Rr-Rock

We were able to squeeze quite a bit into this unit. We didn't have any appointments or any extra places to go for the first time in weeks, so we did a lot of school! This week we learned Rr-Rock. This was a hard one for us because Boo can not make the /r/ sound yet (she says /w/ for r's) which is cute when she talks, but very frustrating when trying to learn phonics. I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with the speech issues and reading. Our words to remember were "I listen and obey; I build my life on the rock." We talked about how Jesus is called a "rock' in the Bible. Jesus said in Matt 7:24 that those who hear his words and put them into practice are like a wise man who builds his house on a rock. We learned the song "On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand." Here is the youtube video we used for lyrics.

 

For our tactile letter activity we played with our Kenetic Sand. My kids LOVE this stuff. However, it wasn't very good for forming letters. It expanded and wouldn't hold the shapes, so we ended up using a toothpick to write Rr's on our sand instead. Not a very successful letter activity, but at least they were excited go get to play with their sand.  

We used National Geographic Kids Rocks and Minerals to learn about rocks.

 

We were suppose to go outside to observe and collect rocks. The rocks are all buried under snow right now though. Last year Sis studied rocks in school and we started our own rock collection. It's grown quite a bit over the past year, so we got out the girl's collection and looked at all of them. Boo also used them for some activities like counting and grouping by color and size.

We also purchased this rock game last year called "Rock On" that also came with a really cool starter rock collection. It's been a great addition to our rock studies. It can be purchased on Amazon.

We read the parable of the wise and foolish builders. We learned the song and hand motions to "The wise man built his house upon the rock." and we watched this cute cartoon that illustrates the story.

 The Parable of The Wise and Foolish Builders

 After this we made our craft for the week. They had so much fun with this one. Even Baby Bear made one. First we drew a large rock and grass on a sheet of paper. We glued Boo's words to remember  on hers. Then we made little houses out of paper lunch sacks. So cute and easy! We stuffed the bags with a couple plastic grocery bags, folded them down and stapled. Then we made a roof, door, windows, and chimney out of construction paper and either stapled or glued them all on.

      

We've still been working on number recognition and simple addition equations. Boo was proud of her very first addition worksheet. 

Finally we listened to "Stone Soup," and made some soup for dinner (it was actually some yummy stuffed pepper soup, and it didn't have a stone...close enough. Right?)

 

Sis Highlight

Sis has been working hard. She been doing a lot more independent work. We're still learning about the war of 1812 for history. We're reading Caroline books for read-alouds. She's enjoying her Caroline Color and Craft book. We also started learning all about sharks and rays for science. In just over 2 months we have a big field trip planned to Shedd Aquarium, so we're trying to learn as much as we can before then. 

Other than that we are picking out new curriculum to try out for next year. I try to let Sis have some opinion at least on the things she studies. I find that when it's something she wants to learn about it makes school easier. She's decided to study anatomy and physiology for science. It looks like a lot of fun.  I'm excited but a little bit nervous to tread into unknown waters with all of the new curriculum! We've already started the planning and purchasing, and I can't wait to blog about our 4th grade choices.

Zz-Zebra

We're on our 3rd and last week of learning about wild animals. This week was all about zebras. We learned that God gave zebra's stripes to help them hide from predators. Our words to remember were "I can't hide anything from God." We talked about God being all seeing and knowing. Our sins and even our most secret "hidden thoughts" are not hidden from God. "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we  must give account." Hebrews 4:13.

For our tactile letter activity Boo glued black and white (zebra stripe) squares to construction paper to form the letter Z. We also practiced "zzzooming" our fingers through the air to draw invisible z's.

We began basic addition for math. Boo is still working on number recognition but has #'s 1-8 down pretty good now. We started with very basic oral problems using manipulatives. Ex- two blocks plus one more block, how many blocks do you have now?

I just had to throw in this photo of my princess working on her worksheets. She got herself dressed for school. There's hardly a day that goes by that my girls don't want to be princesses (especially Baby Bear, she lives in dress up play clothes!) I'm also not strict about forcing them to work at a table. As long as the work is done neatly and they're not distracted I let them work however they're comfortable.

 

We had already learned about Africa during the elephant unit, so we reviewed locating Africa on our inflatable globe. We talked about the different animals that live there. Then Boo made an African poster by coloring and gluing the animals to a continent shaped paper that I cut out for her. 

We're getting a little tired of paper crafts and I'm trying to avoid mid-year burn out. So we decided not to do a craft this unit. We did play a hide and seek game. Boo, Sis, and I took turn hiding a toy star while the other two raced to find it. This game reinforced the idea that we can hide things from each other, but we can't hide anything from God. Here's boo getting ready to hide her star.

Boo has begun reading "BOB" books along with her phonics worksheets and games. She's doing pretty well with them. It takes her a while to sound out the words most of the time, but she's getting it.





We also took a break from school on Thurs to have a "girls"day with Grandma and their Aunt Rachel. We played board games, watched a movie, ate lunch together, and did nails.

 We hit the 80th day of school mark this week! (yes our number chart has gotten a little sloppy over the last 80 days.) That means only 20 days until our 100th day of school celebration! I'm trying to gather ideas now though.




A little bit of Art Appreciation: We had an unusually warm couple of winter days (they are very few and far between  where we live!) So we decided to take the girls to our annual "Snowfest," a local snow/ ice carving competition. We love looking at all of the amazing ice and snow scupltures, especially Sis (our little artist). 

  

Kk- Kangaroo

We had a rough start to our week. We got started late on Monday and then nobody wanted to do school. Everyone's been dragging their feet, and lots of whining and complaining going on. On top of that I had a migraine for 2 days and a funeral of a dear friend of our family this week. Somehow we made it through! Just keeping it real...school is definitely not all fun and games. Some days it takes all you've got just to get through it, but by the grace of God I make it through with my sanity and the kids hopefully learned something. If nothing else they learned that life doesn't always go as planned.

So this week we learned about kangaroos. I didn't make it to the library (another fail) so we watched a couple of Youtube videos of kangaroos and looked at pics online. Our Bible focus was about how baby kangaroos (joeys) are kept safe in their mother's pouch and our words to remember were "I am safe in God." This sounds simple, but it's actually a hard concept for a five year old. I don't want my kids to think that they are invincible and nothing can harm them. Being safe in God doesn't mean that nothing bad will ever  happen in life, but that no matter what life throws at us nothing can separate us from God. As long as we have him we are "safe" and he will help us through.

One activity we did was to practice hopping. My girls can definitely hop farther than me (I'm old!) We measured our hops and then compared to an adult kangaroo who can jump up to 30 feet!! We also measured out 30 feet to give them an idea of just how far that actually is!


Along with learning the letter K we learned that ck together just makes one /k/ sound.
For some reason there were tears shed over this new concept! Seeing a 'c' with a 'k' made Boo forget the 'c' sound and think 'c' says /s/! In other words she was reading the word "neck" as "nesk." Finally she got the hang of it and started read her words right.

 
On a brighter note, she finally recognized a #7 without any help or tears, she recited all her vowels correctly, counted to 100 by tens, and did a good job with her blend ladder words. Shes definitely grown since we  first started K.




We read the story Katy No Pocket.





We also made a simple kangaroo pouch craft. We made the pocket out of a brown paper lunch sack and glued a cute little joey peeking out (just clipart I found online). We glued our words to remember on the front, hole punched, and tied a string so that she could wear her pouch.Then Boo played "mama kangaroo" and used it to carry around her little toy animals.

We also had the circus come to town this week. I wish this could have happened during E- Elephant week, but it was still cool that we'd just finished learning about them a couple weeks ago!

Pp- Penguin

This week we learned about penguins. Our words to remember were "I show love to everyone, especially my family." We looked at Emperor penguin families. We read about how the father takes care of the egg while the mother leaves to find food, and how the adult penguins huddle together to protect the new babies. We also talked a lot about our own family and how we can show love to one another. Boo had to think of one special way to show love to each family member this week.

For our tactile letter activity Boo made Pp's out of Legos.



We used these books for info on penguins: National Geographic Kids, Penguins and The Little Penguin by A. J. Wood.

I'm still trying everything I can find to get her to learn her numbers! I made these penguin number flashcards for reviewing #'s 1-8. I just found some cute clip art online and printed one that I liked, and I wrote the numbers on the bellies. Then we played a game called feed the penguins. She had to identify the number and count out the correct amount to feed each penguin.

One activity that we did this week was to pretend to be father Emperor penguins caring for an egg. The girls took turns trying to balance and walk with an egg between their feet ( I was going to boil some eggs but then we remembered that they had a plastic play food egg that would work just as well so we went with that.) They discovered that it wasn't as easy as it sounds. It must be really hard for those penguins to do this for months with no break! *note: just for the record my kids refuse to wear socks in the house ever.

 

Another activity we did was this math sheet. I made a mark on the wall to show the height of a emperor penguin. Then we measured ourselves to see how tall we would be standing next to one, Boo was just about an inch shorter than a penguin. Then we hopped on the scales and compared our weight to one of these big penguins!

Sis Highlight:

I just wanted to say that I'm proud of Sis for getting 100% 50 out of 50 words right on her big unit spelling test! We also finished our study of Abraham in Bible (Boo does that with us too.) We're still using Long story Short and loving it. This bible curriculum is going to last us probably 2 years bc we're on unit 14 of 77 and half way through the school year! This week Sis said to me "Mom I'm so glad that you really teach us the bible at home! We learn some of these stories at church, but they usually don't tell as many details. Like we've learned about Abraham before, but when we studied it at home I learned so many things that I didn't know! I understand what it means now to be a child of Abraham." One of our favorite lessons was about how through Jesus we become heirs to the promise (Sis for the first time understood the song "Father Abraham!LOL) It made me happy when she said that. 

There's something about studying the word of God as a family that makes a huge impact on a child. Church is not where my kids learn the bible, it's in addition to what they are being taught at home. I don't believe it's enough to send them to Sunday school or children's church once a week to learn. It's the job of all Christian parents (home schooled or not) to teach their child the word of God. Plus hearing it and studying it with their parents, and being able to openly ask personal questions will have a greater effect on their life than learning it in a classroom.  If you don't have a daily time to read & study the bible together with your children, I encourage you to purchase a family devotional or simply begin reading and discussing a few verses a day. It will make a huge difference in your child's understanding and love of God's word.

Ee- Elephant

This week we learned about elephants. Boo's favorite animal! For some reason she has loved elephants and said they're her favorite since she was really little, so she jumped up and down when she realized it was elephant week. Elephants are said to never forget, so this week we learned that we also should never forget all that God has done for us. We took turns naming things God has given us or done for us. The rest of the week we tried to name at least one miracle of Jesus a day that Boo could remember.

We didn't have any library books about elephants, but we looked up and read about them in our Kingfisher-First-Animal-Encyclopedia and watched the Youtube video below.

We did a memory game. I laid out 5 items. Boo had to look at them and then turn her back. I took one item away and she had to try to remember which item was missing. We played several times. Then I mixed up the items and she had to remember what order they had been in and line them back up.

We also listened to the story "Elmer the Elephant" about a patchwork elephant who loves to play jokes.

Boo's still been working really hard trying to learn numbers. I found this free Elmer color by number printable Here.

We also read "If I ran the zoo." I'm kinda bummed that it's too cold here to visit a real zoo during this unit.

We had a short week because of New Years so I cut out any crafts or extra's this week. We did all of our reg work and student sheets though. Boo was excited about this one, because it's something new. It was her first mini-book to cut out, staple, and read. It was also her first time trying to read a 4 letter word "sled." She did pretty good with it.

Sis Highlight:

Sis started learning about the war of 1812 and that whole time period. We're enjoying reading the American Girl Caroline books together and are on book 3 now.  (Don't ask why my child chooses to wear a bridesmaids dress to school.haha)

Our New Years Eve Countdown Party!

Last year was the first year that Boo was able to stay up until midnight on New Years Eve, and this will be year three for Sis. Being home schooled my kids normally stay up later than a lot of kids anyway (usually until between 10-11 pm.) However, making it until midnight is still a little difficult at least for Boo. With the help of Pinterest and a little brainstorming of my own, I came up with a few neat ideas to keep them busy until the ball dropped. It actually ended up being such a hit that I think we will continue at least some of these ideas as new yearly traditions for our family.

I decided to try out countdown bags. These were a huge hit. It kept the night exciting and suspenseful as they waited to to see what was in the next bag. I wrote a time on the front of each paper lunch sack and on the inside of each was a note that told at least one activity that we would do together for that hour. They were not allowed to look in the bags until the clock hit the time on the bag.(Yes I do realize there's no 11:00 bag, that is on purpose.) Daddy didn't get out of work until 7pm, so I decided to start our party at 6pm so that he could be a part of at least most of the activities (besides I didn't think I could handle more than a 6 hour party.lol)  The activities in each bag were not intended to necessarily last the whole hour, but at least give us one thing to do within the hour. There was some free time between activities and a chance for me to get ready for the next one. 

 Here's a breakdown of what we did each hour.

6:00p.m. Game Time! We're a big board game family. We love playing them. The girls had already asked and were expecting to play some games, plus they just got 2 new games for Christmas. So, I decided it would be best to start our party off  by playing a couple. Besides, I decided I would rather have Daddy included in some of the other activities that I had planned.

7:00p.m.  Food time! I wanted to wait until close for daddy to get home to do food time. Both Sis and Boo love to help me cook so I decided it would be fun to teach them how to make pigs in a blanket. I printed off this simple recipe for them to follow. I read them each step and they did most of it themselves! After we made those. The girls helped me set the table with all of the party food. I decided to go with all finger foods. Our menu consisted of a crock pot of queso and tortilla chips, mini pigs in a blanket, loaded potato sticks (which we recently found in the frozen food section and are sooo good!), and popcorn for later.

8:00p.m. Memory Can...Our Memory box or can is a tradition that we started 2 years ago. The first year we decorated a box and last year a can. Our can is still in good shape so instead of making a new one this year we decided to just reuse the one we have ( we purposefully didn't put a year on last time for this reason.) We keep our can on a shelf and all year we drop in memories or events as they happen. For example we have written about all of our field trips, vacations, weddings, and fun memories. We also love to include small memories like something funny that baby bear did or "today mom saw  huge spider and screamed." Everyone is allowed to drop something in whenever they want. We all sit down on NYE and read all of the memories together. It's always amazing to see how much actually happened in our family in one year! We also have a lot of laughs. Daddy has this game with the girls (pretty much daily) where he randomly screams at the top of his lungs "Dad is awesome!!" and they all shout back "You're not awesome!!!" Then he chases and tickles them all. They've been doing this since Sis was little. It's a joke that about 10 of the slips of paper we find in the memory box say "DAD IS AWESOME!" they crack up, we all know who dropped those slips in...I know it's sort of a "you had to be there," kinda thing.lol.

9:00p.m.  Resolutions and Prayer! This was my favorite part of the night and will definitely become a tradition to stay. This is the first year that any of my girls have shown an interest in NY resolutions. Baby Bear went to bed, so I figured this was a good time for this activity which is more geared toward the older girls. The girls each had "resolutions" that they had been thinking up since earlier in the week. I made a sheet with each family member's name on it and a blank for us to each write in one resolution for the new year. We passed it around and then put it in an envelope. We'll keep our envelope in our memory can to look back at next year and see how we did. I really wanted to figure out a way to make our night meaningful and about Jesus. Next I passed out a slip of paper to each person. We had a few moments of self examination and I asked everyone to to come up with one area of their heart or attitude that needs to become more Christlike. We wrote them down on our slips. Then we had a time of prayer. We took turns repenting and praying about those areas of our hearts. We dedicated the new year to Christ and prayed for each other. It was really a pretty awesome time. Finally we took our slips of paper, wadded them up and threw them away symbolizing that we were done with those old attitudes and behaviors. 


10:00p.m. Family Movie Time! The girls have been waiting forever to watch Dolphin Tale 2, part one is one of their favorite movies. So, I decided we would watch a movie together to cover both the 10:00 & 11:00 bags. We made popcorn, all snuggled up under big blankets, and then enjoyed the movie.

12:00a.m.-HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! In our midnight bag was simply a paper that said Happy New Year! I didn't get a chance to buy party blowers, hats and all that, so I made the girls super quick "noise makers" out of small snack containers and popcorn kernels. We turned on the countdown a few secs before the ball began to drop (sadly that's the only part of the NYE show I feel is appropriate to even watch.) We counted down and then made all kinds of racket shaking our noise makers and shouting "Happy new Year."

I think this was one of our best stay at home New Years celebrations ever. Both Sis and Boo made it to midnight no problem. The kids said it was"more fun than Christmas Eve." I will definitely be planning another hourly countdown for them next year. I look forward to what 2015 holds for us. My biggest hopes for this year are that as a family we draw closer to God  and together accomplish much for His Kingdom.