dragonfly days

the eclipse

some goodies

Sorry for the lack of blog posts. We are headed in to the end of the year crunch. Throw in a few extra activities, changes and angst from all angles and you get a bit of chaos. I am hoping things find a flow soon. Real soon.

Anyways. Now for some fun stuff. A few weeks back I answered a question on a facebook post from PBS Learning Media and won a prize. Love it.

 

The book and dvd of Great Expectations.   Love surprises.

This week was the local Scholastic Warehouse sale.   Look at all those cool books. Love the River Monsters ones.  The rock book has fantastic pictures and info.

These are the other books I got. We love the Basher Science books.  The rest I am hoping will eventually interest Jack. To be truthful, he was only excited about he Ninjago one. The rest will be a bit of a challenge for his reading level, but we will either use them for read alouds or he will move in to them. There wasn't a whole lot of selection for his actual reading level this time. 

 

rock hunting

This past Sunday we headed out on a rock hunt to start our rock study.

First we found a lizard. We call this a horny toad. I'm sure it has a more official name.

Then it was down the wash for the rock hunt. I scored three nice fossils in this wash.  Jack found some picture stone and other cool rocks. We also saw lots of lizards!

A different wash- more fossils and lizards.

Doesn't he have an intense look on his face? Not sure what that was all about.

Pretty lizard though.

See what I mean?

These are some of the fossils and rocks we found.

What a great start to our rock study.

 

 

the dinosaur site

Today we took an impromptu field trip over tot he dinosaur site/museum nearby.

We are starting a rock unit and this was a good way to introduce it and get some hands on activities in. Also I had a hunch I could find some rock collections in the gift shop.

There is an origami room there. Which to me was weird. Origami? Really?

Okay the dinosaur origami makes a little sense, but then sit down and make a crane or a swan? Hmmm...maybe it's just me.

Good news though, they had rock collections.

this week in school

 

This week we finished up our unit on ocean animals. Here are some of the things we did:

• Ein-o Marine science discovery tank.
• Fish body part puzzle- picked up in the Staples dollar bin
• Learning page ocean unit
• lots and lots of classifying ocean animals
• compound words
• syllables
• fractions
• greater than and less than
• addition
• subtraction
• venn diagrams
• graphs and charts
• mapping the oceans
• alphabetical order
• life cycle of a salmon
• body parts of a crustacean
• gardening
• hiking
• butterfly catching
• animal care
• playing with lots of friends
• dance
• legos, lots of legos
• reading: more Garfield and Einstein

Today Jack told me he wanted to be a theoretical physicist like Einstein.  At least we know something in sinking in!

a homeschool day

Since it is spring break and I have nothing to blog about other than the joys of painting paneling, I decided to share a homeschool day with you.  This was a day last week. 

Tuesday:

7:45 Ugh. I am still getting used to getting up early. I go out and say goodbye to Zac and the older kids. I check on Jack and he's still sleeping. I decide to check my email on the ipad in bed so that I don't wake Jack up.

8:15 I hear Jack get up. I decide computer time is over and take a quick shower.  He spends the time saying hello to the piggies and feeding them.  He's already dressed. I start a load of laundry on my way to the kitchen.

8:30 Breakfast time.  I notice that Jack has two cold sores and wonder if he is coming down with something.

9:00  time to read. We head for the living room and library books. We read about dolphins, sea sponges and whales today.  Were both tired this morning and  dragging. The tickle monster shows up to get us up and going.  I reboot the laundry while he gets his pencil box.

9:45 Time to do some seat work. Today he doesn't want to do spelling. I give him the option of doing it on the chalkboard. He doesn't want to use the chalkboard and tries a few other stalling tactics.  He realizes that he's not getting out of it and starts his spelling. Today he sings We Will Rock You while working.

We do three quick language lessons. More writing work almost sends him over the edge. Time for a computer break doing Spanish. While he works on Spanish, I take the piggies out, feed the fish, and sweep the floor. After Spanish he tackles a page of math with the promise that a science project will be next. He zips through math.

For science we tackle the flour fireworks again with the right supplies. This time we have success.  We even get the smoke alarm going. We update our science journals.  After relighting the candle three times I decide it's time to move on.

I decide to try an art project. I bring out a couple of sea stars and have Jack pick 5 shells to bring to the table. We pull out the sketch books and get to work. I decide to trace around the sea star and other shells. Jack tries to do the same and gets frustrated. I decide it probably wasn't the day for an art project that required fine motor skills.

1:00 pm time for lunch. We eat.  I wash dishes after I finish.  

1:35 It's windy and I decide to bring the piggies inside. Harry escapes and goes under the deck. Jack is upset and spends the next hour trying to coax Harry out.  The wind is really going now. I talk Jack back inside to take a break before dance.  We'll catch Harry later when we have more hands.

2:00 Jack gets cleaned up and I let him watch Garfield. I reboot the laundry, make various attempt to catch the piggy, answer emails, research a topic for homeschool, and work on getting ready to go. I also remember to prep dinner.

2:50 School is out. The texts and phone calls start from the older kids. I check twitter for updates about practices and games tonight.I finish the dishes.

3:15 2 big kids are home. Talisa stayed after to take a test for college placement next year.  We discuss practice schedules, weekend plans and dinner. Steve hears about the piggy and his mind goes to work. He goes outside and sets a trap for the piggy. Within 5 minutes Harry is back inside safe and sound.

3:30 Turn off the tv, get Jack a snack and have him get ready for hip hop class. Jack reads more Garfield on the way to class.

4:00 Get a text from Talisa saying she is done and needs a ride, perfect timing. Pick her up and head to the pet store for piggy litter and kitty supplies. This was the day before we picked up our kitty. We walk around and look at everything. Leave the store without a fish. Hey it's progress.

5:00 pick up Jack and head home. Steve can't leave for practice until I get home because he left something in my car.  We get home say goodbye to Steve. Jack runs over to play with a friend.  I listen to the wind howl. 

5:30 Call Zac and get an estimate on when he'll be home. Start working on dinner. Field more texts and phone calls.

6:15 Zac walks in as I am finishing up dinner. We are eating in shifts tonight. Practice is late tonight and there is a game. Jack is back from playing.

7:00 I shower. Talisa leaves to watch the lax game. Jack is back watching Garfield again. He's definitely fighting off something so he gets more tv time than usual.  Steve and Alex go straight to the game from practice. Zac and I take advantage of the quiet house and catch up. He's been working long hours and I've been running like crazy. Times like this seem few and far between.

8:00 Steve and Alex are back. They've had enough of the wind.  Ice cream for everyone. The kids start on their showers and chores.  Jack gets ready for bed.  He's ready for bed early and I'm bored so we do another science project.  This time we are mixing glue and shaving cream to make foam. We play for a bit and then it is time for bed.

9:00 Talisa is home from the game and we get a play by play.  I read books to Jack and get him to sleep. Then it's back out to help with homework, process the days events and get everyone else on track for bed. 

10:00 homework is done. The older kids are in bed on their phones- either texting watching or listening to music. The house is quieting down. I make my lists for tomorrow. Check email, facebook, and blogs. I work on gathering up anything I need for tomorrow. It will be an easy day so there isn't much.

11:30 Zac and I head to bed.

learning notes this week

I'm hoping to start putting up our learning notes each week in order to make myself a little more accountable with my record keeping.  I keep a lot of notes in my homeschooling notebook, but I find I am always telling myself that I will write it in later and then forgetting.

Read:

• Amazing Dolphins
• Sea Stars
• Jellyfish
• Sea Urchins
• Dark Night
• Monarchs and other Butterflies
• Corals
• Sea Anemones
• Crabs
• Whales
• Dolphins
• Blue Whales
• Corals- different book from above.
• Garfield, lots of Garfield

Science

• collecting butterflies and pinning
• flour fireworks
• exploding egg
• making foam out of shaving cream and glue- very cool!

Watched:

• Mythbusters
• Beyond Survival
• Garfield

Language arts:

• oi + oy sound
• Spelling Through Copywork
• Language Lessons

Math:

• 4 lessons in Saxon 2
• counting money
• date
• time

Spanish:

• Powerspeak 4  lessons

Art:

• drawing
• patterns
• felting

Computer:

• brain pop
• lego.com
• more starfall

Extras:

• fun and fitness
• tap dance
• hip-hop
• library
• animal shelter
• kitty love.
• Restore with mom to buy new stove

This week was a  lighter week, again. We are struggling with getting back to things post vacation and pre spring break.  Also what can I say we've been stuck in the winter blahs. This week we had one day of 70+ degree weather and one day of snow flurries.  Jack has also been fighting off some illness and or allergies this week. 

Jack organized the jingle bells that we were making felt balls with.

the new hobby

A while back I mentioned that Zac has a new hobby.

It is a hobby  I fully support because it gives me things to hang on the wall.  Pretty things.

It's also sparked a lot of learning. We have a poster hanging up  that shows different types of butterflies and Jack would read it, copy down the names and then google them to find more images. There have been books and movies about butterflies.  This past Sunday Zac and Jack went on a butterfly hunt.  They were gone most of the day and came back with three.  Zac let Jack pin one.

Someone is hooked now. They are plotting buying a real net for him for the next butterfly hunt.  In the meantime, I no longer have to buy artwork.

science notebooks

This is for you K!

First I took a 5 x 8 moleskine notebook and stamped the front.  We used a spiral bound 5 x 8 sketch book for Jack's notebook. I covered the front with plain card stock and he stamped it silly.  And no I don't have pictures of his. Another day.

Jack decided I needed more on my cover and took it upon himself to decorate it for me.  While he drew on mine I colored his. It's all good.

The first page shows our first experiment, disappearing chalk.  I wrote down what was needed for the experiment and what the instructions were. I wish I would have also wrote down my hypothesis, but this was so spur of the moment that I didn't think of it until after.  Across the top you can see our "busted" stamp. As we do projects we will add stamps for plausible and confirmed.  

Right now the majority of work is being done in my notebook. Jack is still hesitant about too much writing. That's okay. He has done a few drawings in his, but mostly he tells me what I should put in mine.  That's okay, we'll call it narration. I have no doubts that soon enough he'll be taking off in his own notebook.  In the meantime we have one more project under way and another that we want to redo, not having the exact right supplies the first time around.

 

this week

This week we have taken a relaxed aproach to school. We needed it with all craziness.  It has involved hours of reading Garfield comic books.  I mean hours, like 6+ hours/ day, reading Garfield. A certain little boy  is excited to go to bed at night with the prospect of being able to stay up a few minutes and read in bed. 

Science projects:  we made science project notebooks to keep track of our experiments in. We even label them according to the Mythbusters system of: confirmed, plausible, and busted.  We stamp busted in big letters across the notebook page of the experiment if it doesn't work. It's awesome.  So far we have done: Disappearing Chalk(busted), Exploding Egg(in progress), and Flour Fireworks. 

Math: a lot of living math practice, games, baking,  More Starfall.com, etc.

Language: besides all of the reading we have done a few language lessons, phonics worksheets, spelling.

and some Spanish.

 

 

learning all the time

Here are some pics of all the learning that has been going on around here lately. :)

As part of our study of Italy last week we talked about Pompeii and made a volcano.

Zac and Jack spent an evening building this robot. It is really cool.  I picked the kit up last time we we at Hobby Lobby for 75% off. 

There was a last minute choir performance on Monday at the library to welcome Santa.

 We have a new fish. His name is Zen.  We fell in love with the peace sign decor. Then at Zac looked me and asked why I am trying to change the fish. Peace sign, Zen, Siamese fighting fish. Lol.

There was also some dog walking and visiting animals at the pound and guitar lessons today.

things that are working

The game, Sci-ology is working for us right now.  I can't even count how many times we have played this over the past few days. It is perfect for my science loving son. It's like Go Fish so it was easy for him to learn how to play. I love that he is learning things like what a conchologist studies, or how to say physiology. Truthfully though I love to her his attempts at saying physiology, so darn cute. I have even been learning, as in I didn't know what a conchologist was either.

 

And I love how geeked out he is in this pic with his pen in his shirt pocket along with some notes.

The curriculum follow up post

I thought I would do a post on how I decided on our curriculum for this year and how my trusty moleskine helped out. :)

First, I journaled for two weeks about homeschooling. What worked for us last year and what didn't.  Then I went on to what I wanted out of our homeschool experience and what I thought Jack wanted out of his homeschool experience. I made lists of what things I did right last year and what I wanted to do better with this year. Then I made a basic run down of what I thought we would use curriculum wise this year.

After that I switched gears and worked on a rhythm. First I listed ideas for quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily things I wanted to do or things I wanted to include.  I'll list them below.

• quarterly- art museum. We have very limited resources where we are and the exhibits don't change that often.
• monthly- pool
• weekly- tennis, yoga, baking, art/craft, painting, handwork, library,  and gardening.
• daily- here I mainly listed what I wanted our days to feel like: engaging, fun, meaningful. I also put down something from the Charlotte Mason Companion, "...be sure that your children each day have: Something or someone to love, something to do, something to think about." 

When I was done planning the pool had moved up to be an every week or every other week activity. Yoga will be done daily at home and once a week at the studio.

After that I took a page and divided it into 12 squares and labeled with the months beginning with August. In those boxes I wrote down what birthdays, special occasions and seasonal activities we had for the year.

The next page has two columns, one for me and one for Jack. Those two columns were divided into seven rows, one for each day of the week. In those columns I started to make a rough draft for our weekly rhythm.  I put our outside commitments in first and then filled in which days would be good for baking or the library. I tried to make sure we were alternating afternoons out so that we would still have plenty of downtime.

The next page is a list of what Jack told me he wanted to learn about this year.

• Galileo
• scientists
• electronics
• computers- how they work.
• languages
• the world
• frogs- raise a tadpole
• build a tower of popsicle sticks
• How do remote control cars work?
• How do machines work?
• Why do you get a headache?
• make paper
• volcanoes

With his list in hand I went back over what I had listed for curriculum and added in what he wanted to do.  For instance I added in The New Way Things Work. I'll also be watching for old machines and things he can take apart. We'll be doing a lot of tinkering.

He also gave me a list of science supplies he needed:

• red cabbage powder
• citric acid
• color tablets
• atomic glow powder
• insta-worms

He is a scientist at heart this boy, so I need to use it to my advantage. I will be working on using science to practice hand writing, drawing, spelling and other subjects while he enjoys immersing himself in what he loves.

We also have some projects planned to work on. I am really inspired by project based learning and would like to do more of it in our home.  So far I have planned:

• hatching chicks
• building a light box
• building an animal tractor for the bunny and piggy.
• making a worm farm

That about wraps it up.  I am really looking forward to this year!

 

 

the mad scientist returns

After watching the video on science projects over at brain pop jr. yesterday, someone woke up in a mood to do some science.

Jack wanted to try and grow an alien plant. Apparently this involves marigold seeds, soil, water, baking soda and sae salt.  To turn it into a project he is also doing one with : marigold seeds, soil, baking soda, sea salt and milk. Yes, I said milk.

Anyone want to join me for a chorus of Little Shop of Horrors? :)

new growth

One of our most recent science projects. We're having a lot of fun with it. In the background of the photo you can see the picture Jack drew for the beans, a pic of what they should grow to look like. He's convinced that the beans liked his picture because they look exactly like it now.  ;)Tomorrow we'll plant them in  some soil.

My project of the day was working on some Brave Girls stuff including messing around with some paper clay. That is pretty cool stuff!  The piece in the photo above is for a journal cover. I also made some beads, can't wait to see if they turn out.

 

going with the flow

This week I set out with the intention to let our learning flow.  So far it has been a blessing. Here are some of the things we have done:

• Made homemade play dough.  Monday morning Jack was wishing he had play dough. I told him we could make it. We had to run to a couple stores for the missing ingredient. He helped measure and mix. I did the cooking with him looking on. He has played with it every day so far.
• While running around for the missing ingredient, we stopped off at the library for a bit. I haven't introduced Jack to audio books yet and this week seemed like the perfect time. We picked up a Magic Tree House audiobook. The title escapes me, but it is about Louis Armstrong. We listened ot it on the way home and while we made play dough we listened to Jazz via Pandora and danced around. He decided he liked Jazz music. We've been listening to the story  every time we have been in the car this week.
• Made and decorated cupcakes.
• Lego.com--you know that had to be on here somewhere.
• Set the table and helped with dinner.
• Read Bartholomew and the Oobleck and narrated it back to dad the next morning.
• Read Hunches in Bunches
• Did 2 pages of math
• Started a bean growing experiment, checked it daily and discussed findings.
• Did an informal rock study, classified by color, size, and coolness. :)
• Made a boat out of a plastic tube. Tested the boat in the tub. Then  made a boat of of legos, tested that and it didn't float. He  tried three different things to troubleshoot the lego boat and make it float, in the end it did!
• Read The Diggingest Dog. Goodnight Moon, Would You Rather Be a Bullfrog?
• Went for a walk and played in the sand down by the river, otherwise known as nature study. 
• More boat making, this time a submarine. Worked perfectly. It even had a cross bow on top to shoot down battleships. He was also excited to have bath salts added to the tub so that the boat would be in a true sea.
• Science play- using water crystals
• He watched Waiting for Superman with us.
• Dreambox.com

And more. The thing I would like to point out is that this is all stuff that he wanted and asked to do.  I have also had a ton of fun following his lead this week. The days have had a wonderful flow to them, transitions have been much easier, and he's learned a lot more than usual-so have I. 

Oct 11 2010

For his birthday, Jack recieved a mind blowing science kit.  Every time he wanted to do it this weekend we were literally walking out the door. Today after doing some learning he told me, "Mom can we stop learning and do some science experiments."

Ummm...yeah we can. :)

I pulled out the camera to take pics and he posed for a "speak no evil" pic.  This may have to go on the wall. ;)

The experiments we did today focused on bases and acids and using cabbage juice to change the color.

In this one we were adding cabbage juice to household liquids to determine whether it was an acid or base.

We also learned about neutrals.

The last project we did for the day was the color changing volcano. Very fun!

It really made me pause when he said that about learning and asking to do science projects. Every day he asks for science. This past week he checked out a Microcosmos book from the library and has been looking at the pictures every day and having us read it to him. I pulled out the cheap microscope  and he's been loving that. We definitely need to do more science with him!

 

Sept 23 2010

It's been a week full of science over here.

First we had cornstarch quicksand. I picked up this kit at Michael's, not realizing it was just cornstarch, he has been dying to do it. Monday we pulled it out and he played with it for a couple of hours. :)

Steven and his friend have been working on a science project to demonstrate lightning. They ended up building a Van de Graaff generator. If you look real close in the picture you can see a shock between Steve's elbow and the bowl. It's very cool. They can also light a light bulb with it. I already know we'll be doing this one again. ;)

September 7 2010

Jack's finished project. Steven helped him build a car from the Lego Crazy Contraptions book. When they were done we talked about simple machines while he colored pictures of each. Then we glued them on the board and copied off instructions for building the car. He told everyone what simple machines his car had in it and then showed them how the car worked.

 

 

We had fun and came home with a list of projects that we would like to do!

September 6 2010

Guess what we did today? We were supposed to go apple picking this past Saturday, but because I still wasn't feeling well from my trip to the dentist we didn't make it. So instead I bought 20+ lbs of apples. This evening I processed apples while Alex worked on pie crust.

After the apples were cut I handed the whole operations over to her so that I could help Jack with his science project for tomorrow.

This is Steven helping with the actual building of the project. I gave Jack a quick lesson on exactly why it was scientific. :)

More pics tomorrow!