Welcome to Virginia

Middle school and high school students still enjoy hands on projects to enhance their learning.   Honestly, sometimes it's just fun to get to make something and get away from books for a while.   This allows students to dive a little deeper into their subject and spend a little time being creative as well.

As I said last week's history project, salt dough is a fun, easy medium to work with and fairly inexpensive.    Salt dough is also flexible in the ways you can use it from building material to land formations and even crafts (we'll discuss that in another post).

This week Olivia needed to create and label a topographic map of any state, so she chose her home state of Virginia.   Luckily, we'd picked up a Virginia map over the weekend and this came in quite handy as she made her project.

First of course you'll need to create your salt dough.  Your basic recipe is 2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 cup of salt and 1/3 cup of water, stir and and more water as necessary.

Once your dough has reached the correct consistency, lay it out on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and work out the shape of your land mass.   Be sure to create mountains, valleys and other uneven spaces prior to baking.    Bake your creation at 200 degrees for an hour or so (depending on thickness) or allow it to air dry for several days.

Once your map is baked or dried, now it's time to begin paint.  Acrylic paints work well on salt dough.  Paint mountains one color, lowlands a different color, then allow the paint to dry.

 

Study your map or atlas to get a better idea of where rivers, forests and other notable areas are to be placed on your map.

Once you've gotten all of your waterways painted, you can make city flags for prominent cities.  Toothpicks, sticky notes and a little clear tape will do the trick nicely.

 

In addition to major cities, we also added a few family and friends just for grins and giggles.

 

Now you've finished your handy dandy topographic map and can share it with all the world (like I'm doing now, ahem).

Do your older students still enjoy  hands on learning projects?

Mississippi River Mini-Unit

We’re currently in the middle of our Westward Expansion unit study.   Since getting to the west meant crossing the Mississippi, I thought this would be a great time to do a mini-unit on the Mississippi River.

We studied the pathway and history of the Mississippi using the book Minn of the Mississippi as our guide.  (FYI, there is some evolution in the book, so you may need to skip some sections.)   Since Minn was a snapper turtle, we added turtles to our mini unit, learning about their life cycle and diet.  Isn’t this turtle puppet just too cute?

During our map work, we learned about geographical/river terms such as bayou, meander, levee, confurence and delta.  The girls labeled each of the states touched by the Mississippi, and also major rivers and tributaries.

We studied the water cycle using these cute printables from Kidzone.  

We created steam with our tea kettle, then held a frozen piece of plastic over the kettle to create condensation, and of course we used the 16 inches of snow that fell overnight to explain precipitation, grins.

Books we used:

Minn of the Mississippi; by Holling Clancy Holling
A Place for Turtles; by Melissa Stewart
Geography Fact Files, Rivers; by Many Ross
Land Shapes, Rivers: by Brian Knapp
Mississippi River, A Journey Down the Father of Waters; by Peter Lourie
Down a River; by Carole Telford
Mississippi; by Diane Siebert
The Mississippi America’s Mighty River; by Robin Johnson
The Mississippi River; by Allan Fowler
Exploring the Mississippi River Valley; by Rose Blue and Corinne J. Naden
The Mighty Mississippi, The Life and Times of America’s Greatest River; by Linda Vieira
Huckleberry Finn; by Mark Twain

Activity Day - Africa

Today at Activity Day the girls and I traveled to Africa.  I shared a little with them about my upcoming trip to Ethiopia.  We colored our map to show the dessert, grasslands and jungle/rainforest regions of Africa. 

We made an imitation “talking drum”.  I used my hot glue gun to attach the bottoms of two styrofoam cups.  Then the girls used masking tape to cover the outside of their drums (because we were all out of animal gut).  

To add a bit of authenticity, I used some distressing ink make the outside look more worn and “earthy”. 

We looked at some of the customs, jewelry and music of the various African cultures.   We talked about the different bead work in some African cultures and decided to make our own. Give a bunch of little girls a tub of beads and they are good to go! Due to time constraints everyone made a bracelet instead of the planned necklace.

We added our Cairo, Egypt stamp to our travel passports and headed back home.  This was our last class for this school year.  Next year I’ll not be teaching, instead I’ll be serving on the board.  We’re already looking forward to another fun year!

Books we used:
African Crafts; by Lynne Garner
Africa for Kids; by Harvey Croze
Hands on Africa; by Yvonne Y. Merrill
Explore Africa; by Bobbie Kalman
Food and Recipes of Africa; by Theresa M. Beatty
Baby Animals of Africa;  by Henrietta Bichonnier
Africa; by David Petersen
Ethiopia; by Ann Heinrichs
E is for Ethiopia; by Ashenafi Gudeta
Traditions from Africa; by Vivien Golding

Activity Day - China

This group of girls is always fun to work with.  We “traveled” to China this month and looked at the Great Wall, it’s architecture, and some of the stories that go along with it.   We also learned about the Chinese New Year (this is the year of the snake). 

We made our own version of Chinese firecrackers.  These were toilet paper tubes wrapped in red tissue paper.  We taped the bottoms closed, filled the tubes with candies and then added a yarn fuse before closing the top of the fire cracker.  Once completed the girls practiced writing some Chinese words on their firecrackers.

We also enjoyed some eggrolls, cheese wontons and fortune cookies.  I bought each of the girls a pair of chopsticks and they practiced using them on some goldfish crackers.  It took a bit, but everyone eventually mastered the chopsticks!

Each girl received a Chinese yo-you and a little goodie bag in  cute little spring colored Chinese take out boxes I found at the Dollar Tree.  The girls then had some yo-yo competitions.  We set up obstacles for them to try to knock over with the tip only of the yo-yo.

Books we used:

Paper Crafts for Chinese New Year; by Randel McGee
Chinese New Year Crafts; by Karen E. Bledsoe
Celebrating Chinese New Year, by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
The Great Wall; by Elizabeth Mann
The Great Wall From Beginning to End: by Michael Yamashita and William Lindesay
National Geographic Traveler China;
China the Land and Its People; by Jonathan Hammond
My First Mandarin Chinese Phrases; by Jill Kalz
Recipe and Craft Guide to China; by Joanne Mattern
Beyond the Great Mountains (A Visual Poem About China); by Ed Young

Activity Day–Antarctica and the Oceans

As our area braces for yet another ice storm, our Activity Day class studied Antarctica.    We read about the animals, temperatures and food chain of the area.  The girls really couldn’t comprehend that the lowest recorded temperature was –126 F.   To be honest, I don’t think I can comprehend it either!!

Since Antarctica has 6 months of darkness and 6 months of night, I thought it would be cool do do a black/white drawing using chalk on black cardstock.  I told the girls it would be abstract art, grins.

I combined the topic of oceans with Antarctica this month.  We looked at whales, plankton, jellyfish, dolphins and the narwhal.  I had also ordered these really neat sticker sets  from Oriental Trading that allowed the girls to label each continent, and add animals from that continent as well.  It was even color coded, so this save me a lot of time in trying to get everyone on the correct land mass.

I also found a Antarctica passport stamp photo online.  I copied it and had each girl glue the stamp into their passport we’re working on.

Books we used:

Antarctica; by Helen Cowcher
Brrr! A Book About Polar Animals; by Melvin & Gilda Berger
Four to the Pole; by Nancy Loewen and Ann Bancroft
Antarctica; by David Petersen
I Can Draw Polar Animals; by Helene Leroux-Hugon
The Four Oceans; by Will Mara
Diving Into Oceans; National Wildlife Federation
101 Facts About Oceans; Julia Barnes

Activity Day–Christmas Around the World

Activity  Day was incredibly busy with crafting this month.  I actually planned too many things and sent one craft home with the girls.   

The biggest time hog was our gingerbread houses.   I had bought a gingerbread village kit, with 5 little houses in it.  We had “issues” at first, but once we got over that little hump (and added an extra pair of adult hands) things went well.

This little girl was so patient, as her house fell apart several times due to adult error not her own.  She kept smiling, kept working and ended up with a lovely gingerbread house.

The other houses turned out oh-so-cute.

We made snowflakes out of folded coffee filters.  This a such a fun activity and everyone loved it.  We had some really neat snowflake productions.

We made tiny wreath ornaments.  The color is off in this photo, they are green with red ribbon and gold birds.

We made Christmas crackers as gifts (or to nibble on at night, wink).  The girls wrapped toilet paper tubes in Christmas paper, tied one end shut with ribbon and then shoved as much candy as they could fit inside.  Then we tied off the other end with ribbon.

We finished up our class with some home made snacks I’d brought, along with hot cocoa and eggnog.  My unexpected helper was a total God send today!

After we finished class we listened to the guitar class play a few Christmas carols for us.  There in the center of the front row, is Olivia and her hot pink guitar.  GRINS.

It was a great way to end the year!  Merry Christmas PEACH!

Activity Day ~ France Study

Today our Activity Day group travelled to France.  It was a lovely day for a jaunt to Europe and back in 2 hours.  We’re good like that.

While in Paris we visited the Louvre. We talked about some of the famous paintings and then decided to dabble in the impressionist period by reproducing a “The Water-Lily Pond” by Claude Monet in water colors. Quite the little artists, no?

We also visited the Eiffel Tower and learned about the building, the shops and restaurant inside, and found out that there are 1,710 steps inside.  We opted for the elevator.

Since we are “traveling” internationally we had to get our passports in order.  I ordered these passport and sticker kits from Oriental Trading.   Then I made a personalization sheet for the front of each one, added a photo of the child and laminated it.  As you can see in the photo at the right below, the girls got their Paris stamp while traveling today.  I also bought some international play money from Oriental trading and gave everyone several hundred francs to spend.

After an exhausting day of travel we relax with some truffles, fresh baked cookies and kool-aid.  Yeah, well the truffles and baked goods kept with the theme, but I’m guessing they drink kool-aid in France too.

Books we used:
Claude Monet; by Adam G. Klein
Claude Monet, Magician of Color; by Stephan Koja and Katja Miksovsky
The Louvre, All the Paintings; by Eric Lessing and Vincent Pomarede
Passport to France; by Dominque Norbrook
The Cat Who Walked Across France; by Kate Banks

Be sure to join us next month as we travel off to some far distant land.