Invitations to Learn

Science

Eclipses: The great American Eclipse inspired this one.

Slingshots (Projectile Motion & Hooke's Law): This whole lesson grew out of reading "Mr. Putter and Tabby Pick the Pears." It is a delightful and surprising book that I highly recommend.

Spiders: Our study of spiders began with autumn activities from The Artful Year. Using yarn and glue, we made stiff spider webs. Using pipe cleaners, puff balls, and a hot glue gun we made spiders for those webs. Then we found books, videos, and a song about spiders to help us dive a little deeper.

Wetlands: Our whole study of wetlands began with an episode of The Magic School Bus...and then continued with books and a field trip!

Engineering

Architecture: We discovered the book "Who Built That?" and it opened a unit of study in architecture!

Beware! There are a LOT of books out there. These are our favorites because they are well-written, beautiful, and interesting. "Iggy Peck" and "The World is Not a Rectangle" can be read in a single sitting and, in my house, they were. The other books we used differently...reading one page or one topic at a time.

"Dreaming Up" could be read in a single sitting. However, each page-spread suggests a different provocation for building along with the real-life architectural interest to which it relates. What is really appealing is that most of the materials are probably laying around your house like blankets, a deck of cards, toothpicks, or wooden blocks.

Fairy Tales

Cinderella: The Cinderella Story is one of the most popular fairy tales in the world. Start with one that is familiar and then learn about the oldest version of the story (China) or dig into one of the many other versions from around the world.

Harold and the Purple Crayon: On Monday morning we read "Harold and the Purple Crayon" as part of our work using Bravewriter's Wand curriculum. Over the course of the week we would be learning about contractions and the letter team "gh." But Harold's adventures offer much more than a stepping stone into a language arts lesson...

Struck with inspiration, I devised a provocation for my children. It was a huge success - keeping them occupied long enough for me to enjoy a shower and rather leisurely morning.

The Princess and the Frog: The books I chose for this Invitation are unique because, instead of being different versions of the same story, they spin off and give the frog his own story. Definitely a different way to engage with a theme!

Pirates: For "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (or any day, really) I've collected treasure from the far reaches of the high seas (the internet). If you accept this Invitation to Learn about Pirates then grab your 'scopes (paper towel rolls) and set off to learn about lenses, map-making, and adventures on the high seas.

Art

Susan Goldman Rubin has written a lot of books about artists. Click here for a bibliography and to see books on Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jacob Lawrence, and more!

The Tate has a cool site about art for kids: www.tate.org.uk/kids.

Monet: Most of the selections in this Invitation to Learn are supposedly for a younger crowd. However, at the end of several of the stories are little educational "extras" for you to take the lesson a tad further like notes from Bijou le Tord. Taken together these books and videos give you a healthy dose of Monet and plenty of important information about the great artist, his life and the mark he left on the art world.

Mozart: This started with a musical and snowballed into considering Mozart with fiction (Magic Treehouse) and nonfiction picture book biographies!

Magic: Last month we attended a benefit for fighting a rare disease. As part of the event, we saw our first kid-friendly magic show by Mysto the Magi. Since then we have had a new interest guiding our learning - MAGIC!

We've checked out a ton of library books and these are our favorites. Most of the tricks can be done with household items, which means we don't need to invest in magic toys...although I include a Magic Silk Scarf because they are just cool.

Pablo Picasso: While we waited to pick up my daughter from jump rope club my son noticed weird portraits hanging on the wall. They were strange - clearly recognizable (to me) as cubist. Sure enough, the instructor had written a brief description of the work her students had done to learn about Picasso's contribution to cubism. I asked my son if he'd like to learn more about it...and his answer was "yeah, sure."

This Invitation to Learn Picasso is a list of our favorite books that we found at our local library and the activities they inspired.

Piet Mondrian: It began with an activity from The Artful Parent - using black electrical tape and markers to make postcards. It grew into enjoying a compilation of selected work, reading a picture book, and listening to Boogie Woogie!

Georgia O'Keeffe: As part of a young artists group, we explored the work of Georgia O'Keeffe. A popular artist, Ms. O'Keeffe has many biographies written about her for young children. I'll just include a couple here plus a couple things for you to enjoy her work.

History

Black History: February is Black History Month and our local librarians set out a lovely collection of books for us to discover. My children weren't as interested in "Heart and Soul" as I was but they were very interested in the biographies. So this year we are learning about famous African Americans, the work they did, and the things they achieved.

St. Patrick's Day: A fun little sampling of books about St. Patrick's Day!

Women's History: We read a bunch of picture book biographies to celebrate Women's History Month in March. Here is a list of 15 books - enough to read one per weekday for three weeks!

Memorial Day & Veteran's Day: This is a handful of picture books for you to read. They might inspire new traditions of remembering in your home. If your child is sensitive to the topic of death, like mine is, then tread lightly. We started with "Rolling Thunder" and noted that the focus wasn't on sacrifice but on tradition, remembering, and celebrating our freedoms with gratitude.

Just for Fun

Clever Early Readers: The BOB books are award winning, go-to suggestions for many early readers. My kiddos never cared for them much and so I let them go and kept my eyes peeled for other great books for early readers. Thankfully, the Theodore Seuss Geisel Award is a good place to start. It is an award given to distinguished books for beginning readers. But our local librarian guided us to books not on the list and every single one of them has been enjoyed in our house.

This is my family's list of books for beginning readers that are better than BOB...

Mathematics

Multiplication: Start with your body. Then move on to consider multiplication with books, songs, and building toys.