Week 30 - American History

I think this was one of our best homeschool weeks of the year!  We were so busy and the kids were super interested in our topic for the week.  In case you didn't already pick up on it, Big K is crazy into learning about the states.  We've studied maps, individual states and capitols, time zones, all sorts of map related learning.  Lately he has been asking questions about how our states were formed so we thought it would be interesting to throw in some American history and learn about the Revolutionary War.  This week we talked about the original 13 colonies and how they originated from England.  We also learned why a lot of the settlers were angry about being ruled by King George III.  We even did an activity using smarties candies to help us understand what taxes were, and why the colonists thought the taxes they were required to pay were unfair. We also started a large map display for our unit.  This week we labeled the 13 original colonies, as well as the city of Boston where the Boston Tea Party took place.

To help further expand our knowledge, we spent two days learning all about the Boston Tea Party.  We watched an episode of Liberty Kids that told about the Boston Tea Party.  Then we did a science experiment comparing what happens to tea leaves in fresh water vs. salt water.  We decided that when the patriots dumped the boxes of tea into Boston Harbor, it didn't in fact turn the water into tea. 

 Then we painted with tea bags!  We started by using a spray bottle to spray dry tea bags on the paper, but quickly decided that wasn't going to be very efficient.  So Big K thought we should just get them wet and use them as paintbrushes.  Eventually one of the bags ripped, and the kids thought it would be great to just paint with the tea leaves themselves!

Then we made some tea and chocolate chip cookies and had a tea party picnic for lunch! Big K didn't care for the tea at all!  Little E claimed she really liked it, but only took one sip and then declared she was done. 

This week, the weather has also finally started to feel like spring so we had the chance to get out and spend some time in the sunshine!  It felt so good to be back at the park!  We are looking forward to many more sunny days!

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Week 29 - More Maps and Serving Others

It was another busy homeschool week in our house!  Monday we had a playdate with our homeschool group at an awesome indoor playground.  Big K and Little E ran and played for about three hours and had a blast!  It's always fun to get together with other homeschool families, and this outing was no exception.  We've made some great friends through this group and Big K is always excited to see them again.

This week we also had a special opportunity to serve lunch at a local Salvation Army soup kitchen with our 4H club.  The bigger kids cooked the food while the Cloverbuds wrapped silverware, seated guests, and served food.  Big K and Little E took their jobs very seriously and I think the afternoon made quite the impact on them!  Afterwards we had a 4H club meeting.  Big K got his project book for this year's fair.  His project is called "Let's Start Cooking" and he is anxious to get started! 

We are also still waiting for several state packages to arrive from our online state swap group.  As we wait, we decided that we would turn the information we DO have into a collage for each state.  Then we will put them all together to make a fun book about the states.  We learned about what a collage was, how to make one, and then took brochures and maps from each of the states we have received (or things we collected ourselves from states we have visited) to make a page full of all the things we think are important.  Here is one that he made about Tennessee: 

 

I love that he included a picture of Elvis.  He wasn't sure who he was as we were looking through the brochures, so we had a mini lesson on Elvis and spent the afternoon listening to some Elvis music on Spotify!  However, making this collage has convinced BigK that we need to go visit Tennessee - and he insists we need to go in June or July.....  (Can you look at the collage and guess why?)

We also discovered a really great new show on Netflix about the states.  It is called "How the States Got Their Shape" and talks all about why the boarders of each state are they way they are.  It is really interesting and we've learned some awesome facts about the states and their neighbors!  

In other news, this week we finished the third book in our math series.  We had originally planned on taking a bit of a break with our math curriculum and spending some time just really drilling in those addition and subtraction facts, but Big K is BEGGING to go ahead a start the next book, so who am I to stand in the way of learning? 

As the weather warms up, we've also been blessed to be able to actually get outside and play a bit this week.  We are looking forward to many more outdoor explorations in the weeks to come for sure!  Little E did notice that we have "little green things" poking through the ground in our flower beds this week and is anxiously watching our daffodils grow!  Every day she goes out to see how much bigger they are.  I can't wait to see her reaction when the bloom! 

We are so excited that it finally feels like spring! 

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Weeks 26-28: Busy, Busy, Busy!

The past few weeks have been crazy busy in our house!  We've had a mixture of bad weather (which made for some great sledding and snow exploration!), and a bad case of cabin fever.  We have wanted to be out and about and on the go, so that is exactly what we've been doing!  Even the snow couldn't keep us home.  One day Dad even got to stay home from work and we took the kids sledding.  And bonus, we ran into some good friends from church.  Big K went up and down the hill for a solid two hours.  He was frozen solid by the time he was done!  Big K also got to go snowboarding for the first time.  He did an awesome job and is excited to go again!

We also brought some snow inside to play with.  Baby W really enjoyed being able to experience the snow without having to be outside in the cold!

I've mentioned before how Big K has been really into listening to The Magic Tree House series books on tape.  He finished a book called Mummies in the Morning and our local museum just happened to have an exhibit on mummies!  We thought it was the perfect chance for some extension learning.  Big K thought it was creepy (and it kinda was!) but the exhibit was also really cool and we learned a lot about the science behind mummy making!

We also had a field trip with our homeschool group to a local grocery store.  It's not your normal grocery store though.  It is a crazy big international market and the kids had a chance to not only tour the store and learn about the store's history, but we also had the chance to sample foods from all over the world.  I was so proud of Big K - he tried every single food that they offered.  He tried rambutan (a fruit popular in southeast Asia), jicima (a Mexican potato that's not really a potato at all), sushi, salsa, several different types of cheese, and even BUGS.  That's right - Big K and Little E both tried cheese flavored worms and LIKED THEM.  They both even asked for seconds!

We also visited our local tourism board and collected supplies to finish up our Ohio project envelopes and then mailed them out.  Big K has been stalking the mailman every day waiting for our packages from other states.  So far we have received packages from Louisiana, Wyoming, and Oregon.  Our favorite part of each package have been the maps but we've also gotten lots of other goodies like recipe cards, stickers, post cards, and lots of other stuff!  It's been a lot of fun exploring the information from other parts of the country.  We are looking forward to receiving the rest of our packages!

After all the snow and cold weather, we have been itching to go somewhere warmer so we ended up going for a nice long weekend to Atlanta, Georgia!  We had a blast.  We visited the Lego Discovery Center where Big K made lego cars to race down ramps.  We also went to the CocaCola museum and tasted popular sodas from all over the globe.  Big K's favorite was an apple flavored soda from China.  Little E preferred a fruity drink from somewhere in Africa.  We even got a chance to see the CocaCola secret vault and take a picture with the cocacola polar bear!  And how can you go to Atlanta without visiting the amazing Georgia Aquarium.  Talk about an awesome place to visit!  We especially loved the dolphin show and the penguin exhibit!

In other big news, Big K got his Tiger badge in cub scouts this past month at the Blue and Gold Banquet.  He completed all the requirements for the badge with two other boys in his den.  He has been working hard to finish it all up and has learned a lot of things in scouts each week.  Now he is on to working on his car for the pinewood derby!

Now that the weather is FINALLY getting warmer, we are looking forward to more outdoor experiences and time at the park!  We are also planning on a big summer backyard garden this year, so Big K and Little E have been busy deciding which plants they want to grow!

Happy Learning!
Momma C

Week 25 - O-H-I-O

A few months ago we were invited to a group on Facebook that had a special plan to help kids learn about the United States.  Kids from all over the country paired up and planned on creating a box of information about their states and then swapping.  This week Big K has been working hard to prepare his box about Ohio!  We have been putting together a PowerPoint presentation about things he thinks are important about our state (he chose to include things such as the state symbols, sports teams, famous people born in Ohio, and fun places to visit).  We also visited the a local visitors center and picked up a ton of magazines, brochures, and maps to include in our packages.  We hope to finish them up and get them out in the mail early this coming week!

This week we've also been working more on learning perimeter and area.  One day we used toothpicks to work out some math problems.  And while Big K was busy figuring out what dimensions of toothpick "fences" gave the biggest area, Little E used some toothpicks to practice making some shapes of her own!

We also have been learning about compound words this week.  We spent one day playing a game matching up words to make compound words and even completed a rare worksheet sorting words.  Next up, contractions! 

After discovering the playaway books on tape from the library last week, it has been all the rage in our house.  Big K listened to THREE books from The Magic Tree House series this week!  However, he decided next week we need to check out the actual book as well as the playaway from the library so he can sit and follow along.  I told him I thought that was a great idea!

This week Baby W has been sick (yet again), so we have been stuck in the house more than usual.  While Big K was busy listening to his books, Little E spent a lot of time with her favorite activity - playdough!  She gets playdough out at least three times a day.  I think we need to invest in some new playdough accessories - they get a lot of use in our house.  We've also been playing a lot of card games.  It has been great practice for Little E learning to recognize numbers as well as identify which number is "more" and which is "less".  I love being able to work in school stuff even during game time!

 

Happy Learning, 

Momma C

Week 24 - On the Go

Wow!  What a busy week.  We had something on our calendar for every single day.  So lots of learning on the go this week!

We started our week with a trip to the local nature center for a storytime.  Once a month they host a storytime that is themed around a different animal or science topic.  This month was spiders.  We read several books about spiders, looked at photographs of spiders native to our area, and played a game using a big parachute that looked like a spider web!  And of course the kids had the chance to explore the nature center.  Their favorite part is the little fish tank tunnel.  We love to sit inside and watch the fish and turtles swim overhead.

 

This week was also our month 4H meeting with our homeschool group.  Big K is in Cloverbuds this year and is thrilled to be doing a project about cooking to display at our local county fair this coming summer.  He picked up his project book this week and is anxious to get started.  In his Cloverbud meeting they also worked more on learning and understanding the 4H Oath.  They did a project about love and created a collage of things they love cut out of magazines.  They also created their own puppets and put on a puppet show for their friends.  Once the meeting concluded the kids had the chance to just get outside and play on the farm.  (Our meetings are held at a members home farm and it is amazing!).  The kids played on the swing set and ran and played tag.  They also got the chance to see and hold the chickens as well as pet the horses and alpacas.  

 

 Another day this week the kids were rewarded with a trip to the aquarium.  They have been working so hard and our local aquarium is running an awesome deal on tickets so we needed to take advantage of it.  We had a great time, and even made it there to see the little sharks being fed!  We also got to touch a sea cucumber, sea annenome, sea stars, and even sharks!  Little E loves to take pictures (just like her mom!) so she took control of my phone to document the trip for us. Of course, I took a few myself as well with my "real" camera. 

We ended the week with a trip to Home Depot for their montly kids clinic.  This month the kids made Valentine's Day boxes.  They had to use hammers and wood glue to put them together and then got to paint them.  And then they got a pin to add to their aprons and a certificate!  Fun!

 

In other exciting news, this week we heard back from our town mayor.  Back in the fall we had written to him and Big K mentioned he thought we needed more ice cream shops in town.  In his response, our mayor agreed and then sent Big K a coupon for a local ice cream shop as well as some town goodies.  He also invited us to visit his office!  We plan on calling and setting up a visit sometime soon! 

In "normal" school news, Big K has still been busy learning about measuring.  This week we started learning about perimeter and area.  This will be our segway into starting to learn about multiplication!   Math comes so easily to Big K!  

 We also spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen this week.  Big K has been trying out lots of new recipes.  He made elf cookies all by himself with only a little help using the oven.  He also made some very delicious tomato basil soup for lunch one day!  

And of course, what week would be complete without a trip to the local library.  We recently discovered that our library rents out these wonderful things called "playaway".  It is basically a portable book on tape.  It looks like a little mp3 player, and Big K loves them.  He listened to the entire Magic Tree House series book #1 in a day this week.  We have books 2-4 on hold now.  He sat for an enitre hour listening to the book while playing with Legos!   And of course Little E and Baby W picked out their share of books too!

Happy Learning,
Momma C

Week 23 - Volume and Art Appreciation

This week we continued our project learning about measuring.  We changed our focus from length and weight to volume this week and learned all about cups, pints, quarts, and gallons.  One day we took an empty two liter bottle and poured 1 cup of water into it, marking where it filled the container.  Then we did the same with one pint, one quart, and 1/2 a gallon (we realized a full gallon wouldn't fit, so we decided to stick with just 1/2 gallon!).  It was a great visual demonstration comparing the different types of volume measurement!  The resulting bottle, along with a funnel, and a variety of measuring spoons became instant additions to our tub of bath toys and provided a full week of water play in the tub!

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After we learned about how the different measurments compared, we thought it would be interesting to see how many cups were in a gallon, or how many tablespoons were in a quart.  Big K and I created a chart on the computer and the practiced using our calculator skills to fill it all in.  We used a book we've been studying called How Much Does it Hold to help us with our calculations, and then tested to see how accurate our chart was.   Here's what we came up with: 

 On Wednesday, we met a friend at the local art museum for a special storytime adventure.  The kids had to go visit several different stations throughout the museum.  At each station a docket talked about a specific color that was represented in a work of art.  Some of the stations included a story to listen to, others included some hands-on experiences, and some even integrated Ipads and other things to help make the art come alive.  The kids then collected a paper circle from each station to create their own color wheel at the end!  Their favorite station was based on the color green.  We looked a painting that was inspired by our own city and the kids got to use a laser pointer to find different shades of green in the painting.  They had a great time and have been asking to add this storytime onto our monthly calendar! 

Big K was so inspired by the art, that he decided he wanted to have his own art gallery show at home.  So we put together several art samples and invited our friends over for a playdate art show!  The kids shared artwork and even made some handprint salt dough ornaments to hang on the wall. 

Big K is also involved in a very cool project in collaboration with kids from all over the country.  We are in charge of packing up seven boxes that tell all about Ohio that we will mail to kids in other states.  In return, he will receive a box from seven other kids about THEIR state.  We've been busy brainstorming things that we want to include in our information about Ohio!  It has been a big undertaking, but I think it will be worth it in the end! 

Happy Learning,
Momma C