Our Homeschool Fun

2014-2015 School Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 03:01:00 +0000

2014-2015 Curriculum

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sun, 13 Jul 2014 20:35:00 +0000

Hanna – 9th Grade

Teaching Textbooks Geometry
Apologia Chemistry with lab
Oak Meadow World Geography
Oak Meadow Intro to Lit and Comp (English 1)
The Learnables Spanish 1
Pottery—Throwing class
Greek Mythology (1/2)
Oak Meadow Photography Course (1/2)

Joe – 4th Grade

Teaching Textbooks Math 6
Easy Grammar 4
Evan Moore Daily 6 Trait Writing grade 4
Apologia Flying Creatures
TruthQuest American History for Young Students 1
Handwriting Without Tears Cursive Success
Daily journal writing
extracurricular through community and church

Jack – 1st grade

Singapore Math Standards Edition 1A and 1B
All About Reading level 1 (We are currently on lesson 23 and working through the summer as time permits on completing more lessons. We are working through AAR at Jack’s pace.)
Apologia Flying Creatures
TruthQuest American History for Young Students 1
Handwriting Without Tears grade 1
Daily journal

Jesse – 4K

Kumon math workbooks
Kumon ABC (upper and lowercase) workbooks (this will also be handwriting practice)
AAR Pre-Reading (We will work through this at Jesse’s pace only if he is ready for it. I may end up putting this off until his 5K year if he doesn’t show readiness.)
listen in on history and science with his brothers
read lots and lots and lots of books with me and Jack
finish working through our letter of the week theme—we are on letter R

Year In Review 2013-2014

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 23:48:00 +0000

Jesse – PreK

What worked:

Sensory play, learning games, Letter of the Week theme, preschool packs, printables and arts and crafts

Jesse has learned to recognize the ABC’s by sight, write many letters, write his name and count to 30 this year.

What didn’t work:

AAR Pre-Reading—he just wasn’t ready for this at all. He wanted to use it so badly that it hurt my heart, but it wasn’t time. It’s my desire and hope for him to use it this fall on a regular basis and complete the level by next school year’s end.
Story of the World
Five in a Row

Jack – 5K

What worked:

AAR Pre-Reading and AAR level 1, Handwriting Without Tears, Explode the Code Primers, Singapore Math and art lessons at home.

Jack’s learning took off this year and he learned by leaps and bounds! He has had a wonderful school year! He has learned to write beautifully, count way beyond 100, count by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s, add and subtract simple equations, tell time to the half hour and count coins to make $1. The most exciting thing this school year for Jack has been learning to read!!!! He completed AAR Pre-Reading very quickly and we moved on to AAR level 1. As of last week he has completed through lesson 18 and is doing so well. I look forward to working more on his reading throughout the summer. We will not stop his reading lessons over the summer.

What didn’t work:

Story of the World
Five in a Row

Joe – 3rd grade

What worked:

Daily journaling
Apologia Science
Easy Grammar
Evan Moore Daily Trait Writing
Singapore Math
Handwriting Without Tears Cursive
Art
Piano

What didn’t work:

Real Science Odyssey
Story of the World
Five in a Row

In summary with my boys—they all had a wonderful school year. They enjoyed learning together and became closer in their relationships with one another.

Using Story of the World History proved to be dry and boring for us and we won’t be going this route again. I’m planning something else for next year. I still want to keep them together in the subjects of history and science as long as possible. To that end, we dropped REAL Science Odyssey halfway through the school year—not a good fit for us—and started Apologia Flying Creatures. We are really enjoying reading this together and doing the experiments and hands-on projects in the book. We will continue with this science for the upcoming school year.

Five in a Row is just not going to work—at all. As special as it is, I have never used anything as prep intensive and demanding on me in our homeschool journey, and I can’t put the burden of planning and prepping it on myself anymore. I have to be thankful for the purpose it served and the memories we made while rowing and move on.

Hanna – 8th grade

What worked:

Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 and Algebra 2
Apologia Biology
Advanced Winston Grammar
Write Shop 1
History of US
Computer Applications and Keyboarding
Youth Throwing classes

Honestly, everything I had planned for Hanna to use and complete this year worked well for her and was a good fit. I’ve mapped out her high school courses and hope her first official year of high school will be a happy and smooth one for both of us.

I am thankful for a productive, happy and healthy year of learning with all of my kids. I look forward to our next school year and will share what I plan to use with each of the kids soon.

We are coming up on the start of our 6th year this fall!

*Post inspired by Michelle at Delightful Learning*

Hanna’s High School Road Map

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 20:46:00 +0000

Credits accumulated in 8th grade (2013-2014):

Algebra 1 ✔
Algebra 2 ✔
Biology with lab ✔
Computer Applications (1/2) ✔
Keyboarding (1/2) ✔

Total credits earned: 4

9th grade (2014-2015)

Geometry
Chemistry with lab
World Geography
Intro to Lit and Comp (English 1)
Spanish 1
Pottery—Throwing class
Greek Mythology (1/2)
Photography (1/2)

Total credits earned: 7

10th grade (2015-2016)

Pre-Calculus
Physics with lab
World History
Lit and Comp 2 (Englsih 2)
Spanish 2
PE
Driver’s Ed, Fine Arts or Elective

Total credits earned: 7

11th grade (2016-2017)

Calculus
AP Biology
US History
British or World Lit (English 3)
Spanish 3
Driver’s Ed, Fine Arts or Elective

*Possible dual enrollment TBD*

Total credits earned: 6

12th grade (2017-2018)

US Government and Economics
American or British Lit
Elective or Fine Arts

*Possible dual enrollment TBD*

Total credits earned: 3

Interest led volunteer and service hours will be added. At least one year of LDS Seminary will count as an elective credit not listed above.

Upon graduation an estimated 28 credits will be earned.

South Carolina graduation requirements:

Q is for Quail

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Tue, 27 May 2014 02:31:00 +0000

I’ll be completely honest and say I was not at all excited to put a weekly theme together for the letter Q. So…we just made a couple of Q crafts for Jesse’s ABC book, read several books, did the Q letter maze and pattern block page. I’m ready to get back on board with a weekly theme for letter R—R is for Rocket! I hope to blast off with Jesse soon :). Just taking a short break to enjoy the start of our summer break first.

Bee Trail Farm

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Thu, 15 May 2014 22:59:00 +0000

We visited Bee Trail Farm this week. We’ve been studying about insects in Apologia Flying Creatures lately and are currently reading the chapter about social insects. Honeybees are social insects and Jesse has had lots of questions about how bees make honey, so this was the perfect opportunity to go see in person.

Bee Trail Farm is a local honey farm about a half hour from our house. They are also a homeschool family. The husband, Danny, is a 3rd generation beekeeper. I found out about them through a produce market last year and have had this on my field trip to-do list ever since. Some of our friends met us there and it was a very fun and educational experience. We learned:

about the different types of bees in a hive and what each of their jobs are
the bee life cycle
how you can tell the difference in a queen, worker or drone bee cell when they are larvae waiting to hatch
how a beekeeper can produce queens by removing them as larvae, placing them in a plastic cell, feeding them royal jelly and then introducing them to a new hive once they’ve hatched—this was SO interesting!
how to split a hive to make new, starter hives called nucleus hives
how honey is extracted from frames in a machine using centrifugal force
that you can take your hives from state to state to get different tastes of honey—depending on what kind of flowers the bees get pollen from.
Almond farmers in California have a bee shortage. Each year they contract beekeepers to come and pollinate their almond trees. This was sad to me, but at the same time interesting.
the fact that bees make their cells in the shape of a hexagon to maximize space in the hive. Think of how it would be if a bee made circular cells instead. So much wasted space. This is amazing that these little creatures have this instinct.

We learned much more, but these are the things that stick out most in my mind. I also want to note one of the books we’ve read about bees. We read many, but this one in particular was fascinating to me—Flight of the Honey Bee, by Raymond Huber. This book was so good. Filled with facts I never knew about the ways bees make honey. All of the work that these little bees do is fascinating. The most interesting to me was the fact that they actually spend time fanning the cells with their wings to help nectar turn to honey. Here are a few more pictures I got of this and that. Here is a video that a local news station did on location at Bee Trail.

**There are also some very, very cool extraction process pictures on Bee Trail’s Facebook page. I am going to include some here just for educational purposes (and because they are SO neat!)** The following are not my pictures.

These are the frames with capped cells ready to be scraped and put into the extractor to get honey. And, here they are scraped and ready to be placed in the extractor. Notice how the frames are different colors, one even multicolored? Different flowers produce different colored/tasting honey. This particular honey is made from South Carolina Wildflowers, so you get a wide range of colors in your honey. I think that is really neat! I loved this little field trip! I am obsessed with insects right now since we have immersed ourselves in them and I can’t learn enough!

Jack is Reading!

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Wed, 14 May 2014 02:31:00 +0000

About eight weeks ago Jack read his very first words: I was so excited! Over the next few weeks I thought he would just fly. It didn’t quite happen like that though and I began to be concerned. He was doing the following every single time we’d have a reading lesson:

reversing/confusing the letters b, d, w, m, f, t
reversing whole words—pam/map, pan/nap, pot/top, etc.
not remembering anything at all from one minute to the next and nothing from day to day
couldn’t comprehend how to blend sounds to form a word

Our reading sort of came to a halt while I researched, regrouped, prayed and thought of what I wanted to do to help him. I could tell he was definitely ready to read. He knew everything he needed to progress, he showed all of the reading readiness signs and he wanted to read.

Since All About Reading Pre-Level 1 worked so well and almost instantly for Jack when he couldn’t understand rhyming, I thought I’d finally give in an try All About Reading Level 1 with him. I’d really hoped to avoid buying this program any further. Honestly, not because I don’t like it. I love it! It’s easy to use, all planned out and fun. But…it is SO expensive! I’d hoped Happy Phonics along with the Explode the Code series would be enough for him.

I ordered AAR Level 1 and got it ready for him. Within two weeks of using the program he was taking off and fast! The progress was instant and so was the boost in his confidence level (and mine). This program is worth every single penny and more and I plan to use it for the long haul with both Jack and Jesse. I also plan to add in All About Spelling down the road. We’ve been using AAR Level 1 for eight weeks this Friday and Jack is now blending words quickly and easily, reading well, with confidence and loving it. We are moving through it at his pace. Some lessons take days to cover and others we move through in a single day. I can’t express how happy it makes me to see and hear Jack reading. It is wonderful! He is so proud every time he reads one of the stories in his reader. I’m so excited for him to open up this new world that reading will give him. Here are a couple short video clips of Jack reading.

He’s doing great in Singapore Earlybird Math. Math seems to come pretty easily for him so far. We finished his Kindergarten book last week and are going to use a couple Kumon workbooks on time and money over the summer. He’ll start Singapore 1 this fall.

I am happy with Handwriting Without Tears for him and will continue to use that also. He enjoys it and it’s really helped his handwriting. Jack has had such a good school year. He has learned SO much! I am very proud of his hard work. He’s matured a lot this past year. So much that it amazes me. He’s really a different ‘student’ than he was last year or even six months ago. It makes my heart so happy to see him learning and especially learning to read. I am so thankful I get to homeschool him.

This week with Jesse

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 10 May 2014 00:43:00 +0000

I don’t really have many pictures to share from our last week or so of school. I haven’t taken too many and we’ve just been doing the basics. Trying to spend as much time outside while the weather is pleasant. It will be 100+ degrees very soon and that means only outside if there’s water involved!

I’ve continued to work on pencil grip with Jesse. He’s improved by leaps and bounds. At first he was fisting it. After a short bit—maybe just over a week—of me working with him consistently he drastically improved. After another week, I currently don’t have to remind him to use proper grip—he’s remembering on his own.

I ordered a few Kumon workbooks for him. I’d hoped having his very own school books would make him more enthusiastic about learning to write. It worked! He loves his workbooks and asks to do them. He’s working through Kumon uppercase letters, numbers 1-30 and two of their maze books. Jesse loves writing on the dry erase or chalkboard. He will fill the board up with letters he writes. He likes to copy the letters from our All About Reading tiles that are at the top of the chalkboard. As he picks one and writes it I ask him to tell me what letter it is. He’s getting so good at recognizing the alphabet. I think his handwriting looks great! He’s only been writing letters for two weeks and he’s doing so good! I forgot to take a picture of his full chalkboard—I’ll make sure and do that soon.

He wrote all of these on his own except the large X. He is right handed like everyone else in our family. I thought at least one of the kids would be left handed like me, but nope. He loves any little game I make for him. Here, we are playing ABC Shark. It’s a shark made from a letter size envelope, a googly eye, grey crayon, some yarn for gill slits and felt for the teeth. I’m using Homeschool Creations lowercase ABC cards for the shark to eat. Jesse picks one up, tells me what letter it is and then the shark (me) gobbles it up. He just laughs and laughs. So sweet. I love this learning time with him each day. I am excited about the progress Jesse has made lately and the enthusiasm he’s showing all of a sudden to learn new things. I look forward to teaching him so much more and watching him learn.

**Any ideas for Five in a Row, Before Five in a Row, ABC’s, learning games, arts, crafts, etc. can be found on my Pinterest boards.**

P is for Pirate and Paint!

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 19:58:00 +0000

Jesse completed letter P and we focused on the themes of pirate and paint. We read lots of books about pirates. I found so many fun and cute ones that I’d never read before with Joe or Jack. We also had a lot of fun painting in various ways. I made some paint for Jesse and Jack using liquid watercolors, a little water to dilute it and a generous drop of dish detergent. They used straws to blow bubbles in their paint cups and then place heavy, acrylic paper over the bubbles to pop them and make really neat patterns on the paper. Poor Jesse. He kept accidentally sucking the paint mixture up through the straw and into his mouth. I gave him a bottle of water for rinsing and by the time he was done with the activity the whole bottle was tinted with paint! He never complained and just kept painting away. Another afternoon I mixed up erupting sidewalk chalk paint. This was a “Jesse only” activity—I wanted to do something with and just for him because lately I feel like he’s been getting the short end of the stick when it comes to school time. I’d had this on my list to make for him for months and he loved it. I love this picture with his chalk designs surrounding his sweet little legs and feet. He made some cool patterns too. I can’t say I’m up for making the messy bubble paint again, but the sidewalk chalk is a keeper! Jesse couldn’t get enough of it—especially the spraying. Mostly what I’ve been working on with Jesse right now is pencil grip, letter recognition and counting to twenty. Other than that my main focus is just trying to read aloud tons to both he and Jack. And, letting him play…lots…while he still can.

I used the Wet, Dry, Now You Try method on our chalkboard with him. He thought it was awesome. This was something he asked to do all week long. I made an ABC ISpy activity using cardstock, scrapbook stickers, an ABC printable and dot markers. He had to find a letter on the egg, try to name it and then find and dot it on the ABC printable. This was pretty hard/tiring for him and I helped a good bit towards the end. I’ll repeat this for sure every couple weeks until he masters it. I made egg carton ABC’s over a year ago for Jack. It’s just an egg carton with all of the letters of the alphabet written in the cups. You place any sort of thing you’d like inside the carton and close it. (I use a bell because the boys like to hear it jingle.) Next, shake the carton a bit, open it and guess the letter that the bell lands on. Jack liked this simple activity when he was learning the letter names and Jesse likes it just as much. Once he’s mastered letter names we’ll keep playing it using letter sounds instead. Jesse used ice cream cone printables numbered 1-20 and put them in order each day. I also used these with Jack. I love having things like this that I can quickly pull out and use again! We'll move on to letter Q next. I’m not sure exactly when. I think we may take a break from letter of the week and just do workbook, printable type things for a while first. Maybe enjoy the outdoors before it becomes scorching hot. Plus, the letter Q is very uninteresting to me right now when I think of themes :). But…we sure had a whole lot of fun with letter P!

Letter O, Owl Pellets and Hopscotch

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Wed, 09 Apr 2014 02:43:00 +0000

Jesse just wrapped up a couple weeks of Letter O in preschool. Since we are studying birds in Apologia Flying Creatures and owl starts with the letter O, I thought it would be fun to study about owls a bit with the little boys. I loved learning about them. We read some neat nonfiction books about owls, watched videos on YouTube and listened to different owl calls.

Jesse’s favorite book by far was Owl Babies. He asked me to read it at least once a day and smiled so big each time. He and Jack made a picture based on the book. They turned out so cute. This is Jesse’s:Jesse made a couple O for Owl crafts for his ABC binder. I ordered owl pellets for any of the kids that wanted to dissect them. I got big NO’s from Hanna and Jack. Joe and Jesse were all for it. Joe was so precise with his and he found a lot of little bone pieces. Jesse had a blast taking his apart. He worked on it for almost an hour. I think this is the sweetest picture of Jesse. Looking so intently at his pellet with those extra large gloves on his tiny hands. He had such a fun time with this activity. I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to actively teach Jesse the ABC’s, letter sounds and how to write. He still has a very short attention span and likes to do things that keep him moving, so I’m always scouring Pinterest for hands-on preschool things to do with him. I finally carried through with one and it was a hit. Both he and Jack enjoyed it. I made an ABC hopscotch. I called out a number, had them take turns jumping to a letter and then telling me the letter name (Jesse); the name and sound (Jack). One last picture to share of Jack playing Boggle, Jr. He is learning so much this year and I love watching him progress. It makes me so happy to see all of my kids learning.

Homeschool Wrap-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 29 Mar 2014 17:20:00 +0000

We have been having fun in our homeschool. I feel like there’s so much going on with each of the kids that I’m enjoying lately. Hanna has always declared history as her favorite subject, but this year she’s decided she also loves science. She says she’s learned a lot in Biology this year and has enjoyed it much more than she thought she would. She studies so hard for her tests, has gotten great grades on all of them and is writing up amazing lab reports. This week she dissected her first specimen—an earthworm :). I can’t say she was thrilled to do the dissection, but she endured, did it well and Jesse and I thought it was lots of fun. Joe started Apologia Flying Creatures two weeks ago and we are all surprisingly loving it! I was so hesitant to start a structured science with him before upper elementary, but I felt strongly that he needed it. I am reading it aloud to the three boys and they are all listening intently. Jack and Jesse have so many questions as we read and they are looking at birds all the time when we are outside. Joe is able to do the experiments on his own and we watch. This, along with keeping his notebook, are giving him confidence and I like seeing him grow in this way.Joe is still keeping a daily journal. Lately, he’s into writing about his Lego men. I know there are a few errors in his journal entry. I don’t make him edit his journal. It’s his chance each day to write freely and be creative without having to worry about anything else. The last two weeks Jesse’s theme was Letter N for nest. We made more than our usual share of letter crafts. There were so many cute ones that I couldn’t pass up. I love making these precious keepsakes with the kids. We went to the zoo and to Fort Sumter over the past two weeks. I’ve wanted to take the kids to the zoo for a while and we finally made it. Hanna has been studying the Civil War period and asked if we could go to Fort Sumter. Jamie hadn’t been since he was in elementary school. The rest of us had never been and were excited to make this trip. It was a fun day. We learned a lot and enjoyed being in Charleston. Jack has been learning by leaps and bounds and it’s so exciting! He read his first words this past week. I can’t express how happy and proud I am for him! I can’t wait for him to be able to read books. He wants to badly and I know a whole new world will open up for him once he can. I’m using Happy Phonics, Explode the Code and lots of games right now. I ordered All About Reading level 1 for him. I think he’s ready for it. Pre-Level 1 was such a help for me teaching him his letter sounds, so I think using this program for the long haul will be in his best interest and a help to me as his teacher. In math Jack is learning to tell time, add, subtract and place value. He’s so bright mathematically and learns math quickly. I know 6+8 doesn’t equal 11 in the picture below :). He painted a beautiful picture of a bird. He used oil pastels and watercolors to draw and paint the bird. Next, he painted a piece of watercolor paper different colors. Then, I cut out the bird for him and he glued it to the paper. It turned out great. I used a lesson from Deep Sparkle Art. Jack got a volcano making kit from his Aunt Jennifer for his birthday. He was very anxious to make it. He was able to do all of the steps on his own and he had such a good time. He did awesome! He and Jesse had so much fun with it.

I love to see Jack smile. I still have a couple weeks to document from our homeschool and I can’t wait to record it all. We have been having fun studying birds, learning to read, letter O and owls.

Mexico, Cars and Rainbows

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 02:26:00 +0000

(3/3/14 – 3/14/14) We studied the country of Mexico for two weeks. I’ve been letting the boys choose different countries they want to learn about and it was Jack’s turn, so Mexico was his choice. I have no idea why he chose it and never could get an answer out of him, but I’d love to know!

We were doing all of our regular studies—reading, grammar, science, history and math—while we studied about Mexico, so we just covered the basics. We…

located Mexico on the map
read about Mexico’s flag, natural resources, landforms, native animals and the monarch butterfly
briefly read about the Mayans and Aztecs
talked about Mexican food
read about Day of the Dead from the book, Children Like Me
studied the Mexican artists’ Diego Rivera and Frida Frahlo—their life and love story is so touching. I loved learning about both of these artists. Frida had such a hard life and Diego had to be a special person to take care of her during their marriage.

Joe wrote a brief report on Mexico and Diego Rivera. He completed an art project based on the piece Mother’s Helper by Diego. He chose it and he really did a great job. One of the books we read about Mexico was centered around simple machines. I thought it would be fun for Joe to build a simple machine of some sort. Months ago I came across a balloon powered Lego car and was just waiting for an opportunity to tie it into a school lesson. This was it! He was excited about it and up for the challenge. He spent a few days on it—changing up this and that, tinkering with it, trying to make it go farther and farther. On day one it went 1 ft. By the end of the week it was traveling 15 ft! Jesse and Jack loved watching him with it and so did I. This was fun!

Jamie helped me make a rain gutter race track for the little boys. I numbered some of their cars from 1-50 and put them in a couple of bins. They had to choose a car, tell me the number on it and then write the number on paper before they could race their cars. The winner got to put a foil star on their number. They raced cars all week long! Joe even got into it with them. Jack loves adding and subtracting and is so good at it. I had him do domino adding and subtracting this week and he enjoyed it. I made rainbow foam for Jesse just for fun. He had a blast making a mess, squishing it through his fingers and washing his cars and farm animals in it. And that wraps up the highlights of the last two weeks!

**For links to all that we did check out my Mexico board on Pinterest for all above and more!**

Katy and the Big Snow (Five in a Row)

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 01 Mar 2014 02:21:00 +0000

We rowed Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton over the last two weeks. We had so much fun!

We learned about the following:

counting by fives
measurement; using a ruler to measure in inches
chemical reactions
the water cycle; what makes it snow/rain/etc.
traffic signs
analyzing and creating a character in a story
personification
community helpers and their importance in running a city

None of us had ever read this book before and we all enjoyed it. Even though Joe is getting a bit old for picture books, they make great resources for in depth studies and certain writing tools he will need as he gets older. For example, he was able to analyze the character of Katy in the story, learn about personification as applied to her character, create his own character and write his own story.

He chose to create a character based on a Lego man—of course! He did a good job on his analysis of Katy, citing examples from the book. He also did great on his new character and story. Jack is still plugging away in his ETC primers. He’s doing so good. I have him do sound matching activities throughout the week for reinforcement. Homeschool Creations’ consonant cards are a definite favorite!Joe focused on the water cycle and weather for science. He was able to complete several small tasks and projects in these areas to complete and receive his Cub Scout Weather Belt Loop. Among these tasks were making a poster of the water cycle and using a weather station for a week to observe and record our weather, precipitation, etc. Jack, Jesse and I read Me on the Map to help put into perspective ‘our place in the world’—our house, street, neighborhood, city, state, country, continent, planet Earth. Jack worked on a fun geography craftivity throughout the week to reinforce what we read in the book. The first week of our row Jesse’s letter of the week was “M”. He and Jack used M&M’s to count (Jesse) and count by fives (Jack). Jesse made a letter M poster for his ABC binder—M is for big machines. M is for melting…the boys melted ice with salt. M is for magic, melting snowmen…this was SO MUCH FUN! First, I made a batch of snow dough for the boys. They each made a snowman. This dough feels so good—it’s cold and soft and so easy to mold. We all liked it lots. I don’t care for cloud dough at all, once was enough, but this dough will be a go to—definitely a keeper recipe. After the boys played with the dough for a while and made their snowmen, it was time for the awesome part—more chemical reactions and squeezy bottles :). I gave them each a squeezy bottle full of vinegar to magically melt their snowmen. They loved watching the snowmen just melt away leaving an icy cold, foamy ooze they could play in. They would search for the snowmen parts in the ooze, make another and do it all over again. I seriously used about 3/4 of a gallon jug of vinegar on this day and made multiple batches of snow dough. Jesse was so funny—at first he was sad at the thought of melting his snowman and just watched his brothers. It didn’t take too long though and he was ready to join in. Jack was the most fun watching as he got his hands messy. He was just so happy! Joe was no doubt humming a tune and/or whistling in this picture. He is always doing one or the other. Even when he’s concentrating hard on something challenging he’s usually humming or whistling. On another day I made a batch of snow paint for Jack and Jesse. They always love this paint. It’s been one of their favorites for several years now. It’s so easy to make and smells so good. We made crystal snowflakes from Borax and boiling water. We did this a couple years ago and it was a hit. The boys enjoyed it just as much this time. We learned about all the different traffic signs, what each of them means, and then one afternoon after dropping Hanna off at a class the boys and I went on a traffic sign scavenger hunt. Jack and Joe graphed the signs to see which one they saw most often.

We talked about what it takes to effectively run a city, what/who makes up a city, etc., just like in the book. Hanna helped me use painter’s tape one night to make a grid for the boys. It was ready and waiting for them the next morning to create their own Geopolis. They looooved this! They made many Geopolis’s over the course of the week/weekend! Joe was so sweet to help his brothers off and on setting things up and giving suggestions. These two weeks of learning were filled with fun and it was such a happy time. I looked forward to each day and each activity I had planned. The boys are at such fun ages and I love seeing them excited about learning together.

Ideas and Inspiration we used while rowing Katy and the Big Snow:

Valentine’s Themed Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sun, 16 Feb 2014 02:40:00 +0000

The week of Valentine’s Day besides our usual school work we also spent a little time doing some fun, themed activities.

The boys made Valentine’s to give to friends, family and neighbors. They had so much fun making them and they turned out super cute. Hanna taught Joe some basics on the sewing machine for his. When he was finished he bluntly let us know that he had no interest in furthering his machine skills :). Jack had to sign his name on his and insert glow sticks. He was super impressed with his feat of writing his name on 20+ Valentines :). Jesse’s Valentines were stuffed with…chocolate…what else! They were perfect for him! The kids made pretzel treats for us to enjoy on Valentine’s Day. It’s so hard to not eat like a million of these! They are super simple, but so so good. Jack did patterning and addition with candy hearts. Jesse counted out read beads into hearts I drew on paper. Each heart had a specific number written inside it for him to count out.We did an experiment with candy hearts to see what solution dissolved them the best. This was just ok. Neither the boys nor I were like “ooooh or aaahhh” over it, but it was a fun activity for Valentine’s Day. Jack and Jesse enjoyed making play doh cupcakes. The boys had some fizzy fun with baking soda and vinegar. This kept them busy for a long while. I wasn’t sure if Joe would want to join his brothers in this activity, but he kept at it longer than they did. You can tell from the looks on each of their faces that they just loved it. It was a fun week. We all enjoyed the extra things we did to make Valentine’s Day special.

Ideas and activities we used for our Valentine’s Day fun:

Homeschool Happenings

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 04:36:00 +0000

I wanted to share a little of how the boys—Jack and Joe—have been doing in school. I need to document some highlights from Hanna’s too, but that will have to be another time. I share what Jesse does pretty regularly with his letters of the week, but the other three don’t get as much documentation. We’ve all had a good school year so far. I’ve enjoyed it so much and it’s been a fun year too.

I love seeing them all in the school room working together. It makes me happy. We spend a lot of time in this room during the week and I am thankful to have it. It’s my favorite room in our house. Week before last I made puff paint for Jack and Jesse. They loved it! It was a huge hit and I’m sure we’ll do it again…and again. I LOVE the look on Jack’s face in the picture below. He had so much fun with this paint and he looks so happy. He was! He is such a happy, sweet boy. I’ve called him Happy Jack since he was a young toddler and he truly lives up to that name. Joe is doing good in all of his school. He’s moving along well in each area and never complains—I keep waiting on this to change, but I sure hope it never does! He finished his cursive book right before Christmas and his cursive writing looks so nice. (This is one of his daily journal entries.)Joe has enjoyed pulling out our Snap Circuits the last few weeks. He’s completed all of the projects in the set we have. I need to order him another one. Jack and Jesse love watching him put them together. It’s been great for all three of them. Another picture with Jack just so happy! Jack has done so well with his school work. He just completed Explode the Code book A and we’ve already begun book B. Jack loves to make up stories. He often ‘writes’ these stories down himself and then draws pictures about them. Sometimes he asks one of us to write the story down as he narrates it and then he’ll draw pictures to go with it. I all of a sudden thought what a good idea it would be to have him tell me the stories, I write them down and then he can copy them onto paper himself. I wish I’d remembered this form of narration and copywork weeks ago. He loves it! He makes books and is so proud of them. He even set up a store in his bedroom, priced his books, made a storefront sign and sells them to us. He will only take real money :). This is sweet and I just love it. He is so creative and has always had such a big, wonderful imagination. Jack insists on doing a letter poster and animal craft each week just like Jesse does. It makes me smile, because he’s probably a little old for the letter poster, but I think it makes him feel special to make one each week. I’m keeping them in a binder for him along with the craft pages he completed from All About Reading Pre-Level 1. He loves pulling his binder out and looking at what he’s done so far this school year. Math is the subject I’m least excited about with both Jack and Joe. I like Singapore, but it seems to throw in too much all at once and then moves super fast. And all of the word problems—oh my goodness, there are so many in Joe’s book this year. I’ve had to slow down the math for both the boys this year because like I mentioned above, it just moves too fast. They are getting it, but it’s definitely challenging. As for Jack’s Kindergarten math, I’m still using Singapore, but more for scope and sequence and I’ve been making lots of hands-on activities instead of just using the workbook. He likes this a lot better and so do I. He was starting to dread math and now he says it’s so fun that it can’t be math—his exact words!

This picture is not one of our ‘fun’ math days, but even pulling out the connect cubes helps liven it up and keeps him focused when we’re having a math workbook day. I’m pleased with what we’ve done so far this year. The boys are working hard and they enjoy their school time. We are really having fun together and they are learning. I can’t ask for more than that.

Another Celebrated Dancing Bear (FIAR) and Russia

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 21:33:00 +0000

The last two weeks we studied about Russia while rowing Another Celebrated Dancing Bear by Gladys Scheffrin-Falk.

We studied about the following:

Russia
Tchaikovsky
Siberian tigers
telling time (Jack)

Learning resources we used and enjoyed: The boys enjoyed watching several videos on YouTube. One about brown bears in the Russian circus since this related directly to our Five in a Row selection. We also watched some about Russia in general and Russian folk dancing . We especially liked seeing and learning about the history of Saint Basil’s Cathedral.

Joe drew his own version of Saint Basil's Cathedral using a lesson from Art Projects for Kids. I think it turned out great! He really enjoys drawing. We learned about Russian currency—how it looks, how it’s different in monetary value in comparison to US currency. The boys have become intrigued with tigers since learning about them during our Italy study. When they found out that Siberian tigers live in the Russian taiga they (especially Joe) wanted to know more. We turned this into an opportunity to research the taiga and the Siberian tiger. We read books from the library, pulled books from our own shelves and watched more videos on YouTube. We spent a lot of time reading and watching—this is what fascinated the boys most about Russia. (The BBC Documentaries were most interesting to us.)

In Another Celebrated Dancing Bear dance lessons are given on particular days of the week and at a particular time. Jesse is obsessed with asking every single day, “What day is it?”, or, “What day will it be tomorrow?”. I sang some days of the week songs with him to encourage memorization and he thought it was fun.

This was the perfect chance to introduce telling time to Jack. We made a clock together and put it on the wall in front of his desk. This clock has been such a hit! The fact that Jack helped make it has really helped his enthusiasm for learning to tell time. He says he eventually wants to move it to his bedroom—so sweet. Right now I’m working with him on telling time to the hour and counting by fives. He got telling time to the hour the first day. The rest of the week we practiced on the clock and with some worksheets I printed for him. It is going to take a while to count by fives, but he’s eager to learn how and I have some games we can play to help move it along.

We learned about Tchaikovsky, read The Nutcracker and watched some of the ballet. Joe read about him on his own and wrote a report. We also located Russia on the map, read books about Russia’s landscape, national resources, culture, etc. We briefly touched on Russia’s czarist history. Joe read, researched and wrote more at his grade level about Russia as well. We enjoyed our time with Russia. It’s hard to wrap up one of these units and move forward with another. Once you get going there just seems to be more and more you uncover and want to dig deeper into. I’m not sure where we will go next. First, we plan to enjoy some Valentine’s Day fun.

Inspiration and ideas we used during our studies can be found at:

Five in a Row Volume 1 manual
Homeschool Creations’ currency printable
Confessions of a Homeschooler report and flag template from Expedition Earth
The Notebooking Fairy composer report printable
Art Projects for Kids
Creekside Learning’s homemade clock
posts about Russia from Mama Smiles’ Geography series *here* and *here*

Letter L

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Fri, 07 Feb 2014 19:04:00 +0000

This week Jesse moved on to letter L. We focused on L is for lion and lemur.

Letter L, ABC Find It: Lemur craft from Learn.Create.Love: Adding letter L to our ABC poster—This week I got out some glitter glue tubes for Jesse to decorate his letter of the week. He loves anything that he can squeeze, so this was a huge hit! He looks so happy in this picture. I love his expression—it’s precious. And, he has bed head—which I also happen to adore. Letter L lion page for his ABC binder:

Letter K

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 04:57:00 +0000

Letter K was for koala. I’m not doing a whole lot for Jesse’s themed letter of the week. We read a few books for the letter, he makes a letter poster for his ABC book, he usually paints an animal craft from Love.Create.Learn and that’s about it. If a preschool pack happens to fit the letter theme I print it, but I usually tie the rest of his activities each week into whatever book we are rowing/topic we are studying with Joe and Jack. It’s just easier that way. He still enjoys his letter theme, no matter how simple, so I’ll continue to stick with it. Some work samples from Jesse and Jack from the week. There isn’t that much that Jack does to put up on the bulletin board, but he really likes to have something displayed since Jesse does, so I try to put up some of his things too. (I’ll elaborate on Jack in a separate post.) Letter K Cut and Paste from Homeschool Creations. Q-Tip painting from 1+1+1=1. Jesse and I are working on a textured ABC poster—original idea from Meaningful Mama. I thought it looked like so much fun and something Jesse and I would enjoy making together each week as he focuses on a new letter. He’s enjoying it so far. We made A-I all at once since we’d already covered those letters. He asks me each day if we can ‘do the new letter’ so I know he likes it. We’ve added K and L since taking this picture.I have fun doing these little crafts and activities with Jesse. I love planning them and having them to look forward to each week.

Letter J

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Mon, 27 Jan 2014 21:50:00 +0000

For letter J our theme was J is for Jellyfish and Jesse. We read a few jellyfish books, crafted and Jesse made a page for his ABC book. He worked along in the Ocean Preschool pack from Homeschool Creations too. He’s not complaining anymore about seatwork and for the first time ever he asked for it this week! He actually completed all of the pages from it that are at his ability level. That’s huge for Jesse. I was proud of him! Since Jesse’s name starts with the letter J, I thought this would be a good week for him to practice learning to write it. Ever since I’d seen this really cool name activity from Happy Hooligans using Elmer’s glue, salt and watercolors I wanted to do it. It was perfect! Jack wanted to join in too. Both boys loved it and asked to do it again the very next day. *Jesse worked on letter J the last week of our row with Papa Piccolo. Jack continues to move along in the ETC Primers, Happy Phonics and Singapore Earlybird Math.*

The Clown of God and Papa Piccolo (FIAR)

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 25 Jan 2014 22:07:00 +0000

We spent almost three weeks rowing The Clown of God by Tomie de Paola and Papa Piccolo by Carol Talley.

We studied the following:

Italy
the Renaissance
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Marco Polo
cats—particularly big cats because that’s what the boys chose for our science topic
wisdom of the elderly, learning from and respecting the elderly
the color wheel and color mixing
water reflections in art

Learning resources we used and enjoyed:

A sampling of the books we read:Joe and I thoroughly enjoyed watching the following show on YouTube about Venice Italy, which is the setting for Papa Piccolo. After watching it (Travel With Kids: Venice, Italy) I wanted to go to Venice SO bad! It looks amazing!

We learned about Renaissance artists, food, clothing, markets, entertainment and architecture. The Clown of God is set in Renaissance times and is full of illustrations that are from that time period and show all of the above. It made for great discussions and the boys asked a lot of questions.

We went to our local art museum to see Renaissance art pieces up close and personal. This was such a fun learning experience. The boys enjoyed it much more than I thought they would. I found a cool art history blog through google search a couple days before we actually went. There was great info on it about visiting an art museum with kids, as well as info about some of the Renaissance artists we were studying. Joe told me this was his favorite piece.Look at Jesse with his arms folded. He looks like he’s really standing there studying the art as serious as can be.Jack told me this was his favorite piece because he liked baby Jesus in it.Joe completed a Venetian architecture drawing. It took him a few days to finish it. I think it turned out beautifully. He did a really good job. While Joe worked on his art project, I did a color wheel and mixing activity with Jack and Jesse. I did this same thing with Joe when he was younger and it was so much fun. I thought the little boys would enjoy it too—they did! We talked about the three primary colors first, what the color wheel is, a little about what happens when you mix primary colors together, etc. Then, I gave them their color wheels, colored water and pipettes so they could see for themselves everything I had explained to them. After we finished the “lesson” part of this activity I let Jack and Jesse just play around with the water and pipettes while I helped Joe with math. I was so glad when I saw Jack’s wheel I didn’t immediately say something like he’d made mud. The first thing he said to me was, “Look, I made army green!” He was so proud of the color he made on his own. Army green is a pretty sophisticated color combo :). Not pictured—We talked about how we should give respect to, and value the wisdom and knowledge of elderly people. How they have a lot to share and offer to us if we take the time to slow down and listen to them. I gave the example of Joe’s and Jack’s piano teacher who is an elderly lady. How they are both learning so much from her—gifts she is giving them that will last their entire lives through her knowledge, wisdom and experience. The boys made her thank you cards and we gave them to her along with homemade cookies we baked when they went to piano that week.

Joe read several nonfiction books on his own and compiled reports on what he read about:

Marco Polo
Leonardo da Vinci—I did not know anything about Leonardo before this row. I ate up all that we read about him. He was fascinating, so very intelligent, compassionate, generous. I had no idea he invented so many things either.
Michelangelo
the country of Italy

These three weeks of learning were so much fun for me. I loved all that we learned and treasure the memories we made together. The boys were excited for school each day and that made me so happy.

Inspiration and Ideas we used during our studies can be found at:

Unplug Your Family – misc. ideas, books, etc.
Mama Jenn – color wheel activity
Venetian architecture art project
Five in a Row volume 1 manual

I is for Ice Cream

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:59:00 +0000

Jesse loves ice cream, so I for Ice Cream was an easy choice!

We read ice cream books, he made an I is for Ice Cream page for his ABC book I’m putting together for him this year, worked on pages from Homeschool Creation’s ice cream preschool pack and crafted with printables from Learn Create Love’s website.The grand finale was going to Marble Slab for ice cream Friday afternoon. Jesse was as happy as can be with this end to his week all about ice cream.

Letters F through H

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Fri, 10 Jan 2014 22:03:00 +0000

We had the following themes for letters F-I:

F is for fire, fireman, firetruck.

G is for goldfish.

H is for hippo—I forgot to take a picture of Jesse’s letter H hippo.

I’m not posting any pics or doing lengthy posts to catch up on these letters. I just wanted to have them noted here as being covered.

Letter E

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 20:24:00 +0000

Letter E was about elephants! We read elephant books, made elephant crafts and made elephant toothpaste for a simple, fun science experiment. These are mine and Jesse’s handprints. When I saw this elephant craft I knew I wanted to make it as a keepsake. It’s just so sweet.

Dogs, Donuts and Letter D (10/14 through 10/18 )

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sat, 19 Oct 2013 20:26:00 +0000

I am having so much fun planning Jesse’s preschool each week. I knew I wanted to do donuts for the letter D with Jesse because he is a donut lover and our Krispy Kreme King! However, I’d completely forgotten about the Laura Numeroff book If You Give a Dog a Donut until a friend reminded me. As soon as she mentioned it I knew that was our book for letter D week! So…onto our week of letter D fun—and it was a blast!

We read books about dogs and donuts. Believe it or not there are a few books about donuts—Jesse’s favorite book of the week was The Case of the Missing Donut, by Alison McGhee. This was such a cute book and funny too. Of course, he also enjoyed our If You Give A…book.

I used the Dogs preschool/5K pack from Homeschool Creations and a printable for the Laura Numeroff book throughout the week. Jack and Jesse were both able to use the Homeschool Creations’ printables and enjoyed them.

Jesse’s Letter D dog for his ABC book.Dog Bone Addition with Jack. Jesse’s dog with a donut.I made cloud dough for Jack and Jesse. This was the first time I’ve ever made the cloud dough. I’m so glad I had them play with it outside because it is super messy! They did enjoy it and thankfully it was easy to sweep up. They made little cloud dough donuts and donut holes. I found a recipe for homemade apple donut hole muffins. I knew these would be perfect for Jesse and I to make together. I love having him help me bake. He says the sweetest things while we work together and I can tell he just feels so special. I love seeing him lick the mixer paddle! He does it every time and I think it’s so cute! If his brothers and Hanna knew he did this they would not think it was so cute—our neighbors wouldn’t either :).The muffins were delicious! This is a recipe I will definitely keep on hand to make each fall. Everyone enjoyed them.We couldn’t pass up a perfect opportunity to visit Krispy Kreme! I don’t think Jamie or the kids ever get enough of it. The kids love going to the big one downtown where they can actually see the donuts being made. It’s pretty neat. I like watching the process too. This was such a fun theme. I enjoyed planning it for Jesse and doing all the things together throughout the week. Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing enough with him academically and get down on myself or rethink my ‘plan’ for his preschool. Then, I remember that my ultimate goal for him right now is for him to enjoy all that we do together and honestly just have fun with me—create happy moments with me. If that’s all I accomplish this year with him, it will be more than worth it.

I love you, Jesse, and enjoy this special time each day with you so very much!

Cupcakes, Cats and Caterpillars (9/30 through 10/04)

noreply@blogger.com (Susana) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 02:51:00 +0000

This week in our preschool the focus was the letter “C” with a theme of cupcakes. I geared Jesse’s activities around the book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake using the preschool pack from Spell Outloud. Jesse had so much fun with all we did together. He made play doh cupcakes, painted, counted cupcakes and we made real cupcakes. He thought this little cat and cupcake counting activity was the best. I would read the poem that went along with it (I actually sung it) and he followed along with me feeding the correct amount of cupcakes to the cat. He grinned from ear to ear the whole time. I think we played this about 100 times. My kitchen buddy helping to make cupcakes. I love this little boy so much. Jack has learned to write all of the uppercase letters now in his HWOT workbook. We have moved on to lowercase letters. He’s learning them along with his daily reading lessons in AAR. (We are on lesson 31.) I’m using the Singapore Earlybird math along with lots of hands-on activities that I find from various websites and books for Jack this year. He enjoys the activities much more. Honestly the Singapore Earlybird is pretty simplistic and I’m mainly using it as a guide. In my opinion, there’s quite a jump from Earlybird to first grade Singapore.

Cupcake addition from Kids’ Soup: I’m using Write Shop 1 this year with Hanna. I’ll be honest and say it is pretty teacher intensive. However, I think it is thorough, easy to teach (even though it takes time and a good bit of one on one) and Hanna is learning a lot. She’s learning the how’s and why’s of writing and editing. I am already seeing a difference in her writing and we are only eight weeks into the program. I am glad I chose it over IEW. I had both of them over the summer and looked through them trying to decide for weeks. After reading an online comparison of the two I chose Write Shop and I’m pleased with my decision.

Write Shop pre-writing activity.Create an Insect (from Homeschool Share) and journal entries from Joe. I love seeing what the boys journal about each day. Joe does his all on his own, of course, but I write Jack’s for him as he narrates it to me after he’s drawn his picture.The kids created some arts and crafts this week related to Halloween and, Jesse, the letter C. Joe worked on a Sugar Skull project from Deep Sparkle Art. Jack made a jack-o-lantern—lesson also from Deep Sparkle Art. Jesse painted a cat from Learn, Create, Love. Hanna worked on making Halloween decorations and foam haunted houses for her room. Our butterflies hatched early in the week. We kept them to watch and feed for a couple days and then the kids set them free outside. We are on Fall break next week and then start back up with letter D, a Magic School Bus centered science unit and a history study on Ancient Rome.