Learning About The Presidents And a Giveaway!

February has flown by and it is now time for us to share the books and activities we used to learn more about this months theme: US Presidents!

We looked for books that would make the Presidents appeal to both a Pre K and third grader. Their common interests of animals and baking turned out to be the key! 

The plan was to make a list of each president's favorite foods and make some of them ourselves. Our library didn't have as many White house cooking books as I expected. Thankfully I accidentally found this treasure: Have Fun with the Presidents: Activities, Projects, and Fascinating Facts by David C King. It provided our recipes as well as lots of other projects, puzzles for the Presidents from George Washington through George W Bush.

We tried John Adams' Cool Berry Flummery, a yummy berry sauce to go with ice cream and John Quincy Adams' favorite Shrewsbury Cakes, spiced shortbread cookies. Looks like we aren't going to run out of dessert recipes to try for awhile..apparently many of the forefathers had sweet teeth.

This book was my favorite because it has pretty much given me a whole toolbox of activities. The kids, however loved our second book...

Presidential Pets: The Weird, Wacky, Little, Big, Scary, Strange Animals That Have Lived In The White House by Julia Moberg. Two pages are devoted to each Commander in Chief and are full of funny illustrations of the vast range of animals that have lived in the White house. However, there is far more than just animals in this book. There is also the key achievements of is presidency, quotes and quick facts.

This was a great way to get our youngest especially interested in history having said that it is versatile as the reading level was perfect for Grade 2 and up.

Poppins Book Nook Giveaway! Every month the Poppins Book Nook group will be offering readers a chance to win a brand new storybook that ties in with our theme for the month. This month one lucky entrant will win a copy of So You Want to Be President?  !  The winner must reside within the United States. This giveaway is brought to you by the company Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, who is owner and founder of the Poppins Book Nook. By entering this giveaway you are also acknowledging that you have read and agree to all of the Rafflecopter terms and conditions as well as Enchanted Homeschooling Mom's disclosures found here {http://enchantedhomeschoolingmom.org/disclosures/}.  Just enter the Rafflecopter below to win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

George Washington unit & Sculpting Mt Rushmore

Just in time for Presidents day, George Washington was the focus of this week's literature link in Miss K's Language arts curriculum.
The readings in the work book included a simple biography and the legend of Washington and the cherry tree. Miss K really enjoyed several days of timeline comprehension activities that tested her comprehension.

To extend our lessons the Piwi's explored some of art that Washington inspired.
The first piece was Mt Rushmore. We visited the Mt Rushmore National memorial website and took a virtual tour. We also downloaded the student guide. Miss K wasnt too sure it could be considered a piece of art so we checked out the definition.

Macmillian dictionary defines a 'Work of art' (noun) as:

1. something such as a painting or sculpture that is of very high quality
2. something that is made or done in a skilful or attractive way

Although the sculpting techniques were on a very large (and explosive) scale we all agreed that it met the definition of a Work of Art.

The Piwi's made their own Mt Rushmore Paper Sculptures from paper bags. This is Miss K's art work.  I will post Mini Piwi's separately as she did a few different activities.

 Miss K colored in pictures of the Presidents carved into Mt Rushmore. She glued them in the correct order on to a large paper bag.

She scrunched and folded, and held parts in place with staples. Here is the finished product!

Along with the readings in the Student workbook, here are the books we used for this unit...

 

 

The history of the Philippines (with Chocolate)

Last week we began a unit about Chocolate. We took the road less traveled and used it as an opportunity to learn about Cacao farming and it’s place in Philippines history. For those new to our blog: you can read about our family's heritage here.

Our inspiration was a bar of Askinosie chocolate. On the front of this uniquely package chocolate is big text stating that it was sourced from Davao, Philippines. At the time I wasn’t aware that Chocolate was one of the country's exports.  After a quick web search I learnt that the Davao region grew 70-80% of the 10,000 Tons of cacao the Philippines produced last year (source).

 

It took a bit of research but it evolved into a  perfect opportunity for Miss K to learn about the history of the Philippines. I wrote out the key events in the Country's history, and the history of Cacao. There was also a lot of information on recent initiatives to increase production of Cacao beans and support of Davao farmers. Miss K cut out all the events and ordered them by date. What started out as a two foot long time line, end up measuring nearly 8 feet!  

We learnt a lot and Piwi Daddy was surprised at how much Miss K had absorbed about the same same subject that he had been bored by in school. To be honest I, too, would have a better grasp on world history if the subject of chocolate had been involved. 

As we were reading about the processing of cacao beans we came across tablea tsokalate. This is a traditional chocolate drink made by dissolving tablets made from ground cacao beans in water or milk. There are people all over the web raving about this rich foamy drink!
Our favorite was this virtual Experience making tablea in Palo 

Apparently Askinosie chocolate imports handmade Tablea, as a way of raising money for it's Davao charities. Now Miss K wants to try Tablea and learn more about the Farms in Davao....

Update!
Here is our attempt at grinding down cacoa beans to make our own Tablea

Books we used for this project:

Monet Art study

This week Miss K is working on a France unit Study. For LA we use Learning Language Arts Through Literature . Each week-long lesson works with an except from children's literature or a specific book. I had saved the Madeline 'literature link' for this unit study. It was also a great opportunity to study Monet.

We began our study by looking at a timeline of Monet's art.  It was a great way to learn about his life and the creation of impressionism. I had made up an art study lapbook for Miss K to use.

It included mini books to record information about Monet's life and impressionism. There are also mini books for 8 paintings. In these Miss K is able to record what she saw and background information. We are looking at two pieces of Monet art each day this week.

We started with Water lilies, 1914.

Miss K used Oil pastels to create her Lillie pad leaves and flowers. She worked on the shapes of the leaves and shaded them with greens and pinks like she observed in Monet's painting. Blue water colors were painted around the leaves and she chose to paint over the flowers and other shading. Finally she wet the paper with her brush with water to change to create a water effect.

She worked so hard and made a beautiful piece of art....

Mini Piwi also did Pre K Monet

Some useful books I found:

Dr King & Harriet Tubman

Last year Miss K and I read and enjoyed the Drinking gourd, so this book was a step up.  It is a new (Jan 2013) biography of Harriet Tubman by Grace Norwich (Scholastic). It has a recommended reading age of  7 years and up. Miss K could read most of it herself. Instead, we chose to read it together so I could answer any questions she had. It is dealing with some pretty serious topics for a 7yr old such as slavery, the bad treatment of slaves and racism. Harriet Tubman’s life and work for civil and woman’s rights is inspiring to say the least.  Books like this make it easier for our children to understand that they live with equal rights today because of the sacrifice and courage of women like Harriet Tubman.  Although it is marketed as a children’s book I think that even adults who would like a simple outline of Ms. Tubman’s life would enjoy this book.

This title is the sixth in the Scholastic 'I am'  biography series written by Grace Norwich. Number four is about Martin Luther King Jr. We should have read this too because we had a lesson planned today for MLK day. Never mind we can look for it at the library this week.

Miss made a chart comparing Harriet Tubman and MLK

Mini Piwi made a paper doll chain to symbolize Dr King's dream of a world where everyone lives in peace together.

Mini Piwi wanted to decorate her kitchen with the Paper dolls

Disclaimer: I received a digital copy of  I am Harriet Tubman, in exchange for an honest review to be submitted to Scholastic via Netgalley.com. I will not receive any monetary compensation from Netgalley.com nor Scholastic. The links to amazon do contain affiliate links where I do receive a small commission for any purchases made through this link.

Exploring our Faith with the little flower

This year our family joined this amazing program called Generations of Faith. One of the projects was to set up a faith center in the living room. We did a bio study of St Therese and her 'little way' as her feast day was coming up that week. We displayed it for everyone to see and learn. Miss K enjoyed the idea that St Therese promised 'showers of roses'.


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As with any time we discuss saints I went over their role in our faith. I grow up as a protestant and was always told 'Catholics worship Mary and the saints, they make idols of the saints etc etc'.  As a young adult I began to ask questions about catholicism from my first employer who was to me a great role model in faith. Ultimately I converted through the RCIA program. It wasn't an instant thing, everyday I am working on becoming a better catholic. We have all made bad decisions growing up but where appropriate I think they can be used to guide our children to make their own better decisions. One regret I have was arming myself earlier with the confidence to speak about my faith. Even in the last few years, when 'friends' openly criticized the church and my faith (some incorrectly assumed I had converted for Piwi daddy) I wish now I had not just 'turned the other cheek'. I wish I had tried to explain that their assumptions about the catholic church were wrong and at times just plain ignorance. So here it is for my non catholic friends, this is what my children will be able to tell naysayers....'As Catholics we do not worship Mary, we do not Pray to her or the Saints in the why we Pray to God or Jesus. We are thankful for Mary (as mother of Jesus) and we ask them to Pray for us in the same way people might ask their friends to pray for them.' This is my simplified explanation for my kids so if you wanted a better version I would suggest starting here...

Miss K thought that everyone could get something for St Therese's little way.
"What matters in life, is not great deeds, but great love" St Therese, "Story of a Soul"

 Therese lived and taught a spirituality of attending to everyone and everything well and with love. She believed that just as a child becomes enamored with what is before her, we should also have a childlike focus and totally attentive love. Therese's spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love.
Little flower.org

Notebooking pages for Saints

.We like using Weston Publishing's History scribe. All the Saints pages can be purchased separately for $1 or there are plenty of combo packages that are great deals. History-Scribe-Popular-Saints

There is also some free ones available www.thatresourcesite.com

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Piwi Explorers: China

Our first country in Asia to explore was China. It was a busy week packed with also sorts of topics in the history and geography of this huge country. We made art projects, studied the Giant Panda and visited a Chinese restaurant to wrap up the unit.

Coloring the flag are researching the meanings of the stars and colors

Map of China and geographical statistics,

Making a Chinese New year dragon from teacher file box

Postcard from Ancient China from Teacher file box

Practising calligraphy, Mini books on growing rice and food in china

Chinese inventions and types of houses in China. Miss K used google (with supervision) to research these topics.

Giant Panda conservation and adaptations

Giant panda animal report

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