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Be a Dump Detective
 "Pin It")
This is a fun, hands-on way to better understand the need to reuse and recycle.
First, use masking tape to make a long line on the floor or draw a chalk line down your sidewalk. Mark the line in increments of 2-4 weeks, 1-6 months, 1 year, 10 years, 100 years, 500 years and 1000 years.
Now, give your children the following: a plastic grocery bag, a cigarette butt, an eraser, a banana peel, a cotton cloth, a milk jug, a piece of wood, a pop can and an apple core. Ask them to place the items along the line where they think it will take the item that long to decompose.
Discuss what this means in terms of our dumps and what can be done about it. Have them find some more items of their own and first guess, then research to detemine how long it will take them to decompose. Were they close?
Answers to above items: apple (2-4 weeks), banana & cotton cloth (1-5 mos), cigarette butt (2-5 yrs), wood (10 yrs), diaper (25 years), plastic (25-30 years), can (200-400 yrs), glass bottle (1000 yrs!).
Linking to: Works for Me Wednesdays and Mommy Club.
Mnemonics for Memorization
Times Tales is based on mnemonics and has been proven extremely effective. Teach your children to practice mnemonic techniques and apply them to anything they have difficulty learning and they’ll be ones step ahead. In fact, I’ve taken my cue from Jennie and incorporate mnemonics when trying to remember simple tasks.
Here’s an example of a picture mnemonic my partner Jennie used when her sister wanted placed an order for a tall, hot, double-shot mocha with whipped cream.
Jennie pictured a tall, attractive (hot) cowboy in dark clothing (mocha), wearing two six-guns (double shot) and a white hat (whipped cream). Effective, eh?
To use mnemonics with your kids, make a list of things you’d like to memorize and then see who can come up with the best mnemonic for remembering it. A mnemonic can be a picture in your mind, a song or a silly sentence.
Below are some silly sentence mnemonics I found for the seven steps of scientific classification. I thought they might come in handy if you are studying plants now that the weather is nicer.
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Species
King Pig Came Over For Grub Saturday
King Phillip Came Over For German Sausages
King Penguins congregate on frozen ground sometimes
King Philip came over from Germany speedily
Kings play chess on fine grained sand
You may feel like you’re just having fun, but if your student can learn to incorporate memory tricks into his study habits, he’ll be all the better for it. And besides, it IS fun!
Mnemonics work for me! To see more Works for Me Wednesday tips visit We Are That Family.
Time4Learning Upcoming Review
I’ve repeatedly seen Time4Learning referred and know several folks that use it in their homeschooling. However, I’ve always thought of it as being for younger students. I was recently offered a free trial and see that they have curriculum through grade 8, so I thought I’d give it a try. Below is their required disclosure.
Over the next 30 days, I will be reviewing Time4Learning’s online education program. It can be used as a homeschool curriculum, an afterschool tutorial or for summer learning. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. You can write your own curriculum review, too!
St. Patrick’s Day Video
This is a really cute video to share with the kids. Did you know what St. Patrick’s name was, originally? I didn’t.
Personalized Memo/Dry Erase Board
This is one of those fun projects that really took hold of my imagination! First, Click HERE to see the original instructions. How cute is that??!! But the real fun is the many ways I can see this project being adapted for homeschooling.
Yes, a personalized memo board is adorable and would be a wonderful craft to make with your children and give as a gift, but they also make perfect individualized dry-erase boards for schooling! Personally, I hate using a large chalk or memo board and prefer something small that I can keep right at the table with me. In fact, these would clip perfectly onto their school clipboards I shared about earlier.
You can customize each board with their special interests and colors or even with items they want to keep in mind for review on the back. The alphabet, cursive letters, periodic table, vocabulary works — there are all kinds of “memo” items you could have handy for reference on the back of the board.
The sample here was made years ago using a “plopper” or pre-made template. I just left the spot intended for a large picture blank. You could allow for a larger writing area or fill the space around the writing area with facts or encouraging quotes.
If you don’t know how to make digital scrapbook pages, don’t worry. Just make a regular page with stickers, papers, and/or markers and laminate it. If you don’t have a laminator your local copy shop can do it fairly inexpensively.
If you REALLY want to keep it simple (and frugal), just stick your decorated sheets of paper (front and back) into a sheet protector and slip a thin piece of cardboard in between the sheets to make it stiff. This option could even be stored right inside a notebook.
