Tag Archives: homeschool

A character study on being productive –Ant activities and book list

For our home school, we teach the basics to the younger children–reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Then I choose different topics and activities for us to do each week that cover a wide range of subjects.

This is our character study on being productive following Gods examples of the ants.

This is a well known bible verse in our household.

Proverbs 6:6-8

Go to the ant, you sluggard;  consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,  yet it stores its provisions in summer  and gathers its food at harvest.

Definition of a sluggard:  a person who does not like to do any kind of work, but likes to sleep or be idle all the day long, a lazy person.

Teaching concept:

We can learn from the ants and become wise.  The ants do their work even when they don’t have someone telling them what to do.  There is no need for checking up on them because they are diligent in their duties.

We made this craft to go along with our study

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We took a piece of card stock and cut out an “ant hill” out of sandpaper and glued it on the card stock.  We then dipped our fingers into black washable paint and they made ants.  Yes they made many.    The child that made this one made 8 legs on the ant, but then I told her that a spider has 8 legs and ants have 6.  I think I have told you before, I have younger children doing these crafts and they are not super skilled:)  We drew antenna with black markers and wrote the bible verse at the bottom of the paper.

While they were doing this craft, I shared with them the story about ants.

Do you remember when we saw the anthill while walking along the bike path?  Do you remember what we saw?  We saw the ants scurrying here and there, going in all different directions.  Some were bringing out pieces of things, others were taking things into the ant hill.  They all seemed to be doing their own jobs.  Getting whatever they needed done, done.

I then said, have you ever seen ants just sitting around doing nothing?  Waiting for the Momma ant to come out and tell them what to do?  No, every colony of ants has a “queen” ant but she doesn’t tell them what to do.  She doesn’t organize them or give them pep talks, she is just busy laying her eggs.

All of the ants have a job to do. These are some of the jobs:

  • Some are helping taking care of the baby ants or larvae
  •  Some keep it clean and in good repair
  • New quarters have to be built as the colony grows
  •  The anthill needs protection from predators
  • Some have to go out and find food

All of them have something to do, they don’t argue that someone is working less hard than they are, they just do what needs to be done.  If there is a mess, they don’t argue that I didn’t make that mess, they just clean it up.  God designed the ants and gave them the jobs to do.

We can learn to be more like the ants.  When we see something that needs to be done, we should do it.  If we see some crayons on the floor, we should pick them up.  Because we know crayons don’t belong on the floor.  We need to be wise ourselves and realize that is the right thing to do.

If we have chores, we need to do them without Mom, telling you to do them.  Everyday you need to remember to brush your teeth, pick up your clothes, and make your bed.   When you do these things without being told, you are being wise like the ants.

We then made some ants out of black poster board.  We cut out the pattern, so that we have 2 parts.  Used a paper hole punch for the leg holes.  Then each child pushed the pipe cleaners through the holes over top of the ant.  We wrote the bible verse on the card and stuffed it into his mouth.  We added googly eyes on top.

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All week, we reinforced that we wanted to be like the ants, scurrying around getting their work done.

We made a snack out of peanut butter on celery with little raisin “ants.”

We then read books that had ants in them.  These were some of our favorites:

**note we are not being paid to advertise these books, we just enjoyed reading them.  Ordered them from our local library.

The Ant bully by John Nickle

Lucas is picked on by the neighborhood bully, and in turn terrorizes the ant colony. The ants create a potion that shrinks Lucas to the size of an ant. They put him on trial, and find him guilty of crimes against the colony — his sentence? To live and work as an ant! Lucas learns about teamwork and the importance of friendship–and in the end, he saves the colony and is returned to his normal size.

I saw an ant on the railroad track by Joshua Prince

When Switchman Jack sees a black ant strolling down the railroad track in search of a snack, he tries to reroute a 10-ton freight train. However, the switch is stuck, and, just when readers start to worry that there will be an ant-astrophe, the tale takes a turn.

Hey little ant by Phillip Hoose

What would you do if the ant you were about to step on looked up and started talking? Would you stop and listen? What if your friends saw you hesitate? That&’s what happens in this funny, thought-provoking book.

Ants don’t get Sunday off by Penny Pollock

Anya, a hard-working ant, longs for adventure but gets more than she bargained for when a heavy rainstorm disturbs the ant nest.

The ants go marching by Dan Crisp

The ants are marching through the rain, but there is always something to distract Little Ant!

fall books and crafts for younger children

It has been a long time, since I have had any real sanity in my life….actually I probably don’t have any “real” sanity, I am a mother of 10!!!!  but anyways……having children, I have realized the importance of fostering a love of books in them.

Our first set of children(the upper half) I read books to almost every night,  and pretty much anytime a child wanted me to read to them, I did.  Now our second set of children(the lower half) came along and life has just been crazy, one baby after another.  I can’t honestly say that I was consistently reading to them, as much as I would have liked to.

But that all changed this year. I was determined to make sure that I read so many books each week to my children.  To some it may seem like a lofty goal , but for me, I could literally go all week and not read a book and not even think about it. Before this school year began, I took some time, and scoured the internet for crafts, books, and ideas for me to do extra with my children.  I organized all of the information into weeks, printed them out and placed them into my household binder.

Along with theme crafts and ideas I put together a book list for each week as well.  At the end of the month, I order all of the books from our local library so that they would be there before we start each new month.  So far this system is working well for us.

**please note I am not being paid to endorse any of these books, they are ones that we just enjoyed reading.

Here are the books we have read pertaining to fall……

https://www.apples4theteacher.com/images/fall-literature/too-many-pumpkins.jpgToo many pumpkins by Linda White

**please note, there is a jack o lantern reference in this book.  My children do not partake in Halloween to any extent, in this book the woman carves pumpkins and places a light in them, to light a path to her home.  My children didn’t really ask or think much about the carved pumpkins except that the woman used them as a lighted path to find the “party.”  Wanted to note this so that maybe you would view the book before you read it to your children to see if that is something your family would like to be exposed to.

https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qtIKEh0zL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgFall leaves fall

Front CoverWhy do leaves change color by Betsey Maestro

This is a good informational book to explain about the leaf process.

Front CoverThe Pumpkin Runner

https://7dba08cc31284445cb648b3ec6c998af14d21a64.googledrive.com/host/0B73APy2PiQC6VVBJNC1GTlJ3Yms/scarecrowbook.jpgHello Mr. Scarecrow

https://bellbulldogreaders.edublogs.org/files/2011/11/leaf-man-1f5ylex.jpgLeaf Man

Leaf Jumpers

Apple Cider Making Days

The apple Pie tree

https://foodmusemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Applesauce_Season.jpg Applesauce Season

https://lookingglassreview.com/books/images/A_Friend_for_All_Seasons.jpgA Friend for all Seasons

https://philipstead.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/bear-cover1.jpegBear has a story to tell

https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zsocaQAFL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpgEarl the squirrel
https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NX8999esL._SL500_AA300_.jpgfall mixed up

**note some halloween reference pages, we just skipped them

Front CoverHello, squirrel

Front CoverHooray for fall

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5Ow-WJH9QE/hqdefault.jpgLeaves

Front CoverMaple syrup season

Front CoverNuts to you

Front CoverRed leaf, yellow leaf
Front CoverTen red apples
Front CoverThe scarecrow dance

**this is a great book that references God in it:)

Front CoverTuckers apple dandy day

Front CoverThe stranger

Front CoverApples, apples, apples

 

These are the crafts that we have done…….

Remember I do not have many “skilled” artists yet:)  My children’s ages that did the crafts are 2,3,4,6, and 8.

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Easy, trace the child’s hand and let them color it in brown like a tree trunk.  Use bingo dabbers to let them make fall leaves.

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For this we found a fall themed  poem and printed it out onto cardstock.  The poem– I had some of my older ones memorize for school, so I thought we would turn it into a nice craft to hang on the wall.  I then had the children make a tree in the corner with branches.  We then used Dollar Store foam leaves and placed them on our tree.

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This was a time consuming craft, but looks neat if you have “skilled, patient” children.  I don’t have that just yet.  Not that my children aren’t skilled, they are just not ready for these types of crafts.  In time, but the website busybeekidcrafts.com has a version of this and it looks very cool.

I have a group of little ones and it didn’t turn out as nice as there website. My daughters sat and watched a video while they were tearing their leaves.  You were supposed to paper hole punch them out and it started out that way, then we realized we had to make this craft 5 times over.  After awhile, we just decided to tear the leaves as best we could.  You gotta improvise once in awhile.  Okay most all of the time. Click on the picture to see how to make it.

 

We also did some salt dough pumpkins. Click here to view how we did it.

images e1378436331992 How to make salt dough pumpkins

Our leaves are changing here in the Northern part of the US.  I hope to collect some leaves and do some more pictures with the children.  Maybe after reading the book Leaf Man, up above, we might glue some different shaped leaves together to make a person with googly eyes.

 

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Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney a step book activity

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This year a fun, new activity we did for school was to make step books. I like them, they are quick and easy and the girls, ages 7, 6, and 4 seem to love making them.

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I found this book at our local library and it was a great introduction to teaching our children about their place in the world.  So we decided to make a step book out of the story.

Here is how ours began, take some construction paper and staple together to make a step book.
DSCN0543we labeled each page with the different names of the maps

top one being…. my room

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my house…….

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my street…….

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my city…..

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my state……

 

 

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my country……

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my world………

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You can use stickers, or foam pieces to jazz up the pages.  We did end up adding foil stars to the world picture but in the end the 2 year old tore them off and onto my wood floors they went???!!!!?!?

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