Our Arts & Science Homeschool Enrichment program during Winter and Spring trimesters was dedicated to World Geography — Africa.

The diversity and abundance of Africa left the kids in awe and excited to travel there one day. The goal for our lessons was not only to have the children learn the information, but most importantly to inspire curiosity and self motivation to discover the world around us and beyond! What we learned was just an introduction to this beautiful continent and we desire to encourage our students to continue their own learning and discussions at home!

Click here to see our full overview of all the activities and fun we had during this curriculum.

World Geography: Africa overview — click here

As we are wrapping up our 2022 fall trimester we wanted to share with you some of the photos from our STEAM program (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math), this fall it was dedicated to human anatomy.

Skeleton clay modeling

Our core project was playdough modeling of human skeleton. Over the years we developed and worked with the children on a number of playdough modeling projects on topics such as birds, hibernation, ant hill structure and botany. These projects are both science and art. Children find them fun and engaging, while slow pace of the step-by-step project offers deeper understating of the topic and better retention of new knowledge.

While working on a playdough modeling project the following disciplines are incorporated:

• ✓ Science — botany, anatomy, biology, etc. Depending on what we are modeling.
• ✓ Mathematics — children use measuring tape and rulers, we discuss proportions, comparative sizes and shapes.
• ✓ Fine motor skill and sensory work through making of various elements needed in the course of the lesson.
• ✓ Arts and self expression — during the project children learn both to model someone’s else’s work (essential in development of new skills) and once new skills acquired children are free to create and add their own elements to the project.
• ✓ Logical thinking — learning to plan a project made of multiple steps.

Hands-on experiments

As each week we worked on building a next section of the human skeleton we discussed with the children the function of that skeletal segment. Children learned about nerves and their role in communication between the brain and all of the body. We discussed the essential role of the rib cage in protecting vital organs, such as heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys. The children were fascinated about the dual bone structure of the forearm and lower part of the leg, and seeing how that structure makes twisting movement possible! We had a fun experiment on digestion, and even built a little robotic hand.

Scroll down to see some of the photos from these projects of fall’s STEAM curriculum.

Hands-on experiment topic: spine, vertebrae and spinal disks

Hands-on experiment topic: lungs

Hands-on experiment topic: hand structure

“Children have a natural affinity towards nature. Dirt, water, plants, and small animals attract and hold children’s attention for hours, days, even a lifetime.” – Ben Hewitt, Homegrown

We are excited to share the news that our forest school has adopted a pack of African Wild Dogs in order to help this wonderful, but critically endangered species to survive.

Further in this post I tell a little bit about how this adoption came about. But first, I wanted to share this wonderful documentary about African Wild Dogs. The documentary is by Kim Wolhuter, and I highly recommend his other nature documentaries.

“Dogs in the land of lions” film

If this video fails to load you can find it available for free here on PBS.ORG. Continue reading

Hello,

If you are looking for a beautiful craft with fall leaves to do with children I got a wonderful little art project to share with you. It is a rather simple, but very beautiful forest craft. And it requires minimal supplies that don’t come from the forest, and could be easily done in an outdoor setting.

Over at our school cabin we usually have various logs and old branches left from pruning of the trees, or from dead old trees that got taken down. I had a stash of slices from an old aspen trunk and this craft was a perfect use for them. If you would like to try this craft, but do not have a slice of wood handy, you can use a piece of cardboard from one of your latest Amazon shipments. 🙂

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Our outdoor school program in Palmer Lake has a little cabin right by the mountains. The school cabin is used solely for the purpose of the program, and not as a residence. It is a charming, almost fairytale-like environment with a beautiful outdoor space for playing under the canopy of majestic evergreens, working on art projects and learning about nature.

“In every gardener is a child who loves to play in the dirt. In every child is a gardener ready to grow.” ~ unknown source

In our Palmer Lake outdoor school location we start every day in the forest where children spend a few hours playing and exploring in the mountains. Around lunch they return to the school cabin where we work on a variety of different projects, such as playdough sculpting, watercolor painting, sewing. And gardening and tending to plants is also one of our essential activities there. As a part of that we have a small greenhouse, each child also has a small garden allotment where they grew snap peas and we also have a beautiful pollinator -friendly flower garden.

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