A Mom's Quest to Teach

Friday, July 17, 2020

Learning About the Alphabet: I is for Iguana

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Over the course of twenty-six posts, I will introduce my own simple lessons for the letters of the alphabet. I will provide ideas and suggestions for a week's worth of activities.

For the letter I, we focused upon iguanas.

So just what is an iguana? They are one type of lizard that lives in a variety of climates and habitats. There are 35 different species of iguana that live primarily in North and South America (with a few species living on the island of Madagascar).

photo courtesy of Brian R.

Iguana Facts

Text: Learning About the Alphabet: I is for Iguana; A Mom's Quest to Teach; child's painting of an iguana

Iguanas have an opening on the top of their head that is only covered by skin that is called a 'third eye' - scientists think the 'third eye' help the iguana interpret its environment
Green iguanas can grow to be up to 6 feet long (from head to tail)
Green iguanas can weigh about 11 pounds
Marine iguanas live on and around the Galapagos Islands - they are often seen swimming
Male iguanas tend to be more colorful than female iguanas
The blue iguana can weigh up to 30 pounds
Iguanas lay eggs and are cold-blooded
Many iguanas use their whip-like tail for defense against predators
Iguana females lay their eggs and then abandon them – they do not raise their young
Because reptiles iguanas are cold-blooded, they will sunbathe to help regulate their body temperature

Projects

Pets: Some individuals keep iguanas as pets. Be sure to do your research before purchasing any pet. Iguanas need a temperature-controlled environment since they are cold-blooded and require special care. They can also grow quite large, have sharp claws, and like any animal may bite when startled, sick, or annoyed.

Books

There aren't too many iguana-specific books but there are plenty of books about lizards!

Activities

If you live near a playground, you can very easily discuss how most iguanas are arboreal or spend most of their time in the trees. Children can then spend climbing and pretending they are iguanas climbing on the playground equipment.

Iguana Leaf Painting

Materials

Steps

1. Draw a picture of an iguana on a sheet of paper.

2. Gather leaves as your paintbrushes. (Since many iguanas live in the trees, I thought using a new painting technique would be fun.)

3. Paint the iguana.

4. Allow to dry and then display proudly on the refrigerator (or wherever you hang children's artwork).

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Homeschooling Resources: Language Arts

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Reading comes naturally to some individuals. Some parents struggle with getting their kids to go to sleep because their children are too busy reading books late into the night. Other children might struggle with learning but eventually grow to enjoy it. And don't forget those children who don't seem to like reading no matter what the subject material.

Our three children represent the spectrum of readers. Our younger son loves to read and was reading the letters and words printed on our clothing at early age while our (even younger) daughter took a while to learn to read but now quite happily sits down with a book. Our oldest was a fan of books when he was much younger but really does not enjoy to read as much as my husband and I do.

So how can you help your children become better readers? How do you help them master different language arts skills? There are so many options from online sites that provide fun games like Reading Eggs to offline unit studies that focus on one specific author like William Shakespeare. And don't forget to provide your children with good literature like the Boxcar Children series, Britfield & The Lost Crown, The Chronicles of Narnia, and J.R.R. Tolkien's works.

Reading Curriculum and Language Arts Courses

One of the resources we were able to review was StoryTime Treasures and More StoryTime Treasures from Memoria Press. Memoria Press follows a classical approach to education. The children's books used with StoryTime Treasures are children's classics. While reading the stories, children will use workbooks that provide vocabulary exercises and an introduction to grammar and punctuation and will also practice critically thinking about stories. We were able to read a number of fun and interesting children's storybooks while teaching key concepts in the language arts.

Another fantastic source that we have used with our teen son is the wide selection of language arts courses at SchoolhouseTeachers.com. He has taken American Literature in Historical Context and Christian Values in J.R.R. Tolkien. In the first course, he read a variety of work written by Americans and studied it in relation to events in American history. For example, he read:

Text: Homeschooling Resources: Language Arts - Read Excellent Books & Improve Writing Skills; background image of typewriter keys

Poems by Anne Bradstreet
Writings from George Whitefield
The Scarlet Letter
Little Women
And more!

While studying J.R.R. Tolkien, he read through The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings series, and The Silmarillion. In addition to answering questions that required him to reflect upon the stories, he also wrote several papers for the course.

Unit Studies and More

If you prefer to use unit studies in your homeschool, there are also many great options. You can find several unit studies at SchoolhouseTeachers.com that allow you to read entire works, read selections that include poetry, or focus upon reading comprehension and writing skills.

Text: Unit Studies; SchoolhouseTeachers.com; background image of map and binoculars

Another great resource for language arts unit studies is Progeny Press. They offer unit studies on a numerous selection of books that could suit the needs of kindergarten through twelfth grade. In the past, we have reviewed several of the study guides including:

Perelandra by C.S. Lewis
The Long Way to a New Land by Joan Sandin
A New Coat of Anna by Harriet Ziefert

All of the study guides from Progeny Press incorporate vocabulary activities, critical thinking, and additional activities where children can be creative. For example, one could bake a cake, create a bookmark, or draw a scene from the book. One other aspect of these language arts studies guides that I like is that they ask children to reflect upon various Bible quotes and relate them to the book they are reading.

Reading Good Books

As someone who loves to read, I can't finish this post without mentioning some of the books that our children have enjoyed reading while homeschooling. If you have been reading A Mom's Quest to Teach for any length of time, you have probably seen at least a few book reviews that I have shared so you might know what types of books I enjoy. But what about our children?

Even our teen, who is not a huge reader, really enjoyed Britfield & The Lost Crown. In fact, just a few weeks ago he picked up the book so he could see when the next one in the series is supposed to be released. This is a tremendous compliment from him.

Both our younger children enjoy the Who Was Series of books which we were first introduced to on a trip to the library. They also have a huge collection of Minecraft themed books and Joke books that they seem to read on a daily basis. This is in addition to the large collection of children's picture books that we often read together. Personally, I love books by Leo Lionni and Jan Brett.

What are your favorite books for children or teens?

Friday, July 10, 2020

Dice, Decks, and Boards: Tenzi Game and Tenzi Card Deck

I received a FREE copy of this game and game deck from Timberdoodle in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. This post contains affiliate links. For more information, please see my Terms of Use and Disclosure Policy page. Thank you.

Our family loves dice! One of the items I have had on my wishlist at Timberdoodle is the Tenzi Game (which is part of the second-grade curriculum kit). So, I was very excited when the opportunity to review the game and the card deck became available. It actually arrived just in time for our younger son's birthday so it was like a present for the whole family.

What Exactly is Tenzi?

Tenzi is an award-winning game that is fast-paced and easy to learn. Each game contains forty dice (10 each of four different colors). One set can be used by four people to play the original Tenzi game. How do you play? Players roll all ten of their dice in order to display ten identical numbers. They keep rerolling until all ten of their dice are the same number. Add in the Tenzi Card Deck and you will find 77 Ways to Play Tenzi (including a couple more ideas that are including on the rules that come with the original set of dice).

With so many different ways to play Tenzi, you can easily fill a game night with just two simple purchases: the Tenzi game and the card deck. On the evenings where we played Tenzi, we played at least six or more games and used the cards to shake up the rules. I think one of our kids' favorites was where you had to make a sound like a farmyard animal after each roll (Farmzi). It was very loud in our dining room during that game!

Tenzi Dice; Tenzi card with rules for Fivezi

The cards are 3.5 inches by 3.5 inches in size.

We started with playing the regular Tenzi game and then moved on, trying our hand at different versions based upon the card deck. For example, we played Oddzi & Endzi where we had to roll any combination of only 1's, 3's, and 5's. This is a great way to teach or refresh children's memories of odd and even numbers. We also played Clapzi (one claps after every roll), Sixty-Fourzi (you need to roll six 4's and four 6's), and Fivezi (using only five dice), among others. The first night we even ended our gaming session with one where the last one to get Tenzi cleans up the dice.

The Dice

The Tenzi dice have pips – not numbers on them – which encourages your child to count. If you have other six-siders you might have dice that have numbers printed on them rather than the pips. This can give an unfair advantage (or at least that is what my family said when I was using extra dice so I could play as the fifth person).

I think the dice are well-made and I didn't feel as if any were loaded – or at least I couldn't tell as I was rolling the dice so many times. The pips were all drawn/painted on clearly so they were easy to read.

What Did We Think?

There is nothing quite like forty (or more) dice rolling at the same time as everyone tries to get their match. For a few moments – at the start of each game – there was silence (which is quite amazing considering there were five of us playing ranging in age from five years to adult).

We loved Tenzi so much that we bought an additional set so all five of us could play at the same time (without raiding our other dice bags). I could easily see this as a game that we take with us to friends' houses for game night. It is easy to transport and simple to explain while still being really fun.

While I love the package for display, I think we will probably buy a dice bag to hold all the dice in so that they don't get lost. Depending on the size of the dice bag, we might even be able to keep the card deck in the bag, too.

I would highly recommend Tenzi and the Tenzi Card Deck! It was easy enough for our five-year-old to understand and play but exciting enough that our teen loved it. There a few cards within the Tenzi Card Deck that we won't be able to use with our youngest (due to dexterity needed or ability to calculate numbers) but – in general – everyone can play this game and have great fun!

Other Timberdoodle Reviews

We have also reviewed other fun and educational products from Timberdoodle including:

Creating Magic with Djeco Artistic Patch Cosmos - a very neat craft kit
Book Club: My Very First Body Book Review - a sturdy book for Preschoolers
Building Problem Solving Skills: A Review of Bugzzle - a fun game for one
Finding The Fun in Homeschooling: Adding a Puzzle into your Chemistry Course - a great way to review chemistry and spend time together as a family

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Crafts: J is for Jump Rope

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Do your children enjoy jumping rope? Or perhaps you call it skipping rope? For the sake of this craft, we are going to call it, "jump rope," because J is for Jump Rope!

Background

Rope has been used for skipping for a long time. There have been examples of rope-jumping for fun and exercise in Ancient Phoenicia, Ancient Egypt, and Ancient Greece. Even though jumping rope today is often done mostly by girls, it was an activity in history that was primarily done by boys and men.

The activity of jumping rope spread through the ancient world to Medieval Europe and eventually to America, possibly by the Dutch. In fact, the version of Double Dutch has been attributed to the theory that it might have originated among immigrants from the Netherlands in Colonial America. In Double Dutch, two long jump ropes are used which are turned in opposite directions and more than one player may jump at the same time.

Jump rope can be done by oneself or with friends. Those friends can either turn the rope or jump in depending upon the length of the rope or the style of jump rope being done.