A Collage of Busy Hands

Our week was filled with hands-on activities.  I love incorporating busy hands in our schoolwork–activities that reinforce the learning or create useful or beautiful items are always appreciated.  And this week nearly every subject had us making and doing.

• Sewing a quilt square is a project from our Time Traveler’s unit on the 1800s.  I adore doing crafts with my children that become keepsakes and this one fits the bill, along with showing them the work involved in the quilts that pioneer women made.  We’re doing all the sewing by hand, just one or two squares at a time as I read aloud.  They both enjoy it and are excited to see the pattern coming together.
• My husband and son (both quite electronically inclined and prone to gadget love) built an electronic kit to learn about soldering.  This was their first foray into electronics together, they loved it and are working on another kit already.  I have put in a request for a robot that cleans the house for me.
• We continued our bird studies by examining a chicken skeleton.  Yes, it was our dinner.  Yes, my husband gave me an odd look when I said we would bake a chicken for dinner so I could use the bones for schoolwork.  Yes, my daughter thought it was gross–but then was fascinated by the experience.  I’ll have a full post on our bird unit when we finish.
• More hands-on-math for my son: this time capacity estimation.  I’ll also share more on that in a later post–just one note here: have towels handy.
• I’m preparing a snow unit study for a fun midwinter change.  We’ll be doing it in two weeks and I had an activity in mind for the unit, but looked out Wednesday to see the perfect snowflakes falling.  Reminding myself to be flexible we took advantage and spent time being amazed by nature and the seemingly simple but actually miraculous snowflake.

The neatness of our house suffered quite a bit along the way, but it was a good week.  What are your favorite hands-on activities?

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!