Today's Homeschooling

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

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

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

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

we took the time to look up in 123 Draw how to draw a lion.  It was decided that mommy would learn to draw a lion and the lad would draw out the story (see above) complete with a few embellishments. :)  The hunters of course had to figure out HOW to net the lion and it was fairly complicated but they managed it.

 

Time for fun with smarties. :)  these are a favourite chocolate confection.

 

This was followed by playing chess with smarties.

 

We did a number of things with smarties first though.  We learned about consumer packaging.  How they can't put less in the box than they say.. we learned that our smartie box calls for 50 g but we had 55 g.  So we practiced doing less than and greater than signs, we counted out how many of each colour there was and did less than/greater than signs.  Then played checkers.  it was a good thing that we have enough of two colours to play it well.  The lad beat me.

count by 2's, 5's and 10's. that was the theme of the day in our numbers and counting book.

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

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

We had a hoot playing checkers using goldfish crackers.

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

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

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

plans change

Our plans for the day changed

We had planned to go to Dairy days with the homeschool group.  But it was cancelled due to weather issues

So this morning we went skating.
Then played lego.  We built, we discussed, we had fun.

Then we set off to work with our Spiders Unit Study.

The lad's question of the day was Where do spiders go in the winter?  the answer from here.

Did you ever wonder where all the spiders go in the winter?  (Excluding those little rascals you still find occasionally in your house!)  Do they die?  Do they hibernate? Do they just hide somewhere where you don’t see all of them?
Different types of spiders handle the winter months differently.  There are those spiders that like to come on in and dwell with us in our nice warm homes.  Others, however, will die in the winter but leave their egg sacs well protected to hatch out the next spring.  Some actually do prepare for winter by weaving a web under loose bark or building overhangs where they are insulated from the cold

This of course inspired a game in a young lad's mind.  Let's pretend to be spiders trying to get to winter safety without being caught by an enemy.  so we played a few rounds of this.

today we learned about the lifecycle of a spider.

We talked about how spiders are both prey and predator and the lad made the observation that this happens alot with animals..but it doesn't happen with robots (because nothing eats robots).

we read the story by Eileen Snyder called   The Little Old Lady Who Liked Spiders

So then the above game became can you avoid the lizards who just might eat spiders?   So we played that was well.

I expect that soon my voice will be back to normal and we can get back to our regular reading times.

Today we played and well... survived. :)

So I had a set back with the whole flu thing today.   I think I pushed myself too hard yesterday.   Hubby was very quiet today, and by night fall the lad was running a fever.  HOPING that no one else gets as sick as I've been, time will tell.

anyways, we did manage to do some homeschooling today.

First off we made some cheese.  The finished product was NOT appreciated by one boy child, hubby said. ... eh.. it's okay, and I thought it was perfectly edible, but needed to be squeezed more.

We did this math thing that we got.  Valentines Subtraction Minus One. i found out about it through this site from Fern Smith who is also on Pinterest.    She has other freebies as well so go check them out if you want.

And then I let the boy do some learning on the computer...of all the games he played on this site called cool math 4 kids., snail bob 2 was his favourite.  He really needed to do some problem solving to figure it out.  Good to see a lad think.  He often was tempted to give up, and sometimes I'd help him, but other times I'd just offer some verbal encouragement.  He played a few others as well. 

so that basically was our day.  Not great, but not horrid...and something is better than nothing right?  :)

Crayon Rocks

Still recovering from illness we took our time homeschooling today.

We did some work on counting with 5's and 10's.   The lad is slowly figuring out the pattering though he doesn't really remember yet from one day to the next, but he remembers more quickly each time we approach it.  :)

Then we did some home safety work.   We talked about how to be safe outside when you are on your own.  And that led to how to get out of the house should something bad happen in the house.   Aka a fire.  He drew a detailed map of the upstairs and downstairs of the house with where to go when in trouble.   (we'd meet at the mailbox).  We walked through the house and said okay...how do you get out of this room?  where would you go if trapped here?   what happens if you get caught on fire (stop drop and roll).  What happens if you are in a room with fire?  (get down and crawl)   What happens if you can't leave your room?   put something in front of the door, open the window and call LOUDLY for help.    We had fun doing this, and the lad learned a lot.  It was interesting listening to him come up with various ideas, and then figuring out if they would work or not.   And him figuring out that a broken leg was better than a dead boy.

Then we took a break.. I was tired.  The lad was sweet and made a simple lunch for us.  Crackers, cheese and pudding.  Worked for me!  :)

Then on to do some science.  A while ago I had pinned a crayon rock idea from Momma Owl's Lab.   By the way, if you need an invite to Pinterest let me know I'll happily send you and invite.  :)

I figured this would be a good idea for a recovery day.   :)   This was a carry over from when we dug for gems and rocks a while back.

We had fun, we learned a lot.  

We grabbed our bag of old icky crayons.  It took a while to figure out the best way to shave them.  A knife wasn't a good idea so then we pulled out the vegetable peelers.  That worked better for the soft crayons, the hard crayons I just basically chipped into small pieces.

The first step was to make  Sedimentary rocks.  Layer shaved crayon, wrap in aluminum foil, put in clamp. :)

Then we moved on to Metamorphic rocks.    Knowing that these can be made through pressure or through heat we decided to see what would happen if we made sedimentary rock first and then heated it.  We also did one without putting pressure on it.  We had planned to do a third one and put pressure on it afterwards but after it melted we didn't see much point in doing that.  :)   But it was interesting since we did two of the three with double thickness aluminum foil and one with four times thickness.   The four times thickness melted much slower, the pressured one melted even more slowly.

just in the pot.

safety an important consideration

no pressured, double thickness 3 minutes

after six minutes, four times thickness and pressured.   

First one is - no pressure, double thickness almost solidified

When we finished these we moved on to making igneous rocks.   Igneous rocks are formed when magma (molten rock) cools and solidifies   The lad had a difficult time remembering what magma rock was  so I showed him this video.

 

Then he said "MELTED ROCK MOMMY!" 

We melted some rock.  

 melting the "rock"

i forgot about plastic and heated and melted my spoon :(

rather cool eh?

Our end result had me wanting to crush a bunch of ice and do it all over again, but I ran out of energy and decided it could wait until another day.  :)

Illness prevents talking so...

homeschooling was put on hold for a bit.

I've been ill for the past 3-4 days with a sore throat, fever, coughing, and more.   NOT complaining, just explaining why homeschooling has been back burned a bit.  The lad was "off" yesterday morning as well but went out of the house to play at gramma's for a bit.  Came back a cheerful lad.   Good for him to get out of the house for a bit I think.

Anyways, was thinking I feel somewhat less muddle-headed this morning so that I should do something schooling related so we played lego and listened to Adventures in Odyssey.   Later we will do some exploring of different websites - Clickschooling sends me almost daily emails so we'll go through them and see what we can learn and explore from those.  :)    I'll link here what we go and look at and hopefully say what we thought about them.  :)

we went to the national art gallery and the lad made this

It took some trial and error, but he learned abit about making a still life.   In this pic the monarchs flew in the window (behind the candle holder) and they are eating all the fruit that's hidden behind them.    Rather a neat idea I think for a six year old.    We then had fun playing around with the 3D twirler.   Then we went to the jungle art page where he created this masterpiece.  I tried hard to save the image but couldn't for the life of me figure that one out.  So.. anyways, then I totally petered out of energy and had a nice lay down.     I do dislike being ill.

I was awoken from a lovely nap by an apologizing boy child and found him making some physical art.  I'll need to upload a picture for your enjoyment. :)

Skating, Spiders and Open Houses

We did our normal reading
10 minute stories

Today's story was about sea babies and was somewhat ... odd.  that would be a good word.  :)

World History

We continue to learn about Knights and Castles.

Then off to go skating with a friend.  We had fun, this was followed by lunch and a sword fight interspersed with lego and playing with baby guinea pigs. :)

 after our company left we learned a bit more about spiders!

Brown recluse spider and black widow in hand.

we also learned a surprising fact about tarantulas. We also took some time to play with a robotic bug and learned that it can break out of popsicle houses and that given sufficient time can get out of any maze we were able to build for it.

Later this afternoon we have an open house to go to.   So all in all a busy day.

Bible Study and homeschooling

Hubby is away taking time for a personal retreat which meant that the lad needed to accompany me to bible study this morning.

He did some math work and then played a game or two on my cell phone during the study.   He was very good about being there.  He worked in his numbers and counting book.  He's learning to count by twos and fives.

After bible study we hit the dollar stores for items to put in his treasure box.


After lunch he worked on reflex math.

This was followed by a study on Bullying.  I have a whole bunch of materials that I've picked up from a variety of sources, much of it on safety issues around the home.   I let the lad pick out what he wanted to learn about and he chose bullying.

We used Proverbs 11:17 for copywork "A man who is kind benefits himself but a man who is cruel hurts himself".  We talked about what that meant.   We then talked about reasons why someone might not be kind and what our response should be.  In Matthew 4:24 it says "be kind to your enemies, pray for those who persecute you".   We'll expand this study to include safety around people and what to do if lost in a crowd and such like.

In our World History book we are learning about knights.  .

So after we did our bullying unit we went outside and had a rousing sword fight. We talked about honour and duels and how to protect themselves.   One of the new things we learned about today was Halberds.  Which is a weapon the swiss men used against calvary.  We each drew pictures of how we would design a halberd if we could but I couldn't transfer that image to the computer successfully.  I showed the lad on the world map were Switzerland was in relation to Canada.    And I also showed him were France and England were since they fought the 100 year war and much of that had to deal with knights in battle.


We still plan to make cheese today but we came in hungry and tired from our sword work.  

All in all a good day.  :)

links again

All for the boys.   Crafts and what not that boys will like.  :)

Student of the Word Curriculum.  is a K-12, Bible-centered homeschool curriculum for Christian parents who desire to disciple their children not just educate them. The goal is to know God; the method is discipleship, and the main text for all the subjects is the Bible.

Spiders and Lego

At breakfast we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today's story was about a fellow who was very lazy and how he learned not to be so very lazy.   The lad says "I liked it!"

World History

We continue learning about Knights and Castles.  Today we learned about how a person learns to be a knight.



We continued work on our spider study
The lad was very eager to do this. I had promised him that we could play with Lego today and build spider webs and a spider with it today. :) Here's to creative thinking! :)  So today we focused on learning about different types of spider webs.

Webs have different purposes, according to the individual species of spider, how it captures or stores its prey. Spider's silk can be used to help small, young spiders transport to new areas (ballooning) or be so strong that it is used to make fish nets, as with the Nephila spider web.
Other types of spider webs:

Tangled Web Spiders
Tangled spider webs consist of a shapeless jumble of threads  attached to a support such as the corner of a ceiling.  Cobwebs are tangled webs that have collected dust and dirt.  Cellar spiders, the comb-footed spiders (included black and brown widow spiders), the ogre-faced stick spiders and common house spiders are spiders that make these types of webs. 

 Sheet Webs

Sheet webs are flat sheets of silk between blades of grass or branches of shrubs or trees. Spiders that create sheet webs also spin a net of crisscrossed threads above the sheet.  When a flying insect hits the net, it bounces into the sheet web.  The
spider, which hangs upside down beneath the web, quickly runs to the insect and pulls it through the webbing.  Sheet webs last a long time because the spider repairs any damaged parts.  The bowl & doily spider, the filmy dome spider, and the platform spider form sheet webs.

Gum-footed Webs
Gum-footed webs consist of tightly woven silk strands attached between two branches.  The upper strands are dry and built in sheltered areas away from sunlight while the lower strands are built in exposed area and run down to a bottom branch where they are attached.  Each of the lower sticky strands are covered in sticky droplets and are attached weakly at the bottom.  When an insect walks into the sticky silk strands its struggle break the lines moving the web upwards and lifting the prey off the ground reducing its chances of escaping.
Redback spiders create gum-footed webs.

Horizontal Line Webs
Horizontal Line Webs are made up of one simple line of sticky droplets stretching across low vegetation, bark and leaf litter.  Spiders that create this type of web pull the line taut by keeping the slack silk underneath them until an insect hits the line.  When that happens, the loose silk whips along the line and tangles the prey.  Cribellate spiders and other pea-sized spiders create these webs.   Pic from here.

Bolas Spider Web
The Bolas Spider Web is a very simple web designed for their unique method of hunting.  In order to hunt and catch male moths, the bolas spider sits on a horizontal line and spins a single line with a sticky silk tip that dangles from its leg.  While
waiting, this spider will emit a scent similar to a female moth.  When the male moth comes toward the spider, the spider swings the sticky strand in a circle and captures the moth, pulling the strand in to feed.

Triangle Webs

Triangle Webs are created in the shape of a triangle, hence its name.  The spider weaves silky strands of spokes and spirals that connect to all three strands.  The triangle spider waits at one end of the web for an insect to land.  When it does, the 
spider shakes the web so the insect is caught and cannot escape.

quite fascinating all in all. hard to find images of all the different types of webs. As I find them, I'll add them in. :)

We built a couple of lego webs complete with spiders.  

And then did some spider math.  I started out with 10 spiders sitting in a tree and then a variety of things happened, at one point we were up to 54 spiders in the tree and eventually got down to 0 spiders in a tree.  All done verbally and mentally with the occasional bit of help from a calender and pencil...he is only 6 after all!  :)

Woven wonders

Homeschool Program: Woven Wonders

today the lad will be learning the following: 

Children 5-12 will learn the basics of hand-spinning and weaving while applying skill and artistry on their own woven piece. They will learn to spin wool from fleece by hand, create a handloom, and weave on it.

The rest of the day he will spend at gramma's while hubby and I kibitz about. 

some pictures of yesterday's learning at the London Art Museum

 12 year old lad he spent time chatting with about science

 backlooming I think this is called

 learning to use a spindle

 he couldn't manage the spindle and the part that moves the yarn up and down so I helped

what he managed to do before getting bored and frustrated. 

He also learned how to make a rope which I thought was rather cool.

and he learned about making a simple loom using carboard. 

It was all quiet sit down work so we let him learn and then we let him chat.   We left a bit early since he was done, we were done and had an errand to run before going to gramma's.

Sea Urchins and more

Today was a good day for homeschooling.

At breakfast we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today's story was about Rip Van Winkle.  This story got an immediate thumbs down from the lad.  Not sure why as I find it an interesting folk tale.

World History

We have started a section on Knights and Castles.

On with the rest of the day...we started later than anticipated, and went past lunch, but we had a good and interesting time.

While Homeschooling today, in the background I had playing various programs from Homeschool RadioShows.   Not saying we listened closely, but every once in a while the lad would ask...is the boy safe mommy?   Is the winter over?  What happened to the ship?

We followed a plan again.
We started off the day talking about how our eyes help us do things.   And then we drew a picture of a globe.  Then I covered the paper up with a box with a hole cut into it and said..."draw the globe".   It was interesting to see how they came out...definitely not as good as when we could see what we were drawing.  Then we tried with some simpler things...circles. boxes, triangles. and then with other ideas...pencil, bowl, plate.    we made some observations
1. our eyes help us alot
2. if we practice we can get better at drawing without looking
3. not everyone has the same trouble drawing without looking...sometimes the lad could draw something better than mommy with or without looking, and sometimes mommy was better when she couldn't see.
4. drawing without looking takes longer to do.

We did pages 172, 173-176 in numbers and counting.    One page had him colouring bubbles a different colour depending on where they were in the counting line.   For instance... 1-25 colour blue, 26-50 colour yellow, 51-75 colour red, and 76-100 colour purple.   I thought this would be an easy reinforcing activity for him and was surprised at how much he struggled with it.   Not sure how to build up his confidence in this area.

Word of the day: abbot - a leader of an abbey

Verse of the week: Eph 4:32  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Animal of the day: I had planned to do penguins.  that was thoroughly nixed by the lad.  he wanted to do SEA URCHINS!   So we studied sea urchins.  YEAH!! for the internet.   Pages we found helpful: google images, enchanted learning, and a couple others.   I always find it frustrating when website contradict each other so we basically just generalized.   It was neat to look at this animal... but boy are they spikey!   We found were some different sea urchins lived on the globe and practiced saying the names of the countries.

Did lesson 9 in First language lessons.   This lesson involved looking at a picture and then talking about it.  We figured out common and proper nouns to use with it.

And finished off our work section with pages 7-11 in Daily Smart, then skipped a bunch of pages and did a maze.  this brings us to the addition/subtraction section which will be on par with where he is in Math Reflex.

We played a game. called mousetrap to finish out our day.  :)

this made me hoot!

A slow day, yet study accomplished

At breakfast we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today's story was about A fellow with a really big nose and all that happened with him. It was just an odd story. It did point out the value in not believing all that you are told though.

World History

We have started a section on Knights and Castles. The lad is captivated..and all he wants to do is build a castle for one of his toys. Made schooling a bit of a challenge. :)

We then moved on to working with math using reflex. He continues to gain in fluency. While he did this, I got the dishes done. :)

We continued work on our spider study

We learned there are three suborders.
We built a spider using a laminated one we had.
We talked about all the different parts to a spider.
We learned about spider eyes, moulting, etc.
We reviewed what we did previously.

The lad played with Lego building something for the castle that was needed.

We then worked on our animal of the day. Leopards. :) We did the snow leopard to be precise.

we watched part of this series of videos.

we laughed at this


Fact that the lad liked: they live up high in the mountains.
Sad fact: they are highly endangered.

Word of the day: abbey - a place where monks and nuns live, work, and pray. Usually connected to a church.

We will play for a while and then hopefully make some cookies. :) We had planned a walk to the library but we have buckets of cats and dogs falling from the sky and being hit by a falling cat is not our idea of fun. :) Even if a boy child says "can I have one of those falling cats?" :)

we made these cookies

Oatmeal chocolate Chip cookies

1 c. butter
1 c. white sugar
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. peanut butter
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1 & 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. milk
4 cups instant oatmeal
6 oz. chocolate chips

Mix all together well.
Drop by spoonfuls on cookie sheet.
bake 10-12 minutes at 350.

Sites to look at more

NEA for martin luther king studies.

Puritan's home school curriculum.

homeschooling Carnival.

OLIN's carnival.

homeschool showcase.

Armor of God object lesson.

Dairy Farmers of Ontario.

Frugal homeschool - facebook.

Ontario Homeschoolers - facebook.

Homescholing Sidetrack

We were just about to start our homeschooling and hubby sent me this link.

That of course led us to look up where New Guinea was.

And to getting out the tape measure to we could see exactly how long 7.7 mm was (the size of the frog). Here is a recording of this little frogs mating call.

Rather neat eh?

At breakfast, we did waffles as per the lad's request, and then we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today's story was a lesson in not getting into things you aren't supposed to.

World History

Today we learned about how the viking age came to an end. We learned about the power of the living Lord God over the Viking gods and how that was instrumental in vikings becoming Christians.

We then got captivated by this youtube video




Once we stopped being distracted, we worked on Studyladder. We studied the solar system, did math, did blending of CL and BL, and talked about kitchen safety and implements you use in the kitchen (did this by actually showing him things in the kitchen and demonstrated their use). :) One of the things I like about StudyLadder is that I can offer variety. I can also take their ideas and use them as jumping off points.

As a reward for doing good work I let the boy child work on building yet another boat. He's working on making a big ship with cannons using scraps from around the house.

at lunch we learned about this guy... a carnivorous caterpillar in Hawaii. :)

we also learned how tabasco sauce is made.

and then the rest of the day was free and clear for playing,working, helping, walking, and just being alive on a snowy, blustery day in Ontario.

Lemmings and more Oh My!

At breakfast we did our normal reading

10 minute stories

Today's story was a chinese folk tale about how Peking became a great city. (involved some bad dragons and a buddhist monk)

World History

Today we learned about viking runes. Only 16 runes in their alphabet. Intriguing. The boy was quite interested in the pictures they drew to remember stories about people who died. And how they thought runes could make people better.

Sight words reviewed: yes, you, are, please.
New Sight words: yellow, run, egg and three. He got a bit overwhelmed with this today. Not sure why.. he found it easier when I put the words into a sentence. that earned me a smile. :)

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

We learned more about common nouns and proper nouns. :)
He was able to make his own sentence with a proper and common noun.
"Milo chased the kitten into the bathtub. Chase didn't like that."

The Complete book of Numbers and Counting, pp 166-170.

We did more on place values, some the same style as last time, but others in a different way. I found it interesting how just changing the style stumped him. Though once he understood the words and how it was done he went through it easily.

Our animal of the day was the Lemming. This simply thrilled the lad. he likes lemmings. :)



We watched a variety of lemming videos and even saw one where people captured some wild ones and overnight were able to tame them down enough they could handle them without being bitten...and then released them to the wild after they were done playing with them. We learned they can be kept as pets. We saw one video that made us sad... people cornered a lemming and put it into a defensive mode and then kept teasing it...went on too long and then they let it go and did it again (then I said enough of this, they are being mean). the lad asked "Why did they do that mommy? Why would they make him so mad all the time?" I find that type of behaviour bothersome. tease an animal sure...but don't be mean about it.

What else did we do.. we did a snow search and find. This is a big floor colouring challenge. Can you find the hidden elements? the lad finds them and colours them, I read the captions to him and colour in some of the rest. For a lad who dislikes colouring pictures other people drew, this works for us. :)

The rest of the day was spent playing and cleaning up more of his room. We are DONE except for the additional of craft materials to his big box. By evening I had a child complaining about his tonsils being sore. I am getting rather sick and tired of sore tonsils and sore ears. I want my boy to be healthy all the way through!

blog posts I like

Ten Reasons We Are Loving Using Ambleside Online

teacher vs facilitator - i personally see myself as both :)

Marco Polo Study.

Graphing coins.

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.