Week Four - Plants

We still had a few things this week that we wanted to do relating to Jack & The Beanstalk,  and since we are homeschooling and can do whatever we want, we decided to keep going!

On Monday we read a super cute fractured fairy tale called Jack and the Baked Beanstalk.  Then we compared the books using a Venn Diagram.  I cut up strips of paper with statements on them related to one or both of the books and Big K decided where in the Venn Diagram they belonged.  We will definitly be looking for more fractured fairy tales to explore!  We really enjoyed this book!


We also kept observing our beans we planted last week. It is amazing how well they are growing with just a paper towel and a sandwich baggie in the window.  We read several books about the life cycle of plants and also learned about the different parts of a plant and what they do. Big K also planted a few beans outside and has been comparing to see which set of beans is growing the fastest.  The outside beans are currently winning, and Big K has decided that's because plants really need dirt to grow their best.  It's pretty amazing they are growing at all since it has been so hot and dry here!  He must be sneaking water out there to his bean plants!



This week for spelling, Big K worked on words with the "ig" chunk.  Each week his spelling list has four sight words and four phonetic words that all have the same chunk.  One of his favorite spelling activities this week was making bean words!  I wrote the words on paper for him and he had to trace over the words with glue and use beans to spell the words.  It was great practice for his fine motor control too! 





Have I mentioned how much we love our local library?  Once a month they hold a program called "Tail Wagging Tutors."  A group of local volunteers bring in their therapy dogs and the kids can sign up for a half-hour of reading to the dogs.  We go almost every month.  At the end of their session they can collect bookmarks from the owners with the dogs names and pictures of them.  Big K collects those cards and treasures them like other kids do baseball cards.  He looks forward to it every month!  Little E loves it too.  She always sits and listens so patiently while Big K reads to the dogs.  We have a dog at home he could read to, but our Charlie isn't a big fan of sitting still long enough to listen to a book!

Our favorite math activity this week was called Elevator Math.  We got the idea from an awesome blog I follow, that you can find here: http://deceptivelyeducational.blogspot.com/2012/01/up-down-add-subtract-elevator-math.html.  We altered the game a bit, and rolled two dice, added the numbers together and that's how many floors the elevator moved up.  When we got to the top of the building, the elevator went back down.  We wrote different stores for a few of the floors and Big K got a kick out of visiting the park and the grocery store on his game!  Definitely filing this one away for another day! 

Between all that work, Big K starting football practice, and Little E battling a tummy bug this week I'm surprised we fit everything in!  Homeschooling sure keeps us busy and on the go!  Bring on the next week!

Happy Learning,
Momma C