Posts from the Past - The October Homeschool

It's been years since I posted these.  I thought I'd pull 'em out and dust 'em off for anyone who missed them before.  Happy October!


October Unit Factory - Ideas for Octoberish unit studies

Mood Music for October - Suggested musical selections for listening enjoyment in October

Tricks with Treats--A Bag Full of Math - Practical, fun math problems with Halloween candy

CCCW - Pumpkin Characters

Inspired by an idea I saw by that artist woman, I came up with a plan for a timely, festive two-part project where we artfully created characters and settings for some creative writing.

First, I read a few picture books for example and inspiration...because picture books are awesome!

I'm not going to write an art tutorial because you can go here to find that. I did switch it up a bit, though, so I'll explain that. Instead of painted paper for the weaving, we used patterned scrapbooking paper as was originally done at Cutting Tiny Bites. And instead of a green frame, we used black so we could use pastels on a nighttime background to create our story settings. (I love, love to use pastels on black paper, so I'm always looking for a reason to do it!)

Here is a closeup of mine, all finished. I even add the Big Dipper to my sky!

Here are all of the finished characters.

I'm a huge proponent of CCCW--Cross Curricular Creative Writing. Go here to see another fun example perfect for this time of year.

Funning Up a Skills Challenge

Practicing or testing writing skills does not have to be boring. There are so many ways to mix things up and keep them interesting.  

This past week in the journalism class I am mentoring I wanted to cover fact and opinion as well as punctuation, capitalization, and a few other skills. In honor of it being Halloween week, I created an activity that combined all of that with some festive flair.

I wrote several statements about spiders, some fact and some opinion. I wrote them with all sorts of mistakes that needed to be fixed. I set the statements around the room and added cobwebs and spider rings. Then I gave each student a glow stick and turned out the lights. (It was darker in the room than the photos show.) Statements were read by light of personal glow sticks; students had to determine if the statement was a fact or an opinion, and rewrite it with correct punctuation, etc. When everyone was done, we turned the lights back on and went over the statements and reviewed rules for writing together.

Keeping it fun and fresh!

October Unit Factory

Dive into Learning

I love seasons and holidays--so much that it’s difficult to not get caught up in them to the point of neglecting other things.  Always on the lookout for ways to have my cake and eat it, too, I’ve got lists of ideas for “festive schooling,” ranging from the obvious and traditional to the wild and crazy.

Below is a list of a few unit suggestions for the month of October.  The beauty of units is that they can last a day, a week... even a lifetime.  So whether you’re looking for something for the entire month, or just a way to pass the daylight on October 31st, try some of the following.

The Night – October is a good month to study a different aspect of nighttime each day.  This can include nocturnal animals, nighttime occupations, bedtime (rituals, dreams...), night festivals, night skies, and its opposite – light (Daylight Savings Time, fire, candles, electricity...).

The Skeletal System

Bats, Cats, Owls and Fowls

Fantasy and Fiction – Now is a perfect time to learn about and decide what is real and what isn’t.

Costuming – Learn about fashion through the ages, how to sew a costume, or see how imaginative you can get in creating a costume.

Mystery – Study some of the greats:  Agatha Christie or Sherlock Holmes.  Find out what makes a great mystery and try writing your own.

Times and Seasons – Obvious, but it can be expanded.  If you like nature walks and journals, relish them in October!  Sketch the same tree every day, detailing the differences after time, wind and weather.  Chart sunrise and sunset.  Learn about the history of Daylight Savings Time.  See if the Farmer’s Almanac is correct in its predictions.  (By the way, Ben Franklin had something to do with Daylight Savings, almanacs, electricity, and more!  You could learn about him and cover several things at once!)  Learn leaf and tree identification.  Take up photography during this beautifully colorful season, either by taking a professional class, or by handing your kids disposable cameras for “documenting” the signs of autumn in a book of their own.

Frankenstein – While Mary Shelley’s famous novel about a monster is often classified a “horror story,” it is much, much more.  It is poignant, provoking and a masterful look at ethics, behavior, identity and love.  It is said to be the very first science fiction novel, and Shelley wrote it when just 18 years old!

The Celts – A large part of the Halloween “story,” the Celts themselves are a fascinating people.

Fear - Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous words, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself"  is profound to adults, but it's a statement children may find ridiculous.  All creatures fear what they don't know or understand.  October is a perfect time to teach how many of our fears rise from ignorance.  Knowledge is power!

As a family, study something that seems scary.  Demonstrate how to properly research a topic, summarize information, and transfer the new knowledge into a "show and tell" project or paper with proper documentation.  Then allow each child to choose their own object of fear and follow the same steps on their own (or with a little guidance depending on age).  Some suggestions would include snakes, thunderstorms, spiders, and the dark.

You could also learn about the physical responses to fear.  Learn about adrenaline, how it affects us, why some people actually like to be scared, and maybe even discuss “highs” and drug addiction. Discuss safety and prevention (Fire Prevention Week is in October!).  Talk about “fight or flight.” Maybe even learn a little self-defense.

Recommended reading:  What Was I Scared Of? by Dr. Seuss

Sounds of October – This time of year the stores have many recordings of scary sound effects.  If you like, make your own recordings of sounds.  It can be great fun for each child to individually make their own tape and then play it for their siblings to have them guess what the sounds are.  It takes ingenuity to create sounds for thunder or wind with nothing but what’s in the house.  

(See "Mood Music" for more ideas for sound in October.)

Tastes of the Season – Go to a local Farmer’s Market and purchase one of every apple variety you can find.  Do taste tests and compare flavors.  Poll your family, friends and neighbors as to their favorite type and make a graph of “apple favorites.”  Learn how new varieties of apples are created.

Pumpkins lend themselves to all sorts of mathematical activities, including estimation, measuring circumference and weight.

Don’t forget the Halloween candy!  For a list of making treats mathematical see "Tricks with Treats."

Halloween History - Regardless of how you personally feel about Halloween and all that seems to go with it, it’s a good idea to learn about its history and origins.  In doing so as a family, you can compare old customs and beliefs with what we know and do today, and more importantly with what you believe and want to foster in your children.  Dispelling ancient myths and superstitions, discovering hidden truths, understanding the value of science, knowledge, enlightenment and testimony--these things can enrich your homeschool.

Halloween isn’t just about devils and demons.  It’s about harvests, new beginnings, loved ones, and eternal life.  Check it out and see what you think!

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"The October Unit Factory" was first published in Right at Home, the Utah Home Education Association's newsletter.  It was then republished in LDSNHA's The Sentinel a few years later.

Tricks with Treats - A Bag Full of Math

The candy countdown is on!  Soon the children of America will be squealing with delight as they dump the sugary contents of their trick-or-treat bags onto living room floors everywhere. Besides creating tummy aches and the need for more toothpaste, what else can all that Halloween candy do for us?  Help us learn math, of course!

For the “newer” mathematicians, try these tricks:

*Separate candy into like groups (suckers, candy bars, Tootsie Rolls, etc.).  The criteria can            change and so can the groups.  You can also separate by flavor, brand and size.

*Count the numbers in each group and say which has more or less than another.

*Create simple patterns with the different kinds of candy.  With smaller colored candies, you make a pattern (red, blue, orange, red, blue, orange) and then have your child continue it.  Do a pattern of sucker, sucker, gum, candy bar and keep it going until all of those types of candies are included in a long line.

*Describe the basic shape of the candies.  Are they round, square, long, wide?

For the next level of thinking:

*Talk about 2 and 3 dimensional shapes.  Candy is perfect for introducing or reinforcing cylinders, cubes, cones, spheres, discs, etc.

*Practice basic addition and subtraction with the children’s candy.  For younger children, “3 Snickers plus 4 Milky Way equals how many candy bars?”  For older children, “Sister has 23 candy bars and Brother has 27.  How many candy bars are in the house?”  Then, “How many more candy bars does Brother have than Sister?”  

*Make a pretend price list for the various candies (gum costs 15 cents, Tootsie Rolls are 5 cents, etc.).  Make random piles of the different candies mixed together and have the children figure out how much their pile would cost.  You can also tell them they have X amount of money and have them decide what candy they could afford with it.   

*Make fractions come alive with Halloween candy by asking all sorts of questions.  What fraction of your candy is in suckers?  What is the fraction of your candy bars that contain nuts?  What is the fraction of your candy bars that don’t?  What is the fraction of your candy bars that were made by Nestle?   What is the fraction of red suckers?  

Try these math tricks with the more experienced learners:

*Convert the candy fractions to decimals and percentages.

*Read package details and discuss calorie counts and candy weight.  Figure out how many ounces are in each mini candy bar and then how many you’d need to eat to equal a pound.  Compare the calories of the different candies, the weights and sizes, and then discuss why a smaller piece of candy might contain more calories than a larger one.

*Again with the package labels, determine which candies contain the most sugar.  Actually measure the amounts in teaspoons, tablespoons, and even cups, comparing the candy to the more visual sugar measurement.  Figure out how many suckers equal a full cup of sugar, etc.

This list is just the beginning.  I’m sure you can think of more ways to introduce, practice and/or reinforce mathematical concepts.  So instead of groaning at the sight of all that candy when your youngsters come home, squeal in delight with them and get thinking!

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"Tricks with Treats" has been published and republished by The Sentinel.

Halloween Houses--One Project, Three Subjects

Real life math applications are so much better than worksheets, and anytime you can find one project to employ multiple subjects you’ve got yourself a deal.  Give it seasonal appeal and it’s a bonus project with extra purpose.  Additionally, combining art and math is a fantastic whole-brained exercise that draws on and develops the strengths of both cerebral hemispheres.*

This past week I presented just such a project to my children.  I spent less than $3.00 for all 5 kids to complete an assignment that qualified as both math and art, and which also added to festive Halloween decorations.  Even better--it got them excited.  This was a developmental pursuit in geometry, measurement, creativity, aesthetics, association, and coordination.  It took right-brained thinking to have an imaginative vision of the whole, and left-brained mathematics, logical analysis, and attention to detail to make it.  It was hands-on, 3D, and real.

The mission was to make Halloween Houses.  I purchased several 12”x12” pieces of Halloween scrapbook paper at a discount, put it in the middle of the table, and told the kids they were using this paper and Scotch tape to make small model houses.  Helping my youngest, who was concentrating on cutting, taping, choosing paper, naming shapes, and learning to use a ruler, I showed everyone a basic format of 4 main walls of squares of equal sizes, rectangle pieces for the pitch of the roof, attached to triangles whose bases were the same length as the square walls.   The kids were free to use whatever measurements they wanted (within reason, considering there was only so much paper, and also to be considerate as to not use all of one particular pattern) as well as whatever building design and/or embellishments they wanted. 

The project isn’t going to end with math and art, however.  Each of the kids had a different vision. For some, I sensed a story behind the creation—that the artistic and architectural vision came from thoughts of plots and characters that might as yet be subconscious but nonetheless there. One child did a half-open creepy door cutout.  One child put holes in his roof and added sinister stairs inside that could be seen through a doorway under the ominous porch.  One child added an attic, and his triangles did not match his squares, giving the house a more traditional aged and threatening look. Because we have a theme in our homeschool this year of “Everyone Has a Story,” in the next week the children will each be writing “the story” of their Halloween House.

If you don’t like Halloween, you can adopt the idea simply for autumn, or you could do something similar at Christmastime.  Since this was my kids’ first go at it and we were on a bit of a time schedule when we did it, most of the kids kept it simple to get it finished.  I suspect if given another opportunity and more time they’ll be faster at the fundamentals and want to add on to and enhance the basic concept.  Maybe it’ll become a new October tradition.  

Whatever you do this week, try to find some creative, real-world applications for new-found knowledge and skills.  Take notice of left- and right-brained thinking and see how many activities you can find to employ both.

*For a quick test of hemispheric dominance,go here.

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I wrote this in 2011. It was originally published as "Halloween Math Art" in The Sentinel.

Mood Music for October

As a person who strongly prefers stories, especially epics, in their original literary form to the abridged and often altered form in film, I still have to admit that I like many of the film versions as well.  Why?  It’s because of the music.

I am an avid collector of movie soundtracks.  From the moving and melodic piano masterpieces of the 2005 release of Pride and Prejudice, written by Dario Marianelli, to pretty much anything Patrick Doyle writes for motion picture soundtracks (Henry V and Sense and Sensibility for starters), to the haunting oboe of Ennico Morricone’s score for The Mission, the soundtracks of the lives of movie characters touch me in deep, soulful places I sometimes forget exist.  “Movie music” makes up, in part, the soundtrack of my life.

Classical music also has this effect.  I remember being enthralled as a child in my elementary school music class when I first heard Camille Saint-Saens’ Danse Macabre.  The music teacher coaxed us to mentally visualize mischievous spirits and goblins dancing and leaping about after midnight.  The effect was thrilling.

I’ve watched (and listened) in delight as my own children have passionately embraced music.  I have yet to see them reject any musical genre.  They appreciate the drama and variety of Classical music just as much as any “stick-in-your-head” rock ‘n’ roll song.  I laughed a long time when, while listening to Saint-Saens’ “The Swan,” my 4-year-old exclaimed, “Oh, pretty!  You’re in love!”  And then he giggled himself silly.  

Classical music should cause a person to think, envision, and feel. As homeschooling parents, we should encourage vivid and creative imagination whilst listening to Classical music.  It’s interesting to just play a piece and then ask your kids what the music makes them think or feel.  

Perhaps you’re not keen on suspenseful music for your young ones.  No worries.  Still, Danse Macabre is an amazing piece of music, perfect for Halloween.  Whatever your seasonal interpretation, choose some “mood music” this week, and let your children go. 

Here is just a sampling of Classical music appropriate to this time of year:

Autumn, Nature, and Thankful Reflections:

The Four Seasons:  “Autumn” by Antonio Vivaldi 

Appalachian Spring:  “Simple Gifts” and “Variations on a Shaker Hymn” by Aaron Copland

“The Storm” from Symphony No. 6 in F (the Pastoral) by Ludwig van Beethoven

Carnival of the Animals, particularly “The Swan” by Camille Saint-Saens

Trois Gymnopedies by Erik Satie

Costumes, Parades, and Dress-up Fun:

Rodeo:  “Hoe-Down” by Aaron Copland

Entrance of the Gladiators by Julius Fucik

William Tell Overture:  “Finale” by Gioacchino Rossini

The Gypsy Baron:  “Einzugsmarsch” by Johann Strauss, Jr.

The Tale of Tsar Saltan: “The Flight of the Bumble Bee” by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov

“Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” (from Solomon) by George Frederick Handel

 Mysterious, Sensational, and Spooky:

Also sprach Zarathustra (otherwise Zarathustra, or “Sunrise”) by Richard Strauss

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach

Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky

Peer Gynt Suite:  “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg

 “The Ride of the Valkryies” (from the opera Die Walküre) by Richard Wagner

Scenes from Swan Lake by Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky

Additionally, I recommend the music of George Winston.  Though considered “New Age,” not Classical, his solo piano works are especially nice this time of year.  The seasons themselves were Winston’s early inspiration for much of the music he’s written.  Pieces such as “Colors/Dance,” “Living in the Country,” and “The Snowman’s Music Box Dance” lend themselves to visions of happy family fall outings.  George Winston also plays the music of Vince Guaraldi (composer of the Charlie Brown soundtracks).  No autumn atmosphere is complete without such familiar greats as “Linus and Lucy,” “Treat Street,” and “Cast Your Fate to the Wind.”

Whether your children sketch, paint, dance, act, or meditate to the compositions, add a little “mood music” to your fall festivities.

*I originally wrote "Mood Music" for The Sentinel.