Curricula with lots of crafts?

[astralweaver]

I don’t know what I’m looking for. My 8 (almost 9) year old has confessed to her dad in the car the other day that school is soooooo boring. This is not a new complaint from her, however, she is finally starting to be able to pin down what she doesn’t like. She has never really liked history and slogs through it because I make her. She feels like she is never good at narrating (and yes, she has been more challenged by this than her older sister). And she asked her dad why we never do fun crafts or art anymore? Now, we do art, but we aren’t a craft heavy family, we are a book heavy family, and her father knows this. So he asked her what kinds of crafts and art does she want to do? She sort of mumbled out a “You remember. When we had the barn and made candles and butter and stained valentines glass!”
 

She’s thinking of her Kindergarten year, when I did the Simple Seasons program from Wee Folk Art. She wants more school like that.

What are some craft-heavy programs out there for the 3rd/4th grade cusp? Who does learning via art and activities?

Thanks.

[Ellie]

KONOS. It's everything except English and math skills: Bible, history, geography, science, arts and crafts, drama, literature. Children learn everything while studying godly character traits such as attentiveness, orderliness, obedience, inquisitiveness. You could even do KONOS with both of your dc, in which case I would recommend Vol. 2, which does American history chronologically, starting with the early scientists and explorers. There are as many crafts as you want to do; a boatload of activities is presented for each unit and sub-unit; you pick the ones that you want.

[Farrar]

Moving Beyond the Page is a little like that. There are little crafts about things.

The various book series about history that have crafts are great to add if you're doing a program like SOTW and want more crafting. Things like this series, but just search a history or science topic and "projects" under children's books on Amazon and see what pops up if none of this series strikes your fancy:
https://www.amazon.com/kaleidoscope-kids-books/s?k=kaleidoscope+kids+books&rh=n%3A283155

My favorite elementary art program is free and easy to add on so I'm always recommending it whenever I can:
http://www.arttango.com/

[ktgrok]

The Good and The Beautiful has a lot of hands on stuff, if not a ton of crafts. 

[astralweaver]

Well you’ve all given me lots to research, thank you. I’m going to do some reading and thinking and come back with some follow up questions.

[Lori D.]

Your girls are young enough that you could certainly switch to a 4 day school week for doing your "heavy lifting" academics, and have the 5th day of your week be for bigger projects, hands-on, science experiments, art, field trips, etc. Having a day, or half a day that is regularly set aside for projects makes it much easier for YOU to make sure projects happen, esp. if you're not a "craft-y" person. And if you feel a day or half a day per week is taking too much away from your book and seat work academics, what about extending your school year by 4 weeks, to a 40-week school year, with that one day a week for hands-on and "supplemental" educational things?

And, rather than switching curricula, what about just *adding* some crafts or projects to go with whatever history, science, geography, etc. that you're already doing? Maybe let her flip through a few books and pick out a handful of projects she would enjoy doing at the rate of 1 per week for the next 12 weeks, make a list of all the supplies you'll need, get the supplies, throw them in a plastic bin, and pull it out once a week. That makes it SO much easier to actually DO the crafts, when everything is right there in the bin, ready to go.

For both History and Science check out the oodles of kits and hands-on projects at Rainbow Resource Catalog. Looks like from your signature, you're doing American History -- a few fast ideas:
A Kid's Guide to African American History -- crafts and activities
American History activity books by Lauri Carlson: Colonial Kids; More Than Moccasins; Wesward Ho
History Pockets: Colonial America; Native Americans

And science kits --
Fingerprint Lab
Crystal Mining kit
Sun print kit / paper

What about adding hands-on to her free time? IIs she old enough to be able to do some art and hand-crafts on her own?
 loop loom
string art
recycled paper beads
charm bracelet kit
soap making kit
Sun catcher kit
eraser making kit

Also, what about adding in some fast crafts to go with the holidays? Examples:
18 Adorable DIY Thanksgiving crafts
Art Projects for Kids website: Thanksgiving

And don't forget to regularly include time in your schedule for fun special baking if she likes like kind of craft -- maybe make the treat to go with your CM tea and poetry every week or every other week. 😉 

Edited November 12, 2019 by Lori D.

[Ellie]

5 hours ago, Paradox5 said:

I have seen you mention this before. Bascially, KONOS is all the "gravy" subjects in a lovely unit study package. Correct?

Um...I've never heard it phrased that way, but ok.

[astralweaver]

So, it’s been a few weeks, and I’ve done a lot of reading/researching/thinking. And thank you all for the helpful suggestions. I am not a crafty person by nature and I didn’t want to just change everything we’re currently doing for some other whole system. I did spend some time considering Oak Meadow but I ultimately decided the tweaking I would do would undermine its cohesiveness. 

This is what I’ve decided:

1. I did appreciate Lori’s suggestion to just add on instead of tossing things. My daughter particularly thought science would be more fun than it is, so I’ve gotten the Blossom and Root geology year. I won’t really follow it’s order, but it has tons of neat hands-on crafts and ideas that I can plug into my daughter’s current reading. They’re fun but not throw away or busy work. I got the corresponding nature studies add on as well because I suspect that she would enjoy it. It’s organized in a way that I feel is easy to implement.

2. I’d never heard of Arttango before but thank you for suggesting it Fararr. It is perfect. Exactly what I need for having direct art lessons. It’s so clear for me, as a non-artist, that my other daughter and I have started doing it too!

3. I’m dropping her history readings entirely. She’s almost 9. If it’s such a pain in the bottom then I have plenty of time for her to mature. I’m not interested in ruining it as a subject. I’ve gotten the 3rd grade literature pack from Blossom and Root and it has a read these “two chapters and do this craft” type approach while utilizing more creative forms of narration. I don’t want to let her off the hook for narration because I think it’s an important skill for later academics, but I’ve basically been enforcing what now seems to me to be the most boring version of narrating and there isn’t any reason for that. Additionally, B&R does a “cultures and religions” cross disciplinary type of thing that seems like a light social studies unit, which I’ve decided is good enough to finish the school year with. I’m considering going with MBTP social studies but maybe in fourth grade.

4. I took Lori’s suggestion to add baking on to our poetry tea afternoons and that has been a huge hit. We have done some quick breads and some cookies and we are trying brownies next week. We start after lunch is cleaned up, I talk her through the recipe and stand there  coaching while she does as much as she can. She’s super into it. I let her browse my Pinterest for ideas.

So, to summarize, hands on lit and science, added organized art lessons and nature study, practice baking for poetry tea. I’m hoping to see an improvement in her feelings about and engagement with school.  

Thanks again (x1,000,000). 

 

Edited November 26, 2019 by astralweaver

[EKS]

I don't have any suggestions for craft stuff, but I wanted to speak to what you said here:

On 11/11/2019 at 1:13 PM, astralweaver said:

She has never really liked history and slogs through it because I make her. She feels like she is never good at narrating (and yes, she has been more challenged by this than her older sister).

If this were my child, it would concern me, since my number one goal with history has been to ensure that my kids didn't end up hating it.  

It is absolutely not necessary to do history the WTM way, and narration is, IMO, way overrated.  Why not just talk with her about what she's learning?  Then, if you really want her to write something, ask her to "tell you about" something that she found interesting in the history that she learned that day or week in a paragraph or two.  

It's really easy to make history a slog by adding on skills based work or "comprehension" questions or memorization of dates.  But it is just as easy to make it a joy--just eliminate the stuff that makes it distasteful and focus on the story (or stories--we always loved doing a bunch of supplemental reading).  

[Guest]

She'd probably like History Pockets

[alisoncooks]

13 minutes ago, dmmetler said:

She'd probably like History Pockets

I was thinking this, too. 

OP, does she like paper crafts? If so, maybe the Homeschool in the Woods stuff?

[hippiemamato3]

On 11/11/2019 at 11:41 PM, Ellie said:

Um...I've never heard it phrased that way, but ok.

If that's not accurate, why not explain it better?