My Favorite & FUN Homeschooling Resources PART ONE

March 18, 2020/2 Comments/in Abacus, Curriculum, Family, Homeschooling, Monthly Themes /by Betony Coons

Hello friends and unexpected homeschoolers!

I have been homeschooling since my oldest was 5 and have found lots of great resources I have fallen in love with over the years. Since we are all in this harried social-isolation situation together, I thought I would share a couple of my favorite homeschool resources and ideas. I will break it into a couple of posts – here is part one! These are parent and kid approved. To me, the best learning tools are the ones that spark wonder and where you don’t realize you are learning because you are having so much fun. These all fit that bill.

Geography & World Studies:

Maps by aleksandra mizielinska and daniel mizielinski is a book that EVERYONE should own. It is just so beautiful. They also have a special edition version that just came out with 16 additional maps (on my wish list ha ha!). One of our favorite things to do with this is to pick a country and then take turns picking images off the page that we look up on YouTube. We have learned SO many cool things about the world this way. It is like a virtual trip without leaving your couch!

World Snack Boxes:

Fun, themed snacks make everything more fun. We used to have a subscription to Top Munch snack boxes (which maybe closed?) when we got one, we would do a “Worldly Tea Time” where we would learn all about the country featured, dress up, listen to traditional music, and then sample lots of fun snacks from the country. Usually I just find things around the house that go with the theme to set the table. I have been seeing a lot about Universal Yums which is a similar service. Have any of you tried it? When we studied Japan, we ordered this snack pack from amazon. It was so fun and reasonable!!

Math +-*%#:

Math is a subject I happen to love and my kids are not so convinced on ha ha. But we do agree that these resources are great –

Dragon Box Math Apps

I cannot speak highly enough of these cool apps – but my favorite is their Algrebra 5+. By the end of solving the puzzles, kids are solving complex algebra equations without even realizing it. And they are FUN! I would recommend all of them! They have something for all ages.

Beast Academy Books

I think the idea of these books is so cool. They come as a set of two – a graphic novel and a workbook. The way they approach math is so refreshing. My kids do get frustrated with these sometimes because they can be CHALLENGING! But I love that about them. And I love that they help you understand the larger concepts rather than just rote memorization. I would recommend going down a grade though because of difficulty.

Logic:

Monument Valley Games

Beautiful Escher inspired artwork, a serene soundtrack, and fabulous mind bending logic puzzles – a must play. We have come back to this one a lot. Probably my favorite app game of all time.

SmartGames

I have been so impressed by these logic board games – many of them work for 1 player! They are fun for ALL ages and I love how well made and designed they are. Our current favorite is Camelot Jr.

SmartGames Color Code Cognitive Skill-Building Puzzle Game Featuring 100 Challenges for Ages 5 - Adult

Music History:

Classical Kids

We listened to these Classical Kids albums when I was a kid. I loved them then and I still love them now (as do my kids!)! They are stories about fictional kids intertwined with real stories about the composers and their music. You can listen to them all on Spotify. My favorites are –
“Beethoven Lives Upstairs”
“Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery”
“Mozart’s Magic Fantasy”

Puzzles:

Canon Creative Park Printables

These are paper printable that you cut out and fold to build incredible 3D paper structures. As long as you have yardstick paper, scissors, glue, and a color printer, there are some pretty incredible models you can make. These are for you puzzle minded, model builder types and are pretty darn cool – and FREE! We have built several models of famous architecture around the world. These are definitely better for older kids/adults with good fine motor skills. If you love 1000 piece puzzles, you will love these.

Space Shuttle Orbiter (Simplified Version),Realistic Crafts/Space,Paper Craft,null,null,null,Space Shuttle,Simple,White,null

Eiffel Tower (Night), France,Architecture,Paper Craft,Interior ,Stylish,Europe,null,null,World Heritage,Brown,null

Djeco Puzzles

These are my favorite brand of puzzles. Solid well made pieces and beautiful artwork. We particularly love this dragon puzzle –

Cooking:

I love these kids cookbooks from Deanna F. Cook. They are full of pictures and fun tips. There is a great selection of recipes that are kid friendly and tasty! We have all three of her cookbooks and the kids pull them out consistently. So many good things to be learned from cooking!

Poetry:

The two beautiful books – A Poem for Every Night of the Year & A Poem for Every Day of the Year edited by Allie Esiri are my favorite poetry books I have ever found. They follow themes and take you through the seasons sourcing from both ancient and modern poets. I have found them to be kid friendly while also enriching for adults. I pick my copies up constantly to add depth to our days.

___________________________________________________

Let me know if you found this list helpful! Any particular subjects/categories you would like help with? I have tons more favorites I will work on compiling for part two. Also I have lots of other homeschooling ideas and resources you can dig into if you need more! Sending you all my love!

March’s Adventures in Homeschooling

April 10, 2017/0 Comments/in Abacus, Creative Process, Curriculum, Homeschooling, Monthly Themes /by Betony Coons

This year we began homeschooling Lucy (7), Hattie (5), and Beatrice (2). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

March has been a journey of “chasing the spark.” Lots of wonderful explorations lead by curiosity. March was about humor, and Egypt, and computer coding, and St. Patricks day, and musicals, and so much more. I am loving these simple full days with the people I love most. I love being able to share in the education of my children. I love that the world we live in is so rich and fascinating to explore. I love that in both the most mundane moments and the most extravagant they are still learning and growing. Tim and I have looked at each other so often in this last month and said “Man, I love our kids”. What a gift it is to be living out this story as a family.
Thanks for following along with us.

Coding & Quilting:

This pictures captures our two oldest daughters perfectly. Lucy working on learning how to program on Scratch (because she wants to make her own robots) and Harriet making a tiny quilt (that she wants to use for babies, picnics, and snuggling). Love seeing them discover new interests and following “the spark”.

Color and Light:

A few years ago our theme for March was Spectrum. In keeping with the tradition and all things rainbow for St. Patrick’s day, we did a little color work this month.

A new awesome one-player game called Colour Code by SmartGames – like a more interesting version of tangrams.

Color mixing, painting color wheels, and learning about hot vs. cool colors.

And discussions about what it would be like to not be able to see colors. We read I am Helen Keller and the Black Book of Colors. (both of which are great).

We also learned how to write our names in braille!

Ancient Egypt:

For our country this month, we took a trip to Ancient Egypt! (which tied in great with our Rich and Rooted Passover study as well!) .

These were a few of our favorite books we dug into.

The girls set up an Egyptian style Bazaar (which Harriet made traditional shaped Egyptian bread for!). My sisters and I used to play this same game – brings back fond memories.

We added a new game to our collection called Imhotep. It is great! You play the role of ancient Egyptian architects and are working to build monuments.

Inspired by the game, we build some block monuments of our own.

This lead the girls to build a whole city of mini block monuments.

We got this little mummy excavation kit on amazon. It was really great (but do it outside!!). It comes with a plaster block carved with hierogylphics. The kids use tools and act as archeologists to unearth the mummy inside.

I happened to have some Egyptian wrapping paper, so we made bracelets.

We talked about the significance of the Rosetta stone and then made our own clay Rosetta stone cartouches. Lucy did her name in English, hieroglyphics, and braille.

Getting Moving:

Lucy and I are taking up a new hobby – Rock Climbing! We went to a ladies night at the Rock. It was a little momma daughter date night. Pretty great.

We haven’t started up our Monday adventures again yet, but we did try to get to as many parks as possible.

Musicals:

From now until forever, I have officially dubbed March Musical Month. We were given (thank you Patti!) tickets to a local production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella and we rented Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat from the library. The girls LOVED both and we have been listening to the soundtracks non-stop (maybe a little too non-stop…go go go joseph you’ll make it some day….go go go joseph….!!!!!)

We went to Cinderella in costume.

Afterwards was a Princess Tea Party where the actors and actresses came out in costume and interacted with the kids! It was great fun.

Reading and Writing:

Our two read-aloud books we finished this month were Finn Family Moomintroll (one of my all time favorites) and The Search for Delicious. Both were perfect for the kids age – funny and light heartened.

Harriet has been working on the first steps of learning to read, so we made some sight word blocks together in fun bright colors.

She also practiced her letters a lot in her sand (cornmeal) box (…that is until little sister got ahold of it…)

The 2nd of March was Dr. Seuss’s birthday, so we celebrated by getting cake pops and reading all the Seuss books.
For writing practice, the girls both wrote out their elaborate plans for their birthday parties (which are in June/September…ha ha).

Character Building:

During the season of lent, we have been going through Jennifer Naraki’s Rich and Rooted Passover guide. I am hoping to make this a yearly tradition as well. There is a lot depth to her guide that we barely scratched the surface.

One Sunday we headed to Fort Collins because their local Islamic mosque was vandalized. We joined with a large crowd of others in solidarity and support of those effected.

Science and Logic:

Grandpapa reading an old family favorite – the Mad Scientist Club to Lucy for the first time.

The girls requested to learn how to play chess. Our local coffee shop has this great “Easy to Learn Chess” game that makes it simple with the little reminder graphics on the pieces.

We finally did some of our Christmas test tube science kits the kids got in their stockings (from the dollar bins at Target).
This is gravity goop –

St. Patrick’s Day:

A selection of St. Patrick’s day books we got from the library –

Grammy Didi reading one of her favorite – Tommie DePaola out loud to the girls.

Getting ready for our annual St. Patty’s day feast and sing along

Aquarium:

All three girls (but mostly Beatrice) have been obsessed with the kid’s show Octonauts. I think they have watched every episode at least 3 times.

In the show, the team of animals are always working to rescue/help undersea creatures. Each episode ends with a “Creature Report” which has cool facts about actual sea critters. The girls have learned all sorts of interesting aquatic facts. So, we thought a trip to the Denver Aquarium was in order.

The girls loved it. We all had a wonderful time – especially petting the sting rays.
The next day when we got back, they did their own “Creature Report”s on their favorite animals they saw.

July Ideas and Activities Around the Theme “Maps”

July 3, 2015/0 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac Adventure Days, Curriculum, Family, Lists /by Betony Coons

With kids’ school schedules, university classes being over, and activities like dance classes taking a break, July is and always will be the ultimate road trip month. Our theme for our home curriculum this month is “MAPS” – think places to go, atlases, globes, searching for treasure, and charts of imaginary lands. With 4th of July celebrations and their historical roots, what better time to explore this vast and rich country we live in? It is about putting on our explorer caps, blaring some road trip tunes, and charting out adventure.

Read all about how to use this list and our heart behind this project here.

Below is our comprehensive MAPS activities list. Choose a couple to do with your kids to enrich the month or try to accomplish the whole list! What would you add? I would love to hear your ideas and plans for the month.

July Dates to Take Note of:

July 4th – Independence Day

Local Greeley, CO events:

Concert under the Stars – July 8th at the UNCO Garden Theater

Neighborhood Nights in July (Movies/picnics at city parks in greeley) – Muppets Most Wanted, Big Hero 6, The Lego Movie

Greeley Arts Picnic – July 25 and 26

Taste of Windsor – July 16

HISTORY:

Tell the stories of Independence day on the 4th of July and of course enjoy fireworks

We will be heading on a family music/art tour to Wisconsin. On our way, we plan on visiting the Nebraska and Iowa state capitals – hoping to make this a family tradition as we visit new states. Is there a state capitol somewhere near that you could visit? Or at least talk about what state capitols are.

Learn about some of the great explorers – Magellan, Columbus, Lewis & Clark, etc.

Maybe this book would be a fun way to learn about these explorers?

Also want to check out this one (its illustrations alone look incredible)

Look at trains and modes of transportation (hot air balloons anyone?)

Along with that, learn how to play Ticket to Ride, which I have heard is a great game.

ART:

Do straw paintings of fireworks

Paint a treasure map (Image from here) – I particularly like using parchment paper and burning the edges. Just makes it even more, you know, pirate-y. A link to a map we made a couple years ago: Here .

Create a 3D map of our neighborhood like this sweet milk box one.

Try making something like this great wall hanging interactive map from The Handmade Home

MUSIC:

Listen to our Road Trip playlist

Listen to our Stars and Stripes playlist

Sufjian stevens – Michigan and Illinois

John Phillips Sousa

Make a States playlist? What songs could you use for each of the 50 states?!

MOVIES:

Goonies, Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars (Route 66), Around the World in 80 Days

READ:

Treasure Island – Robert Louise Stevenson

SCIENCE:

Look at constellation maps (there is a great printable one here

)

and make pin poke constellation maps

Learn about Planets and maps of our solar system – maybe make a model

Make maps of the human body

PLAY:

and go on an imaginary expedition

Play the old zelda – with map

IN THE CAR:

Follow routes on a road atlas

Play the license plate game – or some of these other great car games

license-plate-game-travel-games

Learn about distances

GEOGRAPHY:

Spend a lot of time looking at the Maps book by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Activity companion – it is really beautifully done.

Do the State Map Puzzle we picked up at the Habitat Store (kind of like this one)

Also, cut up an old atlas and make these out of some of those freebie rectangle magnets you get from real estate agents…

Play with Compasses and Map Keys

Learn our state flower, bird, reptile, etc.

Look at elevation maps

May Abacus: STRETCH

April 30, 2015/0 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac Adventure Days, Curriculum, Lists /by Betony Coons

Giants and Pilgrims’ “Abacus” is a creative home curriculum centered on a monthly theme. This month’s theme is STRETCH! Think all things stretchy, the “final stretch”, and stretching your body. With your stretching, you need a good yoga clothing that will go along with your movements in an ideal way, you will like some clothes to help you relax while practicing yoga.

Read all about how to use this list and our heart behind this project here.

Below is our comprehensive activities list. Choose a couple to do with your kids to enrich the month or try to accomplish the whole list! What would you add? I would love to hear your ideas and plans for the month.

Dates in May to take note of/celebrate:

May 1 = May Day
May 4 =Star Wars Day (May the 4th be with you)
May 5 = Teachers Day
May 5 = Cinco de Mayo
May 9 = Lost Sock Memorial Day (poor poor socks…)
May 9 = National Train Day (if you are in greeley, how about a trip to the Train Museum!) – We have an epic adventure planned on this one….
May 10 = Mother’s Day
May 14 = Dance Like a Chicken Day
May 15 = National bike to work day
May 25 = Memorial Day (we love to go to the Bolder Boulder – even if just to observe)

May is also National Bike Month and National Barbecue Month – both of which we plan on taking full advantage. For all the Graduations, print out our free Graduation card. Also, I just discovered it is national physical fitness and sports month – perfect for our “Stretch” theme!

Our List of “Stretch” Activities:

P.E.:

The number one thing I want to do this month is follow this weekly family workout calendar I made. May just seems to me like a get up and move kind of month.

Monday: Family Run – for us, this looks like one person running with the stroller. We shall see if it works or not…

Tuesday: Fitness Blender (a workout video website)
We will either do this stretching one (although it does cost 6.99) or this one that is free 🙂

Wednesday: Morning walk

Thursday: Bike Ride – still working on this one too since Harriet can’t quite ride by herself. Ideas?

Friday: Outside Workout – I think we will do this one.

Saturday: Morning Kids Yoga – our girls LOVE these yoga videos from Cosmic Kids Yoga.

Here is a quick printable reminder card:

Head to an outdoor running track and play – races, pretend track meet events, etc.

Practice the girls dances for their recital (and mine!)

WATCH:

Family inspirational Sports Movies that deal with the “Final Stretch”:

Cool Runnings
Sea Biscuit
Chariots of Fire
National Velvet
The Karate Kid
A League of Their Own

SCIENCE:

Make all the slimes! Bouncy balls, silly putty, slime, gak, and goopy stuff (learn about the properties of polymers)

Get this make your own chewing gum kit

IN THE KITCHEN:

Make Pizza dough

Make homemade saltwater taffy

Make homemade mozzarella cheese

MUSIC:

Make different kids of rubber band instruments

Get some instruments into the kids hands to just get a feel for them – Trombone (Trombone Shorty, etc.), etc.

ART/CRAFT:

Visit the Denver Art museum (now free for kids) to see the Joan Miro exhibit with studio time (through June 28) – “stretching” your imagination

Make balloon string balls

Paint Stretch Wrap watercolor paintings

READ:

Shel Silverstien – Twistable Turnable Man

Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Maniac Mcgee by Jerry Spinelli
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (for me)

PLAY:

Fly a kite

Play Twister (I like this outside garden version!)

Play with Slinkys

BUILD:

A rubber band nail board (pre drill holes for fun hammering practice)

Make a Sling Shot

Some of these might be a bit of a “stretch”, but we are pretty excited to jump in and start May.

Abacus “Grow” Round Up

April 28, 2015/0 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac, Almanac Adventure Days, Curriculum /by Betony Coons

April: Grow

I can’t believe it is April 28th already. Time does seem to fly by these days. But, we have been doing lots of “Grow”ing around here. The theme for this month’s Abacus project was “Grow” (ABACUS is our creative home curriculum centered on a theme). It was the perfect theme for a lovely sunshine and rain kind of April. To see the whole list of projects we came up with (and resources) check out our original post, here.

First of all, we had a lovely Easter celebration – both at home, and in Denver. (Tim is missing from this photo because he was in Denver running the Easter services there)

Just look at these two silly bunnies (they INSISTED on wearing their bunny suits to the egg hunts).

We ended the day with a spring dinner outside in our garden. It was lovely. (At which we made these very yummy biscuits)

We visited Baby Animal Days at Centennial Village

We have a whole set of CD case bean sprouts growing in our window right now. The roots are now visible. Harriet is our official water-er.

The girls and I have been planting all kinds flowers out in our garden. On days like these, it’s pretty hard to be inside.

We grew a baby pool full of water beads. We experimented with adding food coloring to make them colored – which worked great. The girls played with them for hours and then eventually smushed them into oblivion.

Lucy and I are about half way through The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. She absolutely loves it. Harriet does not 🙂 But that is because she is 3. Lucy has all sorts of plans for making a secret garden of her own.

Lucy started on a Garden quilt, but quickly lost interest. She maybe cut out 6 squares. But, we have the pieces tucked away for the next rainy day.

I started a homemade braided rug. I have been LOVING the process. Delightfully mindless but satisfying. I am about halfway through my fabric scraps. Its going to take longer than I thought to make it the size I was hoping, but I can’t wait.

We have a large tree growing up our dining room wall. I posted the image I compiled to make the tree if you want to use it. I tiled it and then got cheap blueprint 24X24 copies made. The girls and I used pastels and watercolors to paint it.

We haven’t built the growth chart I wanted to make yet, but we have built frames for some paintings and a sweet little fairy house thanks to my dad’s wood working skills. We also bought all the lumber for our garden archway project, but haven’t made any progress on the actual build. My goal is to have it put together by the time my cucumber vines need somewhere to climb.

We grew our growing crystal tree and some funny grow fish my mom got for the girls.

1310409P

We listened to lots of spring music this month –
-Our April Showers playlist

-Our new Birdie Mix

-The Secret Garden Broadway Soundtrack (which Lucy has really enjoyed because it has bits of story element that she connects with the book we are reading)

-And Elizabeth Mitchell’s Sunny Day CD – just the sweetest kids folk music ever made

The girls emptied out their piggy banks, we spent some time talking about the different coins and what they are worth. Then, we went to the bank and cashed the change in (23 dollars!) – learning about how banks work. Finally, we went to Target where the girls each picked out and paid for a Lego set that was in their price range. Pretty great.

Lucy did several pages of “homework” that involved lots of measuring practice.

We are not the kind of family that worries too much about our kids being “behind.” However when it comes to coordination and “sportsy” type activities, we are pretty lacking. Harriet still can’t figure out how to pedal a tricycle so we are working on it 🙂

We picked wild asparagus – although not very much.

A couple of days ago I was hurrying to finish up a commissioned painting and Tim was signed up to be the helper at Harriet’s preschool. So, I set up an easel in the middle of our garden beds and told Lucy to paint what she saw. She dug in a created the most lovely garden masterpiece. Claude Monet would have been proud. It was a peaceful session of plein air painting for both of us.

We still want to visit a Garden center, finish our garden arch and grow chart, and hopefully paint on some flower pots. But, my what a lovely April it has been.

Abacus: Top Secret Spy Assignment

February 9, 2015/0 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac Adventure Days, Curriculum /by Betony Coons

Lucy woke up yesterday telling me all about a dream she had where she was a spy. She then sat and stared at the cover of “Spy Kids” on netflix for about 20 minutes, talking about how much she wanted to be a real spy. I sent her upstairs to assemble a “spy” kit (what she came up with is pictured above) and told her not to come down until I was ready. While she and Hattie were working on their bags, I set up a spy training course. I saw this idea on pinterest a while back –

So I quickly strung yarn “lasers”, set up a row of chairs over “hot lava”, and ended the course with a ride down a roller coaster. We also listened to a mix Tim and I made a while back called “This Album Will Self Destruct.” It was pretty fun (Ironically, I had woken up grouchy and tired and had zero desire to do anything fun or engaging with the kids. What I really wanted to do was to sit and drink my coffee and look at my phone.) I wanted to find a way to tie the whole thing into “Letters”, so in the afternoon, Lucy received this message in the mail:

Since this month is all about Letters, we thought it would be fun to pass it on to you as well. Print it out, and, if your kiddos are into it, follow the instructions and they too will get a package from us in the mail with some fun trinkets and “spy” gear.
Signed,

Crocodile, Spider X, and Scary Bear (our spy names the girls came up with)

Abacus: “Letters” – A Creative Curriculum List for February

February 2, 2015/3 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac Adventure Days, Curriculum /by Betony Coons

Giants and Pilgrims Abacus is a creative home curriculum centered on a monthly theme. This month’s theme is “Letters”!
Read all about how to use this list and our heart behind this project here.

A couple of February Dates to keep in mind as you are scheming fun activities-

Groundhog Day = Feb. 2
Valentines Day = feb. 14th
Mardi Gras = Feb. 17th
Ash Wednesday = Feb. 18th
The Chinese New Year = feb. 19th

And if you are in the Greeley area, the Stampede troupe is putting on Treasure Island feb. 27 & 28

Letters:

Language/Writing:

Experiment with tracing paper – cool letters, etc.

Learn/practice cursive and calligraphy – I am excited to revisit this myself (later in the month I will post some really cool charts for this)

Penpal exchange for the month (anyone want in on this?)

Keeping Adventure Logs/Diaries

Adventure:

Set up letter writing stations around town

Visit the local Post Office (do they do tours?)

Art:

Make Sewn Letter mobiles

Mod podge a set of Alphabet rocks

Illustrate our own animal alphabet book

Take an alphabet photo walk – #almanacalphabetseverywhere (put them together, spell names, etc.)

Building:

Construct valentine mailboxes – this one is particularly adorable

Table mailboxes

Reading:

(Various age appropriateness here)
The Jolly Postman by Allan Ahlberg
Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
Vocab – “Epistolary”

Movies

Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller (awesomely bad 90’s movie)

Spellbound – spelling bee documentary

Word Wars – Scrabble documentary

For the Romantics:
You’ve got Mail
P.S. I Love You

Music:

The Postal Service

Abc playlist -We will post ours on Giants & Pilgrims this month

History:

Illuminated manuscripts – I used to make these with my art class using parchment paper, that we would burn the edges of and metallic ink or gold leaf to embellish the drop caps with.

Stamp collecting – I am printing out some of these pages – http://stamps.org/userfiles/file/albums/2014-Issues.pdf and any time we get a letter this month with stamps on it, we will save them and add them to our stamp “album”. The pdf has some nice history stories behind each stamp.

Technology:

Typing games on the computer (suggestions anyone?)

Play with the typewriter

Kitchen:

Alphabet pasta/soup

Math:

Roman numerals

Learn about addresses

Games:

Scrabble
Boggle
Spelling Bee
In the Car – the alphabet game (could be a race), letter finding game, etc.

What would you add to this list?
Share your projects on our facebook group!

Introducing Giants & Pilgrims ABACUS: a creative home curriculum centered on a monthly theme!

January 6, 2015/2 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac, Almanac Adventure Days, Curriculum, Lists /by Betony Coons

I’m so excited to introduce one of Giants & Pilgrims new projects for 2015: ABACUS
Creative home curriculum centered on a monthly theme.

Isn’t that a fun word? Abacus. One of the things I have wanted to do for a while is to come up with a list of themed activities to center our home study/projects around. As a stay at home mom, I feel like our lives and days can get so scattered. Just this morning, in the course of 10 minutes I was asked 53 different questions. I seriously started counting. Can I have chocolate milk? Can I have two cereals? I want a cup! Can you pick me up? It’s amazing how much of an energy-drain parenting can be at times. Sometimes just getting everyone dressed and fed uses up all the energy I have. Trying to come up with creative engaging activities in addition to the normal chaos of life can feel like too much.

But, we want to live “the good life”. I want to tell a better story with our days. For me, ABACUS will be about focusing our projects and days into a cohesive journey. It’s about tying all the little bits and pieces together to create something beautiful.

The second inspiration for this project was my sister, Katie. She and her beautiful family, who we love so much, live in Canada- way too far away to visit as often as we would like. She is homeschooling her kids (Luca 5, Rose 3, and Remi 1). We wanted to find a way to connect as families and sisters by sharing our activity experiences. So, the idea of Abacus was born.

Essentially, the plan is this. Each month we will pick a theme and then create a whole list of activities that correspond to it – which will also coordinate with our Almanac theme. This first month’s theme is “Mountain.”

As we brainstorm our whole list of activities that correspond to the theme – hopefully you’ll add ideas as well on our new facebook page. We will publish a whole list for you to use however you see fit. For our family, we will be hanging a poster of the list with check marks in our family room. As we need activities to focus our days, we will choose projects off the list. No need to try to do everything, and they do not need to be completed in any particular order. Essentially, these are meant to be project “sparks.”

Finally, as an explorer of the world. I want to come along side my kids. I want to get excited about what we are working on and playing with together. So, within this list are some items and things that are for me (and parents). I’ve included books like “Into Thin Air” and “Born to Run” on our Mountain curriculum for myself, which have been on my reading list for a while. I plan on reading these during the month as my own little “Mountain” study.

Another piece that as a teacher I believe is very important is the journal. We’re calling these Adventure Logs! Starting this month, we bought simple blank sketchbooks for the kids. I keep these separate from the rest of their collection of notebooks and papers, because they are special. Any time we do something off the list, I try to incorporate a journal activity or reflection. So far its looked like sketches of mountains, Lucy’s visual interpretation of “the hall of the mountain king”, and a sketch of her pattern for a mountain pillow. Harriet’s has a page of practicing drawing “J’s” for “January. We make sure to date each entry. My hope is that these will be great pieces to come back to and remember our adventures by.

Oh, and one last thing. I made a sweet pinterest board to keep track of some of the fun, Mountain-themed projects I have come across in my research.

Ready to get started? Here is the first list – January 2015 “Mountain”

Abacus: Mountain – Creative Curriculum List for January

January 6, 2015/0 Comments/in Abacus, Almanac, Curriculum, Lists, Music, Online /by Betony Coons

Read all about how to use this list and our heart behind this project here.

And, here is a sweet pinterest board I put together with lots of project ideas and inspiration

“Mountain”

Movies:

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

The Sound of Music

The Unsinkable Molly Brown

Mountains from Planet Earth

Music:

In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg

Rocky Mountain High by John Denver

America the Beautiful

Crescendos

Yodeling

Sciences:

Rock Collecting/ identifying rock-types

Making Egg Geodes

Breaking Geodes

Volcano Making

Elevation Maps

Examining rocks under a microscope- sugar vs salt, etc.

Art & Craft:

Plastic wrap and tape mountain paintings

Build Mountain Shelves

Mountain Pillow Sewing

Painting mountains

Torn Paper mountain Range Stencils

Carving rock stamps

In the Kitchen:

Haystack cookies (we’ll call them Mountain cookies!)

Books:

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Online:

Listen to our Mountain spotify mix

Download our January desktop wallpaper

Writing:

Mountain Shaped Poems

Journal Keeping/Adventure Logs

Here is a printable pdf of our little chart we made for ourselves:

Mountain list

Geography & World Studies:

Math +-*%#:

Logic:

Music History:

Puzzles:

Cooking:

Poetry:

Coding & Quilting:

Color and Light:

Ancient Egypt:

Getting Moving:

Musicals:

Reading and Writing:

Character Building:

Science and Logic:

St. Patrick’s Day:

Aquarium:

Dates in May to take note of/celebrate:

Our List of “Stretch” Activities:

P.E.:

WATCH:

SCIENCE:

IN THE KITCHEN:

MUSIC:

ART/CRAFT:

READ:

PLAY:

BUILD:

April: Grow

Letters:

Language/Writing:

Adventure:

Art:

Building:

Reading:

Movies

Music:

History:

Technology:

Kitchen:

Math:

Games:

“Mountain”

Movies:

Music:

Sciences:

Art & Craft:

In the Kitchen:

Books:

Online:

Writing:

Recent Posts

Pages

Categories

Archive