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.

The McGurk Effect

The query is of course... how does this affect different age groups.
I ask, because the lad didn't get it at all.

Today... a good learning day

Despite the "I can't do this mommy" .. he did. :) Just needed some encouragement.

Despite the "the letters are all mixed up mommy!"... he managed to sort them out. And yes, the letters are all mixed up as I have "garage sale" numbers so don't have full sets of lower and upper cases letters so we make do with what we have. :)

here I asked him to match the numbers with the words and then spell them out.

He even made up a game afterwards with them where he had to practice his memory. It was interesting watching him work through it.

We finished our timeline of transportation.

I don't recall where I found the pictures or the timeline.
We added kites, dugout canoes, and walking.
He was even able to tell his dad about the timeline abit too!

We did math. Pages 89-91 out of the complete book of numbers and counting

We did the alphabet. He knew ALL of them today! woot woot!

I will note that he stumbled on d, g, e, f today, but when he saw the picture on the
back of the card he knew them immediately.
This is a HUGE improvement over two weeks ago. :)

He also did a lower case alphabet dot to dot out of the My Heavenly Helper book.

We finished "It's True, Pigs do Fly" book. It was fun. He learned a ton and asked TONS of questions. This book was written in a humourous style with fun captions of pigs doing the various things that inventors were doing throughout the history of aircraft. An enjoyable book. It did not cover every facet of airplane history, but it gave an excellent overview.

He asked if people ever made a car that can fly and we learned the answer to that is YES! It's called the Skycar.


We did have to take a break at one point to catch these two that escaped from their lawn pen. Silly little boogers. :) Just the two black ones, the broken black was good and stayed put!