Today we learned about the Egyptian mummies. It was quite fascinating to both of us to learn how they made them. Taking their brains out through the nose just fascinated the lad.
We sat down and did some organization for winter of our gloves/hat/scarves chest. Gave us a good time to talk about winter and how we need to dress differently for it. We practiced our math and organization skills. Matched colours, compared sizes, and talked about the different ways manufacturers all try to do the same thing...keep us warm, but doing it all differently, ergo the extreme creativity that God has given us.
Once that was done we did some work online with literactive and MightybookJr. we played around with both sites. then I got the lad set up with Tuxedo Math while I did the dishes. :)
This afternoon we'll be going to the library and making cookies.
I get alot of email from a variety of sources and sometimes I actually read them.
This morning I read an email from Simply Charlotte Mason. Which if you want to sign up for you can go here. I am not a Charlotte Mason teacher, but I think there is value in a variety of approaches to teaching.
Anyways, in this newsletter they were talking about Facts vs Ideas.
The author mentioned
how a living book should give our children ideas, not just facts.
The author went on to explain
Let's take a Bible character most of us already know about in order to illustrate the difference. Let's look at Joseph.
A typical factual summary of Joseph's life might read something like this:
Joseph, the eleventh and favored son of Jacob, was sold into slavery by his brothers and carried to Egypt. Because he accurately interpreted Pharaoh's dreams, he was appointed second in command over all the land. His good management of resources resulted in Egypt's survival during a seven-year famine and eventually the salvation of his whole family from starvation.
But if we read Joseph's story, told as a narrative in Genesis 37-50, we will get the facts, yes; but we can also pull from it all kinds of ideas like this:
Inter-family relations and sibling rivalry; how it can be enflamed by words and actions,
Diligence and trustworthiness in assigned responsibilities,
Sometimes good choices result in painful circumstances,
God is in control,
Circumstances can change in a moment,
People will disappoint you,
Forgiveness,
Managing resources in feast and in famine,
Giving glory to God before authorities; courage.
There are probably several other ideas you can think of that I didn't list here.
Do you see the difference? The facts are just something that happened to someone else. The factual account takes all the emotional and human experience aspects out of the equation. But the ideas are common human experiences and emotions that we can relate to and learn from.
I enjoy reading books to the lad that cause him to ask questions, OR that I can ask questions of him. If he asks questions I know that he is listening and that the information will come out later in play or in connections that he gets from other things that he is learning.
Ideas I find often spark further learning.
THIS is what I want to inspire in my lad... that desire to learn more.
In world history we learned about bog men. It's amazing, most folks they have found in bogs have been murdered.
this is the tollund man (found in Denmark). then we went upstairs and did some workbooks.
Pages 92-96 out of the complete book of numbers and counting
He also did three dot to dots out of the My Heavenly Helper book.
Finished off another workbook completely. :) Then practiced matching numbers with their words. This was hard for the lad, but it's a work in progress. :)
We finished them at 1125 and then packed ourselves into the car to go to AppleLand with some other homeschoolers.
NOT a particularly easy thing to do as ecosystems can be as generic as "oceans" or as specific to "this puddle of water". Since the lad is six, I won't be doing EVERYTHING that there is to learn. But I will give him a good overview and hopefully start it as a small binder so that over the years we can add to it.
I think I'll concentrate on Forests, Water (salt and fresh), Tundra and icecaps, Deserts, and Grasslands.
I'll be pulling in information from a variety of sources. Pronto Lessons on the ecosystem will be a starting point.
We started our day as normal reading from 10 minute stories
World History
in the world history book we have started learning about mummies. Today we learned about Otzi the Iceman from Italy.
The lad and I have been working on learning what some land forms are.
I made up this copywork sheet for him, which comes from this site. We reviewed what we did yesterday what what the different land forms are. Did some matching. We looked on the world map we had to see if we could find real examples of things like a bay, cape, and so forth.
We also did some math. Not a whole lot, just a wee bit since it is Tuesday. :)
Then out for a walk to do some art. The plan for the walk was to go to the benches by the nursing home and find something we could draw for 5 minutes tops. We talked about line and shading today.
this is what we came up with the lad me
Did some work with head of the class as well. And the lad played adventure world on facebook. He has to problem solve his way through a variety of puzzles and complete tasks.
Here are some of the books we read on transportation which was our over-arching theme for September. We have another three or four that we haven't read yet.
transportation on land and sea by nigel hawkes.
The one car in this book that can fold up inspired lots of thinking by one boy child. That alone made this a book worth getting out of the library. :)
C-Growl the daring little airplane
The Chipmunk. Good to read about this Canadian plane. The book got a bit wordy and repetitive after a while. It would be a good book to use for a geography study someday as the Chipmunk ends up visiting a vast array of countries.
Speed Machines by miranda smith
Interesting book to look through. I can't say we read it all, but we read about the pictures that intrigued us the most and occasionally used the computer to learn more.
It's True Pigs Do Fly
A good read. Written in a humourous style, with funny illustrations.
And yes.. pigs do fly (just not always very well).
I want to be a pilot
This is a simple overview of what a pilot does. It gave us good practice counting and learning about place value. It gives a decent overview.
Cars - by heather miller
A basic overview to what a car is. Meant for beginning readers.
Bicycles
From the same series as the Cars book above. This is a simple overview of what bicycles are. Meant for beginning readers.
Despite the "I can't do this mommy" .. he did. :) Just needed some encouragement.
Despite the "the letters are all mixed up mommy!"... he managed to sort them out. And yes, the letters are all mixed up as I have "garage sale" numbers so don't have full sets of lower and upper cases letters so we make do with what we have. :)
here I asked him to match the numbers with the words and then spell them out.
He even made up a game afterwards with them where he had to practice his memory. It was interesting watching him work through it.
We finished our timeline of transportation.
I don't recall where I found the pictures or the timeline. We added kites, dugout canoes, and walking. He was even able to tell his dad about the timeline abit too!
We did math. Pages 89-91 out of the complete book of numbers and counting
We did the alphabet. He knew ALL of them today! woot woot!
I will note that he stumbled on d, g, e, f today, but when he saw the picture on the back of the card he knew them immediately. This is a HUGE improvement over two weeks ago. :)
He also did a lower case alphabet dot to dot out of the My Heavenly Helper book.
We finished "It's True, Pigs do Fly" book. It was fun. He learned a ton and asked TONS of questions. This book was written in a humourous style with fun captions of pigs doing the various things that inventors were doing throughout the history of aircraft. An enjoyable book. It did not cover every facet of airplane history, but it gave an excellent overview.
He asked if people ever made a car that can fly and we learned the answer to that is YES! It's called the Skycar.
We did have to take a break at one point to catch these two that escaped from their lawn pen. Silly little boogers. :) Just the two black ones, the broken black was good and stayed put!
We chose to do Scotland today as we've studied some of the other countries in this series before. The other days include: An Overview of the United Kingdom, and then individual days England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
when I told the lad we were going to learn about puffins I got a huge YEAH!!!!
He covers the heavens with clouds, provides rain for the earth, and makes the grass grow in mountain pastures. (new living translation)
We learned about puffins, the loch ness monster, geographic points of interest and much much more. It was a very interesting study, just not as hands on as six year old prefer.
We thoroughly enjoyed watching the videos. There is such an abundance of links that it is fascinating to see all these different things.
Each day is jammed packed with scripture, maps, interesting points of interest, very important people, culture, science, a creature feature, and family fun projects. I really wish I could have copy and pasted from the study to my word program. It makes things easier for being able to minimize paper printing and to be able to formulate writing and drawing papers for my lad.
I have to admit, I've never done one of the passport studies before. I was expecting something along the lines of the DownloadN'Go Studies as that's what I've come to expect from Amanda Bennett unit studies. And I was initially disappointed to not have the similarity, but as I got into it we saw that it was quite indepth and varied, and it spawned conversation and interest. I do wish it was a bit more user friendly. I was expecting graphics and things to cut and paste and circle and more of a unit study approach, so I was disappointed by that. I did like the lapbooking materials that can be found at the end of the e-book. My lad enjoyed putting together the small booklet on the puffin. :) BUT he NEVER likes colouring in maps. he just doesn't so we normally just look for it on the large map and then just outline it. :) We then add points of interest to it.
I was impressed with the amount of information provided. You can take a peak inside of it by going here. :)
It's a good study, just wasn't quite what I was expecting. :) I would encourage you to go out and get one. Seriously... it contains a good deal of solid information that is varied enough to promote conversation between teacher and student. It has a few lapbooking elements in it which makes it a bit more hands on for a younger child.
It was overall an excellent study. :) we had some fun figuring out how much 17.5 oz is (the weight of a puffin). 14 hot wheels, three bananas, and so on. good study.
Having done Scotland today we decided to do a scottish meal for supper. We'll have scottish oatcakes, fish, and I choosing to doing something not particularly scottish because I have a six year old somewhat skeptical lad.. PEAS! (he'll eat those for sure). :)
Guess what! I got this message from Amanda Bennett Unit Studies!
We are happy to offer ALL your readers a gift – a unique code just from your blog, for 50% off this study for 7 days after we activate the code. We really want to reward ALL your readers, and not just one lucky winner.
The code is this: GetUK12. So here or go directly here and give them the code and you'll get 50% off just for reading my review! Pretty cool eh? :) At least that's what I think!
disclaimer: i got a copy of this study for my free and honest evaluation of it. it did not influence my opinion of the study in any way. :)
AdaptedMind creates a custom learning experience for your child. A learning experience that identifies your child's strengths and weaknesses, and delivers a curriculum and exercises that adapts to these needs. That's adaptive learning.
Should you like to know more about this go check it out over here.
Great Books Week 2011 is honoring Great Expectations in its 150th anniversary year. It’s a haunting classic, with a host of funny, memorable characters and a thought-provoking plot.
The lad came out to talk with me while I cared for my rabbits. And then we talked over breakfast, we read
World History
10 minute Stories
We prepared for Renee to come over with her children. We planned to do some science and then go off of a nature walk. When the children arrived they really really wanted to play with some baby bunnies so we headed outside to do that. We had a spot of lunch to eat and then did some art science.
We experimented with wetting down paper and then seeing what happen when we dropped thinned paint on it. And that taught us about diffusion. :)
We then sprinkled dry paint over a pan of water and then put dry paper over the powder paint. it was fascinating to watch what adding the paint did to the surface tension of the water.
We varied the length that we let the paper sit in the water to see what that would with how the paper reacted. It was VERY interesting to see what happened. I did neglect to take pictures of some the results from the children but i did get this one.
Looks rather cool eh?
The lad decided that mixing paint was VERY interesting so he had fun doing that, and then decided to paint a picture with the resultant mixed paint.
After the children left we watched a thing on Sound that Aurora was doing through Supercharged science. We made a hornet and a harmonica. I was unable to capture of pic of J using the hornet, but here's the harmonica we made. :)
Earlier during the day we made some yellow jacket traps since we got inundated with yellow jackets today. Take a pop bottle, cut off the top. Mix up some basic lemonade, invert the top (normally I'd secure it but this one seemed to sit on really well) set it somewhere near the hornets and just wait. If you see a hornet crawling around inside speed up the process by CAREFULLY squirling the liquid around.
as you can see.....highly effective (after 1 hour).
The diet of a praying mantis most often includes various species of insects - including mosquitoes, flies, grasshoppers, beetles, butterflies, moths, spiders, roaches, bees, dragonflies, etc. Other than these insects, some praying mantis species also feed on lizards, frogs, rodents and birds. Almost all the species of mantis feed on insects, but those which can grow up to a length of 10-12 cm are generally the ones who take on birds, rodents and other creatures of their own size.
So, no, we can't keep it as it will eat our crickets. We released it to our rose of sharon bush.
The difference between a male and female praying mantis is that the female is larger and the abdominal is larger than a males abdomanal. Adult female Mantises are larger than adult males. That's one way to tell them apart.
Felting....today my lad learned to felt at the Art Museum of London. They have a homeschool art program there.
the program he attended was called
Never Felt Better
Children will learn the sculptural technique of wet felting, in which crisscrossed layers of wool are dampened with warm soapy water and agitated by rubbing and rolling, and will experiment with felting around a form to make three dimensional pieces.
about 20 children all told. Some of us parents chose to help. Good thing we did or the singleton teacher would not have coped particularly well with that many students.
The lad had a hoot.
He at first didn't much like his snake, but later he was quite intrigued by it. He does DISLIKE intensely the mat that he made. "it doesn't look like anything mommy". So we may end up throwing it out.
It was a good experience for us. Next time we'll try to get there a bit earlier so parking isn't so expensive.
Right now TOS is in the middle of their birthday bash. You really should go check it out. :)
And did you know that TOS is going to be going to an all digital format. they will be having one annual magazine that will be HUGE (like 300 pages), but they will be switching to a monthly digital magazine. If you want to see what their magazine is like, go check out the summer one for free. :)
So I've been feeling panicky and overwhelmed at the thought of teaching my lad this year. I'm not feeling very organized or planned out or anything.
Hubby dear gave me the idea of planning our next day for 15-20 minutes the night before and I think I'll be doing that. I've been a bit concerned about doing TOO Much planning as I know what I'm like what I get a list I just feel "argh" if I don't complete everything on it and I can get snippy and snappy and I do not wish to be like that.
Therefore I went to the ministry of education (Ontario) tonight to see just what they expect children to learn in grade one. And though a few things leave me wondering HOW will I teach that? Overall it was like okay....he knows that already, this we already do and he'll get better at, and OH>>> I can teach that! It overall left me with a feeling of relief. Overtime I will be able to plan out better what we do. EVEN IF at times it is haphazard it will work out in the long run I think.
I am feeling a bit more settled again...knowing that I can teach my son, but I do need to be a bit more organized about how I go about doing it. AS LONG AS.... I remember that we are FIRST a family, and second a homeschooling one. Homeschooling will continue to fit around our need to be a family first, and one that honours God while doing so.
We did a fair amount of work on the letter 'a' through head of the class. Filling in the missing A, sounding out words, picture matching and what not. I really like that they use a variety of methods to teach the same concept.
We talked about the difference between living and non-living things using as a basic talking guide the simple schooling e-book Living & Non-Living.
We continued our transportation theme by learning about air pressure and resistance, using a craft from Transportation Thematic Units (Enhanced eBook). We experimented a bit with adding a paper clip to see if that would make a difference in how the helicopter worked.
Both the simple schooling and transportation unit are available from Currclick. One of them currently is free.
Mommy... how do house centipedes grow up? How do they make babies? This was a continuing query over a couple of days.
So we looked up house centipedes and learned they moult and get more legs with each moult. They live up to six years and takes about 2 years to mature.
Girl centipedes are bigger. Boy centipedes have a thicker tail. The boy centipede puts sperm on the ground which the girl centipede uses to fertilize her eggs but they don't do this until after they touch antennae with each other.
They are GOOD bugs to have around (as much as they freak me out) because they kill spiders, bedbugs, termites, cockroaches, silverfish and other household pests.
So today I had a, what seemed to me, harsh reminder of why Tuesdays should NOT be book work days... the lad is too unfocused and too easily upset as is his mommy. SO no more book work on Tuesdays except maybe a tiny bit.
Instead we will read. We will draw. We will do science. We will simply relax, play a bit, and work a bit, and just let Tuesdays be the quiet relaxing days that we need them to be.
Today we had a mental break-down over the alphabet and doing numbers up to 30. Quite frankly alphabets and counting should NOT be reasons to have harsh words between parent and child on either side. it simply isn't, ergo my change of focus for Tuesday.
On a positive note... he did really well figuring out the sounds of letters of the alphabet and I started introducing the concept of hard/soft sounds. AND of the 26 alphabet letters....he recognized all but one of them (the dreaded letter K). I was simply thrilled by this and the lad smiled as well. :)
We had fun lying back on my bed and reading a poem. It was actually quite funny. We read one poem, and then read another and we looked at each other at the exact same time and smiled... That would make a fun picture we said. So we drew a picture of it. It was interesting how different they turned out from each other. The poem comes of the old Childcraft series. The link is for the 1995 series, but ours is the older one yet.. 1977 I think?
We started reading through a world history book (we will do two pages most every day) and another book with 10 minute stories.
We finished the first book of the people of christian history book tonight at bed time. The lad has enjoyed learning about these people who really lived. It's been interesting learning some of the Christian history behind us.
Clearing out the Warehouse Special! $104.75 NOW $35
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Talk about the sale on Facebook or blast it down your email list (support group or large list of homeschooling friends), tweet it and write about it on your blog and you will receive FOUR additional surprise items. To receive your bonus gifts, you MUST note in the comments section of your store order (or you can use the dropdown box provided there) to share how you told your friends and spread the word about TOS Warehouse Wipeout. We will then toss in your goodies to really round out your mystery box!
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*Don't forget-receive up to four additional bonus gifts by telling everyone you know about this special. To receive your bonus gifts, mention in the comments section (or dropdown) in your store order whether you shared this crazy offer on Facebook, Twitter, your blog and/or your email list. We'll then get busy selecting your extras to go in your tote!
It was fun. The lad learned about dinosaurs, had gym time (played a game called lemonade that made a big impression on him) and did some science. I enjoyed teaching the children science. NOW.. I have learned that even with two helpers that 14 children ages 6-8 in one classroom is a HUGE number of children to try to teach science to so I need to try to arrange that a bit better. smaller groups doing different things.
Then afterwards we went to the Western Fair. We had an enjoyable day. Hubby's knee has been bugging him a bit so that slowed us down a bit.
It was rather cool... they have this free children's play area. Tractors to drive, straw to jump into, a duck race, sunflower seed planting, tractor pull and a variety of other events. So the lad had a great deal of fun. We partially watched a cow calving, petted some pigs, ate cotton candy and caramel corn and corn dogs. Typical fair food. :)
We did miss the horse show, and the extreme canine show this year. We watched reptile ray. Man NOT a good show if you don't believe in evolution, but the information just about the reptiles he showed was quite interesting. I would rather he just talk about the reptiles and leave the evolutionary stuff at home.. cause what's the point? Is it to give a history (in his eyes) lesson or to talk about creatures he really enjoys being around?
Today the lad and I started to work on a timeline for the history of transportation. We got up to 1620. he was quite surprised at what is considered part of transportation.
We got bogged down looking for pics so decided to do a short cut and just look for pics online, which led to me being reminded about the Butterfly Conservancy homeschool thing this afternoon.... SO....RUSH RUSH RUSH but we got there 3 minutes early. The lad had a hoot. :)
He fell asleep on the way home.
Jenn who ran the program suggested Journey North for more information on the Monarch. Here's the link to the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory. The lad was quite intrigued by the birds that ran around the butterfly house. He even helped to tag a butterfly. Our Butterfly is NAW 325. We'll be able to look in the spring at Monarch Watch to see if he (yes it's a male) made it all the way to Mexico for the winter. Mind...that all depends if anyone finds him and his tag. :)
When teaching it is important to use as many senses as possible. Here is a way to use music to practice spelling words.
"Car, Bus, Van" song (Tune: Jingle Bells)
C-A-R, C-A-R that's how you spell car
B-U-S, B-U-S that's how you spell bus
V-A-N, V-A-N that's how you spell van
Transportation helps us, I hope you understand!
Sing the song several times so they feel successful and can spell the words.
Car Play with Ramps Help your child set up a ramp and watch the cars go.
1. Which cars go faster? 2. Which cars go further? 3. What happens when you change the angle of the ramp? 4. What happens when you change the surface of the ramp?
I asked questions such as.. if you were going to divide your cars into teams, what teams would they be on? Why? How many do you have that are cars? trucks? how many of blue or orange or ??? We weighed them to see if that would help determine who went the fastest. We guessed how would go the fastest. we experimented with ways to "protect" the boulders.
suggestion by the author: If you take digital pictures you can turn this experience into a book. Have your child help to label the pictures and soon he will be able to read his own book.
we started to make a time line of transportation. I'll use this link as a idea place. :) We started with walking, and progressed to swimming. :) (yes I know that's not an official mode of transportation, but YOU try convincing a six year old that it's not a valid form of getting around?). :)
We did a thing with links... figuring out solutions to problems using links and clues given. It was interesting how it all turned out.
A couple of posts in the realm of homeschooling that I liked.
1. because it is so true of a variety of things in life. This one pertains to homeschooling, but as with anything, the wrong expectations can net you an outcome you didn't anticipate.
We have a monarch actively hatching right now! It's just TOO cool. :) Both hatched and have since been released! :) It was very exciting to watch. It's amazing how quickly they go from wrinkled to full wings.
The chrysalis when first made.
they got dark..pretty cool eh?
the wrinkled just out stage
both Monarchs. This was just fun. We put them outside so when they were ready to leave they could. The last one was gone by 6 p.m.
Worked on some work books.
we finished "Thinking Skills"
We did a few pages in Complete Canadian Curriculum 1
we practiced our alphabet again using blue clues flap cards Read some poems and then got inspired to draw a picture of what one of the poems was about. It was rather fun to talk and draw and think.
Went for a walk. Brought a sock back to a friend, and then stayed for tea. On the walk there we gained a male mosquito and a caterpillar of some sort. :)
Dug some potatoes. And made decisions about supper. We had roast pork, carrots and pasta.
I can tell the lad is quite a bit better from his earache but he's not all the way back yet. I am looking forward to the day when he is all better.
This morning we played an alphabet game and we went through, do you recognize this letter? He got all but 5 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Not sure why he struggles with G, K, W, D, and N. but he does. He struggled with them last year as well.
For the alphabet we used the flashcards we had on had (though he's a bit beyond blue's clues we had them so we used them).
I just took random cards and asked him what they were and if he didn't get them just put them in a separate pile. then I took those eight cards and lay them out and got "OH.. that's "E" and we were left with these five that "I just don't have a clue mommy, I can't remember that one, My brain is all confused mommy." I said "that's okay buddy, just means we get to practice more.". :)
Then I had him put the cards in alphabetic order and he did pretty good with that with having to use our alphabet chart on the back of the door a bit. In time he won't be able to use the "cheat sheet". :) but for now, with a boy still recovering from an ear ache, I'll go with what I got.
We also did three pages in one workbook, and two pages in another one. Mostly we worked on math type sheets. The complete book of numbers and counting
My heavenly Helper
Kumon, my Book of numbers 1-120
We played battle for 15 minutes. Then the lad gathered up random dishes so they could be washed, I planted some things out in the garden (parsley and radish) and then folded a load of laundry.
Then off to town for the afternoon/evening. The lad enjoyed spending time with gramma and going to gymnastics.
Started reading magic tree house the rain forest. the lad is enjoying this book though he thought we'd start reading a hardy boy book.
Played Farm Sounds. I have a cd with bingo type cards produced by myactivemind, which is a company that seems to no longer be in service. We got it at the dollar store. The lad had fun playing it though we had to have the sound turned up as his ears aren't working the best right now.
did some work in books as well. kumon counting - so nice to see him better than where we left off in the fall. :)
Jesus heavenly friend - needed a bit of help with the alphabet dot to dot, could say it, but couldn't remember what some of the letters looked like
and a math skills book - did an excellent job on this.
then we played battle until my body said.. GET UP OFF THIS FLOOR! :) But by then it was time for the lad to chill out for a while again. Earaches are NOT fun things to deal with.
the afternoon was taken up with canning applesauce and watching mammoths and the ice age, we also watched Astro Boy - which provoked all sorts of questions about what the future world could possibly look like. :)
We Choose Virtues is a company that makes a quality product. They focus on providing materials that help parents/teachers teach their children virtues.
The Crafty Classroom is hosting a giveway of their products, and give an extra entry for blogging about it, so here I am. :)
I have to admit to having mixed feelings about a curriculum that teaches virtues.
On one hand I see it as a helpful tool for people to use to teach character to their children.
BUT on the other hand... with good biblical training doesn't one teach these character traits as one lives life?
So it's a mixed bag for me. The helpfulness on the one hand in promoting vs the taking away from the parental responsibility to simply train as one lives life. It seems schoolish to me. As in the public school actually have built curriculums to teach character in the school system because so many parents are working and abdicating some of their responsibilities in this regard.
I don't tend to see homeschooling parents doing this. We're with our children mostly all the time so it's hard for us to let that sort of thing slip.
But on the other hand... it is an aid. And should aids be shunned? or merely carefully examined?
From September 1 to September 5, they're offering resources that will help you save time cooking, cleaning, organizing your home, running your home, and teaching your children. Some products are discounted up to 50%! You'll even find labor savers that will get your kids working too!
Relief is at your fingertips. Don't put it off. Order today. These great deals only last until September 5 at 11 p.m. EDT.
They have a variety of planners.
Have you had the chance to look at their newly released 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planners yet? Plan for another great year with The 2011-2012 Schoolhouse Planner, the brand-new 2011-12 Special Needs Schoolhouse Planner, and our 2011-12 Student Schoolhouse Planners for students in kindergarten to high school. Planners are now available on CD or in E-Book format!
Erase the frazzled feel of disorganization with the 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planners and bring order and efficiency to your school year. Packed with relevant articles, clever calendars, useful forms, handy lists and so much more, this planner is the key to meeting your many goals for the 2011-12 school year.
Children from kindergarten to high school are learning the ropes of organizing their own schedules. Choose the Primary, Intermediate or High School Schoolhouse Planner and watch them build their educational adventures with ease.
Don't forget a Mom's best friend, The 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planner, packed full of forms, lists, and resources to organize every aspect of your school and home!
Learn more about the NEW planners by The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine here.
did you know that if you subscribe to the magazine that you get free access to the teachers toolbox? that's means every month you get access to new menu plans, printable activities, daily activity ideas and more?
Currently TOS is having a warehouse wipeout sale
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Both monarchs that we have are going exploring. The one is currently hanging, the other is looking for a place to be safe. We're having to keep a close eye on that one.
Hopefully in seven to 10 days we'll have a couple of butterflies to watch! :)
our previous attempts at Monarchs failed, so we're thrilled that this one appears to be working.
NOTE: I had a lad with bad tonsils, who can't hold down food today.
We started out watching the five part series of the wright brothers on YouTube. I chose the animated version as it had short snippets that we could stop and talk about what we learned before watching the next in the series.
here is part two
We learned about their main rival in Alberto Santos-Dumont.
Santos-Dumont he was a rival to the wright brothers to see who would be the first to build an airplane. :) The lad was quite fascinated by him and asked tons of questions so we researched him for a while. (a bit of a rabbit trail that). :)
we read through the beginning of flight.
the lad liked this one:
and this one caused lots of questions to be asked as it looks quite different than the others we saw
we spent a great deal of time on the Canadian Wings site. Rather fascinating to watch the changes in how aircraft developed. and the wright brothers museum was quite interesting as well. I read through the encyclopedia on the wright brothers but the lad was getting wiggly at this point. So we closed our computer time by learning all the different TYPES of aircraft and doing our copy work. I am hoping later to find some pictures of different aircraft and making a small lapbook book with the lad.
Question: is there such a thing as a helicopter that is amphibian?
Does anyone know the answer to this question?
Thanks to the gals on facebook I have an answer to that question! YES! they make amphibous helicopters. Here's the wiki link.
We did our airplane sorting into
Fast planes, medium planes, helicopters and mommy's planes.
the fast planes are JET engines, the medium planes use propellors, and the helicopters are medium planes too but they are different because they are helicopters. :)
he also observed other ways that they are the same and different, good to see him learning and thinking.
and then we made a couple of planes and had a LOT of fun playing battle. :)
The lad and I will be starting to learn about transportation tomorrow. It will be our "September theme". We won't be looking only at transportation as we will take side trips into things that interest us. But tomorrow.. PLANES!
1. we'll be building a sleath bomber and a camouflage airplane that we got at The Basics Shop.
2. We'll be watching the "wright brothers on youtube".
I used this site to make a copywork sheet. I used these words: Land planes, Seaplanes, Amphibians, Vertical Takeoff and Landing, Short Takeoff and Landing and Space Shuttle. I wasn't sure if I should do a trace and write, or a copy and write...so I printed off one of each and it's all good. :)
What else will we do?
4. I hope to have him do some counting.
How many planes can you find in your hot wheels collection?
5. Then have him do some sorting of them and explain why he sorted them the way he did.
6. We'll play battle because one can't build planes that can be used for battle without actually having a battle! :)
and that will be it for a first day of homeschool. Oh... we'll also do our normal.. we're back in school so let's go for a walk about. And if I can figure out how to build a rocket into the mix we'll do that do, Supercharged Science has one that looks to be fun to do.
Toads are the subject of fascination for a boy child lately.
We went to the Pinery yesterday for lunch and a bit of a walk about. At lunch we sat near a pit in the ground. It had several young toads in it. the lad caught six in total. one escaped due to my ineptitude. Two were released for being too big.
The remaining three were put into a larger bottle and carried with us on our walk.
Somehow on out trip home the bottle got on a tilt or lay flat and two of the three escaped. We recaptured one of them.
Those two discovered the "joys" of a new home. :)
hard at work setting things up
The end result.
One relatively content toad.
Tonight they were joined by one much bigger toad captured on a "toad" walk with gramma. Tomorrow morning the lad will totally reorganize the aquarium, but as long the toads are healthy it's all good. Boys are meant to play with small critters aren't they?
These tears I hate: Tears when a boy learns something in a very hard way.
Since these toads are tiny I put a little apple cider vinegar in a container to attract fruit flies. The flies came, the little toads were happy. The lad thought GREAT! I'll dip the toad in the vinegar to help bring flies right to the toad. We then all learned that toads plus apple cider vinegar equals a very quickly dead toad (so dead his tongue came out). Many tears from my soft-hearted son. Much sadness from his mommy at this hard lesson to learn...hard for all. We don't want to kill the toads...we want to learn from them and see what works to keep them healthy and happy.
the carnival of homeschooling has a theme for this week of
all about logistics: the organizing of your day, week, and year in terms of homeschooling, extracurricular activities, and everything else that you fit into your life.
The basic plan that I use with homeschooling is to so as much of it for free as I can. So we do a much on the computer as we can, or using books that I've picked up from here and there, as well as quite a bit of oral work. I assume that over time I'll to do more paperwork, but for now he's six and if I can ask him in his head what 1 + 6 is and get seven for a verbal answer it's all good. We'll be going to the library more often this year I hope, like every other week or so. I plan to use extensively a variety of links that I've listed over here as well as utilizing the work of this site.
So for the past two weeks I've been working on organizing my schooling. I only have one student so that makes it easier for me.
Monday is hubby's day off so we don't do a whole lot that day. In the mornings before we leave we'll be doing some math and then in the evening he has gymnastics.
For the rest of the week there will be some things that we do daily.
like Read for 1/2 hour, do chores, and go out for at least 1/2 hour of exercise.
Tuesday will be our science day also with some book work.
Wednesday we'll do some more math but our focus will be on Art.
Thursday we'll work on unit studies that we get from Amanda Bennett (we do reviewing for them). And it will also be our Field Trip day.
Friday we'll work on whatever we want to do as well as look at geography, history of the various topics we'll be using as a base for study.
I LOVE doing things around a base of study.
September: Transportation
October: Continents of the World
November: Canada
December: Christmas, extra Science
January: Snow, winter
February: Character Studies
March: Pioneers
April: Construction
May: Insects
June: Rocks, Archaelogy etc
Within all of this we'll do history, English, spelling, memory work, Geography and what not.
Now like anything the best laid plans can be lead astray or changed, but.. we'll work on things and see how it goes.
We have a yellow jacket living in our house. He buzzed us while doing the dishes.
He got away.
My lad who is somewhat concerned about getting stung asked "how long do yellow jacket's live?" I said.. I have no clue, shall we look it up?
We learned that MOST of them only live for the summer BUT the queen hibernates over the winter and she is the one who chooses where the next years colony will live.
Source: backyard Brigade and other internet sources that confirmed what Backyard said. :)
