Cultural Geography Through Literature

Travel and Literature, quite simply these are two of my favourite things!

If I could be off traveling the world with my children right now I would be, wouldn't we all?!

Today we just opened one very exciting package that may just be the next best thing.

A special delivery from our new friend Crameye! He is going to be sharing his adventurous worldwide travels with us through his writing.

*I received he complete set of Series One from The Adventurous Mailbox, all opinion expressed from here on are purely my own and those my children.*

I have to say that I am most impressed with the attention to detail that The Adventurous Mailbox brings.

Even the shipping box, is sturdy, fully printed both inside and out and was addressed to include each of my three children personally.

Inside were three letters, one each for the kids and again personally addressed. Truly we haven't even looked at anything yet and I'm impressed already.

A little Crameye sticker is used to hold the letter closed. Inside, again addressed to the child, the letter goes on to explain just a little about the package they have received.

It also includes a card with their secret code to access Crameye's World, an online kids area where they can play games, win prizes and learn even more about the world around them.

The books come in yet another hard cover slip binder. This is such a huge plus for me, it means we can always keep the set together and can find them on our shelves quickly and easily.

Series One contains a set of 8 books, covering the countries of Finland, Taiwan, Brazil, Thailand, Greece, Tanzania, Peru and Peru Too. Currently there are plans in place to expand this range to 40 books.

Whilst we've looked through the package and so far genuinely like what we see we have decided to hold off making a start on reading about Crameye's adventures until next week.

I am going to use these as a read aloud so that all three of my children can experience this adventure at the same time.

But, sshhh, don't tell the kids! I couldn't help myself, I had to take a glimpse inside book one to see for myself what it was like.

Let's just say that I'm pretty confident that the kids are going to enjoy these immensely, they are absolutely written to the primary ages, but I also feel that lower high school kids will probably enjoy them also.

The writing style is really quite funny, frank, down to earth and clearly written by your average 12 year old boy (or there abouts because I don't actually know his age). Even though I only got a few pages in, I had already had a good giggle or two.

On top of the Adventurer Package of books and access to Crameye's World, you can also choose to add as an optional extra, access to The Teachers Lounge, where you can access lesson plans, printable resources and worksheets to use alongside the books.

I am really looking forward to getting started with these and the additional lessons from the teachers lounge.

I'll be back soon to share my kids reactions to the stories and lessons, so be sure to keep an eye out for those.

So, what are the costs involved I hear you ask?

Set One of Eight Books currently sells for $79 (USD)
Teachers Lounge Access is $20 (USD)

However The Adventurous Mailbox has offered a pretty neat deal for you to grab your own copy for your family.

The Adventurous Mailbox Homeschool Promotional Deal

Using the coupon code HSadventure at checkout, you will get the Teacher's Lounge for free (originally $20/must be in shopping cart for coupon to work) as well as $10 off the Adventurer Package Series One Books.

So, basically your family would receive the Adventurer Package (like the one I have just shown you) plus full access to the 100s of lessons in the Teacher's Lounge for just $69.00 (USD). The coupon code is valid until June 30th 2015.

Visit The Adventurous Mailbox site.

I'll be back soon to share the details of our adventures with The Adventurous Mailbox.

Happy Homeschooling,

Kylie

One Very Happy Mamma

If you've been reading awhile you'll know that B hasn't taken to reading like he has to, let's see, say Lego! It's not that it was all too hard, he just hasn't really had the desire and it has taken some time for a few of the all important steps to 'click' for him. Plus why read when mum will always be here to read everything to him!

He has had the first 5 books of the Zac Powers series on the bookshelf since his birthday. I'd been waiitng until he was reading more fluently before pulling them off the shelf. I also have never seen a Zac Powerbook so I had no idea what they were like and what level the reading was at. All I knew for sure was that they certainly weren't going to win any Literature Prizes any day soon. Truth be told that was also one of the reasons why they have sat on the shelf for this long.

There's always been this part of me that has struggled with the kids reading 'twaddle' and how that relates to watching tv, as in kids that watch tv don't read (I know not necessarily true and a very broad generalistion and not something that I have said) and kids that read 'twaddle' 'dumbed down' or plain 'easy' reads won't ever want to pick up good books of any great literary quality. I have read this several times online and have also been told this by well meaning homeschooling parents.


You know what, at nearly 8 1/2 I don't care what he is reading (well within reason) just the fact that he is reading and reading chapter books and carrying them around withhim to read, reading in the car, reading before going to sleep at night, just reading....YIPPEEE...

Over Easter I decided to grab one of the books to read to B, after opening it I quickly realised that he could probably cope with the book. I made that suggestion to him and just left it at that. Later that night he grabbed the next book and began, we went out the next morning and he was reading the book in the car.

So yes I am one very happy, very proud mamma and he is one very happy boy because he now knows he can do it!

Goodnight Moon - Tot Painting

We had a hugely delightful full moon this past week, which C spotted all on his own on our drive home from Soccer Training, just after dusk. It was a gorgeous sight too, he was utterly gobsmacked at the big glowing circle in the sky!

He was most concerned that it kept on disappearing though as we headed home, but as we turned a bend or went over a hill, miraculously it would appear again and we'd all giggle at his, "There they are!" remark. He says that whenever he finds anything he is looking for regardless of whether it is one item or 10. I guess it stems from looking for his shoes and us always saying, There they are, when we found them.

After baths we went back outside to sit and look at the moon, we are very lucky to live a little out of town where the city lights don't affect our sky view too much. I love seeing things like this through the children's eyes, watching them see things that we really don't think too much about (such as the moon) for the first time. The awe and mystery of it all as they wonder what on earth is that big glowing ball that we all call the Moon!


Whilst we were looking at the moon I told C about a story I had on the shelves with the moon in it so of course he wanted to go in and read the story. At first he didn't quite pick the moon in the illustrations, I just don't think he put two and two together, after all the real moon, in all its glory is spectacular compared to a grey circle on the page of a book.

The next morning though we were still talking about the moon and he was devastated when it was 'asleep' and that he couldn't go out and look at it. So I decided to have C make his own moon picture. We had loads of fun and it was so easy, the only thing that he didn't do was the cutting.

Firstly we began with a sheet of white cardstock. I squirted a few blobs of black poster paint on it and gave C a rolling brush for him to roll the paint out for the night sky.

Whilst that was drying I poured white paint into one container and black into another and gave C a paintbrush and just let him go for it, knowing full well that he would mix the colours anyway.

After he covered most of the page and it was dry (only a few minutes in the sunshine) we cut out a circle and he glued it onto his black sky background.

I rummaged up some silver stickers for him to place around the moon. So simple and it looks fabulous too!

Teaching With Picture Books

*Edited* I am now adding all links here to articles and lists about Teaching with Books in general, not just picutre books and not only history.

I am currently gathering lists and links of Picture Books relating to a historical point in time. We've begun this year by teaching history through picture books and I would like to continue on that path where possible. In fact I like to 'teach' as much as I can from books so I will continue to edit this post as I find lists.

This list of links is really just for me but I am sure someone will benefit from them. If you are aware of other History Picture Book Lists or just great lists of picture books relating to a particular topic, please let me know.

US History Through Picture Books

Picture This - this is a 29 page document with picture books broken down into subjects

A Book In Time - history suggestions

Australian Children's Books

All Australian, not only Picture Books

Australian History

Are So Happy's Favourite Picture Books

Toot Toot Beep Beep Paintings

You might remember awhile ago I mentioned this little book that C adores, it is very cute, full of lots of noises that the different cars make. The illustrations are quite clever also and we thought it would be fun to recreate our own Toot Toot Beep Beep Paintings.


Just so you have an idea this is one page inside the book. It appears for this page the illustrator has used a roller for the road and then has cut and glued the car pieces together.


So the first step was to make up plenty of coloured bits and pieces that could used to cut apart and piece together to make our cars.


We used scapers of all sorts to paint and scrape different patterns onto the paper with poster paints in lots of different colours. Whilst waiting for them to dry we read the story again and looked more closely at how the pictures were put together. The kids then decided how they would do their backgrounds.

Then set upon cutting (which B did the majority of) and pasting their cars together and finally gluing them down on their backgrounds.


This is B's, with a simple side view road and a zebra crossing.


K decided to do a roundabout with a garden/grass area in the centre.

This was fun and different. We have heaps of pre painted paper left over to make other pictures (not necessarily cars) sometime down the track.

Ocean Lapbook

Thanks so much to everyone over at Homeschool Share, we put together this Ocean Lapbook whilst we were away at the beach.

I knew I wanted to do something on Oceans whilst we were away (posts about that are here>> and here>> )but I needed it to be simple ....I didn't want to spend hours gathering everything I needed for this. Thankfully Homeschool Share had eveything.


B's cover page. A water colour inspired by the gorgeous art work in the books by Kim Michelle Toft and Allan Sheather.



Inside his open lapbook. The files for this included, poetry, rhymes and songs. Various counting activities (all of which were a little young for him but we included one for review). The creatures that live in a Tide (Rock) Pool. A Five Senses booklet, all about using your senses at the seaside. Plus a neat little booklet on Seagulls. Here's some close ups.



Seagull Booklet


Tide Pool Booklet


Poetry


Counting


Five Senses


Rhymes, songs and poems


This is K's cover page. Essentially they completed the same lapbook each, just with a slight variation or two.


K's has different counting activities. She also did a couple more art/craft activities than B.



There was also a 'What begins with O' wheel that we included in K's.



This did not turn out how we expected but it is included none the less. A beach contact collage. Unfortunately there was just too much sand and the sticky back paper didn't stick very well so everything moves around inside.


And I'm just showing off B's Watercolour again (before I cut it in half) I was very impressed with this. He doesn't have the same love of painting that he has for drawing, simply because of the control aspects. He has complete control over a pencil but at this stage not over paint and at times it does things he really doesn't like. However he spent quite a but of time working on this piece over the week and I think it looks great. Check out his blown blue coral, pretty clever!



Our Ocean display at home on top of our science shelves.



Bits and pieces we have collected over time.



K purchased this Klutz Mermaid scence book whilst on holidays. It is very cute just much smaller than I had anticipated.

Overall this was a simple yet fun week learning about oceans.



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Books we read and looked at:

Picture Books

One Less Fish ~ Kim Michelle Toft
Magic Beach ~ Alison Lester
There's A Sea In My Bedroom ~ Margaret Wild
Sea Secrets ~ Dawn McMillan
All You Need For A Beach ~ Alice Schertle
Cork On The Ocean ~ Mark Sommerset
The Bay ~ Ron Bacon
Sailor Bear ~ Martin Waddell
Beach Treasures ~ Helen Lunn

Other

Beach Boy ~ Nicola Smee (easy reader)
Starters - Shells (easy reader)
Smile - We Like Water (easy reader)
My World of Geography - Oceans
Hidden World Oceans Lift The Flaps
Water Worlds - Sea Shores
Australian Guide To Beaches and Rockpools ~ Bob Winters

Other Resources

Homeschool Share - Oceans Lapbook

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Bugs & Creepy Crawlies: Part 1

We recently had a Bug Presentation from Bugs Ed with our Homeschool Network. B7 and K5 were truly 'bitten by the bug' with this one. We have spent the entire week doing all things 'buggy'.

This has truly been natural learning at its best! I can finally see now that relaxing and being much more eclectic with our homeschool approach is really working. They have both shown more interest in this past week than they have in a long time. That's not to say that I am throwing our regular 'school work'out the door, I don't think I could ever let go that much. But not being tied to a curriculum allows these bursts of spontaneity and I don't feel the pressure that we are getting behind in other scheduled work. But I digress....back to Bugs!

After the Bug Presentation we sat down and went through the take home pack that everyone received. It inlcuded a few bits and pieces, info about insects, stickers, an activity booklet, mini magnifying glass and a real live stick insect egg.

This take home pack and more importantly the live insect eggs was really what sparked the interest for more learning at home. This is also one of the first presentations/workshops that we have attended where the children have received a take home pack. Certainly makes a difference I think.

We started by getting out our Greater Brisbane Field Guide to Wildlife looking up some of the stick insects. It was very exciting to see actual images of the exact Insect Eggs we received. A Goliath Stick Insect and a Children's Stick Insect.


We watched Insect Documentaries on Ants, Spiders and Beetles.

We read Insects Do The Strangest Things.

This book was full of short narratives about the following insects:

• The Dragonfly
• The Walking Stick
• The Ant
• The Grasshopper
• The Ladybug Beetle
• The Termite
• The Praying Mantis
• The Whiligig Beetle
• The Water Strider
• The Caddisfly
• The Water Boatman
• The Backswimmer
• The Mosquito
• The Housefly
• The Monarch Butterfly
• The Silkworm
• The Flea
• The Honeybee
• The Firefly
  
  

We read the story of the Crawly, Crawly Caterpillar which shows the life cycle of the butterfly in picture book style.

We used the book "Insects" to look up information when questions arose.

We subscribed to Real Life Bugs through the newsagent awhile back so we have a wonderful (and still growing) collection of bugs set in resin.

We spent quite a bit of time looking more closely at these and comparing the different features of the bugs.

We read the story Collecting Bugs, which is about two children that go to the nursery to buy their mother a plant for her birthday and they bring home a couple of extra surprises on that plant. This inspires them to learn more about bugs and the story follows their adventures.

We pulled our old fish tank out of the shed, gave it a wash, turned it on its side and prepared it for our Stick insects that we hope will be hatching some time in the next few weeks.

Both of the kids couldn't wait to give their eggs a real home! We just need to get some mesh to cover the front so they aren't allowed to hatch before we get some.

We made entires into our Nature Journals. K5 wasn't really into the exercise that day but B7 made several entries. Even I made one in mine!

We made a pipe cleaner spiders web, that was so easy to do and looks great.

We made egg carton bugs, insects and creepy crawlies for our diorama's.

We made Sun Catcher Butterflies, with clear contact, tissue paper and pipe cleaners.

B7's diorama, he is still working on this so I will come back with a finished photo

K5's diorama, again a work in progress.

We set up a small display of all of our bug things, books and activities in the basket and the diorama's make the display look really cool.

Some other things we did that I don't have photo's for:

• Spent quite a bit of time on Ants, comparing the types, their sizes and which ones we could find in our back yard.
• We used the internet to look up the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon. We found some gorgeous photo's and hope to complete a notebook page using some of them.
• We've spent quite a bit of time in the backyard looking for bugs of all kinds.

We still have some more 'buggy' things to do so I will be back with Part 2 of this post.