Game Review: The Cat in the Hat "I Can Do That!"

The Cat in the Hat "I Can Do That!" game is fun for the whole family. My daughter was given this game for her birthday last month, and she asks to play it daily.

The yellow noodley thing is called a Trick-a-ma-stick, and players are required to do all sorts of things with it, such as tiptoe around it, walk around it backwards, step over it, and...

 ...slide under it.

But that is not all. No that is not all.

There are three piles of cards. One pile has all of the cards telling you what you have to do with the trick-a-ma-stick. The second pile tells you what prop to use (all props from the book The Cat in the Hat, such as Mother's new gown, the fish, a book, a fan, a bent rake, a toy man, a boat, a ball...)

You can adapt this game for your family. For example, we don't play for points (you can, if you choose, keep score by counting the stars on each card - the combo above would be worth 9 points).

We also don't require a prop to be balanced on the player's head. It can be held in place.

Finally, we take all of the STOP cards out, because...

...when you're having this much fun, who wants to stop?!

(See, I told you. Fun for the whole family. That's Grandma crawling around the Trick-a-ma-stick with her prop under her chin.)

Two Ways to Pray

The other day, in the car, my four year old informed me that there are two ways you can hold your hands when you talk to God.

The first way, she showed me, was with both palms pressed together, fingers up, like this...

The second way was similar, but instead of the palms touching, she left a space between her hands.

"Do you mean, like this?" I asked, and I did this...

"No," she said, "That's not it."

Oh.

"When you talk to God to tell him that you're his friend, you put your hands in a circle like this." She put her hands up to her mouth and, using them like a megaphone, called out, "Hello God!"

:) 

When Daddy homeschools...

Geometry and physics look like this.

Architecture looks like this. (Did you know Randy's Donuts

is an example of programmatic architecture, a style which became popular in Los Angeles during the mid 1920s to mid 1930s?)

And composer study includes pop/rock composers of the late 20th century.

Drawing With Children: A Still Life

Earlier this week, I taught lesson 3 from Mona Brook's Drawing With Children to my class of fourth graders.

Lesson 3 Level 1 is just the teapot and the vase of dried flowers. (The next level adds the container of kitchen utensils, and the most advanced level adds the abacus.)

We used the five elements of art (dot, circle, straight line, curved line, and angled line) to draw the teapot. Then we added the vase. An important part of this lesson is having children draw objects that overlap.

We then added the dried flowers, eucalyptus branches, and wheat stalks. I introduced the concept of complementary colors, and some students (like the one above) chose to use complementary colors for her wall and vase.

I touched on the idea that they could make their vase appear rounded if they colored it with curved horizontal lines (like the picture above). I also let them add whatever details they wanted when the pot, vase, and flowers were finished.

My students all really enjoyed the Drawing With Children lessons, and I enjoyed teaching them. For the earlier Drawing With Children lessons we did, click here.

Famous Californians - Paper Doll Project

This year, each of my fourth graders researched a famous Californian, wrote a biographical paragraph about their Californian, and made a paper doll.

This project can be done with any real person (King Tut, Queen Elizabeth, Christopher Columbus...), or any fictional character (preferably one who would be fun to costume like the Queen of Hearts, Robinson Crusoe, Caliban...).

I had my students write their biographical paragraphs in first person, as in, "Hola, me llamo Pio Pico. I was the last governor of Alta California under Mexican rule..." or "Hi, my name is Bridget Mason, but you can call me Biddy. I was born a slave in Georgia..."

 I required my students to tell me the following:

• Their name
• Why they were a famous Californian
• How they became a famous Californian (2 to 3 sentences)
• A fascinating fact

I like keeping the assignment short and making them write in the first person. It means they can't just cut and paste the person's Wikipedia page.

I've done variations on this in the past.

A couple of years ago, I put my students in groups and had them create life-size posters of explorers like Sebastian Vizcaino and Vitus Bering. They had to choose one group member to be traced onto a piece of white butcher paper, and then they used tempera paint to paint on clothing. (They especially liked using glitter paint on the armor of conquistador Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and the gold braid embellishing Sir Francis Drake's clothing.)

When I taught 6th grade (ancient civilizations), my team teacher and I liked to do a Living Museum. We had students research real and mythological characters from the ancient world, write speeches, dress in costume, and perform as their character. You should have seen the paper mache Anubis head one kid made!

House for a Hermit Crab craft

Yesterday was my turn to host home(pre)school co-op. Our theme this month is Oceans, so I chose to read Eric Carle's House for a Hermit Crab and do a hermit crab craft.

Though lots of people have posted variations of this activity, I couldn't find a detailed explanation of how to do it. I looked at what other people did, and then I went to the craft store. I spent way too long in the craft store.

Materials:

• watercolor paper
• fine tipped black marker
• blue marker
• scrapbooking paper in the following 8 colors: gray, purple, orange, green, blue glitter, blue, pink, bronze glitter
• red pipe cleaners
• googly eyes
• rhinestone stickers
• white glue
• watercolor set
• paintbrushes (1 for each child)
• cup
• water
• scissors
• ballpoint pen
• white printer paper
• red paint (like Crayola Washable)

Here's what I did:

1. I turned to the "December" page of House for a Hermit Crab. This page has all of hermit crab's friends. Using a piece of white printer paper and a ballpoint pen, I traced the following animals (snail, coral, lanternfish, anemone, sea star) and the crab's shell, and cut them out. I used these as my templates. (I did not trace the sea urchin, but you most certainly could. I chose to give each child 4 purple strips, and have them glue the strips on top of each other to build their urchins. A third variation would be to get a bag of large purple sparkle pom-poms and use those as urchins.)
2.  I used my templates to trace the animal shapes on scrapbooking paper. I traced the anemone on orange (and green), the snail on pink, the coral on brown, the sea star on blue glitter, and the lanternfish on blue. (I chose to use scrapbooking paper because I liked the variety of textures, but you could use construction paper.)
3. Before I read the book to the little ones, we used red paint to make red handprints so they could dry during the story.
4. After reading the book, I showed the children how Eric Carle made his waves. Then I gave each child a piece of watercolor paper and a blue marker so they could make their own ocean waves. (Instead of marker, you could use blue crayon or blue paint. If you use paint, you could paint waves, or you could paint the entire background blue. You could even use a sheet of blue construction paper instead of watercolor paper as the background. I chose watercolor paper because it is thick and sturdy.
5. I pre-cut strips of bronze glitter scrapbooking paper for the sandy ocean floor, and each child glued their strip to the bottom of their watercolor paper. (You could also spread glue on the bottom of the page and have the children dip their papers in sand. A third variation would be to use strips of sandpaper.)
6. The moms cut out the handprints and each child glued her handprint to her paper.
7. I gave each child a hermit crab shell shape (pre-cut, watercolor paper) and a fine tipped black marker and showed them how to make a spiral on the shell.
8. Then the children decorated their shells with watercolors.
9. They glued their shells onto their papers, a little bit over their handprints, to make it look like their hands were crawling out of the shells.
10. Each child added half a red pipe cleaner, bent in half for antennae. 
11. They glued a googly eyes to the ends of their pipe cleaners.
12. Next, they decorated their sea animals (tiny circles on their coral, a spiral on the snail, 4 rhinestone stickers on each lanternfish).
13. Then, they glued their sea animals onto their shells, and made their urchins. (My daughter chose to glue her snail above her shell.)
14. Finally, they glued their gray "rocks" onto their papers.

Here are a couple of other variations:

• Use strips of green tissue paper for seaweed.
• Use orange tissue paper to make the sea anemone 3-D.

Playing Connect Four with a Four Year Old

I don't let my preschooler win.

This evening, when we she wanted to play Connect Four, I reminded her that:

• we play games for fun
• we're happy for the winner, even if the winner is the other person
• we shake hands and say, "Good game," after we play

Tonight's Connect Four game included a vocabulary lesson. The words were:

persevere 

and 

strategy

After I won the first game, and blocked her early on in the second game, she crossed her arms and stomped off.

"Come back and finish the game," I said. "I haven't won yet. You have lots of discs left. You have to persevere."

And she did.

And then we talked strategy. I had her tell me where she thought I would put my disc, and asked her, "If I put my disc there, where will you put yours?" I explained that I had multiple options as to where to put my disc, and I had her show me all of the possibilities. I even had her tell me where she thought I would put my disc after she made her move. Strategy.

And you know what? She won.