We went on a great field trip last week to the Environment Education Center in Hammond Indiana. I had never been there before. You can't miss the building though, it is brightly painted with a huge trout fish painted on the front of the building. The kids loved it! They have a fish tank, a toad, a bearded dragon and a guinea pig. Everyone was able to pet the guinea pig. They started off with a quick lesson on the building, what they have there and information on the 3 R's.... reduce, reuse, recycle. Then we went to the "garbage room" or the ReUz room. This room is filled with donated "garbage", there are bins and bins filled with endless craft supplies (or "garbage") that you can take home with you. They had ribbon, fabric scraps, empty yogurt cups, bottle caps, wrapping paper, packaging peanuts, wood scraps, and so so so so much more. We stopped back in there before we left and the kids picked out some crafting supplies to take home. After the ReUZ room we were off to the trout stream. We walked over a bridge that takes you over the stream. The kids fed the trout and listened to a presentation about the care of the trout, wildlife and water. After getting off the bridge we came to a large tree house. The kids climb up and a slide takes them back down through the tree. And you know they had to go through that a few times. We took a lunch/snack break in their lunchroom after the treehouse. The kids loved the empty capri sun drink pouches that were turned into wallpaper/backsplash in their kitchen. They also had quite a few of those large hand shaped chairs all over the building. They are made from recycled laundry detergent bottles. After lunch we learned a little more about the trout and played a fun game pinning body parts on the fish while blindfolded. Sort of a spin on pin the tail on the donkey. We also learned that the carpet in the classroom was made of recycled pop bottles. It was a great field trip and the girls are looking forward to going back just to find some craft items in the "garbage" room and of course play in the tree house. A great resource and I think we may plan another field trip there. They have a Merrillville location as well and offer many different field trip options.
Check them out here!
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
FUN FRIDAY
We love Fridays! I have stopped scheduling each day of our school week and now just make a plan for what we will be doing for the whole week in no specific order. Sometimes I let the kids choose which lessons they would like to do first. This is a nice clue for me to see what they enjoy most since at this age they pick that to do first. I guess it comes with age to do the hardest item first. If there is a large project I try to encourage that we start it early in the week.
Now if we get everything done before Friday or early Friday I let them play some fun games to fill in our school time. They tend to be educational but fun enough that the kids don't know. Board games are great or they really like to play games online or on the ipad. So sharing some fun game sites that we may get to use today for anyone else looking for something fun to throw into their Friday or any other day.
Tangram game on PBS here
There are many more games if you're not interested in tangrams.
To many to choose from here on many topics.
Happy Friday!!
Now if we get everything done before Friday or early Friday I let them play some fun games to fill in our school time. They tend to be educational but fun enough that the kids don't know. Board games are great or they really like to play games online or on the ipad. So sharing some fun game sites that we may get to use today for anyone else looking for something fun to throw into their Friday or any other day.
Tangram game on PBS here
There are many more games if you're not interested in tangrams.
To many to choose from here on many topics.
Happy Friday!!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Hello cold season
I just got over my 3rd cold for the season already. I sure hope I am done and stay healthy through winter. On the bright side the girls really enjoyed a couple sick days. Sick days are way more fun when mom is sick and not you. They were able to play all day and I tried my best to keep my germs to myself. It was nice to see that even when I give them the day off I still find them working on school related things. Lili read a few books and tracked her pages read for her reading log and Gabi was writing with Lili's help with spelling. This past week was back to normal though.
Lili wrote an acrostic poem about Barbie. Normally she whines about writing and poetry is far from her favorite thing to write but since Barbie was the topic she didn't complain to much. Why didn't I think of that sooner? Same thing with Gabi, if I write as she dictates a made up story she will gladly do the copywork. Of course the stories are very silly and almost always contain bathroom humor. She is such a little lady. At this stage it is just about them getting comfortable with writing. Both the physical, penmanship and the creativity of making the story or poem. So if non-traditional stories about toilets and bodily functions or poems about toys are what get it done I'm good with that.
Since I was on a roll with including things the girls love into our school lessons we used toys and things around the house to practice measuring inches and feet. Running around the house measuring toys sure beats a worksheet.
Lili's new favorite is Venn diagrams and bar graphs. That is the first thing she will pick if it is on the weeks lesson plans. The past 2 weeks I have had them both on her lessons and we added a fun twist that left her working on it even after our normal school day was over. She dressed two Polly Pocket dolls and created a Venn diagram on the similarities and differences between the two dolls. That was such a huge hit that when it came time for bar graphs I had her sort all of her Barbie clothes in any way she wanted. She chose to sort them by color. Then she wrote down her results and created a bar graph to show the data. Now if I can get her to enjoy all her school work that much.
Our homeschool group had a Halloween party again this year. The kids love it! They all dress up in their costumes (and so does this mommy), eat pizza and play some fun games together. They had quite the full house this year since our group is growing. Throughout the year we also enjoy many field trips, outings and park days together.
Fun links I would like to share!!..............
*Madlibs has been a wonderful resource for learning nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, plural and singular, past and present tense. Lili has picked up on it much faster and is retaining it all so much better since we started regularly doing these madlibs stories. She loves this madlibs site and after you create your madlibs story you can print it out.
*Education.com is awesome. It is becoming my go to place for worksheets, printable games, etc... We tried out this spelling dice game and Lili actually gave it a try. She normally shies away from spelling. I am trying to build her confidence in trying to spell words even when she is unsure. This was a fun game. Here is a link to the game.
*This came in an email from clickschooling. I get their daily emails. This site is for learning about science and some math through games, music and videos and it is very cute. I haven't had a chance to look through the whole site but it seems geared toward younger children. Check it out here.
Time to work on lesson plans for the next week or two. Happy Sunday and have a great week!
“You will not reap the fruit of individuality in your children if you clone their education.”
― Marilyn Howshall
Lili wrote an acrostic poem about Barbie. Normally she whines about writing and poetry is far from her favorite thing to write but since Barbie was the topic she didn't complain to much. Why didn't I think of that sooner? Same thing with Gabi, if I write as she dictates a made up story she will gladly do the copywork. Of course the stories are very silly and almost always contain bathroom humor. She is such a little lady. At this stage it is just about them getting comfortable with writing. Both the physical, penmanship and the creativity of making the story or poem. So if non-traditional stories about toilets and bodily functions or poems about toys are what get it done I'm good with that.
Since I was on a roll with including things the girls love into our school lessons we used toys and things around the house to practice measuring inches and feet. Running around the house measuring toys sure beats a worksheet.
Lili's new favorite is Venn diagrams and bar graphs. That is the first thing she will pick if it is on the weeks lesson plans. The past 2 weeks I have had them both on her lessons and we added a fun twist that left her working on it even after our normal school day was over. She dressed two Polly Pocket dolls and created a Venn diagram on the similarities and differences between the two dolls. That was such a huge hit that when it came time for bar graphs I had her sort all of her Barbie clothes in any way she wanted. She chose to sort them by color. Then she wrote down her results and created a bar graph to show the data. Now if I can get her to enjoy all her school work that much.
Our homeschool group had a Halloween party again this year. The kids love it! They all dress up in their costumes (and so does this mommy), eat pizza and play some fun games together. They had quite the full house this year since our group is growing. Throughout the year we also enjoy many field trips, outings and park days together.
Fun links I would like to share!!..............
*Madlibs has been a wonderful resource for learning nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs, plural and singular, past and present tense. Lili has picked up on it much faster and is retaining it all so much better since we started regularly doing these madlibs stories. She loves this madlibs site and after you create your madlibs story you can print it out.
*Education.com is awesome. It is becoming my go to place for worksheets, printable games, etc... We tried out this spelling dice game and Lili actually gave it a try. She normally shies away from spelling. I am trying to build her confidence in trying to spell words even when she is unsure. This was a fun game. Here is a link to the game.
*This came in an email from clickschooling. I get their daily emails. This site is for learning about science and some math through games, music and videos and it is very cute. I haven't had a chance to look through the whole site but it seems geared toward younger children. Check it out here.
Time to work on lesson plans for the next week or two. Happy Sunday and have a great week!
“You will not reap the fruit of individuality in your children if you clone their education.”
― Marilyn Howshall
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