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The Big Top: A Circus Unit

Apr9

Who doesn’t love the circus? There are so many wonderful acts and animals for children and adults to see. If you are feeling that you need a boost to finish out your school year, here is a list of books and some activities that are circus themed.

Books

The Circus Alphabet, Linda Bronson This simple rhyming text and alphabet book is terrific for younger children.

Circus Caps for Sale Esphyr Slobodkina  A lovable hat peddler unwittingly gets involved with a circus, animals and all!

If I Ran the Circus, Dr. Seuss A rhyming text of outrageous characters and antics involving a circus.

Olivia Saves the Circus, Ian Falconer Olivia is an adorable pig who relates her circus experiences that your children will enjoy reading.

The Circus Ship, Chris Van Dusen  This is based on a true story about ship wrecked animals off the coast of Maine.

Language Arts Ideas for the Above Mentioned Books

 The Circus Alphabet

Your circus performer can choose the letters from their name to make their own circus alphabet. Here is an example:

M is for money to buy a ticket for the show.

E is for electricity to pop the popcorn fluffy and light. (All I could think of since elephant  was the obvious choice!)

L is for lion tamer bold and brave.

You can reinforce the ideas from The Circus Alphabet by going to the page, Happy Together,   to make fabric alphabet letters. I think this would be fun to hang on a clothesline like they show since in the back of my mind I can see circus performers hanging their laundry between caravans. This is an especially nice idea for preschoolers and beginning readers.

 Circus Caps for Sale

Help the cap peddler by making an advertisement for his caps.

Act out the story.

You can also read one of my all time favorite books with the same peddler called Caps for Sale

 If I Ran the Circus

Write your own story about how you would run the circus. Illustrate and share your story with someone.

Olivia Saves the Circus

After reading the book discuss fact, fiction.

Read more stories of Olivia the Pig.

The Circus Ship

Draw pictures of the animals that were shipwrecked.

Make up a different tale or poem about what happened to the shipwrecked animals.

Join a Circus (Activities)

Have a parade The circus comes to town with a parade so why not decorate bikes and wagons with streamers and balloons and have a circus parade? The children can dress up as various circus performers such as acrobats, ringmaster, clowns, etc.

Tightrope walking Use the clothesline from the fabric alphabet letters (Happy Together website) to use as a tightrope on the ground. This is a great way to  practice balancing.

Strongest Person in the World Have a contest to see who is the strongest by weight lifting. If you have 1 or 2 pound weights you can see how many times each person can lift them. Extend the contest by making  it a math lesson by graphing the results.

Lion Tamer  The children can take turns being the tamer and the lions. This can be done by setting up an obstacle course that the lions must complete upon command. Your obstacle course could include the following:  green and red construction paper circles, a jump rope, and a hula hoop. These are just a few ideas, if you are creative, don’t stop there!

The lion tamer would give directions and say something like this,

” Lions, jump from the green circle to the red circle.”

“Lions, crawl on the ground until you reach the tightrope.”

” Walk across the tightrope and do a somersault at the end.”

“Jump into the hula hoop. Put your paws in the air and roar as loud as you can!”

Switch and let someone else be the new lion tamer.

You can make the lion act as long as you wish. Several sets of directions can be typed out ahead of time for reading skills or you can let them improvise, depending upon how much you want to put into this. By doing this activity  listening and following directions are employed in a fun way.

Acrobats Do you have a child who enjoys gymnastics? They could create an act by doing cartwheels, backbends, and somersaults.

Clowns  A circus is not complete without clowns! You could make balloon animals and come up with a funny act. Have your clowns wear face paint and pantomime. Let the audience guess what they are pantomiming. Here are some ideas for pantomime:

Eating popcorn, playing instruments (trumpet, trombone, bass drum, flute, etc.), selling concessions through the crowd, giving away flowers, feeding the animals, etc.

Have fun!

Good Reads: Middle School, Junior High

Apr2

I haven’t had a lot of time recently to read many books, but I wanted to pass along a few great titles of books that I have had an opportunity to read. These titles are sure to not only interest middle school and junior high students, but they can be read aloud in the evenings to the entire family.

If you haven’t heard of this series I think you are going to love reading them. It is called the Wilderking Trilogy, which is set in the Middle Ages period. It is a terrific retelling of the story of David, the biblical character. The story of David and Goliath is one that children are told repeatedly in Sunday School, but do they know what happened before or after he fights the giant?  This series is a wonderful compliment to the bible and will lend itself to discussion about being faithful and loyal against all odds. I have just found out that there is a prequel that will be released soon and I am looking forward to reading more about Aidan and the kingdom of Corenwald.

The Bark of the Bog Owl, Jonathan Rogers

The Secret of the Swamp King, Jonathan Rogers

The Way of the Wilderking, Jonathan Rogers

As a follow-up to the books, you will want to check out Jonathan Rogers’ Feechie Film Festival. Funny tales are found here of whether people believe in these wild creatures [or not].

Strange Journey Back, Paul McCusker [Focus on the Family’s Adventures in Odyssey].  If you are familiar with the  audio series of the Adventures in Odyssey, this is the printed format. My sons loved the audio series that Focus on the Family produced and listened to them daily on the radio.

Happy reading! 🙂

Homeschool Product Catalogs

Mar26

As home school conventions approach and school is starting to wrap you, one’s mind tends to go toward the products you’d like to read about in order to make decisions for next year. I like to look at catalogs and read the reviews of products from a few trusted sources. Where do you start? Here are the companies that I rely on to help me with my decisions.

Rainbow Resource Catalog The granddaddy of them all, this catalog gives a description about each curriculum product they sell. I appreciate that and refer many home school families to them for that very reason. If you would get a paper catalog it 3 inches thick and has over 1,300 pages! I just looked! Click here for their website.

Christian Book Distributors sells individual products as well as packaged curriculum.

I realize that some of you are not interested in or comfortable with putting all of your own curriculum together and want a package instead.  Here is a list  of companies who offer just that!

Sonlight offers a literature-based, Christ-centered curriculum from preschool through high school. I used their American History program with some modifications and read many of their read-aloud books to my sons.

Timberdoodle has been in business for 25 years and has first-hand experience with nearly all of the products they recommend.

Do you have a favorite company that offers homeschool products and curriculum that I haven’t mentioned? Feel free to add to the list.

Reading Hide and Seek

Feb27

I just began tutoring for a fantastic family who has a beginning reader.  I love what I saw the mom doing with her son in reinforcing concepts. She writes words they are studying on a small whiteboard that is a “master list”. (You could use any large piece of paper as a master list if you don’t have a small whiteboard.) She places flashcards of these individual words throughout the downstairs and her son must find the card, match it with the word on the whiteboard, and say it aloud. She also is doing this with addition problems. He must find the addition problems on flashcards throughout the house, add them together, and match the sum on the whiteboard. This is such a great way to get children involved in the memorizing of facts, as well as give them an opportunity to burn off some energy. I think this can be applied in almost any area of academics. Here are some more ideas:

Science– terms on flashcard, definitions on the whiteboard

Money– pictures of coins on the cards, values on the board

Time– faces of clocks on the cards, analog time on the board

Numbers– match items on the cards to numerals on the whiteboard

Colors– a color swatch on the flashcards, color word on the board

Health– pictures of food on cards, food groups or servings on the board

Geography– capitals on flashcards, states or countries on the board

Do you have any ideas to add? I’d love to hear about them.

Boys and Co-Ed Clubs

Feb6

I featured Keepers of the Home last week as one of the girls clubs. This week I want to bring to your attention the boys program called Contenders for the Faith. “This program has a handbook for young men, ages 7 through 14, to equip them to become godly men and competent providers for their future families. The handbook is unquestionably an excellent skill-builder. The boys will learn how to handle finances, do home maintenance, and develop skills in leadership. Plus, extensive Bible reading, memory work, and Bible study are included to aid them in developing good habits in their own walk with God.” (quoted from website)  A nice feature is that it can be used by individual families or as a group. Your son can earn badges and wears a uniform that is similar in the same respect as Boy Scouts.

4-H is a club for boys and girls through young adults. “It prepares young people to step up to the challenges in their community and the world. Using research-based programming around positive youth development, 4-H youth get the hands-on real world experience they need to become leaders.”  (quoted from website)

I have had several friends whose students participated in this program and they did fantastic service projects and had interesting topics to research. The particular  club these students formed used to fix and charge a reasonable price for tacos-in-a-bag  once a month for our co-op.  The proceeds from the sale were used to fix monthly meals for the Ronald McDonald House.

If you know of any other great clubs that  are appropriate for young men and women that I have not listed feel free to leave a comment. 🙂