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Fiddlesticks Education

The First drawing

5/10/2020

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The Book 'The First Drawing' by Mordicai Gerstein is an excellent introduction to prehistory, archeology as well as art history study. It is rich in it's contents and can be extended into a range of other activities.

We read this book and researched the animals of this time period using the Pleistocene Wildlife Cards from my shop. I allowed Lizzie to choose her favourite animal (a Smilodon) and we purchased a fossil kit, we build a replica skeleton and made a plaster skull. 

We watched a tour of Lascaux caves, France on YouTube and played the cave art game from my Etsy shop, to familirise ourselves with the common styles and shapes of cave art.

​Next we used scrumpled up packing paper and glued this inside a cardboard box, next we mixed PVA glue with a little play sand and painted this over the top of the paper, (creating a stone like feel to the inside of the box).

Lizzie drew her own interpretations of the cave paintings inside the box using charcoal and natural coloured chalk pastels. We finished up by displaying our smilodon fossils inside our cave.
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African Safari Early Years

22/5/2020

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This early years pack is full of resources to explore the African savannah, including wildlife, plants, science, mark making, phonics, math and geography. Click the image to the right to view the bundle listing on Etsy. This pack comes with an inspiration booklet full of suggestions on ways to use the resources, but here are some photo ideas on making the best of this pack.
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African Safari - Early Years Complete Curriculum Unit | Preschool Activities Bundle
This pack contains multiple activities, as always I suggest choosing 4-8 to set out at a time, when your child has fully explored the activity and is no longer engaging in it, swap it out for another. Below are just a few suggestions on inviting activities you can set up to accompany this study.
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BIOME MAPPING
This was super popular with our children, the blank map can be paired with the habitat discs and labels from the tray. Children used the matching poster mounted on the wall to look and compare where each biome fits onto their own map.
ANIMAL CAMOUFLAGE
Here I set out the camouflage cards (3 sets of cards, showing an animal, pattern and where they camouflage) with some matching animal figures. 
​Children had fun pairing the animals with the cards, finding their patterns and then experimenting with the habitat locations to see where they would camouflage best.
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SAFARI SMALL WORLD
We set up a busy small world safari using our Playmobil 123 safari set. We mounted some of the wildlife and nature posters onto the wall behind so children could use the posters to identify the animals they discovered on their safaris.
MARK MAKING
Here is our mark making basket, we added the writing pattern boards and wildlife handwriting strips to the basket along with a range of mark making tools. I also added some of these beautiful geometric colouring pages from Chickie&Roo
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ANIMAL HOME PLAYDOUGH
Setting out a range of loose parts and African animal figures combined with a range of Little Munchkin's Playdough, enabled the children to create and explore the habitat of different animals and create their own homes for them.
ELEPHANT ALPHABET
This activity tray uses the elephant letters from the printable pack along with with some fun elephant toys. The children paired up the mummy and 'baby' elephants by matching the capital and lower case letters.
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MEERKAT MATHS
On this tray I placed the numbers and maths symbols as well as the meerkat manipulatives. The children built mounds with the play dough and then either counted and matched the meerkats and numbers or created simple addition and subtraction sums to solve.
SENSORY TRAY
Here is a simple African river bed themed sensory tray we set out on our activity shelves, using dried beans, split peas, lentils, willow branches and herb sprigs alongside some Playmobil animals.
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MINI WORLDS
Each day I set out a different animal flashcard along with a mini play world for the children to explore. These tiny trays with a card, animal figure and a selection of natural loose parts create a really inviting way for the children to learn to identify new types of animals.

Book Suggestions

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Some of our favourite safari books:
- Africa is not a country
- Galimoto
- Baby Giraffe
- Beatrices Goat
- We're all Going on Safari
- Little Elephant Thunderfoot

extensions

Visit to a wildlife park, explore African cultures, countries and other habitats from across this very diverse continent.
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Handwriting & Grammar Lessons

13/5/2020

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I'm going to detail how I use my 'Charlotte Mason Style Beatrix Potter Language Arts' Pack to teach my 6 year old. I use multiple elements of this pack to teach spelling, vocabulary, grammar, handwriting and memory work.
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We are using this pack alongside the 'A Year of Tales' curriculum available from https://wilkinsonnest.com/a-year-of-tales.html - so I choose a quote from the pack that co-incides with the book we are currently studying (the language arts pack has a handy reference list matching the quotes to their book if you want to work through them this way). I choose one quote to work on for that week. And each day's lesson will last around 10 mins

day 1

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I begin by introducing the quote we will be working on. We will read this together, my child reading any words they know / can sound out and I will fill in the ones they don't. We will read it a number of times till we are confident with the quote, and practice reciting it.

On day one we will also talk about any vocabulary words in the extract that my child does not understand. Then I will move on to highlighting any words that may prove tricky for spelling (as we are using a year of tales we will also combine this with the spelling list from the curriculum, looking for those words in the quote).

Finally I will have my child build the spelling and vocabulary words we've picked out of the quote. This beautiful letter set and board is from the wonderful 'Bless This Homeschool' - but you could also use a movable alphabet.

Day 2

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First of all we will practice reciting the quote if  we can, and then read the quote filling in any parts we can't remember. We will also have a quick practice building the spelling and vocabulary words we picked out in day one.

Today I provide my daughter with a tracing page of the quote (the pack comes with both pre-cursive and print versions to choose from). She then carefully traces over the quote focusing on letter formation and handwriting. I will allow her to work on this for no more than 5 mins (5 minutes of good concentration and effort), if the quote is not completed that is fine - we may come back to it tomorrow, or we may leave it and move on.

I watch carefully and make a note of any letters where the formation needs to be practiced, we follow this by using our wooden handwriting boards or a chalk board to practice those letters further. These beautiful wooden letter blocks are from 'Treasures from Jennifer'.

Day 3

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On day three we begin by having a quick recap of the quote (reciting if possible, reading if not), and practicing our spelling and vocabulary words. I may allow a little time to work on the tracing work from the previous day if it was not repeated. 

Next we use some of the grammar concept cards (I selected a small number that we wish to study and master over the year, ones that are appropriate for my 6 year old as well as ones she has shown an interest in), I have added colour coding to the cards.

We will talk about each concept and then see if there are any examples in the quote we have chosen and colour them to match. (There is at least one quote that specifically demonstrates each grammar concept in the pack, so if you would rather teach a specific concept you can take that approach)

Day 4 & 5

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On day 4 we again begin by recapping the quote and spelling words. Then I provide the matching copywork board. 

​On this board I have my daughter carefully copy the quote on the lines below in her neatest handwriting. This usually takes us 2 days to work on. I will also ask her to colour on the printed quote the grammar concepts she can recognise. This is the page that we keep to add to her 'portfolio of best work'. 

You may wish to use day 5 and one of the blank writing pages from the pack to dictate the quote to your child for them to write, we are not quite ready for dictation yet, but hope to be there soon.

Try it out...

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My Beatrix Potter Language Arts Pack is available in my Etsy Shop.

This pack is suitable for a range of ages and can be tailored for children ages from 3 to 15 (ideal for full family learning, or to cycle through in different years).

This program uses Charlotte Mason's approach to language arts, it takes extracts from the beautiful 'Tales of Beatrix Potter' for children to use for copy work, developing their handwriting. The extracts are carefully selected to demonstrate different aspects of grammar. Younger children will be exposed to the correct way to use a range of punctuation and parts of speech through copy work activities. Older children can be introduced to the names of these through grammar definitions. This pack can also be used as dictation exercises of memory work.

This pack includes:

- A parent guide with an introduction about this style of learning, a guide to the different difficulty 'levels' included, quick reference to grammar concepts and a list of all the extracts by book.
- 36 Quote Posters/Cards in a pre-cursive font (for reading, dictation, copy work)
- 36 Print tracing boards
- 36 Pre-cursive tracing boards
- 36 Direct copy work boards
- 12 Lined writing pages

freebie

You can download the pages for the quote used in this lesson guide by clicking on the file to the right to try the program out for yourself.
beatrixpotterfreebie.pdf
File Size: 59059 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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    Lessons

    On this blog you can find example lessons using my resources, ideas on how I use the resources in my own homeschool and early years provision.

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