Warehouse wipe out

Clearing out the Warehouse Special!
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Enjoy hundreds of pages of practical content . . . designed by your fellow homeschoolers—for you! Grab some encouragement and fill your shelves with a box of seven inspirational TOS back issues (publishers' choice)!

PLUS you'll receive our versatile TOS Homeschooling with Heart tote bag perfect for a trip to the beach, library, or support group meeting. AND receive a surprise bonus gift!

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Talk about the sale on Facebook or blast it down your email list (support group or large list of homeschooling friends), tweet it and write about it on your blog and you will receive FOUR additional surprise items. To receive your bonus gifts, you MUST note in the comments section of your store order (or you can use the dropdown box provided there) to share how you told your friends and spread the word about TOS Warehouse Wipeout. We will then toss in your goodies to really round out your mystery box!

We have some great surprise products to stuff in your box . . . books, puzzles, coloring books, rulers, wiki sticks, toys, and MUCH MORE! Imagine opening your mail box and finding a box filled with seven back issues of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, a Homeschooling with Heart tote bag, AND up to four surprise gifts!

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Please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery.

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HOPE days returns

Yesterday HOPE days started again.

It was fun. The lad learned about dinosaurs, had gym time (played a game called lemonade that made a big impression on him) and did some science. I enjoyed teaching the children science. NOW.. I have learned that even with two helpers that 14 children ages 6-8 in one classroom is a HUGE number of children to try to teach science to so I need to try to arrange that a bit better. smaller groups doing different things.

Then afterwards we went to the Western Fair. We had an enjoyable day. Hubby's knee has been bugging him a bit so that slowed us down a bit.

It was rather cool... they have this free children's play area. Tractors to drive, straw to jump into, a duck race, sunflower seed planting, tractor pull and a variety of other events. So the lad had a great deal of fun. We partially watched a cow calving, petted some pigs, ate cotton candy and caramel corn and corn dogs. Typical fair food. :)

We did miss the horse show, and the extreme canine show this year. We watched reptile ray. Man NOT a good show if you don't believe in evolution, but the information just about the reptiles he showed was quite interesting. I would rather he just talk about the reptiles and leave the evolutionary stuff at home.. cause what's the point? Is it to give a history (in his eyes) lesson or to talk about creatures he really enjoys being around?

Monarchs and Time lines

Today the lad and I started to work on a timeline for the history of transportation. We got up to 1620. he was quite surprised at what is considered part of transportation.

We got bogged down looking for pics so decided to do a short cut and just look for pics online, which led to me being reminded about the Butterfly Conservancy homeschool thing this afternoon.... SO....RUSH RUSH RUSH but we got there 3 minutes early. The lad had a hoot. :)

He fell asleep on the way home.

Jenn who ran the program suggested Journey North for more information on the Monarch. Here's the link to the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory. The lad was quite intrigued by the birds that ran around the butterfly house. He even helped to tag a butterfly. Our Butterfly is NAW 325. We'll be able to look in the spring at Monarch Watch to see if he (yes it's a male) made it all the way to Mexico for the winter. Mind...that all depends if anyone finds him and his tag. :)

Doing more with Transportation

Car Spelling Song

On the road to Spelling

When teaching it is important to use as many senses as possible. Here is a way to use music to practice spelling words.

"Car, Bus, Van" song (Tune: Jingle Bells)

C-A-R, C-A-R that's how you spell car

B-U-S, B-U-S that's how you spell bus

V-A-N, V-A-N that's how you spell van

Transportation helps us, I hope you understand!

Sing the song several times so they feel successful and can spell the words.

Car Play with Ramps
Help your child set up a ramp and watch the cars go.

1. Which cars go faster?
2. Which cars go further?
3. What happens when you change the angle of the ramp?
4. What happens when you change the surface of the ramp?

I asked questions such as.. if you were going to divide your cars into teams, what teams would they be on? Why? How many do you have that are cars? trucks? how many of blue or orange or ??? We weighed them to see if that would help determine who went the fastest. We guessed how would go the fastest. we experimented with ways to "protect" the boulders.

suggestion by the author: If you take digital pictures you can turn this experience into a book. Have your child help to label the pictures and soon he will be able to read his own book.

Forms of Transportation

we started to make a time line of transportation. I'll use this link as a idea place. :)
We started with walking, and progressed to swimming. :) (yes I know that's not an official mode of transportation, but YOU try convincing a six year old that it's not a valid form of getting around?). :)

We did a thing with links... figuring out solutions to problems using links and clues given. It was interesting how it all turned out.

others in this series
day one airplanes
planning to do airplanes

Blog roll call

A couple of posts in the realm of homeschooling that I liked.

1. because it is so true of a variety of things in life. This one pertains to homeschooling, but as with anything, the wrong expectations can net you an outcome you didn't anticipate.

Homeschool blindspots.

2. 1+1+1=1 this post just made me smile today.

back to homeschool 2011/2012

Monarchs and drawing

We have a monarch actively hatching right now! It's just TOO cool. :) Both hatched and have since been released! :) It was very exciting to watch. It's amazing how quickly they go from wrinkled to full wings.

The chrysalis when first made.

they got dark..pretty cool eh?

the wrinkled just out stage

both Monarchs.
This was just fun.
We put them outside so when they were ready to leave they could.
The last one was gone by 6 p.m.

Worked on some work books.

we finished "Thinking Skills"

We did a few pages in Complete Canadian Curriculum 1

we practiced our alphabet again using blue clues flap cards

Read some poems and then got inspired to draw a picture of what one of the poems was about. It was rather fun to talk and draw and think.

Went for a walk. Brought a sock back to a friend, and then stayed for tea. On the walk there we gained a male mosquito and a caterpillar of some sort. :)

Dug some potatoes.

And made decisions about supper. We had roast pork, carrots and pasta.

I can tell the lad is quite a bit better from his earache but he's not all the way back yet. I am looking forward to the day when he is all better.

Starting to school properly this week :)

This morning we played an alphabet game and we went through, do you recognize this letter? He got all but 5 of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Not sure why he struggles with G, K, W, D, and N. but he does. He struggled with them last year as well.

For the alphabet we used the flashcards we had on had (though he's a bit beyond blue's clues we had them so we used them).

I just took random cards and asked him what they were and if he didn't get them just put them in a separate pile. then I took those eight cards and lay them out and got "OH.. that's "E" and we were left with these five that "I just don't have a clue mommy, I can't remember that one, My brain is all confused mommy." I said "that's okay buddy, just means we get to practice more.". :)

Then I had him put the cards in alphabetic order and he did pretty good with that with having to use our alphabet chart on the back of the door a bit. In time he won't be able to use the "cheat sheet". :) but for now, with a boy still recovering from an ear ache, I'll go with what I got.

We also did three pages in one workbook, and two pages in another one. Mostly we worked on math type sheets.
The complete book of numbers and counting


My heavenly Helper


Kumon, my Book of numbers 1-120



We played battle for 15 minutes. Then the lad gathered up random dishes so they could be washed, I planted some things out in the garden (parsley and radish) and then folded a load of laundry.

Then off to town for the afternoon/evening. The lad enjoyed spending time with gramma and going to gymnastics.

Today's Efforts

Started reading magic tree house the rain forest. the lad is enjoying this book though he thought we'd start reading a hardy boy book.

Played Farm Sounds. I have a cd with bingo type cards produced by myactivemind, which is a company that seems to no longer be in service. We got it at the dollar store. The lad had fun playing it though we had to have the sound turned up as his ears aren't working the best right now.

did some work in books as well.
kumon counting - so nice to see him better than where we left off in the fall. :)

Jesus heavenly friend - needed a bit of help with the alphabet dot to dot, could say it, but couldn't remember what some of the letters looked like

and a math skills book - did an excellent job on this.

then we played battle until my body said.. GET UP OFF THIS FLOOR! :) But by then it was time for the lad to chill out for a while again. Earaches are NOT fun things to deal with.

the afternoon was taken up with canning applesauce and watching mammoths and the ice age, we also watched Astro Boy - which provoked all sorts of questions about what the future world could possibly look like. :)

We Choose Virtues

We Choose Virtues is a company that makes a quality product. They focus on providing materials that help parents/teachers teach their children virtues.

The Crafty Classroom is hosting a giveway of their products, and give an extra entry for blogging about it, so here I am. :)

I have to admit to having mixed feelings about a curriculum that teaches virtues.

On one hand I see it as a helpful tool for people to use to teach character to their children.
BUT on the other hand... with good biblical training doesn't one teach these character traits as one lives life?

So it's a mixed bag for me. The helpfulness on the one hand in promoting vs the taking away from the parental responsibility to simply train as one lives life. It seems schoolish to me. As in the public school actually have built curriculums to teach character in the school system because so many parents are working and abdicating some of their responsibilities in this regard.

I don't tend to see homeschooling parents doing this. We're with our children mostly all the time so it's hard for us to let that sort of thing slip.

But on the other hand... it is an aid. And should aids be shunned? or merely carefully examined?

A mixed bag. I haven't made up my mind.

What do you all think?

Concert in GLASS - amazing !

you have GOT to go listen to this.

It is VERY cool.

TOS has things to help with homeschooling

From September 1 to September 5, they're offering resources that will help you save time cooking, cleaning, organizing your home, running your home, and teaching your children. Some products are discounted up to 50%! You'll even find labor savers that will get your kids working too!

Relief is at your fingertips. Don't put it off. Order today. These great deals only last until September 5 at 11 p.m. EDT.

They have a variety of planners.
Have you had the chance to look at their newly released 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planners yet? Plan for another great year with The 2011-2012 Schoolhouse Planner, the brand-new 2011-12 Special Needs Schoolhouse Planner, and our 2011-12 Student Schoolhouse Planners for students in kindergarten to high school. Planners are now available on CD or in E-Book format!

Erase the frazzled feel of disorganization with the 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planners and bring order and efficiency to your school year. Packed with relevant articles, clever calendars, useful forms, handy lists and so much more, this planner is the key to meeting your many goals for the 2011-12 school year.

Children from kindergarten to high school are learning the ropes of organizing their own schedules. Choose the Primary, Intermediate or High School Schoolhouse Planner and watch them build their educational adventures with ease.

Don't forget a Mom's best friend, The 2011-12 Schoolhouse Planner, packed full of forms, lists, and resources to organize every aspect of your school and home!

Learn more about the NEW planners by The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine here.

did you know that if you subscribe to the magazine that you get free access to the teachers toolbox? that's means every month you get access to new menu plans, printable activities, daily activity ideas and more?

Currently TOS is having a warehouse wipeout sale

While supplies last You can snag a box filled with these goodies from their overflowing shelves . . .

SEVEN different TOS back issues ($69.30 value)
Homeschooling with Heart tote bag ($24.95 value)
Surprise bonus gift(s)--click here to learn how to receive up to 5 bonus gifts
Free Shipping ($10.50 value)
$104.75+ worth of products and what it takes to mail them for ONLY $39 US/$49 CA

You will want to snatch a box before it's too late or purchhttp://www2.blogger.com/img/blank.gifase several for gifts!

They even have a cheapy section! :) Everybody loves a good deal! They have almost 300 of them waiting for your readers to explore and possibly purchase.

if you click on the banner below you will be linked to an interactive catalogue.

Monarch into Chrysallis

Check out this youtube video.

Both monarchs that we have are going exploring. The one is currently hanging, the other is looking for a place to be safe. We're having to keep a close eye on that one.

Hopefully in seven to 10 days we'll have a couple of butterflies to watch! :)

our previous attempts at Monarchs failed, so we're thrilled that this one appears to be working.

actually doing day one airplanes

Working from our plans this is how our day went.

NOTE: I had a lad with bad tonsils, who can't hold down food today.

We started out watching the five part series of the wright brothers on YouTube. I chose the animated version as it had short snippets that we could stop and talk about what we learned before watching the next in the series.
here is part two


We learned about their main rival in Alberto Santos-Dumont.

Santos-Dumont he was a rival to the wright brothers to see who would be the first to build an airplane. :) The lad was quite fascinated by him and asked tons of questions so we researched him for a while. (a bit of a rabbit trail that). :)

we read through the beginning of flight.
the lad liked this one:
and this one caused lots of questions to be asked as it looks quite different than the others we saw
we spent a great deal of time on the Canadian Wings site. Rather fascinating to watch the changes in how aircraft developed. and the wright brothers museum was quite interesting as well. I read through the encyclopedia on the wright brothers but the lad was getting wiggly at this point. So we closed our computer time by learning all the different TYPES of aircraft and doing our copy work. I am hoping later to find some pictures of different aircraft and making a small lapbook book with the lad.

Question: is there such a thing as a helicopter that is amphibian?
Does anyone know the answer to this question?

Thanks to the gals on facebook I have an answer to that question! YES! they make amphibous helicopters. Here's the wiki link.

We did our airplane sorting into
Fast planes, medium planes, helicopters and mommy's planes.
the fast planes are JET engines, the medium planes use propellors, and the helicopters are medium planes too but they are different because they are helicopters. :)

he also observed other ways that they are the same and different, good to see him learning and thinking.

and then we made a couple of planes and had a LOT of fun playing battle. :)

Carnival of homeschooling is posted

it's over at No fighting, no biting this week.

Transportation - Airplanes

The lad and I will be starting to learn about transportation tomorrow. It will be our "September theme". We won't be looking only at transportation as we will take side trips into things that interest us. But tomorrow.. PLANES!

1. we'll be building a sleath bomber and a camouflage airplane that we got at The Basics Shop.

2. We'll be watching the "wright brothers on youtube".


3. We'll be learning about the different types of modern aircraft.
see this site Soaring the Skies and Types of Airplanes and how many types are there? DIY. and probably to me the most helpful site.Types of Airplanes.

Airplanes vary greatly in the size, structure, engines, and purpose.

Airship/Balloon, Glider/Sailplane, Powered airplanes, Helicopter/Rotorcraft, Autogyro/Gyroplane, Fixed Wing Bi-planes, Fixed Wing Monoplanes

I used this site to make a copywork sheet. I used these words: Land planes, Seaplanes, Amphibians, Vertical Takeoff and Landing, Short Takeoff and Landing and Space Shuttle. I wasn't sure if I should do a trace and write, or a copy and write...so I printed off one of each and it's all good. :)

What else will we do?
4. I hope to have him do some counting.
How many planes can you find in your hot wheels collection?
5. Then have him do some sorting of them and explain why he sorted them the way he did.

6. We'll play battle because one can't build planes that can be used for battle without actually having a battle! :)

and that will be it for a first day of homeschool. Oh... we'll also do our normal.. we're back in school so let's go for a walk about. And if I can figure out how to build a rocket into the mix we'll do that do, Supercharged Science has one that looks to be fun to do.

Toads

Toads are the subject of fascination for a boy child lately.

We went to the Pinery yesterday for lunch and a bit of a walk about. At lunch we sat near a pit in the ground. It had several young toads in it. the lad caught six in total. one escaped due to my ineptitude. Two were released for being too big.

The remaining three were put into a larger bottle and carried with us on our walk.


Somehow on out trip home the bottle got on a tilt or lay flat and two of the three escaped. We recaptured one of them.

Those two discovered the "joys" of a new home. :)

hard at work setting things up

The end result.

One relatively content toad.

Tonight they were joined by one much bigger toad captured on a "toad" walk with gramma. Tomorrow morning the lad will totally reorganize the aquarium, but as long the toads are healthy it's all good. Boys are meant to play with small critters aren't they?

These tears I hate: Tears when a boy learns something in a very hard way.

Since these toads are tiny I put a little apple cider vinegar in a container to attract fruit flies. The flies came, the little toads were happy. The lad thought GREAT! I'll dip the toad in the vinegar to help bring flies right to the toad. We then all learned that toads plus apple cider vinegar equals a very quickly dead toad (so dead his tongue came out). Many tears from my soft-hearted son. Much sadness from his mommy at this hard lesson to learn...hard for all. We don't want to kill the toads...we want to learn from them and see what works to keep them healthy and happy.

Organization of my school year

the carnival of homeschooling has a theme for this week of

all about logistics: the organizing of your day, week, and year in terms of homeschooling, extracurricular activities, and everything else that you fit into your life.

The basic plan that I use with homeschooling is to so as much of it for free as I can. So we do a much on the computer as we can, or using books that I've picked up from here and there, as well as quite a bit of oral work. I assume that over time I'll to do more paperwork, but for now he's six and if I can ask him in his head what 1 + 6 is and get seven for a verbal answer it's all good. We'll be going to the library more often this year I hope, like every other week or so. I plan to use extensively a variety of links that I've listed over here as well as utilizing the work of this site.

So for the past two weeks I've been working on organizing my schooling. I only have one student so that makes it easier for me.

Monday is hubby's day off so we don't do a whole lot that day. In the mornings before we leave we'll be doing some math and then in the evening he has gymnastics.

For the rest of the week there will be some things that we do daily.
like Read for 1/2 hour, do chores, and go out for at least 1/2 hour of exercise.

Tuesday will be our science day also with some book work.

Wednesday we'll do some more math but our focus will be on Art.

Thursday we'll work on unit studies that we get from Amanda Bennett (we do reviewing for them). And it will also be our Field Trip day.

Friday we'll work on whatever we want to do as well as look at geography, history of the various topics we'll be using as a base for study.

I LOVE doing things around a base of study.
September: Transportation
October: Continents of the World
November: Canada
December: Christmas, extra Science
January: Snow, winter
February: Character Studies
March: Pioneers
April: Construction
May: Insects
June: Rocks, Archaelogy etc

Within all of this we'll do history, English, spelling, memory work, Geography and what not.

Now like anything the best laid plans can be lead astray or changed, but.. we'll work on things and see how it goes.

question of the day: how long do yellow jacket's live?

We have a yellow jacket living in our house. He buzzed us while doing the dishes.
He got away.

My lad who is somewhat concerned about getting stung asked "how long do yellow jacket's live?" I said.. I have no clue, shall we look it up?

We learned that MOST of them only live for the summer BUT the queen hibernates over the winter and she is the one who chooses where the next years colony will live.

Source: backyard Brigade and other internet sources that confirmed what Backyard said. :)

Finally... we know what it is :)

My thanks to homeschool freebie of the day for linking to this site! we were finally able to identify the caterpillars that keep dying on us!

unlike the sycamore and hickory tussock moths, this one is the pale tussock moth. and these guys eat oak, birch, lime and hop leaves.

Other sites they linked to today were BugGuide and What's that Bug.

Carnival of homeschooling is posted

you can find it here.

there are some good reads over there. :)