things to add to website in time

Some interesting sites I need to look at more and then will probably add to my homeschool website.

Universe Today. Yes, I know.. I shouldn't be surprised that they have space/astronomy blogs...but I was surprised.   Pleased too.  :)   I got to this blog because someone sent me a link to earth layer's for kids.  Rather neat eh?  :)

Pollinator Partnership.  works to protect the health of managed and native pollinating animals vital to our North American ecosystems and agriculture.   it's an interesting site.  Well worth looking around.

Untamed Science.   An intriguing science site.  Looking forward to checking it out more.   This lesson plan caught my eye.  Plants and Fruits lesson

Danielle has her own site at A to Z Teacher's.  Danielle creates original learning materials for A to Z Teacher Stuff using of her own illustrations and designs. She also owns CrayonboxLearning.com.   Most of her stuff is for the younger set (up to about age 6 or so), but some of it is adaptable.   nice lady to deal with.

Today's Homeschooling

 The lad and I have been working through various safety issues.

We've done fire safety, chemical safety, kitchen safety, and something else.  Today we're doing animal safety.  We talked about safety around dogs, cats, wild animals.   The lad asked about "poisonous spiders and Poisonous snakes".   So we talked about the rattlesnake which is the only poisonous snake in Ontario and how to be safe around them.  We did a variety of puzzles, learned the words yes/no, and counted.

I'm also starting to go through our bible materials box and today we have "the golden rule".
I printed out this copywork sheet.    And went through a variety of pictures and we talked about what you should do in a given situation.  Sharing, caring, helping, and such like.   We'll pick a package at least once a week and work on it.  :)

We did a language lesson from First language lessons.   We learned about fables, and took the opportunity to do some art at the same time. :)   Drawing pictures of lions and mice and answering questions about how the story went.   It was interesting how this story tied in with learning about the golden rule.

we took the time to look up in 123 Draw how to draw a lion.  It was decided that mommy would learn to draw a lion and the lad would draw out the story (see above) complete with a few embellishments. :)  The hunters of course had to figure out HOW to net the lion and it was fairly complicated but they managed it.
 
Time for fun with smarties. :)  these are a favourite chocolate confection.
 
This was followed by playing chess with smarties.
 
We did a number of things with smarties first though.  We learned about consumer packaging.  How they can't put less in the box than they say.. we learned that our smartie box calls for 50 g but we had 55 g.  So we practiced doing less than and greater than signs, we counted out how many of each colour there was and did less than/greater than signs.  Then played checkers.  it was a good thing that we have enough of two colours to play it well.  The lad beat me.
count by 2's, 5's and 10's. that was the theme of the day in our numbers and counting book.






I did something different for our animal of the day.  I pulled out my temperate zone books and gave the lad a choice.  He chose deserts.  And of the animal pages in the book he was intrigued by the fringe-toed sand lizard.  We looked it up and found them to be quite an interesting little animal.  They can swim in sand like a fish does in water!  Complete with nostrils that seal and jaws that can clamp shut to keep the sand out.   Quite fascinating the creatures that God creates.

Well.. I was going to show you a foot, but apparently it's a copyright violation to show it to you.  So I'd suggest you go check out this site and check it out for yourself.  :)  They have these are special scales that help the lizard move in the sand.

We had a hoot playing checkers using goldfish crackers.
We play modified checkers in that we have no forced jump and we only jump once, even if we can jump two or three times.  This makes it easier for the lad to grasp for some reason.  Over time we'll start playing by the rules, but for now this is easier, and yet harder.  :)  I was the smiling goldfish, he was the no smile ones.

When we finished with our bookwork the lad asked if I could hook him up with some thinking computer games, and I said most certainly. Not sure yet where I'll put him but I'll find something for him to play online. Cheers! :)

We had fun getting trounced at Playing History.   We played  a battle in England between the Vikings and the English and well.. as is true to life, we got trounced. :)   and then he did some logic games over at CoolMath4Kids.