Modeling Volume Measurements using the Metric System

When a kid can't get the hang of their math lesson, then I know it's time to bring out the manipulatives.

Normally, I try to introduce each mathematical concept using manipulatives right at the beginning, but sometimes they sneak up on me. In Will's Math Mammoth, for instance, she was tooling along in decimals, and I'd shown her how to model decimals using Base Ten blocks, how to round decimals using a number line with tenths and hundredths marked, how to divide decimals using blank hundred grids as models, etc., but then I went to print out her lesson for the day one morning and boom! Here's a lesson on the metric system, all of a sudden!

I let the lesson go by, then, just handing it over to Will, but she just could not wrap her head around the concept of metric conversions. Grams to centigrams? Kilometers to meters? Hectoliters to liters to milliliters? Forget it! It made no sense to her, even when I gave her a conversion chart for reference.

It just... made no sense.

The next day, then, we had a different type of math lesson. I had bought this set of graduated cylinders marked in liter measurements a while ago--like, a year and a half!--and had never opened them. This day, however, was finally the day for the graduated cylinders to come out to play!

I made Will a chart that consisted of seven rows, each with the conversion chart from kiloliter to milliliter typed out. Her job was to be two-fold:

1. Model each liter unit from milliliter to liter, and
2. Write out the complete conversion chart when the entry for each unit is 1. For example, what is the complete conversion chart for 1 milliliter? 1 decaliter?

Lastly, I provided a set of Base Ten blocks to use for modeling. My own goals for this lesson were to:

1. Provide Will with a visual reference of each unit from milliliter to liter.
2. Give Will practice making these conversions.
3. Have her create her own reference sheet to use in future lessons.
4. Let her have plenty of practice looking at that conversion chart, to help with memorizing it.

First, I asked Will to model one milliliter:

I would have liked for her to have used the 1 centiliter graduated cylinder for this, just because, but for each unit that she modeled, she kept choosing to use the largest cylinder that still had markings for her particular measurement:

It spoiled part of the activity that I had planned, because I'd wanted her to photograph each measurement to serve as a visual reference, but photos of cylinders of different sizes, each with water barely covering its bottom, doesn't make much of a comparative reference. Ah, well...

Will normally loathes manipulatives, but surprisingly, she LOVED this activity! Perhaps it was the way that it involved not tiny little pieces of things to fiddle with, but large movements that you can make with your whole body:

It was more of a problem-solving activity than a simple modeling one, as well, which also helped.

For the first couple of measurements--1 milliliter, and 1 centiliter--I used the Base Ten blocks to show her how the conversions work exactly as they do with decimals. If the cm cube represents 1 milliliter, then the ten-bar represents 1 centiliter. What decimal represents the place that one cm cube holds in a ten-bar? In a hundred flat, for the deciliter? In a thousand cube, for the liter?

After the first couple Will could easily see the pattern that emerges, and could fill in all the others herself:

Here's what her finished chart looks like:

This activity turned out to be the key that unlocked the metric system for Will. As she filled out the chart, she said, in passing, "I understand this." All the yays!

Of course, this is the best hot summer day celebration of the liter!

We're about to begin a two-week break from school, so this might not happen for a while, but I did have Matt buy a giant bag of cheap rice so that Will can do this same activity with grams--for that, I plan to have her put her measurements in sandwich baggies and label them, so that she CAN have a permanent visual reference for it.

And I suppose I should also start reading ahead in Math Mammoth...

To the Blueberry Patch

Please forgive me, for the photos of this u-pick blueberry patch excursion are simply an excuse for me to show off the reversible sun hats that I just finished sewing for Syd, Will, and myself.

I used the reversible sun hat tutorial and pattern from Creativebug, and the small size worked fine for both kids. I made myself a size large, although I dialed back the brim size after I decided that it made me look like I was wearing an umbrella on my head.

Although I have a doleful amount of stash fabric, I let us each choose a new fabric for one side of the sunhat. Syd has My Little Pony:

I have Doctor Who:

And not only did this girl choose flowers (surprising me, as I'd figured she'd go for dinosaurs), but she also talked me into using the fabric for BOTH sides of the hat, utterly flouting my standard rule that all sewing projects must include some stash fabric somewhere:

Considering that this is the kid who didn't mind when I sewed ALL her winter pants from random, mismatched cuts of stash flannel, and that this is her birthday week, well...

Brand-new hat from brand-new-fabric it is!

Not a single blueberry that this kid picked made it into a bucket:

This kid did put some berries into the bucket:

Every year, a kid starts eating berries directly from the bush. It can't be sanitary for future guests...

Most of my berries made it into the bucket, at least, although I did take a lengthy nap break:

And, of course, we got our usual seasonal supply of tadpoles--

--and puddle stomping:

And now we have two cats, two betta fish, fifteen chickens, countless tadpoles, and several pounds of blueberries.

Yay, summer!

Oh, What a Lovely War! LARP Trench Warfare for our World War 1 Study

I know I say this about practically everything that we do as homeschoolers, but this. THIS WAS THE BEST!!!

As part of a long unit on World War 2, we're currently completing a short unit on World War 1--we'll study it in depth another time, but right now I'm primarily interested in having the children understand how World War 1 affected World War 2, so I'm emphasizing the timeline of events (using Story of the World, maps, and plenty of ready-reference), the conduct of the war (focusing on trench warfare), and the consequences of the war (also primarily using Story of the World and maps, but we're also going to watch a documentary on Jesse Owens this weekend).

To that end, after reading about trench warfare in Eyewitness World War 1 and watching this opening scene from All Quiet on the Western Front (I'd not recommend a Google Image search on this subject, as the results would be too upsetting for elementary children)--

I set up a LARP trench warfare activity for the kids. Here's what we used:

• inverted spray paint. It paints on the ground, and we use this a TON for various yard games and projects.
• measuring tape
• two small shovels. I'd been kind of wanting child-sized, REAL shovels for a while, the better to put the children to work for me, so this was my excuse to buy them. 
• water guns
• water balloons
• bandanas.
• bicycle helmets (optional). I'd wanted to add various items of clothing to imitate soldiers' uniforms, such as bicycle helmets and vests, but the day was too hot for that. Although heat exhaustion *would* be authentic...

First, Syd and I measured out a battlefield. We needed space for two trenches, far enough apart to make hitting the other side with water balloons and water guns challenging but not impossible, with a No Man's Land in between. Syd decided on a distance of about 13 feet, and it worked great.

The kids filled up a supply of water balloons, filled up a bucket to serve as a reservoir for water gun refilling, and dragged it all out to our war zone.

I wasn't sure how much effort the kids would want to put into digging their trenches, so I simply left them to it, asking them to tell me when they were both finished. This is what it looked like while they were working, before I sneaked off to have a snack and read for a bit:

This day was the only day this week that it didn't rain (and it's raining again today, sigh...), so the ground was quite soft, which helped the kids create some truly epic trenches for themselves:

Notice the piling up of the dirt to make a barrier in front of the trench? Good form!

When the kids were finished, they each ended up with a trench and barrier deep enough to crouch behind. Pretty perfect, I think:

When the kids had filled all the water balloons, they were left with an odd number, so it was decided that I would begin the war by playing the part of terrorist Gavrilo Princip and tossing a symbolic water balloon into the air; this was done, and war had begun!

Prior to the beginning of the war, there had been much debate about who wanted to be which country; Will wanted Germany, but Syd wanted Austria. Then she wanted Russia. When you're playing war, why does everybody ALWAYS want to be the bad guys?

Finally, Syd was persuaded to play France, so safely ensconced in their trenches, France and Germany commenced their bombardment:

See the water balloon?

Germany goes over the top!

Retreat!

 France and Germany both wore bandanas around their necks. Every now and then, I would shout "Gas! Gas! Gas!" and the soldiers would have to put on their gas masks:


When someone needed to refill her water gun or rebuild her trench, she could shout, "Armistice!", and temporarily pause the war:

And then, back to war!

Of course, things got out of hand. First, France chased down Germany, knocked her down, and threw a bomb in her face. In retaliation, Germany kicked in France's trench and stole the rest of her bombs. France looked like this--

--and Germany looked like this:

Fortunately, France recovered (after I reminded her that FRANCE wins, not Germany), and all was again well:

This activity turned out WAY better than I'd hoped it would. The kids were really into it, they remembered enough from our World War 1 studies to naturally add some authenticity to their role-play, they got some great exercise and had a fabulous time, and I seriously doubt that they will ever forget the major contenders or major form of warfare of World War 1.

The kids asked to leave the trenches in place, which is fine, but I required them to pick up all water balloon shrapnel at the end of the game. Eventually, I'll have them fill their trenches back in, although if they wanted to use that space to make a couple of permanent forts...

...well, I wouldn't protest.

Building Block Candle Holders

I've been brainstorming new crafts to add to my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, and now I'm experimenting with candle holders!

To begin, I've got these candle holders made from vintage building blocks:

You can probably tell that I used our own candle holders, with our own monograms, as the examples in the photo, but the rest are to be drilled to order in either birthday candle, Waldorf ring candle, or taper candle sizes:

I like the look of the vintage blocks, and as candles come and go, they develop lovely layers of dripped wax to show evidence of their use:

If these work out, I've got more ideas for more types of candle holders--Waldorf rings, tree branch holders, pallet wood holders, and so on.

Now I just need to figure out candle holders that are either dinosaur- or chicken-shaped, and I'll be all set!

Compound Sentences against Humanity

After over a year and a half of constant complaining about it, I finally dropped First Language Lessons. It wasn't working for us, and by that I do not mean that it wasn't fun, because I don't personally feel that every school subject has to be the educational equivalent of a trip to the water park. No, I could handle First Language Lessons being dry and tedious.

What I couldn't handle was the eventual, slow realization that my kids weren't learning anything from it. That question and answer, rote-style, fill in the sentence diagram just wasn't getting anything into their brains. The kids weren't really able to identify or construct anything outside of FLL's scaffolding. They couldn't diagram a simple sentence of my own creation. They could barely tell the subject from the predicate! We dumped it, therefore, and I'm back to winging my own grammar curriculum. My goals are to teach grammar concepts as they come up, to continue to emphasize memorization (which FLL *was* great for, but the kids just didn't understand what they were memorizing), and to focus on identification and construction.

I want the kids to be able to identify all grammar concepts, of course, but that will eventually become pedantic. The true purpose of grammar education is gaining the ability to USE these grammar concepts, so that's what our goal should be, no matter where we are in the process.

Currently, I'm teaching compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences, beginning, of course, with compound sentences. You can learn this concept as soon as you've learned nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, and the definition of a complete sentence, and it's actually a great place to go next, because you'll get a lot of practice in identifying and creating complete sentences, and you'll learn your conjunctions.

There's a good definition of the compound sentence here, and you'll also want to have the kids memorize the short list of coordinating conjunctions. The main point to make, however (and this is an important one, because it's both crucial to differentiating a compound sentence from a complex sentence, AND almost every other elementary resource that you'll find does not teach the correct way to identify a complex sentence, so you'll be relying on this difference when you teach it yourself the correct way), is that the two independent clauses do not rely on each other. They both have equal weight, equal importance in the sentence.

The kids won't understand that when you say it. They'll need examples--LOTS of examples. That's when you play Compound Sentences against Humanity!

Cards against Humanity is similar to Apples to Apples, but more user-generated, MUCH more irreverent, and much, MUCH more fun! I'm working on a Junior version, myself, but Cards against Humanity is otherwise very much for adults.

Compound Sentences against Humanity, however, is for everyone! This game is completely user-generated, since we're making it up, so you can include independent clauses about family members and inside jokes. Try to make all the independent clauses irreverent, as well, because that's way more fun for the kids than sentences that read, "The children pet the cat," etc. Blech!

To play this game, you'll make a set of independent clause cards and a set of coordinating conjunction cards. Make them using the Cards against Humanity template here. I did not include any "nor" cards, because the independent clause structure would have to be altered, and I also took out the "for" cards after the first game, because it was too hard for the kids to correctly structure an independent clause using it. They still memorized those coordinating conjunctions, but we'll deal with their structure another time.

Here are some of my independent clauses:

• Barack Obama is my favorite superhero.
• The Boy Scouts ate at Five Guys. (This is an inside family joke, stemming from an imaginary Boy Scout/Girl Scout rivalry that we pretend exists whenever we see Boy Scouts in uniform.)
• The Nazis invaded Poland.
• Do not swallow that magnet.
• The tiny horse loved baby carrots.
• Snakes do not fly.
• I caught fire.
• Silence is my favorite music.
• Daddy only eats "real" food. (Another inside joke, originating from the hot dog incident in Chicago)

I had some longer independent clauses that I removed after the first game, since the game requires copying them down onto your dry erase board, and it was taking forever.

This game works best with three or more players, because you'll go around the circle and have one player act as judge each time. Everyone else is a player, and everyone should have their own dry erase board and dry erase marker, with a cloth nearby to erase the boards between rounds.

The judge draws one independent clause card and one coordinating conjunction card (I marked the back of the coordinating conjunction cards with a C. Later, when we add subordinating conjunction cards, I'll mark those with an S):

Ignore the fraction on the back of that card; I'm reusing old cardstock.

 

The players will then copy that independent clause onto their dry erase board, add the comma and coordinating conjunction that are required to make a compound sentence, and then create their own independent clause to follow:

When the players are all finished, they turn their boards around and take turns reading their compound sentence:

All sentences will be admired, and the judge will award a unique prize to each sentence--Most Improbable Act to Occur Underwater, for example, or Stuffed Dinosaur the Size of Your Bedroom, etc. All prizes are, of course, imaginary. Rotate to a new judge, and play begins again:

This clause was too long, so I've since removed it from the game.

You really only need to play this game long enough for everyone to have a turn to be the judge. You don't want the kids to get tired of copying and writing, and even in three rounds, that's still two unique examples that they've created and four unique examples that they've read. But you'll want to play it again often, until you can see that it's a total no-brainer for the kids to correctly construct their compound sentences.

As extra practice, you can also have the kids work independently to write compound sentences using these cards, and then to mark nouns, verbs, subjects, predicates, and conjunctions on their sentences. They can copy just the independent clause cards and mark nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, subjects, and predicates. They can diagram just the independent clause cards. They can be in charge of creating a new set of independent clause cards.

Once that's a no-brainer, AND they've memorized a textbook definition of the compound sentence AND the short list of coordinating conjunctions, you can move on to complex sentences or to diagramming compound sentences.