There is a great need to foster creative thinking in today's children. It will guarantee their success in the unpredictable future!

Have your children watch this and then see if they can make their own Rube Goldberg machine. No parameters on this one except NO FIRE -- send us your solutions!

Melvin The Magical Mixed Media Machine from HEYHEYHEY on Vimeo.

Creative Writing Exercises

Sometimes it is hard to get children to write, so think outside of the box:

1. Encourage them stand on their head and write (a trick that I learned from Bravewriter

2. Issue a challenge to participate in NANOWRIMO

3. Write a tweet.

4. Write in teams -- each person writes three lines and then covers up all but the last line and the general topic and then the next person does the same. Repeat until the "story" is done.

5. Use the mad-lib approach -- it makes writing fun. Do it in reverse: have your student write a story and then remove the words and let someone else fill in the blanks.

6. Put on a blindfold and dictate a story to someone else.

7. Go to p. 57, line 4 in 3 different books and create a story using the ines from all 3 books.

8. Use a picture as a story prompt.

9. Rewrite a fairy tale.

10. Rewrite a folk tale.

Native American History

One of my pet peeves about the way we teach the history of America is the obvious absence of attention to pre-colonial America. Here are some fun ways to explore the history of Native American Indians. Here is a good resource for books and music.

First, you must get these two books: American Indian and First People. I also recommend this series on PBS:We Shall Remain. Lesson plans to follow this summer.

Here are some fun experiential things to do:

bake, cook, eat
build and play games -- check out this site that explains the Native Alaskan Games
make instruments like drums, flutes, rain sticks and dulcimers and play music
write a native american song/chant in the Native American musical style, using a pentatonic scale, percussion and Orff Instruments
build native american dwellings such as long house, pueblo dwellings, teepee, cliff dwelling, wikiup, etc.
spend the night outside
build your own canoe out of cardboard
create your own native american art; here's a semi-good list of options but be creative and create your own
use paper mache on top of a cardboard shipping tube to make your own totem pole
carve soap to replica an Inuit sculpture
make a bow
for the final "experience", create your own living history museum

Colonial History

Teaching history through games is great fun. Introduce your students to colonial games by making and playing games such as:

ball and cup [ You can make your own ball and cup game by attaching a paper cup to the end of a stick. Tie a string to the stick. Use a staple gun to attach a ball to the end of the string. Swing the ball up and catch it in the cup. Children in Colonial days carved their own wooden cups with handles]
nine man norris
corn husk dolls
hoops [ You can play hoops with a hoola hoop and a stick]
tabletop nine pins
game of graces [You can use circles cut from cardboard and sticks or pencils.]
jacob's ladder
tops [Buy some wooden spinning tops and see who can make them spin the longest or farthest. Colonial children often made and played with spinning tops carved out of wood.]
quoits [Put a few sticks into the ground in your yard. Place them different distances from a marked point to stand. Tie a few piece of rope so that they form circles. Take turns throwing the rope hoops over the sticks. If the rope lands on a stick, then you get a point. You get more points for the sticks as they get farther away from you.]
draughts [Make a checkerboard and play checkers. You must only move one space forward at a time on your designated color. You can jump an opponent and take her piece. When you get a piece all the way across the board, it is then a "king" and can travel forward and backward. The person who successfully eliminates all of the opponent's checkers wins. In Colonial times the game pieces were carved out of wood.]
Scotch-hoppers

What do these games teach about American history? They teach culture and history as children learn what materials were available, the time consumed by projects, and they can draw connections to modern day games and materials and time management. They engage children as they learn about other children and present an opportunity to open discussion to other historical material.

Similes, Metaphors, Assonance, and Alliteration

Again, lesson plans will be posted later this summer. These lesson plans can be adjusted for students in grades 3-10. For now, to review similes, metaphors, assonance, and alliteration, have students do the following:

1. write a tweet (140 characters) for each [in the assonance and alliteration, ask them to ensure that all words use assonance or all words use alliteration -- for example, snake slithered slowly sideways snatching slimy salamander snack]

2. create a poster using glogster.com

3. write/perform a short play where each line contains one of the four items being reviewed

Teaching the Parts of Speech

Although I'll post the actual lesson plans later this summer, here is a quick and easy way to review the parts of speech. This can be done with 3rd-10th graders. First, watch the amazing Grammar Rocks series, available on VHS, DVD, or Youtube. Then, create "posters" representing the parts of speech. These can be as simple or complex as desired. When I post the lesson plan, I'll post some pictures of different leveled approaches to the posters. Finally, have the children write haikus or raps that helps them to remember the definitions of and information about each part of speech. For a truly experiential lesson, have the children combine a reading of their haiku or rap with the pictures using film. As a challenge activity, have students create their own parts of speech test. If you can write a test, you know the material!

What is Experiential Learning

Homeschoolers do this all the time. And, so do families. Experiential learning is learning through experiences rather than lecture or reading. While both lectures and reading have value, we remember most what have experienced just as we remember most how we feel. Experiential learning is about creating memorable learning experiences and positive feelings about learning that will help solidify one's pursuit of life-long learning. This blog is intended to be a free resource for teachers, families, homeschoolers and other who want to reach 5th graders through life experiences. Over the summer, I will slowly add lesson plans on the following topics: language arts, history, culture, technology, math, science, manners/etiquette, creative thinking, art, drama, and music. I invite your participation and hope that you enjoy the resources I share. Please share them freely but recognize that they are protected under a Creative Commons Copyright and please give credit where credit is due.