Around the World: Shalom from Israel!

This made for a great Table Time activity this
morning when the "teacher" overslept a bit
and hadn't had coffee before her pupil woke up!

Shalom from Israel! Our home preschool Around the World unit would not be complete without a visit to Israel. The curriculum I have created for the year will include a longer unit on Israel closer to Yom Ha'atmazut (Israeli Independence Day), but we did make a two day stop on our worldwide trip this week. We began our visit by learning about the Israeli flag using a playdough mat (just a print of Israel's flag that I laminated), some blue playdough, a rolling pin and Star of David shaped cookie cutters.

We used a couple of books we already had at home to assist us in our learning journey.

This book has great photographs of various destinations in Israel and takes the reader through the spectrum of the rainbow--including Hebrew words for color names!

We teach our son a variety of words in Hebrew and Yiddish. This book has great illustrations and a variety of useful vocabulary words that would enhance any Jewish home!

Our Israel visit was also a great opportunity to incorporate a long-term project we've been working on as part of our Jewish curriculum. We've been creating a book of the Twelve Pesukim, twelve Torah passages selected by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson as the twelve most important pieces of Jewish literature for children to learn by heart. My son has been learning to repeat and say these passages from the time he could first speak and he feels so proud to be creating his own book.

We had a lot of fun pretending to visit a kibbutz and playing with the farm animals there. He loved singing some of his favorite farm themed songs while we were at it!

We took a creative spin on learning about the Dead Sea and made some "Jaffa Orange Scented Dead Sea Bath Salts." To make your own at home...
You will need:

• Epsom salt
• Sweet orange essential oil
• yellow and red food coloring
• a ziplock bag and container/scoop for the salt

We scooped some Epsom salt into the ziplock bag. My son decided we needed four cups! To that I added several drops of essential oil and a few drops each of yellow and red food coloring.

Next it was time to seal the bag and shake it up! 

The results smelled wonderful and took on a lovely shade of orange! My son is very excited to try a bit in his bath tonight. These would also make a great homemade gift and could be made with any of your favorite essential oils and with or without food coloring.

 The bath salts smelled good enough to eat, so the last part of our trip included some edible (or drinkable) fun with squeezing our own orange juice! I recently purchased a simple citrus juicer from Walmart to use with my son. There are certainly a lot of electronic options out there, but I love the gross motor, fine motor and sensory development aspects of using the old fashioned kind. We love to do kitchen activities together and they can be very involved sometimes when it comes to baking and cooking. This was about $4 well spent and proof that you don't need a lot of tools or a lot of ingredients to have a great experience getting your kids into the kitchen!

We talked about and observed the parts of the fruit: the rind/peel, the pulp/fruit and the juice inside!

We did not have any Jaffa oranges available but we had recently bought some Cara Cara pink oranges and they were up to the task of being squeezed into some very sweet and tasty orange juice! It took some practice and demonstration to learn how to use his hands to squeeze and turn the orange halves simultaneously, but he mastered it and was quite pleased.

As an added bonus, he actually enjoyed trying (and finishing) what we made! Many times this is not the case with our baking and cooking adventures...

We had a great time on our visit to Israel. We have just a couple of more stops now to the continents of Australia and Africa where we will playfully and artfully explore the vast array of wildlife on a pretend Safari! Until then, happy playing!

Around the World: Namaste from India!

 Namaste from India! It's hard to believe we've "traveled" to ten amazing countries in this unit and we are dwindling down with just a few more stops before we return home to the United States at the beginning of next week and then move on from our Around the World unit. I wondered at the beginning of this how my toddler would do with a learning theme I had only taught to four and five year olds before. We've both learned a lot! For me, I have really seen how adaptable this subject matter can be to toddlers--especially if you include toddler-friendly methods of exploring it. We used a lot of multi-sensory exploration, kitchen activities, dramatic play, building materials to teach about architecture, repetition of familiar songs, some arts & crafts and a lot of opportunities to look at great library books--both fiction and non-fiction. Having a variety of approaches really helped keep things exciting and interesting for us and ensured that if one type of activity was not a real winner, another one would be.

Repetition of predictable routines was also an invaluable tool. Every time we've "traveled" to a new country, we've done so with the same songs, a bit of airplane dramatic play and a stamp in our passport upon arrival. This is not something that gets boring for children, but rather something that is familiar and ignites interest and enthusiasm. For most of our destinations, I've also provided a non-fiction book to leaf through so my son can see photographs of familiar concepts in a novel environment. He especially likes to see pictures of other children, food, transportation and animals. Including select children's fiction in the mix also enhanced our experience. My son loves helping in the kitchen and was really interested in the colorful photographs of food and spices in our book about India. I was very excited to offer him a hands (and nose)-on experience of painting with spices!

I am never sure exactly how my son will respond to any activity. He can display a great deal of excitement only to remain with a project for a few minutes and then move on. Other times, he may be hesitant to try or begin something, but sit with it at length. I was really impressed with how long this activity held his concentration and interest! It encouraged a lot of language development as well as he initiated conversations about using spices in cooking and what he was painting about (in this case, "robots" and "snakes," as my husband had participated a bit in our homeschool activity by showing our son a video of snake charmers in India and a robot used to help catch snakes!).

To set up our activity, I filled a plastic tray from our recycling bin with a variety of colorful and aromatic spices: turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, ground mustard, dill weed, and chili powder. You could use any spices you have on hand. I wanted at least some of the scents to be familiar (like cinnamon) and some to be particularly rich in color (like chili powder and turmeric). I also wanted to include a little texture variety (hence the dill weed). I also filled a recycled plastic container with school glue that I added vanilla extract to for scent. It did not take on quite as rich of an aroma as I'd hoped but I didn't want to use too much pure vanilla extract in glue! We started the activity by setting out the spice tray and a magnifying glass. I allowed my son to observe the spices up close and notice the different colors and textures. I did not dissuade him from touching them either! Next, I explained that we would now be using them for some artwork and making a spice painting. I set out the glue dish with a brush. He hesitated a bit primarily as though he wasn't sure what to do. I demonstrated dipping the brush in glue and "painting" it on the paper (we actually used a thick matte cardboard that was recycled from a frame shop). I pinched a bit of one of the spices between my fingers and sprinkled it on top. That was all the instruction my son needed and he went to town!

Many times, my son does not like the feeling of his hands getting sticky or to have his hands dirty. I provide a wet washcloth next to messier projects so he has the option to wipe off his hands without having to leave an activity. This time, he mostly wanted to wipe them on his shirt! If you're concerned about staining, you may want to use a smock or cover-up! We did cover our work table with a disposable tablecloth so we could easily shake our finished work over the top and then roll it up and toss it. My little artist had fun sprinkling spices on glue, sprinkling them in glue, painting with the now very colorful glue and exploring the different textures as it thickened with spices in certain areas of his artwork. Then, he went back to sprinkling spices over the top. It was incredible to watch his concentration and curiosity in action. This was truly process art at its best. I was not focused on the end result and he was totally focused on the experience.

When I taught my son the way to greet others in Hindi, "Namaste," he recognized the word from our yoga activities. yoga would surely be a part of our visit to India. We love the Cosmic Kids Yoga series on YouTube for home yoga sessions. We've also checked out some wonderful DVDs for children from our library and even come across or created some routines at home through online resources like Pink Oatmeal.

My little yogi!

Lastly, we took to our kitchen to make an adapted version of this simple recipe for Indian Rice Pudding. I'm hopeful that my particular eater will want to actually try it, but if not, I definitely think it is a suitable breakfast food for me!

That's all for this leg of our trip. Join us in Israel next time where we will try our hands at replicating the Israeli flag with playdough, making our own homemade "Dead Sea" bath salts, playing about farm life at the kibbutz, juicing oranges like the ones that grow in Jaffa, making hummus from scratch and tasting some of our favorite Israeli cuisine. See you there--and until then, happy playing!

Around the World: Kon'nichiwa From Japan!

 Kon'nichiwa from Japan! That's where our most recent Around the World adventure took us. My son loved seeing photos of Japanese school children in a non-fiction book we borrowed from our library all about Japan. This post, however, is about more than just our homeschool travel adventures... If you've been following along here for a while, you've probably read a lot about our learning activities and seen photos of an actively engaged and eager little student. Much of our time is like that, but not all of it! Teaching is a profession that requires one to play a number of roles and when we teach other people's children, we do a great deal of multitasking. Work is brought home and we spend a lot of time thinking, planning and troubleshooting both in and out of the classroom. When the home is your classroom and your student is your child, there are some additional roles we play. We don't stop being Mommy when we teach and our attachments and investments are as enormous as the love we feel for our children. All of the questioning, guilt, concern and pressure we put on ourselves daily as mothers and wives also becomes a part of our inner dialogue now as Teacher--and it doesn't end when the school bell rings! Add to that the fact that we NEVER leave the office--whichever office it is. When home is the classroom, there is teaching and learning to do, laundry and phone calls, dishes and cooking... One of the greatest accomplishments I've come to achieve in homeschooling this year is being able to quiet the unhelpful voice running through my head, and being able to relish the ability to adapt and change our plans as our family needs fluctuate.  Being able to give and receive support in groups of others in my position has been invaluable. Collaboration as a homeschool educator is not quite like it is in a school environment, but there is a great wealth of support and encouragement thanks to online groups and I am also truly blessed to have the greatest support and encouragement from my own family! So in today's post, you'll still see cute photos of my enthusiastic little pupil, but you'll also read about some of the less photogenic moments of our day and the parts that don't get caught on camera. I think that's quite important!
     My son has been VERY busy playing since we did a little remodeling/reorganizing in our play area and I've encouraged him to take his time with play activities rather than force school activities to happen in a particular time frame. We did fewer "formal" preschool activities toward the end of our week last week and more open playtime. I truly value that as one of the greatest benefits of our homeschool model. Life is full of opportunities to work--everyone needs a little more playtime! When he is particularly engrossed in an activity, I might work toward a transition by giving prompts, using a visual timer and singing familiar transition songs if we must move on to another activity or leave the house, etc. However, if we are not on a specific schedule and he is particularly engrossed in another activity, I might just set out materials to invite him to a school activity, let him know that it is available and then gauge his interest level from there. In times I have truly wanted a child (even my own) to engage with a material or activity and he/she is resistant or not interested, I've had greater success by sitting with the activity myself and saying nothing at all than with persistently encouraging the child to participate. So after going through our traditional Morning Circle mostly alone and then weathering the storm of tears that happened when my little student decided he did want to do Morning Circle after all, I held him on my lap and said "it really looks like you want to play with your toys and that's OK! It's so exciting to have our new drawers and your very own art center and there is enough time to do everything. We can spend some time playing and when you feel ready, we can do more school." And he was off to play as I set out some origami on our work table. Sure enough, he came over to the table after a few minutes, still mixing up a pretend cake from his kitchen and ready to try his little hands at folding paper into a few of his favorite animals!

He loved looking through pictures in the origami animals book we borrowed from our library and picking a few of his favorites to try. At his age, his biggest role in folding was assisting with creasing and flipping over the paper when instructed. We happen to have some origami paper at home, but you could use (and even decorate) your own regular paper and cut it to a square in your desired size.

We made dogs, cats and bunnies! He loved "adding two noses" to this dog and playing with all of the animals throughout the afternoon. We even used blocks to build a little doghouse and playground for them.

Smiling at our creations! Origami is a great, mess-free activity that little ones can enjoy with help from a larger set of hands and older children can really get into independently!

We've loved learning about and viewing the flags from different countries as we "travel" around the world. This week, I created a journal activity for my son to "build" his own Japanese flags out of familiar shapes and materials. I provided one sample already done as well as a photo in a book we checked out from the library. I provided the remainder of the materials (3 pre-cut white rectangles, 3 red dot labels and a glue stick) on a tray. The first day I set this out, my son was so excited and dug right in! He did not even wait for instructions and got right to his own version of putting together the Japanese flag. And then I made a Mommy mistake. I intruded. I gave instructions on how to do it properly and he grew very insulted and frustrated. I was in a bit of a rush as well and about to head out to my very part time job and the babysitter was on her way. I suggested we put away the materials and try again another time when we were less frustrated and to be quite honest, I felt horrible about it. I thought about it as I was driving to work and as I was driving home. Why was I so hard on him? I wouldn't be so hard on another student? Why did it matter if he put glue on the sticker or glued it the "wrong way?" I also had provided a brand new activity with several variables and steps and not provided any step-by-step instruction in a way that he could understand at his developmental level. Lucky for me, my toddler has a much more positive attitude than I do with these things (and that's when he becomes my teacher)! I set it out the next day, we sat together and took it step by step and he was quite proud and pleased to try it again! After he completed putting the flags together and gluing them where he wanted to on the journal pages, we counted together the total number of Japanese flags: four in all. No, this was not the "picture perfect" teaching scenario--but what we did learn through the experience is that everyone gets frustrated and that it is OK (and even helpful) to take a break from our intense emotions and return to a situation later when the power of the waves has lessened.

And my other Teacher-Mommy snafu last week? My husband made AMAZING sushi for us for dinner on Thursday night and we scarfed it down before I could take a photo!

Today I wish you all happy parenting, happy teaching and happy learning--these are all part and parcel to an environment of happy playing!

Around the World: Ni Hao from China!

Our pretend airplane has landed on a new continent this week: Asia--and our first stop is a visit to China. We learned how to greet local residents with a friendly "ni hao!" Our explorations and learning while we are here have included sensory play, math activities, building challenges, arts & crafts, learning a new letter, music and more!


Here's a peek at our most recent travel adventure;

Once our pajama-clad pilot landed our pretend plane, we got to stamp our passport with an appropriately selected panda bear stamp. He, of course, also wanted a panda bear stamp on each hand, too!

I set up this simple math activity to practice one-to-one correspondence. I found the artificial Chinese coins at our local party supply store in a display set out for the Chinese New Year. I wrote number words, numerals and added a corresponding number of red circle labels to each sentence strip from one to five. (You could work toward a higher number or adapt to include addition problems if your little ones are more advanced.)

I worked on this activity with my little mathematician so he could practice placing one coin in each of the designated red spots to count from one to five!

Sensory play is a fun and favorite part of our regular routine here. To adapt it to our current theme, I set up a Chinese-themed rice sensory bin, including chopsticks, take-out containers, coins, scoops, dishes and cups. On a smaller scale, I set out a rice transfer tray activity. This is a great way to practice the fine motor skill of scooping and transferring small materials from one container to another.

We looked at some photographs of the Great Wall of China together and learned some interesting facts about it. We took on the challenge of building our own Great Wall on a much smaller scale using Jenga blocks. You could use any type of block, legos/duplos, even rocks to try out this activity.




We enjoyed listening to some traditional Chinese music while we worked, played and explored. Youtube has been a great resource for finding music from a variety of cultures and destinations!

 We used chopsticks in red and white paint to add cherry blossoms to a pre-painted tree trunk. This was a great activity in demonstrating how mixing red and white make pink and exploring how the ratios of the two affect the resulting shade. Using chopsticks to paint with provides a unique fine motor activity. I initially demonstrated dabbing the wider end to make dots. My son loved using both ends and even dragging the paint to create strokes. I did prepare the tree trunk in advance, though this could very well be done by the child and geared more toward child-led/process art.

Our letter of the week this week is the letter Ff. As soon as it was dry, I hung my son's cherry blossom tree painting on our art display and set aside my model for another activity: we learned how to fold paper and crease with our finger and how to flip the paper back and forth to create a lovely Chinese fan. Needless to say, my son thought this activity was a lot of fun!

Join us on the next leg of our Asian travel adventure when we land in Japan! We will be practicing some more paper folding as we learn about the art of origami, working on flag matching in a new way and testing our hands in making some unique types of sushi while we're there! See you there and until then--safe travels & happy playing!

Around the World: Ciao from Italy!

Benvenuto in Italia! We boarded our makeshift plane, passports in hand and ready for our next adventure. My son already knew we were heading to a new destination when he opened his school bag and found his passport, a stamp and ink pad and a copy of Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola inside. Strega Nona is a longtime favorite book that I grew up loving and was eager to share with my son. It's quite wordy and at two and a half, I wasn't sure if he'd be into a book that long yet. He devoured every word, much like a plate of steaming, fresh spaghetti! 

After landing, stamping our passport (and each hand) and learning how to greet our new Italian friends with a friendly "ciao," we set to searching for Italy on our globe. My little pilot (who HAD to wear a tie on this day) loved seeing how Italy is shaped like a boot! He quickly set to work with his flag match tray and was excited to try making a shape pizza in his journal.

He's grown quite proficient in the process of setting up his "puzzle," applying glue to each piece
and flipping it over to place in the correct location!

This journal assignment combined our theme of Italian food with review of shapes, colors and numbers we have learned.

We worked through this activity step-by-step together.

He thought his pizza looked good enough to eat. He decided to pretend to pick it up and eat it!

It was time for some more Italian cuisine themed play and fun. Remember our Rainbow Pasta? It got a lot of use during our trip to Italy!

Floral foam pasta sculpture: great fine motor activity!

And for some more fine motor fun, try your hand at stringing pasta!  

He was quite pleased with the result!

All this playing and learning made us hungry, so we took a spaghetti lunch break...

And what he didn't finish didn't go into the garbage this time--we used it for some process art at the dining room table at a space I had intentionally left during our tabletop art together activity from the previous evening.

As he had fun painting and printing with individual strands of cooked spaghetti along with a chunk of spaghetti that stuck together like a paintbrush, we sang a favorite tickle rhyme:

Here's a piece of spaghetti

So slippery and thin

It wiggles and squiggles and tickles your chin!

Bon appetit and happy playing!

Around the World: Bonjour from France!

 Confession: I think I'm having as much fun in our homeschool preschool as my toddler with this theme! Our next stop in Europe took us to France where we greeted our new experience with a cheerful "Bonjour!" We revisited familiar routines and activities as with our previous destinations, including another flag match (pictured left). I also wanted to continue on with the theme of building and structures in Europe as well as some of the children's literature we've been enjoying along the way.

We read Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline and afterward went through the book pointing out a variety of famous French architectural sites that are beautifully depicted in the illustrations. Next it was time for my travel companion to try his hand at some crafty architecture as he recreated a version of the Eiffel Tower using cut up straws glued onto card-stock. (I outlined the shape of the Eiffel Tower in advance, although you could also provide a stencil for children to trace.)

Even in a "craft" like this, I love letting my son take as much lead in the process as possible. 

I loved his different methods for using the glue and straws and placing them on the template!

Voila!

I was most excited for our visit to France because I had big plans for soaking up a bit of the art scene! We checked some great children's art books out from the library as reference. Three of our favorites were:

The Usborne Art Treasury: Pictures, Paintings and Projects by Rosie Dickins

Are You an Art Sleuth? Look, Discover, Learn! by Brooke DiGiovanni Evans

and...

Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Bjork and Lena Anderson

Experimenting with dot markers

As part of our evening activity, I covered our dining room table in white craft paper. I stationed all three books on display, with pages open to particular paintings by artist Claude Monet. I set out several stations of art materials including oil and chalk pastels, dot markers, creamy crayons, and tissue paper and glue. Some materials (like the dot markers and creamy crayons) are ones my son is more accustomed to using. Some (like the chalk and oil pastels) are more novel to him. While the main point of children's process art is to leave the process and experience entirely up to the child, I also like to incorporate open ended family art (or group art in my classroom environments). I refer to this as Art Together.

Exploring oil and chalk pastels

Art Together invites everyone to the table (or easel or wherever else)--sometimes all at the same time, sometimes in small groups and sometimes one at a time. I explain to everyone that this is group art that anyone can add to. When I am teaching, I also include that it will not go home with one person but rather it will remain in the classroom or be used for a purpose in the future (like collage or a bulletin board, etc.). It is a very unique experience. For some, it is an experience in letting go. Allowing someone else to express their ideas on a space where you have expressed your own ideas already is challenging--especially if your vision and/or creation is altered in the process! It is also an experience in teamwork. Ideas are shared, conversations are started and children learn a great deal about how to talk to each other in ways that are positive and helpful rather than critical or hurtful. Each child and artist (adults, too) has different strengths and weaknesses. Some are very confident to try new things; some are more hesitant. Some children who may never independently seek an art activity during a free time or center time will be drawn to group art invitations because their peers are there or because they want a part in something the group is working on together. Whereas art together could be a scenario that evokes conflicting opinions and social challenges, it becomes a space where these are resolved, worked through and where relationships are built.

Tissue paper "Water Lilies" collage

In the home setting, family art together is a beautiful way to connect without the "pressure" of trying to connect! Spending "quality time" together can feel forced or awkward for some. Process art during these times sometimes relieves or distracts from that "awkwardness" and opens up both creativity in each family member and the communication lines. Many children (and adults alike) are more comfortable to talk and open up while busy with another activity. Art is a great one (although not everyone is naturally drawn to such activities); walking together, cooking, baking, or playing board games together are other ways to create that environment. 

Listening to Mommy talk about Claude Monet and Impressionism!

My husband happened to be teaching this evening, so this art together activity was just one shared by my son and myself. To maintain that "process art" ideal, I did not verbally instruct on what to do or even talk a lot about what I was doing at first. I did talk a lot as we worked about Monet and the things he liked to paint about: people, flowers, nature and gardens, bridges. I talked about Impressionism on a level a toddler could grasp: Monet painted things the way they made him feel rather than exactly as they are. A photograph shows things exactly as they are. Many times when we do artwork, we show things the way they make us feel. Sometimes I would make observational statements about what my son was doing: "I see you're using the dot markers here to make dots and over here to make lines and strokes!" I would do the same about my own process: "I'm using my finger to smudge the chalk pastels together and mix the colors." I resisted statements of praise or judgment, including "It looks like you're making a flower" or even "I like the way you used...." Art together for me is more about the quality of our time than the quality of our artwork! We had so much fun and my son is super proud that the tabletop mural we created was now our Shabbat tablecloth for all to appreciate, including his Tatty and his visiting grandparents! We just placed a clear plastic table cover over top and we're good to go!

Wishing all happy playing and creating and meaningful time together!

The Artist busy at work!