Last evening, while taking a walk as a family, we were remembering various ways we have celebrated Earth Day over the years. Our one constant was an Earth Day cake. I am known for my ability to make a celebration out of most things, so the fact that we celebrate Earth Day with a cake is not unique. This year we are planning on taking a walk, caring for our little seedlings in the garden, and making a cake. Whatever your plans may be today, I hope you find a few moments to enjoy our lovely earth.
I am sending along some educational ideas for celebrating our earth that would be great today or any day.
Happy Earth Day!
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The first Earth Day was on April 22, 1970, so we are celebrating the 50th Earth Day tomorrow. I thought I would send along a few resources in case you would like to incorporate an activity or two into your family's rhythm tomorrow.
Check back here tomorrow for more Earth Day fun! I hope your Tuesday includes moments of wonder and appreciation for our lovely earth. How are you? Is your family finding a rhythm that works? Are you finding the space to adjust your rhythm as you go? I hope you are finding some normalcy in this strange, unsettling time. As our family completed week 5 in quarantine, I did a little assessing of what is working for us and what may need a slight adjustment. Having teenagers in our house, we each have ownership of our personal rhythms, so we move apart and come back together at various times throughout the day. (I know this is very different than having young children at home – my thoughts are with all families with young children.)
A few things that are working over here:
I hope your Sunday includes moments of wonder and a silver lining. Storytelling is a powerful part of our lives. We tell stories at work, school, as a family, and with our friends. We read stories and watch stories. Stories are everywhere. They help form who we are and what we believe. They help us understand and know each other, and we are able to create deeper connections. Right now is a great time to tell stories from the past and record stories for the future.
Start at the dinner table:
Connect with grandparents:
I hope your Saturday includes moments of wonder and a great story. We had a free homeschool membership to the Art Institute when we lived in Chicago, so we visited often. There were some areas we always visited, like the Impressionists and the Thorne Rooms, and the members' lounge with free hot chocolate at Christmastime was a big draw. Whatever the draw was, both daughters have developed a deep appreciation of art. I know the access they had to an amazing art museum had an impact, but the many children's biographies about artists they read had an important impact as well. Learning about the lives of artists helped them make connections with the artwork. Reading the beautiful biography about Georgia O'Keeffe led us to visit Clouds Above Sky IV every time we visited the museum, and reading about Jackson Pollock helped us all understand Greyed Rainbow a little better. Museum visits are not in the cards for any of us right now, but I would suggest reading some of these books and pairing it with a virtual museum visit.
I hope your Tuesday includes moments of wonder and art discovery. I imagine you have plenty of math worksheets for your children, so I have tried to keep the math suggestions hands-on and fun around here. Today is no exception: I am here to say that working with the base-10 number system can, in fact, be fun.
Activities:
Book suggestions:
I hope your Monday includes moments of wonder and math fun. Happy Friday! If you are celebrating Passover, Easter, the beginning of spring or making it through another week, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
A rundown of field trip ideas (I'm using the term field trip in the broadest possible sense):
I hope your Friday includes moments of wonder and sunshine. I was a classroom teacher in Boston in 2001. I remember the exact place I was standing when the head of school told me that a plane had hit the Twin Towers. I did not realize in that moment what an impact it would have on life as we knew it at that time. I still remember very specific moments, but I did not write about it. I wish I had.
Around our house, we have been talking about the impact COVID-19 is having on everyone's lives right now and the impact it will have going forward. We decided to keep journals to remember this time. My daughters are better at this than I am, but I try to catch up every couple days with a few lines. I know these will be significant memories in 20 years. If you are interested in journaling with your children, I would suggest ordering a notebook, or making one with pages you can print, with spaces to write and illustrate. If your child is not yet writing, you can ask your child to dictate while you write and then your child can illustrate the dictation. If your child is older, a composition notebook is nice to use. My single piece of advice with journal writing is to keep it simple. A few sentences are great. If lists are your thing, go that route. If you or your child is not feeling it one day, that's okay. Do what works. Some topics you could suggest to your child:
I hope your Wednesday includes moments of wonder and good memories. How are you? I hope your family is healthy and hanging in there.
I have read a few articles recently about the comfort found in a familiar book. These articles led me to think about the many illustrated children's books that have comforted me, brought me joy, or have elicited memories over the years. Do you have favorite books that bring you comfort and joy? Please share if you do. Here are some of the books on my list:
I could go on, but I will stop there, and leave you with a link to "What to bake if you run out of ingredients" from King Arthur Flour. I made the carrot muffins this afternoon and they were well-received. I think the original cake pan cake is up next. I hope your Tuesday includes moments of wonder and a good book. A mandala is a culmination of math and art. The process of creating a mandala is slow and contemplative. I encourage you to focus on enjoying the process, while sneaking in a little math. (The pictures above are in the same order as the suggestions below. You can find a printable mandala template here, or draw your own.)
Here are some ideas:
If you would like to incorporate more math concepts into these activities, you can include adding up the objects used, using geometric shapes to create patterns, finding lines of symmetry, or including even or odd numbers of objects in each concentric circle. Have fun with the possibilities. I'm sure your children will come up with many of their own. Perhaps yoga would be a nice way to end this activity or the day. I have heard great things about Cosmic Kids Yoga, and I try to incorporate Yoga with Adrienne in my daily schedule. I hope your Monday includes moments of wonder and calm. |
AuthorWelcome! My name is Heidi. I am a mom of two daughters, one dog, and one rabbit, and wife to one guy. I have been a homeschool mom for thirteen years – the first ten in Chicago and the last three in St. Louis. I am glad you found your way here! Archives
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