Oh, The PLaces You'll Go!

So, I may have had a little too much fun researching for our Dr. Seuss unit this month, in preparation for Dr. Seuss' birthday, March 2nd. I spent hours and hours on Sunday on the Dr. Seuss website ! There are so many fun activities and classroom ideas.

I made a new Dr. Seuss themed Homework Bulletin Board (this has been a great motivational tool for getting work completed, especially for the two little ones.) I only put 10 markers on this one, as we only have 10 school days until Dr. Seuss' birthday. I have promised the munchkins that if they can reach all of the markers by the time we have our Dr. Seuss birthday party, they will get a special surprise. They get to move to the next marker at the end of every school day if they have completed all of their assigned work for the day and if they get their good behavior sticker for the day.

(I made a "thing one" marker for each of the kids to mark their progress along the chart).

We started the unit by reading a short Bio of Ted Geisel (Dr. Seuss) that I found at Seussville.com, followed by a reading of "The Boy on Fairfield Street", a book about how Ted Geisel came to be Dr. Seuss. As a reading review we talked about and filled out the "Dr. Seuss and Me" printout from Seussville.com.

 

Each one of the munchkins received a "Reading Passport" and book stamps for this unit. The book in our passports was, Oh, the Places You'll Go! (probably my personal favorite Dr. Seuss book). This was a great starting point. It is such an encouraging book that does well to keep kids dreaming big while keeping one foot in reality! My kiddos LOVED this book. I found a YouTube video for this book. John Lithgow reads the book aloud, and does a wonderful job. This was a huge success in our classroom. We watched it over and over again.

Finally, everyone colored their When I Grow Up printable, and drew pictures of what they want to be when they grow up. We had an Artist (Missy), a Ninja/ Cowgirl??  (Monkey) and of course Cricket could not make up his mind so he is going to be an Air Force Pilot, a Fireman and a Ninja when he grows up! :)

We are all excited for tomorrow's Dr, Seuss study when we read Green Eggs and Ham! 

 

Presidents' Day

We spent last week studying Abraham Lincoln, so everyone has been pretty excited to continue our study of Presidents this week. Because it is a short "mini-unit" (we will be focusing on our study of the Presidents in more length and detail next year in our U.S. History unit) I chose 4 presidents to look at; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln (the Mt. Rushmore stars).

Today we reviewed Abraham Lincoln shortly before moving on to Thomas Jefferson. I thought he would be a nice focus today as we took a look at the Constitution. We kept the group study pretty brief so as not to lose the two little munchkins in the abyss of boredom. But Missy's individual study went a little more in depth.

We looked at a few of the "Symbols of the USA":
The Flag
The Great Seal
The Statue of Liberty
Mount Rushmore

Enchantedlearning.com has so many fun activities for Presidents' Day!

We read Presidents' Day by Anne Rockwell
 and U.S. Presidents The Oval Office All Stars by Dan Green
(This one comes with a pull out poster of all of the Presidents.)




The kids loved making Tissue Roll Flags to hang in the classroom.

MATERIALS:
1 Clean Tissue Roll for each student (I pre-wrapped each roll in white construction paper).
1 Strip of blue construction Paper to wrap around the top half of the roll (cut to size).
Red, White and Blue streamers
Star Stickers or a white crayon to draw stars
Glue and scissors

 Because everyone finished their flags so quickly,  I printed Uncle Sam hats on card stock for them to color. They wore them during school today. (A few creative liberties were taken with these).

Lesson Learned!

My kids often show such amazing Biblical understanding by maintaining such a wholesome simplicity! God uses them to teach me every day! I had to share the lesson they have imparted on me today...

So on Friday we talked about making good decisions in Homeschool. Cricket summarized our lesson like this: 
"So, when mom tells us to do something and we don't want to do it, that is the Devil whispering to us that we should whine and throw a fit. But God wants us to do the right thing and make good decisions and mom knows what a good decision is. So if we listen to the God we get closer to him and the Devil leaves us alone and if we listen to the Devil, well... I DO NOT want to be close to the Devil!" :)

So... today the kids are doing a project that is not particularly Cricket's cup of tea. He sighs and says to me with a determined look on his face, "mom, I do not like this work and I am getting very tired of it but I know God wants me to make the right choices and not whine, so I am not giving up!" :)

and then my heart smiled!

LUKE 18:17

"Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive

the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."