Cats vs. Birds

Election Day is fast approaching!  Not the one you think I mean either - it's almost time to elect the Best Pet in the My America class.  Today the class made nominations and the candidates are Cats and Birds.  These two pets are good choices for this class because the characteristics they considered most important in a pet were things like being small enough to hold, being hand fed, and being cute and cuddly.  One girl suggested a great pet should be "fancy" and I'm not exactly sure what that means, but a couple of other kids agreed.

So Birds vs Cats it is!  Here are some of our campaign posters:

This one is Natalie's

What would be your vote?

My America Take 2

Since it is an election year, our homeschool enrichment group is again offering elections themed classes to all the grade levels. I am teaching the class for the 1st and 2nd grade group (Natalie's class).  I am working through all the crafts, trying to tweak them a little to make them easier.  Somehow, my syllabus from last time only included 11 weeks and I can't figure out if I made an error or if we actually missed a week due to weather.  So I added a song and craft I did not use last time, these are Uncle Sam masks:

Annalise helped me make the mask two different ways and we'd like some input as to which one looks better. 

We are leaning toward the first design.

Obviously I could offer both options, but with limited time and attention spans, I am not sure I want to do that!

If I was President...

Our last elections themed class went very well.  There was a tie in the general election - 6 votes each for Dogs and Dolphins - and one write in vote for frogs.  Guess who voted for frogs...and I couldn't even get him to compromise by asking, "well if you had to pick one, which one would you pick?"  he just restates his choice for frogs above either dogs or dolphins.

We also talked about political parties.  I told them they were like a club for people who had similar ideas about how government should be run.  (There was some initial confusion with the word "party".)  Then we played a "would you rather" kind of game where the kids could run to opposite sides of the room to show their preferences.  So we had the Pool Party vs. the Ocean Party and the Horse Party vs. the Bike Party.  I think they liked that.

To wrap things up the kids did a "If I was President" craft.  There is a pretty broad spectrum of writing ability in the class, so my helper and I did the writing for some of the kids.  Here are some of them:

President Robbins - would tell people not to kill or eat frogs, etc.

The picture...yeah, dead ringer....

One week to go.  This Friday is also the annual Thanksgiving Feast, which means my class will be cut twenty minutes.  I'm just going to do a traditional Thanksgiving themed lesson and craft.  This has been a fun class, but a lot of work!

Election Simulation

Election Day Cupcakes - decorated with halloween candy

Rob and I voted absentee again this year.  Evidently we are troublemakers because it's those absentee ballots that are holding up the Florida results.  I don't feel too bad though because look what we missed out on:

This is our normal polling place and the immense line you see is just the beginning of the line.  It wrapped around the back side of the building and into the parking lot.  The kids and I drove buy just to see what it was like and I highly recommend voting absentee!

At PEP, we are doing election lessons.  I have a sort of semi-curriculum to loosely base things on for this section.  It is one of those "Teacher Created Materials" supplemental lesson plans.  The book is a little too technical for 1st and 2nd grade, but I have used a lot of their suggestions.  The first week we learned about different kinds of elections - open vs. secret and how to graph results.  Very practical.  Last week we talked about polling, nominating, and campaigning.  We did a little of all three.  The idea is to have a class election for "Best Pet."  So we used these concepts to come up with 2 potential pets.  The nominees?  Dogs...and Dolphins.

Yes, dolphins.  Now if I was 7 years old I'd love to have a dolphin.  And when they listed criteria that defined a good pet, dolphin really fit the bill - interesting, helpful, does tricks.  No one was interested in my suggestion that a good pet is easy to care for.

So I gave each kid paper and they made a campaign poster for either Dogs or Dolphins.  Here are two posters I made as examples.

I was all "Get on the boat...you know bandwagon propagan....uh never mind.:

This one was to highlight the pets desirable qualities.

Here are some student examples:

Hope  Love  Dog

One of the better ones - she added the reasons to vote for Dolphins

And there are always independent voters....like my son.

We will have our election tomorrow and learn about political parties, representative government, and find out what these kids will do if they become president someday.

A Glorious Day in My America

Today was a real hint that the dry season is near.  It has been a very rainy summer (even for here), but honestly I'd rather have a hot rainy summer than just a hot summer.  If it is going to be 118% humidity, it may as well rain!  The sun is visibly more to the south and the fence shadow is creeping it way back across our backyard.  The light by itself was a clue.  But for the humidity to drop, we had to wait.  Finally today it did - which made 86 degrees seem so much more amazing than it did yesterday.  The air was lighter and it felt like a hint of old times, I'm just not sure what memories it's stirring up.  The first two years here, I was not able to discern a change in the weather.  It was just too subtle to get my attention.  I guess the light air with the sea breeze made me feel...younger.

In My America we painted.  And we are not allowed to paint in the classrooms, which means to paint I (and a recruit) have to move the tables outside (and the tables are old and heavy), tape all the papers and paint cups down so they would not blow away, and then afterward clean up paint brushes, scrub the tables, hunt for an able looking volunteer to help, and then lug the tables back in.  None of this happens during the actual class of course!  The kids love to paint though and I guess that makes it worth it every now and again.

I felt like the natural place to go after the Civil War was westward expansion.  We sang Home on the Range and talked about pioneers.  And then we watched a video about Johnny Appleseed.  Now Johnny Appleseed pre-dates the Civil War, but he did have an impact on early pioneers.  So that is how I merged the two things together.  Folks, it was either that or make corn husk dolls...with 14 kids...so instead we painted the apple tree perspective paintings I made with C & A a while ago.  They turned out pretty nice. 

This one is Caleb's.  I think it shows that he'd done this craft before.

So we press on - the next 3 weeks have to be election themed and I am stumped, so if you have any ideas feel free to toss them this way.  We've been doing this song thing and I'd like to keep singing, but I can't think of any election-y songs...much less 3 of them!

Week 6 in My America

This week's lesson went even better than I had hoped.  I wasn't expecting the kids to have as much prior knowledge and that made all the difference.

The song for this week was "Swing Lo Sweet Chariot".  We looked at a map with the states painted different colors based on what side they were on during the Civil War.  I briefly explained the conflict, I really did not want to get mired down in fighting and death with kids this little.  I kept it at:  There were slave states and free states and when Lincoln was elected the slave states decided to break away.  I wanted to move away from the actual war at that point, so we talked about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.  We read a book called "The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom" by Bettye Stroud and made a quilt square in the "Drinking Gourd" or "North Star" pattern.

Although I under-estimated how much time I would need for everything, most of the kids were able to complete the craft in under 10 minutes.  I gave them a template like this: 

I also gave them squares and triangles of pre-cut paper - I used mostly scrapbook paper from Joann's.  To minimize confusion I had a baggie for each kid with the right combination of shapes already selected.  I think they look fabulous!

I think the kids really liked making them!

Annalise's class studied muscles this week :)

And for September we very half-heartedly studied Kentucky.  But we know: they have caves, they have horses, and they lay claim to both Abraham Lincoln and Daniel Boone.

For our dinner we had Kentucky Hot Brown Bake.

And for dessert we had Thoroughbred Pie - minus the Kentucky Bourbon.  YUM

Extracurriculars have suffered since PEP and Awana began, but hopefully we will study Louisiana this month.

2 Weeks in My America

I feel like there was a lot of contrast between the last two weeks in the My America class I'm teaching.  Most of the contrast involves communication.  That is, in one class I feel like I communicated the main idea effectively, and in the other I feel I did not.  Here's how they played out.

Week 4's song was America the Beautiful.  The main idea of the class was that America is a big, beautiful and geographically varied place.  Unfortunately I made that concept too complicated.  After we sang the song, I gave all the kids maps of the US.  I had a matching map blown up and taped to the wall and had them copy various landforms onto their map.  I really didn't think it was important that they knew the names or exact locations of these things for now, but I think I made them think that I did.  Many of them were overwhelmed and confused.

Student example - this one copied my map with reasonable accuracy.

This one is Caleb's.  I really like his active volcano and giant palm tree in Florida.

Week 5's song was Yankee Doodle.  In preparing the class, the more I learned about Yankee Doodle, the more I liked it.  It just seemed a natural fit, plus almost all the kids already knew it and that helped give them a reference point for the rest of the class.  After we sang, I showed them a map of the 13 colonies and we talked very briefly about the Revolutionary War.  I showed them this political cartoon.

Of course that sparked many comments about snakes they had seen.  But they understood the idea that it was a symbol.  We moved from the cartoon to Benjamin Franklin, who suggested the turkey as the national bird, but since he was unable to persuade the other founding fathers, we made a bald eagle craft instead.

And here is where the difference between the Pre-K/Kindergarten class and the 1st/2nd class really shows itself.  I didn't have to help anyone trace their hand or cut the parts out.  And they all turned out super.  Even the ones that just went horribly wrong still looked bald eagle-ish.

Caleb's eagle.  The body of the eagle is tracing of his foot.

Another example.

As the classes have gone on, the kids seem to like the singing part of the class more.  I think it's because they know the songs better.

A Week of Firsts

If July was a relaxing month for me, August has made up for it! I have been busy and am beginning to wonder if I have over committed myself. I'm the secretary for the Awana club at our church. Right now, that is a busy job, but last year, after the initial weeks, my job was not that demanding. Plus last year I didn't really know what we needed to have on hand, so I was constantly having to order more materials. This year I had a better idea of what we needed (and what we didn't) and made a single large order before the club started up again. Also with the year starting back up, I needed to organize the student registry and arrange for a parent meeting.  I also made a student recruitment video and spoke in the chapel at our church's school.  The parent meeting will be next week, and the club started last week.  In between PEP started, where I'm teaching a 12 week class. So all these things are 3-4 days apart and I'm just dealing with "whatever is next" to keep from getting too crazy.

All that said! PEP started today.

A: Excited - mostly about her backpack.  C:  Apprehensive - mostly about his taekwondo class  N:  Pretty pleased to have Mommy all to herself!

The first day went well.  Annalise...she is a complicated kid.  When I picked her up I could tell she had a nice time, but she didn't say much.  Later I told her, "I'm glad you had a fun time" and she answered (with no significant emotion), "I had a SUPER fun time."  She made a paper brain hat and a 3-D bird.

Caleb - very much enjoyed the taekwondo class that he was so nervous about.  I am teaching his class's 3rd hour and I can already tell that I am going to enjoy that all those boys just spent an hour in taekwondo!  Last year I taught the 3rd hour after no physical activity.

The class I am teaching is called My America.  I have to do some classes about the election process, but mostly it just has to be about American things.  I'm doing the first 3 classes on Songs and Symbols.  Today was the flag and The Star Spangled Banner.  I found this great flag craft online and I reeeeeally like how the kids flags turned out. 

Before class I penciled in the corner square and made stripes with masking tape.  Today they used a white crayon to draw stars in the corner and then painted over the corner with watered down blue paint (alternately you could use watercolors).  The white stars just appear as you paint - the kids loved that and it looks nice too.  Then they could paint on the stripes between the tapes.  This one is actually Caleb's, he decided to just paint all over the tape too, but most of the kids didn't.

This is an example of how they look with the tape removed.  I brought them home to take off the tape because in my trials at home, the tape sometimes tore the paper.  I thought that if the kids did it, they would tear a lot.  If you remove the tape very slowly, it helps a lot.

Some of the kids could not draw stars, so I told them to make asterisks. 

We also read a book about the American flag, watch a video of someone singing the national anthem, tried to sing it ourselves, learned how to fold an American flag, and looked at pictures of old flags.  I have no idea how we fit all that in, but that was all I planned too!

Next week is the State of Liberty and My Country 'Tis of Thee.