Download "Learning Through the Seasons"

 Learning Through the Seasons is now available in a downloadable version in many formats. Check it out at Smashwords

Scroll down to see all the available formats and directions to load them to your computer or device.

Creating a Halloween Candy Graph

When Halloween is over, what can we do with all that candy besides eat it for months? After Halloween take a look at your children’s stash from the night’s activities and spill all of it on the floor.   Ask children if they want to easily SEE how many different pieces they have in their haul. How can you do this? Make a Candy Graph...here's what you need and how to do it.

Materials you will need:

Halloween candy, large piece of paper, and marker

What to do:

  A few days before trick or treating, prepare a paper for graphing. Draw a straight vertical column of two inch squares the same distance from each other all the way up the column. Each square will hold one bag of candy. It is important to have squares equal distance from the others so the height of the candy columns can be correctly compared.

     After placing the candy on the floor, separate into piles of candy by type.

To graph, carefully print the name of the type of candy for each column based on your piles of candy. Although your young child may not read yet, you are showing how reading and writing are used.

  Start with your children’s favorite candy for column one. Place one candy in each square starting at the bottom and count as you go up the column. Place the second favorite candy in column two, etc.  Discuss the sizes, shapes, and colors.

  When all of the columns are full, it is time to discover and discuss what the bar graph shows.  First, count each type separately. What type has the most? Is it also their favorite? What type has the least? Are there two the same height or close? Why do you think people give out more of one type of candy?  Point out how easy it is to talk about something when the materials are organized in a graph rather than a big pile all mixed up.

How Will This Help My Children?

  Graphing is a mathematical idea that uses another way to see the parts of a big picture.  Using a bar graph helps young children to count, be organized in the placement and comparison of objects, see different attributes of objects, and increase math and science vocabulary and thinking.

What Else Can We Do?

   Candy can be graphed by sizes, with or without nuts, gum flavors, types, or colors.

Small toys like cars and Legos, cereal, money (with close supervision), rocks on the beach, or leaves can also be graphed.

  Good books about graphing concepts are More or Less, Three Little Firefighters, and Dave’s Down-to-Earth Rock Shop, by Stuart J. Murphey and More, Fewer, Less, by Tana Hobin at local libraries. 

Photos: http://www.pics4learning.com.jpg

Retired educator Jean Hetrick, member of Grandparents Teach, Too, presented this activity. For more fall activities to help your children succeed in school and have a life time of learning see the authors’ book Learning Through the Seasons in museums, bookstores, and in E-book form atSmashwords.com.

Listen to this activity online at the WNMU Podcasts

Taking a Science Walk in the Fall

  Have you heard the expression, “Young children are like sponges?” Research concludes this is really true for children between two and eight years old. Taking walks, collecting, and sorting give your young children a chance to appreciate the outdoors while improving fitness, building language, and absorbing science facts.

Materials:

  A bag, several paper plates, and glue

What to do:

  Take a walk outside.  Collect a variety of colorful leaves and put them in a bag.  As children collect leaves, talk about the different colors and shapes.  Some are rounded.  Some have points.  Conversations with adults are the keys to learning.

  At home sort out  similar colored leaves into piles.  Show how you glue a red leaf on one plate and a brown leaf on another.  Older children can work with three to five colors, so you may add orange, dark brown, and yellow, depending on the types of trees you see.

  Then pick a leaf out of the bag and decide together which plate has a matching leaf—red or brown.  Gently help as necessary to place and glue all matching leaves on the correct plate. All other leaves can go into a “no match” bag.

  Talk about the colors of all these leaves on each plate.  If children are working mostly alone to sort the leaves, check over the plates before gluing.   Stop when children lose interest or become tired.

How will this help my child?

  Matching and sorting are important pre-math skills.  Color recognition and naming the colors are expected in kindergarten. Gluing, like all other art related activities, builds small muscle skills in the fingers, as well as, eye-hand coordination.

What else can I do?

  Play a matching game with clothes.  For example, “Which color plate has leaves the same colors as an object in the room?”  Count the color plates you have completed while touching each one.  At the library, ask for books about leaves, fall or colors. There are many early science books that explain why leaves change color and fall. 
Illustration by Mark Nowicki.

-->
For more fall activities to help your children succeed in school and have a life time of learning see the authors’ book Learning Through the Seasons in museums, bookstores, and in E-book form atSmashwords.com.
Listen to this activity online at the WNMU Podcasts

Our first podcast has been posted...

Click our podcast link to listen to a fun activity to do in the fall. It will engage and help your child/grandchild learn many valuable skills while enjoying all the sights and sounds of the fall season... Grandparents (and Parents) Teach, Too Podcast page
This podcast is an audio recording narrated by Iris Katers,  recorded and produced at the Public Radio 90 recording studios.

Many more to follow in the weeks ahead.