Noahs Ark Homeschool Academy: Lego Learning

Showing posts with label Lego Learning. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Life of Fred; Apples, Chapter 1 Math Lesson

Today began our adventure with Life of Fred by Stanley F. Schmidt, PH.D. It was very different then what we are accustomed to, but in a delightful way! For starters, there is very little math "work" in the lesson itself. In this chapter there were exactly 3 problems to be solved by the student. Although in the text there are many mathematical ideas that are introduced with logic instead of memorization. We enjoyed the gentle introduction into our math lesson, and of course the snuggling since we were all able to pile on the couch and READ our math lesson together.

Life of Fred is a stand alone math curriculum, but many substitute with a more traditional approach. I will reserve my opinion on whether I feel Life of Fred is a complete curriculum or not until I have completed the Apples book. Although I will say that we had very hearty math lesson today using only Life of Fred curriculum and doing a few activities that tied into the lesson. We tackled a couple complex math concepts with very simple mathematical skills and activities. I didn't feel like my children were missing out on anything or needed anything more.

My children found this lesson curious and exciting! All four of my children were engaged and learning. Chapter 1 introduces the idea that if you have 7 (or a certain number) items and you split them up in groups they still together will equal 7. Remember memorizing the rule is simple, but understanding how it works goes a little deeper. Clocks and the concept of the passage of time was also covered in this lesson. So, other than reading the text and doing the 3 problems at the end of the lesson, this is what we did.

We Made a Clock!

You will need 2 paper plates, brads, the arrows and numbers, glue, scissors, and colored pencils.

You can also visit Frugal Fun 4 Boys to see how they did it!

The kiddos colored and cut out their arrows and numbers.

Then they glued the numbers on and attached the arrows with a brad. We also colored the sections different colors and labeled them O'clock, Quarter After, Half Past, and Quarter 'Til.

The kiddos cut slits between each hour and then labeled the minutes in intervals of 5 on the plate underneath.

After we completed our clocks we set our clocks to 5:00 just like in the text and calculated the elapsed time between 5:00 and 7:00.

And last but not least, we played! We picked random times and raced to set our clocks. We also made up story problems in Life of Fred style to practice and play with our new creations.

We Used Legos to Show Parts of 7

We started off with 7 Lego's.

Our first task was seeing how many ways we could make seven with two groups.

Then we moved on to making 7 with 3 groups, and then 4 groups.

While we were making our groups we recorded our results.

This is what we came up with.

This was only our first lesson, but we are having a blast with Life of Fred thus far!

Are there any Life of Fred folks out there that have any advice for me and other's that are interested or just beginning in Life of Fred?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

How Do You Keep A Preschooler Busy?

I have found it increasingly hard to keep my preschooler entertained. Interruption after interruption for a snack or a drink leaves me frazzled and distracted. It proves to add at least an hour to our school day. We are working our way through trial and error to come up with a solution that will keep Little Guy smiling and me teaching.
In my search I have found very few attempts promising, but I will share what has "worked" for my Little Guy so far.

Little Guy does the dishes:

In this experiment I filled the sink half full with water and a few extra bubbles to make it fun. Then I picked out some of our kid's plastic dishes which included a mixture of plates, bowls, and cups for Little Guy to wash. What made it fun for him was the realness of it. He was really washing the dishes! Now, I am sure if I allowed him to wash the dishes every day it would loose it's appeal, but this experiment definitely was added to my bag of tricks!

Little Guy does a Lego Quest: (Vessel)

Giving him a Lego Quest assignment also proved to be entertaining and kept Little Guy busy for about 45 minutes! It doesn't sound like much time, but when you are being interrupted every 5-10 minutes, 45 minutes of focused time is something to get excited about! If you are unsure what a Lego Quest is all about click the link above and you can follow our Lego Quest journey.

So far these two activities have had the best results, but I am still at work experimenting what will hold Little Guys attention the longest. I would love to hear your ideas and comments below.

Thanks for visiting Noah's Ark Homeschool Academy!

I had some suggestions for busy bags, so I thought I'd give it a try. I haven't been to the store to get all the supplies that I need to create the busy bags I have in my head, but those are coming in the future. Here are some picks of what we put together to get started with busy bags.

For this busy bag I used a piece of card stock and I drew a parking lot on one side.

I put 3 hot wheels cars in the bag.

Little Guy really likes this bag :)

The cars are having a wreck of course!

On the other side of the card stock I drew a race track.

In this bag I kept it simple with a variety of sticker sheets, crayons, and pieces of copy paper cut in fourths.

I had these on hand an put them in a bag, but if you wanted to recreate them you could do it with star stickers instead of dots and any other type of sticker to replace the ladybugs. You could write the numbers or you could use number stickers.

I also had this cute Monster Match game of hand from one of the kids magazines, but if you are crafty you could make some just like it.

At the risk of sounding cheap and repetitive.....I had these on hand too! Somehow putting all these items we already had in a "busy bag" made them new and exciting.

The idea for this bag is making coin rubbing designs. Coins, crayons, and paper is all you need.

I had some sea creatures, but nothing to go with them. I used card stock to make a play mat, boat, fishing pole, and some clouds.

And here it is all put away in the bag.

If you're like me and can't run out to the store every time you get an idea, I hope this will inspire you to dig up what you already have around the house and make it new.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Lego Unit Study

What kid doesn't LOVE Legos? I am putting together a Lego Unit Study for my children and I will share all the FREE goodies I find in this post. I hope you enjoy!