Fun out of the Box

Back in the Swing of Things

2011-07-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

Starting the year a little early since we have a lot of vacation/fun days coming up. New checklists for the kids. New Spanish book. Life of Fred for the little ones. Band at school and a little more of a push for the older one. Should be a fun school year. I love being able to spend time with the kids and watch them grow.

The Easter Bunny is magical, right mom?

2011-04-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

2011-04-16T07:55:00.001-07:00

Sous-Chef

2011-04-09T18:34:00.001-07:00

The Daily 4/5/11

2011-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

Homeschool Science Club at the Science Station for the older two this afternoon. This give Thing 3 a chance to play at the play place at the mall which he doesn't get to do very often since the older two are too big. Although, honestly I think this is where we picked up the flu in February that shut down this household for a month (and subsequently why we missed Homeschool Science Club last month!) It looks like the subject is Vet Tech (pets).

All together:
Word root: Annus
The Story of the World, First Kings of England, plus notebook entry
Treasure Island
History of the US, Vol 1. (This is going to be really fun. The kids were enamored too!)
Homeschool Science Club at the Science Station
The Secret of Kells

Thing 1:
Khan Academy
Writing with Ease, Level 4 We just finished Level 3 last week, so I will be interested in seeing how much this ramps up. It looks like the dictation passages are longer, but writing their own narrations doesn't happen until week 28 or so.
First Language Lessons, Level 4, Adverbs
Logic Countdown
Singapore Math 4A, Review 3

Thing 2:
Spelling Skills, Grade 2
Khan Academy

Thing 3:
Singapore Math
Brainpop videos

The Daily 3/29/11

2011-03-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

It snowed here today :(

Here is what we did today:

All together:
Treasure Island, Ch. 8
Newsacademic: Japan's earthquake, Egyptian vote, Libya no-fly zone, and more

Thing 1:
First Language Lessons
Iowa study, Intellego
Seterra states quiz
Khan Academy
Singapore Math 4A, fractions

Thing 2:
First Language Lessons, prepositions
Singapore math
Khan Academy

Thing 3:
tracing opposite words
Hooked on Phonics
Singapore math

Aaaachoooo!

The Daily 3/28/11

2011-03-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Wow! March has been just flown. This is the time of year where I start questioning whether we have "done enough" this year. I know I should just relax, but sometimes it is hard and I want to make sure the kids are getting the best education we can give them with lots of time left over to pursue their interests and just play.

Here is what we did today:

All together:
Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding, Lesson c-4
Treasure Island
English from the Roots Up, dormio
The Story of the World, Eric the Red and Leif Ericsson, plus notebook entry
The Story of Science, polestars
DE streaming: The Spacefiles: Exploration: Observing the Night Sky. Thing 1 gives it an 8 out of 10. Thing 2 gives it a 7.5 out of 10. Thing 3 gives it a 6. It fit perfect with what we were reading, but the narrator's voice was pretty dry and the animations went kind of fast at several points.

Thing 1:
Khan Academy
Life of Fred, Fractions, Ch 22
piano

Thing 2:
Writing with Ease Level 1, copywork
piano
chess lesson video and chess titans game

Thing 3:
Glockenspiel, random banging
cut and paste activity

Masks and Koopa

2011-03-25T15:29:00.000-07:00

The kids have been making paper plate masks by the dozens:

Koopa:

Another mask. Seriously, I think they have made around 50.

The Daily 3/25/11

2011-03-25T15:20:00.002-07:00

Kind of a boring Friday morning around here. Everyone's moods were better suited to working independently, so we skipped most of the work together fun stuff.

Thing 1:
Singapore Math (3 exercises on fractions)
Logic Countdown
Iowa study, Intellego
Seterra states quiz
Writing with Ease, 3

Thing 2:
First Language Lessons Logic Countdown
Singapore Math
Premium Education Series Language Arts Work book page (We need something to work on his spelling.)

Thing 3:
tracing words
Singapore Math 1A
dominoes
Scooby-doo puzzle
Hooked on Phonics

TGIF! Thing 2's pinewood derby is this weekend.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-03-23T14:42:00.001-07:00

The Daily 3/22/11 Go Fish!

2011-03-22T10:57:00.000-07:00

Thing 3 just turned 5 and would be starting kindergarten in the fall of 2011. I don't require any academic work from him, but we do play letter games and read together a lot. He likes to "do school" with the big kids so we have started doing Hooked on Phonics and Singapore Math 1A at his request.

Some days it is hard to occupy him while I work with the older kids, but today he found some other playmates for a rousing game of Go Fish. It looks like BenBen Bear is out to an early lead.

All together:

Treasure Island, Chap 6
Story of the World, Vol. 2, The Viking Invasion
Discovery Streaming: Exploring the World: The Viking Explorers. The kids gave it a 7 out of 10.
The Story of Science, Chapter 7, Being at Sea (navigation)

Thing 1:

Singapore Math 4A, multiplying fractions
Iowa Unit Study, Intellego

Thing 2:

WWE 1, Tom Sawyer Narration
Singapore Math 3A
piano

Thing 3:

Singapore Math 1A
Dot to dot, alphabet
WALL*E story

Not sure what we have going on this afternoon. I think it is going to rain :(

The Daily 3/21/11

2011-03-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

Nothing major planned for today. Hopefully we will get to play outside this afternoon. It is supposed to be 60 today and tomorrow and then get cool after that, so we need to soak up the sunshine while it is here.

All together:

Treasure Island Chapter 5
Word Root, Terra
A Little History of the World, Ch 21, Charlemagne, plus notebook entry
The Story of Science, Empedocles: Air, earth, fire, air, love and strife, plus journal entry

Thing 1:

Khan Academy
States quiz, Seterra

Thing 2

Oration, Foreign Lands, RLS
Khan Academy
First Language Lessons 1 and 2, articles
Singapore Math, 3A, long division

Thing 3

Singapore Math 1A
Hooked on Phonics

Headed to the park with friends this afternoon. We ended up stopping at the library on the way home too.

The Daily 3/18/11

2011-03-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

TGIF! This has been a busy week.

All together:

Anna's Iowa study led us to look (online) at some of the roadside monuments such as the Largest Wooden Nickel, the Black Angel and the site of a few famous bank and train robberies (Jesse James and John Dillinger). We ended up on the site of Buddy Holly's plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa. So we talked about the roots of rock and roll. We watched YouTube videos of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper (and Elvis too). It is kind of fun when we start following tangents...the kids thought it was interesting.

Thing 1:

First Language Lessons
Writing with Ease
Iowa Unit Study
Singapore Math
Khan Academy
Oration

Thing 2:

Singapore Math
Khan Academy
Colored graph paper

Thing 3:

Singapore Math
Hooked on Phonics

The kids are headed over to play with their new baby cousin this afternoon.

The Daily: St. Paddy's Day Edition 2011

2011-03-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

Thursdays are crazy days around here and we usually take a break from bookwork. The holiday made it even crazier.

All together:

Swimming lessons at the YMCA (Thing 1, Thing 2 and me. Thing 3 gets to swim every other time.)
Grocery store to pick up last minute things for the St. Paddy's dinner
Quick clean of the house
St. Paddy's Day parade in Cedar Rapids with cousin
Another stop at the store to pick up something I forgot.
Filling out NCAA brackets
Kids played outside while I started dinner
Dinner: homemade brined corned beef reubens (mushrooms for me), potatoes, cabbage, carrots, cake, and pistachio ice cream with Granny, Poppo, Auntie, and baby cousin.

The Daily 3/16/11

2011-03-18T07:21:00.000-07:00

All together:

Story of the World 2, Charlemagne
Treasure Island, Chapter 4
a youtube video about public speaking that wasn't great

Thing 1

Singapore math
piano
First Language Lessons 4, sentence fragments, diagramming, proofreading.

Thing 2

Khan Academy
Singapore math
Oration exercise, Foreign Lands, Robert Louis Stevenson

Thing 3

Helped me plant some onions and watered the tomato seedlings

Foreign coin

2011-03-16T11:23:00.000-07:00

The kids found this coin in the front yard. Anyone know where it is from? It looks similar to some Iraqi coins we found online.

Edited to add: Found it. It is an Israeli Agorah. It doesn't look like they are used anymore.

Stair fort

2011-03-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

I am hoping that sliding down the stairs on my back for 3 days bolsters my case for Mother of the Year...I am pretty far out of the running, but every little thing helps, right?

The Daily 3/15/11

2011-03-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

Thing 1 spent most of the afternoon creating this robot

Play date scheduled for this afternoon, so school work done in the morning:

All together:

Newsacademic, Libyan protests and price of oil
Word Root, English from the Roots Up: trans
Treasure Island Ch 3

Thing 1

First Language Lessons Level 4
Iowa Unit study, Intellego, Pella Tulip Festival and Czech museum, National Balloon Classic
Khan Academy

Thing 2

Singapore Math
Khan Academy

Thing 3

Dot to dots with ABCs
Cutting and pasting
Read Go, Dog, Go

The Daily 3/14/11

2011-03-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

The Dad finally got sick so he is home with us today. The neighbor kids are on spring break this week, so our plan is to get schoolwork out of the way early so there is time to play.

Thing 1

States quiz on Seterra
Khan academy
Life of Fred, Fractions
Singapore Math
Writing with Ease 3

Thing 2

Writing with Ease 1, copywork
First Language Lessons
Singapore Math
Khan Academy

Thing 3

All together

Chapter 2, Treasure Island
The Story of Science, Empedocles and elements of earth, air, fire and water
We spent the afternoon celebrating Pi day and playing outside in the sunshine

Pi day 3.14

2011-03-14T17:33:00.000-07:00

Science class with dad

2011-03-10T11:23:00.000-08:00

This is a picture from last month on a very rare "Daddy stay home day". I think they were doing one of the units in Nebel's Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding regarding transfer of energy. Or maybe they were just playing with the marble run ;)

The Daily 3/10/11

2011-03-10T11:15:00.000-08:00

Thursday is usually the day the kids have swimming lessons, but we had to cancel since everyone is still sick.

Thing 1

First Language Lessons, Level 4 (Afternoon on a Hill, Edna St. Vincent Millay)
Iowa Unit Study, Intellego
States quiz, Seterra
Khan academy

Thing 2

Singapore Math 3A (6 times tables)
First Language Lessons 1 and 2, Story narration
Khan Academy
Seterra

Together

The Story of the World, Vol 2, The Franks
Notebook entry: The Franks
More Khan Academy, all together talking about some of the modules they were having trouble with...Adding and Subtracting Negative Numbers and Adding Decimals.

This afternoon we might try and make it to the grocery store and plant some flower seeds.

How We Use the Story of Science (Joy Hakim)

2011-03-10T08:03:00.000-08:00

When we ordered the Story of Science, Aristotle Leads the Way, I bought the text, the student manual, and the teacher's book. We really only use the main text. I think that the other two books are intended for older kids and a classroom setting.

I think the book series is geared for kids a bit older than mine (5, 7, and 9), perhaps middle school age, but we still enjoy reading it. In all honesty, we just read the story and look at the pictures. My kids aren't really into doing worksheets and unnecessary writing, so this works for us. It usually prompts some fun discussions and I will often have the kids put an entry in their notebooks. This can be sentences or just pictures. Thing 1 can do this independently and I help Thing 2 by writing down his narration. We also do Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding for our science which includes a lot of hands on experiments, so I don't feel any pressure to make this book anything more than a fun, interesting read aloud.

The Daily 3/9/11

2011-03-10T05:21:00.000-08:00

I still have kids with fevers, so another easy day here.
Thing 1 :

Worked on her Journey Book for Girl Scouts.
Writing with Ease dictation exercise.
Drew lots of animal pictures
Khan Academy exercises
Helped me up pot some tomatoes

Together we all:

Read Chapter 1 of Classic Starts: Treasure Island (Classic Starts Series). (I am typically not a huge fan of abridged stories, but these aren't the worst and it does make the comprehension easier.)
Read about the Aborigines and Maori in The Story of the World, Vol 2
Watched Sal Kahn's TED talk

The Daily 3/8/11

2011-03-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

I am going to try and keep this blog updated because it is so fun to go back and look at what we did last year. We have been recovering from the flu (influenza) so are easing back into school work. Two kids still have a fever (maybe an ear infection), so my standards haven't been all that high.

Anyway, Thing 1 worked on a few activities for her Iowa Unit Study (Intellego--see link at right). She wanted to add a unit study, so we searched around and that is what she chose. We are still on the first chapter and she seems to be enjoying it. We started a composition book for her to take notes, journal and draw pictures about Iowa.

She did a few problems at Khan Academy. Since they revamped the site (free), my kids have had a blast earning badges for the math modules. They also spend quite a bit of time watching video for non-math subjects. Thing 1 has been interested in the evolution and natural selection videos lately.

She also practiced her states quiz using the Seterra 3.0 software, which is really cool (and free) software download that is full of tons of state/country/capital/flag quizzes. I think her goal is trying to locate all 50 states in 2 minutes. I thought it was kind of fun too and am currently trying to learn all of the European countries.