Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Turkey Hand Math

Aha! I'm finally having GOOD ideas for school!! I'd pat myself on the back, but I simply can't be dishonest....I have to admit that my great ideas are coming from a book that I bought called Thematic Unit - Thanksgiving, published by Teacher Created Resources. It is just FULL of great, fun ideas for math, science, writing, and other subjects, all surrounding a Thanksgiving-theme and all "tied together" around three Thanksgiving story books. This week, we're reading Silly Tilly's Thanksgiving Dinner and our favorite activity so far was "Turkey Hand Math". I traced both of The Kids hands on paper and made them into turkeys. (The handprints, not the kids!) Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting








(Deco's picture is on the top, Bear's is on the bottom)

They colored the "turkeys" and then we used corn kernels to make up story problems about the turkeys. For example, for Bear I'd say "In the morning, the farmer came out and gave one turkey 5 pieces of corn and the other turkey 3 pieces of corn. How many are there in all?" and she'd solve the problem. I also added in some subraction problems. Deco's problems were just "Give the turkey on the left 3 pieces of corn" and he'd count them out. They both thought this was a fantastic game! I was amazed that Deco sat and colored his, actually, seeing as how he's usually completely uninterested in doing any "school work"!










We've also begun reading lots of books about Thanksgiving, including Thanksgiving on Thursday, which is a Magic Treehouse book. (That one was short, we finished it today at lunch.) I also have a book called Eating the Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners that I plan on reading at some point. The best thing about November, from a homeschooler's standpoint, is that there is a built-in theme, at least here in the elementary school years!
We've also been working on "parts of speech", for lack of a better term. Bear has learned what nouns and verbs are and now we're learning adjectives. I had Bear go through a magazine and cut out five pictures that she liked and then glue them on paper. Then she had to choose at least two adjectives to describe the pictures that she'd chosen. It was a fun exercise, especially since she likes practically ANYTHING that she can do with her hands!

1 comment:

Sherri said...

You are on the ball :). I love the hand pictures.
I am still having trouble getting your top post to pull up completely. I usually miss the whole top half of what you post
:(. I just not sure why it works for others and not for me. Oh well, I still enjoying reading what I can!