CHRONiCLES FROM THE MAGiC SCHOOL HOUSE: CREATiVE WRiTING

"I hear, and I know. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand."

~ Confucius

Greetings!!  It has been many moons since I have been here at this space.  I have to say I quite missed it.  I have been in a far away Internet challenged land.  My sweet husband gifted me a bit of technology this Christmas and I am back into the 21 century.  Well almost.  Still working on a few other projects but getting closer!!  Will show a bit of this progress on a later post.  I thought I'd share a creative writing project from the Magic School House today.

We used Emily Martin's cleaver Black Apple Paper Doll Primer: Activities and Amusements for the Curious Paper Artist as the inspiration for our assignment.  This book is truly magical. She provides templates in the back for you to create your own dolls, complete with clothing, accessories, and sets.

I started by writing a list of words on the board.

Then I asked Violet to choose three words, and create a character using the words as a springboard. 

She chose smart, creative, and loving. 

After selecting the words, I instructed Violet to write a short paragraph describing where her person lived , and what they liked to do.  Then, make a list of things her character likes and a separate list of dislikes.

As a finishing touch she could draw a picture of her imagined character. Violet liked this idea and decided that after school she would make a paper doll of her character.

It made a nice project for a Friday afternoon!

Also, I recently dug out my copy of Games for Learning by Peggy Kaye.  I can't say enough good things about her books.  The are choc-o-block full of lovely fun ways to practice the fundamentals.  Violet is needing some extra practice with her math facts and the games in the book provide the repetition and practice without the monotony of flash cards.  We played an activity from this book called Math War.  It is played just like the old school version except each player lays down two cards and adds them together.  The player with the highest sum  gets to keep the cards.  This game has the tendency to be rather long.  She suggests playing it 10 minutes or so at a time.  Then separating each players cards with a rubber band so that you can pick it up when you have time again.  We had fun with this one, it alleviated that glazed over "I'm bored look" that I get when we use the flash cards.  I can't say that I blame her!

Have a wonderful weekend!

CHRONiCLES FROM THE MAGIC SCHOOL HOUSE: LANDFORMS

"Too often we give children answers to remember rather     than problems to solve."
 ~Roger Lewin

In addition to having our lessons at home we are a part the creative learning cooperative that meets once a week.  We really love having this be a part of our school week.  This was the first week our coop met  after a long winter break.  It was my week to lead the lesson, and our preselected topic was earth's landforms. 


We start our mornings with yoga stretches and a few BrainGym exercises to turn on their brains.  Then we circle up for a discussion. 


It is funny, you can never predict how these discussions will go, but they were really into today's discussion.  Wahoo!!  We discussed the different landforms (plains, plateaus, volcanoes, mountains, grasslands, valleys, hills, islands, glaciers, etc) and identified them on the map. 

Then, they made their own maps out of clay.  I asked them to include at least four landforms on their projects.  I provided a small piece of cardboard, clay, cedar branches, and moss.
                               
                                                      
 They made the structures first and then we painted them after our lunch break with tempera paint.  They turned out so cute and were very proud of their work. 

If you are interested in making your own  you can find the air dried clay recipe at Our Little Nature Nest.  It worked great for this project!

SNOW DAY AT THE MAGiC SCHOOL HOUSE

        "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."
                                                                                                                               ~ William Butler Yeats

Today we woke up with the silence of a light snowfall blanketing our woods.   After a romp in the snow we headed back inside as our home was transformed into the "Magic School House."   We usually go ahead and have school on snow days so that we can take other days off during the year.

 Being a snow day, something fun was in order.  We decided to read Fancy Nancy's Favorite Fancy Words: From Accessories to Zany.

 I want to say THANK YOU JANE O'CONNOR for writing such wonderful books that have inspired so many creative and fun home school moments.  I am always looking for ways to "light the fire" of learning.  I feel that the knowledge gained from these moments is the stuff she is eager to remember, and search out after the fact.   

Here's how we made our "Fancy" Word Box:

I gave her a file box that we had hanging around and a stack of 4x6 index cards.  She went to town writing "fancy' vocabulary words on the front and their definitions on the back.

I made a set of A-Z dividers out of colorful card stock, so that she could alphabetize them.

Then she decorated the box in the true "Fancy Nancy" style.  This included lots of glitter.

I also introduced the concept of using a thesaurus.  She loved that we could take an ordinary word and turn it into a fancy and sophisticated word. 

Also for those who have their own Fancy Nancy enthusiasts, her website has a bunch of cute printables for planning your very own Fancy Nancy event.  I think that I may see a Poetry Extravaganza in our future.