Cycles of Nature Notebooking Pages - Record keeping printables for recording seasonal observations. Special nature logs for clouds, flowers, birds.

Snow is a pretty exciting thing in Memphis just because it is so rare. This winter, although being exceptionally mild, has given us two short episodes of snow (but no accumulation). You can be sure that when it snows, we pull out the nature notebook and document it! Here is our First and Last Snow page. We record the incidents in between the first and last, of course, because we never know when the last one will occur. The idea is that next winter we can compare and see if the snow comes earlier or later. 

Modern man has sadly lost his connection to the patterns of nature, and keeping a nature journal like this one helps us to keep in touch with the wonders of our seasons. When our daffodils started blooming, we put that in the notebook, too! Although I am sure it is happening much earlier than it happened last year, I didn’t document it in 2010, so I have no data to confirm my suspicion. Next year, though, we will have the data, recorded by Sprite herself!

A great project to go along with recording seasonal changes would be to take a photograph of the same tree during each season or even once a month. Put the photos side by side and notice the drastic changes. It’s not too late to start. Do it today. BrainInTrainin shows the results of a year long project with following six different trees through the four seasons. Her photos will inspire you!

I have made these nature journal pages available as a free download to my readers. Get your free Cycles of Nature Notebooking Pages here.

But wait! There’s more! This is a group project, and there are five additional bloggers who are blogging about Nature in Your Notebook and offering free printables:

1. Cindy from Our Journey Westward
2. Maureen from Spell Outloud
3. Lauren from Mama’s Learning Corner
4. Amanda from Hearts and Trees
5. Barb from Handbook of Nature Study

We have also started a special Pinterest board called Nature Study Homeschool Coop. Feel free to follow the board for nature inspiration all year long.

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1. Free Nature Planning Pages and a Survey for My Readers
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3. How We are Doing Nature Study

Online math games are a fun way to add variety into a living math approach. They can be used as rewards, review, or even an introduction to a new concept, depending on the game. Here are ten of the best math game sites for homeschoolers, arranged in no particular order.

1. Math Game Time

Math Game Time has games for preK to seventh grade. Besides being arranged by grade, games are also arranged in a convenient list of skills such as fractions, probability, multiplication, etc. The games are fairly simple in their layout but do provide an engaging format for practicing what might be boring on a worksheet.

2.  MangaHigh.com

Magna High has over a dozen very attractive math games. I started playing and couldn’t stop!  To get full versions, a teacher is supposed to sign up a “school.” It appears that signing up a homeschool is accaptable, and there is no cost. But the free game I sampled was pretty impressive.

Mousing over the games on the home page will show you what math skills are used in the game.

3.  Funbrain.com

Funbrain includes a math arcade among other academic subjects. Games are also arranged by grade level K-8.

4. Number Nut

Number nut activities are really online quizzes instead of real games. The site is easy to navigate with lots of math skills featured. The home page outlines all the main topics very clearly.

5.  Toy Theater

Among other subjects, Toy Theater has a math category. The games are very attractive but graphically simple. All of the games deal with basic math skills for the youngest of learners — less than and greater than, matching, counting, and patterns.

6. Multiplication.com

Games are one feature of the entire system of teaching multiplication offered at Multiplication.com. The games all center around memorizing the multiplication tables, so they are not arranged any other way than my theme. However, you can select a single math problem and get games that cover it. (It would be nice if you could select multiple problems, but that is not an option.)

7. Illuminations

Illuminations is an educational (not commercial) site, so there are no ads. And there is an emphasis on learning rather than on fun or style. The games are truly online exercises, but there is a wealth to choose from, including advanced topics for high schoolers.

Games are divided into four broad grade groupings: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Before selecting a game, you are shown a screenshot, a title, and a short blurb about the math skills in the game.

8. Math is Fun

The home page of Math is Fun is divided by concept and leads to textbook like information. There are some games, but the most valuable part of the site is probably the multiplication drill activities that help a child memorize through repeated exposure.

9. Hooda Math

The games on this site are fairly well done and cover a good range of math skills. Games are divided into three broad categories:  logic, arithmetic, and geometry, so it’s fairy easy to find a game for whatever topic you need.

10. Arcademic Skill Builders

On this site, the games are neatly organized along a yellow horizontal strip:  Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Integers, Decimals, Money, Fractions, Time and other non-math topics.

The games are moderately engaging and do a good job of focusing on the math skills being reviewed or taught.

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Bruegel Books and Notebooking Page

Our artist this term has been Pieter Bruegel. With Charlotte Mason artist study, the idea is to become so familiar with the artist’s work that you can recognize other pieces by the artist which you have not studied. Bruegel’s look is so distinctive, that I feel confident both Sprite and I can recognize his work. A lot of his paintings are jam-packed with detail, almost overwhelmingly so.

Bruegel was not Sprite’s favorite artist, and certainly not one whose art we would want to hang in the living room. But I found our study quite interesting. Besides our regular picture study, we read a few books which I found at the library. Sprite did some written narrations of those books on free Bruegel notebooking ages from The Notebooking Fairy.

Books We Used

• Pieter Bruegel’s Tower of Babel: The Builder with the Red Hat
• Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists: Pieter Bruegel (super easy)
• Pieter Bruegel (Life and Work Of…)

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we saw one of Bruegel’s original works (see the photo here). It was neat to see it again in books and be able to say that we had seen the real thing. Trips to art museums really bring art alive!

Although I normally have Sprite do a reproduction of some type for each artist we study, we chose to forgo that assignment with Bruegel. Sprite didn’t really connect with any of his art, and a lot of it seemed too busy for a reproduction. Originally I thought I would have her zero in on a small section of a painting, but since she wasn’t terribly excited about it, I chose to drop it altogether. The reproduction is an optional activity as far as CM artist study is concerned.

Analyzing a Bruegel with Smart Art

I did ask her to choose a painting to analyze with the Smart Art material. Based on her analysis, she wrote a brief paragraph. I think it’s important to have children write about a wide variety of subjects, including art.

Short Paragraph Analysis

Another interesting activity for Bruegel was with his painting Proverbs which depicts over 100 Flemish proverbs. Using this PDF guide, Sprite tried to identify the various proverbs shown. It was much harder than it seemed. (A warning: This guide does have profanity on #9! It is a worthy resource, but you will probably want to edit that four letter word before handing it over.)

A wrap up activity at the end of our study was using a page of Bruegel thumbnails for a sorting exercise. Sprite cut out the small images, and planned a way to organize them into groups which she labeled on a notebooking page.

Thumbnail Sorting

You can find more about Bruegel at Bruegel Artist Study.

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We’ve covered two basics so far — grammar and reading. Now let’s talk about a part of language arts that you may consider an “extra” — poetry.

I am going to make a confession on this blog post. I am not a huge lover of poetry. I absolutely would not pick up a book of poetry to read for fun. I prefer to read literature that is more straightforward than poetry is. By nature, I don’t express myself poetically. However, I have always included poetry in Sprite’s language arts curriculum, and she greatly enjoys poetry. Granted, she is much more of a creative thinker than I, but I credit my consistent poetry lessons to her appreciation of the form.

7th Grade Sprite with Poetry Book

My method of studying poetry is very simple.

My Steps for Studying Poetry (with thanks to Charlotte Mason)

1. Get a poetry anthology that fits your child’s age.

2. Read a poem to your child each day.

3. Ask your child to tell you back what he heard, in other words narrate the poem.

4. Discuss the poem if desired. Ask your child to read the poem occasionally.

5. Periodically (2-4 times monthly) have your child copy a poem into a poetry notebook.

It is truly that simple.

My method is a slight diversion from Charlotte Mason’s method of studying the work of a single poet in-depth for an entire term (much like her suggestions for artist study and composer study which we do follow). For elementary and middle school years, I find that technique too stifling. Instead, we skip around our anthology, choosing whatever poet and whatever form strikes our fancy. Sometimes I choose; sometimes Sprite chooses. My objective is simply to expose her to the language and forms of poetry, and I find that variety works best to achieve my goal.

The beauty of this method is that although our poetry time is very short –ten minutes at the maximum, the daily repetition builds up a wealth of experience with poetry. As a consequence, Sprite is not intimidated by poetry in the least.

Do we skip some days? Sure we do. Do we ever go weeks when poetry is neglected? Yes, that happens. But the general rule is one poem per day. Sometimes I am able to do some crossover into other academic areas with our poetry.  Two examples are math and art.

At different times we informally studied poetic devices such as personification, metaphor, simile, and alliteration and discussed those in terms of the poems we read.

My Favorite Poetry Anthologies

• The 20th Century Children’s Poetry Treasury
• Read-Aloud Rhymes for the Very Young
• The Random House Book of Poetry for Children
• Poetry Speaks to Children (Book & CD)
• Classic Poems to Read Aloud

Read Poetry Outloud

Poetry Copywork

Poetry Notebooks

Notebooking has a prominent place in our homeschool, and poetry is included in that. For many years, Sprite’s poetry notebook was a collection of poems which she copied onto notebooking pages (copywork, really). My general practice was to allow her to select one of the poems we had recently studied to add to her notebook.

By copying the poems she is getting these benefits:

• working on handwriting
• focusing on the format of poems
• seeing spellings
• reading advanced grammatical structures
• writing sophisticated vocabulary
• considering figures of speech

From her perspective, she enjoyed making a collection of her favorite poems, many of which she illustrated herself.

Now that Sprite is in middle school (7th grade), I have added a study of poetic forms. We are using A Child’s Introduction to Poetry as our spine and complementing with the free printable notebooking pages at Notebooking Fairy for eleven different poetic forms:

• Villanelle
• Limerick & Nonsense Verse
• Nursery Rhymes
• Narrative Poetry & Haiku
• Lyric Verse & Free Verse
• Pastoral & Sonnet
• Ballad

So now her poetry notebook has pages about different kinds of poems as well as the poems themselves.

As we continue in A Child’s Introduction to Poetry, we will be looking at some of the most famous poets. Probably in eighth or ninth grade I will shift to Charlotte Mason’s recommendation of studying one poet per term. I really like the Poetry for Young People series for this purpose, but we’ll see when we get there.

Do your children enjoy poetry? What have you found to be the best poetry resource? Please share in the comments below.

My 10 day series has been formatted into a convenient eBook. Click the graphic to learn more.

More 10 Days Series

Be sure to visit the other bloggers taking part in this 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th.

10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy

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2011 Art Calendar

It’s sort of ridiculous how often I’ve mentioned the Metropolitan page a day art calendar on this blog. (Here, here, here, and here.) But I’m crazy about it. I’ve already received my 2012 edition, and it’s packed away on the shelf, awaiting the new year.

That daily dose of beauty helps us keep our momentum with artist studies. Every day brings a chance to review periods of history with the visual reminder of the calendar pages.

Right now we are in the best part of the year as far as the art calendar is concerned. Each page of the calendar holds two dates — one on the front for the first half of the year and another on the back for the second half. That means that every day from July 1 on brings another page that is finished and can be used for art projects.

The only difficult part is choosing which one of the beautiful works of art to use? Front or back?

Here is a list of all the ways you could reuse the pages from a page a day art calendar in your homeschool. They aren’t just art ideas but span language arts and history as well.

• choose two pieces to compare and contrast
• tell the story you see in the art
• use descriptive language to describe what you see in the art
• arrange (a select group of) the art in chronological order like a timeline (don’t peek at the dates)
• illustrate history notebooking pages
• decorate a bedroom or homeschool area
• make artist study files for future use
• sort (a select group of) art into artistic styles
• sort (a select group of) art by artist
• add the art to your art notebook
• let the art inspire a haiku, limerick, acrostic, or other poem
• make your own board games or flashcards
• use the art for modpodge projects or for note cards

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It’s confirmed. I like Life of Fred.

Life of Fred (LOF) is a living math book. It’s actually got a narrative story with math woven in. There are practice problems in the book (and answers), but it’s nothing like a math textbook I’ve ever seen. We are using Life of Fred – Fractions, and my review here is based on that one title.

At the end of each of the 32 chapters is a set of ten (or fewer) questions. Between every four or five chapters, there is a Bridge with ten review problems. After completing 90% correctly, you can move on to the next chapters. But there are five different versions of the Bridge. So you get five tries to get it right.

What I like:

• The story is hilarious. Really. It made me literally laugh out loud. So much so that Sprite came and asked what was so funny. While Al & Gebra is corny (read more here), Fred is witty. I much prefer Fred.
• I appreciate the author’s style. Although the book is unapologetically a math book, the author weaves in other interesting facts — meanings of words, poetic devices, etc. It’s a book that uses your entire brain, not just the math part of it.
• The math is in the context of real (albeit very silly) situations.
• The math is concept-rich. Each set of problems has a variety of concepts. And there is review built into the problems too.
• Many of the problems are those tricky multiple step ones where you’re getting a two- (or three) in-one deal.

What Sprite likes:

• The math is “sneaky,” hidden in the story.
• There are only a handful of problems.
• You get several chances at the Bridge.

So how did we get to Life of Fred? Actually, I first wrote this post in April of 2010. But we put LOF aside and are just now coming back to it. Here is the timeline for those who are wanting the nitty gritty of our math studies.

We had studied fractions quite a bit with hands-on activities up to three years ago. Then we tackled some other math topics such as positive and negative numbers. Then we came back to fractions and worked through plenty of exercises in Sprite’s Singapore Math books. All the hands-on activities were invaluable for her. That foundation served her really, really well when it came time to add, subtract, and multiply fractions on paper.

I felt like fractions was “done.” So my natural tendency was to rush on to a new topic, to get another area of the Singapore textbook marked off as complete. But I kept wondering if that was the right thing to do. Was getting through the list of topics my ultimate goal? No, not really.

So I got some input from the expert.  [grin]  I gave Sprite the choice. We could either move on to decimals (a brand new topic) or work on Life of Fred Fractions. She chose Fred. And my decision was made for me!

We did a few chapters of LOF; I wrote this original blog post. Then the frustration began to set in, so I had Sprite put LOF aside. It was about that time that we switched to Teaching Textbooks math curriculum. Sprite worked through the grade 5 material quickly (in her 6th grade year) since much of it was review.  We had a big move, so math, and all of homeschool, was put on the back burner for a while.

When we resumed school, Sprite finished up TT5, and moved on to TT6. She has done a few chapters with fractions in TT6, so I pulled out Fred for another try. Sprite admits that it is challenging, especially the way many of the problems are multi-step, but she is not as frustrated as she was a year ago. So the plan is to finish Fred Fractions before wrapping up TT6.

According to the author, the Fractions and Decimals & Percents books prepare a child for beginning Algebra. We will see how it works to prepare Sprite.  She is reading one chapter each day. I bought Life of Fred at Rainbow Resource.

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I think that my favorite types of lessons are when academic disciplines overlap. I don’t know if it’s the “two-for-one” bargain of it or the way it stimulates connections in the brain, but when a lesson crosses two or more subject areas, I get excited!

Art Inspired Haiku

In this lesson, poetry and art intersect.

The Art

We visited the Impressionist Revolution exhibition at the Brooks Museum of Art in Memphis, TN and thoroughly enjoyed it. The museum is so high tech:  the audio guide is on an iPod. In fact, we downloaded the free app back at home and referred to it when Sprite did her notebooking followup to the field trip.

The Poetry

Working through  A Child’s Introduction to Poetry, we studied haiku. (By the way, these free printable haiku notebooking pages are already posted over at The Notebooking Fairy.)

poetry notebooking

The Inspiration

My idea came from this PDF Art & Haiku. All I had to do was explain the concept and Sprite was off and running. She sketched a small version of her favorite piece from the exhibit and composed a seventeen syllable haiku after the art.

And voila! Art and poetry are both done for the day.

Do you think this is a lesson plan idea you can use? Do you get excited about overlapping subject areas like I do?

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planting sycamore seedlings

I am curious about you, my readers.

I have over one thousand subscribers, and I want to know more about each of you. So would you please take my survey and let me know more about you, your homeschool situation, and what you like to read at Jimmie’s Collage? All of your responses are confidential, by the way, so please feel free to answer honestly.

As a thank you for your time, after you complete the survey, you will see a link to free nature study printables for your mom notebook.

With beautiful fall weather peeking around the corner, I’m getting excited about nature study again. (Are you?) We have had about a dozen hummingbirds in our backyard for the last week, and we’ve spent many hours watching their antics.

With the hummingbirds, I am again impressed by the good sense of  Charlotte Mason’s good advice to let children learn through direct observation.

Children should be encouraged to watch, patiently and quietly, until they learn something of the habits and history of bee, ant, wasp, spider, hairy caterpillar, dragon-fly, and whatever of larger growth comes in their way.
(Vol 1, II, Out-Of-Door Life For The Children, p.57 )

After Sprite had observed and sketched the birds for an extended period of time, I read her the hummingbird pages from the Handbook of Nature Study. Although she did learn a few new tidbits, much of the hummingbird behavior she had already seen first-hand. (We would love to see a hummingbird nest like this woman did, but they are probably high up in the large trees in our yard.)

cicada exoskeleton on a tree trunk

Back to the survey and your free gift. . .  one page is designed for your year-long plan with room for all twelve months.

Three additional pages are for your monthly plans. You can use them for planning your nature walks or for recording what you did after the fact. To be honest, I’m not much of a nature study planner. We simply keep our eyes open to study whatever catches our eye during that season whether it is backyard birds, insects, or squirrels.

Click on the thumbnails to go directly to the survey where you will find the link to the nature pages.

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We’re in the midst of our fourth week back to homeschool (Sprite’s seventh grade). Despite my terrible motivation issues, it’s been a smooth transition back to books and learning. Like I suspected, once I dive in, the motivation returns. We have done math, language arts, art, and composer study in these weeks — four of our favorite areas. (Okay, math is not a favorite, but it’s necessary.) Eventually I’ll be adding in science and history.

The composer I chose for this term is Chopin, the Polish Poet of the Piano. Listening to his piano music has been a great inspiration for Sprite as she gets back into the swing of piano lessons. (Her teacher takes a break over the summer.) We are still enjoying his music on audio CD, but we’ve already wrapped up the biographical study. These are the resources we used.

Living Books

Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers

Opal Wheeler biographies

• Frederic Chopin, Son of Poland, Early Years
• Frederic Chopin, Son of Poland, Later Years

Notebooking pages

Chopin is not one of the artists available on the freebies page, so I used my purchased composers set from Notebookingpages.com. (No, you don’t need fancy, custom-made notebooking pages. Plain paper works just as well.)

Sprite made written narrations of the Opal Wheeler books, the chapter from Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers and the Chopin VOX disc. She took notes as she listened to the latter two and then worked her notes into written narrations.

Activity Pages

Geography

The printable maps from Scholastic’s Ready-to-Go Super Book of Outline Maps came in handy for integrating geography into our living book studies. As Chopin traveled around Europe, Sprite marked the location on her map of Europe.

Timeline

She made a one page Chopin timeline with the free timeline notebooking page from The Notebooking Fairy.

I made a lens over at Squidoo with more resources. I always find far more than we can manage to use. So visit Chopin Composer Study for a buffet of teaching ideas. Pick and choose what works best for you as you enjoy Chopin.

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I love a success story, and I know you do too. So I’m sharing a Twitter conversation I had with 3Gmom about my first Narration Basics blog post.

Worked thru this post w/ G#2 & she totally gets it!!! Narration Basics: Expectations #homeschool http://t.co/fzvdFIB via @jimmiescollage

July 15, 2011 7:32 am via Tweet ButtonReplyRetweetFavorite

@g3mom

g3mom

@g3mom I'd love to know more! You showed the post to your child?

July 15, 2011 1:17 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@JimmiesCollage

& Notebooking Fairy

@JimmiesCollage absolutely we read it verbatim &she gets it. Her 2 bros- not so much (although plenty verbal, but more purposeful)

July 15, 2011 3:17 pm via twidroydReplyRetweetFavorite

@g3mom

g3mom

@g3mom How old is she?

July 15, 2011 7:10 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@JimmiesCollage

& Notebooking Fairy

@JimmiesCollage G#2 is 9 & entering 4th grade. I think we've found something she likes about school

July 15, 2011 7:19 pm via twidroydReplyRetweetFavorite

@g3mom

g3mom

Wow. What a smart mom. She taught her child about narration by having her child simply read my post! I have to admit that I wouldn’t have thought of that strategy. But it worked for this fourth grader.

Sometimes we underestimate what our children can understand. But we really should include them in the planning of their homeschool.

PS If you’re wondering how I got these Tweets in a blog post, check out Blackbird Pie (a WordPress plugin).

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