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Loving the Learning
Saturday, August 6, 2005
First Preparations
I worked yesterday on getting C's science materials lined up. I decided we'll start with nutrition, so I went online to our library's site and located 10 books (that's all the system would let me reserve) to start with. I wasn't expecting to find that many, so I was pleasantly surprised. There are a few more in a series that I'll have to get through interlibrary loan. I don't understand why the library system (5 branches) doesn't have the whole series catalogued.
Here's our list so far:
Eat Healthy, Feel Great by Dr. William Sears
Eat Well by Angela Royston
Eat Your Vegetables! Drink Your Milk! by Alvin Silverstein
The Edible Pyramid: Good Eating Every Day by Loreen Leedy
Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition by Lizzy Rockwell
and several Helen Frost books (the incomplete series):
The Dairy Group
Drinking Water
Eating Right
Fats, Oils, and Sweets
The Fruit Group
Have you used any of these books? Can you give me any feedback? As we read them, I'll post my thoughts on them or rank them somehow. I know the list looks repetitive, but repetition gets the point across. Besides, we won't be reading them all the same day.
After choosing C's library books, I looked through my "teaching manuals" and found a few experiments/activities to try. Surprisingly Everybody Has a Body doesn't have a section on nutrition. Maybe it's linked in with the body systems unit, but I don't want to cover that part yet. If it is, we'll just use that for reinforcement later on. I did find one thing to use from that book, though - "Food Coverups" on page 202. Basically C would cover a full-size tracing of himself with pictures of foods he likes that we've cut out of magazines, seed catalogs, etc. I think we'll do that activity first, then use it when we talk about food groups. We can point out the different things he likes and discuss which group each one belongs in.
My main science activities for nutrition are from Mudpies to Magnets. Of the 14 activities in its health and nutrition chapter, I found 3 that I want to use: "Sing Along" (p. 116), "Orange You Glad They're Not All Alike?" (p. 110), and "Snack Graphing" (p. 119). "Sing Along" teaches sorting and classifying food into the basic food groups, but you do it to the tune of "Old MacDonald". I don't know how well this will go over since C doesn't appreciate my singing. ("Don't sing, Mama. It's not your job.") He doesn't usually sing himself, but maybe he'll surprise me. When we focus on the fruit and vegetable group(s?), we'll do the "Orange" activity, where we'll taste several different orange fruits and vegetables. The "Snack Graphing" will be a great activity to carry over a two-week period. I'll make (or find!) a two-week chart that I can label with the 5 basic food groups. We'll use foil star stickers to represent the different food items he eats, with a new color for each day. At the end of each day, we'll see how he did meeting his recommended daily requirements and talk about how we can do better the next day. It'll also be great for reinforcing his math skills.
Field Trip: Grocery Store
We go to Wal-Mart for groceries at least twice a week, so it's not going to be a new thing. What will make it a new experience for C (and hopefully a more pleasant one for me!) will be that he will help me plan my menus, make my list, and pick out our ingredients. He already likes to help me cook, so this would help broaden that experience. Maybe we'll find a new place to shop for our groceries, that way it won't seem like such a bore to him - or a chore for me.
I don't plan on blogging in such detail about every lesson I prep for. That's what my lesson plan book is for, and I don't want to write everything twice. But I will highlight the fun stuff, the stuff that works out great, and the disasters. You know, the things worth writing - and reading - about. |
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Sunday, August 7, 2005 - Untitled Comment
Di