Lightning Bug Literacy

Bright Ideas for Early Childhood Education

Mar 20

Shapes in Nature

by arianahall

Other than the most important role of Mommy, I am currently involved with an amazing non-profit, Project Learning Tree! I am a facilitator that leads teachers in learning how to use the PLT curriculum. Just as when I was teaching, its hard for me to stand behind something I would not use myself. I really love the concepts behind PLT and using the curriculum with my own kids.

During the spring, summer and fall one of our favorite activities is to go on nature walks (aka hikes) in the beautiful outdoors of Colorado. The last time we went on a nature walk, I let Little Bug take control of the digital camera and she took pictures of shapes she could find along the way.

I uploaded them into a basic Powerpoint presentation, then asked her to to share words for her story. As she “wrote” her story, I typed. Then, we use the narration feature, and she “read” her story aloud, which turned out *slightly* different than the original version.

We’re uploading the original presentation … if you “view slideshow” you can see the entire “book” or movie in action, complete with her sweet little voice. SO FUN! She has had a blast listening to her book time and time again!

Shape Walk

DSCN0079

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Nov 28

“Rockin’ Out”

by arianahall

When I was in high school and college, I *hated* science! And I’m pretty sure it hated me, too. I dreaded our science classes in teacher school – and dreaded teaching it to children even more. We all know that being a great teacher is at least 30% acting. Acting like you love the subject so they will too! So, as science time rolled around, I slipped on a tie-dyed doctor’s coat, a goofy pair of sunglasses and became “Dr. Popsicle!” It allowed me to create a sense of fun and magic in the world of science. And as I acted my way through “loving” science, I actually began to really look forward to our discovery days. Funny how that happens.

I’ve decided that undoubtedly I want my kids to truly *love* science and be curious about how the world around them works. We are starting a unit on Rocks and Minerals this week, and hopefully work through them until we start on our Thanksgiving unit. To begin with, we “rocked” out on a neighborhood rock hunt!

The kids got another chance to use those silly pumpkin baskets they used for trick or treating to collect any and all rocks they were interested in. It’s quite amazing how little people don’t really notice something, like rocks, until you point them out. ANd then all of a sudden,t hey want to take care of 500 rocks. All at once. And they cry when you put them back outside. EEK.

We used these rocks to work through some sorting charts we found in this unit …. we sorted by texture, weight, size, color and shape! Little Bug loved predicting which rock would weigh the most and got really good at it after several rounds.

From there, we had to use our senses to explore our rocks. That’s right. We already felt them, smelled them, etc. Now it’s time to taste them. EWWWW!

Wrong. YUM! and Fun! One of the worksheets in this unit was a Pop Rock Exploration … SO FUN! What a fun avenue to take our rock adventure – and a quick lesson about the chemistry of pop rocks.

Finally for the day, we added in a literacy piece to focus on for the week. We cut out random rock shapes from grey foam and used a sharpie to write our “ock” family words. We piled them up and are practicing reading them day by day!

More to come as we “rock it out”!

Science

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Nov 8

The Culture Club : Diwali

by arianahall

Growing up in the military has given me a life-long appreciation for the many different cultures in our world. I feel like I have been given such an amazing gift by living in Japan, several different states, and visited numerous countries. Unfortunately, not every family gets such opportunities, including my own children thus far. Though I am tied strongly to my CHristian beliefs, I do want my children to understand that not everyone in our world believes the same as us, or participates in daily life the same as we do … and that’s ok! What a  boring world we would live in if we were all the same. We are going to explore a different culture every month from here on … and we invite you to join us! I will post our plans a week out, so if you’d like to participate  you can prepare and celebrate with us!

In November, we are going to learn about the celebration of Diwali … a Festival celebrated in October or November in India. Here is background information from National Geographic for Kids …

“Diwali, or Dipawali, is India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year. The festival gets its name from the row (avali) of clay lamps (or deepa) that Indians light outside their homes to symbolize the inner light that protects us from spiritual darkness. This festival is as important to Hindus as the Christmas holiday is to Christians.

Diwali, celebrated in October or November each year, originated as a harvest festival that marked the last harvest of the year before winter. India was an agricultural society where people would seek the divine blessing of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, as they closed their accounting books and prayed for success at the outset of a new financial year. Today, this practice extends to businesses all over the Indian subcontinent, which mark the day after Diwali as the first day of the new financial year.

Indians celebrate with family gatherings, glittering clay lamps, festive fireworks, strings of electric lights, bonfires, flowers, sharing of sweets, and worship to Lakshmi. Some believe that Lakshmi wanders the Earth looking for homes where she will be welcomed. People open their doors and windows and light lamps to invite Lakshmi in.”

To adventure into the celebration of Diwali, we are going to be using 2 books to learn about this festival and the INdian culture …

The Story of Divaali 

and

Elephant Dance

A few of the activities we plan to do include:

Our own Rangoli - this page has fantastic patterns you can use for fuse bead patterns, color by number, or just color! In India, they often times use colorful powder or sand … so we are, too! We have *plenty* of colorful sand from our latest birthday party, so we will use these patterns to make a beautiful sand art picture!

Diyas : Diyas are clay lamps lit at Diwali. We plan to make pinch pots from salt dough, and include flower petals, jewels and more! After they are baked we will paint them and light tea lights in them!

The Activity Village has awesome printables for background on India, and even a fuse bead pattern for the Indian flag!

And of course it wouldn’t be a celebration without food! I found a very do-able recipe that I think my kids just might enjoy … or at least we’ll enjoy making them together and I’ll enjoy eating them!

Coconut Sweets

Mix together cream cheese with sweetened coconut and roll bits of this mixture into small balls. Stuff sweetened dried apricots into the balls and enjoy!!

Here are a few more kid-friendly recipes that kids can enjoy for the festival! 

Finally … because my little girl will do ANYTHING for an opportunity to dress up … we will make bangle jewelry! We plan to use toilet paper rolls, more fancy jewels, and paint to create our own bangles! Don’t tell daddy … we’re planning on surprising him with a Diwali dinner that evening to teach him all that we learned!

The Educator’s Spin On It has great ideas to celebrate Diwali, too! 

Fall Family Adventures Recipes

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Nov 7

October Fun

by arianahall

Clearly, it has been awhile since I’ve kept up with my blog. Almost a year! WOW! We started school September 6. Within a 2 week period, I began homeschooling, volunteered to be the Moppets Coordinator for my MOPS group, and started a new job. WOW (yes, again!) . What an intense 6 weeks it has been! Somehow in the middle of all of that, I have managed to slip in some actual learning time. I admit, homeschooling has taken a backseat to my crazy life this last few months, but hopefully we’re back into the swing of things. Take a peak at just a few of the fantastically fun October Adventures we shared together ….

We kicked it off with a trip to the Pumpkin Patch! We played in the bouncy houses, visited the small petting zoo and raced around the hay maze for wee ones. Finally, we got to chop our own pumpkins off the vine. We had a blast with them – from slicing them off the vine to our final carving, we put those pumpkins through the ringer!

From there, we used our Pinterest Board to learn all about Pumpkins and built excitement for Halloween!

We learned about the Pumpkin Life Cycle

We made play dough Pumpkin Pie cupcakes

We read “Orange Pumpkin, Orange Pumpkin” over, and over … and over… and over… :)

We made a 5 Little Pumpkins craft and practiced the rhyme over … and over … and over…

We hot glued magnets to the back of spider rings and tacked them on the fridge. This was awesome for adding, subtracting, and forming letters out of magnets on the fridge.

We learned the parts of the pumpkin

and created a P”ump”kin Patch the practing reading “Ump” words

Baby Bug used Pumpkin seeds to make “P is for Pumpkin”

We cleaned and carved our first jackolantern of the year, completing a pumpkin investigation form to accompany it.

We made “Witches Brew” using baking soda, glitter, and green vinegar to watch the eruption / bubbling cauldron

We used green, purple and black play dough to make pretend witches, accompanied with glittery purple witches hats, goggly eyes, and tons of Halloween stampers.

We had a blast with our ghost bath … black water, spider rings hidden under the murk, and ghosts made of mounds of shaving cream!

We used Halloween grow capsules to experiment, predict and graph our results

One of my favorite finds – a set of ghost pearler beads from Party City – the kids had a blast making and remaking their ghosts!

I pre-painted canvases and used their hand and footprints to fun create Halloween decor !

Lastly, we sorted orange and yellow card stock squares and used them to make candy corn art. We enjoyed a tasty candy corn treat made from layered mandarin oranges, pineapple and whipped cream – fun and delicious!

What a fun month this has been! Little Bug’s birthday is on Halloween, so it makes this month a little crazy with Halloween parties, birthday celebrations and more – but somehow we got a good chunk of it in there! I can’t wait for next year – their complete joy o each holiday makes it magical once again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Math Fall Halloween Life Cycle Mash-Mash (playdough) Pre-K Science Toddler Time Uncategorized

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Oct 28

My Barefoot Bugs

by arianahall

It has been quite awhile since I’ve logged onto my blog. Boy! This homeschooling business is *quite* time (and energy) consuming! Several years ago, my mom and I began Lightning Bug Literacy with a dream in our hearts. Though our shop has officially closed, we still pursue our passion for literacy rich education. I have decided to begin using some of my own favorite books as a method to bring additional income to my home, fantastic literature into our library, and exciting learning opportunities into our classroom.

I am now an Ambassador for Barefoot Books and will be posting about my favorite books from Barefoot, and with that sharing a fun learning activity and snack to accompany each book. At some point I would like to offer these out of my home to the community, and hope I can get to a point where that is possible. Until then … welcome to our Barefoot Journey … and if you feel so inclined, please feel free to help me get my business started by shopping with Barefoot Books!

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Aug 9

A Berry Fun Adventure

by arianahall

AT least once or twice a month I try to find local resources to engage my children in their community, related to our topic of study. We are fortuate to have several pick your own farms around here. But – this took the cake! A local farm has a preschool program that allows youngsters to gather for a story time, pick a basket of berries and enjoy a hay ride, all while learning about the strawberry plant and life on a farm. It doesn’t get more real-life applicable than that, does it?! I just had a blast with my babies on their little berry adventure….

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Aug 8

Strawberry Sensations!

by arianahall

There is just nothing like the smell of strawberries in summer! Or the taste, for that matter. We had so much fun with our strawberry experiments, though one of them didn’t quite turn out as expected….

First up, we attempted making homemade crockpot strawberry jam. Attempted. And failed! BUT  – we turned it into an ice cream topping and everything was a-ok! Just gotta be a little creative *wink*. Little Bug sliced up all our strawberries using an egg slicer, and we added in sugar and lemon juice.  We gave it a stir and allowed it to taste our patience as we smelled it simmering all.day.long. Like I said, it never jelled, so we simply froze it and now use it on ice creams, pancakes and waffles!

To top off our day, we decided to create yet another purpose for strawberries … paint! Little Bug took on the tough job of mashing up our berries, and my little and baby bug went to town painting away on the back patio. This was a hoot – but it sure attracted tons of little unwelcome critters :(

Ah well, we have a really fun memory, as how often do you realy get to play (or paint) with your food?!

Science Sensory Summer Toddler Time

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Aug 7

Strawberry Shortcake Stations

by arianahall

I thought it would be a smidge difficult to come up with actual learning (versus play) stations for us, but it actually came quite easily … check it out!

Strawberry PLaydough Station

We used strawberry and lime playdough and added in “seeds” (black jewels) to decorate our strawberrries. Here’s baby bug working on his…

Fine Motor Work: I wound a green and a white chenille stem together and Little Bug finished it off, twirling it around and around working her little fine motor skills like crazy! If youre not familiar with Strawberry Shortcake, she has green and white striped tights :)

Lastly, Patterning (yes, again!)

We used a green ice cube tray with green, white and pink pom poms to sort into patterns. Baby Bug used this as one-one correspondence and fine motor/transferring practice.

The fun continues tomorrow!

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Aug 6

Strawberry Shortcake Sensory TUb !

by arianahall

I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the smell of my strawberry shortcake’s hair from when I was a small girl.  When Little Bug fell in love with the cartoon, I was simply ecstatic! Together we whipped our Strawberry Shortcake Sensory Tub into being and we haven’t stopped playing since!

We filled our tub with green lentils and pink rice. We added in red, pink, white and green pom poms, plastic strawberry baskets, foam strawberries, cardboard strawberry coasters, white strawberry flowers, Strawberry Shortcake confetti , strawberry erasers, and of course, our 3 favorite Strawberry Shortcake dolls. This little tub has earned itself an extended stay in our home!

Pre-K Sensory Summer

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Aug 3

Princess Unit: On Our Shelves

by arianahall

Among the many hands on, interactive learning projects, with Baby Bug around I simply have to have independent work for her to keep busy with, and for her to enjoy “learning”! These are a few of the extras we had out for her this round …

Found at Hobby Lobby, she had a blast decorating her own princess crown with stick on jewels – great for fine motor work!

She loved working our Melissa and Doug Princess Doll Dressing Puzzle!

Found for $1 at Michaels, this delightful princess necklace kit was an awesome beading project for her little fingers!

And what would our school room be without playdough? My mom always says “Everything is better with glitter and chocolate!” I guess :) We used strawberry playdough and added in sparkly purply glitter to our Princess Playdough. We used a set of princess cookie cutters as well as a set of tea party cookie cuttters…. SO. Much. FUN! We also made a decorating station with our playdough, cookie cutters and of course, jewels! :)

This unit was such a blast! I Simply love watching her little eyes light up during our learning time. Hope we were able to share something new with you!

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