Skating, Spiders and more

At breakfast we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today's story was about the littlest mermaid. he stopped eating so he could listen and said "i liked that story."

World History

Today we learned about what vikings did when they died. Bodies were treated very respectfully and generally burned at sea or on wood platforms.

Today we took advantage of the free skate (parent/child/senior) at the local rink. We had a good time. It is good to see the lad getting better at his skating all the time. At times he was skating independently, and frequently he can make it around the rink without falling. So nice to see him improving his skills.

We then moved on to working with math using reflex. He continues to gain in fluency.

We then started out spider study. Click on the picture to learn where to purchase it.

This is an ebook. You need to print off the learning activities that you wish to do. You can put it into a file folder or use paper to make it into a small book. entirely up to you. I asked the lad what he wanted to do.. "put it into a file folder mommy". it's all good to me.

so today we read a poem Don't Eat Spiders - by Robert Hiedbreder

Don't Eat Spiders   By Robert Hiedbreder
Daddy said to me, "Don 't eat spiders, Don 't you dare.
They may be delicious, But I don't care.
Don't eat spiders, Alive or dead,
Don't eat spiders, That's what I said.
Don't eat spiders, Even in play,
Fried or mashed, Or in any  way
Don't eat spiders, That's what I say.
Never, ever, That's what I say!"  
But I answered Daddy, "Tell me why ! 
Will I get sick ? Will I die ?
 I'll eat spiders, I don't care.
I'll eat spiders On a dare".  
I ate a spider Off the ground.
I swallowed a spider, It wriggled around.   
SUD-DEN-LY..... I grew eight legs,
They're skinny and hairy.
I shrank to a spider, Creepy and scary.
I sit in a web, I eat dead flies,
I watch the world With eight beady eyes.
So don't eat spiders, I hope you see,
Unless you want to be A spider like me.
And don't eat spiders. Do you see?
Cause if you eat spiders  You might eat me! 

This poem made the boy smile. It really caught his imagination.

We learned that spiders come in: yellow, grey, brown, black, white, orange, red, and green.

While he was colouring the above I used these questions to stimulate his brain. :)

What if there were no spiders in the world?
- we'd have a fly planet and we would have a cloud of flies

- web, house, spider, fear, flies, jumping.

A spider makes me think of
... interesting ones in the garden.
...webs
...webs in my hair!
...flies and mommy being scared. :)

- I would tell them about the spider in case they are scared of them.

How many ways can you get a spider out of your bed?
- spider treats
- slide a paper under him and take him away
- catch him in a jar

We learned some vocabulary: acre, molt, carnivores, oviparous, and arachnids.

And all spiders have these common characteristics.

 All have eight legs
 All belong to the arachnid family
 All have two main body parts
 All spin several different kinds of silk, although not all produce webs
 All have fangs
 All make venom to paralyze or kill their prey
 All are carnivores
 All are oviparous
 All molt several times during their lifetime

From a spider unit study i picked up at a yard sale this summer we found the letters to spelling out spider. This gave the lad a chance to sound out the word spider.

It was a good start to a study. It will take us a few days to finish it.

January 10, 2012 - what we learned today

Good time homeschooling today.

I had planned to let the lad do Studyladder and Reflexmath while I got our Spider study ready to do. But it took WAY longer to get everything cut out than I thought it would so... we didn't do The spider study, it can indeed wait for another day.

On Studyladder the lad practiced counting by 2's, he did some art, some science - learning about precipitation, and we studied the orchestra. It was kinda funny when we were studying the orchestra. Flutes apparently make him think that there were "bunnies in the house". He likes the bass sounds in the woodwinds, but dislikes the bass sounds in the brass instruments. I found that quite interesting. In ReflexMath he did well. He worked on his addition and subtraction, he played a new game to practice his math and it was really cool to see him progressively learn more and more. :)

I got him started on a new to us program...he didn't much like it. Fun4theBrain. I don't know if there are other games but he was wildly unimpressed with this one. Ah, just looking over their site and apparently there are a whole variety of them. So we'll have to check out some of their other ones.

But that game led us over to another one... animal jam. He had a lot of fun figuring this one out. Is it particularly a learning game? Not really...but he did have to problem solve and that's always a good thing. :) And he was a good and helpful lad whenever mommy needed help with things today. And that is always appreciated.

At supper we read our normal breakfast books.

10 minute stories

Today's story was snow white and the seven dwarves. he found it interesting...and wondered why the lady had to be so mean all the time to Snow White.

World History

Over the holidays we got into the history of vikings. He's really enjoying learning about them, today it was about viking gods. "mommy, why did they have to make a pretend god with cats pulling the cart?" I told him I had no clue. "mommy, why did they have to kill people and animals for their pretend gods?" I don't know buddy, people do funny as in sad/bad things when they don't really know who God is.

I got him out in the yard for some exercise. The plan was that he would go for a walk with his dad while I did up the dishes and made supper but... daddy got distracted by the vehicles so he went out in the backyard instead.

He wanted to work on the snow sculptures but that proved problematic. The snow was soft. So the making of a cat was out, this proven a challenge. What could he do instead? So he went with his old standby, when all else fails...make a skyscraper! :)



Tonight before bed I read him the standard books - a poem from a reader, a bible story, a story of a missionary, and his current two favourite books. He likes me to tell him a story from my head at night and sometimes I don't have a story so I use cheats. Sometimes I have him pick four pages from a stack of "make a story" pages I have. But tonight I did something new...which totally intrigued him.

Grandma gave me money for Christmas this year. I used it at Scholar's Choice. I bought a game of perplexous, Rory's StoryCubes and a travel hide/seek game called waterworld. With my $5 off member coupon, the fact that they had a 20% off sale, and my christmas money I managed to only spend $3. :) WOOT WOOT!

Anyways, Rory's Storycubes. Shaped like dice. They have 9 in a box, each dice has a picture drawn on each side. You pick a few, roll them out and then tell a story. (at least that's how I used them tonight). The lad was quite intrigued by this and asked MOMMY! Can I tell YOU a story?

Sure buddy go ahead. His pictures were a fish, lightening, and a skyscraper. His story as told via my memory.

Once there was a fish in a lake, he liked living there. There was a skyscraper a bit away from the lake. Then there was lightening! The fish was scared as he didn't want it to hurt him. So he hid. The lightening was really loud and it made the sky scraper lean away from it. It leaned and it leaned and then it fell down on the fish! (make fish struggling noises). The fish managed to get away (and that's is all I remember because something odd happened in the story and I totally lost my concentration).

Not overall bad for a six year old on the spur of the moment eh? :)

Anyways, the lad's favourite books at the moment.

Chester. This book by Melanie Watt. Makes him laugh. Chester is one funny, but disobedient cat. Melanie ends up on the wrong side of the line. Chester well...he learns a lesson by the end of the book. :)

Fox Hunt. This is a very cute book. I've looked for more by the author but can't seem to locate any locally. Will have to keep my eyes pealed at library sales and garage sales. Fun, enjoyable book. Watch out fox.. Hiram on the prowl.. but Festus and Mercury might best you yet!

Word Studies in Math...what is appropriate or not

a facebook friend directed me to this post about using a historical event in math.

Parents of students at Beaver Ridge Elementary School in Norcross, Ga., are outraged at the school district's response to the reports of using examples of slavery in math word problems, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

The word problems in questions include references to slavery and "beatings," according to the paper.

"Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?" and

"If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?"

It's not just the word problems that are sparking criticism, but the way it's being handled. According to the AJC, district officials said the elementary school's principal will "work with teachers to come up with more appropriate lessons."

District spokesperson Sloan Roach told the station the teachers were trying to incorporate social studies lessons in math problems for a "cross-curricular activity."

Roach went on to tell My Fox Atlanta that, while the the questions were inappropriate, she doesn't believe the teachers meant any harm.

"This is simply a case of creating a bad question," Roach told the station.

Parent Terrance Barnett told WSB TV that having to explain the questions to his child was painful.

"Something like shouldn't be imbedded into a kid of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, any grade," Barnett told WSB TV. "I'm having to explain to my 8-year-old why slavery or slaves or beatings are in a math problem. That hurts."

I have to ask as a homeschooler....how is this any different than using a Christmas theme, or a hallowe'en them or a theme on Egypt or the Middle Ages?

Granted... I doubt that as a parent/teacher I would put in a question of "how many beatings a day did this slave get"... but I fail to see why people are getting so bent out of shape.

Slavery was an event that happened in history. It is. Yes, it has emotional impact. Yes, it was a difficult and dangerous period of time. I get that. I understand it. But as a unit study loving mother/teacher... I don't understand the furor being created over it.

I would hope that the teachers aren't just throwing the information into the math questions but are actually using the math as an integral unit. As in... we are learning about slavery now and these are the issues around it, and yes, we do math as part of the learning process. IF the math is being used in a way that is divorced from the larger teaching aspect of slavery then I would have more of an issue. In that case I could see it is being inflammatory. but done within a teaching unit...I would have no issues.

What do you think? Am I missing something?

Sometimes things don't go as planned

So I had planned to do a study on Policemen today with the lad.
But.. I slept in, sleeping in sets everything way back.

By the time the bunny lady left (sold a bunny this morning) it was late.

SO.. we revised our plans and we did an interactive study on Avalanches produced by Simple Schooling. This was part of a freebie she gave out over the Christmas holidays. This avalanche tutorial was included. I can't give you a direct link to the study as I couldn't locate it and the subscriber exclusive I want to honour that. So if you want to get freebies next year, get on the list and you can get them next year, or rather this year as it's now the new year. :)

Time now to have lunch!

After lunch we'll do the experiments mentioned in this video. :)



We did the surface cohesion one (first one) in the video. Tried it three different ways.
one - the way they said to do it.
two - with oil...that was a bust...the oil stuck to the bread tag.
three - with laundry detergent (powdered) - worked but not as quickly.

Was quite interesting to the lad. :)

And then hopefully sell a chalkboard and then get out of the house for a walk about and potentially a visit with a church member. UPDATE: Sold the chalkboard (a little one) for $10 which is good since I got it for free. And then watched some slow motion videos. Some things are quite interesting when you slow them down...and other things are just downright boring!

Out for a walk with the lad. Stopped into visit with a lady from church, just a short spontaneous visit. :) The lad, on his own choice, played reflex math today.

Back to Homeschooling

"but mommy! I want to play in the snow first! Do we have to homeschool first???"
Me: Yes.
"BUT I DON"T WANT TO!"

So.. we talked and worked things out. I told him how we're doing things different this year. That mommy is writing out a schedule of what we are doing and we'll work from the list. When the list is done.. homeschool is done for the day.

We read from our world history book and story book over breakfast

10 minute stories

He liked the story at breakfast and thought it funny how the dad didn't get what he wanted because the fish helped the girl.

World History

Over the holidays we got into the history of vikings. He's really enjoying learning about them.

and then I fascinated him with this.



Always good to intrigue a child. :) Found using homeschool freebie of the day.

Then off to do reflex math. I like how they emphasize speed in proficiency and they have excellent customer service. The lad is finding it difficult to maintain the required focus though and there are times when I want to make it easier for him, but that's just the mommy rescuer part of me. He got up to 8620 feet today...not a bad score. he quit because bathroom breaks were required. :) He got back into it and did better this time round. He did a variety of games and its good to see how he is improving in his math skills. :) He likes ninja stars, balloon race and the egyptian conniption.

We were going to do some exercises from the super science book but we reworked those plans. One lad was PROFOUNDLY disappointed at the thought of doing science and art together. he wanted to do some hands on science. So I wracked my brain trying to figure something out that we've studied recently and came up on gems digging kit I got a while back. So we dug up gems. There were supposed to be 8 in the kit.. we got about 13 stones/gems all told. We talked about gems and how they are made, but mostly we dug stones up and had a good time talking and working together.



Sight words: yes, you, are, please. it was quite pleasing to me to see him sounding out the word please. He studied it and worked it out. he did the same for "are". Very neat!

We did lesson seven out of First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2

We learned about common nouns and proper nouns. :)

Word of the day "abandon". Sentence he came up with "the jail in fable was abandoned once the guards are beaten."

We did listening skills Pg 3. he had to pay close attention to where each of the drivers had to go to get the answers correct.


The Complete book of Numbers and Counting, pp 164-165.

A dot to dot 1-50 and learning the place values of 50-59. Once he figured out the code for doing place values he said "mommy, this is easy!".

Our animal of the day was the ermine.
in case you want to know about the picture. Ermines eat insects in some areas of the world. The lad "This brown ermine is hunting in the summer time. He is sneaking up on a centipede who is going home to his family. Then the ermine will gobble all of them up."

I asked him if he liked working from a list.
the answer was a resounding YES! So a list we'll continue to do. :)

homeschooling over the holildays

yeah, right...like that happened. :)

Well..it did a little bit but mostly we cleaned, we relaxed, we spent time with friends and family.

We read the books we normally do.
We talked and played and did some Christmas oriented work, but mostly we just lived life.

We start back soon.

Today we got together with a friend and did some skating. We had a lot of fun.

Found some sites I want to look at further.

Poetic devices.

Parts of speech.

Clip art resources.

all about reading.

Heart of Dakota.

Nativity/Bethleham buildings.

Hopefully we can remember these for next year.

A blog that listed all parts for making a paper craft of Bethlehem the town.

Christmas Bureau

This morning the lad and I helped at the Christmas Bureau.

We had a good time and did some good work.

It was interesting how accepting this group of people are about a six year old volunteering. Some folks aren't. They just say.. a child...he can't help, he'll just be a hindrance. But this group of folks, to a tee, were quite helpful and accepting of him helping.

Today we helped stuff the goodie bags...this meant putting in a wood toy, socks, mittens, hat, scarf, stuffie, and small toy. We stapled and organized the bags.

When the lad needed a break he ran up and down the hallway.

He was polite and talkative. He made some good decisions about what stuffies would make good toys for boys.

After lunch we helped with sorting out the toys from the local schools.

They made a GREAT lunch, and even had a boston cream donut for one six year old...how much better could it get? :)

our plans this week

homeschooling this week will be focusing on cleaning our house, bookwork, and stuff planned.

For instance, gymnastics and swimming are planned events.
We also will be volunteering at the Christmas bureau two days.
and hopefully on Friday visiting friends.

We are doing daily advent readings. We are using this guide.

If interested in getting, click the picture.

We'll be doing our normal reading.

10 minute stories

He really liked today's story. It was well written and inspired thought and brought a smile to his face. Giant birds flying! :)

World History

We are into Roman history now. We continue to learn about gladiators. Today he learned how gladiators usually fought to the death. his response.. "IF I were there mommy I throw down giant cages down that could catch them so they couldn't get out and hurt each other mommy."

Friends and homeschool

Today we plan to go visit a friend and just have some play time/learning time and what not. :)

But the youngest needs to see the doctor so we are waiting for them to return.

In the meantime we went over to simple schooling which is doing 12 days of giveaways right now. WOOT WOOT! they have a study on Penguins! We didn't get all the way through it, but what we got through was quite interesting. hopefully we'll return to it early next week. :)

We did our normal reading.

10 minute stories

He really liked today's story. It was well written and inspired thought and brought a smile to his face.

World History

We are into Roman history now. We continue to learn about gladiators.

he played fable with dad for a while as a reward for doing good work. :)

Then some playtime for a bit while I set up studyladder for him. I had planned that we would do some science, english and math. But we ended up doing a craft instead and learned where quality in what you get makes a difference. NOT all crayons are created equal. I need to post pics yet.

then off to his friends house. :) helped his mom out with a couple things, sat and chatted. It was a good visit. :) The lad had a whole lot of fun playing games and just being a lad with a friend. Good stuff.

Today a good day

Today was a good day.

Didn't exactly go homeschooling wise as I thought it might.

On Wednesday mornings I have bible study so hubby dear usually gets the lad busy with book work. but this morning hubby's brain was fried so that didn't go over.

Over lunch therefore, we did our normal reading.

10 minute stories

He liked today's story. I shortened it here and there as it was quite wordy and that NEVER goes over well with the lad. But it was a good story about a firebird, a grey wolf and a boy who had to learn how to listen well.

World History

We are into Roman history now. We are learning about gladiators.

I had gotten the lad onto reflexmath before I headed out to bible study. The lad enjoys this program.

So after I got back from my stuff I got the lad busy with Studyladder. We did math, music, and something else that right now I can't remember.

This afternoon we played a game with dad. Catopoly
We had a lot of fun playing it. So much nicer playing games with a lad who is willing to follow the rules of the game.

oh..I'm trying to work home-making skills into our week... today it was cleaning the upstairs bathroom. I set the boy at the task of cleaning the bathtub. He did a decent job for a six year old doing a job for the first time. he did an EXCELLENT job of having a bath so he could clean his toys up really really well. :)

Then peter rabbit videos were the thing to watch, followed by supper and children's club at the baptist church. They are learning the fruits of the spirit there. What I know most is how much the lad enjoys attending. :)

Sites I want to explore more

Housing a Forest linky page.

K5 Learning.

that worked well

went to the Stratford library to do our schooling before heading off to swimming.

I think I shall do that more often. Getting out work done at the library means less distractions.

means I have to be better organized, but better organized, and having better schooling done over a shorter period of time sounds like an excellent idea to me. :)

We did art and science today at the library. A good thing that! We first did some book work though, then played art and language skills on a computer, and some science as well on the computer. Then we started doing our Christmas cards... excellent way to practice our spelling!

He has watched the rescuers a fair bit lately so the golden eagle and the boy riding the figure prominently. :)

building Christmas cards... stickers, drawing and writing. It's all good.

Then off to lunch at boston pizza, and then over to the YMCA for swimming lessons.

the lad in the blue head band. :)

Then home again.

Played a game before bed (connect four) and played a construction game as well.

Today we....

We started off with our normal daily readings out of

10 minute stories

The lad didn't appear to be impressed... was off playing and chatting while he listened. Some stories keep him glued to the chair.

World History

We are into Roman history now. It's just fascinating reading tidbits about ancient history. Today we learned what good builders and architects they were.

Then we went with reflexmath. The lad enjoys this program.

Then upstairs to do a snowman search and find. This gives us a chance to talk and read a page in a large floor puzzle book. We talk about different ways to hold a pencil crayon to get different effects, and the lad has fun searching out the hidden objects.

A fellow homeschooler over at Learning To Homeschool gave me this idea. To have a daily word to learn. I asked her how she came up with them and she said just words they come across as they read or talk. Since that's too "iffy" for me I decided to use this

Children's Illustrated Dictionary.

Today's word was Abacus: a frame with beads that slide along wires, used for counting.

I read another chapter out of First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2

We read a few poems out of a book until we found one that made us both think of a picture in our heads, so we drew. This also gave us an opportunity to talk about the different ways one can hold a drawing implement in order to achieve different effects.

I'll try to post pics of what we did later today.

now off to swimming lessons, and then the library afterwards if it's still open upon our return. :)

Hands of a Child black friday sale

I used to have a super membership with these fine folks. Funds prevented that this year. Must say their sale is looking tempting.

anyways, go here. :)

HOAC is having a huge sale of up to 45% off their own products.

On cyber Monday they are offering up to 30% off products made by other folks that they happen to carry.

And this year they are participating in Small Business Saturday. Saturday, November 26th is the 2nd annual Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday is a day that is dedicated to supporting small businesses. Please take time out of the busiest shopping weekend of the year to support small businesses! And on that day you can save on Super memberships. They are offering 1-year Super Memberships for $50.00 (retail $75.00). Purchase a Super Membership on Small Business Saturday and not only do you save $25.00, but you make a HUGE impact on their business.

Tangents and more

One of the things I enjoy about homeschooling is some of the interesting tangents one can take.

For instance this morning we added studying at least one or two animals every week. We don't go indepth, we just read a bit, find a location of where the animal lives, it's animal track if we can get and draw a picture of it and one fact that is interesting.

today we did caribou. We read about them in this book.


Then I searched for a nature study page we could use a base, and found this one I got as part of the teacher's toolbox from the old schoolhouse.

I asked the lad to draw a picture of a caribou while I found a picture of where the caribou lives (up north) and caribou tracks.

He did that. and then it evolved as pictures in this house are apt to do. To "J is capturing the caribou" (he was tranquilizing them which he's learned about from watching nature shows on TV.


From that evolved this story.
"The caribou are escaping from the zoo and a tree root grew really fast and there were eagles who escaped from the zoo. The angry birds came to help the bunny town Justin recapture all the animals that got out of the zoo. They are tranquilizing the eagle and the caribou." I read what I recalled to the lad and he added the following "The zoo man ran after the guinea pigs and ben said don't attack them, they are trying to help".

This was a just a fun way to learn and think and talk out what is happening.

We also did some work out of this book.

Listening Skills for grades 2-3. This book was interesting because it had a dot-to-dot with all mixed up numbers and letters and I told the lad where to draw and what type of line to draw. At the end of it we were surprised to find a bunny on a swing. The book below is similar to the one we have but ours is an older version of it. :)


A fellow homeschooler over at Learning To Homeschool gave me this idea. To have a daily word to learn. I asked her how she came up with them and she said just words they come across as they read or talk. Since that's too "iffy" for me I decided to use this

Children's Illustrated Dictionary.


Today's word was Aardvark.

I read another chapter out of First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2



We did our normal daily readings out of


10 minute stories

some of the stories in this book are quite good, others leave something to be desired. Today's story left the lad confused.

World History

We are into Roman history now. It's just fascinating reading tidbits about ancient history. Gives us a good framework for study in the future. :)

We repotted a couple of plants, the lad learned what it means that a plant is rootbound and that we have to help the plant by loosening up the roots.

We played a couple of games "pirates" - this is a board game we got at the local dollar store, it is a HUGE favourite of the lad and 9 times out of 10 he beats me handily. And bingo link which is a fun game that we win 50% of the time.

And then he worked on building a spider web on our stair way and helped dad play a computer game. Problem solving skills at work!

Today a busy day

Shopping with extended family in the morning.

Rabbit deliveries and Playing at the london's Children's museum in the afternoon. We played, we laughed, we hid, we crawled, we rolled.

Rabbit delivery went well.. sold a harlequin doe.
Rabbit "medical" went well. A young flemmish buck stomped hard and broke a foot. He'll recover just fine, but just needs to have limited room to just settle and heal. Good to help out a rescue, good to offer advice, good to teach a boy what a broken bone feels like.
Rabbit hay run done. Good also to help a young owner stuck between a rock and a hard place to keep her rabbit longer. Unexpected bills sometimes play havoc with people.

We got frustrated with traffic and snafus in life.

We got food, we felt better.

We enjoyed each other, we talked, we got tired, and we went home.

This week

Has gone somewhat differently than expected BUT... we've done some good homeschooling.

Each day we read from

10 minute stories

World History

And we've added some new routines.

Scripture memory. This week John 14:6

And we read from First Language Lessons, Levels 1&2

though this cover looks different than mine. :) It's been good to add a bit more routine.

We continue to work on phonics by going through the alphabet.

We also do Studyladder at least twice a week...Did I tell you that I won a year's subscription to it courtesy of The Old Schoolhouse.. they were doing giveaways during their birthday bash and I lucked out! :) Pretty cool eh? Today the lad did some art, math, English, and some French. (he was totally unimpressed doing the French).

And the lad continues to thoroughly enjoy doing ReflexMath.

Otherwise what have we filled our time with?

Monday is Gymnastics.

Tuesdays the lad goes swimming with our HOPE group. It's a lot of fun. We do stuff in the morning at home, mostly just our standard fair, plus reflexmath and chores.

On Wednesday he does book work with his dad since I attend bible study Wednesday mornings. This week he did Three pages in each book.

My heavenly Helper

The Complete book of Numbers and Counting

Complete Canadian Curriculum 1

My Book of Numbers 1-120.

When I got home I said Come on buddy, let's get out of the house (it was such a lovely day) so we headed off to the dam to collect leaves and do some tree rubbings. We used chalk and hair spray to stabilize the chalk. Collected samples and once we did five trees we went bug hunting. When you are six.. bug hunting is important. We brought home one spider, one black bug, and one leaf with a nest on it. We talked about birch trees and how the wood was once used for writing on.

Then off to the dentist where we received the news that due to some odd fluke one of the lad's teeth had no roots to it, which led to a lad going back to the dentist today to get that tooth removed and infection out. The lad was super scared but the dentist was marvellous with him and talked him through everything. So today we mostly played lego this afternoon and watched a video on rehabilitating orangutangs. It was quite interesting.

Anyways, we needed to do some problem solving for Wednesday night as I needed to be out of town, hubby had a meeting and the lad had kid's club which he definitively did NOT want to miss. We managed to find an acquaintance that he would accept picking him up and taking him to his dad's meeting and then I picked him up at the meeting when I got back. Meant a late night for one six year old but everything worked out well for all concerned.

We've read books, listened to books, talked and laughed and kept busy. Thus far a good week.

Tomorrow is Friday and we are shopping in the a.m. with family, having lunch out, and then heading to the London Children's Museum for the afternoon.

magic painting

I do wish I had seen this science and art experiment before I finished my science class. This would have been fun to do.

Magic painting. From the blog called child central station.

reading, listening, experimenting, and learning

10 minute stories

The story today was about Pinnochio finding his father inside the dogfish. It was a fun story to read and caused the lad to ask questions. And just so you know, YES a dogfish is a real fish! :)

not quite as fearsome looking in real-life
as it was in the story.

World History

Today we finished off looking at mummies, we covered the Canary Islands, Siberia, Japan and Papua New Guinea. We learned about Buddhist monks and animal mummies as well.

Our overall plan for the day is to make a rocket car, cookies, do some computer work, listen to books on CD "the treasury of Storybook classics", play reflex math, and pack what we need for our weekend away. I'll update as we go along. :)

we engaged in an impromptu science experiment. We put took an egg that we emptied of its internals. Sealed up the holes with tape and mac-tack. We thought it would explode but... all it did was crack. Much to the disappointment of a boy child.

we did some work on Studyladder. We learned about animal classifaction, gas/solid/liquid, ecosystems and more. and then of course played some games. We also tried out a new program called mathletics. We got this as part of the TOS birthday bash for being members. Not the most inspiring program but the lad was indeed willing to try it out. Comes from Australia.

nomination are now open

for the 7th annual homeschool blogger awards.

Go here.

There are 20 categories, and surely you know someone who might fit in those categories.

1. Best Homeschool Mom Blog
Everyone is the best homeschool mom for their own children. With thousands of homeschool bloggers out there, please know that there will only be one winner online – but EACH OF US are winners in our own homes. If there’s a blogging mom out there that has been a particularly good example to you and you want to let her know… consider her for this nomination! [Her blog does not have to be exclusively about motherhood or homeschooling.]

2. Best Homeschool Dad Blog
We love to hear what dad has to say. Especially if he includes homeschool posts off and on. [Blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about homeschooling.]

3. Best Blog Design
Here’s your chance to nominate a gorgeous blog design and give a code-and-design savvy blogger a pat on the back for her talent (or give her hired web designer some credit!).

4. Best Photos
This blogger has photographic talent and makes her posts pop with eye-candy. We want to thank those of you who post pictures and graphics that inspire us! The winner of this category will be one that takes her own photos – not someone who only uses stock images.

5. Best Crafts, Plans & Projects Blog
Do you turn to the blogosphere for a steady supply of great craft ideas, lesson plans or projects that you can do with your homeschoolers? Why not share your favorite how-to blogs that provide us with things to be inspired by and ideas to use with our kids and in our homes.

6. Best Family or Group Blog
Nominate your favorite Homeschool Family blog or your favorite group blog that is either run by Homeschoolers or discusses homeschool issues. [Blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about homeschooling. Remember that if more than one of our authors are part of the group blog, it is not qualified to win. THIS BLOG MUST HAVE MULTIPLE AUTHORS.]

7. Best Encourager
It is time to say thanks to those bloggers out there who lift you up out of the homeschool “blahs” and help you get back on track. The winner of this category doesn’t have to be perfect or always in a good mood… just someone who makes you feel as if someone else cares and has a positive attitude overall.

8. Best Current Events, Opinions or Politics Blog
We don’t want a strictly political blog that is run by a homeschooler unless quite a few posts have relevant information pertaining to homeschooling. News clips that affect our freedoms as homeschoolers and how homeschooling is portrayed in the media are ideal. We love to hear what other homeschool teachers are thinking and reading and their views on things that affect us all. [This blog does not have to be exclusively about homeschooling, current events, or politics… just a blog that often shares opinions on matters that you enjoy learning from.]

9. Best Homemaking or Recipes Blog
This blog should have content regarding homemaking, housekeeping, tips, ideas for making your life easier, information about raising multiple kids, or recipes that you enjoy trying. [This person should be a homeschooler but the blog doesn’t have to be exclusively about homeschooling, homemaking or recipes.]

10. Best Teen Blog
Let’s encourage those young bloggers to speak up and be a good example for their peers. I have seen so many wonderful teen blogs out there that deserve recognition. Let us know what some of your favorites are! Teen blogs can be any blogs run by teens who are at least 12 years of age. The winners will have to submit permission slips signed by their parents – see legal page at HSBA for more details. [This blog does not have to be exclusively about homeschooling, but homeschooling should be mentioned often or it should be obvious from the template that the teen/s are homeschoolers.]

11. Funniest Homeschool Blog
We all need a laugh in-between laundry, lesson plans and losing our cool. It is nice to get your smile back so you can share it with your students (who can only take “so much gloom” as Ma Walton said so eloquently on The Waltons television series). Nominate your favorite crack-pot or crack-up homeschool blog here.

12. Best Special Needs Blogger
These are the moms that have the extra challenges – they go above and beyond to help their children succeed. We hope to help connect all sorts of bloggers – special needs included. We also have an author who is a special-needs advocate: Miss Tammy! Say Hello to her by stopping by her bio/blog link in our sidebar!

13. Best Homeschool Vlogger
It’s a rare treat to get to be the “fly on the wall” in someone’s homeschool. Don’t you always love seeing what’s on other people’s book shelves and watching them demonstrate things on video, though? Vlogging is a wonderful way to spread the homeschool encouragement around on the net.

14. Best Variety
This blogger is one that could fit in any of these categories … but they just can’t be pinned down in ONE. This type of blogger is the ADD hyper-focused type… always moving on from one thing to the next… and always keeping you interested in coming back for more!

15. Best Thrifty Homeschooler
Most of us are homeschooling on a shoe-string. Nominate your favorite money-saving blogger so you can share her tips with the blogosphere and bless a bunch of homeschool children in the process! [Blog doesn't have to be exclusively about frugality.]

16. Best SUPER-HOMESCHOOLER
Ever feel like a loser after reading someone else’s lesson plans, seeing their field trip photos, listening to them talk about what they got done today, or seeing pictures of their children’s accomplishments? You were probably feeling the effects of visiting a SUPER-HOMESCHOOLER’s blog. These are the A-list homeschool parents that just BLOW YOU AWAY with their enthusiasm. We all have our good days, but this blogger has us all beat.

17. Best Nitty-Gritty Homeschool Blog
Since we included a category for the Super-Homeschooler… I figured we would add one in for the homeschooler who is brutally honest and open about her mistakes and failures. These are the moms that make you feel better and let you know that it is OK that we aren’t perfect. What would we do without them???

18. Best NEW Homeschool Blog
It is hard making a name for yourself in the blogosphere. A lot of times, you feel as if you are writing and no one is out there. If you have stumbled upon a great new blogger who has a lot of potential and you want to share them with the rest of us… please consider nominating them for this category! [A new blog is one that appeared on the scene during or after last awards season.] If you don’t know many new homeschool blogs, check out the linky on our Welcome Wagon post from this year. We’re introducing them to you ahead of time!

19. Best Homeschooling Methods Blog
There are a lot of methods used to homeschool. Are you a boxed curriculum gal? A Classical homeschooler? An unschooler? Do you thrill on Unit Studies or spend time outdoors doing Charlotte Mason-type nature walks? Are you a mixture of everything (eclectic)? Make sure you tell us what TYPE of method this blog showcases so we can list it on the voting page!

20. Best Homeschooling Nature/Field Trip Blog
Have cabin fever? Looking to get OUT and see the world – sketch it, research it, photograph it? Who inspires you to take the kids out and enjoy Creation? Who makes you scratch your head in wonder while showing you all the fascinating things they have discovered outdoors?

GO NOMINATE! :)

Places I want to spend more time at

Homeschool Share has a variety of Lapbooks I'd like to take a good look at.

Practical Pages has a History Page with various downloads I'd like to save and use.

And I also like the mom the narration Scribe. I think it has a lot of useful information in it.

Scripture Memorization

Memorizing the bible is something I've been wanting to add to our personal (and homeschool) lives for a while. I've asked hubby to put something together but distraction and busyness is proving an issue so I've been meandering around trying to figure out what to do.

Was over at Practical Pages today and the blog owner pointed me to Simply Charlotte Mason. And I'm thinking to myself...this looks doable. So I'll be seeing what I can do about setting it up. And then tonight when I took the lad over to Kids Class at the Baptist Church (mommy I don't want to do...was changed to mommy! I had FUN! Can I go again?) I learned that they want the lad to learn 1 John 4:9 and Galatians 5:22-23. So guess which two verses will be the first we'll be learning? :) And then I heard about Ann Voskamp doing a thing with memorizing Colossians and I pretty much think we'll be set. :)

So what do you do for Scripture memory if you do any at all?

Bible study, stay at home study and play dates

This morning I had bible study at the local Christian Reformed Church. We are going to study Colossians using the Infuse bible study. it's available from Faith Alive resources.

Before I left I set the lad up with his bookwork with his dad.

he did Four pages in each of these books.
My heavenly Helper


The Complete book of Numbers and Counting


Complete Canadian Curriculum 1


and two pages in My Book of Numbers 1-120. It was supposed to be four pages but dad says "this book is highly repetitive and boring". :)


they also went through the alphabet and did some word and number matching with some flashcards.

When I came home the lad was quite happily playing with Reflex Math. Hubby said the highest he got was 8,000 feet in the game that he particularly enjoys doing which is a good achievement for a lad just gaining confidence with his addition and subtraction abilities. Thus far I am impressed with this on-line game. Time will tell if I choose to purchase it. Checking out the pricing, for me it would be $35/year. Affordable I think. But I have one more week to play with it yet. :)

So we had a quick lunch and then scampered off to London for a playdate with his friend Adella from HOPE. We went to Adventures in Wonderland. They had a hoot. I got discounted tickets through WagJag.

Swimming and more

10 minute stories

I cannot say I much liked the story we read today. It was WAY too wordy.

World History

Did you know that mummies aren't just found in Egypt and England? I didn't either! They are found in England, Greenland, Peru, Egypt, China, Germany, Russia and so on. It is fascinating to read how different methods were used to preserve bodies. It was very sad to read how some people, in their false belief of their god, choose to kill their children in a way to please those gods. Oh that more of the world might know the true and living God. Many folks were preserved because they thought it would help them in the afterlife. Some were preserved naturally by the effects of ice and sand and salt. Quite interesting to be reading through this book with the lad.

This afternoon we go swimming with the HOPE group from Stratford.

We'll be doing some science later this afternoon I hope.

Reflex Math - a brief review

New to us, trial period Reflex Math. We have tried this program for two days now. Yesterday it caused some issues because each new program (so each time you open it up) you have to go through a speed trial. And the lad DISLIKES intensely being wrong and being asked to do something he simply not sure about. So he simply didn't want to, I told him he had a choice, do the speed trial and play the games or simply don't do it and you cannot play the games.

For a while he chose not to play, and then changed his mind because the games were simply too alluring.

Today he played quite willingly, about 1 hours worth of math. It was neat to see him getting better and better with math skills that he struggles with to do on paper...even though he knows how to do them in his head.

This program is all about mastery of facts. If you know the facts you can do them quickly.

From the site:

Reflex is a revolutionary, game-based system that helps students of all ability levels to develop instant recall of their basic math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division).

I have two weeks to see if I like this program enough to bother keeping up with it. For two days though, he has mastered well the math I want him to, and now it's a matter of time to see how he can continue to do with it, or if it will become boring to him.

One thing I do like about the site is it is customizable to a variety of students, which makes it ideal for public/private or home-school use.

article link

history/reasons to homeschool.

Today we learned...

10 minute stories

World History

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.

Facts vs Ideas

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.

AppleLand and more.

10 minute stories

World History

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.



We had an enjoyable time. :)

Currently working on...ecosystems

Building a study on ecosystems.

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.

Then I'll pull in information from national geographic, Canadian forest services, Geography4Kids, KidsGeo.com, KidsCorner, neoK12, and ecosystems.

time to homeschool.
will do more planning later. :)

Land Forms and more

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.

Speed

Speed, this game looks interesting. Here's a review of it.

7th Annual Homeschool Blog Awards!!!

go to the homeschool post to learn more. :)

books on transportation

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.