Fun with math

For fun the boys have been making up their own math problems and solving them during Quiet Time. I never did this as a child. Did you?
They both frequently name math as one of their favorite subjects and after finding this in their room, I'd have to agree.
We are working on the reverse 3's.
The reversal happens occasionally, when we've been out of practice of writing numerals.
I wanted to post both papers but misplaced the other sheet before I could scan them in. The piece above was done by G-man.

Can you hear it?

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has a book and CD called,
"Can you hear it?" Using 13 famous paintings and accompanied music from both American and European orchestras, children are introduced to fine art and music.

We recently added this to our curriculum. We are using it along with How to use child-size masterpieces for art appreciation and it is considered a "group" class in our homeschool---meaning I teach this program with the 3 oldest children together.

A few of our favorites are:
Ocean Life, by Christian Schussele
Prince riding an elephant by Khem Karan

The carnival of the animals: The Aquarium by Camille Saint-Saens
The nutcracker: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy by Pyotr Illich Tchaikovsky

Reptiles

We went to a local co-op learning class on Reptiles this week. It was a good chance to review our existing knowledge on reptiles as well as learn a few more interesting things in a group setting.

I was proud of the boys for remembering to raise their hands before answering the questions. I think it helped that I told them that even if the teacher didn't call on them, if they knew that they had the correct answer, they should be proud of themselves even if they didn't get a chance to tell the teacher---- because in addition to them knowing they knew the correct answer, so did God and no one is more important than Him!

For craft time they made snakes by gluing pieces of paper to the snake outline to create scales.

Resources used:
Lesson plan from Museum of Science & History
Reptile relatives lapbook component
Reptile 3/4 book (lapbook)
Lizard Family (lapbook)

I also plan on making a classification activity where the children would sort picture cards into the amphibian or reptile group for their science notebooks.

I will post our lapbook after we complete it.

Life Cycle of a Gecko: the egg

Today, Bear's gecko Ally, (because she is an Albino leopard gecko) gifted us with two eggs. Unfortunately, she was not the first of our female geckos to lay a pair of eggs. Spotty had that distinction, but due to my Leopard Gecko learning curve, otherwise known as my failure to provide a nesting box in time, she was forced to lay her eggs on the floor of the hide, where it promptly dried up. We saved the poor little shriveled things so that it would not be in vain---but for science! And what can I say? At least I learned a thing or two in the process.

Around 11PM I transferred the eggs out of the nesting box and into their own incubation cup and we are just doing our best to keep the eggs warm and in a humid environment while we wait---for 40-60 days! In the meantime, I have an incubator on order for our next batch of eggs from Spotty which we hope to see in about 3-5 weeks.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Week in review...

I have a confession.

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with all that we do, and other times I feel sort of silly taking pictures of the kids during our school day for the blog. I admit that it's sometimes hard for me to find a comfortable balance because I want our learning time to be productive as well as engaging and fun. To do this I need to stay focused on the children and the task or project at hand, which isn't easy when you are teaching while trying to catch every photo op. On the other hand, I'm very proud of what we do in our homeschool and I like to share as much of it as possible on our blog with our family, friends, and fellow homeschoolers. So, it's a balancing act. Like everything else about motherhood and homeschooling.

So while it's impossible to share everything about our homeschool week.
Here are a few things I was able to capture.

Pumpkin working on her Cupcake Counting (File Folder Fun)


Pumpkin did really well with the lower numbers and had more difficulty with numerals 7-10 when counting using one-to-one correspondence. She can count high, but when counting objects she tends to count too fast or count things multiple times.





G-man working on his Acorn Addition (File Folder Fun)


The boys have done well with addition facts up to sums of 10 and so now we are going beyond that. This was a good exercise that allowed them to keep their confidence up. Admittedly these were not overly challenging math problems.






The boys hard at work using the Stamp and See Screen (Handwriting without Tears).














Acting out Caps for sale...







We had a lot of fun with this. I purchased the hats fairly inexpensively at Michael's.











Working on our fine motor skills----and having fun in the process!



In this activity Pumpkin is hammering golf tees into clay. When she sets up the tee into the clay she is using her pincher grasp. We are working on this to help her with correct pencil grip.










I originally purchased this for Pumpkin but the boys seem better suited for it right now. There are cards that go to this that the children must copy the design of. This was the first thing G-man made.

Recess: Homeschool Style

Pumpkin declined to be photographed...

Geography: Rwanda

This is Rwanda's new flag (as of 2002). The red from the original flag was removed due to its connotations of blood spilt and the black for its symbolism of gloom and mourning.

Each symbol on this flag has meaning for the people of Rwanda.

Green symbolizes hopes of prosperity;
Yellow for economic development and work;
Blue represents happiness and peace.
The sun represents light and enlightenment.

Name that state

As we continue to work on our United States geography skills, (with mom learning right alongside the kids, shhhhh, don't tell them), I brought out a new resource purchased at last year's state homeschool convention, a magnetic USA map. Today I had the boys show me the location of every state on the map that they could identify on their own. After correctly identifying them, I gave them the state to add to the board. By doing this I could ensure that they weren't just matching shapes. Since we haven't been working on our US geography for very long, I was pleasantly surprised with the number of states they could identify---FIFTEEN!

You can see them on the map above but they are:
Florida ("where we live Mommy!")
Pennsylvania ("that's where we used to live")
Texas ("Texas!"---they seem to have fond memories here)
Georgia (it's above Florida")
Alabama ("Mr. Richard and Miss Darlene live there sometimes")
Minnesota ("our babysitter lives there")
Alaska
California
Oregon (It's north of California. Miss Katie said.")
Utah
Hawaii
North Carolina
South Carolina (it's by Georgia)
Washington
Michigan ("That's where Chelsea lives")

I really liked this map because each state is presented individually which helps the child learn to identify the state based upon it's actual shape---and then relation to others on the map. We will continue to add the states to this map as they are committed to memory.


We are still working on our state quarters collection and recently added New Mexico, thanks to a former babysitter and first grade teacher. Thank-you so much!

We also miss our Daddy and like to look at the map and see where he is and count the days until he comes back home. Daddy, if you are reading this, please ask everyone to look at their quarters during the breakout sessions or receptions!

We continue to be on the hunt for:
Idaho
Delaware x2
Iowa x2
Illinois
Ohio
Pennsylvania x2
Indiana
Alabama

Resources we enjoy using for geography:
Imaginetics USA Magnetic Map
Melissa & Doug Wooden USA speaking puzzle
54-piece foam map puzzle
State quarters Collectors Map
USA talking puzzle
Leapfrog Explorer smart Globe
Geosafari Talking Globe

The Great Sunflower Project

The Great Sunflower Project is starting.
We signed up and requested our seeds.
Want to join us?

US Geography

It all started with an interest in knowing where their Road Warrior father was when he was traveling. "Where is Daddy now?" they would ask and then I'd have to get out the map. Then we began traveling with Daddy sometimes and the real fun began! They enjoyed watching the map on the airplane to see where we were and loved tracing their fingers over our map at home showing how far we flew from Florida to our latest destination. Now their curiosity has a name, Geography, and it is just a regular part of our curriculum.

As an ongoing project we are working on a lapbook of the United States. So far we have completed sections for Florida and Texas. My initial idea was that we would complete the states as we visited them, but that has proven to be overly ambitious so we are going to complete a new state chosen by each child every few months.

Inspired by Flip Flops & Apple Sauce we recently began collecting the state quarters using this beautiful folding US coin map. We purchased two maps (one for the boys and one for the girls), although at this point my goal is to keep Cutie Pie away from all things the size of a coin so it's safe to say that Pumpkin will finish this project on her own! Now the kids are happily raiding the pockets of every visitor that comes to our house not to mention Daddy's change drawer, the family coin jar, mommy's purse and the sofa cushions. Any family member reading this blog should feel obligated to help us search for missing coins! We are currently on the hunt for: Alabama, Maryland, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico and Hawaii.


Of course when you start a project like this you often end up on various learning rabbit trails and that is exactly what happened with us. An interest in collecting coins lead us to an interest in learning about how coins are made. There is also a good video on the subject. Maybe one day we can go to the US Mint and take a tour!


The state coins were first issued in 1999 with the final states released in 2008, so if you have never started a collection, now is a great time since they have all been issued.

You can view the complete list here and download a coloring page for each state's coin. We chose Florida, Texas, and Pennsylvania. When we finish this project I think we'll begin collecting the Presidential dollars. What a great project for learning about the U.S. Presidents---and saving money.

Postcard Learning: Part One

The kids recently received this postcard from their big sister R. from Rwanda. Getting mail is always exciting but it's even more exciting when it's tied into our learning.


A previous gift from their older sister included a beautiful map of the world with the promise that she would send post cards from each place she traveled and we would look for it on the map.



The postcard read:

Hi there! Greetings from Rwanda. Amakuru? That is how you say, "How are you" in the local language here. Rwanda is a country in Africa--maybe you can find it on the big map I gave you? Sometimes people call Rwanda the land of one thousand hills" because it is so beautiful and very hilly! Did you know that plastic bags are illegal here? There is no trash on the ground anywhere!
Love you all, R

The postcard is now in our geography notebook and we are anxiously awaiting another post card with beautiful stamps, a country to locate, and interesting facts.

Practical Life

We've been taking advantage of all of the recent markdowns on educational products, so Pumpkin received some new materials for "her school" this week. We are working on her fine motor skills so that she can begin practicing her writing next year.

Clothespin patterns from Appleseed Montessori comes with 10 laminated cards that she can practice placing clothespins on.








Model Clothes hanger set, also from Appleseed Educational provides additional fine motor skill practice and you can extend the activity to include patterning, color sorting, and matching.