I’m over at the Homeschool Classroom this week with a post on: How to Celebrate Children’s Book Week May 13-19th with your children.

I’ll be posting a Linky during Children’s Book Week if you’d like to link up your own posts on how you celebrated with your kids.

If you haven’t already done so please check out all the nominees in this year’s Homeschool Blog Awards. It’s the best way to find new blogs to follow.

In case you didn’t know, you can also vote ONCE daily for your favorite blogs!

We have been charter members of the Creation Museum since it opened.  So many additions have been made to the museum since it first opened and it’s always fun to visit. Each time we seem to learn something new and it’s been wonderful to watch the kids grasp new truths each visit.

If you’ve never been there is a virtual tour that is worth previewing online, although it’s impossible to truly give it justice in photos or a blog post. It is something that you have to visit.

Currently construction is underway for the upcoming Ark Encounter which should open in 2014.  We are very excited to be Lifetime Members of the Ark Encounter and hope to make it out opening week.

Exciting things are happening in the homeschool community. It’s time for the Homeschool Blog Award Nominations again!  This is your chance to nominate your favorite homeschool blogs in various categories.

Homeschool Encouragement:

Are your children socialized? {Hodge Podge Mom}

Keeping preschoolers busy so you can homeschool {Sprittibee}

My Biggest Homeschooling Mistake {Simple Mom}

 

Join us October 15-19 and 22-26 for another round of over 300 posts full of homeschooling activities and advice, Biblical encouragement, and much much more!

The iPad follows the teaching method (with the exception of the prompt, “Frog jump up”) for writing Capital Letters and Numbers using the Wet-Dry-Try board.  First, the instructor demonstrates Number/letter formation using a wet sponge.  The child then follows the outline with a dry sponge and then chalk.

The program allows you to enter the names of multiple students and it will save/track their progress and earned Stars.  The starting board lets you pick your Capital Letter or Number to practice or to follow the recommended HWT’s Winning order for learning proper letter and number formation.

Once a child masters the letter formation 3 times they get a star and a letter card displayed on the page.

The Wet Sponge is used to model the correct letter formation by the “instructor”.

The child is then asked to repeat making the letter/numeral with a dry towel.

The child then completes the letter again using a piece of chalk.

(Once one stroke is complete the chalk automatically jumps to the next position to continue)

We are using this as a learning center activity in our homeschool.  Although we have the Wet-Dry-Try board and materials I like that Pixie can work independently using the iPad and has a visual record of her progress.  The only tip I would mention is to encourage your child to continue the letter all the way to the bottom (or top) of the board.  Otherwise it will count as an error and in our case, that resulted in quite a few tears!

Disclaimer:  I was selected as an existing user of the program to receive a complimentary copy of  the Wet-Dry-Try App for review.  All opinions are my own.  We have been using the program (and blogging about it) since 2008.

 Friday Links is a new feature on the Passport Academy Homeschool Blog.  It is the place where I will share things that I think may be interesting to other homeschooling parents.  Things that are bigger than a Tweet, but aren’t enough to be their own blog post.  I hope you will share your own interesting finds in the comments. I’m also combining this feature with the iPhone Photo Dump Link-Up. So please feel free to link up below.

The links:

Ever wonder what to say to someone who is just starting out homeschooling? Jenn from Daze of Adventure has some How to Homeschool Tips that I think are useful to new homeschoolers and great reminders for the seasoned ones too.

If you’re a new homeschooler you might be curious about How to start a homeschool routine {Hodge Podge}

Edie from life {in}Grace shares: Why I (almost) gave up homeschooling.  We’ve all been there (or will be there) sometime. It’s nice to hear the keeping it real stories.  Even from those who decide to drop out of homeschooling.

Have you heard about the Learning Genome Project? As a homeschool parent I’m especially excited about it, but it is really something that EVERY Parent, Teacher and Home Educator should know about.

Our Homeschool Week in Photos:

I feel like I lived in my car this week. A Starbucks Caramel Frappacino was my constant passenger.

Pixie found herself inside a Great White at the Science Museum

Decorating Operation Christmas Child Boxes

The boys had their first Taekwando competition and somehow Bean ended up with their medals!

Click image to download cover

Giotto di Bondone is the subject of our first Artist Study.  Please read this post to find out more about the artists we plan to study in this series. We invite you to join us!

Summary of Giotto di Bondone

Although not much is known about Giotto’s life,  he is a notable artist because he is known as the father of modern painting and one one of the world’s greatest artists.  His most notable contribution to art was his use of space and perspective.  Until Giotto, paintings were flat with no movement or background.  He was also the first European artist to show expression and emotion in his subjects.This was especially important since the majority of people during this time period could not read, so art was used as a way of teaching religious stories.

In addition to being a talented artist,  Giotto was also an architect.  He designed the famous bell tower in Florence, Italy, which still carries the name, Giotto’s Tower.

Art Lesson:

L (age 7), R (age 9)

For our art lesson we painted a piece inspired by Berlinghiero’s Madonna & Child.  In this way the children could explore how art was performed BEFORE Giotto’s contribution while also exploring painting religious themed art, as Giotto did.

L (age 9), R (age 4)

Teaching Resources:

Books:

Getting to know the world’s greatest Artists: Giotto

Giotto (coffee table art book)

A boy named Giotto (children’s picture book)

Printables:

Giotto Biography Page

Giotto Picture Study (3 pages)

Generic picture study page (cut out your own photo and attach)

I’m very excited about our plans for this year’s Artist Study.  We are embarking on another year of art with a fabulous local art teacher who has graciously allowed me to select the artists that we study.  She (thankfully) teaches the art lesson in her local studio and I do my best to supplement throughout the week with books on the artist, a notebooking page and sometimes  extra art projects.

Our Artist Study will include:

Giotto di Bondone

William Blake

Toulouse-Lautrec

Edvard Munch

Henri Matisse

Piet Mondrian

Joseph Stella

Edward Hopper

Krida Kahlo

Kranz Kline

Jasper Johns

You can follow along with us each week as I share our latest art work, resources and printables. I hope something from our study will inspire you to conduct an Artist Study of your own.

A group of bloggers have joined together to offer TWO of our readers a chance to win $500 EACH in Holiday Cash. You can win this cash via Amazon Gift Card, Paypal or American Express Gift Card—the choice is yours. Along with all the ways you’ll choose to spend it.

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Good-Luck!

You’re invited to join in and share you homeschool week in pictures.  Read how to participate before linking up.

For some reason people are generally curious about what we drive our family around in.

We affectionately refer to this as “the school bus”.  If I’m only transporting a few of the children I drive an SUV.

When asked what they did in school this week, the boys can answer “We built a solar powered robot”. How cool is that?

This week’s nature study had us identifying this caterpillar.

It’s a Lo Moth and it’s common in Florida. Who knew?

(c) 2012 PassportAcademy.com

Our Extra Curricular activities each week include:

Art Lessons

Ballet

Archery

Tae KwanDo

Kids For Truth

Library Storytime

Gymnastics

Piano

Horseback Riding

I’m beginning to think I need an R.V so I can just homeschool at traffic lights and parking lots of various places I drive children.

For me the first month of our new schedule is always the toughest as I TRY to adjust my expectations to life’s limitations.

This post is also linked to:
Friday Favs~ Finding Joy

Weekly Wrap Up: Unsocialized Homeschoolers