How do you plan 'hands-on' into your day?

[MelissaMom]

Ok...this thread "Favorite Science Experiment books" got me thinking....how can I incorporate more 'fun' and hands-on things into our day. This could range from science to art to creative projects to tie into other subjects. We just started doing lapbooks as part of our science. My oldest is 6/7th grade and mostly independent, so this would be for my elementary aged kids (5-10 year olds).

 

We have a pretty set routine of doing the same things each day, and they also each have independent work (in workboxes). Would it be best to nix some of their work for the day or some of my subjects with them (history, science, spelling)?

 

I think I could plan something for 1 day a week for about an hour or so. But I'd love to hear from those of you who do 'hands-on' things just how you work that into your week?

 

Doing 'open ended' things on the during the school day just feels like wasting time to me. I KNOW that it's not! Help me get past stuck:confused:

[EmeraldGirl]

Not sure how you want the hands-on to fit into your subject matter. Are you talking about finding a hobby to develop skills? Or directly related to your studies? I am trying out different types of handicrafts with my kids to see what their interests/strengths are. Not looking for busy work, but activities that are useful, like cross stitch for my 10 yo dd, various typing of building toys for my designer-type kid, art books for my resident-artist, puzzles right now for the littlest one to teach patience and staying with a task.

 

If I don't plan it, it usually doesn't get done. I am trying to find a groove for us and we are focusing on the 3 Rs and read alouds mostly at this stage of the game. I did try lapbooks last year and got a bit burned out after cutting and then assembling for 4 little kids. Notebooking is much easier to manage for us. Will need to keep my expectations lower on the hands-on, but plan a few that we will actually accomplish, rather than a whole bunch that just makes me freeze up.

 

This time of year is hard for lots of folks. Don't give up. Spring is coming!

[MelissaMom]

Not sure how you want the hands-on to fit into your subject matter. Are you talking about finding a hobby to develop skills? Or directly related to your studies?

 

Not hobbies, but things to tie into our studies. Like science projects, art projects that tie into history or a book we're reading, or even cooking that relates to something. You know, messy things (shudder the thought:001_huh:)

 

I did try lapbooks last year and got a bit burned out after cutting and then assembling for 4 little kids.

 

I don't blame you :iagree: This is the first year I even considered it. My ds 12 would have died a slow death of overuse of fine motor skills had we done that. Even now, he'd hate it! My dd10, dd8 and ds6 (with great fine motor skills) are doing it and enjoying it. And I don't care how it looks....that's my approach. The process is what matters to me. The oldest dd is doing a great little job making hers pretty, but its helped her tremendously with 'researching' the answers. I know it's all sticking better because of this. I give ds6 a much simplified version of what his sisters get.

 

More ideas please :001_smile:

[EmeraldGirl]

Are there not enough hands-on ideas in MOH 1? Hmmm...I thought those were included? If the oldest can't handle the lapbooks, what about History Pockets that correspond to MOH 1? I am looking into next year "planning" and thinking about trying one "project" each week, maybe even on a Saturday, so as not to overwhelm. Or a "project day/afternoon" as I see you have a whole bunch of kiddos. I look for ideas on line. Hopefully you will get some more suggestions.

Edited March 16, 2010 by lisafriess

[Guest]

Some books combine reading about a topic with project or activity suggestions: for example, the series "Great _________ [fill in time period or culture] Projects You Can Do Yourself" combines quite good text with a number of suggested activities. If you have girls, American Girl publishes a series of books for each of their historical doll characters, plus a really nice non-fiction book about the times in general, a craft book, and a cookbook. The dolls themselves, which my daughter was given as Christmas presents by relatives, were terrific hands-on material because their clothes, although very upper middle class in general, are accurate right down to the underwear. We had a lot of fun with the World War II books (about the doll Molly) when my daughter was about eight or nine. The series "___________ For Kids" -- Shakespeare, Marco Polo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc. -- also combines biography and historical background with activities.

 

We also made lots of maps, everything from drawing countries to salt dough maps complete with painted landscapes and trails of items (pennies for copper, tinfoil for tin, etc.) representing trade routes. I got into this reluctantly, because of my daughter's tremendous interest in geography and maps; but it was one of the most worthwhile kinds of things we did.

 

Because my daughter had difficulty writing due to vision and fine motor problems during her younger years, we did almost all our science as hands-on projects right through junior high. I used the GEMS activity guides, which I have written about several times on these boards because I loved them so much and wanted people not to be put off by the materials collecting that needs to be done beforehand; they are so very, very worth the time and effort. We had lots of science kits -- loved everything by Steve Spangler and Wild Goose science and Scientific Explorer. I also found a science writer, Vicki Cobb, whose books are mostly (and sadly) out of print but who offers substantial, serious experiments (far superior to Janice Van Cleave, I think). We didn't work these into science so much as these WERE our science. If we liked the activities enough to want to know more, we went searching at the library, or a couple of times I happened onto books in the bookstore. I took pictures, printed and pasted them into a lab notebook; my daughter dictated and drew until her dysgraphia improved enough to allow her to keep her own records.

 

We also did a lot of activity-based math. The Marilyn Burns Math Replacement units have lesson plans which often begin with a hands-on activity, either using manipulatives or making something, to lead into understanding a concept. We played with tangrams, made origami animals, played all kinds of spatial games and card games (adapting War for multiplication or fractions, for example), played a board game called Dino Math to practice basic mental math skills. Again, because my daughter's difficulty with writing carried over into lining up written math problems like multiplication and division, we used these games not as supplements or enrichment but as the foundations of our curriculum. By the time my daughter was more at ease with writing, she was a year ahead of the standard curriculum used by our district. She is sailing through algebra (using a regular textbook, writing it out now).

 

The best advice I can give you is not to think of experiments, activities, and projects as add-ons, but as a vital part of your curriculum that uses kids' powerful sensory and tactile memories as paths to learning -- right alongside reading and writing, not separate from or additions to them. There are projects that are more fluff or artsy-craftsy than some; you learn to spot those coming a mile away and go for the ones with some substance to them. People on the boards have done a lot of research you can build on and I'm always finding great materials on the posts.

 

Sorry if this is kind of wandery; I'm sleep deprived and it has been ghastly hot here.

[TengoFive]

I'm really bad about getting around to the "fun" stuff, but recently we've actually been managing to do our science experiments. I'm hoping to start incorporating the fun history projects this week. What I do is write the experiment into my lesson plan for the week. If its science, I'll drop our science reading for that day. I also write down on the lesson plan everything I need for the experiment. It's working great so far!

[Lori D.]

We loved hands-on science, so I would schedule science 4 days a week. Two days we would read from living books, and 2 a week we would do experiments. Many of the experiments came from the books -- and many only take 5 minutes to do. We also bought and used a lot of kits.

 

We had a weekly schedule, so if we got short on time one day and I had a hands-on experiment scheduled, I could swap it for the reading -- or skip science entirely that day. Conversely, if we found we were finishing early, or were really melting down and needed something FUN, I'd shift the science hands-on to that day so we could end school on a positive note.

 

Also, scheduling hands-on projects at the end of the day helped, so if the kids wanted to keep on going with it, we had already accomplished our core "3Rs" for the day, and I could let them run with the hands-on for as long as they wanted.

 

 

DVDs from the library are also great supplements, can give you experiment ideas -- and can give YOU a break:

- Sonlight's Do and Discover DVDs

- Magic School Bus series

- Bill Nye the Science Guy series

- Amazing Planet series

- Popular Mechanics for Kids series

- Schlessinger Media science and history series

- Building Big series

- NOVA episodes

 

 

Our DSs weren't as into history projects or art projects, so we would only do one history or art hands-on once every 2-3 weeks or so. Ideas for history projects, recipes or games came from library books. About twice during the school year, I'd spend a Saturday afternoon flipping through books at the library, and photocopy pages with activities I thought we might enjoy that matched up with what we would be studying over the next months.

 

 

For art, I would often have it be a double purpose project -- use the sculpty eraser clay to create "pencil pal" erasers to give to friends and family as Christmas gifts; make ornaments for the Jesse tree advent; use markers and color a page from a stained glass coloring book, and then use it as the front of a Mother's Day card for grandma; use glitter, stamps, stickers, etc on construction paper hearts to create fancy Valentine's Day valentines for US soldiers or seniors at the local nursing home; etc.

 

 

History hands-on tended to be cooking food (which we did at lunch or dinner time), or playing a game (usually only took 10-20 minutes), or the occasional "build a pyramid" type of project, which we scheduled on our Friday "fun day", so we could take as long as we wanted. Up through about 6th/7th grade, we schooled 4 days a week and left Fridays open for field trips, math and language arts games, longer projects, homeschool co-op, and other miscellaneous things.

 

 

Key for me to actually getting organized and DOING projects came down to advance planning:

 

- Once a month, spend 10-30 minutes going through whatever science (or history, or art) books/resources you're using.

- Skim and familiarize yourself with the hands-on project(s), so when it comes time to do the project you have a general idea of the steps involved.

- Also at this time, estimate how long the project(s) will take.

- Now schedule your estimate as a block of time by writing it into your daily (or weekly, or monthly) schedule on a day when you have fewer things to accomplish, or have shorter school work, so that doing a project will not dramatically lengthen your overall school day.

- At this time, also gather all those items and put them in a ziplock bag or a box.

- If you'll need to purchase some of the items, make a list and the next time you're running errands purchase the items; as soon as you get home, add them to the bag or box with the other supplies.

 

Now when you pull out the day's schedule, you know you are doing a hands-on activity to cement those facts learned through DOING, and you are all prepared mentally to do hands-on, and it's not a stress factor because you have everything in your bag/box ready to go.

 

 

Enjoy your hands-on adventures as a family! Warmest regards, Lori D.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Lori D.
clarification

[MelanieM]

I'm doing some planning right now, and my intention is to plan for one hands-on activity each day. That will include science (from BFSU & various experiment books), art (from Discovering Great Artists), handicraft (sewing, knitting, etc.), history (SOTW AG) and a nature craft. I think I'll plan a month in advance, perhaps assigning a specific theme to each day. (Though I'm not sure if that last part will help me or make my planning more complex!)

 

One thing I've been wanting to do for ages is pull together kits so the kids have instructions (or instructions on where to find the instructions!) and all the materials they need for a particular activity in one spot (large ziploc bag), ready to go, for an entire month of activities. Maybe I'll actually get around to that for next month! lol!

[prairiegirl]

Our hands-on activities usually have to do with our content subjects. Right now we are learning about Native Americans. I bought an activity book and we use this for ideas. Yesterday we started making an Indian village by making a tepee. We will be making different types of shelters this week to add to our village. We do alot of hands-on things as this is how my kids learn best.

 

We also do hands on for art (Usborne is good for this) and experiments (Janice Van Cleave books) for science but I don't do them as often as my kids would like. History is my favourite subject so it is easier for me to find things to do.

 

Also, you could add fun activities into your workboxes. That is what I did when we used them. That gives the kids a break from the basics.

[MelanieM]

The best advice I can give you is not to think of experiments, activities, and projects as add-ons, but as a vital part of your curriculum that uses kids' powerful sensory and tactile memories as paths to learning -- right alongside reading and writing, not separate from or additions to them. There are projects that are more fluff or artsy-craftsy than some; you learn to spot those coming a mile away and go for the ones with some substance to them. People on the boards have done a lot of research you can build on and I'm always finding great materials on the posts.

 

KarenAnne's entire post is fabulous, but this right here is so worth repeating!

 

A thought on how you might approach this is to look at your lesson plan for each subject for each week and swap out one lesson for a hands-on activity. So one day math is covered through a family game of Yahtzee, another day history/geography is a salt dough map (love it KA!) or game of Cathedral World (spectacular game!), science is digging in the garden, etc.

 

We also play a lot of games here (daily). My kids especially love trivia games like the Professor Noggin series, which has themes like ancient civilizations, the human body, oceans, etc. It's a fun way to test and cement knowledge.

 

Gosh, I love these hands-on threads! :D

[MelissaMom]

A thought on how you might approach this is to look at your lesson plan for each subject for each week and swap out one lesson for a hands-on activity.

 

This is so helpful! A bright light just went on inside my head! So I could plan most things over 4 days and always have time (on most days at least) for a hands-on activity. :D Thank you! I'm feeling unstuck ;)

[MelissaMom]

Now when you pull out the day's schedule, you know you are doing a hands-on activity to cement those facts learned through DOING, and you are all prepared mentally to do hands-on, and it's not a stress factor because you have everything in your bag/box ready to go. Enjoy your hands-on adventures as a family! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

GREAT ideas Lori! I'm printing out your post and all these other fantastic helps! I'm more inspired than ever! And this is the time of year that if I can get the right mindset, I'll be good to plan the right things into next year. THANK YOU! THANK YOU!:D

[PeterPan]

For us, getting hands-on done means I prepped, having in my mind what we're doing and why, and I carved some other things from the schedule to make room. If you don't make room, it doesn't happen. If you don't prep, it doesn't happen. And we tend to go in spurts, like a really bang-up week and then a boring week. Some people might be more even about it, but we're not, lol. (That's permission just to do what you can and not stress about not doing MORE.)

[MelissaMom]

For us, getting hands-on done means I prepped, having in my mind what we're doing and why, and I carved some other things from the schedule to make room. If you don't make room, it doesn't happen. If you don't prep, it doesn't happen. And we tend to go in spurts, like a really bang-up week and then a boring week. Some people might be more even about it, but we're not, lol. (That's permission just to do what you can and not stress about not doing MORE.)

 

I'm SO not 'even' with things like this, but that's my philosophy too. Something is better than nothing.

 

I think this is where I've 'messed up:' not planning and not prepping. I'm not so much short on ideas (my bookshelves are FULL of books of great ideas), but I'm not thinking in this way and therefore, not planning it.

 

Great advice! Thanks!!!!:D