Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Activity, Change, Progress

Hands-On Activities

How To Make An Easy Ink pot & Quill Pen with Berry Ink

| 5 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

If I do start a series called hodgepodge homeschooling it would include how to make an easy ink pot and quill pen with berry ink that Tiny did today. This is such an easy and fun hands-on activity that can go along with any topic on westward expansion, Lewis & Clark or just the life of a pioneer.

Howtomakeaneasyinkpotandquillpenandberryink

While I worked in the kitchen pricing my items for the moving sale this weekend, Tiny could do most of this on his own.  Plus, this easy activity went along with the Free Westward Ho History cards he is memorizing right now.

How to Make an Easy Ink pot

The first thing we did was to make an easy ink pot so that the paint could dry while we made the berry ink.

Here is the list of what we ended up needing:

  • 1 empty plastic bottle.
  • sharp craft knife.
  • 1 small piece of cardboard.
  • masking tape.
  • black acrylic paint/paintbrush.
  • one sharpie.
1inkpot2inkpot
3inkpot4inkpot

Cut the top off the plastic bottle because the top is the perfect size for an ink pot.  I actually did the cutting because the knife was just too sharp to let Tiny do it by himself.

Then place the cut lid on the cardboard and trace a circle or template out of the cardboard with the sharpie.  The cardboard circle is the bottom of the ink pot.  Using the craft knife, cut the circle out.  Then start wrapping masking tape around the ink pot and taping the bottom round cardboard piece to the ink pot.  We ended up not using the cap that is for the lid.

5inkpot

Then Tiny painted the ink pot with the black acrylic paint and set it aside to dry.  How easy was that?

Easy Berry Ink and Quill Pen

The next thing Tiny did was grab some ingredients he thought he would need for the berry ink and quill pen. He was pretty close.

Look at this list for making the berry ink and quill pen.

  • 1/2 to 1 cup berries.  We actually had mixed blackberries, blueberries and some raspberries that were overripe in the refrigerator.
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt depending on how much ink you make.  We used a full one teaspoon because he used a whole cup of berries.  So about 1/2 teaspoon of salt for 1/2 cup of berries is the measurement.
  • 1/2 to 1 teaspoons of vinegar depending too on how much ink you make.  Again, we used a full one teaspoon because we used a full cup of berries.
  • 1 feather. A contour feather is better.  We had feathers laying around the house from some Native American head dress we had, but you could easily buy one or better yet, send your kids outside to find a couple of feathers.
  • 1 small bowl for mixing.
1 quillpen4quill pen
2 QuillPen3quillpen

First, he tried to smash the berries because I knew they needed to be strained and the pulp taken out.  It wasn’t too easy and that seemed like too much work to me.

So I pulled out the hand held lemon squeezer and it worked much better.  No need to mash, then strain because it’s all done at one time in the hand held lemon squeezer.  So we added berries, squeezed and out came the juice and we threw away the pulp.  The squeezer took a little bit more time, but I think that process helped Tiny to understand the effort the early pioneers had to put forth to produce ink.

Add the salt and vinegar and stir.  That’s it.  If it’s too thick, add a wee bit more vinegar.   Our concoction came out just right the first time.

6inkpot17quillpen
7inkquill8 ink quill

The feather required some kitchen shears to cut it to a point.

You probably have most of this stuff laying around your house like we did.  It was a fun way for Tiny to spend the morning learning about the early pioneers and Lewis and Clark.  He had to try his hand at writing a bit more like Lewis and Clark did.  It makes you appreciate how fond Lewis and Clark must have been of journaling because of the sheer effort it took to make ink and then to preserve their writings for generations to come.

GRAB THESE OTHER RESOURCES AND HANDS-ON IDEAS

If hodgepodge homeschooling tastes like this today, we might add it a bit more.  No complaints from Tiny or his mom on the fun we had today.

Hugs and love ya,

If you want some other activities to go with an early American history unit study, then grab these other ones too. Free Printable History Board Game – Learning American History Through the Life of Wyatt Earp, make soap and make hardtack.

Check out some other fun resources for studying about Westward Ho, Lewis & Clark and Pioneer Life

Day 7. Unit Study Activity Ideas. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together.

| 1 Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

The hands-on activities that I listed in Day 6. Unit Study Resources that Stir the Imagination. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together  which are for our upcoming Ocean Unit Study may not fit your particular theme.  So today, I want to stretch and expand your knowledge of what other unit study activities and ideas you could use to enhance the topic that you have chosen.

One of the biggest fears about planning unit studies is that activity ideas may run slim to none (not ever the case, but it feels like it anyway) for your topic.  So having your quiver full of ideas avoids stuck-itis when it is time to plan your unit study.

Day 7. Unit Study Activity Ideas. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together

Also though depending on what subjects you want to emphasize in your unit study, the ideas here will give you options to choose from for each subject.

Unit Study Activity Ideas

In other words, I have organized ideas by subjects and have added activities for a variety of ages/grades.  You can decide which activities works best for your children’s abilities regardless of age.

One last thing about the activities listed below and that is I have tried to keep the ideas as general as possible to use with any topic.  But some ideas don’t make sense, unless I give you an example of how to use them.  To make the ideas more clear, I give you specifics in how to connect that idea to an actual activity.

Let’s get started.

Language Arts

Math

  • Build a model bridge.  Make your own abacus. Play Uno.  Start a business for a child entrepreneur who sees no need for math.
  • Make you own themed paper to illustrate/write. Decorate with stickers or draw an art border.
  • Build place value models.  Create visual number lines. Create calendars with number and values.
  • Do a skit based on any piece of literature. {Shakespeare}
  • Add bird seed, rice, or beans to a plastic bottle and make I Spy words.
  • Snowflake symmetry.  Design your own tiling patterns.
  • Make an addition wheel, make a paper die to practice use of any of the basic 4 operations.  Create your own problems on the paper die.
  • Puppet Show.  Create a timeline for events in a book.  Round up famous speeches and study them.
  • Draw and cut out templates to show Pythagorean theorem by making them puzzle pieces.
  • Journal with art or journal by pictures only.  Do Mad Libs for grammar.
  • Play store. Create a math dictionary. (We did this one year and it is a great reference tool all year round.)
  • Create a list of proverbs.  Add to it each day.  Do a noun hunt, verb hunt,etc.  Do word dominoes.

 
Unit Study Activity Ideas

History/Geography

Science

  • Draw/Label a cell.  Build a website. There are plenty of easy free website templates for new programmers.
  • Make passports.  Create a treasure map for geography.
  • Create a timeline on just one event instead of a whole time period.
  • Do a report about a scientist (language arts & science).  Make charts & graphs instead of worksheets.  Do a YouTube video.
  • Create an ocean in a bottle.  Instead of starting a garden, grow one vegetable.
  • Make a ship from milk cartons, or ice cream, or soda bottles.
  • Community service like a garden or visit a habitat.  Do recycling projects.
  • Interview an older person who witnessed a historical event or have him tell about his life.
  • Study an ant hill. Buy a kit for this unless you have a backyard full of them lol. Insect Lore Ant Hill

I didn’t list art or music because those subjects are a bit easier to find activities to do because by their very nature they are hands-on.  I wanted to stick to subjects that took a bit more finesse on your part as a teacher to bring learning alive.

Also, don’t forget to memorize lists or things like continents and oceans, Bible verses, helping verbs, skip counting, quotes for history, science songs, months of the year, days of the week, presidents, 10 plagues on Egypt, the 12 Knights of the Round Table,  50 states, the wives of King Henry VIII (we remembered like this divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived), 12 apostles, the planets, types of clouds and colors of the rainbow as examples.

Collect items like rocks, postage stamps from different countries, arrowheads and coins.  Check out this Squidoo Lens of items to collect.

Though certainly not complete, I do hope this expansive general list of ideas will help you to see how each subject can be brought to life through a number of activities.

But now that we have ALL of this information that we have been gathering, it is time to stream line this baby and create actual lesson plans we can use each day.

Next post, I will show you how to take the information I have given you and create a set of lesson plans!

What do you think? Are you starting to feel more confident about diving into a unit study?  If you have created one before, what advice do you have to add to this list?

Hugs and love ya,

10 Days of Creating A Unit Study Together

10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-Study-Together-Day-1.png
Day-2.-Tips-for-Choosing-Unit-Study-Topics.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Un.png
Day-3.-Selecting-Superior-Sub-Topics.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-St.png
Day-4.-Finalize-Sub-Topics.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-Study-Togeth.png
Day-5.-Creating-Unit-Study-Objectives.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-S.png
Day-6.-Resources-that-Stir-the-Imagination.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Un.png
Day-7.-Unit-Study-Activity-Ideas.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-Study-T.png
Day-8.-Creating-A-Unit-Study-Lesson-Plan.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit.png
Unit-Study-Schedule.png

Day 6. Unit Study Resources that Stir the Imagination. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together.

| 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.


You don’t have to be creative to create a unit study that sparks your children’s interests, you just have to be committed.  Like all things that are practiced, the more you design a unit study, the better you become at it.  Gathering resources plays a large part in whether your unit study is successful or just so so.

Day 6. Resources that Stir the Imagination. 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together.

Gathering resources, for me anyway, is a constant factor in my journey.  All teachers plan differently, but I prefer to plan as I go along.  For me, it keeps planning time to a minimal because I already have some basic resources to choose from.

I guess you can call the resources I gather my unit study starters.

You notice how I will change directions on you when we are studying one topic and post my resources that I gather up for another one.  I just did it this week with the few resources I shared about a human body unit study.  My secret to planning is to gather as I go and to plan one or many unit studies while I am doing another one.  It really keeps the planning part from being overwhelming when you can spread it out over a period of time.

Unit Study Resources that Stir the Imagination.

Gathering resources is just one aspect.  Also, knowing which resources will help to create the love of hands-on learning and knowing which ones to ditch will keep your unit study moving along and not stagnant.

Look at my list of things that I got to on a regular basis for my unit study starters.

  • board games
  • apps
  • living books
  • atlases
  • bar charts
  • teacher’s guides
  • student magazines
  • homeschool magazines
  • currclick
  • netflix
  • my pinterest boards

Choosing resources wisely that will capture your children’s interest is not the only caveat to be aware of.

Hands-on or Drooping Hands

While I do whole heartedly agree with the fact that hands-on learning is an inherent part of any well educated child, I do believe that an overload of them or complicated ones can exhaust both teacher and child.

As new unit study converts, sometimes they tend to go overboard with hands-on learning.

Hands-on projects are like seasonings that we add to our food.  Just a pinch of it enhances our food.  Hands-on projects should not be overwhelming or exhausting.

Planning too many or did other things that made them hard to fit into your day can make unit studies turn to blah quickly.

Do you make these 4 mistakes?

Look at some of these tips for adding hands-on resources that will not exhaust you or your kids.

FBI Unit Study Create A Crystal Radio Together
  • Avoid insanity by doing one project per child or grade level.  Do one project for ALL of your children.  Aim for a project that satisfies the middle age range of your children.
  • Avoid complicated projects.  Choose projects that require normal household items you already have on hand.  It is okay to gather supplies you don’t have on hand too, but try to plan ones where you have a majority of supplies on hand.
  • Avoid long term projects.  If you have very little kids {mostly under 8 or 9 years old} choose projects that have an immediate wow factor, i.e. blow up something.  You won’t hook them on hands-on learning if they have to always grow something that takes weeks or months to build.  As they grow older, they develop the love of waiting, watching and observing and then you can choose longer projects.
  • Avoid doing all the work.   If you have older kids, let them gather the supplies, decide some of the projects and lead the projects.  Even when kids are young, they can learn by gathering up items on your list.

Unit Study Online Resources Organized

Key to using your resources is being able to find them after you have gathered them up.

An easy system and one that you can retrieve quickly always works best.  And though I love Pinterest, the Pinterest boards are not really able to be highly organized at this time.  Pinterest really needs sub-boards.

My top way of organizing online resources is Evernote.  Evernote is free and I find it way more practical than bookmarks because I am able to copy/paste just about anything onto it.  I organize it and type whatever I need to remember.

I have it on my browser bar so I quickly access it when I need to add a link, picture, or idea.

Easy to find Evernote

If I didn’t blog, Evernote would be the only tool I would need to gather up links, thoughts, pictures, videos and organized them in notebooks.  Notebooks are like files on Evernote.  It is truly a masterpiece way to organize your unit study resources.

Ocean Unit Study Resources Gathered

Here are a few of the resources that I have for the Ocean Unit Study.

Ocean Lapbook Cover Option 1 @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Yum. Edible Ocean Layers @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Ocean Vocabulary Words and Wave Pocket @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Message in a Bottle Language Arts Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Ocean Lapbook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
How Low Can You Go Ocean Lapbook Starter @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Ocean Currents Minibook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
What is the Ocean Minibook @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Ocean Currents and The Galapagos1
Winter Homeschooling - Look to the Sea. 17 Hands-On Activities for Two to Teens @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured
Edible Geography Sea Levels
5 Days of Look Alive Winter Homeschooling. Day 1 Look to the Sea. @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus featured

Though there are volumes of links, I find that by grabbing just a few of the ones that better suit us or the ages of my children keeps me from storing links that we will not use.

Gathering resources is a practiced art no less important than teaching the unit study.  Be selective and choose ones that you think will inspire your unit study.

Do you find it hard to organize your resources or find them for your unit study?

Hugs and love ya,

10 Days of Creating A Unit Study Together

10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-Study-Together-Day-1.png
Day-2.-Tips-for-Choosing-Unit-Study-Topics.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Un.png
Day-3.-Selecting-Superior-Sub-Topics.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-St.png
Day-4.-Finalize-Sub-Topics.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-Study-Togeth.png
Day-5.-Creating-Unit-Study-Objectives.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-S.png
Day-6.-Resources-that-Stir-the-Imagination.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Un.png
Day-7.-Unit-Study-Activity-Ideas.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit-Study-T.png
Day-8.-Creating-A-Unit-Study-Lesson-Plan.-10-Days-of-Diving-Into-Unit-Studies-by-Creating-a-Unit.png
Unit-Study-Schedule.png

Homeschool High School World Geography Program

| Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Be still my beating heart. A new homeschool high school world geography program is soon to be released and I am so giddy about it that I couldn’t wait to tell you.

You know I have been quiet about what Mr. Awesome has been doing this year mostly because he has been working his sweet little behind off on his high school courses.  I have more to say on that in another post.

But, the other reason is that I have been keeping a secret from you because we have been waiting for a new geography program by Bright Ideas Press called North Star Geography.

Homeschool High School World Geography

We are both about to squeal because I just got the heads up yesterday that it is real close to being published.  Before I go any further too, I want you to know that there is no link on their site yet to give you.   Like I said, it’s new and not available yet.  And there are just very few bloggers who know about this today.  So you are getting all of this early.

But do check out their site, because they have lot of other resources that make learning about geography and history fun and they believe in hands-on.  The product link for North Star Geography will be coming soon.

You know I told you that Mr. Awesome, unlike Mr. Senior 2013, has a low tolerance for textbooks and even less tolerance for worksheets.  He is my child that made me move beyond my comfortable teaching zone because he learns best by hands-on and visual aids.

So when I heard that Bright Ideas Press was coming out with North Star Geography, I jumped at the chance to use it and review it.

Today, I am giving you a heads up about it and sharing the juicy tidbits I do know.

Too, some of this may change since it’s not published yet, but I wanted to give you some details now.  I just can’t wait!

  • This is a world geography course, worth a full high school credit.
  • It can be used for your Junior high school student, but if you use it with younger children, you will probably need to tweak it.  I always say though it’s easier to tweak down than it is to adjust up for your highschooler.  The lessons start out easy, but get more detailed by Unit 2.
  • There are 16 lessons covering both physical and human geography. That is the part I like.  Geography is not just about finding latitude and longitude which may put me to sleep, but it’s about interacting with the culture and understanding the people.
  • The program includes the Student Reader and the Companion Guide which includes:  Daily schedule grids, hands-on activity directions, map work, note-taking pages, reproducible maps and graphic organizers, quizzes and tests, research questions, memorization lists, answer keys, and grading rubrics.

If you have been homeschooling any length of time, you know that resources for this age that are hands-on and interactive are not plentiful.  Matter of fact they are almost non-existent.  So I can’t wait to get started on it.

By the way you will want to use WonderMaps with the North Star Geography program.  You can get WonderMaps now.  I am getting the maps today.
When I get more information and get the complete curriculum in my little grubby hands, I will be sharing about it as we use it this year and into next year.

Have you been looking for a hands-on geography program that is not boring to use with your kids?  What are your favorites?

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

| 11 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, we are learning about the geography of France by creating a solar oven.

Wanting to add in a bit of geography by exploring about France, we had read in our atlas how France will be providing the United Kingdom with enough electricity to power one light bulb in every home. 

This lead to our discussion of the world’s problem of energy consumption and how the sun is an unfailing source of energy.

Soar Oven. Learn About the Geography of France by Creating a Solar Oven

The only way to test out the power of the sun is to bake chocolate chip cookies of course.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Creating a Solar Oven

What you need:

  • 2 pizza boxes, one small, one large
  • craft knife
  • newspaper or polystyrene foam
  • non-toxic black paint, but we used black paper
  • non-toxic glue
  • aluminum foil and clear plastic sheeting to cover the larger pizza box
  • string, sun glasses, tape, a marker and either a single hole puncher or way to make a small hole. We used our ice pick.
  • chocolate chip cookie dough or make your own

Place the small pizza box on top of the larger pizza box with one side touching.  Using the marker, draw an outline on top of the larger pizza box because you will be cutting on that line.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Cut on the line with your sharp craft knife and don’t cut all the way through.  Basically you will be creating a lid on the bigger box when you cut on the line.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Then next we lined the inside of the bigger box with aluminum foil and then we stuffed newspaper or if you have polystyrene to fill the space on the outside edges.  We just did our best in wadding the paper up small so it fit snugly all the way around the inside edges.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Next, we worked on the small pizza box.  Instead of using non-toxic black paint to paint the bottom of the small box because we only had acrylic paint and I don’t think it’s so non-toxic (you certainly could make your own natural paint too), we used black construction paper to put on the bottom inside box.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Then, we placed the small pizza box with black construction paper and put it inside the larger box. 

You see from the picture above, we have two lids as well.  

Be sure the lids from each box are next to each other and not both on the same side because you will be using the lids to grab the sun and form a “corner”.   

After that, we got more newspaper and wadded it up real good and stuffed more down in the crevice between the larger and smaller box just to be sure we had it insulated real well.

Learn About the Geography of France

By the way, we used plain old Elmer’s glue (non-toxic) to hold the black construction paper in place on the small box. 

Also glue black paper or use your non-toxic black paint to paint the outside edges of the bigger box too.  This helps to hold the heat in.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

As you can see in the picture above we have added our black construction paper to the outside bigger box.  T

he next thing we did was to line the inside smaller box and lid and the lid of the bigger box with aluminum foil. 

I wish we would have known earlier too, but try to keep the aluminum foil as wrinkle free as possible so it reflects light into the box and it is not bouncing.

Almost done!

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

The next thing now to do is to make a small hole at the top of both lids, wide enough for your string to go through. 

You want the lids to stand up and form that “corner” I mentioned earlier. 

Just tape the string on the back of the box after you pull it tight to keep the lids up.Make A Solar Oven 8

The final touch is to add some chocolatey goodness to your solar oven and you’re ready to bake!  One more thing, be sure to cover the cookies with some plastic wrap.  Seal it tight because you want to hold the heat in.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

Using his sunglasses so the sun and reflection from the foil doesn’t hurt his eyes, Tiny adjusted the oven for best exposure, and we waited, waited and waited.

Doing this in the winter, we didn’t have real strong sunlight the whole day and the mornings were cool.  But even with those factors, we were pretty happy with the results after a few hours.

More French Revolution Activities and Learning About France

It could take anywhere from 30 minutes to hours before you see progress depending on weather factors.

Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven
Learn About the Geography of France by Creating A Solar Oven

And then presto! Tiny was pleased. 

Our cookies took several hours to cook, (tip: don’t let your kids know, but try to keep them small so they will bake faster) but then again it probably didn’t help that Tiny had to check on them about 300 times and with a magnifying glass to speed up the process.

It was a great way to spend the day waiting and anticipating chocolate chip cookies!

And oh yes, talking about the culture of France too!