Crafts: Shark Paper Bag Puppet

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If you have children, you have probably heard the Baby Shark song. There are many different versions online (some more annoying than others) but it is popular with kids as it is easy to sing and remember. Personally, I think there are way worse songs they could be sharing with me so I let them have their fun in moderation.

Our children have a Baby Shark book published by Scholastic which is based on the song. It is bright and colorful and even includes hand motions to do along with the reading or singing of the song.

An informal pop culture holiday week is held every year to honor sharks—Shark Week takes over the television programming, educators share books, crafts, and more that relate to sharks, and we see advertising with shark themes. I allowed myself to be inspired this year and created two shark crafts for our children.

Shark Paper Bag Puppet

Materials

• Brown paper lunch bag
• Gray construction paper or scrapbook paper 
• Dark gray construction paper or scrapbook paper 
• Red construction paper
• White construction paper  
• Glue stick 
• Scissors 
• Pencil

Steps

1. Gather all your materials. I pre-cut the pieces for our children to make things go more quickly. If your children are old enough, you can have them sketch out the shapes they need to create the craft on their own.

2. Glue on top of the shark's mouth on the top part of the paper bag.

3. Glue on the bottom part of the shark's mouth. It should be glued partially underneath the paper bag flap.

4. Glue on the two red pieces of construction paper to create the inside of the shark's mouth.

5. Glue on the eye. (The other eye is hidden behind the shark's head as the shark is jumping out of the water at an angle.)

6. Glue on the nostrils.

7. Glue on the teeth.

Photograph of teeth by 2211438 from Pixabay 

Shark Teeth Facts

When creating a puppet where the teeth are so prominent, we had to learn about shark teeth!

• Sharks are born with teeth.
• Sharks are continually growing new teeth in the back of their mouth. The new teeth push forward and then replace the old ones that get pushed out. 
• Most sharks have 5 to 15 rows of teeth. 
• They lose about one tooth per week. 
• Lost teeth can be replaced as quickly as in one day. 
• A shark may go through over 20,000 teeth in their lifetime. 
• Great White Sharks may have as many as 3000 teeth at one time. 
• Shark's teeth have a triangular shape. 

Photograph by Simone Moreira from Pixabay

Bonus Craft: Shark Scene

If your children still want to craft after they make their Shark Paper Bag Puppets, then let their creativity go wild with this simple shark scene.

Materials

• Blue construction paper 
• Scissors
• Glue Stick 
• Pencil
• Blue tissue paper 
• Gray Construction paper 

Steps 

1. Gather all your materials.

2. Your child can decide where in the ocean to glue their shark fin.

3. Your child can cut wavy pieces of blue tissue paper to glue onto the ocean. Glue as many layers as it takes to look like the ocean. 

Do You Want to Learn More About Sharks? 

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Solving Problems Using Critical Thinking: A Review of Dare to Compare Math: Beginning

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Critical thinking skills are very important. It may seem a great challenge to find unique ways to help children practice those skills but this does not have to be the case. The Critical Thinking Co.™ offers a wide range of products to help homeschooling parents. From a book that can help preschoolers to second graders evaluate problems to come up with their own solutions to Vocabulary Virtuoso: PSAT-SAT Book 1 which helps students become familiar with vocabulary, there are many products available that can assist homeschooling parents as they educate their children. (We reviewed Vocabulary Virtuoso last year; read my review here.)

We used Dare to Compare Math: Beginning with our soon-to-be second-grade son. I used it as a supplement to his current homeschool math curriculum. Each day I asked him to complete three to four questions on his own. If he needed help, he either asked me or his dad. Most of the time he was able to work through the problems independently. On those where he needed help, it was mostly because we have not done much work with two-digit addition or subtraction or division.

What Is Dare to Compare Math? 

The format of Dare to Compare Math takes traditional math problems where children need to complete a single calculation and incorporates two or more calculations necessary for children to come to a final answer. Children will compare scores, patterns, cost of meals, fish caught, geometric shapes, and more. The problems are non-routine but accessible.

Children will work through a number of different areas of mathematics including (those in bold are addressed in Dare to Compare Math: Beginning which we reviewed)

• Number operations 
• Counting 
• Measurement
• Logic
• Geometry
• Graphing
• Elementary algebraic reasoning
• Patterns 
• Fractions 
• Rates 
• Ratios
• Proportional thinking 
• Percentages 

A Typical Homeschool Day Using Dare to Compare Math: Beginning 

On most days, I handed over the 96-page paperback book to our son and he worked through three to four problems independently. When he was finished, I would check his work. There were very few cases where he had not worked out the solutions correctly. I did tell him that he was allowed to flip through and try different problems from among the 150 presented. For the first 20 questions or so, he completed one question after another. But then around question 25, he began skipping a few.

If he came to ask me for help, it was very easy to help him. Since most of the questions required him to complete multiple calculations, I could show him how to complete half the problem and then he could continue it on his own. He then could take the information to complete the comparison.

We worked through the top question here about the knees of cockroaches together.

And what happened when I was confused? There are hints located after the problems in the back of the book. So if I was stuck, I could turn there to give our son some pointers and tips. And finally, we could check the work completed using the solutions which followed the hints.

What Did We Think? 

I really liked that while working on the problems in the workbook, I got to see how my son thinks and solves problems. There were more than a few instances where I started to explain things and he just wrote down the answer. He definitely seems like he can more easily solve math problems in his head than I can.

In the introduction, it states, "The solution process is open-ended, allowing students to create mathematical reasoning and to decide how to quantify to formulate a conclusion" (ii). Open-ended means that our son was able to get to the answer in whichever manner he was best able to do. This can prevent difficulty in math learning (e.g., our oldest struggled in math class when he attended public school because he could not show his work the way his math teachers wanted when he intuitively would try to solve problems via another method).

The fact the solutions do not just give you an answer—but provide you with a method of how to complete the answer—is a great bonus. For example, question number 36 asks children to determine whether each animal shelter has more dogs or cats. They are then given the total number of animals and how many of those animals are dogs. The hint prints the subtraction problem needed to find the number of cats while the solution provides each subtraction problem necessary to find the answer that both Furry Town and Happy Hairy have more cats while Fuzzy Village has more dogs.

We could look here for help and the answer to which shelter had more dogs or cats.

What does our son think? Our son enjoys the problems which require you to fill in the blanks (for example, _____ + 4 = 15). He said, "I just love the book." Completing questions in Dare to Compare Math: Beginning for homeschool is not a chore for our son as he enjoys answering the various questions. He thinks it would be helpful for children who need to practice addition, subtraction, geometry, and more.

I think Dare to Compare Math: Beginning would be a great addition to one's homeschooling mathematics curriculum. On those days when you need to push mathematics a little bit more, you can very easily incorporate Dare to Compare Math: Beginning into your day.

Do You Want to Know More? 

The Critical Thinking Co.™ offered the Homeschool Review Crew several different books to review. Please be sure to check out the rest of the reviews! You can also review sample pages for the various books including the one we reviewed: Dare to Compare Math: Beginnings.

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Reinforcing Important Skills: A Review of Math Shed and Spelling Shed

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Digital learning can be a great way to incorporate the practice of important skills such as math fact fluency and spelling. In our homeschool, when our kids can see learning as a game, they are even more excited about completing their daily tasks. Our family was given a one-year subscription to Spelling Shed and Math Shed to review in our homeschool. We used the program with our younger two children who are in kindergarten and second grade and used both the Spelling Shed and Math Shed platforms to practice different skills.

What is Spelling Shed? 

Spelling Shed is an online spelling platform designed by teachers with the goal of making spelling fun. While the practicing of spelling and learning new words is fun, it is also easy for adults – parents and teachers – to manage the platform. There is an entire curriculum available with the site that you can use or you can add your own spelling lists for your children. You can even assign weekly work in the Teacher Hub. 

So families (and schools) can use Spelling Shed either as a curriculum or a supplement to their own curriculum. I looked through the curriculum - which seems very thorough. There are 36 weekly spelling lists which contain one 20-30 minute lesson, resources to deliver the lesson, one spelling practice sheet, and one homework sheet. Since we already had a curriculum we were using, I put our spelling lists into Spelling Shed for our children.

Our daughter was able to select her spelling list from this page. As you can see she has
worked on some more than others as indicated by the drone and the egg. 

What is Math Shed?

Math Shed provides number skills practice ranging from number bonds, addition, and subtraction to multiplication, division, and negative numbers. Students select which skill they wish to practice and then complete as many questions as they can correctly in 60 seconds. Just like with Spelling Shed, you can assign weekly assignments in the Teacher Hub.

Once your child is logged in and selects Math Shed, they will pick from the planets below to practice their different math skills. Once they pick a planet, they can even further narrow down the skill they wish to practice.

What skill do you want to practice? 

Be even more specific – which area in multiplication? 

How Did We Use the Programs in Our Homeschool? 

We used Spelling Shed and Math Shed in two different ways in our homeschool. On some days, both children asked if they could play the games. They enjoyed working together to answer questions, played a modified version of hangman on Spelling Shed, and wanted to collect as many honeypots as they could so they could purchase clothing, backgrounds, and accessories for their avatar.

On other days, I asked each child to spend time completing at least one activity on each program. Depending on if they were eager to go do something other than homeschooling, they spent more or less time completing multiple activities.

For each of our children, I inputted their spelling lists and assigned them tasks to work with those lists. As they worked more and more with the lists, they saw that the characters transformed from larva to drone and to worker bee. Both children liked that they could go back and work on past assignments to practice those spelling lists again. 

What Do We Think? 

I really liked that both of our children enjoyed working with Math Shed and Spelling Shed. They asked to play and sometimes I had to stop them from working on the programs. Anytime that our children willingly complete homeschooling assignments, it makes life easier.

I also enjoyed playing the bonus game, Bee Keeper, with them. It was fun to see if we could identify a variety of words. I think this also helped them think outside the box and learn how to spell new and more difficult words. (The Bee Keeper game did get harder when it was pulling from their spelling lists.)

One of the bonus games from Spelling Shed.

I think that playing both Spelling Shed and Math Shed have helped both of our children increase their spelling fluency and math fact fluency. When working on his other math assignments, I see our son completing addition and subtraction questions more quickly and accurately. And I think the Spelling Shed has given our daughter encouragement with her reading and writing skills.

When children complete the spelling or math, it lists the words or problems and shows if they were correct or not.

I loved that we could include our own spelling lists into Spelling Shed using the Hub Dashboard. This made it very easy to incorporate Spelling Shed into our daily homeschooling routine. It also didn't make it seem like this was just another online program that we were using. It was connected to our children's lessons.

I appreciate that our children could use the keyboard to type their answers if they wished or they could use the mouse to click on each letter as they attempted to spell it. This gives them another online resource to help practice keyboarding skills along with their regular homeschool work. And you can turn music, sound effects, and the reading of letters on and off in Spelling Shed. (I love an online resource where you can silence the background music.)

Finally, I also like that there are different levels. Below you can see how the easy levels and hard levels are presented in Spelling Shed. In the easier levels, the words are presented before spelling with fewer letter choices.

Spelling the word we in hard level brings in some extra letter choices.

What Do Our Kids' Think? 

Our daughter's favorite part of Spelling Shed is the spelling of words. She likes counting in Math Shed. She also said she feels clever because the spelling is getting easier for her. She said it is helping her read better because she can read more books.

Our son loves that he can make his own lists in Spelling Shed. (He spends a lot of time looking around on his homeschool online resources to figure things out and find out what he can do.) He said, "I love that you can search for lists that people have made." He also likes the extreme level in Spelling Shed. He has set up his own lists where it requires him to capitalize letters (there is a button on the screen that acts as a shift key). When I asked him about Math Shed, he said, "I like the bonds to ten (number bonds)." He does see improvement in his math fact fluency after using the different parts of Math Shed. 

If you are looking for online programs to assist your children in spelling or mathematics, I recommend you taking a closer look at Spelling Shed and Math Shed. Our son said he would recommend Math Shed to someone if they were really struggling in mathematics. He also thinks Spelling Shed could help children of all ages who have difficulty with spelling. I think Spelling Shed and/or Math Shed might be good fits for your home during the summer break or your homeschool year-round if you want to practice skills. 

Do You Want to Learn More? 

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Many Homeschool Review Crew families were given the opportunity to use Math Shed and Spelling Shed in their homeschools. Please check out their reviews to see how they used them.

Studying the Art of the Middle Ages: A Review of Artistic Pursuits Inc.

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way.

Like most homeschooling families, our family enjoys incorporating art into our other subjects. Artistic Pursuits Inc. makes that very easy to do with their four-year course for kindergarten and elementary students. It takes children through history as they produce a variety of works of art. In the first volume, students work on building their visual vocabulary (read our review here: Building Visual Vocabulary). Then you can either complete the volumes in chronological order or pick and choose which ones interest you and your children. We have reviewed both volumes 1 and 2 (Art of the Ancient review) so we decided to pick Art of the Middle Ages which is volume 3 to review this time.

Our children love learning about anything relating to knights and castles so this book was an excellent choice for our family to review! There are 18 lessons which cover a variety of art techniques. There is a combination of text lessons and video lessons to teach your children how to produce different artworks. No matter which type of lesson you are using, all of the materials are listed in the book.

The video lessons provide some background historical information presented by video host Ariel Holcomb. The video lesson then presents the art project and instructs how to complete the art project, step by step. You can choose to view the video lessons in order or select from the main screens. When the video lesson demonstrates how to create the art project, you will be watching an over the shoulder viewpoint as the art teacher, Brenda Ellis, works.

The text lessons vary in that they sometimes provide prep notes (which can be helpful if you are teaching the lessons to a large group of children outside a classroom setting). There is then historical information given and questions to answer such as "Can you name the bold colors used by the artist?" in the Christ in Majesty tapestry. After viewing real-world examples, the steps are laid out for how you and your children can create the art project yourselves. Photos of the work in progress are included as well as a photo of a finished product by a child.

Here you can see the historical information (surrounded by the tissue paper we used).

How Did We Use Art of the Middle Ages in Our Homeschool?

While we could very easily have used this alongside a history curriculum focusing upon the Middle Ages or a literature curriculum in which we read about the kings and courts of the past, I choose to work through the projects with our children based upon what materials we had and which ones they wanted to try out.

We completed the following projects:

• Paper Loom Weave: The kids completed both a basic weave and then the crown. I love that our children could complete this project more than once if they wanted to weave using different colors.  

• Art in Monasteries – Medieval Illumination: We used clip art and scrap paper rather than having our children draw pictures to add to their large letters. They also decided to choose letters based upon their gaming characters. 

• Art in Basilicas – Byzantine Mosaics: This fit in perfectly as we had been watching a program that shared the mosaics in the Christian churches like the Hagia Sophia. 

• Straw Loom Weave: I think I had more fun with this project than the kids. Maybe in a few years when they are older, they will want to try again. They had trouble with moving the yarn over and under the straws so our older son and I helped them complete their project. 

• Low-Relief: Our children had so much fun creating their own modified versions of shields. We used animals from the ocean as it is almost summer and then used modified materials. This project encouraged our son to want to read more about heraldry and what all the colors and symbols stood for in the Middle Ages. 

• Art in Windows: Gothic Glass was a very fun project as the kids got to pick and choose different color tissue paper to create the glass effect. 

I used the lessons from the Art of the Middle Ages as fun homeschooling lessons. We often like to incorporate arts and crafts into our week so these were perfect. I could share a bit of history about the topic with our children. We either watched the video lesson where historical information was shared or we read the text and answered the questions together. Then our children could have fun creating their art.

My Thoughts

I love that the book is hardcover with full-color, glossy pages. The quality of the book is fantastic and will be able to last through much referencing. There is also space to keep the discs in the front of the book.

I would love it if the video lessons had more detailed instructions that were either printed in the book or you could download. I like to read and re-read instructions rather than just listen or watch instructions. That is my personal learning style. So when we were watching the video lesson, I wrote down notes to reference for when we would be working on the projects. (I also had trouble playing the discs. We ended up having to play the Blu-ray disc in our gaming console as it would not work in the Blu-ray player. I also could not get the DVD disc to work.)

I like that you have the option to purchase the materials directly from Artistic Pursuits Inc. (with or without the book). However, you can make substitutions if necessary and your projects will be okay. For example, I thought we had Gesso which is one of the materials for the Low-Relief project but we didn't. So the kids painted the shield with white paint and then they painted the sections and the animal with regular paint. The shields still turned out really cool.

I would recommend the K-3 books from Artistic Pursuits Inc. as they are well made and provide many great art activities for your children. I love the incorporation of art history which I feel makes the curriculum even more versatile. I also like that we can go back and use the lessons again as our children grow more skilled and create new artwork.

Do You Want to Learn More?

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Artistic Pursuits Inc. offers a great variety of curriculum for your homeschooling needs. Members of the Homeschool Review Crew had the opportunity to review items for PK-12 grades, so be sure to check out their reviews!

Do you have an artist taking their first steps? There is a 16-week summer series where children can learn to draw from observation. Check out the blog here: The Artist's First Steps.

If you are interested in the K-3 level books (like those we have reviewed previously), then perhaps you might want to take a look at the online courses. For example, for the Art of the Middle Ages, you will receive 18 lessons online which is perfect for international homeschooling families.