Friday, September 25, 2009

Week 7--Sept 21-25

I just realized that I failed again to take science project pictures and I didn't take even ONE of Nathan (who usually works alone in the schoolroom or his bedroom.

Gabriel and Drake's preschool post can be found HERE.

Kaleb is LOVING Saxon math!! I enjoy it too. ...and this page is upside down. Sorry!

Working hard on those numbers!

Kaleb elephant art project from last week. Gabriel's is HERE.
This is from our Neighborhood book bag ebook. Again, Gabriel's page is HERE.
Please disregard the laundry on behind the boys!



Between the field trip, soccer practices, and co-op, we had a very busy week! It was a fun one though.

I spent many hours this summer working on our weekly lesson plans. I did detailed plans for the first six weeks and then more general plans for the rest of the year. Today I checked our progress against the weekly lesson plans, and we're doing pretty good! We're only a week behind in science. This week was scheduled as a catch up week for science so we will be back on track by next. Nathan is way behind in English but I didn't anticipate the need to go as slowly as we are. He isn't too far behind on math, and will still finish 6/5 early enough to get a good amount of 7/6 finished before next summer. We are on track with ETC and history. I didn't purchase OPG until after I did the schedule so I don't have it on my lesson plans. We are behind on our ABC I Believe lessons, but that is no big deal. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet and I planned for a 36 week school year. We have plenty of time. I think we have done great considering the two out of town trips we took since school started!!

Monday--
The highlight of the day was the fire station field trip. The boys loved it and learned a lot! Gabriel has decided he does NOT want to be a fireman because of all the *loud sounds*!! Kaleb said the hours are too long for him. lol Really he did. Nathan was a little bored since he *had already seen a fire station in cub scouts.* You can read more about that *here*.

We managed to get quite a lot of work done before and after the field trip.

Tuesday--
.....was a lazy day. I had a HUGE headache that lasted ALL DAY and we had library story time so we did just the basics. For Kaleb, that only meant less than an hour and actually I had Nathan help Kaleb with ETC so I could put Drake down for a nap. Nathan is quite the teacher!! Nathan had soccer practice so that ate up the majority of our evening.

Wednesday--
We worked HARD to make up for our lazy day. Nathan and Kaleb did a good job of working hard for me so we could still have our evening free.

Thursday--
Another good day but more relaxed than Wednesday. We accomplished everything but history. Drake woke up early from his nap so we had to stop. Kaleb finished his math that evening so Daddy could see how well he is doing.

Friday--
We took the day off since I had many errands to run, we had lunch with Daddy, co-op after lunch, and soccer practice after co-op.

Nathan completed:
*Saxon math-He did four lessons, but I can't remember the lesson numbers. I am really proud at how well he is doing this year in math!! A huge improvement over last year! Saxon agrees with us!!
*R&S English lessons 16-18
*R&S spelling-lesson 5.
*WW-lesson 5

Nathan's scheduled reading book for the week is Robinson Crusoe.

Kaleb completed:
*Saxon math- lessons 1-5 Kaleb LOVES his math!! I am SO glad because I really like the idea of Saxon math.
*ETC-many, many pages! If he keeps up at this rate, he'll be in book 2 before Christmas!
*OPG- we have continued to read the little stories in the lessons we have covered already. We also have been working hard with flash cards and file folder games. It amazes me how well he is progressing!! He is doing so well and we will start back with lessons in OPG next week!!

Together:
*Astronomy-We started Ch 4 Earth this week. We will finish up with the activities next Monday since we missed today. I was kind of disappointed in the content of this chapter considering we live on this planet. I expected it to be a little more involved. It looks like we will finish the book a lot earlier than our other subjects so I think we'll do a study on Earth after that and then continue on in the series.
*History-We studied one of my favorite bible stories--Joseph. I found some videos on youtube.com to go with our lessons this week. Both Nathan and Kaleb seem to retain more if they watch a video on our lessons. I can usually find something for each lesson fairly easily.

Circle time:
*Neighborhood book bag-this is going well! It has been fun and of course with this week's field trip, it has been even more fun!! Kaleb and Gabriel have really enjoyed the activities and all the library books on each week's topic. Next week is all about our home.
*ABC I Believe lessons-Letter Ff. Memory verse--2 Cor 3:18 And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more. All about Flamingos this week. However, our library doesn't have ONE book even on flamingos so we watched a couple Discovery videos on You Tube. How CONVENIENT and COOL that we are learning all about the Fire Station this week too!!

Co-op:
This is still a favorite part of our week! The boys are still enjoying their classes, and I love being the nursery director. I am still shocked at how much Nathan loves Backgammon. Kaleb is loved his art class. They used cars to *drive through* p

Good fun week!!! I like those!

Preschool Corner.

This was a FUN week for Gabriel! All about firetrucks, fire stations, and firemen. We visited a fire station on Monday, and Gabriel had such a good time! He especially enjoyed getting to pull the air horn on the big ladder truck! You can read more about our fire station field trip HERE.

We did some fun activities from our Homeschool Book Bag-Exploring My Neighborhood. We skipped to the Exploring the Fire Station section since we had that field trip this week. I printed activities for both Gabriel and Kaleb, and they enjoyed doing them together. Gabriel especially loved the little I'm a Fireman book. We will move back to the home section next week.

Gabriel had fun this week with several of his little workbooks. We did pages on shapes, colors, and numbers. Since we started Kaleb's Saxon math this week, Gabriel has had to do his share of workbook pages. He is loving it, and I am glad he isn't insisting on doing the exact same pages as Kaleb (like he did when we started ETC).

Drake enjoyed doing some fun activities in his high chair. This has been a lifesaver for me! I love that he loves to play these little games for 10-15 minutes at a time. Do you know how much we can get accomplished in just 15 minutes?? LOVE it!

Gabriel and all his worksheet fun!




You can read about Nathan and Kaleb's week HERE.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Open Ended Art--PlayDoh Mosaic

I have been watching Susana over at Our Homeschool Fun do all these fun art projects led by the author of Growing and Learning by Leaps and Bounds blog. When I saw the project for this week, I had to have my boys give it a try!! Gabriel didn't really participate in the project. He just played with playdoh and didn't want his picture taken anyway.

Nathan actually did two. First he did this goofy face one. You can see the "confetti" that Gabriel made in the upper right corner.


Then Nathan made this one. I wish it were out of paper that was glued down because I would have LOVED to frame it! Instead it was made from playdoh on the craft table. =) Still I LOVE it!! Very nice!This is Kaleb's. I asked him what he wanted to make and he said a smiley face so...there you go! He did a great job too!!

I had planned on doing one as well but instead I kept Drake busy with some toys to keep him out of the boys' hair. =)

You can see more playdoh mosaic creations here.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Fire Station Field Trip

The boys LOVED the fire station field trip. We started in living area of the station--living room, dining area, and kitchen. Gabriel loved that there was a vending machine in the kitchen and, for some reason, Kaleb was blown away by the fact that they had a tv in the room. While we were in the living area, they did a test bell for us and the boys agreed it was LOUD! Then we saw the battalion chief's office and personal space, the bathroom and showers, and the workout room (Kaleb was impressed with the punching bag). We went to the *bedroom* area and out to the garage where all the trucks were.

We learned about each truck and got to see inside the storage compartments on each. We saw what a fireman all dressed up for a fire looks and sounds (with the oxygen tank) like. One of the firemen turned on the lights and sirens on the ladder truck which immediately stopped all traffic in the area! I think people were a bit confused when they turned it off. =)

Then we went to the smoke house and each of the children (and adults if they wanted) went through smoke house to experience what it would be like in a house on fire. Nathan was the awesome big brother and took Kaleb and Gabriel while I stayed out with Drake. The firemen talked about the importance of crawling and testing the temperature of a door before opening it. They also talked about smoke detectors in the home and having an exit plan, as well as a special meeting place.

After that, Kaleb and Gabriel were allowed to pull the horn in the laddar truck!! I think that was a high point of the day for both little boys!

Below is a slide show of our field trip!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

I did it!! I made a lapbook!!!

....And then I accidentally deleted the file. Yeah, I'm super cool that way.....

I did, however, manage to print a copy of everything before I lost my mind and all computer skills. I was inspired to make one by Mama Jenn. I am loving her file folder games!! My grandbaby, Emily, (my husband is a bit older than me and has two grown boys) having her 2nd birthday party tomorrow and I wanted to make something special for her. Her mom is super crafty and fun so I tried to think of something that maybe she hadn't thought about yet. After I figured out I wanted to make a tot lapbook, I just KNEW I needed to find a Dora the Explorer one because Miss Em loves Dora!! I couldn't find on anywhere online so I decided to make my own!!

Here it is!!!

Cover

The inside. I tried to cover all the basic toddler stuff--shapes, sequencing, colors, abc's, 123's, and her name.
Close up of the cards pulled out.

Color cards. I just used the colors of the rainbow to make it easy.

Her name! I LOVE this!! =) I used ribbon to put the cards together and then more ribbon to hold it together.

Can you believe I DELETED this???? I am upset with myself but now at least Emily will have her very own one-of-a-kind lapbook!! I am SO excited to give it to her tomorrow!!!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Week 6--Sept 14-18

You know how as the day ends you think "man, we sure didn't accomplish much today," but then you look at the week on Friday and see just how much was accomplished? That was our week....or maybe things just went more smoothly than I expect. I don't know but we did get A LOT accomplished this week!!

Nathan-
*Math-completed four lessons this week. He is getting back into those fractions that gave him such a hard time last year, but he is doing very well. I have also found some living math resources to help. A HUGE thank you to Jimmie and all of her resources. I enjoyed her links here too.
*R&S English-completed lessons 13-15 and many worksheets (both from the workbox and online printables).
*R&S Spelling-completed lesson 4.
*WW-completed lesson 4.

Kaleb-
*Math-continuing to do some fun math games. I printed off a wonderful math lapbook from File Folder Fun. We will start Saxon 1 next week.
*ETC-he continues to do page after page in his book. I require only 1-2 pages a day, and then let him do another 1-2 if he wants. He really loves his ETC!
*OPGTR-We are still on break from this as we work on cvc words. His reading is really coming along and I think we will be back to OPG after next week! We have been going back a few lessons and reading the stories. He is finally getting that those words actually are part of a story! He is also reading at least one BOB book a day.
*ABC lessons-We stuck with the letter Ee this week since we had so many projects to finish. I'm glad we did. We have been able to use the bible lesson in a couple situations this week.

Circle time-
I have spent a good deal of this week getting the school room put back together after we switched some rooms around. Everything is on it's way to being much more organized and accessible! Our circle time has been very short as a result because all the materials are in the school room that has been in disarray all week. I breezed in with the littles, did a little calendar, and scooted everyone out.

Kaleb and Gabriel did start their Neighborhood activities this week though! They are LOVING it! Next week we will take a field trip with our homeschool group to a fire station. They are super excited about that!! Since the trip is next week and we haven't moved along very quickly with the activities, we're going out of order next week to learn all about the Fire Station while the field trip is fresh in their minds and we'll do the home section the following week.

Together-
Astronomy-We're finishing up Ch 4 Venus this week. We have enjoyed learning about Earth's "twin." The boys LOVED the lava experiment. They were all very excited to show Dad when he got home Tuesday afternoon.
MOH-completed lessons 11-15. We read my FAVORITE bible stories from Abraham to Joseph.

Coop-
Another GREAT week of co-op!
Nathan is loving his rocket science class. Today they made little hollow rockets out of paper and used straws to *shoot* them across the room by blowing into the straws. He is really enjoying backgammon! I am a little shocked by that because I truly didn't expect him to like it so much. His CSI class is still a HUGE hit. They walked into a crime scene in their room today!! Now they are trying to find the guilty shoe!
Kaleb really enjoys his history class. His teacher is AWESOME and quickly developed a soft spot for my little man which I LOVE! She said he keeps the conversation going and gets the other children involved (when he isn't busy hogging the spotlight). He brought home a bunch of little fun art activities from his art class! So cute!! They are doing some really fun things in that class. He had much more fun in his game class this week! I was a little concerned because he really didn't enjoy last week. He played Candy Land and another game. Much better, he said! He is a Candy Land guy!!
I'm not sure what Gabriel did today! lol His classroom is right next to mine so I DO know that he did a LOT of talking today! I couldn't make out what he was saying every time but he was definitely enjoying himself. When I asked him about his day, he said he played Tic Tac Toe....and that is ALL I have managed to get out of him so far! =)
Drake had a LONG nap during co-op. I had him and a baby girl today and both napped at the same time!! It was like a little mini-break for me! =) I read a magazine and cleaned up the room while they napped. Then we went outside to play for a long while. Drake didn't want to go back into the room so we roamed the hallways until it was time to go.
Today was our day to help with clean-up. The three older boys were VERY helpful as I had to hold Drake the whole time to keep him from running off (I guess he wasn't finished hall roaming!).
Our homeschool group had a WONDERFUL mom's night out last night! We had tons of door prizes, pizza, and salad and dessert bars, AND each mom received a beautiful tote bag full of goodies. Then we brainstormed ideas for the upcoming year. It was GREAT!! I enjoyed the time with other moms!! I LOVE our homeschool group!!!!!!

Below is a slide show of our week:

Apple lapbook and shape lapbook ideas came from Mama Jenn.

For some reason, the apple file folder picture won't show in the slide. Here it is:

Photobucket




Sunday, September 13, 2009

First co-op class of the year--Friday!!

The boys had a BLAST at co-op on Friday!!

Nathan loved his CSI class. They tested margarine to see how much fat was in different brands. His teacher said he did great and was a terrific leader in his group.

His second class is backgammon. He enjoyed learning how to play and looks forward to the competition later in the month.

He switched his third class. Originally he was signed up for recycle art and was excited about it. However he found out one of his friends mom is teaching a rocket science class. We didn't see it on the list when we registered for some reason. He asked the art teacher and his friend's mom if he could switch, and both agreed. He LOVED that class and is very excited for next Friday!!

Kaleb's first class is art. He had a lot of fun! They did an art project and went outside to draw on the sidewalk with chalk.

His second hour class is a game/fun class. He wasn't really impressed with it. I think mostly because he didn't understand the game they played. Each Friday will have a different game so I told him to just stick with it and see how he feels about it after another week.

I think his third hour class is his favorite. He is taking a pilgrim history class. He has such a blast and his teacher told me that she absolutely LOVES him!! She said he kept the conversation going througout the hour. The first thing he told me was "did you know I was BORN five years ago??? My own history started when I was BORN!"

I'm not sure how Gabriel is doing in his classes. I didn't get a chance to talk to his teacher about him. He has a Frogstreet reading class, a playground/snack hour, and Frogstreet math class. He said he enjoyed all three classes and can't wait to go back next week.

I am the nursery director for our group. I stayed in the nursery with Drake, a 2 yr old boy, and a 4 month old baby girl. I have a helper during 1st and 2nd hour so we mostly chatted while Drake and the other boy played. We took turns holding the baby girl!! She is so precious! The room is FULL of toys for the boys to play with and they had a blast exploring the room. I was a little bored during the third hour. lol Both boys started getting tired and sat quietly playing by themselves for the most part. I may take a book to read next Friday.

It was a GREAT first co-op day! We all look forward to next Friday!!

Workbox--Week 6

Nathan's workbox schedule:
  1. journaling
  2. copy work
  3. Keys for Kids
  4. math M-Th
  5. independent reading
  6. M-Th--various fun activity Friday--narration
  7. English M-Th
  8. Wordly Wise
  9. puzzles/logic M-Th
  10. spelling
  11. indpendent history reading
  12. various fun activities
Kaleb's workbox schedule:
  1. journaling
  2. copy work
  3. OPGTR M-Th
  4. fun activity
  5. Math M-Th
  6. BOB book
  7. ETC

Together-
Astronomy M-F
History M-F
Morning circle time M-F
Art M-Th

Our Fridays are pretty light due to co-op classes in the afternoon.

letter Ff activities

Danielle's Place ABC Believe
Bible verse--2 Cor 3:18
I LOVE this week's teaching concept:

If we accept Jesus as our Savior, we become a brand new person inside. Our sins are forgiven and we start a new life in Christ. We are given his Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us. As we learn more and more about Jesus and experience his love and forgiveness we begin to change from the inside out.
Art and activities:
Make an inside-out picture
Ff tactile art with feathers ---> letter template from DLTK
flamingo coloring sheet


Our library system doesn't have ONE children's book on flamingos so we will use various websites to learn more about them.
We will read here, here, here, and here.
We will also use YouTube.com to find some National Geographic videos about flamingos.

There just isn't a lot out there about flamingos. We'll make do though.




Saturday, September 12, 2009

File Folder FUN!!

I love these file folder games!!! I found this website months and months ago but never printed any of the games. I finally printed the Shamrocks Phonics game last month and Kaleb LOVED it! I then forgot about the website until today when I was reminded by another homeschool mom blogger. I printed this Turkey Feathers game off tonight and put it together for Kaleb. It is very simple addition and subtraction. What I LOVE about this is I can print off blank feathers and use it with Gabriel to put the number of feathers with each turkey. Later on I can do the same with some multiplication and division problems! There is also a dino version with larger numbers that I plan on printing at a later date. Right now we are going to focus on these simple numbers until he is comfortable with them.


There are two games that we like to play with the phonics game. In the first game, we just dump all the shamrocks out onto the floor and as he reads each word, he gets to put it back into the correct word family pocket. The second game is a spelling game. He loves spelling!! I take one shamrock out of a pocket and tell him what it is. If he spells the word correctly, he gets to keep the shamrock. If he misspells, we put the word back into the pocket to be spelled again. We have really enjoyed this game!!


I can't wait to share our experiences with the Turkey Feathers game and other games on the website!

Friday, September 11, 2009

The Ant Craze.

I sent Nathan out to start mowing for me this morning. He ran back inside and said the lawnmover was covered in ants. Yeah, right. I seriously thought he was just trying to avoid having to mow. I went out to see for myself and, sure enough, a HUGE ant colony had moved into the handle of the push mower! They were everywhere! After he pulled the mower into the driveway, they went crazy!

I started to just use ant spray but I saw quickly that it wasn't working very well. They just kept pouring out of the holes in the handle. I had to use a water hose and flush them out. I have never in my life seen so many ants in one place!

I took this short video with my cell phone before spraying the mower. It is blurry but you can see all the movement.


Thursday, September 10, 2009

Week 5----Sept 7-11

Kaleb's drawing and narration of Mercury written by Mom.Gabriel's drawing of Mercury.



Nathan also has a very good drawing of Mercury and a narration that I suppose I will have to share next week since I failed to take a picture of it. =)

We took last week off to enjoy a trip to visit Daddy. We just decided since we had completed our first four weeks of school that we would not take books with us and just have fun. Nathan did end up doing some math and we did a little science because they asked, but over all we just had fun with Dad.

Nathan hit the books hard this week and will continue to for the rest of this month. He does so much better when his schedule is full and he stays busy. He accomplished a lot this week and did well.
*R&S English--Lessons 8-12. It appears that we haven't made much progress in the past five weeks, but we have taken this very, very slowly. I have added various worksheets I found online for a few of the lessons just to make sure he is retaining. Grammar is a huge struggle for him since he didn't receive (or retain) much while in public school. We will continue to take it slowly until he feels comfortable enough to speed up.
*Saxon math--he completed six lessons this week. He is doing great in math!! I love being able to say that because it has been a struggle in the past. Saxon math with some MEP supplementing has been the ticket for Nathan this year.
*R&S spelling--trucking along with a lesson a week here. Doing well. Nothing exciting to report. =)
*Wordly Wise--completed a lesson this week. He does not like WW at all but we saw good results with the program last year so we will continue on this year. Thanks to a post on the WTM boards, now have this great supplement that I think will make it a little more interesting.

I have been very relaxed with Kaleb this week. We have played a lot of math and phonics games. Gabriel has even joined us in a few. We didn't start the neighborhood teacher bag activities yet because our library was a little slow on getting the books I requested. I decided to put it off until next week when I will have all of our resources together.
*OPGTR--we are taking a little break from the book to review those cvc words before moving on. He is reading BOB books and doing very well. We have also been using some homemade flash cards and doing some verbal spelling. He LOVES spelling!!
*ETC--He completed six pages. I started writing the words with a highlighter beforehand to make it a bit easier for him. He is doing very well though. He believes his handwriting is very sloppy and gets frustrated with himself. I try to just encourage and reassure him. Truly he is doing wonderfully!!
*Saxon/MEP--we have just played games this week. I have been reading more on living math, and will be implementing more into our weeks as we go. Once we get back to OPGTR, we will get back to our math books.
*ABC lessons--Letter Ee this week. We are learning all about elephants and I have thrown in some Elmo for fun. Bible verse--Phil 2:15b-"amoung whom ye shine as lights in the world." We have so many resources still to use for this week so Ee may carry over into next week.

Together--
*Apologia Astronomy--we finished up Mercury last week and have dug into Venus this week. It is so fun to hear Kaleb tell people about the sun and planets we have studied so far. All three boys and I are really enjoying this year's science program.
*Mystery of History--It seems history is constantly being put on the back burner here. We are getting a lesson in here and there, but not keeping up with the schedule at all. We will get back on track next week and make it more of a priority. Nathan has been doing well with reading the supplement books I have requested from the library though.
*SOTW--After a rocky start, we are still listening in to the cds. I had thought to put it away for another time because Kaleb was getting so confused with the myths vs real history. On our drive to and from our trip, we listened to quite a bit with frequent stops to discuss the stories and share thoughts. It is actually working out very well so we will continue....in a couple of weeks. We are SEVERAL years ahead of Mystery of History after our six hour round trip last week!

Co-op classes start Friday afternoon. We are SO very excited!! We participated in co-op last year with a different, much smaller group. This year should be much more fun for all of us!!

Both Nathan and Kaleb are now signed up for soccer and golf for the fall. Soccer practice was suppose to start Thursday but was canceled due to weather. Golf lessons start October 1st.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

September Book Bag 2009


K and G are going to LOVE this month's book bag!! I have never purchased one of these before but was really impressed with the amount of activities and such included in this one.

We will learn about our neighborhood this month! We will explore our home, the fire station, police station, and post office! My boys LOVE firefighters and police officers so I know they will enjoy themselves. We are taking a field trip with our homeschool group to the fire station later in the month and we will check out the police station and post office ourselves.

I have the notebook with the file folder map pieces printed and ready to go! I will post pictures of our adventures here this month as we work our way around the map.

This week is an overview of our neighborhood. Our activities will include a daily walk in different directions and a map drawing of our own neighborhood with stars on the boys' friends houses and a heart on our house.

Some of our library selections are:

Are You My Neighbor? Veggie Tales dvd--a lesson on loving thy neighbor.
Franklin's Neighborhood
Pooh's Neighborhood
Biscuit Meets the Neighbors
This is My Town
New Neighbors for Nora
Loudmouth George and the New Neighbors
Good Neighbors

letter Ee activities

I have found so many fun things to do this next week with the letter Ee!

First, Danielle's Place homeschool letter Ee bible lesson focuses on Elephants. I just have to say, I think this is a wonderful resource!! The $12.95 is well worth the cost of this program! We have several activities to do this week from here including some copywork, several elephant crafts, and a game or two as well as the bible lesson and memory verse.

I found my letter template at DLTK's Letter E Crafts for Kids as well as the Elmo tp craft we will do later this week.

I pulled a few activities from Homeschool Share's Elephant Lapbook.

Egg match game here
. I am going to make a copy of both the colored and b&w. The color copy will be for the game and the b&w will be for the boys to color for their tactile Ee page.

I have my HUGE list of library books on hold for this week. A few of our selections:

African elephant : the world's biggest land mammal
What Elephant?
An Elephant Grows Up
Elephants of Africa
Elephants Can Not Dance
The Blind Man and the Elephant
Elephants
Edsel the Elephant Who Learned to Share
Basha Elephant Baby
Never Ride Your Elephant to School
When Elephant Goes to a Party
Also a few on Elmo and Ernie from Sesame Street.

This will be a VERY fun week for us!! I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures and add them next weekend!