Thursday 9 October 2008

Book of The Week



I have introduced a new element to our homeschooling rhythm:- Book of the Week!
Each week as I am making plans for our home learning, I choose a book (usually, but not always) from our seasonal book basket. I then brainstorm activities to enrich our reading. The internet is a really helpful tool for gleaning ideas, as are the stacks of nature books we own. (Since the book is usually nature related)
This week our book has been Why do leaves change colour?
Our activities have been as follows:
Collecting leaves
Waxing leaves
Leaf rubbings
Baking leaf shaped biscuits
Making leaf impressions in clay
Making pictures with leaf glitter
Separating colours in leaves
Sorting leaves by size, colour & type - & graphing our findings
Playing matching games with pairs of leaves
Drawing leaf shapes for our nature journals
Thinking about how the colours of autumn foliage is related to tree types
Reading about native trees

Our studies also involve learning to read. We use Bob Books plus a host of games & activites
Maths. Currently, E is learning to tell the time. We use a wooden clock, a Kumon workbook, A great number story, & just plain old 'telling the time' :)
And, last but certainly not least, Faith. Each morning at breakfast, I read from our Bible. This gets discussed at great length, during the day :) At bedtime we read the same story in The Child's Story Bible.
We also celebrate the Christian year & observe the seasons, which is a great enrichment to our lives.

3 comments:

Erin Koch said...

I love this idea- I think we will do some leaf rubbings today. How did Elianna like her sewing kit we sent her? Riley had fun putting it together.

Michelle said...

Lynn, this is just what I needed! I spend so much time planning home ed activities, it's great to come across a ready-made nature activity. We're going to do many of these activities (once I get a hold of a book on leaves) :) Please post more like this! Thanks!

Lynn said...

Erin, I have emailed you!
Michelle, thank you for the encouragement :) I plan to post our 'book of the week' activities as often as I can.
Lx