What's in Our CD Player

1. Smart Symphonies:  a little something for the baby from Enfamil with the claim that the chosen classical music pieces will "stimulate your baby's brain development".  Not sure about the brain development thing, but it is calming and my older kids enjoy trying to beat each other to identifying the composer of each piece.
2. The Power of One by Israel Houghton:  recommended by a friend, but not particularly my style of music.  The kids love it though and it gets them dancing and acting goofy in the living when it is too cold or late to go outside.
3. Spanish Bop:  Put out by Children's Music World, this collection entertains the kids with Spanish and English versions of songs.  Although Spanish is not one of our official "classes" this year, I try to keep some Spanish CDs and storybooks around as an informal introduction to the language.
4. Mr. Bach Comes to Call:  a title in the classical kids collection that includes lots of factual information about Mr. Bach told in a fictional story that my kids LOVE.  It also includes portions of several of Bach's popular pieces.  My kids are big fans of anything in the Classical Kids collection.
5. Offerings by Third Day:  a little something for Mom when all chaos breaks loose and I just need to throw back my head, sing, and remember that my hope is in Him!

Some Fun Things We've Done Recently (11/8/2010)

Here are a few of the fun things we managed to fit in this week amidst our regular Explode the Code, beginning readers, math workbook, etc.  (Not that those things aren't fun, they just aren't as much fun to write about.)

Some Fun Things We've Done Recently (11/1/2010)

One of the things Logan enjoyed doing this week was sorting the vowels out of our bucket of letters.  This is my child who benefits from a lot of review, and we have been taking a break from our Alpha Phonics studies to solidify some of the basics.  In this activity, I wrote one vowel in the bottom of each of 5 muffin liners.  He then sorted the vowels accordingly and dumped the consonants into the empty holes of the muffin tin.

mathwire.com is one of our favorite go-to web sites when we need a little fun added into our math routine.  The Pumpkin Jumble Game in the October portion of the site gave us some practice with shapes and patterns and also some graphing fun as we tracked the numbers we rolled with our dice on a separate graph.  Another activity we enjoyed from mathwire last week was the Jack-O-Lantern picture my son created from plotting coordinates onto a graph. I knew the Jack-O-Lantern activity was tailor made for Logan when I saw it and he spent two glorious math periods working on his project, which he was extremely proud of in the end.  This would not, however, be a project for a six year old who does not enjoy somewhat detailed, tedious activities.  (I will probably NOT be doing this one with Sierra anytime soon!)

Sierra LOVES to "read".  While she knows her letter sounds, she is still impatiently working on getting down the idea of blending.  I have been working through the book  Wow!  I'm Reading ( Wow! I'm Reading!: Fun Activities to Make Reading Happen (Williamson Little Hands Series) and was fortunate enough to come across this little sentence-making activity for her.  We started out by cutting pictures of things she likes out of magazines and gluing them onto 3x5 cards and labeling them.  I then wrote her sight words that she knows (words like I, and, the, like, see, etc.) onto separate 3x5 cards.  Using the word cards and the picture cars together she can make sentences like "I like jello" or "I see a horse and a doll."  As you can see from her smile, she finds great satisfaction in her new-found ability to write and read sentences!

For a fall science project this week, we read Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, a cute story about a little fox who worries about his favorite tree losing its leaves in the fall.  We then drew pictures of trees in each of the seasons and decorated them appropriately: spring and summer with lots of green and bright colors, fall with fall leaves we gathered from outside and glued on, and winter with lots of silver and blue glitter to recreate the sparkling frost-encrusted tree at the end of the story.  The kids had a lot of fun working together in their tree "masterpieces". 

Logan's mapping activity this week turned into a full-scale neighborhood for his hotwheel cars to race through.  It was a big hit until it was destroyed by those of us walking through and eating in the dining room.  Next time we'll have to find a more out-of-the-way spot to create such large projects.

In the beauty department, our resident fasionista somewhere discovered the idea of these sponge curlers.  (Certainly not from me.  I have a life-long distaste for them stemming from the time my mother made me sleep with them in my hair when I was four or five years old.)  Sierra, of course, found the discomfort quite bearable with the promise of wonderful curly hair in the morning. 

Some other fun things we did this week:

Took a field trip to Underwater World at the Mall of America.  Expensive, but well worth it.  Sharks inches from your head, a room full of illuminated jellyfish with their strange movements, and starfish to touch.  And then, of course, we had to hit LegoLand and the American Girl Doll store.  For lunch at the food court:  McDonald's for Sierra who thoroughly enjoyed her meal and REALLY spicy Thai food for the rest of us who pretended to enjoy our meal amidst sweat and multiple glasses of water. 

Another highlight:  during "recess" one beautiful fall morning, the kids and I went out to play soccer.  Our elderly, but very spry, neighbor came out to join us.  I loved watching my kids interact with her and felt good all over again about our choice to homeschool.

Every day feels like a good day to homeschool.  Somedays I feel overwhelmed and under-qualified, but at the end of the day, when I look at them sleeping in their beds, I am so glad I had the whole day with them!

The Case for Rebellion

THE CASE FOR REBELLION

While driving home from the grocery store today, I had was listening to Dennis Prager (pragerradio.com).  He is a favorite talk show host of mine and always seems to give me something interesting to think about.  Today was his "Ask Me Anything" hour and someone called in with the question of why teens and college students do not revolt against the "system" like they did in the 60's.  After all, isn't that what kids this age are supposed to do?  It turns out that, yes, this is what they are supposed to to do, and, according to Prager, this is a good thing.  I found his answer insightful.

Some Fun Things We've Done Recently

Finishing up another Soccer Season

Play in the Leaves

Made Masks with Auntie and Cousins - perfect for and aspiring ballerina

Dressing Up the Baby Like a Pumpkin

Drawing the Solar System

Science with Candy - What happens when you soak it in water, vinegar, or add baking soda?  What about throwing it in the oven?  Which ones dissolve faster?  This experiment went on and on!

A Typical School Day At Our House

From the start I said I wanted to homeschool because little children, especially boys, are not made for school.  I wanted a different approach for my children that allowed them to explore subjects through good books and hands-on projects.  But I still found myself very drawn to the idea of a schedule to be followed and certain subjects to be covered on a daily rotation.  It was the school teacher in me that didn't easily go away.

Apple Week

We're right in the middle of fall and apple season is in full swing.  This past week we took some time to celebrate the season with some good books, apple snacks, and art projects.

Books we read:

         
Snacks we had:

1. Apples with caramel dip:  This was snack and reading lesson combined.  I created a scavenger hunt for the kids and included as many of their sight words as possible.  I created cards that said things like  "Go to the bath tub." Or "What will Dad wear today?  Look in his closet." After a few of these cards, they discovered the one that led them to take four apples out of the fridge.  A note in the fridge had them wash the apples, and they found the caramel dip in the sink.  The final clue sent them to me for the recipe.  They sliced apples into 8ths, added a tablespoon of caramel to each, and spooned on a few walnut pieces.
2. Apple crisp: a simple recipe allowed us some simple math lessons.  We also managed to slip in a health lesson by discussing cleanliness in the kitchen and the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables.
3. Apples faces:  We spread apple halves with peanut butter and the kids went to town creating faces with dried fruit.
4. Our final snack was one Logan had seen in a magazine awhile back.  He has been so excited for this.  We made them with a cake mix, red frosting, tootsie rolls, and green tootsie rolls rolled out and cut into triangles for leaves.     

 

Projects we did:

1. Collected leaves and made leaf collages.
2. Made homemade cards by stamping apple halves onto cardstock.
3. Colored pictures of leaves.