Homeschool Week Highlights - Sun. Jan 18 - Fri, Jan 23, 2009

Homeschool Days 82 - 87

Scouts-at-Home: Colors and Shapes. The badge book recommended that you make play dough. However, we have done this numerous times. Instead we got out the modeling clay and just had fun making things. We also watched a video called Good Housekeeping Colors and Shapes.

A Rainbow of Colors. I explained what primary colors are (red, yellow & blue) We used tempera paints starting with these colors to do color mixing. She mixed red+blue = purple, blue + yellow = green, yellow+red= orange, then she mixed them all together for brown. Then Shayla colored in a rainbow that I drew for her. This is something we did in the past, but she still enjoys any form of art, so we did it again. (science, art)

Mexican yarn art. For our last project for this badge we made a rainbow shaped Mexican yarn art. You begin by drawing a design on cardboard. Cover the drawing with glue, then add different colors of yarn in all sorts of ways. We really had a lot of fun doing this. By making a rainbow, Shayla was able to make alot of the picture herself (after being shown what to do).

Reading: We read lots of books aloud. We are still working on her shyness (selective mutism) issue. We read The Shy Little Girl and The Shy Little Turtle. I have been reading these to her daily. She enjoys reading them and acting them out. We talked about how I was shy as a little girl and how I used to feel (character, social studies). I also ordered her several books about shyness and fears to add to our own library. She also eagerly read these books with her dad. But she added that she's still not going to talk.

We have been reading an assortment of reading materials. In addition to our own books, we have been reading library books, magazines, and comics from the newspaper.

Bible: Letter J

J is for Jonah.

We watched the story of Jonah on the Read N See DVD Bible. Then we sang You Are a Gracious and Compassionate God. We then read and acted out the story of Jonah from another Bible storybook. We sang Who Did Swallow Jonah? and It's a Whale of a Tale, (the Lighthouse CD)and Jonah and the Whale(music). Here's a whole slew of Jonah activities. We did a color page for her Bible book. We also watched the Veggie Tales Jonah movie. And we had a lot of fun playing a game called What's in the Big Fish? In this game, we took turns choosing cards. We described the picture to the other player and they guessed what the picture was on the card. We had a lot of fun with this and spent much more time on it than I thought we would. (language, communication)

Here's the What's in the Big Fish Game.

J is for jungle. We colored a jungle scene on paper with crayons. Then we painted over the crayon with green paint diluted with water. We did something similar for scouts called a crayon resist. After the paint dried, we added foam jungle animal stickers for fun. (art)

J is for jar. We read Luke 8:16. I lit a jar candle and demonstrated that the flame needs oxygen to stay lit. Shayla put the lid on the jar candle and the flame went out. The verse explains that we, as Christians are supposed to be like the candle with oxygen, shining in the world - not like the candles that are covered up, they lose their flame.

*To incorporate more handwriting, which Shayla definately needs. I had her trace and write Jj and our theme words for Bible (jungle and jar, Jesus, Jordan, and jobs). (handwriting)

J is for journal. We had fun with our journal entry today. We used Ed Emberley's Fingerprint Drawing book to make a scene of some of the bugs we learned about in science last week. (art, sensory, science)If you have not used any of his books, you are missing out. He teaches you to make many things using your thumb and fingerprint and adding small touches. I cannot draw at all, but I have been able to make some really cute things with my daughter.

J is for Jesus being baptized in the Jordan River. First we found the Jordan River on a map (geography). Then we talked about the dimensions of the Jordan River. It is about 5 feet deep in many places, so we measured out 5' of yarn. Shayla went around the house comparing objects with her yarn. We talked about taller, smaller, wider, etc. (math, size comparison)

J is for jobs. We talked about jobs that begin with letter j. We came up with journalist and judge. We didn't go any further because we did an in depth study of careers for scouts-at-home.

Math: Addition. She completed 2 wkbk pages of basic addition. They used eggs and dinosaurs as counters. I also demonstrated on the whiteboard. I think she has a fairly good concept of addition, she can answer correctly, orally. But she can't write the answers. We constantly are reviewing how to form the numbers. She can do most letters independently, but not numbers, so I have to make dotted ones for her to trace. It takes us so painstakingly long to complete. UGH! I don't know if I should just allow her to answer orally and move on, or if we need to do like we're doing. Eventually she'll have to learn to form her numbers!