Nadia often says, “Mommy, can we do a craft?” And after our long days on the road and in hotels I knew she would be asking soon after we were home again. So I broke out the playdough for Amelie for the first time. She thought it was really fun and I could tell she enjoyed mashing it around in her hands. I am amazed to say that she didn’t try to eat it; honestly I expected that she would since eating is her favorite past-time.
Then I introduced Nadia to a beading craft. The most popular name for these are Perler beads, but we bought ours at IKEA. The kids make the designs and then you can use the paper it came with or parchment paper for mom to use between the beads and the iron to melt them into place. Nadia worked very hard off and on until she finished the first one. She was very excited about the end result and has made some for gifts. Of course now I wish I would have snapped some photos of the ones we gave away, but too late.
The container of beads is giant so I know that Nadia will have many more hours of fun and I am sure her designs will get more and more complex. Fun inside activities to beat the Texas heat.
I have seen these Download and Go unit studies by Amanda Bennett on other homeschool blogs, but hadn’t ordered one yet. When we planned our vacation I decided to buy Sunny Seashells and got everything ready. We didn’t start until Museum School and Chinese school were over so we would have time to just focus on this unit. I hoped it would get Nadia extra excited about our beach vacation and she did!
Click on the photo to see album
This is what we started with.
The unit is set up to be a 5 day learning adventure. We took a lot longer than 5 days because Nadia is at the low end of the age for these and I wanted her to enjoy it, not feel like it was information overload. Each day has book suggestions and videos links built in. I ordered about a dozen books from the library and we set the laptop on the table each time. There are family fun suggestions included and craft ideas. Each day had a “shell” of the day and Nadia liked some more than others. Each day also had a country of the day that was featured and Nadia would find them on the world map and color them in. My friend Cynthia from church brought Nadia a shoebox full of shells for us to use and then when she found out how much Nadia loved them she gave her the box full. Nadia was totally shocked, “MOM! Did you know that she gave me the whole box? Can you believe that?”
Looking at all the shells through the magnifying glass.
Spelling out vocabulary words with our tiles. Nadia is now hooked on pointing out things that are “transparent.”
The girls watching videos. Then Amelie showing me her shell while yelling “SEEEESHELL” (her variation of the word)
Nadia’s favorite video of the week was one we actually clicked through to from one of the unit study videos. We watched it at least 20 times and Nadia would say, “NO don’t eat me!”
Very glittery crafts! One for Cynthia with a lot of rhinestones for giving her the shells.
The last photos show her finished lapbook. When we got done she said, “Mom you are really fun to do this with. It’s like a party with you!” And at least 10 times today I heard, “I am so excited for our vacation. I want to find some shells!”
I think these units are really fantastic – I learned a lot or perhaps learned again things from when I was little 🙂 I love that it’s broken down day by day and you can do as little or as much as you want based on the age of your child. The videos and other links being built into the PDF are a huge convenience. We will buy more of these to use in the future.
This years VBS was Summer Seaquest about Jonah and the whale. We were only able to go at the beginning of the week, but Nadia had a great time in her class.
Craft time.
I peeked in and took some photos of Nadia in her class.
After VBS we went to lunch with Jeanette and her boys who are visiting for the week. It was so fun to see how big the kids got. My friend Kyla and her kids joined us too and it was a sweet time to catch up.
I saw this on the Totally Tots site and ordered the book from the library. The book is by Martin Waddell. Here is what we started with:
I read the girls the book 3 times and then got Nadia started on the craft part. She was very serious about the painting and googly eyes.
Finished.
This really is a cute, sweet book. We also watched videos about owls, named all the words we could think of that started with “O” and practiced the Bible verse Psalm 118:1. “O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good.”
Since we did this over a week ago Amelie has been carrying the book around and asking me to “ree ree ree” to her several times a day.
