100th Day of School

We finally had our 100th day of school! I've had all year to think and plan for this day, so I actually came up with quite a few ideas. I decided to let the girls take a whole day off of all regular school work and we would only spend the day celebrating. I felt like I planned a lot, but we were actually able to do everything in about 2 hours while Baby Bear napped! I love short school days!

The first thing we did however was take Boo's 100 chart off the wall, add our 100 block and add our last straw to our 100 cup. Boo practiced counting to 100 and counting by tens. We bundled up all of our ten straw bundles and made a big 100 bundle. We're now done with these daily activities for this school year!

Instead of our regular worksheets I found the girls some really cute "100 day" sheets to fill out. I printed these free from teacherspayteachers.com. This website is free to join and you can find tons printables that are free for just about any subject you're teaching! I love it. I just typed in "100 days of school." Our favorite worksheet was the "If I were 100" sheet. The girls made self portraits of their 100 year old selves. They turned out so cute! We used cotton balls for the white hair. It kind of made me sad though, because Boo asked "Momma will you still love us when we're 100?" Of course I'll always love my babies, but it's kind of sad to think that I will not still be here to know them when they're that old! Here is link to the website...

Teachers pay Teachers

For an easy craft we made cereal necklaces with 100 Apple Jacks ( I counted them out beforehand.)  Sis use to love making these when she was 5 and it just occurred to me that I've never made one with Boo! So she had fun doing this activity. I was afraid Sis would think it was babyish and not want to participate but she actually still enjoyed it.

Games: Next we played some games. We had a 100 day "Smarty pants candy hunt!" I hid packages of Smarties around the living room 7 packages equaled 100 smarties ( I had to take a few out of the last pack for it to be even. Then I said "Since you are now100 days smarter than the first day of school that makes you a smarty pants! See if you can find the 100 Smarties hid in the room."


Another game we played was drop the 100 toothpicks into the cup to see who could get the most. 

For lunch we ordered pizza and had a little pizza party. Of course pizza doesn't have anything to do with the #100, but what's a party without pizza right? Then we had cookies for dessert! I found this cookie idea on Pinterest and thought it was so cute! 

Then to burn off our pizza we did 100 exercises!

Here's what it looked like:
*10 stretches
*10 jumping jacks
*10 hops
* 10 hops on 1 foot (right)
*10 hops on 1 foot (left)
*10 push ups
*10 secs of jogging in place
*10 laps around the room
*10 toe touches
*10 arm circles

Finally I gave them 100 day certificates. They had been joking all week that since 100 day happened to also be on allowance day that they should get $100 for allowance (nice try!) Obviously I wasn't gonna give them each $100 but I did find these jumbo size $100 bills at the Dollar Tree! Plus they were only one sided, so I made them into a reward certificate by writing on the back "Congratulations on completing 100 days of Kindergarten (or 3rd grade.) I'm very proud of you..Mom." Not as cool as getting real money, but they loved them and thought it was funny!

Xx-Fox

This week we learned the letter Xx. It's never really occurred to me before that there aren't words in the English language that really begin with the X /ks/ sound. Words that begin with 'X' like "xylophone" do not make the true x sound they say /ex/ not /ks/.  So our theme for the week and all of our worksheets used words that end with the X. This was a little bit confusing to Boo, but I guess it's the only solution to the problem. We learned about foxes this week. In most children's stories the fox is a sly deceitful character. For whatever reason they have this reputation. We compared Satan to a lying fox who's intent is to decieve and destroy us. We talked about how God wants us to be wise and know what His word says, so that we will not be fooled by Satan's lies. Our words to remember were, "God's word makes me wiser than my enemies."

For our story time this week we read books with a sneaky fox as one of the characters. When I mentioned a sly fox both Boo and Sis immediately said "Mr. Tod!" (from Peter Rabbit). A while back I scored a 384 page book "The Complete Tales of Beatrix Potter," at Goodwill for $0.50! I hadn't opened it before now, so I pulled it off our shelf and we read the story of Jamima Puddle duck. About a duck who is tricked by a fox into laying her eggs in his shed. We also read the story of "The Gingerbread Man," who's pride ends up getting him eaten by a tricky fox.

 We learned that foxes, dogs, and wolves are all part of the same animal family. Then we made a chart comparing foxes and dogs. (Sis helped us with this one) They tried think of similarities and differences between foxes and dogs. I wrote them on the chart I made. The last one cracked me up."dogs bark or howl" but "What does the fox say?" My kids are crazy! Then Boo preceded to answer the question by dancing around singing! (For those who don't know that is a super annoying song that makes kids go nuts.)


I found this simple craft on Pinterest for our words to remember craft. We made a fox using hearts. I taught Boo how to fold your paper into to make a heart. I drew the heart halves and she cut them out. It was good cutting practice.  Then we glued him together and wrote our words to remember on the back.

One of the last things we did this week was talk about animal habitats. Boo had an activity where she had to separate pictures of animals into 3 groups: water animals, sky (I accidentally wrote air..opps!) and land animals. I made 3 separate pages for her to glue them to.

We ended up only having a 4 day week for our X unit because Friday happened to be Boo's 100th day of school!! So we had our 100 day celebration, which I will write a separate blog about.

Sis Highlight:

Sis finally finished learning about the war of 1812 and that time period. Now we will be moving on to pioneer days. She also gave her very first oral report! I gave her an assignment to take notes of things she would like to include in her report. Then I left her alone to work on writing what she wanted to say. I did not expect her reaction! Sis is one who loves to feel "grown up" and loves to write stories. She wants to be an artist and a writer someday. Apparently this sounded like a real big kid assignment to her. She got so excited. She worked on it for about 20 mins. Then to my surprise I found her working on it before bed that night and again then next morning before breakfast! She ended up with almost 4 pages and I didn't help her with any of it! I didn't check her spelling or grammar, because this was for history. I was more concerned about content and showing what she had learned. She presented her report orally in front of the whole family. She did an excellent job! I was surprised at how well worded her report was, and how much info she had actually retained. She included an overview of the American Revolution in the introduction. It showed me that she has gained a good understanding of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 this year. I'm so proud of her.

Ff- Frog

This week we learned about frogs! This was unit 22 of 26, that means only 4 weeks left of Kindergarten for Boo! Of course we will continue to review and work on math at least until summer. Our frog unit focused on using our tongues wisely. We learned how frogs have very unique long tongues that they use to catch bugs. They have to sit with their tongues curled up in their mouth very quietly and patiently until the right time to attack. God also gave us tongues. We can choose to hold our tongue when we are angry and only speak words of love that build others up, or we can use our words to tear someone down or tell lies. God wants us to use our tongue and words wisely.

Here's a pic of us doing some school work in the girl's pop up gazebo. So much better than a desk! Isn't homeschooling great?


 


We learned about tadpoles and the life cycle of a frog. We made a life cycle wheel. I couldn't find a good one online that would print right, so I put together the free printables from two different sites and then cut the cover out of green construction paper to make a lilly pad. Boo colored the frog, we glued the pieces together and attached with a brad. Here are lionks to the two sites I printed from...

Frog lifecycle printable

Lifecycle wheel 

Here's a pic of the printables I ended up using and then a pic of the finished product. It was interesting learning about the different stages of development. Sis was suppose to raise tadpoles for science a couple months ago, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it...maybe in the future.

We had fun with story times this unit. I hadn't realized how many frog stories we own. Really it's embarrassing that we own so many books that we don't even know what's in our library. I think that kinda goes with homeschooling, but we all just love to read so I pick them up at thrift stores or where ever. I hadn't planned on reading so many, but the Frog and Toad stories especially were a huge hit with Boo. She kept begging to read more.

Boo learned the song 5 little speckled frogs. We watched this Youtube video and I made this cute little log to use as we sing the song. Every time a frog jumps into the pool you flip down one of the flaps, she loved it. Baby Bear thought it was funny too.

Here is a link to the website where I got the idea for the song craft.
5 little speckled frogs craft

Here's a pic of how ours turned out...




Sis Highlight:

Sis asked me to take a pic of her copywork/ handwriting practice. She has been doing a good job on her cursive writing.

Bb- Butterfly

This week has been interesting. We had to have school away from home all week, because of a family emergency. We packed up all of our books and brought them with us. We didn't get as much done as we would have at home, but we were still able to make it work.

This week we learned about butterflies. We had to put our real butterfly garden on hold because of the cold, but we plan on coming back to it this spring. We learned all about the life cycle of a butterfly, and how a caterpillar changes into a butterfly. Our bible connection was that just like a caterpillar changes into something totally new, God can change peoples hearts. In Christ we become a new creation and our old self is gone. We learned about Zacchaeus, and how his heart changed after he met Jesus. That was evident in the fact that he gave back all the money he had wrongly taken. Our words to remember were "God can make me new."

We read this book about butterflies.

Then we made our own little butterfly book. We combined two of the suggested projects this week (draw a life cycle chart and decorate a butterfly) into one project. First we divided a paper into four sections and Boo drew pictures for each of the four stages in the butterflies life. We also acted out the stages where she curled up in a ball for egg etc. Then we folded our paper into a little book, and we made a butterfly for the cover. We learned how the butterflies wings are symetrical or that one wing is an exact mirror image of the other, so she had to practice coloring both wings to match. Then we glued it to the cover of our book.

There have been a lot of 1sts in math this week. One thing that we started was "coin cup," to begin learning to count money." Each day Boo adds one penny to her coin cup. We will count the coins every day after we add a new one. On day five the pennies will be replaced with a nickle, 2 nickles a dime. etc.
 

We also began our MathUSee Primer this week. Boo has been waiting all year to have her own math workbook, blocks, and video like Sis. I finally decided that she was ready.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I had so many cute activities pinned on Pinterest for this one, but being away from home made it to hard so we just read it. Then I made her this little math worksheet to go along with it. I put a number nxt to the caterpillar heads, and she had to finger paint the correct number of caterpillar bodies.

For our words to remember craft we used this scratch art set. My kids love these. You can find them at any craft store. There happened to be a butterfly stencil in the box. Boo scratched out her colorful butterfly and then I scratched her words to remember onto her paper.

Jj- Jewel

This week we learned the letter J and about jewels.We learned what it means for something to be considered valuable. Diamonds and precious jewels are very expensive and considered valuable. People value different things. However, Jesus said "What good is it if a man gains the whole world but loses his soul?" Paul said "I consider everything loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ." (Phil 3:8.) Boo's words to remember this week were "Jesus is more valuable than anything else."


Well Monday happened to be groundhogs day, so after introducing our jewels. We did a few groundhogs day activities. It's fun for the kids to celebrate this tradition even though the thought of a little fur ball predicting the weather is just silliness. Here's a link to a cute little song Boo and I learned.

Ground Hogs day Song

Then we played around with shadow puppets a little bit and made this groundhog shadow craft. I simply printed off a silhouette of a groundhog from the internet, cut him out, and very lightly glued him (with a glue stick so that it would easily peal off) to black construction paper. We then used him as a stencil and colored around him with light colored chalks to make a groundhog shadow.

For our tactile letter activity I just drew some letter J's on a paper and Boo used rubber stamps and ink to trace over the letters.


We're still practicing basic addition. I bought a cheap pack of decorative jewels for our craft this week. We decided to use our jewels for math too, to help in figuring out the problems.She's almost ready to begin her MathUsee Primer, which she's super excited about.


I didn't do too great presenting info on jewels. It was hard to find materials, and I didn't have any books. At least Boo learned the letter J and the definition of the word "valuable." I thought it was neat that our family bible study in "Long Story Short," just happened to focus on Esau not valuing his birthright. So Boo's K lessons kind of helped her to understand that lesson better.


 For our craft we made a crown using a paper plate. We used our "jewels" to decorate it and we glued our words to remember on the front.

Sis Highlight:

Sis completed memorizing all of her multiplication facts. We've been slowly learning them all year. I really love the approach that MathUSee uses focusing on one main concept for the whole year (addition yr 1, subtraction yr 2, mult yr 3, etc) and really mastering the "how and why" of that one concept. At the same time they gently use fractions, algebra, and many advanced math concepts to teach the easier ones.That way when she gets to higher levels she'll already be somewhat familiar at least with these concepts. Sis also loves the weekly math lessons on DVD that help her understand the lesson.

This week we got to use our shark tooth for science. We found this while gem mining on vacation last fall, and we've been saving it for our shark week. We learned about sharks teeth and how to determine the size of a shark based on the size of it's tooth. By the size of our tooth, we discovered that our shark had been 5 feet long.

The most exciting thing that happened this week though is that we got our next years curriculum in the mail!It's so exciting looking through it all!