MathArt

Was looking at this Math Art class on currclick and learned a couple new terms.

Mandala and Tessellation.

Both are these are math, done in art form.
Not quite for us yet, but it was interesting learning. :)

Did our Blue Spruce Voting

Here are the books up for voting this year.

The Blue Spruce™ Award is a provincial primary reading program which brings recently published Canadian children's picture books to Ontario children ages 4 to 7 in kindergarten through to grade two. For many children, this is their first introduction to the world of books; it is a very exciting time for everyone.

The students will peruse/read 10 nominated Canadian picture books and then vote for their favourite book. They need to have at least perused/read 5 of 10 to be eligible to vote. They also can have these books read to them to be eligible to vote. Based on student voting across the province, the best picture book is then selected and the author/illustrator is honoured with the Blue Spruce™ Award.

The goals of the Blue Spruce™ Award program are:

• to promote reading for enjoyment and information among primary students
• to make students aware of quality Canadian picture books including Canadian authors and illustrators
• to develop the student's skill in evaluating a picture book based on story, text and pictures
• to provide opportunities for students to discuss the picture books in an authentic manner

This is the result of our reading and what the lad appreciated (or not).

He liked Thinkamajink the very best -- liked this one enough that it inspired stories
followed by in order of liking

C'mere boy
imaginary garden
proud as a peacock
jack the bear
perfect snow

sorta liked: willow whispers

HATED violet. this was a quite adamant "I HATE that book mommy"

Mother's Day Study continued

Today we did some work on the Mother's day unit study done by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett.. Made this copywork sheet of 1 Samuel 1:27. Today we did day three and four.

We practiced animal husbandry by giving the cats a bath! They very much needed it.

My laugh of the day:
We were researching how the Scots do mother's day and we saw a picture of cottage pie and my son's response when I asked if we should celebrate mom's day like the Scots was "If you tried to serve me that I might accidentally throw up."

and right after saying that he learned the pencils break if you apply enough pressure. IT WAS AN ACCIDENT MOMMY! I didn't know it would happen! :)

We had fun with the languages page, where we learned to say mother's day in various languages.

and then we did some science by making some cookies. :) I threatened to leave out the chocolate chip cookies to see what might happen...and that was met with a look of horror! So we didn't do that. :) had fun none-the-less.

Home School Book Sales

So last night I went to a baptist church in London that was having a homeschool book sale.

I bought some books that were NOT school book related. Just general Christian fiction that I figured was a good price for the book box and that I could resell at more than what I bought it for at our annual yard sale. :) that way I have MORE money to buy more books right? :) and worst comes to worst...I'll have enjoyed doing some reading.

Anyways, picked up a pack of manipulatives. They kinda look like this but in lots of different colours. $4.00 I figured why not. :)

This morning the lad was quite intrigued by them and wanted to be able to add them to his play city and was sadly disappointed when I said NO... these are for homeschooling ONLY. We do math with them.

Being the lad that he is... he still managed to make a game out them. Only to occasionally be called off his play with them in order to do some math. It was interesting to see a light dawn in his eyes when he realized that.. 10 black bomb birds were still 10 black bomb birds even if they were divided into two groups of 1 + 9, or 5 + 5 and so forth. This is why I got them even though I KNOW that I can use all sorts of stuff around the house as manipulatives for math. I had him do some group division, count how many colours there and so forth as well.

I got a bunch of other books as well. A couple of readings, a three book set of bible dictionary, a small reading program, a science book, a music theory book, some learning type books and a few fiction books. All for less than $50. I was overall pleased with what I got.

Ireland inspired

Ever since doing the Ireland study the lad's been somewhat intrigued by castles.

So one day...we built one. :)



It has now been added to his city upstairs in his bedroom.

He occasionally asks if we can build another one, and since I can't remember where I picked this up, all I can say is "I don't know buddy, we'll have to see if I can find another one."

Our Bridges Work

I went to the Goodwill Book Store in London and picked up a whole whack of books. One of them was this book by Etta Kaner called Bridges.

I started reading through it with the lad while he was digging in his dinosaur egg. We got intrigued.... Being intrigued in our household means let's experiment and see what happens.

Chapter One is on Beam Bridges.

HAH! Easy enough to experiment with these! And besides...the book clearly lays out the experiments one can do.

We started with Page 7, build a beam bridge. All we needed was two bricks, paper (used cardstock) and plasticine (or some other such modelling clay).

easy enough...set up your bricks. Place a piece of cardstock over it. How many plasticine bricks will it hold? We learned it ALL depends on where you place them. Smack dab in the middle...Three MAX. BUT if you put some on either end before you put them in the middle it will hold more. SEE .....

not anchored

anchored

Then the book said try doubling the paper, and folding the paper in different ways. So we doubled the paper.. it held a bit more than twice as much weight without being anchored (about 8), and when it was anchored we could put all the made bricks (about 15) on top.

We made a waffle bridge... and WOW!! that just amazed us. We put ALL the plasticine we had on top and it didn't break! One end crumpled a bit but that we think, was due to mommy's poor folding job at that end.

and angry black bomb bird could sit underneath quite safely. :)

Then we moved on to page 12 as I just wasn't quite sure how to do the in-between pages and decided thinking on those a bit would be a good thing.

So we tested out different types of columns. Square, Triangle and Rectangle

we started with two DVD's

we added more.
the triangle really started to quiver and shake

we managed to get one more book on top
and then the square one gave one unfortunately falling
into the circle one.

We went for a walk afterwards and discovered there are columns everywhere...even the trees are columns! We decided that was very smart of God to make the trees grow in the strongest shape. Circular columns were by far the most common column that we found, though most that most porch railings use square columns which didn't make any sense to the lad. "how will these hold up a person mommy? they are the wrong shape! they are square! they should be circled!"

I had no answer for him....do any of you???

April 13 - What we did today

Today we did some work on the Mother's day unit study done by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett.. We did a copywork sheet on Genesis 3:20. We had the fun of discovering the Go Fish Guys.

We did days one and two. If you want to know more Click here to view more details.

We learned the history of Mom's day, the lad drew some pictures, did some copywork, saw what the flower of mother's day was (the carnation), and took in some geography as well. He had a great deal of fun making me a mom's day card. :) The lad's response to day one and two of this study "I liked drawing the card for you mommy but I didn't like the rest of it."

Then we had lunch and headed off to the library.

We got out a whole bunch of new books and had fun playing trains. We added a twist to the train play today...we took pieces of the toddler puzzles (animal shapes) and had them in the train area. The pigs had a zoo and the angry birds broke down the walls and well...the animals all got out. The pigs rebuilt the zoo and to compensate themselves for having to rebuild started over-charging the animals for their food so the animals all went out and got jobs. It was a fun story that taught concepts as well. :)

Out to the park for a walk afterwards. We had a good time walking around the pond. We saw a goose on eggs and two muskrats eating grass and watched them dive into the pond through a hole in the ground. Then we saw a white thing in the water. It made us VERY curious so we tried to get it onto the shore... as we moved it we saw that it was an egg! We tried hard to bring it in but the soil at the side of the pond has a edge to it so we lost it under that edge. :( Made us both disappointed. The lad said "NEXT TIME MOMMY. Let me do it!" So we spent some more time trying to locate more eggs...goose, duck, bird ...anything eggs, but no such luck, but a good time had tramping around the pond looking hard for them and scaring up ducks and geese as we went.

Then home to make supper and to relax. A good day overall. :)

What we Learned today - April 12, 2011

me - "Hey Son, what do you think we should have for breakfast this morning?"

the lad - "IRISH PANCAKES!" "you got to remember mommy, I like Irish pancakes". (this said with a very earnest face)

So this is what we made (i cut the recipe in half)

Here is an easy way to make thin pancakes:

---

4 oz/ 125g/ 1 cup plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/2 pt/ 250ml/ 1 cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter

---

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend for about 30 seconds. The batter should then be allowed to stand for 30 minutes in a cool place. Heat a small pan over a medium heat. Grease with a little butter and wipe out with kitchen paper. Fry about 2 tbsp of batter at a time, swirling to cover the base of the pan. Keep them thin and there will be no need to turn. Serve rolled up with sugar. (we roll with cinnamon sugar)

Today we have a simple plan. Have breakfast, break open a dinosaur egg (purchased from dollar store) and talk about dinosaurs, paleontology, archaeology while doing so. Start our review of Mother's Day for DNG, clean the kitchen, play outside, and see what else we can fit in. :)

But for now...BREAKFAST! :)

we enjoyed our breakfast and then dug up two dinosaurs.
The lad had dug up this one yesterday at gramma's: stegosaurus
and today he dug up: Dilophasaurus


and I dug up a Parasaurolophus

Then we had fun letting our imaginary bunnies dig them up as well. One was the digger (archaeologist) and the other was the puzzler (Paleontologist) who put the dinosaurs together.

looked at doing this.

We never did do the mother's day unit study, but we did do other things... like we read books and did some experiments on bridges. I'll be posting pictures (go here for those)!

Israel, Day Two

This video is a bit long, but I like it better as an overview of Bethlehem than the one provided to us. :)



Did you know that salt isn't always white? (yeah, I didn't know that either, neither did the boy child). Here's more info on salt.


We learned about the dugong (sea cow or siren of the sea), about Bethlehem, the dead sea. We had fun doing an experiment with salt (that's my favourite part mommy), and did some drawing. A good study time this afternoon.

This study is part of Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. called Expedition Israel. This is part of the Expedition Series, this is where you can find all the titles in that series.

This morning we had gone to bible study/story hour.

Playing and Doing Homeschool

Our Tuesday generally consist of play, homeschool, play, homeschool and so forth. I normally throw in doing dishes, laundry, and so forth.

We mix it up with some computer time, science time, art work etc. It's usually a very enjoyable day.

Today we did two lessons in Reading Kingdom. Reading Kingdom uses a whole word approach, I tend to be more of phonetics person, but I see no harm in learning a different way. I figure a varied approach is not always a bad thing. There are good and bad points to each way of learning how to read. We are currently doing a trial period to see how it goes.

We then did two lessons from Head of the Class. This is their kindergarten page. One where I wanted him to do a simple exercise but had to look at the first letter in order to figure out what colour he had to do. For a younger child I would have read the word, but I wanted the lad to sound it out and then make his decision. He did fairly well. It's called Colours. Then I was wanting to do something kinda artsy cause well.. he's that type of child. So I saw this one called Stitch and Sew. I expected it to be the normal yarn/shoelace around a pattern...but it was actual needle and thread sewing. The boy was QUITE pleased with himself and showed off his art work to dad. "I did it myself daddy". I helped for the first bit and around the tricky bits, and we didn't do the heart as shown in the video..we did a cat. The lad was quite very pleased with himself, and I have to admit, I was quite pleased as well. We talked about the parts of a needle, the thread, I tied in the bible verse about the camel going through the eye of the needle and so forth.

Then we played for a while. ended up going for a walk instead of reading and then cleaning the kitchen. on our walk we met the dirties, They make you act like dirt until
someone uses a machine to make you human again.
Here is the lad being dirt.

The lad also wanted to do his make a pizza program as well. and then we watched the spy next door and played doctor at the same time with a bunch of sick stuffies. :) Always an interesting day in the life here. :)

just before bed he had fun making leaf creations. He made all sorts of interesting creatures, learning to resize, rotate and just exercise his creative intelligence.

Review: expedition Israel

Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. has given us a new study called Expedition Israels. This is part of the Expedition Series, this is where you can find all the titles in that series.

You know, I expected my lad to enjoy this study as much as he did Expedition Ireland, but it wasn't as much of a hit. not sure why...other than the Canaan Dog on the first day...hmm... Perhaps that's what caused him to not want to go further with it, or maybe it was just that we had a crazy busy week and he needed downtime (playtime more than he needed book/computer work). I suspect the latter more than the former. So bear that in mind as I do this review. :)

We completed one day.. Day One. We got Day Two done!

This is how the days are laid out for Study
Day 1: Where on Earth Is Israel?
Day 2: Some of the Special Places in Israel
Day 3: A Bit of History
Day 4: Cool Things to Know About Israel
Day 5: Fun and Games in Israel

I have to admit, we did have some good learning go on with Day One.
We read books, had fun finding Israel on a map and we even looked up different ways to get there from where we live... by boat and by plane. AND even going by plane/boat and driving by vehicle. So it was quite interesting. I have plans to do at least one, perhaps two more days this upcoming week. To my son's chagrin the animal of the day was a dog.. "I DON"T LIKE DOGS MOMMY!" But we did have fun learning if we could pick up said dog... we decided it would be easy for mommy, but not so easy (but still doable) for a five year old as long it was a smaller one and didn't move.

Just so what do you get with a DownloadN'Go study published by Amanda Bennett Unit Studies? You get a pack with everything well laid out for you. You get child friendly graphics, Vocabulary, lapbook activities, note booking activities, tons of videos to watch and actually SEE what you are talking/learning about, a variety of different types of activities so you aren't doing the same thing over and over again. They are quite interesting to do.

These lesson cover all sorts of subject areas: history, geography, science, math, english, arts, religion and more. They are well done studies and I enjoy doing them.

Here's a pic so you can see:
Once again, Expedition Israel is well worth your time to check out. This lesson contains the following: a geographic feature of the day, animal of the day, food of the day, a daily hero of Israel, Biblical events, and a Hebrew word of the day. We are planning this coming week to have the grandparents up for an Israeli meal. Should be fun to do that. :)



I do need to mention that I was given a copy of this study so that I could give you my honest review of it. To visit more reviews on Expedition Israel, please follow the thumbnails below.

Art work and a story

Justin's story behind this painting.

two bunnies are running and they are going over the speed limit.
and the police are going over the speed limit too.
Do you know why?

Because there are bad space aliens coming after them from Mars and Jupiter. From Every planet except from earth.

The rock is in front of the sun turning it black.

There are guns shooting through the air at the bunnies.
The bus is trying to get past the bunnies and their car.
The bullets are going in every direction..even after the car!

THEN>>>> do you know how many bullets the alien has in his space gun? A trillion million of them. And he is going to keep shooting them.

the thing that shoots the bullets controls itself. And the space alien can't stop it until it runs all out of bullets.

There is just one space alien but he has different coloured bullets because sometimes he visits planets and takes stuff off their planets to make his bullets. So some are red and yellow and blue ones.. and they all control themselves. One side shoots yellow and red, and the other side shoots ALL blue. AND he's even now shooting some bullets toward the sun!!!!

and the driver of the bus is one of the angry birds and he's talking "oh oh...the sun's going to burn out one of these days". And he's going over the speed limit because he doesn't want to shot by the bad alien.

Off the picture are some bunnies who have landed their rocket and their rocket is on a meteorite and they forgot their coordinates back to earth. The astronaut(who is the space alien) wants the meteorite to go boom because he wants the bunnies to fall back to earth and fall on a building with a flame thingey on it so that he can take over the world.

--- can you catch glimpses of things that have been studied or watched lately? :) We've studied the solar system, watched cats and dogs the movie, played angry birds, Been studying traffic signs and learning about speed limits, ... isn't it fascinating to listen to how it all plays out in a little boys head? :)

____________-
we did some work out of backyard discoveries.

we spent some time at Head of the Class.

and we did some finger painting.... see the story and picture above, the rest of the pictures we did are below.

justin's sea.

my butterfly

More fun and learning was done with the pizza program. he makes pizzas that he thinks bunnies will like, mice will like and that just maybe cats will like. He thinks and tries hard and then has a pizza party with everyone (all his stuffies). he's learned now how to make pictures using pizza toppings. He's doing some really good work. I should scan one in for you all to see. :)

We did some learning here as well. :)

At supper we had a hoot learning some artistic stuff. We went through a couple library books and got out his new art set and had some fun drawing pictures and making stories. It was a good way to spend time together over food. :)

F.O.O.D

Israel and having fun tracing shapes

Today for breakfast we read through two books we got out on Israel.

A is for Abraham by Richard Michelson.

In this book we learned about the Sh'ma that Jewish children learn. We decided that learning it would not be a bad thing. So I made a copywork sheet of it for the lad to copy and we'll be learning it over the next week.

We also read "Count your way through Israel" by Jim Haskins.

the lad asked lots of questions with this book and did some counting.
he was quite intrigued by the fact that the people of Israel have made the desert productive
AND they brought the leopard/jaguar back!

The basis of our study will be the DownloadNGo unit study created by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. It is called Expedition Israel.

While I prepared the study my son had fun tracing out shapes from some templates that I recently picked up from the dollar store. Just another way to increase his awareness of different ways that people can be artists. :) Fun and learning.

we enjoyed this site when studying Israel.

We had fun trying to see if we could lift up a Canaan dog. The result : yes...but it would be really really hard if you are a five year old boy weighing in a 52 lbs (and only a small dog at that). :)

We read a couple more books during lunch about Israel.

Israel by Kristin Thoennes

This was a very informative book.
Lots of pictures and text that fit well with it.

Cooking the Israeli Way

This book just intrigues us as to what to make for our Israeli dinner next week.
Though when shown a picture of a felafal the lad went "ew". :)
So perhaps we won't make that. :)

After lunch it was time to clean house, play the keyboard (working on learning 'rejoice rejoice'), and play computer games. Today it was doing a memory game, a cat discovery game and building a pizza. When that was done we went for a walk on this lovely sunny day.

Appreciated this post

I'm not going to waste my time...

This blogger has a good response or two, to those who would question our ability to homeschool our children. :) Thought others might appreciate it as well.

Curriculum ideas

the question at heart of the home is this

After hours and hours of research, consultation, lists and that big ol’ investment… what did you finally decide for your curriculum? Please share your choices – by age (or grade) if possible.

Well, being in our first year of homeschooling, my methodology at this point is really varied.

I use books that I've picked up here and there along the way... copywork, math, etc. We go to the library, we do unit studies as I'm on a review team, go on field trips, play a lot :) .. what can I say...he's five. We use a variety of resources on-line, with one of our current favourite places being teachers pay teachers.

and I suppose that's all I've got to say right now. :)

Library books

Jeffrey and Sloth by Kari-Lynn Winters and Ben Hodson

Oh my, this is just a fun book to read.. for mother and child. :)
Spurs all kinds of questions. Great to use to help a child think and imagine.
What could Jeffrey ask next of the sloth? :)

Tale of a Tadpole by barbara ann porte

A nice read of a little girl watching a tadpole grow up.

Dory Story by Jerry Pallota

This book has a surprise ending that made us both laugh! Good story as well of the web of life.

Swim the silver sea, joshie Otter by Nancy White Carlstrom

"why's he called Joshie Mommy?"
"Why didn't his mommy want to play?"
"why didn't he listen to his mommy?"
These were questions I was asked while reading this book. It was a great cause of wonderment.

The Blizzard by Betty Ren Wright

a good story of a boy with a birthday in the winter and his disappointment at his cousins not being able to help celebrate...because of "The Blizzard". My lad asked tons of questions, and was happy for the boy at the end of the story.

Rabbit by Alison Catley

the value of this book to me was in helping my son understand that more than one person can have a stuffy named Rabbit...and they don't all have to look the same. He was quite amazed by this fact. :)

Rabbit's Good News by Ruth Lercher Bornstein

We've had this book about before. it's just a delightful spring time book. :)

Bicycle Race by Donald Crews

DID NOT like this book. It earned a very hearty frown from a five year old lad.

Five Little Monkeys go Shoppings by Eileen Christelow

What a fun read and a smile inducer. "mommy, those monkeys don't listen!"

Waters by Edith Newlin Chase

This book inspires me to want to do a unit study on it, and perhaps I might. Filled with Canadiana trivia/artwork.

How Groundhog's Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry

This book was okay, not great, but a decent read. Groundhog learned to not only grow a garden, but how to share. Always a good thing that. NOT an oft requested book.

I'll be Home soon, snoopy by Charles Schultz

My enjoyment of Charlie brown is NOT shared by a five year old lad. :(

Lucy Comes to Stay by Rosemary Wells

Wells has again written a book to be enjoyed and read well. Reads well outloud, causes questions to be asked. A good book.

Bob the builder, snowed under. by somebody I'm sure..

It's a typical bob the builder book. Something to be built, something to be learned. The lad was very ho-hum with this book.

WAIT!! I want to tell you a story by Tom Williams.

He liked it but... the ending was somewhat less than what the boy wanted it to be. You'll have to read why a cat-loving boy wouldn't appreciate the ending. It even made my hubby chuckle. :)

The Three Swinging Pigs by Vicky Rubin.

If you KNOW the story of the three little pigs you might appreciate this book. We've read a couple books that twist the tale a bit, or at least tell it from a different perspective. This one was an OFT repeated tale.

Shaun the Sheep - Shaun the Farmer and Can't stand the heat.

It's the shaun the sheep videos in book form. Still enjoyed immensely by one five year old boy. He asked lots of questions which he didn't ask in the videos.

Click, clack, moo...and more. by Doreen Cronin et al

Oh..you have to just go get the book and read it. Laugh about what happens. See the farmer's frustration and just enjoy a children's book. really...go get it and just have fun with it. :)

Jack the bear by Christina Leist.

i have to admit, when I first read this book I thought 'eh.. don't need to read this again'. BUT... it grew on me. The lad liked it as well. Probably because the fox was so perplexed by Jack the Bear.

The Great Pig Escape and The Great Pig Search both books by Eileen Christelow.

Boy oh boy were these books read over and over and over again. Those silly pigs. Both were fun reads, both made a boy ask questions, both had decent illustrations, and were just fun to read. They could be made educational should one so desire...but sometimes fun books just need to be read. :)

Up in the air...with the greatest of ease..I saw a Kite

Kite Capers was our main unit study of the past two weeks, day one and Days 2 and 4. Kite Capers has been developed by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. Kite Capers captured my son's imagination. To learn more about Kite Capers click here to view more details. It is an excellent study.


One of the fun moments I have as a homeschooling mom is seeing how my son puts to use the information that he learns. Part of the history aspect of kite capers was learning what one of the first uses of kites was. A man name Han Hsing (or something like that..just going from memory here) was attacking a city and he wanted to know how far to dig a tunnel. So we drew pictures of him flying his kite over the city. We acted out the digging of the tunnel and just had a blast learning about this part of kite history. Then he went to my mom and dad's for a couple of days. When we got there the VERY FIRST thing he did was set up a city and then had an enemy attack that city using a kite.

"How big a tunnel does he have to dig buddy?" I asked
The very excited response was "10 miles mommy! He has to dig 10 miles!"

I LOVE seeing him excited. I LOVE knowing what he remembers.

It's winter where we live so flying a kite isn't on our immediate agenda but we stopped at a store to see what treat/toy the lad could buy with his rabbit money and we spotted a couple kits (packed together, inexpensive) and I heard "MOMMY!!! Diamond kites!" So well...of COURSE we had to get them. So now Daddy has a big kite to fly (from last year) and I have a delta and the lad has a diamond kite. I think we'll have fun this year. :)

Each DownloadN'Go unit is a complete unit study designed for grades K-4, not saying you can't revamp a bit if you have older children. There are 5 days of lessons - which can be done as separate days, or combined two into one, or extending a day as you take small rabbit trails. In Kite Capers you will find the following plan of action:

Day 1: What Is a Kite?
Day 2: The History of Kites
Day 3: Kite People and Places
Day 4: Science Secrets of Kites
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of Kites

We didn't do the entire study, after all...it's March Break up this way and little boys need to play and get to know their grandparents. :)

I particularly enjoyed going through the section on Wind. Learning what my boy knew, helping him to expand his knowledge and use new words. It always interesting to learn just what your child knows. :)

If you want to know more Click here to visit Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. You can read more blog reviews by going here.

As part of the the Download N Go review team, I have been provided with a copy of this unit to use, review, and post about on my blog.

Kites Again :)

worked on Day Two and Day Four of Kite Capers from DNG. Made a sheet to go with it from here. The actual page is made is here.
Published by Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett.



cool to learn fact

Andre Cassagne designed a series of ring kites to celebrate the Olympics. He is the best known kitemaker in France and the original inventor of the Etch-a-Sketch.

The lad drew and coloured and learned some geography and science and history. It was a good lesson for him today...even though both of us a dog-tired and highly distractable as a result.

Library of Congress

NGA Classroom

Women's History Month

Women's Suffrage

Cat Unit Study

Kitten's first full moon.

Cat's Lapbook.

interesting blog

St. Patrick's Day

Different things I'm considering preparing for the Lad for St. Patrick's Day. ONLY because it can be a fun holiday for a boy child. :

A colouring page of the Irish flag. Not sure if I"ll do this as we did one for our study on Ireland.

According to legend, Saint Patrick used a shamrock to explain about God. The shamrock, which looks like clover, has three leaves on each stem. Saint Patrick told the people that the shamrock was like the idea of the Trinity – that in the one God there are three divine beings: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The shamrock was sacred to the Druids, so Saint Patrick’s use of it in explaining the trinity was very wise.

In light of this I'm considering having him do this activity.

If I can figure out how to print this maze off I would use it. :)

and here's a nice little unit study that I might pull ideas from.

DLTK has an anagram. one is easy, one is more difficult. Same site has an easier to access maze.
:)

there's this neat green on green craft that I think the lad will enjoy. :)

Fairly certain I'm going to be doing this one. it's a file folder game.

and there are lots of ideas on this page. Not sure what I'll use at this point, if anything. Though I do like this 3 in 1 craft/song.

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TOS would love to have you join them on Monday, May 16—Friday, May 20 for The Schoolhouse Expo. They only have 300 tickets left and once they are gone, that’s it! Don’t miss out on this encouraging event!

Today's Activities

Signed up for a trial period of Reading Kingdom. It's a whole word based reading program. So far, the lad is bored silly with it. He doesn't like that he has to find letters on the keyboard and it doesn't give him enough time to do so. I'll encourage him to keep at it, the sessions are really short so it shouldn't be too onerous for him. I do have to admit that part of it he likes (where he has to find pictures or click on things on the computer screen), but mommy isn't allowed to help him at all so he finds that a challenge - particularly when it comes to using the keyboard.

The program takes a multi approach to learning how to read. not only knowing how to see the word and read it, but also learning how to spell it at the same time.

I like learning to read phonetically as I think it will serve a person well in the long run, but I don't see the harm is blending methodologies of learning to read either. Some words just don't sound out well... and for those words you need to recognize the pattern of them in order to read them. So we'll work with this for a month and see what we think at the end of it.

The lad also played some thinking and logic games on the computer today. One was a math game where he had to accumulate points in order to progress in the game, and the rest were thinking games. I found it interesting that sometimes he was able to figure things out sooner than I was. :)

Playing with Lego was a big thing today as well. It was a snow day, and a Friday so we take things easy. It was a good day and he learned a thing or two so it's all good. :)

Carnival of homeschooling is up

The Carnival of Homeschooling - Mardi Gras!!

Links to All Things Free for Homeschoolers

this Site looks very interesting to me. I think this link leads to the main page.

I believe it’s possible to fill out your whole curriculum online–for free. This site is basically the curriculum our family uses. all sorts of freebies on it. :)

the person who puts it together even teaches you how to use freebies to build a curriculum. How cool is that? :)

so that site led me to this site called skedtrack which led me to their best sites which listed some good sites I'd like to explore more...mostly with my boy. :)

Kites

the twisting box kit was just fascinating.


the lad thought this was rather cool to see. "it looks like a dragon mommy!"


justin likes the cat one

Can you tell what the theme was for this afternoons study?

yes indeed, we undertook the study of Kites. We did Day One from Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett on Kites. Click here to view more details

We had fun. We got a bit hung up watching various videos with kites in them. Just kept following the links from one to the next. There are some quite neat kites out there. :)

We looked at Charlie Brown's mistake with kites, What makes a kite, and talked about wind and how it makes a kite work. The lad surprised me with just how much he knew about wind and lift. (good for a mom to be surprised). :)

Looking forward to doing more of this study on Friday.

What we Learned today - March 8, 2011

Today we practiced opposites. First I had to teach the lad what opposite meant.

And we read a poem on cats, and did some work about Tabby Cats. We're feeling VERY disorganized and muddle headed this morning so I'm pulling together things that I think will work for us today as book work ain't where it's at today. :) So we did some lap book work on cats. Poem, parts of a cat, practicing the letter C, Spelling the words Tabby Cat,

Pulled a poem from a cat study from reading-tutors.com. We read through it a couple of times.

We did this page from Enchanted Learning. And we read books looking for the letter C (easy to do when you have LOTS of cat books). :) We did this maze as well.

Then upstairs to read books for a half hour.

Time for a late lunch. and the cleaning up the house and playing. We done good on a day when we just want to veg so it's all good. :)

Programs to look at

this place makes blank board games. :) it's called Bare Books

then there's a reading program called FUNNIX. I need to do some research on it. But it looks interesting.

What we Learned today - March 4, 2011

Today the lad and I worked on telling time and writing out the long I, long U and short o sounds as well as figuring out first letters in words from a choice of three.

We also did colouring and designing of some of our own art work.

Then we made a Canada puzzle. I tried to find a pic of it for you but was unable to do so. I do know that I bought it at "the bargain shop" though. It's a really good puzzle as it has all the provincial flags on it. and has basic coordinates on the outside edge of the map. It's a really good one to do with a five year old as it helps him practice his numbers and alphabet, and the flags are easy for them to figure out so they are able to help well making a bigger then normal for them puzzle. We practiced finding coordinates (map reading), learning the province names (geography) and team work.

The rest of the day was spent watching a movie (stuart little 3) and doing laundry. :)

Nyiragongo Crater

This was interesting to learn about.

Hubby found that tidbit of information about the Nyiragongo Crater. The lad and I sat and looked at the pictures and talked about it. It's very hard to convey to a five year old lad how dangerous all that melted rock would be, and how the gases are dangerous.

He found it quite interesting how they had to protect the cameras too. :)

Hopping Popcorn Review

I've been a bit lax this week in keeping up with the blog.

We've been busy doing popcorn! :) And just so you know...with this review I'm allowed to give away a copy of it! You have until the 7th to leave me a message saying why you'd be interested in getting a copy of it. Numbers will be assigned and my son will pick it out of a hat.

Have you ever wondered just what makes popcorn special? Why does it pop? Why doesn't it pop? How many kinds of popcorn are there? What makes popcorn different than other corn?

ALL these questions and more are laid out for you in an easy to use format of Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. called Hopping Popcorn. Click here to view more details

Day One was done with dad as I was called into work. You can find how that went here. :)
On Tuesday this week we did day 2-3 and today we did day 4-5. Like always, we picked and chose what we wanted to do, and we never did an entire day.

We drew pictures, we ate popcorn, we thought about making necklaces for the trees but one five year old thought that wouldn't be very nice for the trees...to be all pretty and then have the birds come and make them all unpretty...it would make the trees sad apparently. (go figure). :) We had fun learning about the different types of popcorn and learned there's a company that makes.... COTTON CANDY popcorn!!!! That was a real shocker to a five year old.

"Though mommy... I like ordinary popcorn". This was an oft repeated phrase ... particularly when I mentioned trying out some of the different recipes we encountered.

Today we had fun going around to our neighbours homes and asking them what type of popcorn was there favourite. We also asked on my facebook account what variety was the best. The lad was VERY pleased that his favourite ended up being the favourite overall.

Each day as a theme, and throughout the week a similar layout is done on a day to day basis. There are LOTS of videos to watch which is always a highlight. Check it out. See all the child friendly graphics? :)

One thing I would have changed about this study is not make it so US focused. Corn is grown ALL over the world. So why did we only learn about how it is grown here in the US? I just didn't understand that aspect of this study. Wish that basis had been broadened a bit. HEY... I got an answer to the focus on US cornbelt. Here it is below:

the reason the focus was on the US is because almost all of the popcorn grown in the world is grown in the US. The US exports much of the popcorn to over 90 other countries. The 2 countries that receive the greatest amount of the exported popcorn is Canada and Mexico. Popcorn is also native to North America, though it likely originated in Mexico.

HA! We learned something new! :)

You can read what other folks have to say here.

The folks over at Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. are having a $5 Friday sale tomorrow. So go check it out. :)

Don't forget to let me know why you want a copy and once I have a winner you'll get your copy from the publisher. Make sure I have your email address please. :) March 7th is the deadline! :)

I received a copy of this unit study in return for my fair and honest review.

Sight, Sound, Taste, Hear, Touch

Today the lad and I learned about the five senses.

We cut out pictures of mouths, ears, noses, eyes, and hands.

We talked abit about how fish hear (vibrations in the water), and how people can hear better by cupping their hands over their ears (we had fun with this one whispering up and down the stairs).

We then played with a bunny and a cat for a while and used our five senses to learn different things about them. How bunnies smell like bunnies and cats smell like cats and people smell like people. :) Bunny fur is different than cat fur. Bunnies ears are shaped differently than a cat and so are their eyes. it was VERY interesting to a cat and bunny crazy lad of five.

We then traced out the words for the five senses. Then mommy wrote down different words for each sense that the lad could come up with.

Sight: looking, seeing, pretty, ugly, nice, colour, differences
Taste: tasting a chip, sweet, sour, salty, hot, spicy, yummy, "sometimes good, sometimes not good"
Hear: hear, listening, sounds "too much noise", "milo comes when he hears you calling Milo come here".
Smell: Chip eating, yuck, nose, "ew" "mmm" "cats - can smell like cats"
Touch: hands, fingers, somethings don't mind if you touch them, "helps blind people pay money".

All in all, a good time learning by a five year old. :)

Freebie of the day...whatever number this is :)

For some decent freebies of the day relating to homeschooling go there. :)

and because i don't want to lose track of these, I'm copying them down here. :)

Khan Academy. It is located at this addie.

An Old Fashioned Education. Go here to connect with the site directly.

EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY.COM. Go here to connect with the site directly.

Pocket College. Go here to connect to the site directly.

Nineteenth Century American Children & What They Read. Click here to go to today's featured site. And don't miss the page on Children.

and then there's this toymakers site. :)

this week and hopping popcorn

This week has been an interesting one.
Tuesday we cleaned the bookroom and read poems, books, and talked alot about all kinds of different things.
Wednesday we went to Dufflebag Theatre in London. We saw the Three Musketeers. We had a total hoot.
Thursday we did more reading, some book work with numbers and what not.

Friday I was called into work so Dad and son worked on Hopping Popcorn, Day One. The Lad had told me that he wanted dad to do day one of hopping popcorn with him. So I got it ready for them to do. Hopping Popcorn is produced by Amanda Bennett Unit Studies.

I created this copysheet for them. :) I had them use this site to learn the parts of the corn plant. :)

They apparently did well doing the lesson, the lad learned that there are 6 kinds of corn, but only ONE kind pops and that corn came from a type of grass.

In evening we went to gymnastics. It has been changed from Monday due to the Family Day holiday. Boy...it certainly was not nearly as busy as it usually is on Mondays.

Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c shortening (or butter)
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. peanut butter (we use natural)
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 c. milk
4 cups quick oatmeal
6 oz chocolate or butterscotch chips.. we more or less wing this. :)

Mix in order of appearance.

Drop by spoonfuls on cookie sheet.
Bake 10-12 minutes at 350.

Enjoy them.
We enjoyed making them. :)

Expedition Ireland Review

Click here to visit Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett. Amanda has put together an excellent study on Ireland. Called Expedition Ireland we had ALOT of fun doing this. We took the week to do it you can find each day here: Day one, day 2-3 with our Irish meal day,and day 4-5.

Expedition Ireland is a great study, one that we've enjoyed doing. I can't say that we did everything in it, but we did a lot of it. We did most of the animals of the day, all of the geographic daily items, we practiced saying "prata, and diah duit", we enjoyed watching hurling, and learning about Irish hares. Just a lovely study...great for a curious five year old. :)

One of the things I like about these studies is that I'm not forced to do them a certain way. If I want to do something, but not something else...it doesn't affect the integrity of the unit. For instance... sheep...No interest in studying a sheep... but we did look up the place where those sheep came from. No biggie. We took a rabbit trail when we learned about the Irish hare and then came back to the study. it's all good.

Each day has an overall topic. Each day follows a similar plan. Geographic feature of the day, animal of the day, word of the day etc.

Day 1: Where on Earth is Ireland?
Day 2: The Places of Ireland
Day 3: A Bit of History
Day 4: Cool Things to Know about Ireland
Day 5: Fun and Games in Ireland


Full of child friendly graphics.
Lots of drawing.
Some math.
Lots of suggested reading. We got a ton of books out of the library...none of which were suggested, but they were what we had available. :) We had fun reading about leprechauns , and other such tales of Ireland. We learned that Ireland is a lad of music and storytellers. And we touched just a wee bit on the "troubles" of Ireland and how sad it is that they can't just agree to disagree about their differences.

I have to tell you that I got a copy of this study for my honest review of it. Seriously, St. Patrick's day is just around the corner, why not get this study and learn more of the people for whom this is their national holiday?

You can read what other people thought of this study here.

If you would like to hear more from Amanda Bennett, you will not want to miss the MidSouth Homeschool Convention in Memphis! Check out all the details on how you can win a FREE FAMILY REGISTRATION!! The contest will end at 4:00pm EST on February 19, 2011, so be sure to head on over there and enter.

They also have a bunch of $5 sales going on right now. Head on over here to learn more about that.

Ireland

We finished the study for Expedition Ireland today produced by Amanda Bennett Unit Studies. . Boy... we had fun doing this. I think it's funny. The lad has trouble sitting still, and keeps asking "are we done yet". BUT when asked what he thinks of Ireland and what we learned "I liked it mommy! Ireland is interesting".

We found this video while we were studying the Irish Hare for the Ireland study from Amanda Bennett Unit Studies. It made both of us laugh...watching this silly hare binkying. :

We played a game showing how a hare can turn really fast, and that's why hares can soon turn into too many. We had fun racing around the house and learning. We did this because one of the youtube links led to a hare being chased by some hawks and getting away from them because it zigged and zagged.

Today we found the longest river in Ireland, we made a brochure of places to visit, did an animal matching activity, and had fun looking at hare videos.

Twas a good day to learn a thing or two. :)