Word-Family Tree: Bonus Halloween Version

Here's a little bonus! I revised our original Word-Family Tree activity so it was more in the spirit of the season. To download this spooktacular blank tree, click here. 

Grab some papers in autumn colors and a maple leaf shaped punch. Simply punch out the leaves, add letters to each, and let your child figure out which word family they belong to and glue them in place. 

This Halloween Word-Family Tree uses the same word families as the fourth worksheet I made in the earlier download:

 Enjoy! (I know my son did.)

What Trees Do You See?

With the leaves falling, it's the perfect time for a little lesson on trees.

To get some more information on trees big and small, my son and I read two children’s non-fiction books: “Tell Me, Tree” by Gail Gibbons and “I Can Name 50 Trees Today!” by Bonnie Worth. The books taught us lots about trees including information about roots, seeds, and counting rings to tell the age of a tree.

Afterwards, we discussed the difference between 1) bushes and trees and 2) conifers and deciduous trees. I figured it would be easy for my son to tell the difference between the two main types of trees, given the fact that the broadleaf trees are losing their leaves.

When the rain kept us inside, he and I looked out windows on all sides of our house to count how many deciduous and conifer trees we could see in the neighborhood. When we saw two trees out one window and three out the next one, I asked him to add the numbers together.

He charted these numbers by coloring a box for each type of tree we could see on a worksheet that I designed. When it was done, we discovered that we can see 24 deciduous trees and only 16 conifers from the windows of our house.

If you'd like to repeat this activity with your child, download a PDF of the deciduous vs. conifers graphing worksheet here.

Making Shapes into an Owl (Art is a Whoot!)

Have you noticed that owls are everywhere?! They are all over adorable fabrics, being made into sweet felt pillows, and being crafted by little (and big) hands all over the Internet. When I saw Card a la Carte’s little pillow-box owls, I fell in love.

After taking a closer look and purchasing a few fun scrapbooking papers, I was determined to make these with my son on a larger scale. This was a great review of shapes, good practice cutting with scissors, and combined with a non-fiction book, a lesson in one of the most fascinating nocturnal animals.

For information on owls, we read Patricia Whitehouse’s book Barn Owls (What's Awake?). We learned that owls lay eggs, what they eat, where they nest, and that they can turn their heads to see what is behind them (whoa, that’s cool!).

Here’s a list of the shapes we used for each owl:

• Rectangle – 1 for the body
• Oval – 2 for each bird (in the same color as the body) for the wings
• Big circle – 2 for each bird in white for the big curious eyes
• Triangle – 1 cut from orange cardstock for the beak
• Heart – 1 cut from orange cardstock for the feet
• Small circle – 12, depending on the size, in printed scrapbooking paper for the body feathers (one of which you'll need to cut in half), plus 2 in black for the pupils. (We used my  Martha Stewart Punch All Over the Page™ 1 ½-inch circle punch.)

We attached the small circles on the body first with a gluestick, curling up the bottom of each to “fluff the feathers.” Then we added the eyes, wings, feet, and beak.

Let me introduce our new pet owls.

Lastly, my son recorded what he’d learned on an awesome free printable Erin from Eberhart’s Explorers shared on her blog. Visit her site for this amazing “Owls Are/Have/Can” chart.

Fruit Fractions

Someone asked me once where I get the ideas for my son’s activities. I'm sure I sounded like Elmer Fudd answering them. Inspiration strikes me at the strangest places and times.

While shopping for bananas at the grocery store, I noticed the signage for their citrus fruits. It pictured the inside of a lemon all juicy and yellow. The sections inside the fruit reminded me of a circle cut into parts to demonstrate fractions. And so it began ...

Into the shopping cart went four fruits: lime, lemon, orange, and grapefruit. When I got home, I whipped up this little worksheet for my son to observe the fruit and write and draw fractions. (Download the worksheet I made here.)

When my son returned from school that day, he was VERY curious about what we were doing with these fruits, which I rarely buy. I cut the lime open and showed him how the fruit had wedges inside and asked him which fruit he thought would have the most. Then we started to count the lime’s wedges and complete the worksheet – one fruit at a time. I drew the lines on the circles to help him as he illustrated fractions like 1/9. While the lines I divided the circles into weren’t always equal-sized sections, during these early introductions to fractions, I didn’t mind.

This activity went exactly as planned. What surprised me, though, was how it evoked the senses. My son was curious about the feel of the fruit, the number of seeds, its color (our orange had a reddish-orange inside), and the smell.

When we finished I cut a slice of lemon and we enjoyed what my son called “grown-up water” with lemon.

Headband Vowels (a Guessing Game)

Last month, several families met friends at a lake for the weekend. One of the moms brought the game Headbandz for Kids, which the tween girls had a blast with. Watching them play was a real inspiration.

I’ve been looking for a clever way to help my son practice vowels. The headbands were it!

For this activity you need three main supplies: cardstock, five square post-it notes, and five index cards (or cut up cardstock). You’ll also need a stapler and black marker.

Write each of the vowels (a, e, i, o, u) on a post-it note; make sure the sticky part of the note is on the bottom. Stick these to the index cards.

Cut the card stock into strips (between an inch and 1 1/2-inches wide). Staple the strips of paper together to make a headband the size of your child’s head.

If your child does not know the vowels from memory, print them on a piece of paper so they can refer to it as they play.

Next hold the vowel cards and ask your child to select one without looking.

Peel off the sticky note and tack it to their headband. Provide clues like the sounds the vowels make (depending on your child’s knowledge of phonics, the short vowel sounds will be more challenging). Also say several words with the vowels in them. 

If your child is like mine, you can literally tell when the light bulb goes on. My son practically lit up when he'd figured out which vowel was on his headband. After each guess, I had him remove his headband to check his answer.

If through process of elimination your child guesses the last vowel, ask them to tell you what sounds that letter makes and what words it’s in.

This headband activity would be great to practice phonics too. Because sometimes the best way to get letters engrained in your child’s head, is to put them on their head.