Night of the Ninjas

Our afternoon reading with the kids today was out on the trampoline. It was so perfect. Eli and Hannah have taken on playing the roles of Jack (big brother with glasses) and Annie (care-free sister) and like to act out some of the scenes. It's quite cute!  =)

Here are our follow-up activities: (they were mostly discussion type instead of hands-on things this time)

1. Find Japan on the world map and globe. 

2. Talk about Ninja clothing (also called shinobi shozoko)

CLOTHING COLOR

    * Black or dark blue clothing was for dangerous night missions so they could remain hidden.

    * What color do you think they'd wear for winter missions so they could blend in with the snow? white

   * They wore a green kind of camouflage pattern when they need to blend in with the forest surroundings.

    * In what situations do people wear camouflage clothing here today? We talked about and looked at pictures of soldiers and hunters.

    * What are some animals that have camouflage skin that can change according to their surrounding? 

OTHER DETAILS

    * Clothing covered all of their skin. And had many pockets all throughout it, inside and out.  What do you think they put in all of their pockets?  Storing small tools and weapons. And a small first aid kit in case they came across animal bite or poison.

    * Tabi boots had a slit between the big toe and second to make it easier for climbing ropes and scaling walls.

3. I never really could find much to watch or do about Ninja moves but maybe you'd have better luck?

4.  Nature discussion regarding the rules from the book:

* Use nature -- Jack and Annie used the moonlight and shadow from a stick to find which direction was east -- We can use the sun and shadows to find direction or time. We can also use nature to build shelter or raft or tools.

* Be nature -- Jack and Annie became still as rocks to hide from the Samurai warriors towering right over them.  -- When we confront dangerous animals we can remain still as a rock or become big like a bear to protect ourselves.

* Follow nature -- Jack and Annie followed their mouse friend across the stream to get where they needed to go. -- When lost you can follow a stream as a guide to a nearby town.

5. Project: Try out the shadow stick method to find direction.

    * Find a very straight stick and stand it up in the ground on a flat area. 

    * Mark the tip of its shadow with a rock. 

    * Wait at least 15 minutes (we waited 30 for bigger results) and mark the new shadow tip. 

    * The first shadow mark is west and the second shadow mark is east. You can then figure out north and south.

 6.  {Faith Connections} Ninja master: a mysterious wise person who knew many secrets of nature. They had meetings in hidden caves.

* Who is our great ninja master? God. He is mysterious, we don't know everything about Him, He is so great we can't comprehend everything. He is wise and he knows everything about everyone and he knows everything about nature because He created it.

* Where can we go to meet Him? Anywhere because God is everywhere. Although in other parts of the world where people are still not allowed to worship God or go to church, Christians will have secret meetings in caves or basements or homes in order to worship God in secret.

As you can see, we are very serious about our studies around here...  =)

 

HAPPY SUMMER!

Beginner story writing {template included}

In an attempt to practice writing, spelling, and a little bit of creativity, I created a template for Eli to write his own story in the format of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?"  Here's what he wrote...

Red Mario.

DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE TEMPLATE HERE.  

* You'll want to print the first 4 pages, the flip over your stack of papers and send them through the printer again for pages 5-8.
* I didn't use prompts for the cover page, so it would be neat looking. But either fill it in yourself or let child do it.

And now here is Hannah's. She wanted me to help her with the pictures so I did the best I could but I am NO artist either!! She did the coloring and added some to the drawings.

I love to watch the kids working so hard.

Summer Sensory Bin

Part of this idea came from Pinterest. A recipe for moldable flour. 8 cups flour + 1 cup baby oil. Done. We already had a mini set of sandbox toys, so I thought it would be fun to make a beach theme sensory bin. Wish I had shells and whatnot too. Maybe I do?

So here it is. After Hannah was done with the sand toys I brought out some of the play kitchen dishes and she pretended to bake. Or whatever. Nothing like digging and scooping and pouring and filling and dumping.

Spring Sensory Bin

I've seen about sensory bins online several times here and there. So when our March MOPS meeting topic was about special needs kids, I thought it would be a fun project for us moms to put together for our kiddos, since they're so great for kids of all types. Not sure about other kids, but mine love it, so much so that I think I might actually put together more themes! Here's our spring sensory bin:

Items:
 ~1 inch of dyed rice (there are many dying methods, we used vinegar and green food coloring, because it was fast drying time and we had to prepare so much for the rest of our MOPS group!)
plastic flowers (I got a cheap bouquet from the $ store and cut it apart)
plastic bugs
ladybug buttons (this was extra I added in after MOPS)
1 feather
plastic Easter egg for scooping
magnifying glass
tweezers
* perfumed spray scent

These are some activity ideas:
1. Put rice in the egg to make a shaker.
2. Use tweezers to put insects inside eggs. (I'm surprised at how well even Carter does with the tweezers!)
3. Bury and find bugs.
4. Use eggs to scoop and pour. (the kids looove this part)
5.  "Plant" flowers in "grass" or eggs filled with "grass"
6. Inspect textures w. magnifying glass (they actually used it more for scooping, but whatev)
7. Does the feather hold rice or does it fall through?
8. Do tweezers pick up rice? If so, count them into eggs.
9. Create your own fun.

 

Yes, you'll end up with some spilled rice, but my word, each of the kids have had so much fun with this, it's worth it!

Arg!! {Pirates}

We read this book awhile ago and while I had jotted down several supplemental activity ideas, it took awhile to actually sit down follow through with a lesson plan.  I'm really looking forward to having time with the kids home this summer and we can continue through these books!  

So here's Book #4 of the Magic Tree House series. We spent the morning learning about pirates!

Activity 1. We completed a chart, learning about the myths and facts of pirates. I wrote each tidbit on an index card and we taped it to the appropriate column. This introduced the idea that not everything we hear about is actually TRUE. It also introduced the terms "fact" and "myth". The kids were surprised at some of the things that aren't actually true! (Info came from here. Click on picture for a larger view of our cards.)

Activity 2. Using this fun blog we figured out what our pirate names are and made name tags for the morning. And by "made name tags" I mean we wrote it on a label sticker. =)

Eli is "Green Lip Bill"

Hannah is "Cold Tooth Sue"

Carter is "Long Eye Kid"

And I am "Blue Leg Gert"

Activity 3. Then we assembled a little booklet about some of the different kinds of pirate ships. I read the description, and the kids tried to guess which picture matched it. And we glued it into the booklet. (Cut one piece of paper in half the long way and fold over both pieces to make a booklet. DOWNLOAD pirate ship info and pictures here.)

Activity 4. Following this drawing guide we drew our own pirate ships! They actually turned out quite good. The kids were proud and hung them in their rooms.

 I love these little hands at work.

the rainbow looking lines are cannons

Hannah's picture. She just likes to write Eli's name on things.

 Activity 5. We learned about some pirate vocabulary by creating our own crossword puzzle. I added the word list on the side. (Type in this info into this site to create your crossword--it's so surprisingly quick and easy! Like 5 minutes, tops!)

Intro to Egypt

So over the summer Eli and I have started reading The Magic Tree House book series aloud {me reading}.  We LOVE our adventure books!  You see, the tree house takes the two children to wherever they point to in a book.  It takes them to all different time periods and countries!  We typically read an entire book in one sitting because they're that good.  And then afterward we spend some time learning more about the place we read about! I actually started Eli a notebook just for these tree house books. After we finish a book I have him draw a picture about it.  Book #1 I had him draw a picture of a tree house. Book #2 I had him draw a volcano and the town of Pompeii.  Book #3 I had him draw a pyramid.  And then we continue with more learning activities.  Here's what we did after reading Mummies in the Morning, a book about Egypt, pyramids, and mummies!

Activites (you could go MUCH more depth but I just wanted to do a little overview):

1. Find Egypt on a world map. I would LOVE to have a huge poster of a world map for the play room, perhaps one with some images that depict the different regions but have yet to find one. Haven't really searched much though either.

2. Look at pictures and diagrams of real pyramids.

3. Build your own pyramid -- paper craft found HERE. You're supposed to coat it with sand, but after I selected some "clean" sand from our sandbox it still smelled like cat poop so I threw it out and we just left it as the paper pyramid.

4. Write your name in hieroglyphics using the symbol key. In the story Jack and Annie decoded hieroglyphics to help the ghost-Queen find her way to the Afterlife.

 These are all our names HANNAH, SARAH, ELIJAH (Eli wanted to put his full name), and DAD. Carter was napping so he wasn't part of the activity. Eli did his own but I helped with the others.

 5. Play a mummy computer game. This "treasure hunt" helps you learn more about Egyptian traditions and some of the things they include in the mummy's tomb.

6. Using toilet paper wrap each other like a mummy. I chose Hannah to wrap up because 1) I would take a lot of toilet paper to be wrapped. and 2) Eli was more likely to be the better wrapper. Although I did most of this. (note: I used curtain tie backs to tie Hannah's feet and arms together so should wouldn't accidentally break through the paper right away.)

7. Watch a History Channel Netflix video about pyramids and what's inside! Fun family activity!

8. Discussion: What IS the Afterlife and how do WE get there?