Homeschooling October 2013 Part 4

A cute video to begin the post with... She is saying "you're welcome" after I said "thank you" to her. Sweetness!

Art: Fall Beauty in a Frame

These are stick frames with contact paper and fake Fall-colored leaves (real leaves can be used, but we live in the desert, so no Fall colors for us).

More videos for you!

History Sentence: Week 1

Tell me about Commandments one through five:

Science: Week 1

What are the classifications of living things?

Math: Skip Count the 2s

We also learned about: 1) The Fertile Crescent.  Mediterranean Sea Mesopotamia Euphrates River Tigris River Sumer. 2) Timeline: Age of Ancient Empires (Week 1) Creation and the Fall The Flood and the Tower of Babel Mesopotamia and Sumer Egiptians 3000BC Indus River Valley Civilization Minoans and Mycenaeans If you are interested in learning more about Classical Education, feel free to check this wonderful resource by clicking here. Baby girl is getting bigger and looking less like a baby. Can't believe it!

                   

Montessori Practical Life: Folding Dish Rags

Step 1: Extend the rag.

Step 2: Fold it in half Step 3: Place your hand in the middle.

                         

Step 4: Fold on side over your hand. 

Step 5: Remove your hand.

Step 6: Fold the other side.

All done. 

Look at these beautiful Fall colors on this corn! So intricate. So special. God is such an amazing Creator!

                

Spanish: Las Figuras (The Shapes)

In Spanish, we reviewed the shapes we had learned (círculo, cuadrado, triángulo) and expanded the lesson to five more shapes (rectángulo, ovalo, diamante, octágono, estrella). For our activity, I would tell them the name of a shape in Spanish and they would draw it. I drew the shapes for those who were having a hard time, especially octagons and stars. They all did really, really well.

 

                    

Classical Education: Lapbook

From Wisdom and Righteousness. Please click here to see more details on the lapbooks she offers and to purchase. Worth every penny and very relevant to what we are studying. These photos are purposely posted small and are NOT for copying or for printing. These are merely to explain what the kids and I are learning. She did a great job! If you are interested, please purchase these from this website.

This section contains the verses on the Ten Commandments 
and Math (skip counting from 1s through 15s)

This section includes the life of Moses, Latin Cases, The Ten Commandments, English Grammar (prepositions), and Geography (The Ancient Empires).

                                 

In this section, as we talk about the topics mentioned, we 
can write things inside that are important or that stood out.

This section has History on Ancient Empires, Art and Latin.

I am sorry that the pictures are blurry. It was past 1 am when I took 
them and I thought that they looked blurry because I was so tired!

This section has Poetry and a place where they can 
draw something from the lessons that they liked.

In this section, the kids draw the events that happened 
in the ancient empire of their choice in sequence.

In this section, we have a lot of Science topics, including vertebrates, invertebrates, the classifications of living things, the kingdoms 
of living things, animal and plant cell parts, experiments 
and questions about cells and experiments.

                      

This is a timeline to be filled out as we learn of the different events in history.

                      

Bible Study: Women's Conference

This was beyond fun!

Fall treats... Acorn squash rolls! You can also make them with pumpkin, sweet potato, or any winter squash you like. Check out the recipe here.

Montessori Culture (Geography): Penpal and Postcard Exchange

K and I went to the Book Fair to buy his penpal buddy a birthday gift to mail all the way to England. He picked a cute Jack and the Beanstalk story. It was just K and me. It was just like a mom and son date. And the weather was perfect, too.

                  

Inspiration...

Montessori Practical Life and Sensorial: Changing Clothes

                

                

Montessori Culture (Geography): Penpal and Postcard Exchange

K finally, after a few weeks, wrote a cute letter to his penpal in England. He dressed up as the Transformer Bumblebee specifically to let H know that he loves Transformers.

We also included a birthday postcard and a gift because his birthday is 10 November.

                    

                    

MOPS (Moms of Preschoolers) Clothing Swap

Yesterday, we had a full day (and even that is an understatement). We led/organized a clothing swap (where people donate stuff, we set it out and then anyone can come take what they need). Whew! It was busy and there was a lot of stuff. When the swap was over, we packed up what was left and took it to the battered women's shelter. Everything will be put to good use. Awesome!

Montessori Culture (Geography): Penpal and Postcard Exchange

We received two postcards this week: one from our dear missionary friends to the Philippines and another one from our dear friend, who recently moved to Georgia. Sweet!

Homeschooling September 2013 Part 5

Bible: Dear God Books

These books were given to K by my mother-in-law. I think it was a Christmas gift last year. These are really fun to read because the writing is fun and so child-like. I really liked this one.

Montessori Culture (Geography): Penpal and Postcard Exchange

We got this postcard mailed from a family we know that recently 

moved away to live in Wisconsin.

This is what our US map looks like with the postcards we have gotten so far. We started strong, but now we have slowed down. It was fun getting so many postcards in a row, but it was a whole lot of work to write and get that many mailed (it is an exchange, after all). I think we'll be requesting a postcard per week. Much more doable and it keeps this project going for a while instead of finishing quickly and then the map is no longer interactive. I don't want it to become just a wall decoration.

Homeschooling Baby Girl

Baby Girl is now 20 months old. She is developing so well. Right now, she is getting all 4 canines in at the same time, but she has been a trooper. Her speech is better and better every day. I can understand a lot of what she says now. She loves homeschooling, too.

This is one of the baskets I have for her materials. I used them with K when he was her age. Slowly, I collected stuff and put them (a little bit of everything) in these sturdy zip bags, which I bought in an education store for about $2 each. I got one for each day of the week and labeled them.

I made sure that in each bag I had at least one activity/game of each of the following categories/subjects: Math (shapes and numbers 1-10), Language Arts (alphabet and sight words), Science (animal names), Bible (Bible story cards, scripture verse cards),  Art (colors), Music (nursery rhymes and nursery songs), and there's more in there, but I can't think of it right now.

          

          

          

          

NOSE (touching her nose)

She was waving here, but I didn't take the picture fast enough.

          

          

               

Bible: God Made the Plants

We talked about different kinds of plants and how they are alike (the are all alive and they need sun, water and nutrients to live) and how they are different (some are big, some are small, some have flowers, some have thorn, some have both, etc).

                     

We looked at each plant up close.

                           

We said a prayer to thank God for making beautiful plants in His world for us to enjoy and to clean the air.

Then we planted some beans in mason jars. We used cotton instead of dirt (to keep it cleaner and for us to see the seeds germinating a bit easier.

We poured water on the cotton and put the beans in. Each got 10 beans.

   

We added colored popsicle sticks with their names to put in each jar and placed them by our pots out front.

Dinner: Chicken Enchiladas with green salsa (yummm)

I found this recipe at www.allrecipes.com. It was relatively easy to make. I'll definitely make it again, except that the Anaheim peppers ended up being super spicy this time. We have never had them this hot before. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I started off well taking pictures of the pepper roasting process.

Bible: Kidz Klub at the Chapel

 

Montessori Sensorial: Pink Tower

She is building the (Montessori) Pink Tower all by herself.

Spanish: Rosetta Stone (Latin American Spanish) Homeschool Edition

                    

French: Les Coleurs (Co-op class)

In French, we watched a French video (about 8 min long) that introduced vocabulary in the following categories: the universe, means of transportation, insects, musical instruments, in the city, my body. There is also a short monologue of a girl describing her family members in French. The kids love it all, but it isn't just fun; it is training their ear to listen to spoken French with its unique pronunciation. 
Then we read the color book, talked about what colors we are wearing, found objects in the room that were those colors, etc. 
Finally, we went over the color flashcards. Mack was disappointed that I didn't have a flashcard with pink (awww), but the book did have pink. The book didn't have brown or purple, but the flashcards did.  They all did awesome! I'm so glad we're doing this!

                              

    

                      

Yummy!

Music: Woodwinds

We had a great class today. Everyone was really focused. We reviewed Crescendo, Diminuendo, Fray Felipe, and the orchestra. We then talked more in depth about the Woodwinds. We watched videos of each instrument (Bassoon, Saxophone, Oboe, Harmonica, Clarinet, Flute). We had two worksheets, one was tracing the names of each instrument and the other was matching the word to the instrument. Finally, we decorated our homemade pan pipes, and played them. We talked about how the longer straws had a deeper pitch and the shorter ones were high.

Art: Texture

We learned some more about texture today by using different utensils to "paint" with and looking at the different effects they created. Everybody seemed to have a good time

Spanish: Los Colores

In Spanish, we reviewed everything we've learned so far. We sang all the songs, said all the rhymes, practiced all the signs, reviewed all the vocabulary. We also focused the last third of the lesson on the colors in Spanish. We sang the color song, went over all 11 colors and made our own cards that read, "Mi color favorito es ....." as well as drawing something that is that color. The kids had fun. We will be moving on to shapes next week.

   

Letter of the Week (My Father's World): Sense of Hearing

Field Trip with Dad: Flying a Kite

Wow! Wow! Wow! Baby GIrl has started talking in full sentences!

At lunch today, she had had enough papaya and when I tried to put more on her plate, she said, "No, I don't want it. Stop."  Lol. And now, she says, "Go on boat." She points at sunscreen and says, "Put it on face." Ahhhh, such a sweetie!