Easy Peasy

Planning our homeschool lessons is easy peasy with easy peasy all in one homeschool, lol.  We have been using easy peasy since we started this school year last month and although it is early in the year we are really liking it.  We are using it as a base and adding on based on each child's interests.  It is freeing up a lot of the planning time I would normally put into our core work.  Now I can use that time to find fun stuff for us to do or work on diving deeper into any topics that strike our fancy.  I was unsure about all the work being on the computer and all of us staring at the screen all day but we get through the work rather quickly and then can move on to our library books, games, etc. that are not on the computer.  I especially like it for the history lessons as that is not my area of expertise and honestly I do not enjoy planning lessons for that subject.  This site is worth it just for that in my opinion.

Planning for the next school year

During summer we have a very light school schedule.  We enjoy all of our libraries summer reading activities.  They tend to be all science based.  We are reading like crazy to earn prizes during summer reading.  As long as I squeeze some math in there we have a pretty easy going summer plan.  This allows us a lot of free time to play and enjoy the summer but not completely break from school, lose our routine and forget everything from last year.  With some of our free time and our constant library trips I spend a chunk of summer planning for our next school year.  While the kids are enjoying the libraries summer events like the science days or the Friday movies I get my stack of school books and some free printable calendars and get to work.  Nothing is set in stone but I like a rough idea mapped out of what I'd like to introduce to them this year along with core subjects they'll need and of course incorporating things they love into the plan as well.  We use a few books and workbooks throughout the year so I can break those down to see where we should be each month throughout the school year in order to hopefully finish our books and reach our goals for the year.  I normally use online sources for my planning and core subjects/topics to include in our year but this year I am trying out The Core Knowledge Series: What Your ___ Grader Needs To Know by E.D. Hirsch jr.  I have been flipping through them at the library.  I love how organized they are but easy to take what you need and make it your own to fit your family.  We like flexible plans not rigid curriculum.  In these early years and hopefully throughout life learning should be enjoyable and not dreaded.  For us flexible lesson planning works great to keep learning enjoyable.

Our plan so far looks something like this...

4th Grade:
What your fourth grader needs to know

1st Grade:
What your first grader needs to know

Both grade levels:
math and grammar workbooks or printed worksheets from free online sources
Easy peasy all in one homeschool (trying this online curriculum this year, it looks fun)
Kahn Academy online math
Xtra Math online math
Field trips and group activities with our homeschool group
Art club and Lego club at the library
Dance classes

Enjoying the library

 

We love our public library. We visit the library weekly and always leave with a good size stack of books for each of us. We especially enjoy all the programs during summer reading that they offer for school aged children. Throughout the school year we attend the monthly Lego club and bi-weekly story hour. The story hour we attend is for preschool age (4-5 yrs old), so this will be Gabi's last year for that program. There are occasional events for school age children during the school year in addition to Lego club but they are not on a regular basis and seem to be more patterned along with holidays. I would love if our library would offer more for the K-5^th crowd. I've brought it up with our local branch and recently emailed the main branch to see if they would be interested in starting a monthly daytime program for K-5^th geared toward homeschooling families. Let's hope I get a good reply back. I have a list of interested families and ideas from other counties who's library offer programs for homeschoolers ready to go should the library be willing to work with us.

“When the atmosphere encourages learning, the learning is inevitable.”
― Elizabeth Foss

Weekly Nature Journals

A quick stop at the clearance bins at Joann Fabrics turned up 2 hard back journals with a pretty sunflower print on the cover for 98 cents each.  What a great find for some nature journals.  We started nature journals last year and I'd love to do it again. 

As soon as our current below zero temps pass I hope to get the kids out at least once a week for inspiration for their nature journals.  Once spring hits we can go on walks with our journals and a pack of colored pencils.  We can search for some fascinating things to draw and write about in our own backyard or on a trip.

Here is a link to another blog with great info to help get started with a nature journal for kids.

http://simplehomemade.net/nature-journaling-with-kids/

I think I should get a nature journal for me too.  What better way to spark interest of journaling in your kids than to let me see you doing it too.  To bad Joann Fabrics only had 2 of those cute sunflower journals left.  I'll be hitting the dollar store soon for a basic small notebook for myself. 



"In every walk in nature one receives far more than he seeks." - John Muir

Leave the kids in charge?!

It's only October but the kids are getting burnt out on our curriculum for school so I said okay then, you plan a school day for yourself.  They thought that was a great idea.  But then I included some guidelines.  They must cover all school subjects (Lang. Arts/reading, math, science, history, art, music and some kind of physical activity).  One last thing, it needs to be at grade level.  It's not a day full of super easy work.  They were still up for it.  They both made their list of school plans for today.  There was no moaning and groaning about getting to work this morning.  If all goes well maybe we will throw more days like this into our schedule. 

We also changed it from a "school day" to a "learning day" after a discussion on Tuesday about how learning doesn't stop at the end of a "school day".  Learning doesn't stop during summer break.  Learning doesn't stop once you finish "school".  Learning happens every day of your whole life.  So instead of a school day we are enjoying some planned learning time.

Here is Lili's learning plan for the day... 
*math with cereal (addition/subtraction/multiplication/division with the use of cereal as our hands on manipulative)
*art- watercolor painting (Art is by far her favorite subject)


















*reading- reading a couple library books.
*math/measurement/fractions- baking muffins (measuring ingredients and reading a recipe)
*history - with my help she went through old family photos.  Family history sounds like it may be a good topic for our history detour.  I am looking for an online program for making a family tree.
*science - snoop through the kitchen for experiments.  Lili asked what she could use to make something explode.  Since I am not up for explosions indoors I went for a slightly smaller scale of an explosion and gave her baking soda and a bottle of vinegar.  Her and Gabi decided to add food coloring and I slipped a large plate under their experimentation cups to catch the "explosion".  Although we have done this kind of thing before with baking soda and vinegar they were still excited and impressed with their colorful foaming results.  After a couple colorful rounds we cleaned up.
*Physical Ed. - jumping on the couch, playing freeze dance and chase the cats around.
*Building with geometric foam blocks - last minute this was changed to building with Legos


Here is Gabi's learning plan for the day...
*math with cereal (addition/subtraction/and we threw in a little intro to multiplication and division, she can handle it).  She was quite proud that she could divide with her cereal.  She grasped the concept once she saw it done with the cereal.
*art - painting (art is her favorite also)

*creating and building with play-doh














*math/measurements/fractions - baking cupcakes (Gabi LOVES cupcakes and is always talking about the bakery she will open when she is older.)
*math mat floor game - We have numbers 1-20 written on large pieces of paper and cardboard.  We spread them out on the floor and I call out math problems while they jump to the correct answer.  Lili's math problems are a little tougher but they take turns so playing with both at once works well.
*science - snooping for experiment ingredients with Lili.  Her science for the day was the same, written above.
*physical ed - jumping on the couch and playing freeze dance
*building with foam blocks - she also changed this to Legos and from there set up a whole town of Littlest Pet Shop and continued with her imaginative play for the rest of the afternoon. 

Our day went really well.  Gabi even cleaned up after herself without complaining which is a big deal for her.  I think we're on to something.  :)



Here are Lili's banana muffins dusted with confectioners sugar.  Yes we are missing two muffins.  We had to do a little taste test. 

These are Gabi's vanilla cupcakes with her favorite cream cheese frosting.  Lili and I helped decorate a few of them.

Youtube?

Lili loves all things in the arts... music, singing, dance, movies, theater, drawing, painting, etc....  The list could keep on going.   She has been learning to play the recorder, piano and ukalele.  She can not choose just one instrument.  We have done well with beginning to read music.  She can play a few songs on both the recorder and the piano.  We have also learned a few chords on the ukalele.  We needed to move on from the small book of songs for the recorder.  She wants to learn to play songs she knows.  While searching for help online to find new sheet music that is still on a beginner level we kept finding all these Youtube videos of children and adults playing the recorder.  Lili enjoyed watching them.  Then we found some videos that include the notes to play and you play along with.  This was wonderful.  Lili has never sat and played for that long before.  It seemed to really help that she was playing along with someone and could hear how her notes sounded compared to theirs.  She has learned a couple new songs from using these Youtube videos.  I never would have thought to use Youtube in our school day.  Here is a link to one of the Youtube videos she liked.  We have subscribed to her and hope to find more videos as we go.
Youtube Recorder

Lili really like playing Rain Rain Go Away :D

Let's just play today

This article is long but worth the read.  I makes me want to tweak our days a little to free up even more time for play.  I think we already get in more play time than the average.  But no where as much as what is described in this article.  But times have changed and I can't just open the door and let my kids run off unattended.  What I can do is find the balance between learning what is needed for school work, encouragement to explore their own interests, extra curricular activities and last but definitely not least, as much playing as we can.  They're only young for a short time.  Here is the article...

http://www.aeonmagazine.com/being-human/children-today-are-suffering-a-severe-deficit-of-play/

Teach My Monster to Read

Gabi is learning to read.  She is doing very well but still intimidated by reading books from the library.  We have 3 sets of the Now I'm Reading program, Level 1,2 & 3.  She has finished level 1 and can read all 20 books that came with that set.  We are now working on set #2.  Usually after set 2 you can start trying out some early readers from the library.  In the mean time I wanted something fun for her to use to practice letter sounds and putting letters together to form words.  I found a great online game that is FREE for kids called  Teach Your Monster to Read.  Gabi loves it!  You get to create your own monster and as you move on through the game if you are getting things right your monster gets fun accessories like hats, glasses, belts, etc...    They recently came out with a 2nd game that helps the child with blending and sentences and adds more words than game 1.   I also like that you create an account or yourself and your child and through the parents account you can see how well your child is doing.  It will show you which letters they know and which they need help with.   We like that Teach Your Monster to Read is helping us Teach OUR Monster to Read :D









"The more that you read, the more things you will know.  The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."

-Dr. Seuss

Back to school 2013-2014

We are four weeks into our new school year.  Gabi is reviewing some work from her Kindergarten year last year and will soon be moving on to first grade.  Lili is adjusting well to the big jump from 2nd grade to 3rd.  Gabi loves anything she learns using the iPad.  She prefers touching a screen to holding a pencil.  I suppose that is becoming the norm for kids.  A colorful, musical math game must be more exciting than a worksheet.  We still do our fair share of pencil and paper in addition to enjoying some educational games.  Lili loves to read and is tackling bigger chapter books on her own.  She has been known to max out her library card.  Both girls love art.  Lili enjoys painting and Gabi has a knack for taking household items and a variety of office supplies and turning them into art.

Our homeschool group is growing fast this year.  We have had 3 field trips so far this school year.  We went berry picking, an educational outdoor hike through the parks dept.  and an exciting tour at Metro Recycling.  We have a hayride coming up for the group.  We have had close to 30 families sign up for the hayride, which is a total of 80 attending so far.  It still surprises me to see so many homeschooling families from our local area getting together.  We really enjoy the monthly field trips and weekly park days.  The girls have made so many friends through the group.

I was looking for an enjoyable way to get the girls writing.  They need the practice and repetition of spelling, grammar but without the torture of daily worksheets.  A class newspaper is recommended for 1st-3rd grade so I put a twist on the class paper idea and opened a private facebook group for them to share their writing with friends and family.    The feedback and interaction with everyone regarding their writing I think will be motivating for them.

More to come about our daily adventures in homeschooling, field trip fun and hopefully pictures when I remember to have the camera on hand.

You Rock!

Lili and Gabi have been collecting rocks for a few years now.  I don't know why it didn't occur to me before to do a lesson on rocks since they love them.  They find neat rocks outside in the yard, on a walk, at the beach, etc...  They bring them in the house, wash them and add them to their collection.  Sometimes the rocks get painted too.  We have many painted rocks displayed in our school room and the girls have given painted rocks as gifts to their grandparents.  Lili even painted some rocks to sell at her Grammy's yard sale last spring.  She sold several of them at her lemonade stand.

So today we dipped our hands in those rock collections and did some observations of our rocks.  We read a bit about different types of rocks.  Then is was time to bring out some tools.  We used and string and a ruler to measure our rocks,  a balance scale to weigh our rocks, magnifying glasses and a mini microscope to get a closer look at our rocks and our science notebooks to record our findings. It was definitely a fun activity for us all to do together.  Below is a picture of some of our tools.

 

 And this is what Latte, one of our two cats does during school time.  It is a pretty good time for a quiet cat nap.

WORMS!!

We were invited to join in on a great field trip this week.  We went to a local environmental center.  They offer great field trips but you must book well in advance.  The trip we were on was all about composting.  The kids learned about composting both indoors and outdoors.  But the main focus was on the possibility of having a compost bin indoors so you can compost all year round.  The bin they used was made from a plastic storage tote with small holes drilled in it.  The worms they use and suggest for composting are red wigglers.  Here is a link about red wigglers and about composting.  Red wigglers are big eaters so they are great for composting.  You can order them online or buy them at your local bait shop.  The kids learned what you can and cannot put in your compost bin.  Anything that grew out of the soil can be composted and turned back into soil.  Such as scraps from fruits and vegetables, egg shells, grass clippings, leaves, shredded paper.  Never put meat or dairy in your compost bin.  During the field trip the kids were all given microscopes so they could look at some of the compost from the bin.  They got a close up look at the worms and also found some fascinating little microscopic bugs in there helping out the worms.  Lili couldn't wait to get her hands on a worm.  She got one out of the compost and it was very squirmy on her hand.  On the way home both of my kids asked if we could get some worms for our house.  Hmmm.....maybe we can talk daddy into
that.  They will have to live in the basement though.  Luckily the worms in a compost bin can live in a room that is at a minimum of 52 degrees according to the instructor at the environmental center.  I don't think our basement ever gets that cold.  According to the website I linked above you need to find out how much you will have to feed your worms each day, so you will need to weigh your kitchen scraps for a week or so and see what your average amount is.  Then get double the amount of worms.  So, 1 lb food = 2 lbs of worms.  I suppose it would help if I had a kitchen scale for that.  Maybe we can use our scale from our school supplies, it measures in grams but it will be a good lesson for the kids and we can convert the number from grams to lbs.  At the end of the field trip after the kids finished their lunches anyone who had leftover fruits or veggies  (apple cores, orange peels, etc...) were able to feed the worms.  The kids loved it!  So far it has been the best field trip of the year.

*Tip from the instructor at the environmental center: Her worms don't like broccoli.  When she put broccoli in her bin the worms all tried to climb out.  So maybe broccoli scraps are best put in the trash.

It all put me in the mood for spring.  I've got my garden plan already started :)
Happy composting!

"The only thing you absolutely have to know is the location of the library"  - Albert Einstein

We're done already!

It's the end of the week.  That means it is time to work on next weeks lesson plans.  I was going over our list of what we planned on getting done this year and it looks like we have about 4 more topics to cover and we are done.  It should only take us about 2 weeks to cover it all.  So it is only February and we have finished our goal for the school year.  How awesome is that!  The plan is to have a week of review to make sure all we have learned has stuck.  Then I guess we'll move on to the making a plan for 3rd grade.  Since we are ahead I'd like to give some child led learning a try, to let Lili spend more time learning about whatever strikes her fancy.  Since I sort of backed off a bit on how much she reads she has started going through books faster than we can get to the library.  The other week we went on Friday and by Tuesday she was complaining that she had nothing to read.  She had already finished everything she checked out on Friday.  Our next trip to the library I let her get as many books as we could carry.  I hope the love of reading stays with her.

Next week we will reach our 100th day of school!!  They are so excited.  We have been tracking the days until the 100th day.  I have been browsing Pinterest for ideas.  Here is our plan so far for our 100th day of school celebration.  Most of the ideas are from a site I found off Pinterest and some from friends.  Here is a link to the site for ideas....

http://www.tipjunkie.com/all-crafts/ideas-for-100th-day-of-school/

100th Day of School
1. Make a 100th day of school crown (printable from link above)
2. Make a 100 piece edible necklace (with fruit loops or similar cereal)
3. How far will 100 steps from our front door take us?
4. Draw a portrait of what you would look like at 100 years old.
5. Write about what you would do with $100.
6. Build anything you want with 100 legos.

We will also get to celebrate by going out to lunch with Grammy and several of our Aunts.  It should be a fun day.

Happy 100th Day of School!!  Here's to approximately 80-90 more days until summer!


"There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world.  Love of books is the best of all."
        -Jacqueline Kennedy

Learning to work independently

We are all getting bored with the usual daily routine of school and ready for something different. I want to keep school fun and interesting and not let it turn into a miserable chore. I would like her build up her confidence regarding school work. I know what she can do but she is afraid to be wrong. I'd like her to see what she can accomplish on her own without any “hand holding”. So after a little brainstorming this week we tried out an independent work project. Lili was given some ideas of projects she could do that would involve a few school subjects, that she could do mostly on her own and that were also fun and involved some playing. She decided on a project to plan a party. She first wrote out her guest list (printing and spelling) and then created invitations (art). To plan for the party she used a grocery store advertisement (made by me) to create the menu for her party and figure the cost for all of the food she would need. She then counted out that amount of real money to “buy” her groceries. This was all done with play food and the guests were myself, Gabi and a few dolls. So we were able to really have the party. Lili then set up her party and we played for awhile. She enjoyed this project and worked on writing/spelling and math/money both of which are not normally her favorites. They were also used in a real life way which seems to make things stick. I need to get creative and think of more project ideas.

In addition to this project we did do some formal work such as cursive practice but that is still her favorite so no trouble there. We also read lots of books and also played a money game that I saw in one of our Family Fun magazines. This was another fun way to practice counting money. One person choses several coins and counts up the total amount of money. They tell the other player how much money they have and how many coins they have. That player has to try and figure out what coins the first player is holding. We used paper and pencil to help figure it out. One of Lili's Christmas gifts was a chemistry set. We have starting doing some of the activities. We have tested the ph of different liquids such as salt water, baking soda in water, citric acid in water, apple juice, lemonade, milk, etc... Afterwards we kept the cups with salt water, baking soda in water and citric acid in water and let them sit out. The water has been evaporating and leaving behind fun creations. Lili has liked this part the best and show everyone who comes over. She really liked the way the salt left behind salt “crystals” and the baking soda is now a disc shaped solid piece of baking soda.

Sorry no pictures, I need to get on the ball with that. Next week we will keep the camera close by.

"The idea of learning acceptable social skills in school is as absurd to me as the idea of learning nutrition from a grocery store." ~ Lisa Russell

Hiding from the flu

It seems lately I am hearing and reading a lot from family and friends that they are catching some nasty flu that is going around.  We normally go to the library every week but this week I just had a feeling we should stay home.  I did a quick drop off in the outdoor drop box at the library since we had movies due.  So after that our book bins were pretty empty.  Luck have it there is this bookshelf in our school room and what do you know, it is full of books.  I played the part of the friendly librarian and the girls "checked out" books from our own library.  It was actually much needed I think since we rarely read from our own book collection. 

Speaking of library books I think we may have lost our first library book.  I have searched the whole house and the car.  The librarian is checking the shelves there to see if we did bring it back and it just got shelved before being checked in.  So what happens if they don't find it and I don't find it?  What IS the penalty for losing a library book?  With as many books has we check out I guess it was bound to happen eventually.  We have on several occasions reached the limit of how many books you can have out at a time. 

With all the at home time we have been able to enjoy all the wonderful new toys and games we received for Christmas.  Legos hit our house this holiday season and they are a hit.  We attend a monthly Lego club at the library and since we have legos at home to build with Lili presented her Lego tree house built from a kit for the show and tell at Lego club this month.  She did great, didn't seem nervous at all.  And what better time for a field trip with our homeschool group to Legoland!!  Oh yeah!  We are excited.  We have never been to Legoland and have no idea what to expect.

We will be doing our best to steer clear of the flu that is traveling around, stay healthy everyone!

Environmental Education Center Trip

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!

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!!

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

GABI IS READING!!!

Gabi has read her first book, yes we video taped it.  She was so excited.  She read the 1st book in the Now I'm Reading set titled  Fat Cat.  Now she has read it over and over again and I think has it memorized.  Time to move to book #2.... Rat Naps.  She wants to read them all right now so she can get the stickers that go inside after she can read each book with no help. 

Time to pull out those math counters.  Well our math counters are some little foam triangles I found in the dollar section at Target.  I don't know what their intended purpose is but they are great for teaching math.  Gabi is working on basic addition and subtraction and is catching on very quickly using those colorful squishy triangles.  I love those $1 bins!

Well after having it bookmarked for about a year I finally did some browsing around at spellcity.com and it is a really nice site.  You can choose your grade level and spelling word list from a themed category.  The first week Lili chose a beach theme so all her words were beach related, such as sun, ocean, seashells, sand, umbrella, etc... Lili can then throughout the week play games that use her spelling words and also the vocabulary for those words.  She really likes the hangmouse game which is just like hang man but it is a mouse that gets caught by a cat if you do not figure out the word in time.  Then for us on Friday we have our spelling and vocab test for the week.  They both can be done on the website but Lili prefers the spelling test on paper.  Here is the site if you want to check it out....    http://www.spellingcity.com/

Lili has been in a hurry so we are already through Zz for cursive.  Time to practice and start writing words!  She is so excited and even challenged me to a race to see who could write the whole alphabet, both upper and lower case in cursive the fastest.  Well I won but not by much she was only about 3 letters behind me the whole time.  And to be honest I had to cheat and look at the board for a few letters.  I don't know when the last time I wrote a z in cursive was, probably in 2nd grade, lol

We are all enjoying our human body study.  We are playing a few games that I bought on Amazon.com.  We have the Magic School Bus: A Journey into the Human Body and Someboday board game.  Lili is also coloring a Dover coloring book on the human body which is I love.  I want a Dover coloring book too.  They are very detailed books for older kids. 

Our homeschool group is going well and staying busy.  We have a hayride coming up next week and working on more fun field trip ideas.

I have also signed up for daily emails from clickschooling.com  They send a web based curriculum idea everyday.  So far I believe they have all been free.  I have been saving these emails and am starting to filter through them and see what we can use right now.  Each day is a different subject as well, Monday is math, Tuesday is science, Wednesday is language arts, Thursday is social studies, Friday is a virtual field trip and Saturday is music, art, foreign language.  I think it is well worth the daily email so far.


“When the atmosphere encourages learning, the learning is inevitable.”
― Elizabeth Foss, Real Learning: Education In The Heart Of The Home

unpacking sweaters and learning the seasons

What a great time to teach Gabi more about the seasons when we are getting out sweaters, jackets and jeans.  We played a fun dress up game.  I filled a laundry basket with items from all seasons.  We had umbrellas, rain jackets, sunglasses, swim arm floats, sun visors, baseball style hats, hoodie jackets, a couple Halloween masks, winter hats and gloves.  I called out a season and both girls had to hurry and dig through the basket and put all as many things they could find that would be worn in that season. 
    We also did a little art with Gabi about the seasons and weather.  We drew a picture of each season and Gabi's were fairly common with rain, flowers, a pumpkin, but her picture of winter puzzled me.  She drew paw prints.  I asked her to tell me about her picture and she said "they are rabbit prints in the snow."  It was a very creative idea I thought.  For weather we drew on index cards, one for each common weather condition.  We have a card for sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing, storming.  Now each day Gabi can look out the window and pick which card fits the weather and tape it to the window.
   I try to overlap topics with both girls, it makes creating a lesson plan easier since some things they can do together.  So Lili spent time this week learning about the different types of clouds, what clouds are made of, what creates thunder and lighting and about tornadoes and hurricanes. 
   We also made a weather vane or wind vane this week.  We made one just like this.  Both girls enjoyed taking it out everyday and checking the wind direction.

We started using an online source for some of our math last year and are continuing to use it this year.   It is khanacademy.org   I believe it is mainly just math and science.  They keep you practicing until you have mastered the skill you are working on.  So Lili currently started adding negative numbers.  On her page that skill will not change to mastered until she completes all practice problems without missing any.  We both enjoy using this site and it is FREE!

I never thought Lili would enjoy learning cursive writing so much.  She asks almost daily if we will be practicing and learning a new letter.   And she is picking it up quickly and pretty easily.  I wasn't sure if I was introducing it to soon but she was interested so we gave it a go.  Here are her papers from today.

I need to send a big THANK YOU to a friend of ours for telling us about a website to check out.  It is ABCya.com  They have games for Kindergarten through 5th grade so both girls are enjoying it but I am mostly excited for Gabi.  I have been trying all sorts of ideas to get her to practice her letter sounds and they have a letter sound BINGO game that she really enjoys playing and as a reward after that she gets to play a fun game on the site as well.  Great games for practicing skills through games. 

Lili has weekly spelling tests and this year I am using spellcity.com  They have games as well which we have not tried out yet but plan to.  So far I have just been using their sample spelling word lists for 2nd grade and choosing her words for each week from that list.

Another week under our belts.  On my list of ideas is to find some ways to take our school work outdoors.  Not just taking books outside but incorporating learning with outside activity since it won't be long before it is to cold to spend as much time outside.  I'll be saving and posting what we find.

Sharing links and materials we like and use

We spent a lot of time outside of the "classroom" this past week.  We had our first field trip of the year with our home school group.  Also our local library offered two events this week, a story hour and Lego club which the girls loved.  To finish off the week we have a park day with our home school group on Fridays and then we head to the library to get movies for the weekend and books for school the next week and some just for fun reading.  We did manage to get everything on my lesson plan done even with all the extra fun stuff.

On to sharing some resources....

When Lili was learning to read we had great success with a book set called Now I'm Reading.  Lili went through level 1, 2 & 3.  I am hoping Gabi enjoys them just as much since that is what I am getting reading to work on with her.  The fact that it comes with stickers that you get as you read the books on your own should be good incentive.  Gabi LOVES stickers!  I found each set either on amazon or e-bay for a great price.

Lili is reading chapter books now and really likes the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Park.  They are written in a silly way that has kept her attention long enough for her to realize that she really could read those "big kid books".  We recently started our first book from the Magic Tree House series and she really seems to it.  The chapters are quite short which I think is good for starting chapter books since there is a feeling of accomplishment after each chapter.  I am reading the first one and hopefully she will be up for reading the next.  The stories look to be full of adventure and imagination.  Compared to Junie B. Jones I think the Magic Tree House would appeal a little more to both boys and girls.

We are using bookadventure.com again this year.  It is a fun way to keep up with reading comprehension.  Their prizes are not great but we just use the personal incentive program where I get to create certificates for prizes that I will provide as she reaches her goals.  Not all prizes need to be a physical item, some are as simple as quality time together with mommy playing barbies or cooking.

I did some searching for online games and worksheets to use this past week and found some nice sites and thought I'd share them.
  For anyone learning to read music,  I came across these printable worksheets.  I was looking for something to use as a fun refresher.  Lili started playing the recorder and piano last year and I didn't get on her about practicing during the later part of the summer.  I wanted to see how much she remembered before we jump back in.  Her main goal is to be able to play Jingle Bells on both instruments for Christmas this year. 
   We haven't started working on times tables yet but we have started introducing multiplication so I found this site and thought I would save it for later in the year.  Looks like it might be good for testing out times table knowledge.   It is a simple website, more for drills not exactly a game.
   We are working on root word, prefixes and suffixes.  This site was a bit tough for Lili so might be better for older kids.  There are games for learning and practicing root words, suffixes and prefixes.  I am saving it for future use.  I then found this site which was more on her level for the same topics but not as games just printable worksheets.  But this site also has a lot more to offer on many other subjects so I will be back to see what else they have for us to use.  I love having a lot of resources for free printable worksheets.

The 2nd week of school has come to an end.  It was a fun week with beautiful weather and time spent out of the house with friends.   The girls are enjoying school and most days are willing to get things done without much, if any, fuss.  That leaves a happy mom who is ready to put in some work to get the lessons planned for next week.




Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
~ Roger Lewin