Week 12 - Fall

Mother Nature has made it really obvious the last couple weeks that fall is in the air and winter won't be far behind!  In typical Ohio fashion, the weather has been back and forth and non-committal to the change in seasons and the kids have been milking every last drop of warm weather!  I admit that this week we let some of our studying take a back seat to outdoor play time.  There will be plenty of time for sit-down indoor work once the weather is consistently cold! 

One thing we did manage to complete this week was the monthly art program at our local library called Art for Little Hands.  One of our favorite librarian reads books and does songs/rhymes with the kids and they work on a special art project.  This months' theme was pumpkins!  The kids created colorful coffee filter pumpkins and also glued lots of different orange objects on another pumpkin.  The program is geared more toward Little E's age range, but big brother still thinks it is fun and is more than happy to join in! And a trip to the library is always productive.  We usually leave with more books that we can carry!  Little E is really into the Pinkalicious and Marley series of easy readers.  I think we have checked out every single one multiple times in the last six months.  Big K has gone through the entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid chapter books series and has checked out several different comic-book type books.  Of course, in true big brother style he always makes sure to check out one or two ABC or counting books to read to Little E and Baby W because, well, they need to learn that stuff too! 

   

Even though we spend a lot of time at home, the kids don't really play with a lot of toys.  They would much rather spend their time drawing/cutting/gluing paper or using playdough or creating obstacle courses through the house.  However, every once in a while they rediscover a toy that holds their interest for more than five minutes.  This week it was Big K's marble run sets.  I love these things!  The kids spend HOURS designing and testing their roller coasters. 

Another thing the kids like to do is "play cooking."  Most of the time I give them the cheap spices and pantry items to make their own cooking creations, but this week Big K wanted to make something real.  He searched on Pinterest (yes, my six year old son knows how to work Pinterest and he is as enamored by all the yummy things on there as I am!) and found a recipe for Ultimate Oreos, although he kept calling them "Unlimited Oreos."  He checked our pantry for the ingredients we needed to buy, made a list to take to the store, and aside from a little help measuring and taking things in and out of the oven, he made them himself.  I must say - they were DELICIOUS.  Kid has good taste in recipes!  He is going to be quite the chef one day!

You can find the recipe we used here: http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/guest-post-ultimate-oreos/ 

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Week 11 - Communities

This week we continued learning about communities.  We focused a lot on the differences between rural, urban, and suburban areas and Big K decided he would like to live in an urban area best because he loves the tall towers (which is kinda funny because he HATES elevators!).  One of the activities we did was use construction paper to create our own cities.  Big K decided he wanted to make a skyline, so he cut out lots of tall buildings and even numbered the floors.  Then he glued them onto a big piece of blue paper to create a skyline artwork!  While he was doing that, I made a city map.  When all the pieces were dry Big K helped me brainstorm all the different types of businesses that a city needs and we labeled the buildings.  My favorite thing he put in his city was a thrift store.  He said the people needed a place to buy clothes!  (We buy most of the kid's things second hand.  I refuse to pay full price for clothes that are just going to get stained/ripped/ruined!!)

This week was also our monthly visit to read to the therapy dogs!  Big K and Little E look forward to it all month long.  This month some of the dogs were even wearing their Halloween costume.  So cute!  Little E even got in on the action this month and "read" a book to her favorite dog that comes, Holly.  Little E tells me each time we go that Holly is "just her size."

We also went to a program put on by our local park district called Nature Basket.  This time we learned all about fall and what animals do in the fall to prepare for winter.  We learned that some animals find a place to sleep all winter, some animals migrate, and some animals adapt.  Then the kids made a bird craft.  Normally this program is mostly attended by preschool aged children, but we were thrilled to meet some new older homeschool friends this time!

We only have a little more than a month until Big K's debut stage performance.  He has been hard at work learning his lines.  Memorizing lines is hard work when you are six, but he is doing an amazing job.  He has several parts in the play and is getting a real hands-on experience and is really enjoying it!

One thing that Big K has been working on is punctuation and capitalization in sentences.  Each morning I write a sentence on our big white board that has lots of mistakes.  Big K's job is to find the mistakes and rewrite the sentence the correct way.  He is getting really good at finding and fixing all my mistakes!  Now if only he would translate that knowledge into his own writing!  

 

Big K's favorite thing this week is his new writing tool.  We found a squiggle wiggle writer on amazon and thought it would be a great way to work out those hand muscles and help him with his fine motor skills.  I remember having one of these as a kid, and they are just as cool as I remember!  Big K did spelling work with it among other things!  I think we wore out the batteries more than once in a week.  That it a lot of writing!!  

 Happy Learning,

Momma C

Week 10 - Communities

This week we expanded our project learning about community helpers and started learning about different types of communities.  We learned the words rural and urban and read books about life in each type of community.  We also talked about how life in those areas are alike and how they are different. 

We also spent a lot of time this week focusing on learning about the dictionary.  Big K was thoroughly impressed by his new Children's Dictionary.  We did a scavenger hunt to help us learn about guide words and finding definitions.  We even did a spelling activity this week using his dictionary.  BigK really liked looking through all the additional information at the back of the book.  He found pictures of flags of all the countries in the world, a list of presidents, maps, and all sorts of good stuff! 



















We also started the next book in our math series.  Big K is excited about the adventures Fred is going to take in this book, and I've caught him several times reading his math book during his free time.  I'm going out on a limb and saying that he enjoys our math curriculum. 

On Friday we had our monthly tumbling class.  Big K has been talking about tumbling class since last month's lesson and he was thrilled to be going.  And this month did not disappoint either!  There weren't as many kids this time around, so he got more individual attention working on his forward rolls, backward rolls, cartwheels, and other tumbling basics.  The last month or so we have run into the same group of boys his age and he has been having a good time getting to know these new friends.  It was so great to see him running and playing and laughing with those kids!  I'm excited to see his friendships develop!  Last year in public school he was allowed only 15 minutes of recess time to run and play.  This year he gets as much time as he needs and I love that about homeschooling!

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Week 9 - People in our Community

After the last two weeks of learning about specific community helpers, this week we expanded and talked about all the different jobs that are in our community and how we all work together to make a productive society.  Some of the jobs we learned about were mail carriers, librarians, farmers, grocers, construction workers, doctors, nurses, and scientists.

Our big trip for the week was to a working farm!  Big K and Little E got so much hands-on experience with the animals.  They got to hold baby chicks, brush a pony, bottle feed baby goats, milk a goat, collect eggs, and pet and feed lots of other animals!  We learned about all the goods and services that farmers provide for the community. 

In other big news, this week Big K finished the first book in his math series, Life of Fred!  He is very excited to start the next book next week!  Some of the topics covered in the first book were telling time to minute, addition, subtraction, basic pre-algebra concepts (x+7=10), numbers in a set, and LOTS and LOTS of other information.  We LOVE Life of Fred!

This Saturday was Space Day at a local community college, so after Big K's football game in the morning we went to check it out.  We were pleasantly surprised and how much there was going on.  The kids got to compare the weight of objects on different planets, try out the tools doctors use in laproscopic surgeries, we saw a Math Magician show, and Big K even got to ride on a hovercraft!

 
It was a busy, fun, full week with lots and lots of learning going on!  Who knew homeschool life could keep us on the go so much!

Happy Learning,
Momma C