Can you tell what 3 animals have been combined?

So often I find Level 1 reading books at the library like this:

Score!  This is going to be great! High interest in this house! Motivation will not be a problem.  Then my beginning reader tries to decode the words and the pages are like this:

Frustrating! This book is called 3rd grade reading in our house! Soldier? Capture? This is not for a beginning reader…especially a dyslexic one!  Sure they could look at the pictures and figure out something about the Death Star, but we want them reading….not guessing.

When #2 was in second grade I discovered Bob books.

They are short, phonetic, with controlled text, and the different levels move through phonetic skills sequentially.

With coaching, even severely dyslexic readers can find success with these books when they are just entering the world of reading.  #3 can read a couple of these books independently now, which grows his confidence and encourages him to read more.  This creates a positive reinforcement loop with reading.

If others have suggestions for great books for children to practice beginning reading skills with, please post them in the comments so we can learn from you.  I know I’m always looking for new suggestions!  (There is really only so much of Cat and Sam and Mat sitting on each other that I can take.) And remember…emphasis on VERY EASY!

Note: This column was published in the Barrow Journal on May 8, 2013.

Last year we raised toads from tadpoles, and this year we’re raising butterflies. This is surprisingly easy to do, and I’d encourage any family to give it a try.  It’s a wonderful experience for children and adults.

My sons received the Backyard Safari Butterfly Habitat as a Christmas present, but you can find other companies who sell butterfly habitats and the larvae online. The cages are around $15. The Backyard Safari Habitat came with a coupon so that we could order the larvae when we were ready for them. You need to wait for warm weather, if you plan to release the butterflies. (The larvae were approximately $10 with the coupon, but they are under $20 without it.)

We received six Painted Lady larvae (or caterpillars) in a small container with everything they needed to survive during this second stage of their life cycle. There were explicit instructions to not open the container. All we needed to do was set the container by a window (but not in direct sunlight). Note: I have read different opinions about leaving them in the container, so I suggest you do some of your own research.

Painted Lady Butterflies live almost everywhere, which is why they are often used in schools and homes for this purpose. In most places it’s okay to release them back into the environment. Another option is to find butterfly larvae in your local area and raise them, but each species has different needs, so you have to make sure you have the right food source.

We watched our caterpillars for less than two weeks as they stirred up the food, spun silk, and proved to be extremely bad housekeepers. When we got them, they were less than a centimeter in length, and in two days, they doubled their size. Right before they formed themselves into a chrysalis (or pupa), they were about an inch long and quite plump.

After the butterflies emerged, my son turned this into a project by making a model of the Painted Lady Butterfly! He studied it like a real artist!

According to the instructions I received, the caterpillars were supposed to climb to the top of the vial and attach themselves to the gauze that was placed under the lid of the container. There they would hang down and form into chrysalides, and then we weren’t allowed to disturb the container for two days. After that time, we could carefully remove the lid, and then pin the gauze with the chrysalides near the bottom and on the wall of the cage.

This is what really happened: The caterpillars made a huge mess in the container, and we couldn’t see through it very well. All of the caterpillars crawled to the top, but most of them didn’t stay there. In the end, there were only two caterpillars that formed chrysalides and hung from the top. We could barely make out one chrysalis on the bottom, and since there wasn’t any movement, I assumed the others down there were changing too.

Per the instructions, we waited two full days after the last caterpillar we could see formed his chrysalis. Finally we got out the butterfly cage, and found a small branch that fit nicely into it. Then I removed the lid to the container, and we discovered that the caterpillars had eaten most of the gauze! The two chrysalides were hanging from silk and the plastic lid. Luckily I managed to fit it over the twigs in the cage so that they hung down safely.

I had to scoop out the four other chrysalides from the bottom of the container with a spoon, and I laid them gently on the bottom of our cage. We had read that this can happen, and they should be okay, but unfortunately, two of these never formed into butterflies. We weren’t surprised.

After only five days, two of our butterflies emerged!  Two more butterflies emerged in the next few days.  They are beautiful, small orange and black butterflies, and we’re feeding them watermelon and oranges.

The whole process has enamored my six-year-old, and he wants to keep going, so we’re going to attempt to raise a second generation. Yep, call me crazy. If it turns into a good story, and I’m pretty sure it will, I’ll be sure to share it with you. Note: Yes, indeed, it’s turning into a story, and I will share it with you!

Below is a slideshow I created to show you our experience, and you can see the life cycle here too!

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Notes you may be interested in:

• The butterfly’s life cycle is in four stages: egg, larvae (or caterpillar), chrysalis, adult butterfly.  (I highly recommend the simple app Life Cycles by nthfusion.com to help with learning about nature’s cycles!)
• The plural for chrysalis can be either chrysalides or chrysalises. (You can go here to hear the pronunciations.)
• The word eclose is a verb which means to emerge from the pupa as an adult or from an egg as a larvae.
• The red liquid that drips out off the butterfly after it emerges is meconium or the waste that was secreted while it was in chrysalis.
• After the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, it can live for about two weeks. During that time, they seek a mate, and the female seeks a host plant to lay her eggs.

If you like this, you might enjoy the slideshow I made of our tadpoles to toads last year.

Have you raised butterflies? Please share your experience!

Student: “Miss C, what size are you?”
Me: “……uh…..you mean in clothes?”
Student: “Yeah.”
Me: “…Why?”
Student: “Because I have a Target giftcard and I want to buy you some clothes today!”
Me: “Oh that’s so sweet of you, but you can use it to buy clothes for you.”

http://allinonehomeschool.com/how-to-use-this-curriculum/
http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/fictionforgirls.htm

Last week, I realized that sometimes simpler is better. A handful of my 1st graders, who have a very strong place value sense and can mentally add and subtract 2-digit numbers, have been asking (hounding) me to teach them multiplication. I struggled with this for a few days because I didn’t want to just tell them that multiplication was “groups of” or take out the tiles for array building quite yet. It wanted it to develop from something more natural, something they were used to seeing but just in a different light.

This group of students is familiar with dot images since we do number talks with them often, focusing on addition equations and properties of operations. I put the following dot image on the board:

Thumbs went up (our signal for having an answer) and they all agreed on the answer of 36. Then I asked them write down all of the equations they could for finding the answers. Not the main point of this post, however when a student says I knew that if it was four 10s, it would be 40 so I took away one from each group to get 36, I can’t help but get goose bumps:)

I recorded their answers on the board and then chose to focus on 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 36. I asked them to explain that equation to me. One student said there was 9 in each bunch (close enough to “group” so i jumped on it). I explained that this is an example of when we can write this same problem as multiplication. “This is four groups of nine, so we can write that as 4 x 9.” Their reaction “That’s it? That’s Easy” Priceless. We did a few more together before the class ended.

The next time we met, I wanted to give them a chance to do some work in partners so I could walk around and listen to each of the conversations. I tried to plan an activity that would allow me to see their thoughts on multiplication and if any of it really “stuck” with them. I racked my brain, and the internet, for something that would be engaging and fun for them, until I just decided to give them a dot image and see what happened!

Here are some of the results:
Dot Image:

Student Work:

Dot Image: Student Work: (I was bummed, his second equation is wrong bc he forgot the middle two 6′s, but the rest is amazing!)

Least prep ever for a math center with the most amazing results! Demonstrates the relationship between addition and multiplication and has the properties of operations all over it! I am almost convinced you could teach K-1 math class with dot images, ten frames and number lines!

Mathematically Yours,

Kristin

I enjoyed teaching programming to first grade so much that I began to look for fun ways to add critical thinking to their curriculum. I wanted to see kids smile and sneak in learning. I have some wonderful people that I work with. Karen Blumberg has been doing robotics throughout her career and she is one of the organizers of RoboExpo, a robotics exhibition show for students. She has cool resources for children of all ages. Dylan Ryder put me onto these really cool books on simple machines. I began researching the topic further and came to the Lego site! Now this isn’t anything new. And I am not trying to act like I am the inventor of adding simple machines and robotics to schools. We have a robust robotics program beginning in the 2nd Grade so it isn’t even new to me  I just wanted to add some aspects of Legos and the Maker Movement to Kindergarten and First Grade.

I did some research and found Lego Wedo sets. My students are learning the ins and outs of  Gears and Pulleys. It is so awesome to teach them the principles around simple machines and have them consider what variables effect outcomes. Since this is the first year I am doing this with my students, I am going to see how many concepts I can fit in and how much they can absorb. The good news is the students regularly use the jargon and have been able to make the connections I hope for. And they are completely engaged which means, I have minimal class management issues.

Things to consider:
I have at least 10 minutes of prep time before class
I am specific about the children’s process to minimize loss of pieces.
I ask the students to take off the cover and place it under the kit.
Then, remove the pieces from the plastic tray and place them in the bin.
After, take out the plastic tray and use that exclusively to organize the pieces for the items you are building.
No pieces should be on the table or stored in your hands.
Very Important: I ask students to collect all the pieces they need and place them in the plastic tray before building. Then I look to make sure they have all the correct pieces. Since they are so young, they really pay attention to detail if you give them the tools.

The Wedo software is great and easy to use. The tutorials are straightforward and the students can independently build and program. You can create supporting worksheets to guide inquiry and discovery.  Also, call all the pieces by their names. Children feel professional when they can discuss the tools like a professional.

Concepts taught so far:

• Motor and Axles
• Gears
• Gearing Down
• Gearing Up
• Pulleys and Belt
• Crossed Belt
• Decrease and Increase Speed
• Worm Gear

Vocabulary:

• Motor
• Gears
• Pulleys
• Belts
• Cross Belt
• Driving pulley
• Follower pulley
• Axle
• And the names of the pieces. A good site to get all the names is here and here.

Compare and Contrast: Variables that effect speed and direction of pulleys.

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We had a parade at school last Wednesday. Great job students!

Here are the winners picked from each grade:

The cats have been hanging on our walls for a little over a month now, as I’m changing the art around the building, I thought it was time to show them off!

EBS 1st grade classroom

PDD 2nd Grade Classroom

PDD 4th Grade Classroom

This was the only outline I assisted the student in a hand over hand prompt.

George Ella Lyon wrote a lovely list poem titled “Where I’m From”, which I’ve seen used with older kids and adults as a poetry prompt, but I’ve never seen it done with 1st grade before–and I think you’ll love the results!

In Mrs. Moore’s 1st grade class, each student wrote his or her own “I am From” poem to share about their families, their homes, and the things that they love.

Mrs. Moore created a Google Presentation with a slide for each student and shared the file with her 1st graders, who did all of their own typing for this project. Isn’t that amazing?

(One of Mrs. Moore’s classroom volunteers told me that some of the kids were very quick typists and finished within a few minutes, while others took a little longer to get their words onto their slides–but, in the end, everyone finished their poem!)

Click any poem to view larger:

In this lesson, students learned how to weave paper strips into mats and reviewed their knowledge of warm and cool colors. They identified warm color and cool color paper strips and wove them together by intersecting the colors.

I’ve written about what I’ve considered our “project-based homeschooling” in terms of long projects in which my son learned about a specific topic and also spent some considerable time constructing something, such as in Building the Titanic and Rockets and the Benefits of Failure. But to tell the truth, he spends most of his time doing what I think of as “little projects.” That is, they are projects he has come up with on his own, but they aren’t tied to what I consider a long-term study project. Not that they couldn’t become that, and in a way, you could consider some of what he’s doing long-term study in that he’s learning some skills such as sewing.

For me, this is what homeschooling is all about. I want my children’s imaginations to be unfettered. I want them to have fun. I don’t want them to be told what they can or can’t do. I want them to have the time and the resources (to the best of my ability) to develop their imaginations and real, quality skills along the way!

I’ve already written about how my boys love to build. You can read about many of the building and art supplies we keep on hand and ideas my son “found” last year in Boys Like to Build. You can read about the benefits of building with Legos or blocks in Little Builders.

Here, I want to show you examples of other projects. For lack of a better term, they’re kind of “artsy.” How did he come up with these ideas? Many different ways:

• He “finds” ideas in television shows, such as Blues Clues, or he happens to find an idea in a book or on a pamphlet at Hobby Lobby, and he tells me he wants to make it.
• Some ideas are from pure imagination.
• Some ideas I lead him to. Occasionally I’ll see something online that I think he might like or could easily do, and I show it to him. If he likes it, he wants to make it.
• For holiday craft ideas, I don’t plan anything. I let my son google “Easter crafts,” and then we look at the zillion of images and he picks what he likes!
• Most artwork comes from just playing with different mediums. I keep all art supplies out where the kids can reach them at any time. Here’s a short list of what we’ve got:
  • paints, brushes
  • construction paper
  • markers, crayons, pens, pencils
  • glue, tape
  • lots of fun stuff such as sequins, pom poms, little wooden cubes, etc.
  • modeling clay
  • recently added: watercolor pencils and watercolor paper!
  • sewing stuff: fabric, felt, fabric scissors, craft thread, needles (but the needles are kept in a safer place)

We have one section of the wall in our kitchen that is our “art gallery.”

I am the “YES” Mom.

Part of “project-based homeschooling” is creating an environment where supplies are on hand and easily accessible to my children. From the time my son was three- or four-years-old, I’ve been doing simple art with him – nothing stressful for me and nothing that needed a lot of pre-planning. For example, when he was two and three, he just liked to cut paper, so I turned his paper bits into animals. We did that for the longest time, and sometimes my boys will still ask me to make them a paper animal!

We have a routine, and there are things that I require of my children, but I try very hard to always say “Yes! Go ahead!” whenever they want to paint, draw or create something. It doesn’t have to be a certain time of day – I just let them do it. The only time that I may say no is when it’s, say, fifteen minutes before our evening routine begins, and someone wants to pull all the paints out. Then I’ll say, “Well, you’re going to need to get your bath in a few minutes, so why don’t we plan to paint tomorrow?” But if it’s crayons or markers, I’d probably be inclined to say “Go ahead!” even at that time.

My kids don’t “create” everyday or every week, but looking at all the pieces of artwork in the house, I know that they’ve had a lot of fun and freedom. It does make for a messy house, and even though I always make the boys clean up after themselves, there’s still a lot of mess left over waiting for me to pick it up. (And it can just keep waiting.) I’ll be writing about this “chaos” and our messy but productive environment in upcoming posts.

Art Lessons

It’s always in the back of my mind to get a little more formal with the art. Show them different mediums, artists, and styles. I’m really looking forward to reading more of Amy Hood’s amy hood arts blog for ideas on teaching art to my children. But right now I can hardly keep up with my son’s ideas, so for awhile, we’ll just go with his ideas.

Here’s a few of his self-made projects:

Making a bed for one of his stuffed animals. He used a box, fabric & a glue gun. He’s never felt the need to paint the boxes or add embellishes.

Making an alien puppet. This idea came to him after we made the dinosaur puppets below.

Here it is!

I saw the dinosaur & rocket puppets online & thought they’d be easy to make. The six-year-old made the one in the middle. We both worked on the green one. I made the one on the right.

The rocket puppet. I cut out the pattern & the six-year-old sewed it.

I started this lizard for a Christmas gift, but I don’t have the patience my son has, so he had to finish it for me. ;o

Our Thanksgiving wreath. Idea given to us by a friend. (Once my six-year-old hears good ideas, there’s no stopping him.)

My six-year-old found this pamphlet with instructions on how to make a lion puppet at Hobby Lobby. He bugged me for months to make it, and we finally did. The instructions were not good, by the way, so I had to improvise on some of it. I helped with the sewing/cutting on this, but the six-year-old did a lot of it!

Nature art. My six-year-old did this all by himself. He got the idea after seeing some similar artwork at the Botanical Garden.

Clay is a huge hit with my boys! My six-year-old watched this tutorial on how to make this car.

This tree was his idea.

I’m really impressed with how my son has taken up sewing. (I don’t sew.) He saw this snake fabric at the store, and he said he’d make a snake with it. And he did! I helped, but it was all his idea, and he was very fussy about how it needed to be done.

Every day my son carries some little toy around the house all day, and at night, he puts it to “sleep” on his nightstand. One day he had the idea to make a bed for his toys! I didn’t even know what he was doing until he was almost done. 

I can’t forget the three-year-old! He LOVES to paint, cut paper, glue, build with blocks, make pretend food, paste things into his “notebook,” and create different things too. At Christmas, I got him these little wooden cubes and sticks. I let him make all the messes he wants to. (This picture was taken the day after Christmas, which is why there’s a lot of odd stuff in the room.)

The three-year-old doesn’t have the motor skills to make things like my six-year-old, but he’s often creating interesting things with blocks or cards or anything he can stack.

The three-year-old made this flower face with some wooden shapes. I think the six-year-old had showed him how to do this once.

The Benefits

I know there are more benefits to living this lifestyle than I’m even aware of, but I do feel confident to say that my boys are developing their imaginations, self-esteem, fine motor skills, problem-solving skills, and a general awareness of how things work. By experimenting, they are learning how things work together, and learning how to deal with the frustrations that come with trial and error. I try my best not to interfere with how they plan out their work unless they ask for my help or get very stuck. I can hardly wait to see what they come up with next!

Note: I have noticed that in most of my photographs, especially these, my boys are in pajamas. Ahem. Just so you know, I do dress my boys! But with that thought, I’ll leave you with this quote:

Sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.  ~Lewis Carroll

Please share your children’s artwork with me!

Ladybugs blooming and happy boys

Ladybug found her leaf.

Alexandra and Megan adding finishing touches.

Hamda added antennas.

Dong Won, Xavier and Adriana showing their ladybugs.

Adding a small butterfly to the leaf.

]]> http://pattersonkids.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/approved-for-1st-grade/ Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:24:06 +0000 mlp9200 http://pattersonkids.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/approved-for-1st-grade/ Literacy Sites

Readquarium

http://gamequarium.com/readquarium/

Starfall