I don't think I have very many pictures, but we've started up again where we left off with the human body. Last time we did Lernenzeit (learning time, that's what we call our preschool time) we had gone over the 5 senses. This second section of the human body will go through what's inside our bodies. The third section will talk about the spiritual nature and potential of our bodies. This is where we bring in Adam and Eve, why we even have bodies, and it should coincide with Easter, so of course we'll talk about the Resurrection and eternal bodies. Stuff like that. I might add on the end a little unit on emotions. That's still the body - except I'm not bringing up neurotransmitters and hormones and the like. It's a little out of our range of complexity. We'll wait until high school maybe.
Ok, here we go.
For skeletons we first read some books - which were really good, and tried to feel our own bones - mostly our knee caps and collar bones. We had a few other books to just study the bones. The kids were supposed to learn and discover things just by looking - and then point at the things they found that were interesting to them. Except Joshua decided nothing on that page was interesting so he found another page and started telling me about some other body part. So that exercise was less successful.
We have a print out in German of the skeleton and names of the bones, which both kids found fascinating and they carried their papers around with them all day - even on errands in the car.
We learned the song "Ich bin so gelenkig" which is that song, I'm so full of hinges that everything bends... I can't remember the title in English. Maybe it's just called "Hinges." Anyway, that was a HUGE success. They totally loved it.
And we checked out one of Joshua's favorite Eyewitness Videos from the library called simply "Skeleton." It talks about animal skeletons as well, but that's fine. When we learned about the body 2 years ago - wow, have I been doing this that long? - we saw this movie and Joshua has remembered it ever since. I think because there is a walking skeleton computer graphic throughout the film and he does different cool things. Anyway, they wanted to watch this movie twice. It's only 30 minutes, so I said why not.
Today we started our muscles section. Again we had a book to read and did some learning with our own bodies by just flexing our muscles. Then we pulled out the same three books about the entire body, found the muscles pages, and did our show and tell learning by observation, which was also less of a success, but I really want to work on that so I think we're just going to keep doing it, maybe I'll tweak it a little in the future.
And then we pulled down our Body Posters from the wall and drew in some bones and muscles. We made these posters just out of butcher paper while we were learning about the senses. So the kids had already colored their ears, noses, eyes, mouths, and fingers (for touch). Abigail wasn't very interested in coloring her poster, but Joshua was. It was kind of a tricky day for us with preschool, but I'll talk more about that later.
And tomorrow for muscles - I guess I'll have to add photos later, we are going (hopefully, depending on how much we have all recovered from sickness) to a Music and Movement class that my friend in Provo is putting on (Hi, Charlotte!). That will give us a good opportunity to discuss muscles and bones and how they help us move.
Somewhat unrelated, I have kind of a problem. Some days preschool goes so well, like when we talked about bones. And some days preschool goes... less well, like today when we talked about muscles. As moms who home school or do little learning things like that, what do you do to get past those days and not feel like you are cheating your kid's education? I mean, I never dreamed of acting up in school like I did at home (thank goodness) but at home an in home school, what do you do when you kid acts up and will not, or will only grudgingly, participate? I would think a parent should be able to keep their kids in control better than a teacher, but I know from experience (because I was a very hard to handle child at home) that this isn't always the case.
And then any current or previous teachers out there, do you just have days when you feel honestly like the kids weren't into it, that they didn't learn anything, and that they were more interested in picking their noses than listening to you? I would feel better about myself and my efforts if I knew this stuff happened away from home as well.
This is especially important to me now that homeschooling is becoming more of a legitimate option for us once again. I can't just put my child in time out every time they don't want to participate, can I? But do I really need another incentive chart? more stickers? Is this all just part of the package - some days you win and some days you lose and you just hope that when it's over they have picked up something useful? Anyway, I'm trying to figure all that out. Any comments on this post would be especially appreciated.
Ok, here we go.
For skeletons we first read some books - which were really good, and tried to feel our own bones - mostly our knee caps and collar bones. We had a few other books to just study the bones. The kids were supposed to learn and discover things just by looking - and then point at the things they found that were interesting to them. Except Joshua decided nothing on that page was interesting so he found another page and started telling me about some other body part. So that exercise was less successful.
We have a print out in German of the skeleton and names of the bones, which both kids found fascinating and they carried their papers around with them all day - even on errands in the car.
And we checked out one of Joshua's favorite Eyewitness Videos from the library called simply "Skeleton." It talks about animal skeletons as well, but that's fine. When we learned about the body 2 years ago - wow, have I been doing this that long? - we saw this movie and Joshua has remembered it ever since. I think because there is a walking skeleton computer graphic throughout the film and he does different cool things. Anyway, they wanted to watch this movie twice. It's only 30 minutes, so I said why not.
Today we started our muscles section. Again we had a book to read and did some learning with our own bodies by just flexing our muscles. Then we pulled out the same three books about the entire body, found the muscles pages, and did our show and tell learning by observation, which was also less of a success, but I really want to work on that so I think we're just going to keep doing it, maybe I'll tweak it a little in the future.
And then we pulled down our Body Posters from the wall and drew in some bones and muscles. We made these posters just out of butcher paper while we were learning about the senses. So the kids had already colored their ears, noses, eyes, mouths, and fingers (for touch). Abigail wasn't very interested in coloring her poster, but Joshua was. It was kind of a tricky day for us with preschool, but I'll talk more about that later.
And tomorrow for muscles - I guess I'll have to add photos later, we are going (hopefully, depending on how much we have all recovered from sickness) to a Music and Movement class that my friend in Provo is putting on (Hi, Charlotte!). That will give us a good opportunity to discuss muscles and bones and how they help us move.
Somewhat unrelated, I have kind of a problem. Some days preschool goes so well, like when we talked about bones. And some days preschool goes... less well, like today when we talked about muscles. As moms who home school or do little learning things like that, what do you do to get past those days and not feel like you are cheating your kid's education? I mean, I never dreamed of acting up in school like I did at home (thank goodness) but at home an in home school, what do you do when you kid acts up and will not, or will only grudgingly, participate? I would think a parent should be able to keep their kids in control better than a teacher, but I know from experience (because I was a very hard to handle child at home) that this isn't always the case.
And then any current or previous teachers out there, do you just have days when you feel honestly like the kids weren't into it, that they didn't learn anything, and that they were more interested in picking their noses than listening to you? I would feel better about myself and my efforts if I knew this stuff happened away from home as well.
This is especially important to me now that homeschooling is becoming more of a legitimate option for us once again. I can't just put my child in time out every time they don't want to participate, can I? But do I really need another incentive chart? more stickers? Is this all just part of the package - some days you win and some days you lose and you just hope that when it's over they have picked up something useful? Anyway, I'm trying to figure all that out. Any comments on this post would be especially appreciated.
Having taught, I'd say that definitely some days are good and some days are slow...and they may be the same or different for each child. But just think if you had stopped two years ago...you wouldn't have learned abot apples or scarecrows or any of the other wonderful things you have studied together. It's kind of the same scenario as FHE...you just keep trecking and two yrs later you look back amazed at what you have done. You really are doing an awesome job with your kids.
ReplyDeleteAs for homeschooling...you might find it works better for some children...and not as well for others within the same family. But no matter what road...we all have great days and gray days. :)
Thanks for posting! I love seeing all the amazing things you and your kids do! :)