Winter Reading

It seems like the tendency around the holidays is that kids tend to have their heads in the clouds. It's easy for that to happen to adults as well!

Around here, the cold weather isn't really something that keeps the boys from going outside. In fact, they have actually said that they enjoy playing outside more when it's cooler more than they do when it is hot.

However with Christmas coming up and with this momma needing to work on some projects, I decided to come up with an idea to give them something extra to do that would be educational.

So, I decided to do a "reading contest". Today we finished our cute little bulletin board for the wall.  Very, very easy!

I used a foam posterboard. I also found some great lined stationary at this site on which to write book information.
Clipart can be printed from here. We used a glue-stick to paste everything to the board except for their book lists.  I pinned those.
The boys are to write on the list what books they read, the author, and how many pages. I told them that they get a sticker for every 20 pages read. The older boys get extra incentives for reading to Ryan out loud.

I sat down with Michael and we decided that the "contest" would go through the month of December and into January. We decided what the rewards would be and made it something they'd be excited to get.  Some ideas are cash, dates with dad, inexpensive outings, privileges such as getting to stay up later, etc.

The main rule is that I get to choose the books they read. I decided to choose a mix of topics so that they will actually be learning what I want them to learn. When I had reading contests in the past, they tended to pick easy books that had no significance.

We are using our local library.  Justin is already begging me to go back and get more books as he has read almost everything I have chosen (and that was just on Friday!).

Wakko's NATIONS of the world

FUN! I don't know if I could teach it this fast though....

Bunny Trails

Occasionally when we are reading a book or discussing something, we will
go on a "bunny trail."

Today was like that. We are currently reading a book called Growing Together in Courage by Barbara Rainey.
It is a fantastic compilation of stories about people who exhibited courage during extreme situations. After reading one of the stories (which are all true), we somehow landed on the topic of September 11th, 2001. As we were discussing it, I realized that the boys-especially the two youngest- hadn't heard much about that horrible, not-so-long-ago day. That led me to the computer to pull up some clips of the Twin Towers being attacked and collapsed, which led to a torrent of tears, which led to a documentary about it. Basically we spent most of the day talking about what happened and all of the courageous people involved. So what started out as a short story to introduce the topic of courage to my children, led to an all-day "study".
I think they do truly understand how important courage  is.
Bunny trails are good.

Wakko's universe song

Of course we explain that God made it all. This is just too fun!

Scripture Memory - Psalm 105:1-5

Our pastor challenged us to reflect on Psalm 105:1-5 during the week of Nov. 7 - 13. We had just finished our last set of verses, so we decided to make these our memory verses. For some reason, they love seeing themselves make silly faces. I guess it adds some excitement. :-)

Presidents

This is just fun!

States and Capitals Song

I thought this might be a fun way to help learn the States and Capitals!

Tree identification video

We watched this today:

Psalm 1: Memory verse

I didn't mean for the camera to veer away from Jonathan; I was trying to video and look at the paper on which I had typed out the verses to make sure they were saying it correctly. :-)

Manners Book!

We read this book today.   It is a re-print of an old book that mixes the idea of using good grammar with polite manners.  Very good!

Leaf Unit Study:

We are doing a Leaf Unit Study. 

Some books we are/will be reading:

Copywork:

Book lists on leaf stationary :-)

Preserved leaves from our nature walk:

Some of the pictures from the nature walk we took a couple of weeks ago:



Time-line Character: Henry Ford's Model T

I was thankful to find a clipart website to help with our time-line.  Sometimes it is fun to draw the characters, and other times we are pinched for time.  The clip-art helps on these days.  Jonathan wrote and drew his own cute cartoon at the bottom.

GOVERNMENT lesson

Excellent explanation of forms of govt.  CLICK HERE to go to the outside link.

Hymns - Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise

We are learning "Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise".

A friend inspired me to actually look them up on Youtube.

Leaf Unit Study, Lapbook, Notebook Ideas

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/leaf_man.php

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/trees.php

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2007/10/fall-time-lapbook.html

http://www.ourbigearth.com/2008/11/02/the-home-school-lapbook-learning/

http://www.squidoo.com/tree-lapbook

http://www.flickr.com/photos/45271190@N04/5028190893/in/pool-lapbooking/

Things I am learning through home-education

One thing I hadn't really expected while home educating was how emotional I would get sometimes and how much I'd personally learn.  Today I found myself choking back tears while reading to the children about Ellis Island.  It really touches my heart when we look back and see what our fore-fathers and mothers endured and accomplished to get us to where we are today.

Thankfully the boys didn't see this, but there have been other times where they have seen me get emotional about our historical roots. I am enjoying learning again and I am also enjoying the opportunity to delve deeper into areas in which we are interested.

Another thing I have experienced is that I am learning so much spiritually.  We have been doing a character study about humility.  One of the most profound things I have learned through this series is the seriousness of pride.  Satan himself was kicked out of Heaven because of his pride.  If I have pride in my heart, then I am being like Satan.  It really hit me hard and made me realize how important humility is.  We have been reading verses about Jesus' humility and the contrast between Jesus' humility and Satan's pride.   We can also have prideful hearts if we think that the things that we do will somehow save us.  That is so prideful because it takes our eyes off His blood and what He did and puts it on our own works.  Humility is when we realize that anything good that comes out of us comes when the Holy Spirit lives in our hearts.  Our flesh is no good at all  (Romans 3:10).  The only good things I do are because He does them through me.  He is the potter and I am the clay.

 I am using  http://www.characterjournal.com/.  It is a fantastic resource for character trait studies because it points directly to Scripture.  I actually have to look the verses up as we study.

 

Math manipulatives

Jonathan:

Learning the how and why of division by using dried chick peas.  Silly face is thrown in for free. :-)



Time-line Characters: Ellis Island, Booker T. Washington, Thomas Edison, & The American Railroads

Here are the latest time-line additions.  They are completely backwards, because I couldn't remember how the pictures would upload.  They are clickable.

TWO great home-schooling sites to check out

http://www.albright-news.com/blog/homeschooling/copywork/

http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/curriculum.html

Links for some old books we hope to sink our teeth into!

http://www.mainlesson.com/displayauthors.php <-------this site is fabulous as it organizes by subject or author. 

http://www.yesterdaysclassics.com/

The Mosquito

I chose the easy & fun route to teach lessons about mosquitoes:





This one is great, but it won't let me embed (Click the link below to see it. It is very interesting!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFfO7f8Vr9c

Click here for the printable wheel we made with the life-cycle of a mosquito after watching the Youtube videos about mosquitoes. We are adding it to the bug notebook.

I took some pictures but my camera battery died so I didn't get great ones, but I do want to occasionally have pictures of them working on projects... so here we go:

They are always so silly! :-)

Grammar Can be Fun!

Ideas for learning Grammar.

Grammar can be fun! And when one has little boys, it should be made as fun as possible. That is why we are in the process of reading GrammarLand.

GrammarLand is a living book. What is a living book you ask? Well,according to Charlotte Mason (my favorite homeschooling style):

"Living books are usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The books pull you into the subject and involve your emotions, so it’s easy to remember the events and facts. Living books make the subject “come alive.” They can be contrasted to dry writing, like what is found in most encyclopedias or textbooks, which basically lists informational facts in summary form. You might be surprised to find that living books are available for most school subjects — even math, geography, and science"

Justin, especially begs me to read another chapter every day (did I mention we are talking about Grammar?!)

I also think little boys need fun.  Here are some great flashcards (you decide whether adjective, verb, adverb,etc)
http://www.kids-pages.com/flashcards7.htm

Here are some Mad Libs:
http://www.rinkworks.com/crazytales/

An online game:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/adventure/grammar1.htm#


More printables:
http://www.sparklebox2.co.uk/literacy/grammar/

Termite homes

After reading about termites and adding a page to our insect notebook about termites, we watched this FASCINATING clip about termite homes:

Poetry Memory:Wynken, Blynken, and Nod

Here they are reciting the poem: "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" by Eugene Field.

 The easiest way to learn a poem or verse of any kind is to just say it every day.  I learned this one as a child too! :-)

They were a little distracted by the camera, so this gets pretty funny. :-) 

Jonathan Math game site

Favorite Math game site: 

http://jmathpage.com/JIMSMultiplicationfactspractice.html

Justin's first electricity experiment: The Joy Buzzer

Justin wants to study electricity, so we bought him a kit from Dangerous Books for Boys.  Here is his first experiment:  the "Joy Buzzer".   I didn't do the best job videoing, but I am glad you can actually hear the buzzing. He is so excited about it.

"The vibrating motor is a tiny motor that has an off-center weight at the end of its rotating shaft.  When the shaft spins, the center of gravity changes because of the rotating imbalanced weight.  This produces the vibrating motion.  These little motors are used in electronics such as cell phones and vibrating video game controllers to generate their vibrating action."

Ten Commandments Lapbook - completed

(Ryan's lapbook folded shut)

We have been working on a Ten Commandments lapbook for quite awhile. 

Before we ever started writing and crafting,  I made a card-stock song using these memory pegs <----click to see).
 
The boys learned the Ten Commandments easily that way.  If I ask them to tell me what commandment six is, they can remember the picture and the song... which helps them remember the commandment. 

After they learned The Commandments, I had them copy the NT verses that reference the OT commandment onto strips.  They copied one verse a day.
 We cut these strips and secured them with a brad (you can see that in the picture.  The strips can be fanned out when the folder is open.) 

We made a large pocket for the middle of the lapbook and it contains the memory pictures.  Jonathan decided he wanted the music for the song to go into that pocket as well as making a separate pocket for his NT verses.  Justin and Ryan stapled theirs to the flap on the right side.  When I took these pictures they were in an extremely silly mood.  You can see it on their faces!

After I took the pictures, they added a heart- shaped printout to their pocket that said:

Jesus when asked about the greatest commandment said:

LOVE GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

If you love God with all your heart:

You will place Him above other things.

You will worship Him only.

You will use his name in a reverent way and not say it lightly.

You will reserve a time to worship Him.

If you love others as yourself:

You will love and respect your parents.

You will never intentionally harm another person.

A husband or wife will be true to a spouse.

You will observe the property rights of others and not take anything that does not belong to you.

You will speak the truth about others and not say hurtful things about them.

You will be content with what you have and not be wanting what others have.

Snowball

Snowball is such a cute hamster.
He is a tired little fella; I don't blame him.

The Civil War - timeline characters

We are learning about the  Civil War. Here are the newest time-line characters.

Drawn by Jonathan--- Writing by Justin--- Gluing by Ryan ;-)

We watched this interesting film about Civil war guns.  There are five parts, so if you watch this...when you finish this look for part two....


The Gettysburg Address:

Lilly the Ladybug story

Note to self: read this story when you study ladybugs!  Have the boys do the worksheet about ladybugs!

http://www.ebfarm.com/WhyOrganic/LillyTheLadybug-ActivityBook.pdf

Ryan finished his first copybook!

Ryan finished his first copybook today. He was so excited, that he did over 2 pages today to get it done. Here is one of the last pages he completed:

Butterfly videos

We are learning about butterflies.... This clip was very interesting!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWT51807cyM

We also watched these:

Praying mantis

Since we have been doing a unit study about insects, and daddy found this praying mantis on Saturday, I figured it was a great time to study them!

He or she is huge!

I didn't know they could eat mice and snakes, but they do!  Eek!


We also watched the link below (It wouldn't let me embed).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hGuallLPcM

Bug notebook pages

The boys have been adding pages to their bug notebooks.  These were my 3 favorite from this week. 

  I usually read to them some information about bugs,sometimes watch a Youtube video,  and then they are allowed to choose their favorite fact. 

Ryan is in copy-work stage.

   He drew the picture himself and then copied the letters.

He says his stag beetle is eating a centipede.
All pictures are clickable.

Jonathan writes about click bugs: "Little bugs that click are called click beetles."  What I thought was so cute about this picture was the two little bugs at the top holding the banner.

Justin writes about the firefly.  He had more than one thing he liked about fireflies.

*"Lampyridae" is Latin for shining fire!!

*The chemicals in fireflies are used in research to fight cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses.

*They're related to the beetle.

Bug videos

Seeing bugs in action:

Lighting fires

"Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire."
W.B. Yeats

Home education... Year round?

While I am thinking of it (and since people are curious), I wanted to address the reasons why we home educate year round. 

Here are some of the reasons we enjoy year round home-schooling .  This is part of an article written by someone else  (who is way more eloquent than I).

Also, since homeschooling doesn't look like or feel like a regular classroom, one needs to keep in mind that it isn't as much drudgery as one would think.   (It simply does not take as long when there aren't bundles of other children to have to wait on).

Yet it is good discipline and wonderful for keeping an orderly schedule (which can be wonderful for a mother's sanity). :-)

Also, I can't help but insert that we will enjoy the holidays so much more if we have completed a huge chunk of our work by the time they roll around.  If we need to make some crafts, baking, or shopping... it's o.k.

Flexibility is a big blessing and we love it!

"One of the biggest benefits of homeschooling year round is that it eliminates the "summer learning gap." Simply put, kids just don't forget as much when they aren't out of school. However, there are some other advantages to homeschooling all year long:









•Consistent structure helps students know what to expect every day. This is especially helpful for little ones that have to be folded into the mix with older students.



•Homeschooling parents find that they have more time to dive into areas of interest or explore other more open ended activities.



•Some parents would say that life is learning and learning simply doesn't stop just because it's warm out.



•Flexibility in scheduling allows the family to take advantage of special opportunities as they arise without feeling the burden of "missing school."



•Kids can get more done in a grade year since there are more potential days in the school year. (This doesn't have to always be academic.)" ***I want to insert here that in our family if they make mistakes, they correct them. Or if they are struggling, we take more time.  It is nice to have the extra time minus the pressure. It is important to make sure they are learning before we move on to the next thing.***  

Insect/Bug Unit Study

The boys have been collecting all sorts of interesting insects (pupa, moths, and beetles of all sorts and shapes) so I decided that it would be a great time to do a bug unit study!   We have plenty of resources for to make a notebook with this study.  So far, we have used the following:

• "Bugs Fun Kit" - includes mini-books, coloring books, stickers, stencils, etc (thanks to Papa & Grammy)
• Let's Discover Insects - facts, stickers, & activities (thanks to Mummy)
• The First Book of Bugs by Margaret Williamson - amazing book that I printed from the internet several months ago and just recently read to them. 
• enchantedlearning.com.

Pictures are clickable for closeups

 

 

Justin's

 Ryan liked the Ambush Bug Nymph 

 Jonathan's little potato beetle above is saying, "Did you know that they suck insect's tissues?" 

Jonathan loves to draw comics...

They love creating notebooks.  We will be adding more to them as they learn.