google.com, pub-8985115814551729, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0 Free Printable Lesson Plans: cross-curricular
Showing posts with label cross-curricular. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cross-curricular. Show all posts

Free printable calendar lesson plans: reuse old calendars

  Hi friends of the Omschool! Teacher Omi (grama) here with free printable calendar lesson plans and ways to reuse old calendars. If you use paper calendars, you've got a treasure trove of math manipulatives at your disposal. Save your old calendars to make hands-on math activities to teach date and time, skip counting, sorting and organizing and calendar skills.

Reuse old calendars as math worksheets. Give students calendar pages and teach them to count, skip count by 2-8, to help kids understand times tables (fact families). The beauty of  reusing calendars as worksheets is that kids can write on them like workbook pages. Use them to teach days of the week and months of the year. 

Reuse old calendars as flashcards. Let children cut and paste calendar numbers onto recycled cardboard. Then students can arrange flashcards in order or by 2-8 fact families. In this way, you get double duty free lesson plans with math crafts and counting activities. 

Reuse old calendars as games. Have students cut and paste calendar numbers to make Memory games, Bingo or a pathway counting game such as Candyland. Students might also invent their own games. This expands these into cross-curricular free printable lesson plans that include writing, reading, spelling, creative writing, design and STEM activities. 

Reuse calendar pictures as homemade kids books. Calendar pictures are usually centered on a theme (nature scenes, etc.) Instruct students to cut and paste the 12 images onto recycled cardboard. Then they can practice creative writing skills to make these into homemade books. Kids might then read the stories aloud to younger children to practice storytelling skills. 

These free printable lesson plans make excellent resources for classroom and homeschool students. 

Active learning vs. Passive watching: building lesson plans that engage students


Hello Omifans! I've been teaching in one form all my adult life through a spectrum of teaching styles and theories. And one thing that has never changed, though it is seems "more honoured in breach than observance" is the importance of active learning vs. passive. These days, we may talk active learning by we walk cyber school, heavy internet focus and near-constant screen time (via mobile phone, TV etc.).

Yes, I know, it's easier to do everything on the computer and there is surely a place for digital learning. But as our bodies have shown, constant sedentary activities are not healthy. More kids suffer from juvenile obesity, diabetes and learning problems than ever before. Reading comprehension goes down 25% when reading a screen vs. a hardcopy book. 

Cyberschool may have its place but not to the exclusion of hands-on learning. So I'm issuing a Get Up, Learn and Play (GULP) Challenge. Even if you're classroom bound to a large extent, students can and should be doing more hands-on and interactive learning experiences AWAY from a screen. They should be engaged in tactile exploration, building and active play. They should be doing a lot more than seeing and hearing. 

Here are some relatively simple ways to build active learning in your homeschool or classroom:

Don't just turn TV off, put it away.  Losing the remote is not the worst thing that can happen. It will force kids to turn to activities and use their own creatively and inventiveness to entertain. 

Same with phones. This goes for adults too. None of us is going to get to the end of our lives wishing we'd fooled around on our phones more. 

Put on a play or puppet show. Bust out your dress up stuff, recycle bin and craft supplies. Get kids busy writing scripts, creating costumes, working out blocking and stage movement, experimenting with lighting, building sets, designing puppets, even making music to accompany the show. A historical or literature based play? So much the better. You can cover the entire curriculum:  math, STEM, creative writing, social studies, science, reading, drama, by putting on a play. I'll blog more on this for sure. 

GET OUTSIDE: Did I yell that loud enough? Read outside. Have a picnic. Take a nature hike. Do arts and crafts. Cook outside (thank you Coleman stove and campfire!)

Every time I talk to my grandkids (hey Silas, Moses, Lola, Lucian, Milo, Ezra, Juno, Emmett and Remus!) it's the active things I hear about not the TV shows or apps. My kids' best memories are of forts and sidewalk chalk and homemade games! I'll blog more on that later too! 

I'm not trying to guilt anyone for relying on the TV or phone to entertain. I get it. But I will guarantee better behavior and happier kids when you shut those off, haul out the blocks and tell kids to build a city!



Free Printable Apple themed Fall Harvest Lesson Plans: Apple Party



Hello to all of Teacher Omi's  ( Grama's ) Omschool friends! I'm Omi to 10 going on 11 wonderful grandkids and as a former teacher and homeschool mom, I'm all about educating kids! The Omschool is 2nd gen homeschool with the grandchildren and I'd love for you to join us! Today we're thinking about one of Omi's favorite foods: apples! Let's explore some free printable apple themed activities for fall harvest lesson plans. 

We live in Michigan and in autumn, Michigan is pretty much apple central! So why not celebrate this fall harvest goodness by throwing an apple party with a potluck of apple foods, apple themed crafts and games and apple lesson plans! First the free printable apple lesson plans.

California Apples.org has a harvest basket full of apple themed lessons, games, crafts, cross-curricular lesson plans, coloring pages, apple recipes, etc. Michigan Apples has a free printable apple resource kit for homeschool parents and teachers. 

For your fall harvest apple potluck, you could make anything from apple soup to apple dumplings, to pork roast with apples (my Omi's special recipe) to Our youngest Emma's famous 9-egg apple peanut butter cake (made when she was four and complete with peelings and seeds!) Last year, I gave each member of the family a bag of apples when they went on sale preference is McIntosh). This includes children. Each was tasked with looking up or inventing an apple themed recipe. This year, we're looking for even more creative goodies. 

I've got to dash to work but I'll post more later in part two of these apple themed lesson plans (plus great-Omi's apple pork roast recipe!)

Free cross-curricular real-life lesson plans and building projects

Hello and welcome to the Omschool! Teacher Omi (Grandma) here with more ways to get free lesson plans from everyday tasks. A good curriculum should be practical, hands-on, goal-oriented and feature real-life. activities. Today's free lesson plans come from building/ assembly projects for household materials. These do double duty in that students are creating real-life items they will use everyday and homeschool families get value added being able to cross one more project off the to-do list! Assembling building projects is cross-curricular, requiring STEM, math, tool use, fine motor, reading, following directions, process thinking and often problem-solving skills (plus probably others I've not thought of!) 

So what kind of building projects are we talking about? Well, most of us order a lot of things online and have them shipped. And even if you purchase in store, many items come in pieces and must be assembled. Furniture, shelves, containers, toys, decorations, you name it...most everything states some assembly required. And these assembly building projects make excellent free printable STEM lesson plans for students. Next time you buy something that comes in pieces, students to building projects. Usually, you don't have to write separate lesson plans or even provide materials! Everything comes right in the package! And if instructions aren't written as well as they could be, this is extra learning as students are required to "think outside the box" and come up with solutions.  What better problem-solving activities could there be?

Oh and even more value added if instructions are written in several languages. Students can learn to translate and compare words in different languages. You might have them make a chart of how different phrases, words, materials or processes are called in various languages. I suggest making photo copies of instructions for each student involved in the projects. 

The building projects example I'm using is this desk I built (or assembled) recently. Everything was labeled, parts by number and hardware by letter. The step-by-step instructions were wordless and showed pictures. Most steps were very clear but the keyboard tray assembly was not. I had to redo it several times till I got it right. The set came with tools so I had everything I needed. I would recommend using your own if possible. We used our power drill which made it easier. Older kids could be taught to utilize one if available. Let children discuss how to organize materials for easier construction (placing parts in numerical or alphabetical order). For building projects with many different fasteners, students might sort them into an egg carton. Be sure to save little zippered bags from fasteners for other repurposed uses. Also, save any spare parts in case something breaks. 

Here's a site with free printable paper buildings and structures for further STEM extension. Some of the free printables aren't working anymore (this is a really old site I used 15 years ago when I was writing lesson plans for Yahoo!) But there are enough to provide lots of printable activities and hours of learning. Stay tuned for more free printable lesson plans. 

Cats Mordecai and Moishe (not shown) were very helpful in the building project and Mord thought you would like to see him sitting on his handiwork!