School Journal - Farm

The littles had a fun time down on the farm recently in school. I put together a simple sensory bin using dried corn as the base and the using the farm toob figures from Safari Ltd. I added a wooden spoon and a metal container and it was done! Bo really enjoyed this bin for some reason - maybe the corn was fun to play in for him. Betty wasn't too interested, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with farming and farm animals not sparkling and the only pink being on such a disgusting animal as a pig. (Her idea not mine. :))



She prefered the cutsie animals from her Leapster Farm toy.



 We did do many of the activities from 2 teaching mommies "On the Farm" Pack  . They both loved the cow printable - not in the right way, of course, but they loved coloring ol' Bessie. Masterpieces!



School Journal - Eating Geography

"Oh no, my Africa broke. Oh well, I'll just bite a little more and turn it around, and it can be Australia." In Heart of Dakota Bigger Hearts for His Glory, the kids were asked to make the continents by biting off bits from a graham cracker to leave the continent shape behind. They were a little leary at first, but even E decided she could participate in a little geography activity. Of course, I didn't have enough graham crackers to go around, so we tried tortillas, but I didn't have tortillas. Then we did find a few flat tostada shells, but not enough to go around. Then we broke out the cheese. (Can you tell I needed to go shopping?) They finally completed their continents. 

Not exactly to scale, but at least they know their continents!

School Journal - Fall Themes

For Betty's Pre-K/Kindergarten, we've been delving into the fall themes like most everybody else. In September, we had fun with apples. See links below. We also had a taste testing that all the kids got involved with. There was one of us who shall remain nameless that was quite upset at us using all those apples and then wasting them. Said child threw into a tantrum with sulking and crying because (s)he loved apples so much (s)he just couldn't stand to see any wasted. After a lengthy heart to heart and reassurance from mom that there would be no casualties, the taste testing began. We each sampled a bite from each apple and talked about how the apples looked, smelled, felt and tasted. Then I had them leave the room and I had them guess the mystery apple. The two older kids guessed correctly. The unhappy child that started out the testing was by this time quite happy and asking to do it again. :) Go figure!



Part of our apple supply went to artistic pursuits. Believe it or not this was the first time I had ever done apple prints with any of my kiddos. Look at the delight on this one's face!

This one's delight had much less to do with apples and more to do with mess. ;)

In October, we focused on pumpkins and leaves. Although the leaves in our area are just now hitting their peak color. We may do a few things more leaf things yet. Bo loved transfering candy pumpkins to a pumpkin ice cube tray from Target's $1 aisle.

Betty has really been enjoying her Spin and Graph from 2 Teaching Mommies. (See below.)

Bo has just been enjoying gluing on anything he can find. Which is plenty! Ha!



Apple Link:

http://www.2teachingmommies.com/2011/09/apple-unit-expanded.html

Leaf Link:

http://www.2teachingmommies.com/2011/09/leaves-unit-expanded.html

Pumpkin Link:

http://www.2teachingmommies.com/2011/10/pumpkins-expanded.html

Fall Fun Preschool Pack:

http://www.homeschoolcreations.com/preschoolpacks.html

School Journal - Ocean/Beach Preschool Theme

We're getting ready to go on vacation to the beach and I thought it would be fun to do a beach/ocean theme for our school workboxes. We used some printables and ideas from several different sites:

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/06/ocean-theme-printables-more.html

http://www.homeschoolcreations.com/oceanpreschoolpack.html

http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-our-shelves-july-august.html

Betty and Bo both enjoyed this activity I got from Counting Coconuts (not from the link above, but I couldn't find the exact one). It's just putting little umbrella toothpicks into styrofoam. Great fine motor activity. We used our ocean animal toobs a lot and poured "sand" into different containers with a funnel which Betty loved too.

I also put together an ocean sensory tub with our ocean animals, blue aquarium gravel, a small boat, some seashells, aquarium plants and some spikey balls for sea urchins. The beach sensory tub that I did didn't get its picture taken but it had cornmeal for sand (since I didn't have the real thing), seashells, a bucket and scoop, a toothpick umbrella and little chairs and some game pieces to serve as people. Both of them were played with a lot.



I think that now they'll know what to do when we go on vacation!

School Journal - Phonics Hide-n-Seek

Here's a fun thing that Betty and I did to make her matching a little more exciting.

We used this Melissa and Doug puzzle and word/picture cards from here. I hid the pictures in the puzzle and she had to open the latch and find the correct word to match the picture. Betty enjoyed doing her words this way and it was justs as easy for me. If you don't have a puzzle like this, you could hide the words under cups or stuffed animals or even do a hide-n-seek around a room. Fun and Phonics go together!



School Journal - What We're Going to be Busy With in 2011-2012

It doesn't really feel like we should be gearing up for a new school year since we just finished the old one week and were on to the new the next. Next year won't be like that, but I wanted to finish up our World Geography countries before starting the new stuff. I need closure. :) I decided to stagger-start since I knew the curriculum I picked for E would be a change for her and I'm glad I did because that first day in the new program was a little (ehem) difficult. :) But anyway...I haven't said what curriculum we are doing!

E - 7th Grade

Heart of Dakota - Revival to Revolution It includes bible quiet time, biblical worldview, music appreciation, history, geography, state study of all 50 states, research on the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, Art, language arts, math, science and an inventor's study. I think it the perfect fit for her since she loves to read biographies and interesting books and she will be doing most of the things on her own. I also ordered the extension pack for 8th and 9th graders because she loves reading and being read to so much. I didn't use the math HOD recommends (although I love Singapore Math). E enjoys Teaching Textbooks so we're sticking with that. Rev to Rev language arts includes dictation, Drawn into the Heart of Reading program and grammar, but she needs a little more help in spelling, so we'll also supplement with All About Spelling. She's also using IEW's SICC-B Writing course that I am teaching for our co-op as well as Rosetta Stone for Spanish. She really loves the program and was very faithful with it until a certain 1yo got a hold of her headphones. Now she remembers to put them away. :) 

L - 4th Grade

Z - 2nd Grade

L and Z are going to mostly be doing the same things this year except at their individual level. We started Primary Arts of Language this spring and are continuing our way through that program. L is my main helper and game player as well as getting some review on weak areas. They are both in  All About Spelling at their level. For history/geography we are using Confession of a Homeschooler's Road Trip USA doing a state-by-state trek across the country which ties into a state study that E is doing. Instead of doing the coloring sheets that she includes in her package, the boys will use Fifty States Under God for Young Learners while E does the older kids version. I think they will enjoy cutting and pasting more than coloring. L is enjoying Singapore Math and I broke down and got Teaching Textbooks for Z because he begged to do math on the computer like his sister. I also have a stack of great literature that I hand-picked for them and we'll be using those for read-alouds. They will also be reading to themselves books that interest them.

For Betty I decided to go with Heart of  Dakota's Little Hearts for His Glory (LHFHG). I think she will enjoy the challenge of the program, but I'll probably just start it at half speed and throw in some other fun things if I see she is getting overwhelmed. It is a Kindergarten/1st grade curriculum and I got only the Kindergarten options, but she loves her Montessori-type workboxes. I really think she's going to like the reading and things like the big kids, though.

Bo, well, he'll be along for the ride. His favorite perch is on top of the schoolroom table, but I'm hoping he'll be broken of that soon. I will have fun stuff on his shelves that I will try to rotate, but he's never been one to NOT have something to do especially with four older siblings to play with him while I'm busy with one student.


I'm looking forward to a more laid-back year for me in that I won't have to plan so much outside of school time. I'll have more time to do a little blogging and just being with the family.

School Journal - France

We had such a fun week with France! I guess they just have all the things we already enjoy - cheese, bread, bikes, art, food, etc. We capped off our week with a French cheese tasting party and Daddy made yummy fruit-filled crepes topped with whipped cream for dessert. Here's our fare...

Somebody wasn't too sure he liked the cheese he had in his mouth. ;)

Doesn't that look delicious? It was!

Au Revior!

School Journal - First Playdough

Not for her...

 ...for him.

Bo had such a good time with the "dough". It kept him busy for 30 minutes - which is definitely saying something. It probably won't happen again, but it was nice for one day of school. He really liked pushing the rocks into the dough. Then E showed him that she could make a ball with it so now he wants everyone to make balls while he smooshes them with his fingers. :) Great fun!

School Journal - Bunnies and Birds

Betty loved our spring themes of bunnies and birds! We read books on both topics including:

     



I used some Easter theme printables and activities from Prekinders and the Birds Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations for our 2 weeks of Bunnies and Birds.

This is a fun thing from Prekinders. It's like a Find-It! Game but you put rice and little items inside a clear plastic carrot. Betty had a blast finding all her letters in the carrots. Other bunny things we did were hopping like a bunny and other animals, bunny counting using a picture of a garden with a bunny and then using playdough carrots that the bunny gobbled up and a bunny craft.



I couldn't think of a bunny theme sensory bin, but we did do a bird bin. I used bird seed and had a couple of fake birds that I found at the dollar store and some plastic eggs. Betty wasn't the only one who got interested in that.

But we had to take it outside for him! :)

She also painted a little birdhouse I picked up at Hobby Lobby. We did a lot of games with plastic eggs and we made a playdough nest for counting our jelly bean eggs. She really likes birds and can name some of the more common ones around our house. But she's really hoping to see a Great-Horned Owl. 

School Journal - Primary Arts of Language Review

I think I've tried almost every kind of reading program there is. All my kids learn so differently that they've (I've) each needed something different. So...I bought another program and I'm very glad I did. P.A.L. by IEW  is a very intense course, so I have slowed it down a bit to a pace that my 1st grader is comfortable with. This is all new stuff to him and I want him to be successful. My third grader "helps" the 1st grader and gets a review as well, which is good because he doesn't read independently yet and needs a b.u.n.c.h. of repetition. I was also trying to use it with my preschooler. She loved the letter stories and writing the letters, but after we got past the "squeally ee's", she was over her head, so I am doing something else with her. She still can spot the squeally ee's in a word though and is recognizing color words.



P.A.L. uses a Phonetic Farm folder to help introduce "helpers" which are basically different letter combinations that say one sound (i.e. ay, er, ee...). It also introduces sight words that you jot down on an index card to memorize and use in the reading practice each day. There are also file folder games that you put together and your child plays every day. So you're learning new stuff daily (unless you slow down a bit) and putting them into practice with reading and using those words in different games always reviewing previous words.   

I like that it teaches the not-so-basic sounds effortlessly and matter-of-factly. I was having trouble teaching what you do after the short vowel words that are easy to sound out, but P.A.L. makes it very easy and I don't have too much prep work to do except get file folders made. Z has made it through 13 lessons and I am amazed at how well he is doing and how much he is learning. We also get the added benefit of having the whole family interested in what the new reader is learning because there is a poem tying the lessons together and our family loves to memorize the poems and find the "helpers" in the poem.

School Journal - Field Day

This year's field day was a bunch of fun! We were able to do it outside since the weather cooperated. There were so many activities to choose from and the kids were going in all different directions that I didn't get shots of everything, but I did get some cute pics. It was so much fun to see the kids interact with their friends.