France ~ The Eiffel Tower

 

So I figured it was about time I shared some more details on our recent trip to France. You might remember the Madeline post! This time we visited the Eiffel Tower. One of the most visited and well known structures in the entire world!

As is always the case with our group activities we have a large age range of children, from five up to fourteen years in fact so it can at times be a little tricky putting together something that will work for the entire group.

This time the information presented was pretty much the same for everyone but the output from the various age groups was much more appropriate.

As you can see here we had a simple tracing exercise for the youngest of the children and the middle to upper primary group completed a question and answer sheet after chatting about and watching a short informational video on the Eiffel Tower.

I actually struggled to find a video I was truly happy with, either my searching abilities this time around needed some work or there just isn't much out there in the form of short documentary style videos about the Eiffel Tower.

After watching the video and a having brief discussion the oldest of the group wrote a short informational report about the Eiffel Tower. They were given a list of questions to answer within the report. As a group we worked through all of the topics and discussed as necessary or when various points were raised.

I do enjoy working with older kids for this reason. We generally are not a group of one teacher and several students. I am simply one of them, together in that group all learning what we can, asking questions, sorting through the information and coming up with something that works for each of us.

I have included these Free Eiffel Tower Printable Worksheets as a download at the bottom of this post.


For a bit of fun we all took a ride on the Eiffel Tower Elevator. Well as close as we could get to a ride whilst remaining firmly planted here in the living room.

I love the view you get from this angle though, it is well worth watching.

There are quite few different Eiffel Tower Crafts out there on the web. I knew I needed something simple due to time constraints and the wide variety of ages of kids that I was dealing with.

In the end I went with the Straw Eiffel Tower Craft as it gave some level of flexibility, was simple enough for young ones and the older kids could add their own flair to it.

I googled a template and printed it on light weight card as I knew there would be loads of wet glue being added to these during the process. The template itself is really just to use as a guide so it doesn't need to be too particular.

I just love how even with such a simple activity they all came up with their very own different ideas.

When it came time for the older kids turn I gave them a great deal more choice with materials. There were of course the straws in varying colours, but I also laid out buttons, beads, pretty little paper flowers and other small bits and bobs envisioning them all having a grand old time turning their plain template into a beautiful rendition of the tower.

Alas, they all, but me, chose the straws. Oh well you know what they say about never working with children ;-) hahaha!

And that was our visit to the Eiffel Tower.

Would you like a copy of the Eiffel Tower Worksheets I shared above?  Please use this link to download a copy for your personal use.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Looking for more French themed activities? Visit My Pinterest Board

Follow Our Worldwide Classroom's board Country Units: France on Pinterest.

France ~ Madeline

We are visiting France with our micro-school friends over the next few weeks so I hope to be able to share a few glimpses of some of what we all get up to.

First off for my group was Madeline with the younger kids.

No visit to France is complete without the reading of Madeline.

I decided to look online for an audio visual as opposed to me reading. In the end I went with this one I found over at You Tube.



I put together a quick and simple sheet for us to chat about the book and for the kids to record some of their thoughts.

You can find the download link for this at the end of the post.

We had some interesting discussions about what life might be like in a boarding school and found it quite funny how Madeline's hospital stay was for ten lengthy days!

I found a cute, simple little paper craft activity to do.

Whilst we coloured our little Madeline's we watched this longer animated version of the book. It's quite cute and pretty funny!


   

We only had an hour having fun with Madeline and could have most definitely spent a great deal more time reading about and watching all of her adventures.

Pin This!

 

Would you like a copy of our reading response sheet? Please use this link to download a copy for your personal use.

Happy Homeschooling
Kylie

Come on over and join me at

Facebook ~ Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Google + 

Looking for more Madeline themed activities? Visit My Pinterest Board
Follow Our Worldwide Classroom's board Book Units: Madeline on Pinterest.

C is for China (Ancient)

So we've found ourselves at the point in history with SOTW at Ancient China. We thought it might be a nice idea to try and spend a little more time on this period and so joined forces with a few others to accomplish this.

Our themed country days have been working really well so we simply took the same guidelines and used them for our Ancient China Day. Each family brings along an activity to cover with the group. We decided on one day only, even though we could've easily spent a great deal longer on this. I for one learned an amazing amount about this period in time, so was very pleased with the outcome.

As a group our main goal is for exposure, I don't have my kids memorise lists of names, places and dates, the more we read, talk and do activities on these topics the more they naturally memorise them anyway, because they are making the connections.

From the Great Wall, to Silk, The Mongols, a myriad of inventions, the Terracotta Warriors and the amazing people themselves there is such a vast amount of information you could cover with this topic.

 

All of this was one big group effort, many hands really do make light work and I love how easy it is to pull together a great unit for the group when you only need to focus on one component of it.

I chose the topic of Silk, we, of course talked a little about silk worms, we read a couple of the Silk Legends  and talked briefly about the early beginnings of silk trade. The kids loved this Mythtory clip I found on You Tube.

I always try to do more reading on the topic both prior and after group days like these. I thought I'd share the books we used in addition to SOTW and the chapters covering Ancient China. I also thought I'd show you inside some of them, I know I love to see a page or two inside a book before I commit. Can never judge a book by its cover.

This was a second hand book sale purchase so for $1 definitely a great buy!

It covers all major areas of day to day life in Ancient China, such as birthdays, dinner time, getting dressed, inside a home, live in the country/city,

travel and transport, going to school, festivals and ceremonies and getting married. My kids were very wide eyed with the ages of marriage in Ancient China, boys were 20 and girls were a mere 15 years old! They really couldn't contain themselves when we discussed the topic of arranged marriages.

 

A lovely Chinese folk tale, filled with gorgeous illustrations. "When the Emperor is taken prisoner, only his tiniest daughter's courage and a little help from her kite can save him."

We all enjoyed this story, we felt tremendous sadness for the Djeow, whom no one thought of ever, but it wraps up nicely with Djeow taking her rightful place within the family. A shame that she had to do something heroic so her father would love her though.

From the book cover, With lavish illustrations and a highly informative text, The Silk Route traces the early history of the silk trade. From Mulberry groves of China to the marketplace of Byzantium and explores how two of the worlds greatest empires were brought together, forever opening the channels of commerce between East and West.

This is quite in depth for a 'picture book' but is perfect for a middle primary school aged child.

Ok so the Story of Silk is actually set in Thailand, it does reference early China and in fact the first couple of pages are devoted to that.

This is a very thorough account of silk, the silk worm and silk production, with some stunning photographs.

 

From the book cover, The Emperor's Silent Army features more than forty full colour photo's that showcase the terracotta troops. A vivid and engaging text tells all about the army as well as the extraordinary story of the man who commanded its creation, the ruthless and tyrannical first emperor of China.

There is so much to learn in this book and the photographs are amazing. The next best thing before seeing the soldiers for real.

This book I grabbed a couple of years ago in a book store throw out sale because the cover was damaged. However that was the only damage. I truly love these bargains this is fabulous book with a large amount of information

 

A large pop up image on each page and a few other small pop ups as well. The kids have spent a considerable amount of time pouring over this book.

Turning the pages, talking about the images and wondering what life would've been like in Ancient China. I've struggled to find much online about this book, all I can really tell you is that it is published by Hinkler Books and the author is Peter Riley.

This day was a fabulous jumping off point for Ancient China, we truly could've spent a great deal more time on this era, however we decided to move on. I know we will revisit Ancient China again in the future where we will have the opportunity to build upon everything we covered during this time.

Useful Links

My Pinterest Board for Ancient China

Early Silk Trading in cartoon format. This short you tube clip is great for the kids

Crash Course History: The Silk Road and Ancient Trade. Slightly longer clip and probably more suited to the older child.

Ancient Lapbook on Homeschool Share

Ancient China Lapbook Dynamic 2 Moms

Squidoo Lens on Ancient China

Powerpoint Presentations and More

World Wide Wanderings: Japan Wrap Up

We wrapped up our Japan Unit by all coming together to complete the lapbooks with all of the little bits and pieces the kids had been working on.

Designing the covers for their lapbooks. The only requirement here was that the cover image at least had to relate to Japan in some way. They ended up with maps, some Mt Fuji scenes, sushi, flags and carp fish.

Most of the kids have never completed a lapbook before and it's been awhile for my kids too, so doing it all together was a good exercise for them.

The covers from my kids lapbooks

And the inside finished pieces. We may add a couple of photographs, especially of the crafts they did since they won't fit inside a lapbook.

Look how proud they all are of their finished work, grins from ear to ear!

For something special, we took the kids out to a sushi train, they loved it and it got them trying even more sushi varieties too!

My Japan Board on Pinterest
Mini Booklets from Homeschool Share

• Pangea

• If The World Were A Village

• Continents & Oceans

• Countries Visited By Continent

                 Asia
                       Japan

              South America