh ... and just in case I'm not the only inconsistent blogger out there and someone else would like to award herself the Inconsistent Blogger Award, she should know that it's perfectly okay to grab it and display it proudly on her own blog!  ;)

Until next time ... and no telling when that'll be!  ;)

Show & Tell: MFW K—S-s Sun

Last week, Millie finished her S-s Sun unit.  I did MFW K with my oldest three years ago, and I want to hang my head in shame when I go back and read some of my posts.  Apparently I thought she'd never learn about the sun again before she left for college, so I tried to be very thorough with her lessons—too thorough for a 5-year-old.  I've learned since then, though, and now follow the KISS principle:  Keep It Simple, Silly!!

Here are some of the highlights from our week.  :)

We learned that the sun gives us light.

The light from the sun helps us to see.  Otherwise, we'd stumble around and get lots of bumps and bruises—we'd be hurt time and time again!  This helped us to understand our special words for the week:

Jesus is the light of the world.

When we take time to read His Word and obey it, it gives us guidance.  It helps us see the "right" way to go and helps us avoid a lot of unnecessary pain in life.

We learned that the sun gives us heat.

We did a little experiment to see just how much effect the sun's heat has on our world.  We took two plates and put an ice cube on each plate.  One was placed in the shade under our patio cover.  The other was on the table by the pool in direct sunlight.

When Millie went to check on the ice cubes after about 15 minutes, she found that the one in the shade was smaller than its original size, but it hadn't melted completely.

The one by the pool, however, was totally gone, and there was a puddle of water in its place.  The heat from the sun caused it to melt faster than the one in the shade.

We also put a bowl of grapes in a sunny windowsill to see the effect of the sun's heat on them. 

They haven't completely turned into raisins, but they're definitely well on their way.  We'll keep them there for a couple more weeks and see how long it takes them to totally dehydrate.

We learned that the sun helps us measure hours.

We read Bear Shadow by Frank Asch and The Biggest Shadow in the Zoo by Jack Kent and talked about the way shadows change throughout the day.

Then we used a pencil, some clay, and a piece of posterboard to make a sundial in the backyard.  We didn't mark it every hour on the hour, but we had enough marks by the end of the day to see how the shadows changed.



Here's Millie making our second mark of the day.  All of our clocks at home are either digital or have Roman numerals, so I pulled out a clock manipulative I had left over from Hannah's CLE Math days and used that to show Millie how to tell time to the hour.



Here she is making the last mark of the day.  She was able to see how the shadows moved from one side of the pencil to the other as the sun moved across the sky.

 We learned that the sun helps us measure days.

Before I taught Millie how the sun really causes day and night, I wanted to show her how people used to think it worked.  We got out the inflatable globe that came with ECC and taped a piece of paper with a "W" on it to North America and one with an "E" on it to Asia.  Then we went into my closet and shut the door.  Before you think I've gone totally mad, let me assure you that that's not where we usually do school!  We just needed a dark place to go! ;)  I moved the flashlight from the E to the W to show her that people used to think Earth stood still while the sun moved around it from east to west.

Then we read an excellent book called Under the Sun by Ellen Kandoian.  (We came out of the closet for this part.  You can only take it for so long before it starts to feel a little claustrophobic!)

In this book, a little girls asks her mom where the sun goes when she goes to bed.  Her mother tells her some of the different places it goes while she is sleeping.  As we read the book, we found each place on the globe and turned our globe until that spot was in the sun's (aka flashlight's) light.  When the sun was shining on Asia, we looked at the other side of our globe and saw that it was dark—night—in North America where the little girl lived.

We learned that the sun helps us measure years.

We moved our coffee table out of the living room one night and put a lamp (aka sun) in its place.  We turned all the lights off, turned the lamp on, and gave Millie the globe so she could review how the sun makes day and night.

We told her that the earth not only spins around, but it also goes around the sun, making day and night, day and night, day and night over and over again as it travels.  We told her to run around the sun and make days and nights as she went.  (What's that?  Permission to run in the house??!)  So she picked up the globe and ran around the sun, spinning the globe on her way around.

When she got back to where she started, Greg yelled, "Happy New Year!"  He told her that when the earth goes all the way around the sun, a year has passed.  We gave the girls party horns to blow every time Millie made a new year, so things got pretty loud that night. 

Some other fun activities were ...

Making the letter "S" out of Play-Doh.

Using Cuisinaire rods to complete our letter "S" page.

Writing our special words on a sheet of paper ...

... and then painting it!

Adding the very first circle to our Kindergarten caterpillar.

And praying for the Safwa people and learning how to say "sun" in Spanish.

I love that we get to play together and call it school!  :)

If you'd like to use our badges to make your own Kindergarten caterpillar, our handwriting pages with the Special Words to Remember, or our poster with the Spanish, Special Words, and People Who Need the Bible, please do!!  (Just click on the links to download them.)  I'm all about pooling resources so we can all have the best year possible!

Blessings!

Show & Tell: MFW K—Creation

On the first day of Kindergarten,

My student said to me,

"Mom, take me to

the library!"

It's true.  When Millie turned 5 in February, we tried to get her her very own library card, but we found out that our local library requires children not only to be 5 years old but also to be officially in Kindergarten.

Well, stink!

BUT ... apparently that made quite an impression on my Millie because she woke up early on her first day of school, got all dressed up, and asked if we could go to the library to get her a library card.  Not exactly what I had planned for the day, but ... um ... yeah, we can go!!

Signing her card to make it all official

One proud cardholder!!

Millie was eager to start her Kindergarten year, so I decided to do the creation unit with her before our first official week of school.  I'm glad we did it that way because it gave her my undivided attention for a couple of weeks and it gave me a gentle transition back into school mode.  :)

Our focus during this unit was learning how God created the world.

If anyone is looking for resources to supplement the Creation unit, I highly recommend The Creation Story for Children (beautifully illustrated!) and a companion teacher's guide called God Made the World & Me.  Actually, we'll be using the teacher's guide throughout the year as we study various units.

 
We learned that on Day 1, God made light and separated light from darkness. I finally broke down and bought a prism, and the kids had fun using the prism to separate light into different colors.

We sang the "light" verse from our creation song.  (Tune:  Are You Sleeping?)

On Day 1, On Day 1,
God did make, God did make,
Light to shine in darkness, Light to shine in darkness,
It was good, It was good.

Millie worked on a creation book throughout the unit.  I wish I had taken a picture of her while she was working on it every day, but I only got the camera out a couple of times.  Here is her Day 1 page.

On Day 2, we learned that God created the sky and put some water above the sky and some below it.

We added the "sky" verse onto our creation song.

On Day 2, On Day 2,
God did make, God did make,
Lots of sky and water, Lots of sky and water,
It was good, It was good.

Here is Millie's creation page for Day 2.  I found some sort of metallic blue ribbon back when Hannah did K, and we used what was left for the water on Millie's page.  The coulds are made of cotton balls.

On Day 3, we learned that God made land and put trees, plants, and flowers on it.

We added the "trees and flowers" verse onto our creation song.

On Day 3, On Day 3,
God did make, God did make,
Many trees and flowers, Many trees and flowers,
It was good, It was good.

Here is the page Millie made on Day 3 for her creation book.  The land and tree are both made of construction paper (we just holepunched red and orange construction paper to make the fuit), and the water is made of the same ribbon we used for Day 2.  The flowers are foam stickers I found in the kids' art bin.

On Day 4 we learned that God made the sun, moon, and stars.  I love taking the time to really look at the days of creation and think it all through.  Some people believe that God used evolution to create the world and that his "days" are simply "periods of time."  But when you stop to think about the fact that He had already put plants, flowers, and trees on the earth, how in the world could they live for thousands of years without sunlight?!  But I digress ...

We added the "sun, moon, and stars" verse onto our creation song.

On Day 4, On Day 4,
God did make, God did make,
The sun and moon and stars, The sun and moon and stars,
It was good, It was good.

Finally, here's a picture of my Millie-Girl while she's working on her project!  :)  She painted a yellow sun and a white moon, then she painted some white dots for stars and added some silver star stickers.

On Day 5, we learned that God made the birds and the sea creatures.

We added the "fish and birds" verse onto our creation song.

On Day 5, On Day 5,
God did make, God did make,
All the fish and birdies, All the fish and birdies,
It was good, It was good.

And here's Millie with her Day 5 creation page.  WOO HOO ... I got her working again!  :)  We used the same metallic ribbon for water and added some sea creature stickers.  Then she used a marker to draw birds flying in the air.



Check out that look of concentration!

 On Day 6, we learned that God made land animals and his crown creation, man.

We added the "animals and man" verse to our creation song.

On Day 6, On Day 6,
God did make, God did make,
All the other animals,
All the other animals,
God made man, Woman too.

Here is Millie's Day 6 creation page.  I had a stack of National Geographic magazines, and she went through them and cut out animal pictures.  I had to find an Adam & Eve picture online ... none of those in National Geographic!  ;)


 And finally, on Day 7 we learned that God rested and enjoyed His creation, setting a model for us.

We added the final verse to our creation song.

On Day 7, On Day 7,
God did rest, God did rest,
All the work was finished, all the work was finished,
It was good, very good!

Here is the page Millie made for Day 7 of her creation book.

She also worked on a creation poster throughout the unit.  Each picture was shaped like a number, and in it were things that God created on that day.  When she added the last number, I hung it above the window in the school room.

When Hannah was in Kindergarten, we had a creation snack for each day of creation.  But Millie, my poor second child, doesn't get that luxury!  ;)  Gotta keep it simple these days!  :)  So instead, we had a creation party at the end of the unit.  We sang our creation song, and with each verse, there was some activity that went with it.

After we sang the Day 1 verse in the dark, she turned on the kitchen lights for us.

After we sang the Day 2 verse, she put a glass of water at the table for everyone in our family.

After we sang the Day 3 verse, she brought a plate of fruit to the table.

After we sang the Day 4 verse, she brought some star-shaped cheese to the table.  We used a star cookie cutter she had in her play kitchen to cut it out.  :)

After we sang the Day 5 verse, she brought a plate of goldfish to the table.

After we sang the Day 6 verse, she brought a plate of animals crackers to the table.

And finally, after she sang the Day 7 verse, we were all able to sit down and rest.  The girls also blew party horns to celebrate because it was very good.

We had a lot of fun with this creation unit.  It was a very gentle way to ease back into the school year!