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!

Reading, copywork and fun

Today overall was a good homeschool day.

we did a lot of reading today, and some art, and played 'rats'.

After doing morning devotions we started off our day reading about muskrats in the Ultimate Guide to wildlife in North America. 

the lad was quite surprised that they are more closely related to lemmings (one of his favourite creatures) than they are to beavers.

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

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

Today it was about the corsairs who were pirates of the Mediterranean Seas, and they mostly wanted to capture people to be slaves or to sell for ransom.

The lad had fun when we finished our knights section in doing a sticker book on them, so he asked if I could pretty please find a sticker book on Pirates.   I said I'd look around and see what I could come up with and voila!   two sticker books.   They have a different focus so it seemed right to do so.

this first one is from the same series as the knights one.  Dress the pirates.  See the differences in their outfits from area and time.    We'll do one or two pages at a time in this book as we learn about different pirates.

This second one has it's focus more on the life of a pirate, what the ship was like.   We did two pages in this book...getting ready to sail and life aboard the ship.   This is where the lad learned about rats that live on the ships.. and hence the game of rats we played later. :)

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 we learned that Jesus' name means "the Lord Saves" and it is similar to the name Joshua.   We talked about how Joshua was used of the Lord to save the people, and so Jesus saved the people of God from their sin.   One of the activities asked of us was to read through Exodus 3 and draw a picture of what we read there.   This fit in well with what I had hoped to accomplish today.. that of reading and then drawing a picture of what we got in our minds from it.   So we killed two birds with one stone. :)

the picture the lad came up with

 and what I did.  

It was interesting doing this with the lad.. I was going to put smoke above my burning bush but the lad said "but mommy, the bush didn't burn...and if it didn't burn there won't be smoke!"   and it was like.. duh.. you're right buddy.. there certainly wouldn't be smoke!  (never EVER thought about that before).  AND I was just about to put boots on my Moses but the lad reminded me that God said TAKE OFF your shoes.   So, once again, the lad reminded me of important details.  :)   Always good to have that.

I wanted to do some copy work of "I am who I am" but the lad was typical for a Tuesday.. reluctant to do what didn't really interest him at all.. so I said okay.. what would you like to do for copywork?   "the names of the people I know from Seaquest".   Okay I can do that.   He named name, I wrote them and we agreed that he'd put the 10 names into alphabetical order.  Since he often does copywork better if I make myself scarce I went to check on the laundry.   I came upstairs to find him in tears and all upset.

Why?  because there is no "E" name and needs for there to be a "e" name.   I don't get this.

A tear-filled discussion followed...with the end result being that he decided he'd write out each name three times and NOT put them in alphabetical order and he would NOT get a sticker for doing so.  

We normally play a board game of some sort and we alternate who gets to pick the game.  Today we played Topple.   My sister gave this to the lad last year at Christmas I think.  We pull it out to play.

After lunch we played rats.   "cause every pirate needs to watch out for rats nibbling at your toes and stealing your stuff.  AND THEN every pirate knows you have to teach those rats to behave themselves!  :)   It was good fun for an hour.

Cleaned the bathroom.  Not great...but better.  Toilets and countertops and tub ledges only.  The lad cleaned out all the recyclables.  AND hubby oh.. my dear hubby hung up my birthday present from last year.. a looped shower curtain hanger.  we have more room in the tub (or at least the feeling of more room!).  WOOT WOOT!

Out for a walk around the block.  Home for supper and caring for the bunnies, bedtime reading and whatnot.

A good day overall.  Better than many Tuesdays.  :)

HOPE Days

my homeschool group had their spring hope days start today. 

Each week a whole lot of us get together to teach a variety of subjects and to help out as best we can.

This year I'm teaching current events to the teens.
My son is taking African animals, Phys ed and Bugs.

There are a whole lot of other classes being taught from sign language to art classes to geo caching to sewing and kind of everything in between.

When we returned home we had some folks stop in to play with bunnies and to learn a bit about them.  It was a good visit.  While they were here a rabbity friend stopped by as well.  Always fun to show off my bunnies.  The children were cautious but curious.

Gramma came over for a bit as she and Jim are going to a Christian meeting tonight out in Cambridge.  But she took the time to play with the lad for a bit.

We learned abit about kaleidoscopes.    I learned about this site through Clickschooling.

Homeschooling today

After doing morning devotions we started off our day reading about beavers in the Ultimate Guide to wildlife in North America. 

We learned that beavers are about as heavy and as long as the lad is. So I asked the lad .. what would you do if a beaver as big as you wanted to say hi? "i'd run away mommy!"... here.. you be the beaver. So I chattered my teeth at him and he ran away screaming. :) We also learned that beavers have a flap behind their teeth and they can hold their breathe for 15 minutes. "mommy.. how long can people hold their breathe under water?" So we looked it up and found two references to long breath holding. 19 min 21 seconds and 16 min 13 seconds. 

Then off to read from "the Lamb". Today we did chaper five. 

Today we learned about the importance of trusting God even if we don't know all the answers. :)

World history.  PIRATES!

we learned about the vikings and how they scared people with their battle axes.  The image below is the most like the one pictured in the book. 

Then off to do some book work. 
we used the following books today.

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

 

Numbers and counting: we practiced ordinals.   Took a little bit of reminders, but then it was like a light went off and it was OH!   First, second, third and he happily kept on counting until he got confused in the mid-thirties.  He has the basics so it's all good. 

 

Daily Smart:  He practiced making equations from sentences.  This was a bit of a "ARGH" to him at first.    He likes to have all language and speech used exactly the same for all things, so having take away used instead of minus, or was given instead of Plus is a bit confounding for him.

This afternoon he learned abit about radiographs as I had to go in for an x-ray.  he wanted to come to and when he wasn't allowed asked tons of questions why not.  Another guest of the radiology department cheerfully answered his questions when I didn't know the answers.

Reading, Writing and Drawing.

Today we did chapter four in "the Lamb".  I love the pictures in the book and the lad likes answering the questions at the end of each chapter.  They are simple.  It's a good book thus far.

Also finished off our section on Knights And castles in our world history book.    Today we learned about how the knights divided up into orders and how other countries had knights as well.   Next up will be pirates.

Then we learned about the masked shew in The ultimate guide to North American Wildlife.

This was followed by going out for a walk in the field behind the church and picking up golf balls.  The lad will keep some and others he will sell at my annual yardsale.

We did some guided drawing using pastels.   Homeschool freebie of the day had a link to Pastels today.    Here is the lad's first ever  drawing done using pastel's.   It was a bit of challenge for him, he likes to draw using heavy lines but with pastels sometimes you need to use a lighter hand.  :)   Did not half bad with the sun I thought, and a good effort with Darwin the dolphin.  :)

In the mid-afternoon we decided to organize all this junk stuff.   That's what hubby calls it.  You know all the toilet paper rolls, empty containers, styrofoam trays that people keep in order to have craft supplies for ones children?   Well we got it organized and out of the basement and main floor of the house.  This of course inspired the lad to do some more boat building.

millipede fun and much more

today we studied millipedes.

the lad has been in to catching them lately so today I decided we could run with that.

We learned that they lay between 10-300 eggs at one time and they take a few weeks to hatch.

Having learned how to tell the boys from the girls we are pretty sure we have three boys and three girls.   Which would give us anywhere from 30 to 900 babies in one shot.   The lad was kept busy trying to imagine what 900 millipedes would look like.   Rather hard to imagine...and then if they each lived 10 years, we end up with 9000 and then if each of them had babies... WOW!!!  we'd have a million before you could even think about it...and since one of the books we are currently reading is "one Million Dots" the boy was simply amazed.

So by taking the time to pursue a lad's interests we covered math, English, geography, science...graphing and spelling and using a magnifying glass and what not.

Very fun.  Very captivating for a six year old. :)

we let the guinea pigs out today after selling three of the adults we no longer wanted.   Nice to have them out on the grass and not crowded in their winter cages any longer. :)

Then we had a HOOT building cardboard equipment for knights and having battles.   Duct tape, cardboard, sharp knives and regular tape... all made for excellent fun and research and remembering all that we had learned in studying knights.   We learned about adding some aluminum foil to make knives look real.

The lad came up with the armour design himself.

I helped him figure out a holder for his quiver of arrow.  See the bow that he made himself?

Mommy?   What weapon can you make?   What will you be?  you can't be a knight cause I'm a knight.

Okay.. I'll be an assassin.  

What does an assassin do?

Oh.. they kill people in all kinds of different ways.

With potions mommy?   

yep.. and knives too.  

OH.. you should make a knife.  

So above you see my knife.

we made cardboard potions to.

The lad made this halberd all by himself.

He needed idea help to make the mace.

I made one too, just to even the score a little. :)

Showing me how he's going to get me with the spear and halberd.

but he's going to be a walking knight, not one with a horse.

 

and then before supper we had a rousing game of Knights after the assassins!!!!

 Where I unleashed my secret weapon.....a hand spear!

Complete with dad saying "isn't this a better game to play outside?"  :)

Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra

 

image taken from here.

The lad: "Mommy!   Can I play the instrument game again?" 

the lad: "MOM!!!"  Immediately after if I didn't say yes? right away.  Which would lead to me saying

"Yes, Lad, you can play the instruments again"

So then I"d go to the computer and load up "young persons guide to the orchestra".  

Most of this game he is able to play independently.   He enjoys it.   And last night he was inspired to make his own instrument which I thought was rather neat.

"Do you see mommy?  Do you see how I can change the pitch and tone of it?"

This from a lad who didn't understand pitch and tone two days ago.

He thinks it funny that a musical instrument has the same name as a character on the TV show Seaquest.    But he now knows a good part of the instruments that you find in an orchestra, as of course do I.  :)   

This introduction to the orchestra has a variety of games to teach children the groups of instruments, the names of instruments, pitch and tone, and a variety of other things.

It will entertain one six year old boy for about 5 hours from start to finish with a wee bit of help from his mom.   Older children should be able to play it independently.

Today homeschooling

well..our day started off with the lad waking me up.
We had breakfast, cared for the bunnies and the chicken.  .. yes we have a chicken!   It's a hen that eats her eggs and she's going to be lunch for us when I'm feeling up to making her lunch for us.   But that might take a good week yet.

My brain was VERY sluggish today so we didn't do a whole lot for a fair bit.
I had a treasure hunt at the lad's instigation.
Then we read some fascinating information out of this book called "tell me about the world".

just love this book.  It's starts off with a question... for instance "is it true that a cow has four stomachs".   So I give the lad a chance to tell me what he knows.  I tell him what I think.  And then we read a blub that tells us if we are right or not.   We were both wrong on this one.  One stomach, four sections.  (go figure).

We then read a story out of "50 magical stories".  This book is made the same folks who did the 10 minute stories.

Today's story was about the crab that played with the sea.   the boy said "i liked some of it but not all of it mommy".

 He read a book over at Starfall.   he had a lot of fun with the one book he read.

We took a walk over at Morrison Dam.  Just a short walk as I didn't have the energy for a long one.  We talked about beaver dams and moss.   He did some of the exercise trail stuff with his dad.   We took some moss home to grow under the tree in the backyard.  

Oh.. I almost forgot.  We watched a video from Aurora on lights and such like.  We did some experiments with making a microscope using two magnifying glasses.  we used these to discover that Canadian money has stories/poems/etc written on them.. and  carefully examined a $20 American bill as well.  If we can find an American Penny we want to see if we can find the man in the building.

Oh.. the lad is taking an interest in learning about the rabbits.  This morning he wanted to know how I knew if a rabbit was ready to breed or not.  So I showed him a rabbit ready to breed and one who wasn't.  I also talked with him about other signs that a rabbit uses.   Being growly, digging in her food dish, and such like.  he was quite interested.  He also wanted to know how I knew if a boy bunny wanted to make babies... and so I said okay buddy.. watch and see what happens.   "HE FELLED OFF HER MOMMY!"   yes buddy, did he make a noise?  "YES!"  good.. he wants to be a daddy then.  

He's been learning what to watch for in the baby bunnies.. for full tummies, activity when touched, and such like.   So it's good.  Nice to see him learning and asking questions.   The weather's been so nice so we've been taking time outside to play and be archaelogists and alien hunters.  He has infinitely more energy than his mommy but we're working at it. :)  In time health will be better!

we may end up making bunny bait for Easter/Hope days.

Legal issues on the homeschool front

two similar events happening in homeschooling lately here in Canada.

1. in Alberta they want to pass a law saying that every child educated whether in public, private or homeschool needs to be educated in the same way regardless of religious convictions.   

ERGO: if the government says that it's okay to be gay/lesbian.. then you MUST teach your children that it's okay as well.  

In spite of the well articulated concerns of homeschooling families, the Alberta Government is continuing to drive toward the swift passage of their intrusive legislation.  Bill 2 is the new Education Act that will mandate compliance with the Alberta Human Rights legislation for all students in Alberta, including homeschooled students in their own homes.  The government’s spokesperson, Donna McColl, has stated, “Whatever the nature of schooling – homeschool, private school, Catholic school – we do not tolerate disrespect for differences.” Although these statements were later repudiated, they clearly show that even within the government, there are those who would use this legislation to limit the freedom of parents to pass their beliefs on to their children

 My concern with this law is two-fold
1. how can they prove if a person educated (as part of their schooling) that we must love each other but we can disapprove of sin being actively lived out or if one is merely educating their children in one's faith stance?
2. it's putting an extra requirement on homeschooling families that they aren't putting on same faith, non-homeschooled families.
Since I don't live in Alberta I'm not sure if there is much I can do.   But I'll be looking into it.


More information can be found here at the HSLDA blog.   understanding what to do politically can be found here.

2. in Ontario they want to pass a law saying kinda the same thing but they don't specifically mention homeschoolers.   This is a bill that is anti-bullying.  Sounds good eh?  BUT when one group or groups  is/are elevated over other groups it just becomes government mandated bullying over the non-protected groups.  The legislation will only address bullying on a selective basis, and will discriminate against children with traditional faith values.

here is where you can learn about bill 13. 

based on the statistics given, out of 1000 students, 330 report feeling unsafe in school but only 13 of those students on this special interest group.  So I have to ask why is the legislation focusing so much attention and resources on a special interest group – favouring the 13 LGBT students who “feel unsafe” when 330 other students actually report being bullied?

The school director has stated the human rights come before faith issues and the human rights commission does not take a pro-faith stand.    So where does this leave children of faith?   How are they protected?

write your MPP, become acquainted with this law, and let's see what we can do to help our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith.   Seriously.  If we do nothing... the social engineering of the government wins out and our children lose.

Reading, Comprehension, and Science

We did a great deal of reading today.

We read a new book, called "bad kitty gets a bath".  This is just a fun book.  I got it to encourage the boy child in his interest for reading. he can read the simple words of kitty, bath, cat, hate etc.  Today we finished it, and then later in they day I spotted him looking through it very carefully.

It's just a fun read for a child.  It also has a remarkable number of good scientific facts in it as well.  Always a bonus.

We continued reading The ultimate guide to wildlife in North America.  We'll read a page most every day.  Today we learned about the star-nosed mole.  The picture in the book didn't show eyes on it so we looked up whether they had eyes and they do indeed! 

In the fall when we went to the creation seminar in Kitchener we had picked up this book called "the lamb" by John R. Cross. It's the story of the bible for children - with comprehension questions. 10 easy lessons. We are up to Lesson Three in the book.  It's a good read.

Today we went to kids Art where we did the The Craziest Art Lesson Ever! This is what we came up with:

Start your crazy art project by drawing a picture of a giant lizard with a shirt on its head. Make your drawing with three crayons and a black feltpen. Then crumple your drawing paper into a ball the size of a camera lense and stomp on it with your feet for one hundred minutes. Now your drawing is well crushed, so unfold it quickly and spread it out on the worktable. Tape down the edges with melted chocolate . Mix up a big batch of paint in a ziploc using two cups of water and a spoonful of sandwich . Spread lots of this yellow paint onto your drawing with a wrench and let it dry for a hour . Hang your beautiful work of art in the living room until it is discovered by Children's Museum . Suddenly you will be a famous artist, become a regular guest on Knight Rider and make lots of money painting portraits of Captain Pichard surrounded by lemmings . 

This was a hoot and immediately the lad wanted to do it again. :)  so here we go....

 Start your crazy art project by drawing a picture of a giant Alligator with a pants on its head. Make your drawing with 144 crayons and a green feltpen. Then crumple your drawing paper into a ball the size of a cd and stomp on it with your feet for 100 minutes. Now your drawing is well crushed, so unfold it quickly and spread it out on the worktable. Tape down the edges with mactac . Mix up a big batch of paint in a jar using two cups of vinegar and a spoonful of aero bar . Spread lots of this yellow paint onto your drawing with a screwdriver and let it dry for a a million years . Hang your beautiful work of art in the green room until it is discovered by Toronto Children's Museum . Suddenly you will be a famous artist, become a regular guest on Monk and make lots of money painting portraits of Adrian Monk surrounded by lizards .

we had fun discovering new books over at We Give Books. 

Since we've been reading in our world history book about knights and castles I picked up a book at mastermind toys the other day about knights!  it's a sticker book and the lad is having fun reviewing what he's learning while dressing the knights and telling me what is happening in the book.  today we learned abit about the crusades, I find this a sad time in history so I didn't get into a lot of detail with this six year old.  But he did learn the basics...the British went to fight against the Arab Muslims over the city of Jerusalem.

And then we headed off to look again at the junior science kit we started yesterday at Gramma's.  Yesterday we dug up fool's gold and then did some tests on a variety of rocks to test hardness, and other stuff that I can't recall at this exact moment.   Today we'll see about making some crystals and digging a geome (I think).

Reading, knots, and more

This day being one of continued pain, and foggy-headedness due to pain meds, and being a typical Tuesday of "I WANT TO PLAY MOMMY!" (late Monday nite returns do this to a boy child), we did computer work, reading, some play, and art.  If I get myself mentally together we will do some science/practical math later on.

Today we started off our homeschooling day with Suessville.  My lad isn't really into some of Dr. Suess books (strongly dislikes the cat in the hat), but he likes some of it.   Some of the activity pages are definitely below where he is at, but he enjoyed problem solving with the games and going through some of the worksheets with me.

We then got inspired by these in my son's words "remote control alien ships". :)

you can read more about it here. 

That video led us to this one, were being Canadian. ... watching robots play hockey is just a given.:)

Caused lots of questions to be asked which is always a good thing in our household. :)

on to some reading.

We continued reading about Knights and Castles in our world history book.

We read a new book, called "bad kitty gets a bath".  This is just a fun book.  I got it to encourage the boy child in his interest for reading.  he can read the simple words of kitty, bath, cat, hate etc.  

It's just a fun read for a child.  It also has a remarkable number of good scientific facts in it as well.  Always a bonus.

We started a new book called The ultimate guide to wildlife in North America.  We'll read a page most every day.  Today we learned about the virginia opossum and I told the lad how one day I found one.  Thought it was dead, poked it, picked it up and what not and decided that yes indeed it was dead, came back five minutes later and it was gone, and how another time my dog trapped one under an old stump and it hissed and growled at us.   Fun to share those stories.

In the fall when we went to the creation seminar in Kitchener we had picked up this book called "the lamb" by John R. Cross. It's the story of the bible for children. 10 easy lessons. We started that book this morning.  It's a good read.

I had the lad learn how to do a simple overhand knot, and I showed him how to make a slip knot and then tied him up.   This helped him learn the importance of tying knots.  He will need to continue to practice though. :)

Carnivals

some homeschooling blog carnivals

Carnival of homeschooling.

A homeschooling carnival.

I can't ask for anything more

  I always have this feeling on contentment when we have a good day homeschooling.

Today was a book work day.

We did a page in our listening skills book.   I asked a number of questions and the lad had to figure out what animal I might be talking about and then needed to locate said animal on a page.   He did really well on this though one picture had him stumped for a while.

We then worked on The complete book of numbers and counting.  We are continuing to figure out skip counting by 2's and 5's.   Good to make his brain think a bit.

We did some work in Connect with words.    we did work on nouns, and looked at words for North America. This involved getting out the globe so we could see for ourselves if what they were telling us was accurate.

First Grade Fundamentals was out next book to tackle. beginning sounds and ending sounds.  I found it interesting that he sometimes forgets what ending sounds are and listens for the middle sound.  Not quite sure what to do about that.  Will need to think and ponder on it some.

Our next book was daily smart.  here we worked on various math equations.   Learning that horizontal and vertical math is the same thing.  Starting to understand word problems and how to write them down.

and finished off our book work with a couple lessons from First Language Lessons by Jessie Wise.  I have to admit, I find this book incredibly slow moving.  It's like how many times do we have to review what a noun is?  how many times do we have to go back to the same simple poem?  Mind we have the first edition and perhaps they changed it in the second.  But at this point I'm finding it a bit of a waste of time.  THOUGH it is a good reminder to practice skills I just don't always do it the way I'm told to.  :)

Then we looked a science book we had and I said "HEY.. why don't we make a collage?"   At the start up we decided i would do one on mammals and the lad would do one on reptiles.. so I pulled out my picture file and this led to a TOTAL meltdown.  With cries of "but mommy I can't decide what to do?  There are too many interesting animals that God created!   I don't know what to do!!!!"   I tried to convince him he could do a page of reptiles and one of arachnids and such like...but no.. that would take too long.  So then it's like Son.. this isn't worth a big fuss.. it's supposed to be fun!   So why don't we do this because we homeschool which means we can change things around.. so why doesn't mommy sort things the way she likes.. into animal groups.  And YOU sort they way you like?  It's all sorting right?   .. a tearful yes... and then smiles and happiness when mommy found a cool spider picture...and OH MOMMY  I like this cat!  Can he have his own page?  Of course he can.. such a nice cat deserves his own page.

 

  one of mommy's

one of the lad's

And then on and on and on went the chatter.  Mommy.. God made a funny hamster.. see.. he's sneaking up on the spider..he's an arachnid you know.   I would interject comments of .. hey son.. what is a walrus?  are they fish or are they mammals or just what are they?  so we'd take a moment and find out.   And we figured out that fish are the class Chordata and Birds are Aves.. or Avian (depending on which source you look at).   We had a HOOT and we learned and we talked and God was praised, and a little boy rejoiced in it all. 

Most of what we did. :)

 

A homeschooling momma can't ask for anything more you know.

Homeschooling technically done for the day we went downstairs for lunch and to watch Seaquest.   The lad's been working hard earning stickers and today as I was washing up the dishes I asked him....so.. how many groups of five do you have there?    He counted.. FOUR!  so how many big stickers does that get you.. FIVE!  ah...So how many little ones do you have left.... only five little ones mommy.. I need two more! (he always has to have some spare as they get taken away for being unkind, not listening etc)

 So.. since he hasn't chewed his finger nails OR toe nails.. he got his two more which set him up with enough stickers that he could 'purchase' something he's been wanting desperately for two weeks.... a science kit.   So for the rest of the afternoon he did science.  Learning to work a pipette, playing with test tubes, learning about colour cubes, making snow, making gooey crystals and such like.  So much fun had by one small lad.  It is so lovely to watch him learn and be excited.

 Pipette's are fun!

 Doing various free experiments with snow

 working with a desiccant.

 Illustrating the importance of protecting the floor

A varied day

Today we started off our day by checking out a site that homeschool freebie of the day directed us to.  It's called Make Belief Comix.   This site has a variety of pages done up with clip art and make believe statements.  We had fun going through about 10 of them.  :)

This led to the lad's question of the day "how much water is in the oceean".   The answer was found here.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are over 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers (332,519,000 cubic miles) of water on the planet. A cubic kilometer is the volume of a cube measuring one kilometer on each side. Almost all of this vast volume of water is in the ocean.
That's 36,614,237,300,000,000,000,000 gallons of milk!

World History

  

We continued reading about Knights and Castles. Learning today about how they practiced.

I asked the lad on Tuesday what animal he would like to study today and he said "spiders".  My response was okay..we can continue in our study and then he said "NO!   Can we study FLIES instead?"     I said "what?  you don't like your spider study"?   his response..."no mommy, I like it but I want to draw the flies too"!   So... my little template that I did up on studying an animal of the day with it's drawing aspect really appeals to him...That's cool!  :)   I'll need to figure out how to take a pic of it so I can link it for you.

So here I am sitting down trying to figure out flies to study and did you know there are TONS of different flies in the world?

We learned that

Flies, insects in the order Diptera, from your basic house fly to mosquitoes and gnats, are defined by having two wings.

and

 Here are some other things you should know about flies and fly control:

• Depending on the species, the life expectancy of a fly is eight days to two months, or in some cases, up to a year.

• Flies belong to the Order Diptera, meaning two wings. There are 16,000 species of flies in North America.

• Flies plague every part of the world except the polar ice caps.

• One pair of flies can produce more than 1 million offspring in as little as six to eight weeks.

• As many as 33 million microorganisms may flourish in a single fly’s gut, while a half-billion more swarm over its body and legs.

• Flies spread diseases readily because they move quickly from rotting, disease-laden garbage to exposed human foods and utensils.

• Because they only have two wings, flies land often and therefore can deposit thousands of bacteria each time they land.

• U.S. Department of Agriculture sources reveal that flies contaminate or destroy $10 billion worth of agricultural products.

• For every fly seen, there are an estimated 19 more hidden from view. This means humans don’t even see most of the flies present at an infestation.

types of flies

• bee fly
• black fly
• blow fly
• bot fly
• cheese skipper
• crane fly
• flesh fly
• fruit fly
• gadfly
• gall midge
• gnat
• hessian fly
• horse fly
• house fly
• maggot
• mediterranean fruit fly
• midge
• mosquito
• robber fly
• sand fly
• screwworm
• tsetse

so we learned a few things about flies, and then moved on to learning about fire safety...we've finished that unit now.

Then played a game of mousetrap which involved setting up the board, following instructions, learning how to be a good sport and of course, having fun.  :)

this day worked out well for us.