Week 18 - The Digestive System

This week we decided to expand our knowledge of food by studying what happens to food when we eat it.  We learned all about our digestive system!  We have an amazing book from Usborne Books called Look Inside Your Body  that Big K really enjoys looking through.  We spent a whole day focusing on the pages that explain the digestive tract and learned the names of the different organs.  Then we watched a youtube video following an actual camera through a digestive system.  Big K thought it was pretty gross, but pretty cool at the same time.  (You can find that video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QYwscALNng )  We also watched a Magic School Bus Episode where they take a field trip inside Arnold's body to see how digestion happens. 

Another activity we did to help us understand digestion was to use graham crackers and a few household items to recreate the digestive system.  First we crunched up crackers to represent what our teeth do.  Then we put the crumbs into a paper tube (our esophagus) which led into a plastic bag (our stomachs).  Then we added some water (stomach acid) and used our hands to recreate what the stomach muscles do.  Afterwards we talked about the jobs of the intestines and then cut a hole in our bag so they could push the goop out of the bags, to stimulate pooping.  (As you can imagine, this was Big K's favorite part.  What six year old wouldn't like to pretend to poop!) 

For the month of December, part of our calendar routine is using an app on my tablet to check the high temperature in various parts around our country.  We thought it would be fun to include some cities with Christmas themed names, so our choices are Christmas Valley, OR, Santa Claus, GA, and North Pole, AK.  This week the high temps in Santa Claus, GA were in the 70s!  Much better than the 30s here in Ohio! 

We have also been doing a lot of spelling review and trying to change up how we practice our words.  Spelling isn't one of Big K's favorite school time lessons, so this week we decided to write the letters on our piano and Big K had to play each word.  What a fun way to practice our spelling words!  He said the letters as he played them and had to play each word three times.  It was the first time in weeks he didn't grumble about practicing his spelling words!


The weather has been cold and rainy almost all week.  And although we've been busy with play practice (opening night is in two weeks!) and Christmas activities, we made sure we had time to take our weekly trip to the library.  The weather was just too conducive to snuggle up with a good book!  Big K is really into the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and was thrilled to find the newest release at the library this week!  Although he decided he needed to finish his Big Nate book first - he loves books that have the comic integrations in them! 

 Happy Learning!  Less than three weeks until Christmas!
~Momma C

Week 17 - Food and Thanksgiving

 This time of year, we try really hard to not get caught up in the gimmie-gimmie-gimmie that usually accompanies the holiday season.  One thing we do is stress the importance of giving back to the community and helping others.  This week the kids helped me make dinner for a friend who recently had a baby.  We made one of our favorite dishes - meatball sub casserole!  The kids helped cut up all the ingredients and assemble the dish and then we went and delivered the meal to my most grateful friend.  And of course, Little E had to grab her chef hat out of her play kitchen to wear. 

Since it was a short week, we spent the few days we had reviewing some of the topics we have covered this year so far.  Big K went through his old spelling words and we picked a few tricky ones to go back and practice again.  We also reviewed some math topics from our Life of Fred books.

 One thing that normally makes an appearance during our school week is board games.  We LOVE to play games in our house.  Lately, Big K has been requesting to play a game called "Knowledge" a lot.  It is very similar to Trivial Pursuit, so we learn lots of random facts about lots of different categories!   And Little E gets to practice counting dots on a dice while Big K gets practice reading lots and lots of trivia cards.  Even baby W likes to get in on the action. Win, Win! 

For Thanksgiving Day, Big K decided he wanted to make a desert to bring for dinner.  He chose a S'more Cake, made a list of ingredients, came with me shopping, and then put the cake together almost all by himself, including making homemade whipped cream!  (He just needed a little help melting the chocolate chips on the stove).  It got rave reviews from our friends and family on turkey day!   You can find the recipe here:  http://kaotichectickitchen.blogspot.com/2012/07/so-nice-i-am-posting-twice-no-bake.html

This week we also went over to grandma's house for our traditional set-up-the-tree lunch date with her! The kids look forward to it, and it always sets off our holiday spirit to see her tree all dolled up.  Between our cats and the kids, our tree isn't nearly as nice as Grandma's tree!  We normally spend Christmas morning at Grandma's house too, so setting up her tree really gets them excited for Christmas. 

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Week 16 - Food

As suspected, our food project has been a big hit!  Big K has been super interested in everything we've been learning and has even been spending his free time reading more about the food groups and exploring several food related websites.

This week most of our time was spent learning about fruits and vegetables.  We talked about the different ways they can grow (on vines, in trees, underground, etc) and learned about the different categories of vegetables.   We also spent a lot of time in the kitchen trying out some new recipes.  One of the things we made was homemade fingerpaint!  It wasn't exactly food, but still involved mixing things you would normally find in your kitchen (corn starch, water, sugar, salt, and food coloring).  Then the kids used celery stalks to paint with.  Of course, in true kid fashion the celery was quickly tasted and exchanged for using fingers/arms/legs/bodies to paint with.  That lesson ended up with a bubble bath....

  

This week we also had our first measurable snow of the season.  Big K woke up that morning, put on clothes as fast as he could, and headed out to play.  Even Little E was excited about this snow (which was huge considering last year she SCREAMED if the snow got on her boots).  But I think the most excited member of our family was Charlie, our dog.  He was out playing in the snow before the sun came up!  We also thought the first snow day of the year was the perfect excuse for hot chocolate and watching The Polar Express - one of our favorite Christmas movies!

Even though it was cold out, we still attended the Nature Basket program scheduled for this week at one of our local parks.  This month the kids met inside a log cabin from the 1800s (which, thankfully, is complete with a working fireplace that was lit!).  We learned about wild turkeys and then talked about what life was like in the pioneer days.  We learned how they made butter, how they cooked their food, and Big K even got to model some pioneer style clothing.  By the time we left, Big K was NOT impressed with life.  He said there was no way he was living like that ever because "there isn't even an XBOX!!!".









This week we also tried a new way of writing our spelling words.  We called it "Upside Down Spelling."  We taped a piece of paper on the bottom of our little table and the kids had to lay down under the table and write their words.   We try to keep things new and exciting for the boring subjects like spelling!





One thing we have done almost every day this month is graph the high temperature for the day on a line graph.   It has been a crazy weather month! Typical Ohio.....  Big K has also been interested in seeing what the weather is like in other parts of the world so I think for December we may do some comparison graphing!  As much as I love the idea of a White Christmas, I think I still prefer those 60-70 degree days!

Happy Learning!  It's almost Turkey Day!

Momma C

Week 15 - Food/Cooking

Big K loves all things cooking.  His favorite show right now is MasterChef Junior.  He helps me in the kitchen almost daily.  He even likes to make breakfast for himself and Little E all by himself.  So we decided to spend a few weeks learning about food and cooking as part of our school stuff - we thought it would be perfect leading up to Turkey Day! 

We spent a lot of time this week learning about the food pyramid and the food groups.  We started by cutting out pictures from local sales papers and sorted them into groups:

  Then we did some further exploration with the grain group by doing a science experiment learning about popcorn.  We popped three different batches of popping corn - one batch had been soaked in water for an hour, one batch had been dried in the oven for an hour, and one batch was straight out of the bag.  We then compared the size of the popped corn kernals and learned that the ones soaked in water made the biggest kernels!  We talked about why this might happen, and did a taste test.  Big K decided even though they were different sizes, they were all delicious!  Then we watched some super fun videos on you tube of slow motion popcorn popping.  (Our favorite one was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_7Qi3mprKQ)

 

Another day this week we learned about the dairy group and doing another science experiment.  We added heavy whipping cream into a mason jar with a marble and shook for about 20 minutes.  The result was homemade butter!  Little E kept calling it "milk butter".   Then we made buttered noodles to eat for lunch to try it out - delicious!  

Big K also spent some time on the computer exploring the website www.choosemyplate.gov/kids  

learning about healthy eating habits.  His favorite game was the food smash game.

We have also been working through the book How to Eat Fried Worms to go along with our unit.  We are really enjoying the book so far.  We've been talking a lot about the characters in the book and the new things we learn about them each day.  We've also been encountering lots of words that are new to us so we have been learning about how to use the surrounding text to determine what a new word means.  I personally loved the book as a kid and I am excited to be able to share it with my own kids. 

Happy Learning,

Momma C

Week 14 - Government and Elections

Tuesday was election day, so we thought it would be a great time to learn more about our local, state, and national government.  We started out by learning about our town mayor.  We talked about all the things a mayor does, and Big K wrote our mayor a letter telling him what he would like to see in our city. 

"Dear Mayor Nichols, I am learning about our city.  One thing I would change is I would like more ice cream shops"

We then went on to learn about our state governor and our current president.  Big K wrote letters to both of them as well.  We are hoping to get a response from at least one of them!  And of course, the kids went with me to the polls on Tuesday to cast our vote in the midterm elections!

We've also been having some warmer than usual temperatures, so we took several trips to local parks.  One of our parks even has a monthly storytime for kids we tried out this week.  It was awesome!  We learned about what animals do in the fall, and the kids had the chance to pet a snake and see some deer antlers up close.  Then they played a game where they moved like the animals in a story we read.  Afterwards it was a perfect day for some exploration in the creek. 

In other news, Big K has been working hard learning all his lines for his play that is coming up next month.  I think we finally have them all down pat.  Pretty soon the theater group will start working on building and painting their own sets and putting it all together.  The kids have worked so hard - I can't wait to see it on opening night!

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Week 13 - Fall and Halloween

 

This has been the week of weather changes!  Monday was absolutely beautiful - high in the 70s.  PERFECT day to get outside and collect leaves.  We even went on a walk around the block barefoot and crunched as many leaves as we could.  The kids also collected leaves of all shapes, sizes, and colors.  Of course, Little E in true three-year-old style was very specific and would only add red leaves to her bag because red is her favorite color this week.  One of our neighbors has a gorgeous tree that is dropping big yellow leaves all over the ground.  We took a break from our walk to sit and play in the leaves. Baby W even got in on the action and took a little rest in the leaves. 

After collecting all those leaves, we had to do something with them!  We took the opportunity to do a math lesson on sorting.  We sorted the leaves by size, by color, and then put them in order from smallest to largest.  

By Friday, the weather had turned cold and rainy, but that didn't stop us from enjoying Halloween.  We cut open our pumpkins, scooped out all the guts, toasted pumpkin seeds, did some Halloween word puzzles,
and even had a pumpkin decorating contest.  We decided on boys vs girls this year and as trick or treaters came to our house, we had each person vote on their favorite pumpkin by placing a piece of candy corn into a jar.  Then the kids had to count all the votes and declare a winner.  This year the boy's Lego themed pumpkin won by only 10 votes.  Their reward was picking out a movie to watch after trick-or-treating and us girls cooked up some snacks and served the winners!

Happy Learning,
Momma C