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

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