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My blog is A Net In Time.

Helping a friend, learning with friends

Yesterday the lad and I went over to visit a friend. We spend most of the day there. Life has been a challenge for this friend lately so it was good to spend some time to assist in bringing some sanity to life again. :) 

I had told her that I needed to do some schooling with the lad, and I've be enlisting the aid of her children.

We did a drawing from "imagine a day" and then we put some daises into coloured water.   The pics don't show the results well, but I hope you can see some of the tinges that were occurring by the time we had to go home.

After we finished our schooling time the children played and my friend and I were able to chat a bit.

She lives on a farm so I was able to pick some grass for my rabbits and on the way home a ladybug found it's way out of the grasses I had picked much to my son's delight.  it was captured and is currently munching on aphids in a bug jar.

It was a good schooling and living day.  :)

Tonight's Poem: A was an Apple Pie

Out of the mother goose nursery rhymes book we read a poem called

a was an apple pie.

I wanted to know more about it so I did some googling and found out that the original name to the poem was read is this: the tragical death of A, apple pye who was cut in pieces and eat by twenty-five gentlemen with whom all little people ought to be very well acquainted with.

A was an apple pie
B bit it
C cut it
D dealt it
E eats it
F fought for it
G got it
H had it
I inspected it
J jumped for it
K kept it
L longed for it
M mourned for it
N nodded at it
O opened it
P peeped in it
Q quartered it
R ran for it
S stole it
T took it
U upset it
V viewed it
W wanted it
X, Y and Z (and amperse-sand) all wished for and had a piece in hand.

NOTE: the italics were added in the version that I read, but were not in the version found on-line.

Wikipedia gives more detail on this poem.

I just want to say how much the lad enjoyed listening to his poem and his reaction was just priceless.

I stopped reading.

He turned and extremely excitedly said... Mommy... that was a pie and all the letters ate it and put it into pieces and just like their names are!!!!!  Mommy!!!   Read it again!!!!

He loved it.
I will probably read it again, and possibly if he's up for it, get him to memorize it.  :)   Time will tell.  :)

Night Time Reading

At night I make a point of not just reading story books with my son.   I do read story books, but I also make a point of reading different types of literature.

We read: a bible story, a chapter book, a primer, a fun book, a library book, and a story book.   I also read a biography of some sort.  we've done the rounds of missionary stories, the autobiographies I had in the house, some Canadian stories we found at the library and such forth.

Currently we are reading the following.

We just finished reading Billy Mink.   This is part of The Dover Children's Thrift Classics.



and have JUST started the adventures of chatterer the red squirrel


these books are just fun.  They incorporate factual information so children learn, but they learn in such a way that it is just fun to read.   The chapters are short and sweet making it really easy to stop.  the lad needs to remember what happened the night before.

happy birthday bad kitty.

Just a fun read. my son loves this series of books.

Two books that I can't find in amazon.
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes.  I had originally wanted to make this book part of our morning reading books, but it just didn't fit and was often left out.  Adding it at night means we'll read it.   and the lad is enjoying listening to the short poems.

Windows to the world is the primer that we are using currently.  It is from the ABEKA line of readers.   it's a good book. Meant for older students, which makes it a great just listening to book.  Some of the stories cause the lad to ask questions and sometimes he adds elements of them to his stories/pictures.

The great escape by farenhorst

this is our 'true' story book for this go round.  We've read a variety of missionary stories, autobiographies, heroes of the faith type books.  This one is a bit different as some are heroes-type stories, but many are just life stories that have a biblical truth in them.  I am very much enjoying it, and it's good to expose the lad to ideas bigger than himself and to give him ideas to ponder.

update in where I will post information

The sheer amount of frustration with facebook not allowing me to post my blog to it, annoys. so many of my posts will now be at my website http://anetintimeschooling.weebly.com/

I will still post things here, but more often will post at the website.

Black Holes and Gardening and whatever

Today we started off our homeschooling day by looking up black holes.  This site was sent to us by clickschooling.

This is the write up sent to us by diane flynn keith

Age Range: 9 and up (approximately, with parental supervision; non-readers will need assistance)
The Space Telescope Science Institute offers this terrific website that allows you to engage in a multi-media, in-depth inquiry into the astronomy and physics of black holes through animations and interactive experiments. Explore light, gravity, and the scale of our universe.

When you get to the site, watch a brief, narrated animation that provides information on how black holes are formed. Then, begin your virtual journey to a black hole through three interactive modules that include:

*Finding the Invisible — Loc ate and identify various objects in the universe such as a binary star, the Cygnus galaxy, the Andromeda spiral galaxy, the sun, the moon, the Milky Way, a quasar, a red giant, Saturn, the crab nebula and more. As each object comes into view, read more about it on the sidebar and by clicking on the "Learn More" button.   

*The Voyage — Learn about scales and distances by taking a virtual trip to a black hole. Find out about the objects you pass on your trip through space. Measure your speed and distance traveled. Get explanations of the concepts of lightspeed and lightyear. When you reach your destination, mouse over the black hole to learn about its features.

*Up Close and Personal — Orbit a black hole and learn all about it. Try some interactive experiments and answer related questions. Get the latest scoop from notable scientists.

You can also explore the "Black Hole Encyclopedia" and "Glossary" to learn even more.

We found it be quite interesting.  I can't say my six year old understood everything, but he was able to pull information out of this site to go with other things he's learned about black holes.  It was quite interesting and answered some of his questions.   We did not read through the whole site but I imagine it will be one that we come back to.

We then went out to finish the gardening that we started yesterday.

The lad wants to have his own garden this year so He's going to share daddy's "pepper" garden.  Daddy likes hot peppers and I like bell peppers and having them in their own "bed" means they don't get crowded out by other plants so it should work well for the lad to have his carrots, lettuce and corn in the same bed (at least we hope so).  :)

Water Clock

Doesn't this sound like something fun to try?  
I need a stop watch first though....

GIVE IT A TRY #1: WATER CLOCK

The ancient Babylonians were some of the first people to keep time. Sundials and water clocks were frequently used to keep up with the time of day. We know this from information that archaeologists have learned from clay tablets found in the area. The water clock allowed people to know how much time had passed even in the middle of the night. You can make your own water clock to get an understanding of how ancient people knew what the time was.

Items Needed:

• Medium to large glass jar
• Paper or plastic cup
• Embroidery needle or stick pen
• Permanent black marker
• Stopwatch

Directions:

First, use the stick pen to poke a small hole in the bottom of the cup. After this, fill the cup with water, and make sure that the water drips out at a steady rate. With the marker, make a fill line inside the cup so that you have a measured amount of water each time.

Next, place the cup into the mouth of the jar. Fill the cup with water to the fill line and immediately start your stopwatch. Make lines with the marker on the jar at predetermined intervals. Note that the water will drip more quickly at first due to water pressure; therefore, your lines should get closer together as more time passes. Remember not to let the water in the cup run out.

By looking at the jar of water and seeing how much water has dripped into it, you can tell how much time has passed. Enjoy this old way of telling time!

Practical homeshooling and it's results

We learned about gardening....from a very practical standpoint.

We learned that maple tree saplings need to be removed from gardens.

We learned how to trim a bush so it doesn't go over the doorstep.

We learned about killing ant hills that are too close to the house.

We learned about watering plants when you transplant them.

We learned about using maple branches as a fan and that giving them to bunnies is perhaps NOT a good idea (said bunnies will say LUNCH!).

We had fun going to the store and finding presents for daddy when he goes away next week.

We had fun handling chickies and baby ducks at the feed store.

I was very proud of my helpful boy child and his ability to prune a bush by himself, and pleased to honour his request to not throw out those particular branches until he was ALL done with them.

I was pleased with his willingness to help and to learn.

I was filled with joy at his ability to chat with complete strangers even as I wish he was chatting about something OTHER THAN mommy's thing for chickens. :)

My lad was pleased at his own efforts.
He was disappointed we couldn't find any black bugs.
He was angry at bunnies making lunch of his maple leaf fan.
He was happy he was able to do good work with mommy.
He was uncertain about using poison to keep ants out of our house...but happy he was able to help daddy find where the ant hills were.

It was a good day.  :)

variety in homeschooling

dominoes and physics. this led of course to our own experiments, and learning about energy. :)

The lad worked on math reflex while I got the dishes all caught up.

then we laughed at some pandas

then since the lad was having a difficult day (tonsils are swollen and sore again) we decided to pursue a passion.

we studied spiders by playing around on the web.

we learned that they have three sub-orders

• Araneomorphae - most spiders

• Mesothelae - primitive spiders

• Mygalomorphae - tarantulas 

Then we looked a whole ton of pictures and selected a few to find out where they come from giving us a chance to use our mapping skills.  

 We watched some you tube videos.

this is one with a bunch of pictures of mygalomorphs.

 

and then we headed off to do some reading.  :)   Always good to read.  

"Mommy!   Can we learn about a snake today?" was the plea.

"Sure" I replied.. so we learned about the ring-necked snake. 

 See here for the source.

We started off our story reading from 50 magical stories.  The story today was called The half-chick.   It was a funny story and "explains" why chickens are used as weather vanes.  It just made us laugh.

From there we moved on to Classical animal stories"   The Death of Gellert was a very sad story that immediately had my son thinking up a different ending to it.





From our world history book we have started to learn about the different types of weapons people have used throughout history.   Today we learned about how weapons can be made from stone.. especially from Flint which is a hard stone that is easily chipped away at to make a pointed stone.  

 

 

Cats are not easy homeschoolers :)

 while doing our "imagine a place"

 Everyone involved had a different interpretation

 and some well....imagined while ON someone else's work

and caused grins and distractions

impromptu learning

one of the reasons I choose to homeschool is I simply enjoy having my boy around.  :)   I like sharing his excitement in what he learns.

Yesterday while I was out doing some gardening I kept being interrupted by "mommy, come see this!"   So I'd trundle over to see what the lad had learned, done, accomplished, discovered and such forth.  Mind, I'd interrupt his play with "lad, can you come help me with...." and he'd come and help.  So turn about is fair play.

He was busy with a tub he's put together that is half water, and part sand and dirt.   He worked quite hard at dividing it up so that water stayed on one side, and the dirt on another.

First he discovered what a water table is. 

he dug down into various parts of his dirt section and learned that in most areas the dirt was damp but there was no water, but the closer he got to the water the more water there would be in the bottom of his hole.

Second he learned that doodle bugs (pill bugs) can float on a boat!     This made for marvellous story telling and laughter as we guessed what the pill bug thought of it all.

Then came the experiments with the pill bugs themselves.  

If he made an island would they stay on it?

Can they swim?

What happens if you roll them into a ball and drop them in?

What happens if they land on their backs?

We discovered they can swim for short sections of time.

They float really well.

They can not climb when they are in the water.

The big ones are smarter than the little ones, and the middle sized ones just bolt without looking and land up in the water ALL THE TIME (the little ones moved more slowly and the big ones tested things out first).   It was actually quite interesting watching the big ones.  They'd move to various parts of the island and lean WAY down and take a good look at the water, and then come back up and trundle to a different section and test it out to.   BUT once they fell in, they would do it all the time so I"m not sure what was up with that.

The small ones and big ones stayed on the island the longest, and only the small ones would stay on the boat for any length of time.

 this picture came from this site.

no pill bugs were harmed in these experiments.  :)

Learning by reading and games.

We started off our day playing bucking buckaroo a game we picked up at the yard sales on Saturday.

Then we read from a chapter out of black beauty.   The lad asked a TON of questions about what was going on and it was good to talk about standards of care, and how God wants us to take care of the animals around us.

We learned about the common loon in   the ultimate guide to wildlife of North America.    we've seen loons before so it was good to learn more about them.  One of the things we learned was there aren't as many as there used to be since people are destroying their habitats.

we started off with 50 magical stories.  The story today is called The Frog.   It was a story about a mom who wanted her son's to get the best wife.

in response to the story the lad said "I liked it!"   When asked why he liked it I got the response of "I liked it, mommy, I liked that the good witches were good and they helped the frog".   And yes, for those concerned .. he knows that we don't believe in witches, that witches don't love God and therefore are something we need to be wary of.

Then we finished off  pirates in our world history book.

He finished off both of the  Pirates sticker books.

When I asked if he was pleased with how we did the pirate work and how the books turned out he said yes.  When we talked about the pirates today we learned that there are still pirates today, but the pirates in the past were beaten because the navy built better ships.  Only the young ones (those up to 16 years old) weren't executed for being bad pirates.

we did another page in the "imagine a place" book

This has been such a fun book to use as a art book.  We read the poem and then draw a picture.  When we are all done with it, then we look at what the artist came up with and discuss it.   Today we needed to imagine  place were music sings where one dances all night on a summer night in a breeze (that wasn't how the poem went but something like it).   This sparked good conversation about what it means that music can sing, and what it means to dance, and I even needed to demonstrate what a waltz was. :)

We learned about bugs today.  We played another game, this one also purchased while yard saling.. called Go, Bugs.  You play it similarly to Go, Fish.  the object of the game is to build a four piece bug.  We didn't follow the rules since some games are difficult to play with just two people.  But we had fun and we learned about different types of bugs.  

The Gummy Experiment Part Two

Today we had time to pull out our gummi experiment

It was interesting.
your average gummy bear is 1 x 2 cm.

• in milk 2 x3 felt solid
• in plain water and sugar water  2.5 x 4 
• in lemon juice 2 x 3 felt mushy AND the colour was faded
• in splenda water x x 3 but much bigger (bulkier)
• in salt water he was 16 mm x 8 mm
• olive oil and corn syrup didn't change the size but change the texture and shape.  the lad said "mom, they are HARD" and the olive oil one had a misshaped head.
• Vinegar was fascinating.  we didn't try to measure it because he was all mushy.. "feels like Pee!"   It was "GROSS"     Much and many exclamations about it.  "disgusting!"   and the colour was a very pale yellow.
• Jam - feels like a gummy, was very sticky so difficult to measure .. we think he was 2.5 x 2 cm
• cranberry juice - "he got darker"  measured 2.5 x 3 and was bigger.

when we cut them it was intriguing

We could not (without effort) cut the oil and corn syrup ones.

the vinegar one fell apart on us

everything else sliced and stood evenly.

Then we put our tongues on them.

Jam and cranberry and lemon juice tasted like what they were put into.

The splenda, sugar and plain water just tasted more gummy... with more sugar in it (for the sweet water ones)

the salt one... EW.. BLECH MOMMY!!!!

The lemonade one tasted like a sweet gummy that was odd... this one had the lad confused until I gave him three options of what it could be...and then he said "OH>> lemonade!!!"

We did not try the corn syrup, olive oil, vinegar or milk ones.  

This is a GOOD experiment to do with a budding scientist. :)

London Tree Trunk Tour

I'd like to see these in person.

London Tree Trunk Tour.

Science, math, and more...

Tonight we looked up, but didn't find, our monarch numbered NAW 325

looked him up in the database but didn't locate  him on there.  

Had a decent day today. 

the lad worked on reflex math this morning.   We did an experiment using gummi bears and various liquidy things, and also made ice cream cookies.  :)

 doing tests with gummi bears.   We immersed them in splenda water, plain water, milk, lemonade, sugar water, salt water, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, cranberry juice, jam and corn syrup.   We watched them throughout the day.  The lad was quite intrigued by the vinegar washing out the colour, the corn syrup one seeming to slow disappear, the salt one getting smaller, most of the others grew but with various side affects.   We will pull them out tomorrow and see what changes we observe.

On to the ice cream sandwiches.  First we made chocolate chip cookies.  No, we didn't make them from scratch...cookie dough was on sale!  :)

 These are good mommy!

 Don't they look good?

Mmmm... they ARE Good.  :)

Part of the afternoon was spent in catching two moths and one spider.  The spider was a teeny tiny one we found in the rhubarb patch.

OOH OOH.. and before I forget.  Our robin who is nesting outside the upstairs bathroom window has TWO eggs in her nest now!  :)

End of HOPE days and glow jars

A while ago on Pinterest I ran across this glow jar. 

So,.. tonight we made two of them.   The lad was ecstatic!  :)

 The jars before lights out

 The jars after lights out

I got some spilled on my shirt, made the lad laugh at the dancing lights every time I moved.

Over the last six weeks we've been having spring HOPE days.  This is a time when we get together as a HOPE group and teach our children collectively.  Some of the classes are rigourous, others are more laid back.   The lad took classes in Phys Ed, Bugs, and African animals.  he thoroughly enjoyed himself.
I taught a class of looking at the news from a christian perspective.

Spiders

Seeing as the project fair is coming up this Friday night I thought ACK!!!   We need to get our spider study done!!!!!!!!

So today I set out to find spider crafts that the lad and I could do.

that and some cut and paste pictures we could put on file folders and what not. :)

I found this dot to dot.    


A poem we can use for copywork

Spiders
By Janet Bruno

Spiderlings hatch from eggs.
Each one has eight tiny legs.
A spider has more eyes than you.
Most have eight, you have two.
A spider has two body parts.
Across its web it quickly darts.
From a spiders spinnerets
Sticky spider silky jets.
Spiders feel the frantic tugs,
Of their favorite food: its bugs!

 we used a copywork generator to make the sheet for the lad to trace.

Since there are all kinds of spider webs we decided it would be fun to see if we could replicate some.

Ergo we found the following crafts.

For a sheet/triangle web we found this one.

For an orb web this one or this one and this one.

Couldn't find a craft to do a tangled web, but I'm thinking of using spaghetti and then letting the lad dangle it around a balloon and just seeing how that works.  or maybe yarn as it's already in the house. :)  I got the idea from this page.

we hit upon the idea of making a funnel web using lego.   We looked up images of a funnel web and made one.  The lad is not too sure about the results of our work though so it might not come along to the project fair.   Since that was in issue, we used our brains and came up with this rather cool depiction.

when we finished making these things we did some cutting and pasting with lap book materials to make some spider pages.  We need to do some fine tuning on them yet though.

 

we are hoping over the course of the week to make more webs and to show different ways that spiders can live.   We also hope to catch a few spiders.

Germs and Micro-organisms

we are conducting two experiments, one of which we finished today

1. Bread  - one wet and in the heat. ---- this is turning brown with white specks
               - one wet and in the fridge ---- nothing is happening to this one

2. Agar
a. we took sampling from our toes
     - the lad's toes grew icky stuff BUT the sample he took from my toes grew worse.
      - the lad's toes grew yellow and white mold, mommy's toes grew black fuzzy mold, white mold, yellow mold and orange mold.
     - the lad's conclusion: is Mommy has to wash her toes more often and wear shoes when she goes outside.

b. Spit and antibiotic
     - spit grew germs!   The  antibiotic didn't grow anything.

c. Two that he rubbed his hands all over.
     - they had germs on them
      - his conclusion: hands need to be washed lots of time

d. Washed hands decently well
     - even if you wash your hands you can still have germs on your hands

e. Mouth swab and toothpaste
    - mouths have germs!!!!   Toothpaste doesn't - except in one spot mommy!   That had a little bit of germs mommy!!   (that might have been contamination)

It was actually quite fascinating seeing the germs grow.
some were black and fuzzy.
some was orange.
much was yellow
and a little bit was a fuzzy white mold that turned yellow when exposed to air

Coursera

This looks interesting.

Online, free courses, from various universities.

Called coursera.

Learning over time

Yesterday we did reading and housecleaning.  We read all our normal books.  Played pirates.  Learned what some valuable things are now-a-days that pirates might want to steal so we've been having pirates stealing art!

Today we spent time on Studyladder.       We worked on sight words, blending, using descriptive language, and what not.  In the afternoon we went for a walk at the dam.  We took a different trail than normal and we spent time looking under stones and deadfall to see what type of insects we could find.  

We seemed to be plum out of luck in finding anything other than the ordinary ants, earthworms, small black spiders and pill bugs UNTIL we stopped to look at a sign and there we saw an interesting bug which obliged us by staying still long enough to be captured in our insect catcher. :)   We want to show the lad who is teaching the bug class during HOPE days tomorrow.

What else?   

OOH.. we had a LOT of fun watching some water spiders

They were sculling back and forth on a stream we came across.  It was the lad who first saw how interesting their shadows were.   The lad had fun experimenting with what he could do to make them come out and play and what would make them go and hide. 

We saw a variety of interesting small flowers coming out to bloom.  Trilliums and dog tooth violets, then these funky little yellow ones that made me think of violas but they weren't, and these white and purple ones that grew together in the same patch.  Haven't a clue what they are called but they inspired comment.  

On an interesting side-note.  Two things have merged in my son's playtime lately.

One. we read the newspaper together at breakfast.    We talk about the news, we sometimes learn from the news (aka the other day we read two different articles that had to do with genetics and research), and of course we read the comics.

Two. Lego city has a website with games on it.  one of those games is a chance to create your own comic strip using lego characters.  This totally captured his imagination and he had SO much fun with it.

The merger:  OH My but the lad is having fun creating tiny newspapers WITH comics strips.  The angry birds are busy doing funny things in their stories, and the borrowers (a movie we've watched recently) are busy telling a story too.   These are multi-day comic strips.   He has news articles and ads and all sorts of things in them.  They are tiny as the lego characters must carry them around, and they are rolled up just as the newspapers are rolled up.  :)  Every once in a while I get the question of "Mommy.. do you think they would write about this in the newspaper?"   My standard answer is "Sure, why not?  They write about all sorts of things." 

Pirates and learning through reading

Before I went out to do the bunnies I opened up a freebie from the folks over at Living books Curriculum.    I had signed up a while back for their newsletter which gets me free stuff once a week.  Anyways the freebie today was modern fairy tales, and we read one called the Box of Robbers.  What a fun story to read to a six year old.  he was quite intrigued. :)

I took care of the bunnies and we had breakfast and then our homeschooling day began.

We started off our day reading the paper.  There were two interesting stories about genetic research so we talked about how our bodies are made of different genetic material and how scientists can work with it to either change something to hopefully make it better OR to test people to see if their bodies will react to medicine in an atypical manner.   It's rather fun using the paper to learn from.  :)

Then we went on to do some reading

we started off with 50 magical stories.  The story today is called the King of the Polar Bears.

in response to the story the lad said "I liked it!"   When asked why he liked it I got the response of "I liked it, mommy, I don't know why I did, but I just liked it!". 

Then we read more about pirates in our world history book.

Today we learned about the pirate base in Port Royal and how many pirates used the island of Madagascar as a base of operations.  We learned abit about the cruelty of Henry Avery.  We took a moment to learn a bit more about him.

then onwards to reading about the red squirrel in the ultimate guide to wildlife of North America.

  The red squirrel    this small squirrel is noisy and highly territorial.   we've seen them at the Pinery and they are a very talkative squirrel.  They are very quick.

On to chapter nine in "the Lamb"

 

it's been good so far going through this book. Today I could see the lad thinking...and that's always a good thing.

He did pages 10-12 in Pirates sticker book.

and pages 6-9 in dressing pirates

yesterday I picked up a pirates megablocks set on sale at Giant Tiger and I promised the lad that once we got finished our pirates work today that we would play pirates for a while.

The set we got is kinda a combination of these two sets...more like the second one than the first...but our characters look like real buccaneers and we have an alligator in our set.  (great for playing peter pan!).  :)   This gave the lad (after looking through the mega-blocks site) that some of our given to us lego was from the pirates sets of megabloks.   So we played pirates.   Always a good way to review the language the pirates used.

Snakes

yesterday was Easter. WE have a tradition in our house whereby I find some small toys and some candies and put them in eggs and hide them about the house. 

This year I found some snakes (three of them) and put them into eggs. One Six year old was thoroughly delighted. 

This of course has led to tons of questions about snakes. He's learned about milking poisonous snakes.
 

He has asked how long it takes for snakes to replenished their venom. And discovered that it takes up to 24 hours for it to be replenished for most snakes, but some snakes it can take longer. 

He's learned how green snakes camouflage themselves in .. green grass. :) And how other snakes can do the same thing.

Velveteen Rabbit, Cleaning and Reading

The day started off with having breakfast before I did the bunny chores.   We had banana pancakes with syrup.    This gave the lad a chance to do reflex math while I toiled outside.  :)    I came into the sounds of The Velveteen Rabbit playing.  :)   When we went to the library yesterday we borrowed a copy of this book, so he's been reminded of how much he enjoys this book/show.  :)

Our plans for the day include working on our spider unit study, cleaning the living and dining rooms, and tidying up toys on the main floor of the house.

We'll probably fit in our normal reading as well.

Today we learned about ground hogs (also known as woodchucks)  in the Ultimate Guide to wildlife in North America. 

Learning what they are called woodchucks led to the question of what does it mean to chuck wood mommy?   So I answered that and then he laughed at how they can climb trees to escape from their enemies.   The lad is well acquainted with woodchucks since we camped last summer at a place with a whole lot of woodchucks and he had fun chasing them from burrow to burrow.

Then off to read from "the Lamb". Today we did chapter Eight.

Then we read from our world history book.   We are learning about pirates. We read three pages today, more than usual, but it was just very very interesting.

We learned about one guy who got his head cut off since he took two trips to find El Dorado and was unsuccessful and another guy who sailed around the world and about privateers.


We did one page out of the Dress the pirates.  The page we did fit in with the privateers.

We did two pages in this book.  We had only planned to do one but then looking ahead the lad found a page with a cat and a couple of naughty looking rats so OF COURSE we had to do that page as well!  :)

We have started to go through this book called "the big book of questions and answers about Jesus."

We did lesson three today.   it was on how Jesus was both God and man completely and it's difficult to understand but means that Jesus was everything we are but so very much more PLUS he never ever did anything bad.
I need to post a pic of our blow up globe.  I LOVE IT.  It's so immensely portable.  :)  I love  that I can spin it in my hands and there is no weight but air.   It was also affordable.  :)    But I digress.   We used our globe when we talked about pirates today.  One pirate sailed around the world collecting treasures.   We were able to trace his steps and the lad's best guess was that it would have taken him at least 100 hours if not maybe more to do all that travelling.     He thought it interesting that pirates, if they worked for a king or queen were called privateers.

We have started an new art project.

We've taken a book called Imagine a Place

I got this book out for the pictures, I thought they would spawn conversation, but as I looked through it I got to thinking ...wow.. what an interesting book.  I should be able to use this to work with the lad on imagining different things and just seeing how we can imagine different things perhaps even differently from the artist.

It was a great activity for us.    There are fourteen "imagine a place's" in this book so we'll be able to use it over the next three weeks as a regular activity to do. 

here's what we came up with.

these are the words offered us:

Imagine a place...

where you bend and sway

leap and land,

right where a story begins.

 Mine was a long grass with insects leaping and landing.  The grass is being blown by the wind so is bending and swaying, the sky is turning dark and still the grass bends and sways and is filled with colours...just waiting for children to come running through it pell mell on the way home before the rains come.

   The lad's dictation   " there's an island in the middle of the ocean, the waves are always crashing across the island. there are some lizards that can walk on water.   and for them to walk on the water means they have flaps on their feet that make bubbles and they require to be light, to make bubbles and also speed.   and nothing else."

 This is the picture that we looked at after we finished our own drawings.  We found this picture quite interesting...how the rocks and children leaping from stone to stone turned into a castle/town that people could peer down into.   

and then we watched the Velveteen Rabbit again.  I like it, it's a well done story. :)


I neglected to add that we played two games today.
Jenga (good for motor control, logic and just fun)
Catopoly - math skills, following rules, being a good sport and such like.

Carnival of homeschooling

Carnival of homeschooling.

The library and more

Today overall was a good homeschool day.

we did a lot of reading today, and played 'rats' and went to the library to do some book work.

After doing morning devotions we started off our day playing rats upstairs.  Today the rats (who somehow became mice overnight) were GOOD mice and had to learn to ask for things and to trade for what they wanted.  :)  they wanted a soft bed made of paper and to be able to play drawing games so they traded back all the things they took without asking (because mice see something and it Immediately belongs to them).  and so they became better mice.

We then moved on to reading about black-tailed prairie dogs in the Ultimate Guide to wildlife in North America. 

Mommy?   Why are they called dogs?  shouldn't they be called gophers?
and the very next sentence I read said that they barked and that's why they are called prairie dogs.   Interesting that.  :)   I like having an observant boy child.

Then off to read from "the Lamb". Today we did chapter seven.   Both of us are enjoying this book but we find the questions very simple.

Then we read from our world history book.   We are learning about pirates. 

T
This sticker book has it's focus more on the life of a pirate, what the ship was like.   The lad wanted to do  two pages again today, but we were at the library, the weather was looking very grey and I had bunnies on the lawn and was feeling nervous about that.  So ended up only doing one.

We have started to go through this book called "the big book of questions and answers about Jesus."

I expect we'll do one page at a time.
Each question is laid out over two pages.  It starts with reading material and introduces the topic and then has activities for the child to do.   Today's lesson was on where Jesus lived.

While at the library we did some bookwork.
But first we returned some books.  it was a bit nerve-wracking because I knew we had 27 books out, but I counted 26 and simply couldn't find the last one.   It was like ACK!!!  I don't want to pay for this book!!!   but somehow between home and the library it showed up in the library bag.
 

Spiders on the case Lasky, Kathryn. - this book we are still reading.

Diary of a spider Cronin, Doreen. the lad LOVED this book 

Spiders of North America Squire, Ann. factual, interesting book

Minerals Miller-Schroeder, Patricia. didn't actually get to this one

Tell me about the world. -- we like this book , we renewed it as we're still going through it

Math for fun projects King, Andrew, 1961- ditto on this.  

Science and technology Winnick, Nick. never got to this book.

A million dots Clements, Andrew, 1949- Can we get this again mommy!?!?   Sure lad.

Life cycle of a spider Fridell, Ron. factual book, helpful  

The life cycle of a spider Kalman, Bobbie, 1947- ditto 

Daddylonglegs Anderson, Catherine, 1974- NOT accurate.  Daddy longlegs are NOT spiders, though they are somewhat related.

The garden spider / Jan Ethelberg Ethelberg, Jan. factual, interesting  

Spiders Gibbons, Gail. it was okay, not great 

Black widow spider Harris, Monica, 1964- this one intrigued the lad

Tarantula Harris, Monica, 1964- never actually looked at this one

The magic school bus spins a web : a book about spiders West, Tracey, 1965- a hit this one 

The last loon Upjohn, Rebecca, 1962- took it out, never really got to it 

The Snow Blew Inn Regan, Dian Curtis. good story book

The long white scarf Trottier, Maxine. semi-historical, it was interesting.  the boy thought it great how the girl got her scarf back

My cat, the silliest cat in the world Bachelet, Gilles. What a HOOT!   Get this book, laugh with your child.

Dolphins on the sand Arnosky, Jim.  We liked this one, the little dolphin was a tease at the end of it. 

A winter walk Barasch, Lynne. Just a simple book.  

Big bear hug Oldland, Nicholas, 1972- MOMMY!  YOU CAN"T BRING IT BACK!!!  (complete with tears)...but buddy.. we can get it out again.. Oh, okay then.

Madeline and the cats of Rome Marciano, John Bemelmans. Enjoyed this book.  

A bumblebee sweater Waterton, Betty, 1923- Caused smiles to appear on the face of one six year old boy.  Surprised me as I thought it more a girl book, but he liked it.

The sabre-toothed tiger Solomon, Evan, 1968- Liked it the first two times we read it, but didn't ask for it again. 

Time to get out Testa, Fulvio. - This book was just so so.  Got one thumb up and one thumb very down.

We did book work in: 

First grade fundamentals: we focused on reading stories and answering questions.
 

Numbers and counting: Practiced greater than and less than. 
 

Daily Smart:  he continued to practice putting word puzzles into equation form.  Learned today that sometimes you can't just write the numbers in as you see them.  That was tricky!

We have learned that we thoroughly enjoy going to the library to do our book work.
it means we have to focus.   We have to be quiet.  We can't argue about what we get to work on.  AND if if a certain young lad is good and smart he can earn extra stickers for thinking of new things he can work on with his mommy.  :)  Always a good thing that!