Spring Cleaning, the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice
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Take a Spark and make it burn! ROCKIN’ SPARK STATION IDEA PACKET Spring Cleaning, The Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice THE HOME SCHOOL COACH Dear Rockin’ Idea Packet user, Congratulations on joining the Spark Station family! I hope you are as excited as I am here at Home School Coach, LLC! I am looking forward to adding you to a growing list of successful and inspired parents! These packets will provide you many opportunities to connect in some meaningful ways with your children as you learn together. I want to take this opportunity to share a few things that will help you make the best use of this Rockin’ Spark Station Idea Packet. Print off each packet as it arrives in your in-box. They can also be filed and stored on your hard drive. However, if they are in hard copy form your children can help you use them to the fullest. Punch the pages and store them in a binder. Have them in an easily accessed place so you and your children can view the binder on a regular basis. You can even store the binder in the Spark Station itself. Let your children who can read help you choose the activities that appeal to them most right now, from the topic that interests them most. Mix it up. Don't think you have to do all of the activities in one packet before moving on to the next. Remember that when you use a packet with a two year old you will probably return to the same topic again when they are six, eight, ten, or twelve. So save that binder! Have a lot of fun!!! If you have purchased a single packet I hope you enjoy it. If it is helpful to you, you might want to check out the monthly subscription which is the most cost effective way to receive Rockin’ Spark Station Idea Packets on a regular basis. You can find out more about the monthly subscription at: http://home-school-coach.com/store-2/rockin-closet-idea-subscription/ If the Spark Station is a new concept to you learn a bit more about it and what makes it work at home-school- coach.com in the “START HERE” category. If you have any questions, you can contact the office by email: [email protected] To greater family connections, Mary Ann Johnson Owner, Home School Coach, LLC Home-School-Coach.com 1 Spring Cleaning THE HOME SCHOOL COACH A ROCKIN’ SPARK STATION IDEA PACKET Spring Cleaning, The Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice INTRODUCTION Can cleaning ever be fun and educational? That is a question that I asked myself and the answer seems to be yes. So let’s clean up and learn a ton. I am going to give you a lot of ideas for getting some cleaning and organizing done in a short amount of time, all the while sprinkling in activities and fun for your children. They are going to learn where the term “Spring Cleaning” comes from, why people do it and that it can be fun. They will learn all about the Spring Equinox and then move towards the Summer Solstice. I couldn’t resist doing both because spring cleaning is usually associated with the spring equinox, which we have just passed and how can you talk about spring without talking about summer? So get ready to rock and roll this summer beginning with cleaning up, clearing out, organizing and having a whale of a good time doing it. Some writers suggest making a list of all the work to be done, gathering your supplies and choosing a day to devote to the job, the WHOLE day. That is exactly what I would have done in my former, far less enjoyable life. Now I would do it differently. Pick the jobs that are bugging you the most. Then parcel them out over the next few weeks; maybe just one major item that you all do together, or one major item per person that can be done in an hour or less. Schedule it as part of your regular structured family learning time. Have the jobs written out as in a spy movie – you know where they say “if you choose to accept this job” and “this tape will self destruct in 2 minutes”. Then add one or two activities to your Spark Station related to your spring cleaning that you can all relax and rest with when the jobs are done. Home-School-Coach.com 2 Spring Cleaning THE HOME SCHOOL COACH TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART I: SPRING CLEANING IDEAS FOR FUN This section contains 12 fun and joyful ways to get kids involved in spring cleaning. Really FUN! 4-5 PART II: BOOKS 5 PART III: ORIGIN OF SPRING CLEANING 6 PART IV: THE SPRING EQUINOX 1. Information on the equinox 7 2. Stand an Egg on its End 7 3. The Tilt of the Earth 8 4. A Spring Celebration 8 5. A Spring Equinox Meal 8 6. Equinox Mythology 8 PART V: THE SPRING EQUINOX 1. Information on the Solstice 8 2. A Midsummer Nights Dream 9 3. Summer Solstice Celebration 9 4. The Strawberry Moon 9 5. Stonehenge 9 6. The Incas 9 7. The Ancient Romans 9 8. The Inuit 9 9. Experiments 10 Experiment One: Understanding Night and Day Experiment Two: Earth with No Tilt Experiment Three: Tilted Earth Experiment Four: Creating the Seasons PART VI: PRINTABLES Equinox and Solstice Diagrams 11-12 Party Hat Pattern 13 Summer Pictures 14-16 A Spring Garden 17-19 Midsummer Night’s Dream 20-23 Stonehenge 24-26 Inca Princess 27 Rome 28-30 Home-School-Coach.com 3 Spring Cleaning THE HOME SCHOOL COACH PART I: SPRING CLEANING IDEAS FOR FUN 1. Plan to have snacks and drinks on hand. Play some up-tempo music to keep everyone’s energy level up. 2. Let everyone in on the fun. Preschoolers enjoy helping with cleanup, and can easily dust lampshades, books and tabletops, or line up CDs. Pair up an older child with a younger child for more difficult tasks. 3. Want to make room in the closets? Why not have a fashion show? Put a big invitation in Spark Station. Invite them all to be models. Have everyone try everything in their closet on. Whatever doesn’t fit gets handed down to a sibling or packed up for donation. (Have some packing boxes ready to go.) This might also be a good time to have each child make a list of what clothing items they will need for the upcoming year. Have some simple note pads and cool pencils available in Spark Station for some writing practice. 4. What about those messy dresser drawers? Have badges in Spark Station marked Clothes Drawer Inspector. Have the children sort all the clothes looking for anything too small, out of season or in poor shape or torn. You could do this on the same day as the closet cleaning and then have ice cream on the way to donate anything you aren’t keeping. (You will see this ice cream reward being used more than once.) 5. Want to clean out the toy box and those toy shelves? Create a treasure hunt for your younger children by hiding chocolate coins or other small incentives among the toys. Send everyone searching for the treasures while collecting any toy found on the search. When each person’s box, bag or basket is full have them meet in a central room and then dump the toys in a pile. Now make a game of sorting into “keep” and “go” piles. Then find a permanent place for the toys that are staying. Maybe buy ice cream on your way to donate the “go” pile. 6. Maybe the cleanliness of the toys is the problem. Haul all the toys that need to be washed outside in baskets or boxes. Fill buckets with soapy water and let the kids have rags and soft bristled brushes. Make sure everyone is in a swim suit or shorts. Line up the toys and spray off the soap. In your Spark Station have some empty squeeze bottles and when you are done cleaning the toys have a glorious water fight. 7. Book shelves need a good dusting? Give everyone a shelf and a time limit. Now race to see who can remove the books, dust the shelves and put the books back on the shelf within the time limit. Whoever makes it gets a cool summer activity page to work on. (I actually did this game with my grandchildren. I had a pile of about 60 activity sheets of all kinds. They loved it and couldn’t wait to choose one. We did a number of jobs with the timer and they got a page after each job. They kept them in a colored file until we were done working and then they were free to work on their sheets.) Have the sheets in a bin in your Spark Station to introduce the activity for the day. 8. Do you have too many kids’ papers and memorabilia hanging around in the bedrooms and on the kitchen counter? Purchase a really cool, beautiful or corny box for each child. Put them in your Spark Station. Then have each child sort all their “stuff” and put what they are going to keep into the box. Have them label their box. You could add a few frames from the dollar store to your Spark Station so that as they find really special items they can be framed and hung.