Archives for October 2011

A is for Apple: You Can Learn More Than Your ABC’s from Apples

October 16, 2011 by Mama Carmody 30 Comments

A is for Apple: You Can Learn More Than Your ABC’s from Apples

I thought I would start out sharing different concepts such as colors or shapes but the fall season has lead me in another direction. I have decided to take an object from the season; apples. I will show you several different learning concepts you can share with your child just by using the simple apple.

Learning Concepts: colors, senses, seasons, math, science, history, reading

Colors, Sorting & Matching (math skills):

Purchase several apples of different colors. Mix them together and place them in one big bowl or basket. Have your child sort and match the apples by their colors.

Colors, Craft/Art:

Supplies: red, yellow and green apple, red, yellow and green paint, white construction paper, plates to pour paint on

Cut the apples in half, from top to bottom. Pat cut surface dry with paper towel and let air dry, cut side up, for approximately 30 minutes. If the apple surface is too wet the paint won’t stick to them.

Get three small plates. Pour red paint on one, yellow paint on another and green paint on the last one. Have your child match the color of the apple skin to the paint.

Pick the apple up by the skin side and press the cut side into the paint. Pick up the apple and press it on the paper several times. You are using the apple like a rubber stamp. Repeat this process with each of the different colors. Now you have a beautiful fall collage of apples.

10-16-11 I did the above craft with my 2 year old, great-niece today. Although her hands were a little small when it came to trying to pick up half an apple, she really seemed to enjoy it. She made 5 pictures and then asked her mom to make one too.

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Senses:

Buy several apples that have varied tastes, sweet and sour. There is a good explanation of different apples and their flavors on about.com: Apple Varieties.

Cut them into pieces. Have your child taste them and decide if they like sweet or sour better. For older children, you can discuss the parts of the tongue that detect sweet and sour.

Which flavor does your child like the best? Share with your child which one you like best. If your child is younger or is one that really likes to please you, let them share which flavor they like best first because they may just choose whatever you say just to make you happy. Let them know that there is no wrong answer.

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Science:

Discuss the seasons of the apple tree. Talk about how the flowers of spring become the apples of fall. You can talk about bees and pollination.

Here are some good books that I found that talk about the growth and seasons of an apple tree (affiliate links below):

“The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree” by Gail Gibbons
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This book has a fun way of introducing the seasons. Arnold does several things around his tree during the different season changes. For instance, he builds a tree house in the summer and a snow fort in the fall.

“Apples” by Gail Gibbons
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Also a great book with colorful illustrations. It is a little more technical than “The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree” but still quite enjoyable.

How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This book has the same reading level as the previous ones but I would recommend it for the upper age limit suggested. This would be a great book for any child that likes to ask a lot of questions as to how things grow and where apples come from.

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History:

This is a good time of the year to learn about Johnny Appleseed, whose real name was Johnny Chapman. Read books about Johnny Appleseed and how he introduced apple trees to Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. After learning about Johnny Appleseed, plan a trip to an apple orchard. Maybe your child will want to dress as Johnny Appleseed for Halloween. What could be easier than a big well worn shirt, pants and a pot for a hat?

Here is a cute book:

Johnny Appleseed by Jane Kurtz
A Ready-To-Read, Level 1 book
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is not only a good book, for younger children to learn about Johnny Appleseed, but it is also a good early reader book.

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Other fun books about apples:

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins
Reading Level: Baby-Preschool
Not only is this a book about apples but it would also be good when talking about the color red, counting or farm animals. My two year old niece loved the book. After we were done reading it the first time she wanted to go back and count the apples again and talk about the farm animals.

Picking Apples by Margaret McNamara (A Ready-to-Read, Level 1 book)
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is a really cute story about a field trip to an apple orchard. If your last name is Smith, you child will have a special surprise at the end of the book. I thought it was cute even though my last name isn’t Smith. This is a good early reader book.

Picking Apples by Gail Saunders-Smith
Reading Level: Ages 2-6 yrs old
Are you planning a trip to the apple orchard with your young child? This book is a great way to introduce your child to the apple orchard and picking apples. If you live in the city, your child may only know that apples come from the store. This book will give them some insight on how the apples get to the store. The text is simple and the illustrations are actual pictures of people working in the apple orchard. We read this to our 2 year old great-nephew before our first trip to the apple orchard with him.

Up, Up. Up! It’s Apple-Picking Time by Jody Fickes Shapiro
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is a fun little book about a trip to Grandpa and Grandma’s to help pick and sell apples.

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Learning Should Be Fun

October 7, 2011 by Mama Carmody 22 Comments

Learning Should Be Fun

“A joyful heart is good medicine…” -Proverbs 17:22

I love exposing children to new learning opportunities. I believe that learning should be fun and hands-on.

Children’s learning activities should be enjoyable and interesting. Repetition of a concept will help secure it in the mind of the learner. I do not suggest repetition as in using flash cards over and over in some sort of old school torture. I mean using the same concepts in several different learning environments.

I share, through this blog, many fun learning opportunities that you can experience with the children in your life. You will find detailed ideas as well as general concepts that you can mix and match in different learning situations.

At first most of my concepts will be for younger children. Although, I did teach 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders for a couple of summers, most of my expertise comes with young children.

Along with the different learning concepts, I want to research and post different attractions with family friendly activities that are going on in our community. At first these activities will be centered around Indianapolis because that is where I currently reside but my dream is to expand the resources well past Indiana. Although I will be posting specific activities that are going on in the Indianapolis area, I will also suggest general activities that make good learning opportunities that you can look for in your area.

My real vision for this blog is that it can help families have fun learning together but there will be information that will be interesting to teachers too. I am so excited about having this opportunity to share with you.

Most Sincerely,

Mama Carmody

Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts

October 26, 2011 by Mama Carmody 22 Comments

Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts

I thought I would take another object of the season and give you different learning activities that you can do while you are enjoying this time of year. Yes, some of the ideas are very basic and may seem obvious but sometimes when we are busy with house cleaning, cooking, baths, homework and may even work outside the home, a little extra help coming up with fun educational activities can be quite useful.
Learning Concepts: colors, senses, math concepts: size comparison, measurements, fine motor skills, biblical, reading

Colors

A lot of learning comes from simply talking with your child and challenging them to take a look at their surroundings. When you go to pick out your pumpkins this year discuss with your child the colors they see. The obvious color they will mention, when looking at a pumpkin, is that it’s orange but there are probably other colors on it too. Some of them have green spots or possibly dirt stuck on it. What color is the stem? Is it brown or is it still green? If you are in a pumpkin patch, the vines may still be laying around. Are they still green or have they turned brown? Possibly some of the leaves on the vines have turned yellow. Just keep talking and encouraging your child to take in the sights that surround them.

Pumpkins are Orange: Learning activities that include pumpkins.

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Arts/Crafts

Click here and you can get a template of a pumpkin to print out and have your child color or paint it. After your child has applied the color, cut out some eyes, noses and mouths. Let your child decide what kind of facial features they want to put on their pumpkin. If you have children that cover a wide age span, let the older ones cut out the facial features for the little ones.

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Size Comparison

Do you have more than one child in your house? Did you purchase more than one pumpkin for your front porch? Take the time to talk about the different sizes you have. Have your child point out the biggest one and the smallest one. Is there a middle size one? Even some of the fast food restaurants don’t realize that you can’t have a middle size if there isn’t a large and a small one.

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Biblical

There are many interesting ways to incorporate biblical lessons in the fun activities you are doing. Here is a fun one that you can do while carving your pumpkins this Halloween.

Materials

Large pumpkin and a carving knife.

Object Lesson on Prayer

{cut off top of pumpkin}
Lord, open my mind so I can learn new things about You.
{remove innards}
Remove the things in my life that don’t please You.
Forgive the wrong things I do and help me to forgive others.
{cut open eyes}
Open my eyes to see the beauty You’ve made in the world around me.
{cut out nose}
I’m sorry for the times I’ve turned my nose at the good food You provide.
{cut out mouth}
Let everything I say please You.
{light the candle}
Lord, help me show Your light to others through the things I do. Amen
Inspired by the children’s book, “The Pumpkin Patch Parable”, by Liz Curtis Higgs

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Sensory Play/Fine Motor Skills

While you are busy carving that pumpkin, let you child have some fun with sensory play. Believe it or not squishing the slimy inside of a pumpkin and picking out the slick seeds are great for their senses and fine motor skills. Why is sensory play so important to children? As Amanda Morgan explains on her blog, NotJustCute, children are wired to use their senses from the day they are born. Amanda says, “The senses are their most familiar, most basic way to explore, process, and come to understand new information.”

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Measurements

Is there any better way to learn about measurements than by cooking with your family? And just think, when you are done with this math lesson, you get to eat the results!

There are many types of math skills involved in cooking. If your children are younger, just having them count is good for them. If you need 2 cups of flour, have the child count along. If your child is older, then cooking is a good way to introduce and strengthen their skills with fractions. If you need one cup of sugar, ask your child how many half cups would equal one cup.

The following recipe is one that my niece brought home from school when she was in the second grade. It became a family standard and we call it Stephanie’s Sweet Pumpkin Bread.

Stephanie’s Sweet Pumpkin Bread

4 eggs
½ cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup cooked pumpkin
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 ¾ cups molasses
½ tsp. ground cloves
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. baking soda

Instructions:
1. Break the eggs into a large mixing bowl. Beat well.
2. Add the water, oil, pumpkin, molasses and brown sugar. Beat well.
3. Sift in the flour, salt, soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.
4. Stir all the ingredients well.
5. Grease two loaf pans. Pour the batter into the pans. Be careful not to fill them more than 2/3’s full
6. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour at 350°.
7. Let the bread cool in the pans for at least 15 minutes before removing.

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Great pumpkin books:

Speaking of great pumpkin books, how about the book about the Great Pumpkin:
“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” by Charles M. Schulz
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is a wonderful book that should be shared from generation to generation.

Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
Rebecca Estelle hates pumpkins because she had to eat tons of pumpkins when she was young. She doesn’t even want to look at a pumpkin. So how does she end up with a yard full of pumpkins and what does she do with them? Read this fun little book and find out.

Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is a light-hearted look at the life cycle of a pumpkin named Jack. The plant’s cycle throughout the seasons is told in a simple, easy to understand, way.

Dr. Pompo’s Nose by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers
Reading Level: Ages 4-8
This is one of my favorite pumpkin books. I read this to my preschool classes every year and they loved it. It is written in rhyme, which I love. The way Freymann and Elffers carve facial features into the pumpkins, to give them personality, is absolutely adorable. Your child will enjoy helping Dr. Pompo figure out what the lost stem might actually be.

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How to Eat a Pumpkin : A Lesson From a 3 Year Old

How to Eat a Pumpkin, Part 2

Pumpkins are Orange; and Other Learning Concepts
Thanksgiving Learning Activities
Thanksgiving Fun with Turkeys

Zombie Zapper Brain Boost Smoothie

When Do Children Start Learning

October 11, 2011 by Mama Carmody 18 Comments

When Do Children Start Learning

Before I start sharing some of my learning activities, I thought it might be a good idea to cover the topic of “when do children start learning”.

In my opinion, coupled with the experience I had with my children, I believe that learning starts even before a child is born. But since you probably won’t put a lot of stock in what I believe, I searched the Internet and found some studies that have come to the same conclusions about when children start learning.

I’m not going to spend a lot of time going over all of the research I have found. I do think it is important to share a couple of links with you so that you can see what studies have found. Once we understand when learning begins it will help us understand when we can start the educational process with our children.

Research

In an analysis done by Stephen M. Maret, Ph.D., he states that verbal communication from the mother to the fetus, results in earlier talking, independence and better concentration after birth.

Another good article that refers to several studies done with fetuses is “A Peek into Fetal Memory: Learning in Utero” by Mark Earley.

*** update 1/10/13 A new report just posted January 3, 2013 on WebMD: Babies Listen and Learn While in the Womb

Now that we see that science says children start learning when they are still in the womb, it helps us understand that it is never too soon to start exposing them to learning activities.

The earlier we start exposing children to different learning activities, the less pressure and the more fun we can have with them. If you start reading to an infant and talking about colors or numbers (or whatever concept you are introducing) you can simply have fun with it and don’t need to put pressure on them because they are too young to expect them to master the concept.

But My Child Is Older

Don’t worry, if your child isn’t an infant. Children are like sponges. Take advantage of their natural curiosities and turn them into fun learning experiences. Not sure how to do that? I’m here to help you with that.

Experiences With My Children

As I said earlier, I believed that children started learning in the womb so I started a certain “learning” activity even before they were born. I wanted my children to be able to recognize their father’s voice. Since he worked all day and he wasn’t the one carrying the child around inside him, I wanted some way for him to connect with his unborn child. I had him read a children’s storybook onto a tape recorder. Then when I would sit down or lie down to rest, I would put a headset against my stomach and run the tape. We had a very interesting experience at the birth of our oldest daughter that made me believe that this technique had helped. She had just been born and the nurses had taken her aside to clean her up and get her vitals. She was upset and screaming at the top of her lungs. My husband couldn’t get to her to touch her because the nurses were working on her but he walked near her and simply said, in a sweet, new daddy voice, “What’s wrong honey?” At the sound of his voice she immediately quit screaming. I was surprised and pleased.

I took little board books with me to the hospital and started reading to my children right away. If I remember correctly the books were about colors and shapes. I always wanted to stay ahead of what they SHOULD know so I could keep it light and fun. I wanted my children to feel successful once they got into school. I didn’t want them to feel pressured or always struggling to keep up.

At the same time, I wanted them to enjoy their childhood and not feel like they were in school even when they were at home. I wanted to make learning fun for my children and I want to help you do the same for yours.