Our Homeschool Fun

Truman’s Aunt Farm, FIAR

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:14:00 +0000

(5/7 – 5/11) We had fun rowing Truman’s Aunt Farm by Jama Kim Rattigan. This is a fun book! The boys enjoyed it, laughed and asked lots of questions as we read it throughout the week.

During our row we focused on and learned about:

homophones
repetition in text
how to write a friendly letter
list making
ants, their life cycle, types of ants and their jobs, the way a colony operates
the letter ‘A’ and ants in our Preschool

Preschool was all about ‘A’ is for Ants. Jack worked on a preschool pack and made a picnic style letter ‘A’ poster for his ABC Book. Jesse busied himself with Connect Four and miscellaneous learning toys. All of the boys like playing with the cash register. Joe learned how to write a friendly letter to a relative just as Truman did in the book. He chose to write and mail his letter to his Great Grandma. I taught him the parts of a letter and format for writing a block style friendly letter. He enjoyed learning how to do this and wrote several more letters as the week progressed ‘for fun’ :-).Truman’s Aunt farm is all about homophones. We discussed what they are and I printed a few homophone worksheets for Joe for reinforcement and practice.

In the book Truman serves the Aunts tiny hot dogs, jelly rolls and rice pudding. I made a lunch of this for the kids. The highlight of the week was our ant farm. The kids have all had fun observing the ants. I have too. I never knew ants worked so hard and depended on one another so much. Joe took notes, drew pictures and answered some questions I wrote up for him as he watched the ants each day.

Hanna was awesome getting them into the farm. I was afraid it was going to be a disaster like our ladybug fiasco a few years back. Even after putting the ladybugs into the fridge for a short bit they were still flying all over the place and we ended up with a house full of ladybugs and none in our habitat, lol. The ants were a breeze! Joe made an ant colony of his own from paper, raisins, rice grains, noodles and mini chocolate chips. He enjoyed doing this a whole lot and it turned out really neat. This was a fun project. We enjoyed our time with Truman. I think I learned more about ants than the boys did!

Currently rowing The Bee Tree. Up next, Climbing Kansas Mountains.

Inspiration, ideas and printables for Truman’s Aunt Farm can be found at:

Song of the Water Boatman, FIAR style

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Tue, 08 May 2012 05:05:00 +0000

(4/30 – 5/4) We focused our studies this past week on Song of the Water Boatman by Joyce Sidman. This is a book full of well written pond life poems. The poems paint vivid images of pond critters from big to very small. The illustrations are well done and add much to the book. Each poem is accompanied by a non-fiction description of the poem specific pond life. I liked this feature a lot. Joe loves poetry, so I chose this book with him in mind. I thought spring would be a perfect time to do a pond unit and thought studying it through poetry would be something new and fun. We ‘rowed’ this book and treated it just like a Five in a Row selection even though it wasn’t.

We learned about:

alliteration, repetition, haikus, stanzas
many new vocabulary words in this book!
sharing—we read the Value Tale of The Mayo Brothers
life cycle of the frog
spring peepers, diving beetles, nymphs, wood ducks
pond life in general
letter ‘F’ for frog was our preschool focus

We studied the life cycle of the frog all week.

I printed these pictures of a frog from each stage of it’s life cycle from Kids’ Soup…

…and each morning we would sing the following song to the tune of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ as we transformed our tadpole into a frog. The two little boys loved this!

Frog just laid a little egg,
A little egg, a little egg.
Frog just laid a little egg,
And now a tadpole is hatched.

Tadpole looks just like a fish,
Like a fish, like a fish.
Tadpole looks just like a fish,
It swims and starts to grow.

Tadpole now is growing legs,
Growing legs, growing legs.
Tadpole now is growing legs,
Its body’s getting big.

Tadpole’s grown into a frog,
Into a frog, into a frog.
Tadpole’s grown into a frog,
Now watch it leap and hop!

We made a frog life cycle book—also from Kids’ Soup. (Pictured below is Joe’s.) We did a cool experiment from our Life Cycles Wood Frog book about frog’s eggs. I put couscous in warm water for a few minutes, then drained it. Next, I gently mixed the couscous with an egg white. This simulated frog eggs in the protective jelly. The boys each felt and described it. Joe and Jesse were all for this. Jack wasn’t up for it and thought it looked too yucky to touch. Joe drew a picture and made a word bank about the eggs and then used it to write a descriptive paragraph. *He actually finished this on another piece of paper and I realized I didn’t photograph that one.* I printed frog masks and the boys pretended to be frogs catching flies with their sticky tongues. The sticky tongue was a party blower stuck through a hole I cut in the frog mouth. They loved this! It was so fun to watch them pretend and play with these. We went to a pond on two different occasions during this row. I wanted the boys to be able to really experience the pond life we were reading about. Of course, Hanna had to catch some pond life up close and personal. She caught some minnows in a mason jar to watch for a while and then threw them back. She caught tadpoles and we brought them home and are hoping we can help them thrive through their complete metamorphosis. We had fun looking at all the pond life and listening to the peaceful sounds of nature. I’m so glad we were able to get out and have this hands-on experience. The boys talked about things from our pond visits as we read books throughout the week.

We have been observing two different sets of tadpoles. Water frogs from Insect Lore… …and the tadpoles that Hanna caught at the pond. These will become toads. The boys had fun watching them for quite some time during school one morning. This is one of my two most favorite moments from our homeschool this past week. When I pulled pictures off my camera and saw this one of the three of them gathered around the table it was just the sweetest thing. I love the look of wonder on Jesse’s face and the look of pure joy on Jack’s as Joe tells them about the tadpoles. One of the poems from the book is called Travel Time and it pictures microscopic pond life. I thought it would be neat to let Joe study pond water under the microscope. This was by far his most favorite activity of the week! I think I see a week of microscope studies in our near future :-). On one of our pond visits an area of the pond was covered in lily pads. I’ve been eyeing the pastel tutorials at Hodgepodge.com and decided it was time to try one. Joe and I both drew lily pads in a pond with pastel chalks. It was fun and I can’t wait to try another chalk drawing. Joe enjoyed it too and I could tell he loved the fact that I did it alongside him. He grinned from ear to ear when he realized I would be joining him and not just instructing him.

Joe’s:

Mine: Jack focused on the letter ‘F’ in his preschool. He worked on a pond preschool pack, pond life pattern block templates and various other learning activities we have on our shelf that he chose. My second favorite moment from homeschool this past week was Jack tracing his name all by himself for the first time!! I cannot tell you how proud and excited I was to see this: And, after he traced his name he asked for all of the names in our family one after the other. He asked to trace names and letters all week long after this. This made my whole week. I love more than words can express watching my children learn and progress. Jack is by far my busy one and for him to want to sit still to start doing things like pattern blocks and writing is a blessing and answered prayer. I am so thankful.

Jesse played with activities from our learning shelves. I love that he is still so tiny and baby like to me even if he is growing bigger. He still has such chubby fingers, legs. As I’ve typed up this post I feel overcome with gratitude and pure happiness. I feel so thankful for all of the memories we are making in our homeschool. I feel so thankful to share this fleeting time with my children each day. I love my family so much. I am so blessed.

Currently rowing: Truman’s Aunt Farm

Coming soon: The Bee Tree, Miss Rumphius and The Carrot Seed

Ideas, inspiration and printables can be found at:

The Salamander Room, FIAR

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 20:56:00 +0000

(4/16 – 4/27) We spent the last two weeks rowing The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer. We had so much fun with this book, our studies that were centered around it, and our time outdoors in nature that we ended up needing almost two full weeks with it! This was one of my favorite rows by far. Not only did we all love the book and the sweet story of Brian as he uses his imagination to create a home for a salamander he finds, but we made some wonderful memories together. The FIAR manual has so many ideas that stretch the imagination, evoke deep thinking and truly build memories learning together that will last a lifetime. It is much more than a ‘textbook’. It is a formula for lifelong learning that stems from the heart and builds a true love for learning not only academics, but the beauty of the world around you. It is priceless.

While we rowed we:

learned how to make lists
studied the butterfly life cycle in depth
took a five mile nature hike
talked about our imaginations and how they can take us anywhere we want to go and what a powerful tool they are. That it is important to use them and be as creative as we want to be without any fear.
focused on the letter ‘B’ in our preschool
used watercolors and oil pastels to create a butterfly picture

Jack focused all of his efforts on the letter ‘B’. He made a butterfly ABC poster and we completed pages from Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Letter ‘B’ activities. His pencil grip is improving and I am so proud of him. I am determined to make it a priority each week now to have real school work for him. I love seeing him progress and he always asks for school and is eager to participate. I put butterfly number cards on the floor and called out numbers at random and he would hop to the correct number card. I used to do this with Joe and it was fun. Jack liked it just as much! He picked up on identifying numbers 6-10 within a couple days. Up until last week he could only point out 1-5. Yes, another of my boys that doesn’t like to wear their pants :-).

We played Elefun throughout the week and caught butterflies.

Jack worked on his preschool pack and Jesse had fun with learning toys and ‘read’ lots of books.

Jesse and Jack made coffee filter butterflies.

Joe made a butterfly picture using oil pastels and watercolors as suggested in an art lesson from Art Projects for kids.

Joe read a book from our Life Cycles set on butterfly metamorphosis, completed an activity on the butterfly life cycle and labeled the parts of a butterfly. He colored the sheet, used sesame seeds for the eggs, curled pipecleaners around a pencil for the caterpillar, rubbed a cotton ball in green chalk for the chrysalis. I sprayed the chrysalis with hairspray to harden it and let it dry before he glued it on.

Joe made a list of all the things he could remember that Brian used in the story for his room and then he drew a picture of his own salamander room.

Over the course of this two weeks we watched our own butterflies go through a complete life cycle. I ordered painted ladies from Insect Lore. We enjoy watching our caterpillars go from tiny to big, then to butterflies each year. I think it’s sweet that Hanna still enjoys this process just as much as she did the first time we did it when she was Jack’s age. I wanted to take the kids on a nature walk. I thought it would be a fun memory to go along with our row. I took them on a five mile hike at a nearby national park. It was perfect and they were all troopers!

There were lots of critters found by all the kids! Hanna found this tiny snail, Joe and Hanna both found numerous inchworms, caterpillars, butterflies and lizards. Jack found a turtle. Hanna looked at it from the side and bottom and told us it was a box turtle. There were honeysuckles everywhere. Hanna has loved honeysuckles since she was in kindergarten. The trail was beautiful. It was so peaceful. You forget living in all the noise of the city that the sights and sounds of nature are truly amazing. Hanna wanted to climb down for a frog. He got away, but not for her lack of trying :-)! Everyone ended up having a very good time when all was said and done! We are already having fun this week studying about frogs and pond life as we do a ‘Five in a Row’ style unit study with Song of the Water Boatman.

Ideas, inspiration and printables for The Salamander Room can be found at:

Edited Curriculum for 2012-2013 School Year

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:33:00 +0000

After posting our curriculums for the upcoming school year I felt very uneasy about some of my decisions. I decided to pray, ponder and think over the last few weeks to try and come up with a course load for each of my kids that I feel good about not just academically, but also in my heart. I thought back on all of my original reasons for homeschooling and more reasons that I have come to love about it over the last three years. I always want a love for learning to be at the heart of our homeschool and always want us to enjoy learning alongside one another. I also talked with Hanna, Joe and Jack and we decided on our upcoming year’s curriculum together.

We’ve decided to keep doing Hanna’s science at home, not at a local homeschool academy. She will however, meet weekly with a co-op to do all labs. We are also holding off on foreign language until 9th grade and adding in a computer/keyboarding elective instead. The biggest change for her is adding Sonlight as her core for history, literature and writing. I chose Core 100 for two reasons—it already uses her current history series, Joy Hakim’s History of US, and it is in her recommended age/grade level range. I am looking forward to having these plans prepared and all laid out for both of us next year!

I went with my heart and stuck with Five in a Row for all my boys. I may as well face it…I’ve tried to ditch Five in a Row twice now unsuccessfully, so we are with it for the long haul. Here are my reasons for continuing our Five in a Row journey (I want to add, my only reason for ever trying to stop with FIAR is the time it takes for planning and prep, not content or substance of the materials):

I like teaching the boys together, but like how I can still teach it to each of their levels without anyone running amuck while I'm with one or the other(s)
I LOVE the selections and how they can be so simple that a child Jesse's age likes them, but still deep enough for a child Joe's age to learn so much from them
I like being able to pull science together on my own using a variety of books
I am not ready for a formal history curriculum with the boys. I have no idea when I'll be ready to teach history chronologically using a curriculum, maybe not until as late as 4th grade with Joe, just not sure yet.
We are making so many wonderful memories that are one of a kind. FIAR prep and planning can sometimes be very tedious and time consuming, but in the end, when we make these memories and I see how much the boys learn and how much fun we have together it is ALL worth it!

Second Grade:

Five in a Row Volumes 1, 2 and 3 as a spine and main resource for History, Geography, Social Studies, Language Arts/Literature, Vocabulary, Art and Science
Singapore 2A/2B Math, Standards Edition
All Apologia Elementary Science books—we have read specific chapters in these as the subject pertains to our Five in a Row studies this school year and we will continue in this same manner. I do plan to cover these books with Joe from front to back, but not until he is a bit older.
Evan Moor Great Science Resource Book
Creative Teaching Press How and Why, Life Cycles and Look Once Habitats variety packs (student books and teacher’s guides for these)
Value Tales
Explode the Code books 7 and 8—Joe has completed these from the primers in PreK all the way through, so I’d like to finish them. I’ve noticed that he picks up quite a few spelling rules while going through these books.
Queen’s Language Lessons for the Very Young Volume 2—we’ve used this series since Joe was learning his letter sounds in PreK and I have grown to love them for the early years until more rigorous grammar instruction is necessary.
daily journal—this is free writing and I take spelling words for each week from daily journal entries. I use the K-5th Grade Journal/ELA Program from Love To Learn

Eighth Grade:

Sonlight Core 100 which uses Joy Hakim’s History of US books 1-10
Life of Fred Algebra 1 Student Text and Home Companion
Apologia Physical Science
Keyboarding/Computer
Advanced Winston Grammar
Art and Pottery as electives alternating every six weeks

Preschool:

Before Five in a Row, Five in a Row Volumes 1, 2 and 3
Various Preschool Packs, ABC fun and letter of the week activities from around the web
Explode the Code Primers and Happy Phonics (LOVE this program!) with my 4 year old when he is ready

The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Five in a Row

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:29:00 +0000

(4/2 – 4/6) We had a very fun and busy week of learning here at home the week of Easter. It also happened to be a week that one little one was getting over being sick and another little one got sick, so I’m glad I had so much planned for inside learning and fun.

I’m saying ‘sort of FIAR’ for this book because we didn’t really row any one book, but I did use many of the FIAR ideas from the manual for Peter Rabbit. The two little boys loved the story of Peter and Mr. MacGregor and laughed out loud throughout my reading it each time—they asked for it. I’ll be honest and say that this isn’t one of my favorite books and never has been—no particular reason why—and Joe wasn’t too fond of hearing it over and over again either, but the little boys—that was another story :-).

Joe and I completed an experiment on growing seeds using lima beans in a mason jar. He had never done anything like this and loved it! He checked on his bean seeds each day multiple times and was so excited to see them sprouting! Jack enjoyed watching the bean seeds sprout too and was just as excited as Joe when he saw them finally growing into plants. Joe took this a step farther and planted his own bean seed and some grass seeds in little pots and placed them in his bedroom windowsill. He is still lovingly caring for them each day. He has decided he loves growing things and wants to plant some things in the garden at Pop Pop’s :-). **You can only see a tiny sprout in the last picture of our bean, but it grew all the way up out of the jar by the end of the next week.**

We read the book Jack’s Garden and my Jack loved the fact that the boy in the book shared his name. Jack worked on pages from the Garden Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations.

Since it was Easter week and eggs are in abundance, I also prepared a few activities for Jack on the letter E. We read lots of ‘E’ books, used a letter ‘E’ play doh mat, made an ‘E’ is for Egg picture, we hid plastic eggs around the house for an egg hunt—I’d placed pictures of things that began with the letter ‘E’ inside the plastic eggs—and he played a lowercase egg matching game with the plastic eggs.

Joe and I read books about the parts of eggs, an egg from the very beginning to a hatched baby chick, looked at all of the parts of a real egg, and then he completed a worksheet on labeling the parts independently.

Joe made an Easter egg using painter’s tape, cardboard egg template, watercolor paper, a white crayon and watercolor paints. He used a crayon resist technique and it turned out pretty. He thought it was cool to watch the paint slip over his white crayon lines and leave the designs he’d drawn.

I made handprint bunnies with all the kids for a cute Spring themed picture for our bulletin board. I love anything with their sweet handprints on it.

In addition to the things we did to go along with our books, Joe worked on his daily journal entries, Language Lessons and Math. He finished Singapore 1B a few weeks ago so I had him resume working to finish Daily Word Problems Grade 1 (Evan Moor). He has now finished it too. We will begin Saxon Math 3 shortly. Joe has actually wrapped up all of his 1st grade texts and is on break before we begin his 2nd grade texts.

Here are a few samples of what he’s done the last few weeks:

And, before I wrap this up, Jesse was with us last week even though he hasn’t made an appearance in this post yet :-). He read with us and played with lots of different learning toys I have on our shelves like puzzles, several Guidecraft sets, play doh, lacing cards and so forth.

Next up we are studying nature critters and butterflies as we row the Salamander Room. My printer and desktop PC have been down for nearly two weeks :( so we had lots of hands-on activities during this row. We got outside lots and it was so much fun!

Ideas, inspiration and printables for this row can be found at:

Egypt Study

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:48:00 +0000

(3/26 – 3/30) At Joe’s request we studied Egypt this past week. I think I learned much more than Joe did! It seemed like during the course of our reading when I would speak up in excitement as I learned interesting things here and there Joe already knew them :-). I could have spent weeks on Egypt reading and learning. I know we will come back to Egypt again and again in the course of our homeschool studies and I look forward to more.

A few things we learned:

where Egypt is located on the map, what countries, seas it borders.
about the Nile River
about the Suez Canal
mummies, pyramids, farming and the topography of Egypt
how to write our names in hieroglyphics

Joe completed mapping and flag pages for Egypt.

We mummified an apple in different types and combos of salts and baking soda. This was fun! A highlight for Joe (and me!).

Bless Jack’s heart, he was upset the day of the experiment because he wanted to make his sarcophagus craft instead :-). He got to make it, but not on this day.

We concluded that plain table salt and Epsom salts preserved the apple best.

Joe learned how to write his name in hieroglyphics.

The big kids helped the little kids make Duplo pyramids and I gave them Ancient Egypt Safari Toobs to decorate and play with. This was a fun activity and lasted throughout the whole week. *When Hanna heard us talking about Egypt she rushed in, hair in towel and all to join in. She LOVES Egypt!*

The biggest highlight of all for Joe and Hanna was this Thames and Kosmos Pyramid by National Geographic. It took them two days to totally excavate it for a total of about three+ hours. They enjoyed every single second. I should have videoed some of it to remember the excitement in their voices as they got the top off and then started to uncover their hidden treasures. This was worth every penny and I would love to do more hands-on activities like this in the future when the opportunity presents itself.

These are the highlights from our study. In addition to the above we read lots of books, watched an IMAX movie about the Nile, scoured the internet for Egypt resources, links and games. It was fun from start to finish, and we only touched the surface of this history rich country!

Next up we are hopping along with Peter Rabbit in Mr. McGregor’s garden.

Ideas, inspiration and printables for our Egypt study can be found at:

Update from Seventh Grade

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:38:00 +0000

Hanna is doing so well with her school work. I am very proud of her efforts and the quality of her work this semester. Her grades have been very good, and she and I are having a fun time with her art, science and creative writing this last month.

The two of us have been having lots of ‘conferences’ over school work, doing planning together, projects together and it’s a great feeling. I cannot believe in just a few short months she will begin 8th grade. I have been reading and reading and reading up on homeschool high school. I am leaning towards The Home Scholar, Lee Binz, for help in my homeschool high school journey. I hope to have a loose road map and high school plan for Hanna mapped out by late August.

Hanna worked really hard on her rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night the past few weeks. She included texture and was so careful as she painted each layer, mixed colors and planned out where everything would go. It was sweet to watch her paint this from start to finish. I love how it turned out and will be hanging this one in our art hallway for sure. I could never paint anything like this. I do not have the talent or creativity that Hanna possesses. I love seeing all that she makes and hearing how the wheels in her mind turn as she comes up with a method to her madness.

Field Trip to Brookgreen Gardens

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 03:49:00 +0000

We went on a field trip to Brookgreen Gardens last weekend and it was lots of fun! The boys and I are going to spend the whole month of April studying life cycles of various plants, insects and critters—Spring is such a wonderful time to do this—and Brookgreen is a beautiful place to see Spring in action firsthand.

We saw lots of flowers, plants, butterflies and wildlife of all sorts. We spent a lot of time in the Children’s Nature Room. There was loads to do, make, read and learn in this area. The kids had fun making their own frogs, salamanders, using the microscope, coloring, digging for hidden treasures, reading books, sculpting with clay and building with small logs and pieces of wood.

See that elderly lady in the background of this first picture? Jack sat beside her while he read books and talked her ear off. She loved it and so did he. When we left he gave her a big hug and kissed her arm. She about melted. Following his lead, Joe and Jesse also gave her hugs good bye. It was the sweetest thing and touched me for sure. Brookgreen Gardens was founded by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington. Anna was a sculptor. Her sculptures are known and displayed throughout the world. Brookgreen Gardens features many of her sculptures in a natural outdoor setting. Brookgreen has the largest collection of American sculptures in the country. We enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful creations at Brookgreen created by both man and God. It is a peaceful place and somewhere you could just stay all day long soaking in the beauty and tranquility. It was a fun time together that I am very thankful for.

Harold and the Purple Crayon, FIAR

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 05:22:00 +0000

(3/12 – 3/21) We had so much fun rowing Harold and the Purple Crayon! I spread this row out over 7 days instead of 5 so we could take our time and enjoy everything I planned. I’ve always enjoyed this book, but it definitely has an even more special place in my heart after these last two weeks.

We learned about:

imagination and creativity
setting
primary, secondary and tertiary colors
cityscapes
the moon and moon phases – Lesson 6 from Apologia Astronomy
fractions

After reading the book together the very first day we discussed that the setting in Harold is always changing. It’s not in the same place, or even a couple places, as in most stories we’ve read, but it changes due to where Harold’s imagination takes him.

We looked at the pictures of the cityscape in the book and then Joe created a cityscape at night with a moon and stars. I absolutely love how it turned out. This one is going to be framed and hung on our art wall for sure! While Joe was making his cityscape, the little boys were having fun with homemade puff paint and making moons. The homemade puff paint is always a huge hit, and I love it too because it cleans up fast and smells so good.

We learned about the phases of the moon, waxing and waning and read Lesson 6 from Apologia Astronomy. Joe played a matching game about moon phases using our Education cubes and printable inserts. I made the phases of the moon using Oreo cookies and all of the boys enjoyed eating them during the game :-).

We made homemade purple moon sand. We had a picnic lunch just like Harold, but with lunch food, not pies :-). We saved our pie for later in the week for dessert and fractions. The little boys had fun mixing tempera paints to make the colors of green, orange and purple. Then, they had fun painting with the colors they made. Joe learned what primary, secondary and tertiary colors are. He completed a cool color wheel activity using a dropper, tinted water, toothpicks and a paper towel. He used the primary colors to make 12 different colors. He loved this activity. I did too. It was a really neat one. I made edible purple crayons. They were good and a big hit with all of us! I love dipped pretzel rods. Joe played a fraction matching game, again, using our Education cubes. And, we had key lime pie. We just had one kind of pie instead of nine like Harold :-). While I would slice the pie pieces and put them onto everyone’s plate, Joe would tell me what fraction of the pie was left.

This row was SO much fun! I woke up excited to do school each day. I have been having the best time with our homeschool the last few months. It’s been a breath of much needed fresh air and I’m so very thankful for it. I love my kids deeply and love homeschooling them the same.

Inspiration, ideas and printables for Harold and the Purple Crayon and other learning resources can be found at:

Art Projects for Kids – cityscape at night
Delightful Learning’s row of Harold and the Purple Crayon – lots of awesome ideas!
Apologia Astronomy
Mama Jenn’s Education Cubes and inserts
Gourmet Mom on the Go – edible crayons and printable wrappers
No Time for Flashcards homemade puff paint recipe (we LOVE this and use it lots!)
Homemade moon sand recipe (via Delightful Learning, link above)
Homeschool Creations Preschool Corner and 5K too!
Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-Up

Field Trip to Boone Hall Plantation

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 02:00:00 +0000

Hanna is studying US History this school year and the next. Since South Carolina plays a pretty large part in the Civil War era of US History, it’s only fitting that we take some historical field trips when we can. She just got to the time of slavery in her history books. I gave her several places to choose from and she chose Boone Hall hands-down.

The house and grounds were beautiful. One fun fact about Boone…a bit of the filming of Gone With the Wind was done there. We had a lot of fun walking around, the kids found large, old live oaks to climb, we had a nice picnic lunch—it was a fun day. The best part of the plantation as far as education goes were the slave houses. Each house contained artifacts, videos and/or a recorded presentation about the plantation, slavery and South Carolina’s role in the civil war from pre-Civil War to modern day. This self-guided tour through the eight slave cabins was called Black History in America. I learned a whole lot from it! It was a wonderful presentation. Hanna and Joe were interested in it and the little boys hung in there too. It was an eye opener for Joe who didn’t even know what slavery was until this day. I plan to row a FIAR selection soon about slavery to add-on to what we learned at Boone Hall. We explored the grounds quite a bit. We had a wonderful day together and we learned a whole lot!

Honey Honey Lion, FIAR and South Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 04:06:00 +0000

(3/5/12 – 3/9/12) We spent some time in South Africa with Honey…Honey…Lion!, by Jan Brett. (Even though this was not a Five in a Row selection I treated it just like one and we ‘rowed’ it, so I am including it in my FIAR label.) This is such a fun book. It is full of action, animals, animals and more animals and all three of my boys thoroughly enjoyed it—so did I!

We learned about:

South Africa (Botswana)
the African savanna
the importance of working together and sharing
onomatopoeias
hippos
the people and culture of South Africa, housing, foods and land/climate

Joe completed several notebooking pages about South Africa, hippos and labeled a map. Right now I’m having him label just a few things on his maps. As he does mapping more and gets a bit older I will add to it. He is doing so good and I’m very proud of him.

Joe drew a hippo using an online art lesson I found. He says his hippo is in the middle of a water hole.

The little boys made a safari picture with animal crackers and pasta lions.

We had Malva Pudding. It was like bread pudding and SO good! Definitely something I would make anytime for a good dessert. Everyone enjoyed it and it was super quick and easy to make.

We took a trip to the zoo to end our week and made sure to read about all of the animals that were native to the South Africa/Botswana area that our zoo has. I gave the boys some animal cards before we left so they could play a sort of I Spy game looking for as many of the animals as they could find. I didn’t actually get any pictures with them and the cards, or any pictures of the African animals, but I did get a lot of cute ones of the kids :-).

In other subjects this week…Joe learned double digit addition and subtraction. It was a little tricky for him at first, but once he caught on he was hooked and asked for more problems all week long. We finished up Singapore 1B and began 2A this week. We also finished up Life of Fred Apples and covered the first couple lessons in Butterflies today. Even though the first several Life of Fred elementary books will be very simple for Joe, he is loving them and begs to do his Fred math.

He is having fun writing in his journal each day. It’s a highlight for me to read what he writes and see the pictures he draws in it. Last week he was really into writing poems each day.

This was a very simple row, but we still had a lot of fun with it. The last 10 days we’ve had an awesome time rowing Harold and the Purple Crayon. I’ll be sharing it soon. Next up is Egypt, per Joe’s request.

Inspiration, ideas and printables for Honey…Honey…Lion! can be found at:

Hanna’s Homeschool

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:10:00 +0000

Hanna has been doing some really neat things in her homeschool lately. I’ve had a lot of fun learning alongside her.

Writing is an area that Hanna struggles with learning and I struggle with teaching. I happened across a 9 week creative writing course several weeks ago. I was excited to have her begin it and hoping she would share my enthusiasm. She was reluctant that it would be fun, but after a couple assignments she was as convinced as I was!

So far our most fun was an assignment using the five senses to add details and create a picture in the reader’s mind. I gave her 3 items—a jingle bell, a piece of chocolate and a cotton ball. She had to fill out a sensory chart about each item and I banned her from using certain words so she would use that big vocabulary she’s gotten from reading a bazillion books!

Another fun thing we did for sensory details/senses was…I blindfolded Hanna and took her into a dark room. I sat her down in a chair and left the blindfold on the whole time. In the room I had rainforest noises playing (I used one of those sleep machines). After a minute or so I put a small piece of a dessert in her mouth. We just happened to be studying South Africa this same week so it was Malva (cake) Bread Pudding. After she had time to taste it I turned on a fan, slow at first and then it got stronger and stronger. I switched the machine from rainforest to thunderstorm noises. I left it like this for another minute or two, then slowed the fan again till it was off and switched the machine back to rainforest. I misted the air with a tropical spray we had on hand. Finally, I turned everything off, took off the blindfold and asked her to go fill out another sensory detail chart as best she could remember from all she’d just experienced. Her assignment was to write some sort of piece using her sensory chart about ‘where she had been’. She did a super job and we both thought this was an awesome assignment.

In Science she made a cool DNA double helix.

She and I made a cell model cake together. This was fun and we enjoyed making it.

She’s been doing great school work in all of her subjects. We’ve gone over what she has left to finish up for 7th grade to end, and summer break to begin. She is really hoping to be done the second week of June before she heads off to youth girls’ camp.

We have been having a lot of fun in our homeschool and I am just so thankful I am blessed to be on this journey alongside my beautiful, sweet children.

Blueberries for Sal, B4FIAR, Maine

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:00:00 +0000

(2/27 – 3/2) We rowed Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey and studied the state of Maine and it’s state animal, the moose week before last. This is a Before Five in a Row selection so I focused on activities with my two little boys and had Joe read go-along books about Maine and moose. (He also completed activities and worksheets from Road Trip USA and Highlights Which Way USA’s Maine.)

I’d never read this particular book by McCloskey to any of my kids. I loved it. So did each of the boys. The boys enjoyed the story of Little Sal, Mother, Little Bear and his mother. The illustrations in the book are all black and white, but stunning. It is a beautiful book both in the story line and the illustrations. A true classic.

We talked about how there are two stories in this book—the one of Little Sal and her mother and the one of Little Bear and his mother. I know Jack didn’t totally grasp this point, but Joe did. We talked about how you could tell whether this was a modern day story or an older one just from looking at the illustrations throughout the book. Again, this wasn’t an easy one for Jack, but more for Joe, who quickly pointed out ‘long ago’ from the clothes they wore, the appliances in the kitchen and the car they drove.

Jack worked on pages from Homeschool Creations’ Preschool Pack throughout the week. He and Jesse painted with ‘blueberries’ (blue pom poms), which of course, turned into fingerpainting.

We made homemade blueberry muffins.

And, we made blueberry freezer jam. This was my first time ever making any sort of jam. It was so easy and it is so good! I can’t wait to pick strawberries this summer and make strawberry jam.

Jack went ‘blueberry picking’. Joe and I put pony beads on branches around the yard and he picked them. I made him a tin pail like little Sal had using an empty flour can, drilled a couple holes in the top and used pipecleaners to make a handle. I made sure to point out the ‘kerplink’ sound the ‘berries’ made as they hit the bottom of the pail. Jack LOVED his pail and LOVED his blueberry hunt. He and Joe did this a couple afternoons during the week. It was lots of fun and a wonderful idea!

I made the boys blueberry play doh.

This was such a fun row. We enjoyed everything we did with it and enjoyed reading the book each day. Next up we went to South Africa to try and outwit a Honey Badger and this week we are having a blast with the color purple. Homeschool has been awesome the last few weeks—I’ve fallen in love with it all over again times ten. Every reason we began this journey has come to the front of my mind and been reconfirmed for me.

Ideas, inspiration and printables for Blueberries for Sal can be found at:

The Story About Ping, FIAR and China

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 04:36:00 +0000

(2/20 – 2/24) We rowed The Story About Ping and along the way studied China. It was a fun week. The boys really enjoyed Ping. Here is what they commented on/we discussed throughout the week as we read:

how many family members Ping had—Joe thought it was fun to add them all up.
Repetition as used as a literary device in the story. (We recalled repetition used in Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening too.)
how some things look good upon first glance, but can actually be dangerous or a trap such as…the rice cake Ping thought was a yummy treat in the water, but was actually bait so the boat boy could capture him. In our lives…strangers offering treats, drugs/cigarettes and so forth and the ways they are advertised but the harmful effects they have; media, etc.
what a classic story is
the fact that even though Ping did not want to get a spanking, in the end a spanking was far better than the feelings he experienced of loneliness, fear and being without his family.

We studied China and Joe completed the following notebooking pages:

Flag of China, report on a child from China from Children Like Me book.

I printed a couple pages from Enchanted Learning—one on the Chinese calendar and a map. Joe loved seeing what ‘year of’ all of our immediate and extended family members were born in.

He did a great job on this mapping page. I didn’t have him label everything that was on it. I thought it was too much for his grade level. I had him do the basics and what I felt was most important. He was able to do it without any help and actually enjoyed it. I think I will do these as often as I can for him. We studied giant pandas since that’s the national animal of China. We read some neat panda books and learned a lot about them. I knew very little about pandas and found them to be interesting.

Since tangrams play an important part in Chinese history I printed out a template, laminated and cut it apart for Joe. We read a wonderful book called Grandfather Tang’s Story. It made for lots of tangram making.

While Joe made tangrams from Grandfather Tang, Jack and Jesse had fun with pattern blocks. Jack actually used the cards and made the patterns just as they were pictured! I was SO excited. He usually shows no interest and just randomly places them on the card for a couple minutes and then throws them around the room—not fun. This time he made card after card and asked to do them again later in the week. This time it was Jesse’s turn to be uninterested after a couple minutes. Here’s what he tried to do with the blocks. I stopped him quickly when the tongue came out. But, Jesse did spend a lot of time and had real fun with the Animal Train Sort and Match. This is one he’s asked for several times since. Jack still enjoys it too. I finally bought a membership to More Starfall. Jack has been playing the games in their free area for quite some time and I figured he’d enjoy it—he loves it! It was definitely worth paying for.We had a Chinese dinner one night—homemade egg rolls, stir fry and fortune cookies. Everyone enjoyed it—well, except Jesse, but he gave it a good try. It was my first time making egg rolls. They were so good! I can’t wait to make them again. The kids thought the fortune cookies were fun.Lastly, we watched a documentary on Netflix streaming about the Great Wall of China—Modern Marvels, The Great Wall of China. I learned so much from this movie. Hanna, Joe and I enjoyed it—even my history buff (Hanna) learned lots :-).

This was a fun week of homeschool. We are currently in Maine and having fun this week too. I am enjoying studying countries and states while we row books. So far it seems to be working out very well. Let’s hope I can say that a few months from now!

Ideas, inspiration and printables for China can be found at:

Enchanted Learning – map of China and Zodiac signs of the Chinese calendar
tangram printable
Expedition Earth

A Pair of Red Clogs, FIAR, Japan (WK 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:54:00 +0000

(2/13 – 2/17) Our second week of studying Japan was spent rowing A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed this Five in a Row selection. The FIAR selections for the most part are books I would have never discovered if I hadn’t been using the curriculum. To me, most have been thought provoking and touching and the lessons from the manual are wonderful extensions of each book. I am learning to look at books as I read them in a different way than before our FIAR journey and I hope my boys are too. All three of the boys liked this book, but my Jack seemed to enjoy it the most. He was zoned out each day while I read it. Listening intently to each word. He talked about the book all week and asked lots of questions about things here and there.

We continued to study about Japan’s culture, the different types of land found throughout Japan and touched on World War 2.

Our main focus during this row was weather. In the book, Mako, cracks her beautiful red clogs while playing the weather telling game. She is very upset that her new, red clogs are now cracked and she purposefully dirties them to try and get another new pair. She tells a lie in the process and feels very displeased and ashamed of herself immediately. This book provided a week long discussion on telling the truth, being honest, taking care of what we have—lots of opportunities for conversation from this book.

We read the following books as go-alongs for our study about weather:

Little Cloud
It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
The Cloud Book
Down Comes the Rain (Let’s Read and Find Out Science)

With the little boys I made Jack’s favorite puff paint and let them make clouds of their own after we read Little Cloud and Spilt Milk together. They had a blast with it, both of them. Even though it’s messy, this paint is so worth it just to see all the fun they have and the huge smiles on their faces.

With Joe, after reading several weather books together (mentioned above), we conducted two simple experiments about clouds, rain and evaporation.

In the first we simulated a body of water on a hot, sunny day—evaporation.

Next, we made a cloud by placing a pan full of ice over our pot of boiling water.

Finally, it rained. Ours was more like a heavy drizzle, but it was enough for Joe to say, ‘it’s raining, it worked!’, and that was ok with me!

We did one more experiment from our Usborne Science Activities book (Volume 1) on evaporation. Joe wet two washcloths. He placed one on a plate and the other in a ziploc bag. I asked him what did he think they would feel like the next day? He told me the one on the plate would be dry, but the one in the bag would still be wet. Yay, Joe, you are exactly right!! I asked him why again and he answered because the water in the cloth on the plate would go into the air, but the water from the cloth in the bag wouldn’t be able to get out and it would keep it wet. He was also able to tell me this process was called evaporation when I asked him :-).

We talked and read about typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis. These are all mentioned in Count Your Way Through Japan. I thought it would be neat to learn about these natural weather/nature forces and Joe was interested.

In A Pair of Red Clogs colored pencils are used throughout in all of the illustrations. A technique is used with them called crosshatching. I introduced this technique to Joe, talked about it a bit while looking at the pictures in the book and had him try it out on a Japanese scene I printed. Joe’s favorite art medium is colored pencils so he enjoyed this a lot. He wanted to add a circle sticker to the top left hand corner for the sun since (as he told me) Japan is the land of the rising sun.

I bought a little treat ‘from Japan’ at World Market for the kids called Pocky. They are like little pretzel/biscotti type sticks dipped in different flavors. I got milk chocolate. They were cute little treats and tasted good too. I really enjoyed our time studying Japan and rowing our last two books! It was relaxed and so much fun. Next, we are moving along to China.

*Ideas, inspiration and printables for this row can be found at:

Five in a Row Manual
Homeschool Creations Japan Study (Japanese scene printable)
Puff Paint recipe at No Time for Flash Cards
Weather unit from Teachers Pay Teachers
Expedition Earth from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Grandfather’s Journey, FIAR and Japan (WK 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:32:00 +0000

(2/6 – 2/10) This week we rowed Grandfather’s Journey by Allen Say. I loved this book. It was very touching. It is a story spanning generations and told by a grandson as the title suggests. Joe picked up on so many things in this book that I never thought he would by looking at the illustrations as I read. I was surprised and pleased by his perceptions.

We studied Japan while we rowed this book. Joe located it on the map each day, we talked about it’s culture and some of the customs. From illustrations in the book you are able to see the dress and the way some Japanese homes are constructed. Joe completed a couple pages including fun facts from Japan, the Japanese flag and a notebooking page using the book Children Like Me. We both like reading from this book.

We enjoyed reading books about Japan. One in particular, Count Your Way Through Japan, was very informative. From this book Hanna helped Joe use a brush and ink to write numbers 1-10 in Japanese.

Hanna’s:

Joe’s:

We studied about Mt. Fuji. I thought this would be a fun time to finally make a volcano from salt dough. I’ve wanted to do this since we began homeschool, but we just never have. It was so much easier than I’d envisioned. We were not able to erupt it Saturday like planned because it rained. Planning to this coming Saturday. I will post a video when we do. Hanna helped Joe make it and then, Joe painted it himself later in the week. He was so excited while making and painting it. Both he and Hanna can hardly wait to erupt it.

I taped an empty Ragu jar to the middle of a cut down cardboard box.

I mixed up two batches of salt dough. Hanna and Joe shaped the volcano around the jar.

It took a few days to dry. When it was dry Joe painted it. It turned out great!

We learned what origami is and tried our hand at several simple ones. I could not find Joe’s origami creations by the time I got around to taking pictures. He couldn’t either. I think one of our little ‘helpers’ got a hold of them. Here are the three I made. It was fun! I could have made lots more. I am not usually patient enough to make things like this with my hands, but I enjoyed this.

We learned about the Itsukushima Shrine and Joe made it’s red entrance gate (the Torii gate) from Play Doh.

While Joe made his Torii gate, Jack and Jesse had some fun with Play Doh too. This was the week that I tried to get them to do some letter of the week fun and they both protested. Jack told me it was boring :-). Maybe I’ll try it later on down the road with them and maybe not. I have no idea. For now, I know without a doubt all three boys love Five in a Row and look forward to it far more than I’d realized, so I am thankful they enjoy it and enjoy time with me while we row our books.

Here are a few pictures of Jack making his Play Doh letter Aa’s on ‘Aa’ mat. He did SO good! He actually liked this part of our letter Aa fun.

He did a lot better with his grip too using some triangular crayons. But…he did not enjoy tracing letters. He’s not ready for this ‘heavy’ stuff yet. I will wait on him and I am happy to have peace of mind about this.

It was a very fun week. I enjoyed learning about Japan a whole lot. So much that I decided we’d stay in Japan for another week and finish off our studies while rowing A Pair of Red Clogs. Stay tuned for that very soon!

Inspiration, ideas and materials I used for Grandfather’s Journey:

Homeschool Creations Japan studies
Expedition Earth
Homeschool Creations Play Doh mats
Origami
Volcano recipe (original idea from Homeschool Creations Japan studies)

Very Last First Time, FIAR and Canada

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 04:59:00 +0000

(1/30 – 2/3) Yes, you did read the post title right including the part about ‘Five in a Row’. The boys did not like the changes I made to our curriculum one bit. It didn’t even take a whole week and they were begging ‘to do the one where we read on the couch together and do fun stuff afterward’. As much as I wanted the changes to work, it touched me that they enjoyed our time with Five in a Row so much. So, what did I do? I immediately printed and got stuff ready to make our Canada unit a row. It was simple to do since Very Last First Time by Jan Andrews is a FIAR selection. I didn’t go all out for this row, but we had fun with it and as always fell in love with this book like all the other titles we’ve rowed.

Before I get on with our row, I want to add that I am still using bits and pieces from Expedition Earth, Road Trip USA and Apologia Elementary Science (all six books) to enhance our rows in the areas of Geography, History and Science when I feel it will easily work itself in.

Very Last First Time is a sweet book about an Inuit girl, Eva, going on her first trip to dig for mussels in an ice cave under the ocean. Eva has always done this on her mother’s back or alongside her and this is to be her very first time all alone in the ice cave under the sea. She is brave and perseveres, but ultimately decides she will continue doing this with her mother in the future.

Joe thought it was really cool that the ice cave was literally under the ocean. I did too. We learned alot about the Inuit culture while rowing this book. We also watched a video about Inuit life that included the building of an igloo—so cool!

We learned about Inuit life, fun facts about Canada… …Canadian currency…

…watched an episode of How Things are Made about making maple syrup (on Netflix). For our treat I served vanilla ice cream with warm maple syrup. Science - we studied mussels and read from Apologia Zoology 2 Swimming Creatures. Art – The little boys just had fun with watercolor paints. They painted and painted and painted more than once during the week per their request. Joe made a watercolor arctic picture using painter’s tape and rock salt.

We also covered lessons from the Five in a Row manual on first time experiences, relationships between a mother and her child and ordinal numbers.

We enjoyed reading the following books:

I have to say, I am glad my boys protested and asked to continue on with our Five in a Row journey. It may require a good bit of time on my part for prep, but it is so worth it to see them love learning, ask for more and make memories with me that will last far beyond the week’s row.

*Ideas, inspiration and printables for this row can be found at:

Homeschool Work Snapshots

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 03:56:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted any pictures of the kids’ work and where we stand with their curriculums at this point in the school year. These pictures were taken over the course of the last three weeks. As of tomorrow we will have completed 90 days of school for the academic year and we are right on track or ahead in each of their curriculums. Such a blessing.

Hanna has a pretty challenging load this year. Overall she is doing so well with it. She is learning, getting her work done and enjoying it—most days, gasp, I know!! :-)

She is really good about doing her experiments from Apologia General Science. She learns so much from Apologia. It has amazed me the last few years to hear the stuff she spouts off sometimes and then tells me that she learned it from Apologia. I love this science!

Hanna is really good about doing art lessons each week. Sometimes I give her a ‘real’ lesson and other times I just let her do what she wants to. Often she likes to work on things she is sewing or constructing. This particular week I gave her an assignment using charcoals. It was modeled after M. C. Escher’s Eye Drawing. She did a great job! I love that she drew Baby O in her eye.

I need to take more pictures of Hanna’s actual work samples and will for the next few weeks! I am great at filing them all away each week, but need to be more diligent in taking pictures of them.

Joe has been moving along smoothly in all of his subjects. Here is something he wrote for a Daily Trait Writing prompt week before last. He wrote all of this on his own—he did super!

In math he’s been working on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and simple fractions. He’s moving along in Explode the Code book 5. He still enjoys these books and I’m glad we’ve stuck with them. He’s learned a whole lot from the last two books especially. In Daily Trait Writing and Language Lessons so far this year he’s covered:

capitalization at the beginning of sentences, names, special places, etc.
months of the year and days of the week
nouns, verbs and adjectives
beginning, middle and end (briefly)
subject and predicate
copywork for several poems and narrations, answering questions about these poems
punctuation marks at the end of a sentence and which ones to use for what kind of sentence
commas to show possession and in a list
singular and plural words

Bless his heart, he’s grasped all of this very well. I try to go over it with him from time to time and am in the process of putting together a writing center and review unit using materials from Teachers Pay Teachers. I hope to have this ready week after next while I row a book from Before Five in a Row with the little boys.

My Jack is still not interested in writing or much in the way of academics. I did stress about this for the last few months. I’ve decided and come to peace with letting it go. I cannot compare what my kids have done or do at certain ages. I have to treat them individually and wait until each one is ready for their next phase of academic development. For now, Jack is still into play, listening to me read (my favorite!) and arts/crafts. He does enjoy computer games of any sort though, so he was in heaven when I added some apps to the iPod just for him. I’m ok with this too and have enjoyed watching him play and listening to him tell me what he’s learned from the games the last couple weeks.I can’t believe how fast the school year is passing! Homeschool remains a high point in each of my days. Yes, very challenging, but worth every minute and then some!

Little Nino’s Pizzeria, Five in a Row

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 06:41:00 +0000

(1/16 – 1/20) This was our last ‘official’ selection fully using Five in a Row. When I say fully using Five in a Row, I mean that since our curriculum changes, I don’t plan to go all out with Five in a Row activities anymore or add-ons. I will still use FIAR book titles and lessons from the manuals—the lessons are wonderful, meaningful and thought provoking—but my main goal is learning while slowing down enough to enjoy my sweet children. We are not in a race, or any sort of academic competition. I’ve been saying I would slow down and enjoy for two years and still haven’t. It’s long overdue and my kids are growing too fast to not take advantage of this aspect and blessing of being homeschoolers.

We loved Little Nino’s Pizzeria. The book is simply written, but sweet and has brightly colored, fun illustrations throughout. I chose this book because we LOVE pizza and because it’s about a family run business, which we are also blessed with.

We talked about some of the things necessary to run a family business and used real life examples of ours. Joe says he wants to help his Daddy when he grows up just like Tony helps Nino—so sweet. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.

We learned about fractions since pizza is the perfect example of fractions. Joe made a fraction pizza and also used a fraction pizza lesson that I printed from Kids Soup.

For art we talked about details in pictures and how they can help you know things about the story even though there are no words. Joe was able to tell what kinds of people ate at Little Nino’s, what kind of restaurant it was and what the feelings of the people were at different times in the story just from pictures.

Joe completed an art lesson on warm colors vs. cool colors. The illustrations in the book are full of these two contrasting color palettes. After looking through the book and talking about the differences in warm and cool colors I gave Joe several magazines. I asked him to cut out swatches of warm and cool colors to create a collage. He did a great job and enjoyed this a lot! He spent a long time on it. That’s saying tons because he can’t stand to cut—neither can I!Jack and Jesse didn’t do much in the way of preschool this week. We read books, they played lots, colored, did lots of puzzles, made play doh pizzas and paper plate pizzas.

For Science I used blue painter’s tape and made a food pyramid on the floor. I gathered all sorts of grocery and food items from the kitchen and used some play food too. I had Joe and Jack sort the foods into our pyramid and we talked about healthy eating. They thought this was so much fun! Even Jesse participated a bit. It was great.

Joe completed an activity on food group sorting.I made a yummy fruit pizza for our treat and we all enjoyed it!

This was a fun week. We enjoyed this book lots and our time together reading it together each day.

*Ideas, printables and inspiration for Little Nino’s Pizzeria can be found at:

Five in a Row Volume 1 manual
Art Projects for Kids – Warm vs. Cool Colors
Step Into Second Grade – Fraction Pizzas craft
Kids Soup – Fraction Pizza lesson
Betty Crocker – Fruit Pizza recipe
The First Grade Sweet Life – Food Group Sort Printable and Pyramid idea using painter’s tape
Reading Rainbow’s episode of Little Nino’s Pizzeria—I checked this out from our library on DVD, but I also found the full episode on YouTube.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, FIAR

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:42:00 +0000

The boys had their first taste of poetry this past week as we rowed Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost. I’d completely forgotten Joe had already been exposed to this poem in Language Lessons at the start of our school year. He was quick to remind me and also threw in how much he liked it and was happy to read it ‘again for five days’ :-). It never ceases to amaze me…books that I’m not particularly excited to row always become well loved by the end of the week and hold special memories for me now. We haven’t read one yet that the boys didn’t enjoy.

Language: Poetry – Alliteration

“The only other sound’s the sweep…”

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.”

I introduced Joe to several poetic devices. The first being alliteration. He was quick to pick up on it not only in our FIAR selection, but as we read other books and poems throughout the week.

All of the boys thoroughly enjoyed hearing me read aloud from Favorite Poems Old and New, by Helen Ferris Tibbets, each day. Joe even asked for this book before bedtime. This was a great book for reinforcing the poetic devices he learned while we rowed. I plan to add this book to our home collection.

Language: Rhyme

I didn’t have to do much to teach this device to Joe. As we were reading the book Tracks in the Snow, by Wong Herbert Yee, he picked up on it and pointed it out to me. A perfect time to bring up rhyming in poetry!

Language: Literary Device – Repetition

“And miles to go before I sleep.

And mile to go before I sleep.”

We discussed the use of repetition in poetry and how it is often used to get a point across or to make a certain part of the poem stand out more than another in the reader’s mind. As soon as we got to this part in the poem, Joe stopped me and said, ‘that’s repetition!’, insert big smile from me here :-). He loved our week of poetry much more than I thought he would—so did I. I definitely want to study poetry more in our homeschool from time to time.

Joe wrote a couple of his own poems. One about animals, and the other a winter acrostic poem. Here they are:

Art

Joe and I read The Snow Globe Family, by Jane O’Connor. He made a snow globe picture using a crayon/watercolor wash technique on cardstock. He chose to make a gingerbread house inside his snow globe. He had fun making it and it turned out really good.

The two little boys made (gummy) bears in a (black craft foam) cave surrounded by (Jell-O paint) snow. Joe made this same thing in a zoo class when he was four, but with Kool-Aid paint. I remembered how much he loved making it and since I was reading books about animals and hibernation all week with the little boys I thought this would be fun. They LOVED it! All three boys thought the Jell-O paint smelled and tasted so good. They painted and licked and painted and licked :-).

Top is Jack’s and bottom is Jesse’s.Science: Animal Tracks, Winter Animals and Snowflakes

The little boys and I read lots of books about winter animals, hibernation and animal tracks. I made them snow dough (white play doh with sparkly glitter mixed in) and got them an Arctic Toob so they could make their own animal tracks in the snow, since we obviously lack in that department here in South Carolina :-).

Joe completed a lapjournal page about winter animals.A worksheet matching animal tracks. A book and worksheets for reading comprehension about winter animals and their adaptations during the winter months.Joe made crystal snowflakes using Borax. We’d never done this but it had been on my list since our first year of homeschool. All of the kids enjoyed watching the crystals form. They formed so fast. We started the experiment after lunch and by supper time they were huge! This was fun. This was such a fun week. Our activities were simple, but we enjoyed them so much. My goal was to simplify our rows in certain areas this quarter to lessen my load in prep. I was worried that may take away some of the fun for the boys, but it definitely hasn’t, and it has helped me immensely!

*Inspiration, ideas and printables for this row can be found at:

Five in a Row Volume 1 manual
Homeschool Share’s Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening printables
Delightful Learning’s Stopping By Woods row—ideas for poems and link for animal tracks match pdf
What the Teacher Wants—snow globe art project
Steve Spangler Science—Borax Snowflakes
Snacks and Stories—Jell-O paint recipe
How and Why Animals Prepare for Winter book and go along worksheets from teacher's manual

The Grades Are In

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:36:00 +0000

This is the first year of our homeschool that I am giving Hanna regular grades, tests and a report card. This is actually the first year in all of her schooling to do any of these things since she always attended Montessori school. I want to hold her accountable, have her used to meeting deadlines, taking tests and being issued grades well before she gets to college. She’s done well with all of it.

I issued her first report card for this school year last week.

A/B Honor Roll :-). I think she did a great job and I am very proud of her! So happy to be her teacher and so happy to spend this time with her, with all of my kids each week. It is amazing to teach them, watch them learn and learn with them. I never in a million years thought I would be on this journey, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

US History Reading Log, 7th Grade, 2011-2012

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:21:00 +0000

Hanna has been reading lots of books this school year for history in addition to the History of US series by Joy Hakim. (This year we are covering Volumes 1-5 of this series and will complete the remaining 5 volumes next school year.) I want to keep a log of all that she’s read this school year for history for future reference. I'll come back to this post throughout the year as she finishes more books. These are both fiction and nonfiction historical reads. She’s enjoyed all of them so far.

Here is her log:

Double Life of Pocahontas
Sign of the Beaver
Witch of Blackbird Pond
Calico Captive
Johnny Tremain
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
Ben and Me
Night Journeys
Nayu Nuki
A Gathering of Days
Amos Fortune, Free Man
A Lantern in Her Hand
Laddie

I am so pleased with this series of history books. I purchased a curriculum guide with tests for each volume and project ideas from Hewitt Homeschool. I am using the syllabus for completing each book in the volume from lovetolearn.net.

Corduroy, Before Five in a Row

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 04:00:00 +0000

January 2-6th We had a very fun time with Corduroy this week. By the end of the week I was actually sad to end our time with this selection. I will always remember our time rowing this book anytime I see it in the future. This was the first row Jesse participated in. He has come a very long way since the beginning of December. He has gone from listening to only a few pages of our book(s), or listening from afar (at a nearby table while playing with trucks or trains), to running as fast as he can to the couch (while his chubby little cheeks and fluffy hair bounce) when he hears me say ‘it’s time for our book’ and listening to the whole story. He asks almost daily now for ‘cool stuff’—school stuff. This week it was wonderful to see my boys around the table together. Homeschool was truly all I hope it to be every day this week. It was a week where everything clicked and we had so much fun. We are able to do our school now in one session instead of a morning and late afternoon session and this is like new found freedom for me. I absolutely love having our school done and our late afternoons free for playing, outings, errands and so forth.

I used the Before Five in a Row manual for Jack’s and Jesse’s activities and a unit from Teachers Pay Teachers for Joe. This was perfect to bridge the gap for Joe and make this a unit I could use with all three boys at the same time.

Language Arts

We discussed feelings and the way they can change. We used Corduroy as an example and Joe wrote and illustrated a paper about Corduroy and how he changed from the beginning of the book to the end. There was a Teddy Bear Questionnaire and Joe got to use his very own Ted to complete this one.

Joe also completed a fact or opinion activity about bears in general. This was his first experience differentiating between fact and opinion. I thought he’d ace it, but it was actually quite challenging for him. We will be doing more fact and opinion activities very soon for reinforcement.

Manners

Jack and I spent time throughout the week talking about manners using examples of Lisa from the book. I always love it when we are out and about and one of our lessons from FIAR is remembered, demonstrated and/or talked about by one of the boys. Jack pointed out each time he remembered to say please, thank you, etc., all week long.

Math

Jack, Jesse and myself spent time on simple math lessons from the BFIAR manual. I was so excited by how enthusiastically Jesse participated in each activity while we were still on the couch using the book. He is doing so well and his attention span has grown lots in the last six weeks.

Jack sorted buttons by color and then we counted them together. They also strung them on pipe cleaners. On a different day of the week they sorted and counted our counting bears. While they did this, Joe used our Education Cubes to play a place value game with the counting bears. First, he separated the bears into three different baskets—big bears (hundreds), medium bears (tens) and small bears (ones). He would roll a cube then choose the number on the cube for hundreds, roll again for tens, and one last roll for ones. He completed a place value worksheet to go along with the game.

Joe had fun with ‘Teddy Bear Measurements’, again using his own Ted. He measured Ted using a ruler, paper clips and duplos.

Science

Joe read several nonfiction books about bears throughout the week. I checked out a variety of bear books and let him choose his favorites. He chose polar bears and grizzlies. He completed a short writing prompt on polar bears. He did another sort on grizzlies, but I forgot to take a picture of it. We did a fun experiment with gummy bears. Before we conducted the experiment, Jack and Jesse did more sorting and counting and a little tasting too :-). I love these pictures of my handsome Jack. He looks so happy. Jack lasted much longer sorting and counting his gummy bears. I pulled out some lacing cards for Jesse and he was concentrating hard. I love the look on his face in these pictures.

We put one gummy bear in salt water and one gummy bear in plain water. Joe said he thought when we looked at them the next morning they would have both dissolved. Surprise! The gummy bear on the left was the one in the plain water and the one on the right was in the salt water. I explained to him that the salt caused the gummy bear to ‘dry out’ a bit even in water. This stopped it from being able to absorb water and expand. The gummy bear on the left absorbed water which made it grow. Jamie actually explained this to Joe, not me, and did a much better job than I’ve done here :).

Art

Jack and Jesse did some simple arts and crafts making cotton ball polar bears and Corduroys out of cardstock. (Top Polar bear is Jesse’s and bottom is Jack’s. Left Corduroy is Jesse’s and right is Jack’s.) Joe drew a bear following instructions from an online art lesson at Art Projects for Kids. He did a great job! Savings and Paying Tithing

One of the lessons from the BFIAR manual was about saving money. Lisa used money she’d saved at home in her own piggy bank to buy Corduroy. I talked with Joe and Jack about saving money they earn and paying tithing on it first and foremost. We read about the importance of paying tithing in the scriptures and played a matching game about what our tithing is used for.

I gave each of them their own bank. Joe immediately got his money and counted it out to put in his bank in the right places—savings, fun money and tithing. Hanna has a bank similar to this and Joe was so excited to have one of his own. Jack has been asking to do chores and jobs all week to earn money for his little bank. I made a job jar for him over the weekend and will give it to him Monday so he can have real chores to earn money from. I know he’ll be excited about this. He told me he is saving for a new Build-A-Bear :).

And, I made the kids a cute Polar bear treat that they all ate right up.

We had a wonderful week learning together. It was a great start back to school after our Christmas break.

*Ideas, inspiration and printables for Corduroy can be found at:

Before Five in a Row Manual
What the Teacher Wants Bears/Corduroy Unit at Teachers Pay Teachers
Draw a Bear Lesson from Art Projects for Kids
Cotton ball Polar bears from Kids Soup
Yummy Gummy Bear experiment from A Survival Guide to Middle School
Polar Bear treat from Snacks and Stories
Education Cubes and inserts from Mama Jenn

Hanna’s Baby O.

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:51:00 +0000

Hanna got some art supplies for Christmas and has been having fun using them. She painted this picture of Baby O. on a canvas throughout the week. She did such a wonderful job on it. I was very proud of her. I am going to frame it and hang it in her room.

Gingerbread Pirates

noreply@blogger.com (Our Homeschool Fun) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 04:54:00 +0000

We had one last ornament to make for our Story Book Tree and finished it up the day before Christmas Eve. The kids made gingerbread men out of craft foam, puff paint, glitter glue and beads. Before they made their ornaments I read The Gingerbread Pirates to them. We’d never read this book before, but it was so good. They all enjoyed it, even Hanna who reluctantly sat in on it, but admitted it ‘was a cute book for the boys’ when it was over :-).

I also made homemade gingerbread cake for a treat. Needless to say, the three oldest kids did not like the gingerbread, but Jamie, myself and Jesse enjoyed it. My mom says my Grandma always made this with a hot lemon sauce when she was a child. I gave most of it to my mom and she said it was good.

We had a wonderful Christmas. A special day, a happy and fun month. We are enjoying just being around home, playing with Christmas ‘toys’ and relaxing this week. I am also doing some mega planning for the month of January. We will start back to school January 2nd. Even though the break has been wonderful I got excited about starting back as I began my planning tonight.

We will be starting back with a unit on bears. Stay tuned…