TJ Homeschooling: Seasons

Showing posts with label Seasons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seasons. Show all posts

Hello Spring!

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Spring is here!
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Winter is coming! | Winter Learning Activities

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Winter is around the corner! It feels like it is already here in Arizona (and from what I gather pretty much everywhere else in the US). We don't get snow in our parts but I was so surprised when I learned that areas like Flagstaff do. We're hoping to make a day trip to one of the snowy areas this year as most of my kids have never seen snow.

At any rate, I've collected some winter based resources for the four core educational subjects as well as a few things for Islamic studies.

Language








Math

Winter Math Activities  (The Tutor Coach.com)

Winter Math Activities (Math Wire.com)

Hot Chocolate Counting Mats

Preschool Math Activities

Tens and Ones Winter Place Value Activity

Science



Snow Science Experiments

20+ Winter Science Experiments for Grades K through 5

How Do Snowflakes Form?

Social Studies

Snowy Day Winter Lessons (scroll down to a few winter social studies ideas)

Islamic Studies

(And with all those Allah's Grace and Protections for their taming, We cause) the (Quraish) caravans to set forth safe in winter (to the south), and in summer (to the north without any fear)
(106:2)


The word for winter in Arabic is "Ash-shitaa"

I've got a few Arabic resources for the Arabic seasons on my Arabic vocabulary page (scroll down to "Seasons" and/or "Weather").


Points of Benefit

Abu Huraira reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “When the heat is severe, then let it cool down for prayer. Verily, severe heat is from the raging of Hell. The Hellfire complained to its Lord saying: My Lord, my parts are eating each other. So it was given permission to make a breath in the winter and a breath in the summer. They are the strongest heat you feel and the strongest cold you feel.”
Source: Sahih Bukhari 512, Sahih Muslim 617


Khutbah: Treasures of Winter to Invest in the Hereafter (audio, 19:53)
Take notes on the khutbah and make a learning poster to remind you about the benefits of winter.






A few questions I came up with based upon the reading:

  • What are three blessings of winter?
  • Can we only give sadaqah to Muslims?
  • When giving charity, we should make sure not to do what?
  • What is responsible for the strongest heat you feel of the summer and the bitter cold you feel during the winter?
  • When do we pray the night prayer?
  • What are two reasons it is easy to fast in the winter?


From the Benefits of Winter: Sayings of the Salaf

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It's Fall!

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We are eagerly awaiting for cooler temperatures to arrive! It's still in the 100s where we are.

As I've done for a few seasons previously, I'd thought I'd share resources/ideas that we've used or are
thinking about using for the fall season.

Fall Decorations

 We started our Fall Bulletin Board for this year:


I found a great pumpkin pattern here and added white letters to spell out FALL. I found some great fabric leaves at JoAnn's Fabrics to go around our whiteboard.  On the sides we are starting to hang up our artwork/crafts.

This one below was our display area from 2016. We used real leaves for our top decoration. (I went with fabric ones this year (above) as we live in a deserty region and I wasn't sure if we'd be able to find enough fall leaves.)



Fall Learning & Fun for Kids!

Acorns and Leaves - My Cute Graphics

Fall Facts

Fall Crafts

Sweet & Simple Felt Apple Craft

Fall Paper Pumpkins

DIY Falling Leaves Garland

Leaf Suncatchers

Fall Leaf Prints

Candy Corn Footprints

Pony Bead Pumpkins

Yarn Pumpkins

Also check out my Fall Crafts tag for fall crafts we've made in the past.

Fall Family Friendly Recipes



10 Fun Treats for Fall - yum, can't wait to try many of these! They include cookies, cakes, bars with pumpkin, caramel and more!






Check out my Pumpkin Fever Post for Pumpkin recipes!

Fall Clip Art

My Cute Graphics Fall Images (color and black and white)

Fall Fonts & Dingbats

Nature Bats (leafy dingbats)





Language

Math


Science


Social Studies

" Fall is a time of harvest and celebration. Study how cultures celebrate harvests." (Idea from BusyTeacherCafe.com)

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Summer, Summer, Summertime

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Summer is just around the corner!  Do you have enough activities to keep the kids busy?

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Our Winter Wall

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Our "fall wall" (Instagram) was a hit in our house this year, so on the first day of winter, December 21, I started decorating for our "winter wall." I'm hoping to make it a seasonal tradition as it is a nice focal point in the house, a place to display seasonal artwork and it provides us with learning opportunities.
Here is what we currently have on our wall:

Winter Banner
I loved the fall banner that I found online but finding a similar winter one was a bit tricky. There were many holiday ones and "let it snow" ones (we barely get snow in our parts so that one wasn't really appealing). So, with my limited design skills I made my own banner which came out better than I had expected. I was going to run some yarn across it so that it actually looked like a hanging banner, but, well, we'll see lol. Sometimes it's a major accomplishment just to get something up.

You can download  the Winter Banner here




Winter Words
Just like for our fall wall, I found a freebie winter wall words printable (from the same person) at Teachers Pay Teachers.


These are just a few of the words we have displayed.  There are 40 winter words in this resources. I loved the winter clothes words and she does have some holiday words as well, which obviously we omitted for our use.

 Winter Crafts
So we've started a few simple winter crafts. There's our hot cocoa Popsicle stick craft:

Popsicle sticks are my number one go to for crafts this year as I got a box of 1000 of them last year and umm, you can see how much we still have.


(I had gotten a box of jumbo ones as well and we went through that one really quick but I guess I had these out of sight otherwise I'm sure these would be gone too).

The inspiration for this hot cocoa mug craft came from the Glued to My Crafts blog where you can find instructions but it's pretty explanatory looking at the picture I think.

Then there's our Popsicle stick snowflake:


This was another easy one. We painted the sticks and then glued them together and added glitter.

So, those are our winter crafts so far. I've collected some more winter craft ideas on my Winter Craft Pinterest board:

Happy Winter!
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Pumpkin Fever!

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I have to admit, there was a time when I couldn't understand what all the excitement over pumpkin was.
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Fall Crafts: Paper Strip Pumpkin II

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I seem to be drawn to paper strip crafts. They are really very easy though and maybe that's why. This is the second paper strip pumpkin we've done this fall, the first one is here.  

I got the idea for this craft from the Hostess with the Mostess blog.


What you need:


  • Orange construction paper (in addition to it I used Astro Brights orange paper)
  • Scissors
  • Paper clips or staples
  • Green construction paper (for leaves)
  • Brown construction paper (for stem)

What you do

Essentially you just cut the orange paper into strips and attach them with a paper clip or staple. The strips are of different lengths and you match up the ends. Then, add leaves and a stem. At the Hostess with the Mostess blog, she explains the number of strips and lengths so I'll leave that to her.  For my leaves, I used this template below and printed it out on green Astro Brights paper.

You can find this leaf and other leaf templates from my Pinterest Pin here.

I ended up using staples and paper clips to keep my strips together and I punched a hole in the top so that I could hang them up. Other than that, I pretty much followed her simple directions. 


I made three and am making a little banner/mobile with maybe leaves and pine cones to add in, in sha Allah.
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Fall Crafts: Glass Bowl Luminary

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We normally do construction paper and glue type of crafts so I was a little uneasy about trying something different. But, I'm so glad we did.  Although my preschooler lost interest very quickly, my 8 year old enjoyed this craft.

We got the idea from Where Imagination Grows Mason Jar Luminaries.

What you need:
  • Mason jars (or as we used, a  bowl resembling a fish bowl from the dollar store. )

  • Tissue paper (fall colors such as orange, yellow, red, and green)
  • Brown construction paper (optional)
  • Scissors
  • Mod Podge (we used a homemade substitute of school glue and water)
  • Sponge brush (we didn't have one so we used a wide paint brush, this is to spread on the "mod podge"
  • Glitter, optional
  • Candle
What you do:
1. Make your Mod Podge (unless you are using commercial mod podge). I'm frugal and wanted to give the homemade recipe a try. I read that the homemade version moreso works with paper crafts (I tried it on leaves and it wasn't strong enough so I agree). To make the mod podge, you need an equal amount of glue (again we used school glue) and water. I used about 1/4 cup of each. Next, mix them (shake them up together in a jar with a lid.)


Our homemade mod podge:

homemade mod podge

homemade mod podge


2. Tear up pieces of the tissue paper into small pieces. I liked to make them about the size of my thumb pad or thereabouts. My toddler joined us on this part but she got tired of it quickly.

3. Take your bowl and working in small sections at a time (so the mod podge doesn't dry), apply the mod podge with a sponge brush or paint brush. Then, place bits of tissue paper onto the mod podge. Continue in this fashion with the mod podge and then tissue pieces until you have covered the whole bowl or jar.

4. The blog where I got the idea from, used brown construction paper to make trees. We did this, but the trees aren't the most visible as hers were.

5. After the whole bowl or jar is covered with the tissue paper, apply a final coating of the mod podge over the tissue paper with your sponge brush or paint brush. You can also sprinkle it with glitter. (As we were working on this craft, I wasn't too sure how it would turn out. We had finished and my daughter picked up the glitter that we had used on the Popsicle Stick Apple Core Craft and started "throwing" it over the tissue paper (and boy did she have fun with that) and then it ended up looking much more awesome.)

6. Let dry.

7. Place a candle inside the bowl/jar and light it and you are done.  The candle I bought was very tall so only the top portion of our luminary was lit.  I then used a tea candle we had on hand and it lit up nicely.




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Fall Crafts: Popsicle Stick Apple Core Craft

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Here's another quick and easy fall craft that we worked on this weekend.


This idea came from the Glued To My Crafts Blog.  My 8 year old and I worked on this this afternoon. You can see the original directions at the blog above and below I explain what we ended up doing.

What you need:
  • 3 popsicle sticks per apple core
  • red or green paper (you can use construction paper, we used Astro Brights paper which is thinner than construction paper)
  • brown construction paper
  • glue
  • scissors
  • glitter (optional)
  • black or brown marker
What you do:

1. Glue the three popsicle sticks together side by side. (We just used Elmer's school glue)

2. When the glue has dried and the sticks stick together, cut out the top and bottom of the core (red or green). I traced half way around a soup can to get a semi circle and that was too big so I cut off lengthwise some from the bottom of the semi circle and that worked out nicely. Glue the apple top and bottom to the sticks.

3. Cut out a leaf from the green paper and a stem from the brown construction paper and glue behind the apple top piece.

4. Draw apple seeds, if desired, on the popsicle sticks.

5. Optional (which my daughter loved), put glue on the apple top and bottom and add glitter.








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Fall Crafts: Paper Strip Pumpkin

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This easy craft kicked off our fall craftiness. I like it because it uses the similar idea (paper strips) of our Ramadan paper lanterns.

I got the idea from DLTK and used their template for the leaves. I bought green "pipe cleaners"  (or as they were called at Walmart "fuzzy sticks") for the vines.

What you need:
  • Orange construction paper (to be cut up into strips)
  • Scissors
  • Green construction paper for the leaves (or you could print out on green paper or paint the leaves)
  • Fuzzy sticks (for the vines, optional)
  • Paper fasteners (as I grew up calling them, brads)

You can catch the instructions at DLTK but all we (read I) did was cut the orange construction paper into strips (cutting lengthwise) and then punched holes in each end of all the strips and insert a paper fastener at each end. Then, I spread out the strips to form a sphere. I added the leaves and the vines to the top paper fastener (curling the fuzzy sticks with a pencil).

Also, I would take their advisement and cut out more than 12 strips to get a fuller pumpkin. On our first try, we only used 12 and had so much space in between the strips. I cut up more strips so that we had about 23 or so and it was much fuller.

This was our first craft of the evening (yes we started pretty late in the day, the craft bug just hit me) and we went on to make 2 more crafts that evening, the Pom Pom Apple Tree and Button Indian corn. I pretty much made the pumpkin on my own but when the kids saw it they got motivated and we cranked out the other two fun projects.
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Fall Crafts - Pom Pom Apple Tree

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This is another quick and easy craft that my kids enjoyed, especially my toddler. I got the idea from CraftOnSea.co.uk

What you need:

  • pom poms
  • colored paper and/or felt
  • glue
  • scissors
The post on CraftOnSea used felt for the tree bark but we went for all construction paper in this one. The kids had fun gluing on the pom poms. My 11 year old snarkily pointed out that you wouldn't have two different types of apples on a tree, but we stuck with red and green to make it more colorful.

I drew the tree and bark free style but you can google and find tree templates to print and use.

We're on a roll with fall crafts (having made 3 in 1 day, so stay tuned for more, in sha Allah. We hope to make many of the ones I've collected on pinterest:


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Fall Crafts: Indian Corn Button Craft

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We really got into the craft mood this week (we did three fall crafts in one evening! Quite a feat since I am "craftily" challenged) This Indian corn button craft was one of them.

I found the idea at The Pinterested Parent - Button Indian Corn Craft. This was a really neat craft for my 3 and 8 year old girls.  It was super easy and quick to make. At first, I was putting the glue on the corn and having the girls put the buttons on. The next thing I knew, my 3 year old was putting drops of glue and buttons on by herself.

I showed them pictures on google of what Indian corn was and my 11 year old passed by and started asking questions about Indian corn -- did it grown naturally like that? Can you eat it? Well, I had no clue so I googled a came across a few helpful articles:
The directions for the craft can be found at The Pinterested Parent - Button Indian Corn Craft. You can really just look at it and make it on your own though. On her instructions she says to cut a corn and husk out of construction paper, but since drawing is not my area of expertise, I had to look for a corn template because my freehand is kind of pitiful. I found a corn and husk template here.

If you are looking for an easy craft and you've got extra buttons around, this is a fun one to try. You just need:


  • buttons of different colors
  • green construction paper
  • yellow construction paper
  • glue
  • scissors




If you are looking for more fall crafts, check out my Fall Crafts Pinterest Board:

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