Food and Nutrition Curriculum for Kiddos!

 I’m on the hunt for meaningful summer projects.  How about nutrition?  It’s a great elective.  Super Snacking is easy to follow.  I like 4-H projects; they just seem a bit more balanced: My Plate, 4-H Cooking 101, Food and Fun, and Food and Nutrition.  Each program has a different emphasis.  Look at Get Fit, That’s It!

Nutrition has a plethora of resources, including Nutrition and Food Safety Education.  Food Hero has a bingo game and scavenger hunt. Surprise!  SNAP has a good curriculum.  University of Wisconsin has loads and loads of links: Got Veggies?, Cooking with Kids, to name a few.  Some links are broken.  I love Got Milk, especially some of the site’s nutrition information.  

The Homeschool Mom has suggestions for creating a nutrition program.  Start at the library!  Get a stack of cooking and nutrition books from the children’s stacks.  Decide your approach.  Will you explore cooking?  Are you more interested in vitamins and minerals?  Healthy lifestyle?  Balanced diet?  Basics?  The School House has reviews of some commercial curricula.  I’m an Apologia fan.  This summer, let’s do practical lessons with the kiddos!

Shop Good Will!

 I shop Good Will online and locally.  There are so many interesting listings.  While I have had great luck buying TI 83/84 graphing calculators at Good Will, I have NOT had much luck with electronics, such as microscopes.  My advice is to avoid any electronic or telescope, binoculars, etc.  Below is a sample of current listings.  See?  There are so many interesting, educational materials.

More American Girl Unit Studies

 I’m still going down the rabbit hole of American Girl dolls.  I have several young friends who adore the original Pleasant Company dolls.  My friend, Jen, is teaching her daughter, Sophie, a unit this coming fall. The six historical dolls (plus Kit) offer an excellent range for American History.   

1. Portraits of American Girlhood (POAG) and the Welcome to the World books are frequently cited in the Well-Trained Mind Community, a highly reliable forum.  POAG is a curriculum, which uses the American Girl books.  

2.  Look at the Historical Craft Kits once sold for American Girl dolls.  Jen’s plan is for the girls to make rag dolls. I recommend using a felt doll pattern and yarn hair.  Felt is easy to sew.  Here is a more authentic rag doll pattern.  Use a quilt cheater panel kiddos can sew up quickly into a doll quilt.  

3. Look for Recipes, Pioneer Potato Soup, Addy’s Shortbread, and Historical American Recipes are all free and open the door to another rabbit hole!  

4. What about science?  In this Unit Study for Kirsten, one topic is tornados, perfect for a science study!  Make a Zoetrope, made popular is the 19th Century.  Schools made Milk Plastic as a science experiment. Students from 1900s on grew plants and created School Gardens.  Any focus on practical farming would be consistent historically.

5.  Write a book report with a simple book report template.  Your kiddo can practice hand-writing, spelling, and recap her favorite American Girl book.  You can add questions.  What is the time period?  Where is the story set?  Would you change the ending?  How?  Write a Movie vs.Book report.  Which is better?  Does the movie capture the book?  (Spoiler alert!  The book is always better!)  

American Girl Teacher’s Guides

 If you are planning a history unit based on the American girl dolls, you are going to want as many resources as possible.  I found two of the Welcome to the World books at Good Will. Keep an eye out for the American Girl Teacher’s Guides, which are books are different from the Free Teacher and Conversation Guides.  Let me organize what I found.

1. Here is a sample of the Nez Perce Indians from The Girls of American History Curriculum.  The entire curriculum set is 109.90.  You’ll still need all of the books, craft materials, etc.

2. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History has Addy’s World (use to guide a tour of the American History Museum) and   Addy Walker (watch the video).

3.  The Pleasant Company published a book, ‘America at School’, which is a social studies unit.  I found an image and isbn.  The listings are exorbitant.  See if your library can track down a copy.

4. A girl’s window into history is an interesting article about Pleasant Rowland.  I like a little context.  Read this inspiring article about how dolls teach history.  How American Dolls Teach History is interesting, too.  Did you know there are American Girl Reddit forums?

5.  Look at this forum for ideas, too! Here are suggestions for using the dolls to teach about Mesopotamia.  Too fun!  

Co-op Fees

  The local Co-op used to rent space at a neighboring church, one day a week.  (Our church has a large school and even larger religious education program.  There just isn’t space for home-school families.  Frankly, some of the school’s teachers are none too thrilled with RE classes held in their rooms.)  The Co-op had costs, such as insurance, which they divided among the participating parents.  For many years, the Co-op held classes at the local library; the library now discourages home-school families from holding classes.  

During COVID, we held Co-op classes remotely; in Virginia, there was an extended lock-down.  The local library was closed, reopened with appointments, and closed intermittently whenever COVID spiked over the next year.  The library made it clear they did not want science classes taught in their Maker Space any more.  

We needed a solution.  Our house has a large basement; we increased our liability insurance and have held classes in our basement.  Smaller groups meet in individual homes, too.  Do we charge?  We ask for a fee of $35 per family for Biology and Chemistry classes to defray costs.  Otherwise, the math or literature classes aren’t expensive to host.  We do buy all the textbooks and lend them to students to ensure they all have the same edition.  (I shop for textbooks ruthlessly.  If one goes missing it’s not a big deal.  The same is true of graphing calculators we lend to students.)

BTW my husband and I tutor from time to time, too.  We don’t charge to tutor either.  Why?  Once upon a time, I was commissioned to tutor the basketball team for a local college.  Wow!  The team seemed to think I was there to start an IV and transfuse understanding.  I learned quickly I do not have the stomach to tutor for money.  When I tutor as a favor, the onus remains on the student to learn the material—not on the instructor to miraculously transmit knowledge.  

Other home-school groups do charge fees.  My friend, Jen, belongs to a Classical Conversations Group in Woodbridge.  Classical Conversation’s fees are distributed among tuition, facility, and supplies.  The Classical Cottage Consortium charges fees for different classes.  Other Co-ops hire veteran teachers directly.  (Sometimes veteran teachers need to be paid to derive meaning from their work.)  While many churches have space available for a Co-op to meet, others don’t.  Be sure to check about insurance or facility fees!  

Local History!

 Visit your hometown like a tourist!  Living on the east coast has advantages; we do have loads of history!  We just visited Rock Hall and Chestertown, Md.  Both Rock Hall and Chestertown have museums.  Really! (I was surprised, too.). Chestertown (founded 1706) and Washington College (founded in 1782 and located in Chestertown) have loads of history.  I bet your hometown does, too!

Make your hometown a history, unit study.  Read Hometown History: The Story of Ft. Herrick for inspiration.  When was your town founded?  Who were the founders?  Why did they choose the name of the town?  What are major events in the town’s history? How is the town renowned?  For example, Dean Martin was born in Steubenville, Ohio, also home to Franciscan University of Steubenville, my son’s alma mater.  (Not that I’m biased.)  Does your town have a historic district?  Does it have distinctive architecture?  Did the town take part in any war.  For example, Winchester, VA changed hands 72 times  during the Civil War. (Yes, that number is highly debated.)   Kings Mountain SC was the site of an important Revolutionary War battle. (I had had no idea until we visited Kings Mountain.  It’s beautiful!). Freeland MI had Camp Freeland , which held prisoners of war during WWII.  

Here  is one town history guide.  Add maps, photos, brochures, etc.  Work together as a family.  When our family first moved to Winchester, VA, we visited major historic sites: Stonewall Jackson’s Headquarters, Winchester National Cemetery, George Washington’s Office, and a host of sites, especially Old Town Winchester.  We used to show visiting friends the Canon Ball House or Handley Library.  So much history!  Think how much your family will learn!

Lakeshore

 Lakeshore Learning is having a big sale.  Look at Landforms.  However, you may want to look at Good Will or eBay for deals. Below are examples of the range of items—not the best prices.  Look over the sets you find most interesting on the Lakeshore website.  I’m a fan of the People Long Ago Resource Boxes.

Above is the set I bought at Good Will for my friend, Jen; she’s using it to develop an Kirsten Pioneer Unit Study and Little House study—literature program.  The resource box helps frame the study. Below are more Lakeshore kits, both modern and vintage.  Keep at eye out for a deal.