Running Off Sugar

If you'd like to run off the sugar you've fed your friend's kids before you send them home... here is a sure fire way! We played this obstacle course at our final Keepers of the fall.

1. Carry a ball on a spoon while walking forwards then backwards on a 2x4.


2. Crab walk 3 times around a set of chairs

3. Crawl under a set of chairs
4. roll a ball with their nose
5. Toss a bean bag at a small rubber ball on a cone... And make sure you toss them ALL over so Teacher of One is as out of breath as you are!

Fieldtrip: Cope Environmental Center

Our Keepers group took a fieldtrip to Cope Environmental Center. We had a wonderful time tromping through the woods looking for bugs.

Marble Painting

In April I taught a couple of art classes for our Keepers group. I posted about bubble painting which did not work out at all so instead we Marble Painted. It was WONDERFUL! The kids loved it and it produced a frame-worthy piece of art.

Drop 3 marbles in 3 different color paint.
We used primaries as this is what we had been studying.
Place paint covered marbles on paper inside a shallow box.
Then shake, rattle , & roll!

Let's Go Fly a Kite

We concluded this session of Keepers
with great hands on activities and a badge ceremony.
We flew kites, blew bubbles, and sailed windsocks in the wind.

Then we went inside for some color mixing with icing and graham crackers.

Then the children received three badges for Truthfulness, Weather, & Art.

I love this program! We look forward to this every week.

Bubble Painting

I am going to teach of couple of weeks at our Keepers group so I thought we would try out my project before hand. I used this lesson when I taught school but it has been awhile. I am glad I tried because it did not work at first... ugh!

Supplies: Tempera Paint, pan, dish soap, straws, paper.
(water too I later discovered)

My goal was to put in each color and as they blew the colors would mix;
they are learning about colors. Wrong! After blowing this is where I learned
I needed the water and it became a big blue-brown mess.
FYI: water, soap, 1 paint= mix

Blow, DO NOT suck, softly and straight down.

Place paper on bubbles making sure not to touch the wet pan.

BUBBLES!!

Even though we finally got it to work, I think I will try to find a new project. When we finished G was covered in blue freckles and it wasn't as cool as I thought it would be. If we are only going to do one project I want it to be AWESOME! Back to the drawing board.

Keepers Award Ceremony

The first session of Keepers of the Faith has come to an end.
Much has been learned and taken to heart. Relationships have formed. It has been very exciting! The children spent the afternoon putting finishing touches on their final projects. Then they enjoyed refreshments & games before receiving their award badges.

G received badges in ....

Hiking

• identify the state tree & bird
• use a compass
• know safety guidelines

Tools

• recognize and use basic tools
• tool saftey
• built a hat peg
• built a weaving loom (for the girls next semester)
  

Willingness

• listen to 6 devotions on willingness
  
• memorize Ecclesiastes 9:10
• Practice willingness at home
• define willingness
  

The girls received a badge for Scrapbooking rather than tools.
They created pages for the boys documenting the six weeks.
The group will meet again in March for Weather, Kites, and lots of fun!

Fieldtrip: Mounds State Park

Our Keepers group took a field trip to Mounds State Park. The kids are working on a hiking badge so they are learning about the state tree & bird, hiking saftey, and compass reading.

They first got to explore the many interactive exhibits in the Nature Center including touch & feel boxes, animal & habitat matching, live fish and amphibians, taxidermied local wild life, artifact discovery and tree identification.

Then they listened to an introduction to the Adena Indians and the Mounds.

They learned that the boats were made from tall, straight trees with not lower branches - The Tulip Tree, our state tree.

How could these Indians bring volcanic arrow and spear heads to Indiana? Our White River (which flows in the park) connects to the Wabash River which flows to the Ohio River which feeds into the Mississippi River which empties into the Ocean. Wow!

The Mounds are not burial mounds, which many books teach, but celebration mounds for the seasons. Dips in the Great Mound lines up with smaller mounds throughout the park. If you stand in the center of the Great Mound and look out to these lesser mounds, for lack of a better term, you will see amazing sunsets at the beginning of the seasons or special stars or constellations during other times of the year. Amazing!

The mounds were created by HAND! Earth was sometimes carried in baskets. It just boggles the mind. The children and their guide are standing at the edge of the center circle in the Great Mound (with their whistles for saftey).