Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Our first stART!



A while ago I began following this great homeschooling blog called A Mommy's Adventures. She is a former school teacher who is now teaching her toddler and infant daughters at home. At first I thought I wouldn't have anything to gain from someone with such little ones as far as homeschooling went - after all, her kids are not even in elementary school yet! But I was wrong and I have loved seeing all her fantastic ideas. In fact, at times I've wished we could go back and re-do preschool here at home just so we can try some of her fun ideas!

One of the best things I've picked up from her blog is this great idea called stART.

The concept is A Story + Art = A great stART!

So you read a story together, then do an art lesson based on the story.

Last week we tried this for the first time and the girls LOVED it! I plan to continue doing it once as week as long as time allows.

Most of the girls books are chapter books nowadays ... but this book happens to be one of Joy's faves - it's really cute and funny! Besides, being spring and all I thought a book about a worm was appropriate!

After reading we did a coloring/ wordsearch page that I printed online. I asked them to each write a caption for what they thought the worm was saying in the picture.
"aaahhh get me out of here!" was Joy's caption! hahaha


Then the next day we got out the paints and they made a painting. Hope decided to make a caterpillar instead of a worm, but it turned out so cute that I didn't care! I am ashamed to admit that I don't take the paint out often enough for the girls. And they loved it - I really need to remember to do this more often!

{sorry I don't have a pic of Joy's painting.}
I have been scouring our bookshelves for ideas for a book to use for this week ... and also thinking up neat craft projects. This has been a great way to bring some fun back into our homeschool days!

2 comments:

Michelle said...

I am so glad that you were able to join in on stART with your daughters! It is so exciting to see what everyone is doing and I am so glad that you could even incorporate it with your older children. Their projects came out amazing and I am looking forward to seeing some more of the wonderful things that you do with them.

Thank you for linking up to stART!!

Bethany said...

That is actually something that Megans class at school does a lot. They have the book read to everyone and then they write in their journals - usually answering a specific question like "what in your own life does this story remind you of" and then they draw a picture of their journaling. Also a great way to incorporate the different holidays - the public librarys always have books set out for the holidays/seasons. :)