Homeschool Day 58 - Monday, November 24, 2008

Wrap Up Day! We finished alot of "loose ends" today so we can have a "specials fun day" tomorrow.

Journal: Draw your favorite part of the Hiawatha puppet show you seen. No surprise there, she drew turtle and bear.

All subjects: She is continuing to complete pages in the Brighter Learning workbook. They incorporate math, reading, science, and writing into pages.

Specials: I made this turkey made out of felt. As she put the feathers on, we talked about things we are thankful for, then we sang “Count Your Blessings.” We finished reading If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. (social studies, reading)

Activity: (writing & Social Studies) Write one sentence about the month of November. Shayla copied this sentence: We celebrate Thanksgiving in November. *Note: I said she COPIED. She did not require dotted lines! Woo-Hoo!

Phonics: We solved this Read Between the Lions puzzle. She read the words as she put the pieces together. Yay!

Scouts at Home: Citizens: Near and Far. We started off by talking about what a citizen is. We read Children From Around the World. We used a globe to find each of the countries the children were from. (social studies & geography)

Science: We finished up the unit about trees, leaves and seeds by doing some worksheets.

Art/Reading: We read the Chicka, Chicka books. Then did this fun craft from No Time For Flashcards.

Homeschool Day 57- Friday, November 21, 2008

Not much in the way of written work. Today we was a Children's Theater Foundation Day.

Field trip: We went to see a puppet production of The Story of Hiawatha. I loved the handmade puppets. It was interesting, but not the best show. It talked a lot about Indian spirits and guides, and vision quest. Shayla sat covering her ears the entire time. She was very uncooperative, she was upset that we made her take her coat and hat off. I think she was bothered because it was not at the normal theater, but the local high school. Sometimes she doesn't handle change well.

Scouts-at-Home: Caring & Sharing. We finished up the last activity for her Caring & Sharing badgework, by looking at one of her scrapbooks and talking about some of our fun experiences and the special people in our lives.

Homeschool Day 56 - Thursday, November 20, 2008

Journal: Last night we read about the pilgrim’s first town. Shayla drew what she pictured the first town to be like. I was surprised at how much she comprehended from If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. She drew First Street, the commonhouse, and a lake for water.

Activity: We read Thanksgiving is for Giving Thanks by Margaret Sutherland. (reading) I am working with her on her copying skills and trying to build her hand muscles for fine motor. She wrote the title of the book.

Math: We’re doing pages from the Brighter Learning book Things That Grow. She did several pages showing easy subtraction problems. I was really impressed with the one. It had strips to cut out. Then each strip had garden things on it. There were dotted lines between the garden tools, you folded to visually show the subtraction fact. How fun is that! She picked right up on it!

Scouts-at-Home: Caring & Sharing: Differences. We talked about how people can be different, even moms and daughters, brothers & sisters, even twins. We listed ways people can be different (hair color, eye color, size, glasses or hearing disabilities, or other physical disabilities, etc). We read God Made Our Bodies and God Made You Special. We sang Jesus Loves the Little Children because it makes mention of the different skin colors. We were able to sing and sign this song, too. (social studies, reading, music, foreign language)

Reading: We re-read all the little books we’ve read since starting school this fall.

Computer: The public school had an early dismissal today, so it’s hard for Shayla to focus when Morgan is running around here and the phone is ringing all the time (Ah, teenagers!) So she played educational games on the computer. She hasn’t done this for months, so it was time deserved!

Homeschool Day 55 - Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Where has this week gone? I can't believe it's Wednesday already!

Science: We talked about what the stem’s job is. We talked about this summer when we put a Queen Anne’s Lace flower into a cup of water with blue food coloring added. It turned the white flower blue because the stems job is to drink up the water for the plant. In the next lesson, it further demonstrated this by having her drink water from a straw. She loved it! Who knew that’s how you can get a child to actually drink water! Lastly we read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. This was easy to get her to do, even though it was nighttime. This is her all-time favorite story!

I found a workbook from Brighter Visions Learning (I think)called How Things Grow. This is a wonderful resource to use with this. There was a page called We Eat Parts of Plants. She traced the dotted names of fruits and veggies and it told what part of the plant it was that we eat (corn-seeds, lettuce-leaf, celery-stem, carrots-roots). Then she cut out the little pages and put them in numeral order. It was a little book.

Journal: We’re really behind on the science curriculum. We were talking about stems. We read Jack and the Beanstalk. So today’s journal entry was to draw a part of the story you liked.

Scouts-at-Home: Caring & Sharing: Feelings. She made another book today – about feelings. I modified the scouts idea. Here’s what we did:

Cover: I wrote Feelings, she drew different faces.
Page 1: My best friend is ______. We like to do _________together.
Page 2: I was happy when___________.
Page 3: I was scared when____________.
Page 4: I was proud of myself when__________.
Page 5: I was mad when____________.
Page 6: I was brave when____________.
Page 7: This is what I like best about me!____________

On each page she dictated something for me to write and she drew a picture to go along with it.

Writing: Shayla traced her dotted name, Hh’s and words that begin with h. Then she wrote the h words beside the dotted ones for copy practice. Now here comes the fun that I promised her yesterday. I took an idea from her special preschool teacher and we made Rainbow Stew! (more about this in another post!)

Bible: Letter H. Reviewed verse and counted to one Hundred today. (math)

Specials: Thanksgiving. Today we spent some time at the Preschool Express site. We sang the Thanksgiving songs at the Music Station. We had quite a lot of fun doing the turkey hokey pokey! Hey, it’s educational, it helps with learning right from left and following directions, plus it’s music & movement! Then we did the turkey baster transfer it was at the Holiday station. We measured 1 cup of water and poured it into a bowl. Using my turkey baster (which she has always loved to play with), she transferred the water to the other bowl. She did surprisingly well, too. In the end, we measured the water again. Low and behold, she had transferred exactly 1 cup of water! (math, fine motor skills)

Reading: We read another section of If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. (social studies). We also took some time in the evening to just read for pleasure. This is one of our favorite things to do together, but during the school day, we seem to get too wrapped up just doing school.

Caring and Sharing Try It

It just so happens that the caring and sharing try it works well with our social studies unit. Isn't that something!

What makes a Friend?

We started off talking about what makes a friend. We read Eric Carle's book, Do You Want to be My Friend. We also read Making Friends it's a book on CD. She was not into this and honestly, neither was I.

I Care

We started off by making cards for the people in our immediate family. Hey, Shayla loves to use my rubber stampers for any occasion! We explained that she is earning her Caring and Sharing patch and she wanted to do a kind deed for each person to show she cares. Here's what we came up with:

Morgan - do her chores for the evening - done.

Dad - get firewood in for the evening and make him a yummy treat! She chose to make him a dark chocolate fudge cake! Oh, won't he be pleasantly surprised!!! - done

Grandma B - she will sing songs, read books to her and colored her a page out of her giant coloring book. (Grandma likes to display "fine art" on her refrigerator! - done

This took the better part of the day, but we had fun doing these things together and I think it was a valuable lesson.

Favorites

We discussed how sometimes even friends don't always agree. We compared some of our favorite things, like school subjects (hers: phys ed, mine: art & reading)favorite places (home, playground, etc). You get the idea!

What if?

We used stuffed dolls to act out the following scenarios:

-Your best friend is crying. How would you show you care?
-One of the girls has a birthday.
-Your mother has something important to do and can’t play with you.
-A neighbor falls and breaks a leg.
-Your friend is afraid of failing a test.
-A classmate forgot his lunch.

We also made several of our own scenarios. Shayla really enjoyed acting these out and actively participated in dialog between characters. Woo-hoo! (Social studies, communications – social skills, character)

Homeschool Day 38 - Tuesday, October 28, 2008

The best part of homeschool today is we will actually be home all day to do it. No where to go today! Woo-Hoo!

Scouts at Home (social studies): Careers. Photographer. Shayla had lots of personal experience with several photographers at Cassandra’s wedding this past weekend. They tried to make her smile to no avail. But, at least they successfully took her photograph and she wasn’t crying! Baby steps! We read a library book about different photographers and the kinds of photos they take. I showed Shayla how to use my camera and she took a picture of our very old, very lazy dog, Duchess. *This was a better choice than the pups that don’t stay still!

This is the photo Shayla, the young photographer, took.

Here she is behind the camera!

Phonics/Reading: We did Abeka lesson 3. Beginning consonant sounds. Review of short vowel sounds. We sang the short vowel sound version of Old Mac Donald. (music). Shayla got to play an instrument each time she heard the correct vowel sound in the words I called out. Completed a workbook page about ending sounds (spelling).

Activity: I skimmed around the activities lessons and found one that has to do with the careers try it that we’ve been working on. These are the actual careers Shayla came up with – I promise! Maybe this is why she hasn’t had much interest in the careers I’ve picked out! LOL!

C amera man

A stronaut

R abbit farmer

E lephant trainer

E ye or ear doctor

R ace car driver

S un scientist

Math: I took 3 paper pig shapes and Shayla used number stampers and stamped 1, 5, and 10 on each. Then she took a jar of pennies, nickels, and dimes and put them in the appropriate pig. Then we counted them and made patterns. I made some very difficult patterns and was pleasantly surprised that Shayla was able to identify the next coin in the pattern.

Reading: I introduced –ad words (bad, dad, etc) using letter magnets. Then she read Bob book – Sam aloud.

Writing: Although Shayla’s writing skills have improved, I want to push her a little harder. Today I had her trace over my letters. She wrote:

Today is Tuesday.
It is October 28, 2008.
It is cold and windy.

Supplemental (math/reading): This was a great idea and I think I will use it with color words and maybe phonics, too. I folded a paper plate into twelve triangles. Start by folding the plate in half, then just fold into triangles. Next I wrote the number words in each pie piece (zero-ten). Then I wrote the corresponding numbers (0-10)on clothespins. Shayla clipped the correct number clothespin on the correct number word. This is great for strengthening hand muscles. I remember not so long ago when she really struggled with this. Today it was fun!

Homeschool Day 37 - Monday, October 27, 2008

Scouts-at-Home (Social Studies): Careers. Veterinarian. We read several library books about the work that vets do. Shayla was bothered by one of the books that mentioned that animals can pass some diseases to people. UGH! I guess I’ll have to be more careful about what I teach! She definitely enjoyed playing the part. She used an old green shirt as a scrub and a toy doctor kit. We had a real stethoscope from earlier days. She practiced her vet skills on her stuffed animals, then her twin pups. She said she would not like to be a vet because the sounds of the cows and big animals!

Activity (fine motor skills): Shayla traced around her left hand with her right hand. She did a good job. She wrote her name on her thumb outline, her age on her pointer finger, her telephone number on her middle finger, and her birthdate on her ring finger.
*Note: She is becoming more confident in making her numbers without as many dots or dashes. She made an 8 independently today (for the first time)! Woo-hoo!

Math: Patterns. Shayla and I read I See Patterns. She completed pg 176 making a name pattern. We had fun with this page. First she wrote her first name, middle name, and last name – one letter in each square. Then she colored all the s’s yellow, all the h’s black, etc. We played another game in the Zoorama packet. She chose lions and I chose giraffes. We spun the spinner and put an animal sticker under each number that was spun. Shayla won this game fair and square! We then used the spinner to count out foam shape pieces. Shayla did this with ease, so we cut the lesson short.

Phonics/Reading: I introduced -ad sound. Shayla is now reading -at, -am, and -ad words. In addition to sight words: the, end, on, and. She is really enjoying the Bob books. Several times I found her trying to sound out words that she sees throughout the house. YAY! I'm really pleased that her reading is progressing!

Field Trip (Music): We attended Morgan's marching band concert finale last night. The kids did a wonderful job. Shayla's behavior was ok. No ear plugging and she actually sat on the bench beside me, instead of on top of me!

Again, we completed alot of worksheets. I know our school day may not seem like a long one, but many things take her so painstakingly long to complete! I keep telling myself that it's better to take time to actually learn it, then to push her through it to stay on track (like public school).

Careers Try It

What Am I Good At?


We started by talking about things that Shayla likes to do. We also discussed what a talent is and talked about her talents.


We talked about different jobs and how some careers have more men in them than women. We named several jobs like firefighter, construction worker, road crew worker, police, and sanitation workers.

Future Jobs

We talked about what kind of jobs may be good to get into, considering Shayla's talents and abilities and the future job demand. We decided maybe a doctor, a nurse, or a teacher. She just wants to be a kid, she says!

Women Pioneers

We read stories about Marie Curie, the woman who invented the radium x-ray. We also learned about Nellie Bly, who was a reporter in a predominantly male field.

Career Charades

We started discussing, dressing up, and acting out different jobs, but I felt like we were rushing through a learning opportunity, so we went to the library and checked out books about some professions and we will be doing one a day for awhile. Somewhere in the first grade curriculum in Social Studies it talks about community helpers. What a fun, hands-on way to learn! We will also see some workers in action on field trips to the bank, library, doctor's office, etc.
Here she is playing a bank teller.

Now Sporty is pretending to be a coach. She didn't say what she's coaching, but she sure liked the whistle!

I am so glad that we decided not to rush through this badgework. Friday afternoon, I went to the library and picked out many books on different career fields. Each day we will read a book and act out (in some way)the career.

We read a wonderful book by Dr. Seuss. It is called, Maybe You Should Fly a Jet, Maybe You Should be a Vet. We briefly discussed what each profession mentioned does. We also watched a Barney episode called All Aboard for Sharing. It has a song on it called, What I want to be, when I grow up to be big me!

Sunday we learned about bus drivers. First we read a book about bus drivers. Then we got out the old school bus tent. (Yes, we do some homeschool on weekends. She thinks it's play, but it's also learning. Don't tell her any different, please!)
Shayla was the bus driver. I got into the back of the tent. We pretended like it was a real bus and she was the driver. I'm sure we got some funny looks from cars passing by. It's not everyday you see a school bus tent walking around a field! The dogs and cat were passengers sometimes. As we walked around in this stifling hot school bus tent, we sang, "The Wheels on the Bus" song.

I don't think Shayla is meant to be a bus driver. She lead us right through the low tree branches several times.

Maybe something else...

Musician. We read books about being a musician. We talked about the different groups of instruments (percussion, woodwind, brass). Then we had fun playing with Shayla’s box of instruments. She said she does not want to be a musician when she grows up. (I thought there might be a chance, since she has always loved music!)

Jayden loved her instruments, except the whistles!

Shayla has been to many football games. Here she is being a conductor or field commander for the band!

Farmer. Today we learned about being a farmer. We read I’m Going to be a Farmer and If You Were a Farmer. We discussed that farmers can grow crops or animals or both. Most of this stuff is just second nature for Shayla because we put out a half acre vegetable garden, harvest wild berries, apples and grapes, and are beginning to acquire a whole menagerie of farm animals. I guess we are farmers. She said she would not like to be a farmer. After reading the books, we played with her Fisher Price farm set, then we sang Old Mac Donald had a farm.

Veterinarian. We read several library books about the work that vets do. Shayla was bothered by one of the books that mentioned that animals can pass some diseases to people. UGH! I guess I’ll have to be more careful about what I teach! She definitely enjoyed playing the part. She used an old green shirt as a scrub and a toy doctor kit. We had a real stethoscope from earlier days. She practiced her vet skills on her stuffed animals, then her twin pups. She said she would not like to be a vet because the sounds of the cows and big animals! She did seem to enjoy this career, though!

Fire Fighter. I guess I forgot to post this, but it is definately a career. After our trip to the Fire Museum, Shayla pretended to be a fire fighter for two days! She was interested in this one, but we talked about how it may not the career for her because of her eczema.

Look at that imagination. She's using a stick of wood for a hose. Later on she found a kitchen sink sprayer and hose. The one that didn't fit my broken one in the kitchen. Hint! Hint!

Plumber. This profession has been in the media a lot lately. Let me assure you that the only reason I chose this career was because it was mentioned in the scout handbook. We read I Can Be a Plumber. Shayla has helped her dad with plumbing projects in the past. As a toddler, she sat and peacefully played with a box of pvc pipes and fittings. This time the only thing she did was help me plunge the toilet. Yes, it needed it! Don’t ask!!!

Dentist. With all the dentist appointments mom has had lately, I thought we should definitely talk about this career! First we read some non-fiction books about dentists from the library. We pointed out different tools and such. Then we read some books from Shayla’s collection, like Little Critter’s Just Going to the Dentist, Barney Goes to the Dentist, and Dora the Explorer: Show Me Your Smile: A Trip to the Dentist.

Then came the fun stuff!

Last year (as a homeschooling parent) I got a freebie available to Kindergarten classroom teachers. It was a classroom pack from Colgate-Palmolive. It contained a Dr. Rabbit DVD(similar to Reader Rabbit character), a poster of the proper way to brush, 30 toothbrush packets and take-home booklets. I don’t know if this would be available, but it may be worth it to email the manufacturer asking for it.

We watched the DVD and played dentist.

First we put Shayla’s doll, Shyanne, into the chair. We used our old rocker-recliner as the dentist chair. First we put a spit bib on Shyanne (an old handkerchief worked well but you could use anything). Then the dentist put on her mask. I was hoping to find a paint mask around here, but no such luck, instead we used a handkerchief. I just safety pinned it in the back. We discussed the proper way to brush teeth. Shayla pretended to brush her teeth.

Then Shayla had a turn in the chair. I demonstrated to her (as a dentist, of course)how to properly brush your teeth. *Note to self: Maybe we should play dentist every night to get those teeth brushed right! LOL!

I think this was good for her because I think she had a fear of the dentist.

Doctor or Nurse. We read several non-fiction library books about being doctors or nurses. Shayla is particularly interested in nursing. I also realized in doing the careers badge, we completed the Abeka 1st gr social studies curriculum entitled Community Helpers.

Astronaut. We read library book, I Can Be An Astronaut. Shayla said she did not want to be an astronaut because she didn’t want to travel that far away from home. After we read some fun fiction books, (Astronaut Critter and Little Bear Goes to the Moon) we dressed up as astronauts and pretended we were flying in outer space. She wore my “moon boots” and a construction helmet as a spacesuit. We used a round shape pop-up tent as our spaceship. Then we talked about the moon – it was bumpy and holey (huh, so is our yard! LOL!) (language) We talked about gravity differences on the moon (science)and practiced “moon walking.” (phys ed). She created a space scene by coloring on her black Crayola Color Explosion paper. She made planets, moons, stars, and spaceships.

Building Art Brownie Try It - Updated - Homeschooling Day 4 - Sun Sept 7, 2008

We first learned about architect by reading library books about the job.

Your Home

We talked about what makes the home. Shayla had a lot of hands on experience with this because we added an addition onto our home several years ago. In order to be able to financially do this, my husband and I did much of the work ourselves. She has seen first hand how the blocklayers laid the blocks for our crawlspace, and how the concrete is poured, how the framers make the walls of the house, how to wire a house, how to insulate a house, how to put up drywall, finish the drywall, then paint and add trim. She also seen how vinyl siding and roofing is done.

She has also seen and been a part of the maintenance of the house.

Look at Buildings and Spaces

When we go to town, we often talk about the different architectural qualities of buildings, including what time period the building was constructed according to its qualities.

We discuss differences in shapes, patterns, sizes, colors and materials. We visited several playgrounds and talked about how they are designed. Shayla decided that the playgrounds are designed nicely because of the plastic equipment and the mulch underneath. I told her when I was a small girl, our playground was not designed well at all. We had steel playground equipment that got very hot. You could easily get burnt. My playground was covered with rock, when you fell down, it hurt alot.

The Best Neighborhood

We discussed what makes a good neighborhood. What needs to be in a good neighborhood (doctors, dentists, stores, and library). We talked about how people would act in a good neighborhood (good, not do bad things).

Discovering the Strengths of Shapes

We did an activity from the Brownie handbook. It was an experiment using a piece of paper to see which design was the strongest.

Experiment 1: Put a penny on a flat sheet of paper. Hold paper by one edge in the air. Put penny on it. It falls off, so this is not a good design.

Experiment 2: Take sheet of paper and fold into fourths. It will look like a card. Put the coin on the corner of the folded paper. This should hold the coin. This is an example of a good design.

Experiment 3: Fold sheet of paper like a paper fan, curve the end. Put coin on the curved end - it should hold the coin.

Designing Space for Someone With Special Needs

First we read in the handbook what a "special need" is. It can be something you can see, like using a cane, walker or wheelchair. Or something you can't see like someone being blind, deaf, or having a learning disability.

Shayla has had a lot of real life experience with this, as well. Several family members have at one time or another required special equipment.

We discussed how some places might not work for people because they don't have sidewalks, doorways may not be wide enough, or the building may have stairs instead of ramps. We discussed how you should not leave anything lying around because a blind person or a person with special equipment (or anyone - especially in the middle of the night)could trip and fall and get hurt.

After all that learning, we had to do something fun, so Shayla pretended to be an architect and designed her own building with blocks!

Ok, there was no extra activities for this badge in the book. It makes it way too boring with no activities. So, while bouncing on the trampoline, I thought of this. We used old food boxes to design buildings to make a town. Shayla played with the buildings on her "community" rug. She used little cars and people and even a lego playground with it.

Animal Brownie Try It - Scout School

Part of our homeschooling includes the Girl Scouts program. Although we are part of a group, we choose to do many more badges independently. I tend to really delve into certain badges, while doing the bare minimum for others (depending on my child's focus).

I would like to incorporate the Boy Scouts program into our homeschooling, as well. Go here or here for more information about Scout Schooling. Another good place to check out is Making Friends. I just found another site for girl scouts of all ages: Scouting Web. It's totally awesome. We'll be using it alot!

For Shayla's animal try it we discussed:

• Meeting an Animal - How you should behave when around a wild animal or someone else's pet. We agreed that it was not a good idea to offer food to an unknown animal. We learned and then I demonstrated the proper way to pet an unfamiliar animal. In case you wanted to know, you should let the animal smell you first, then if they appear ok, pet the dog under the mouth or chin, not on the top of the head. They see the top of the head as a threat because they can't see your hand. Interesting huh? I learn a lot from homeschool, too!

We talked about when we took our gentle, giant St. Bernard to the vet. We discussed the scale the vet used to weigh him. We also enjoyed reading A Day With Animal Doctors by Leonie Bennett and A Day in the Life of a Veterinarian by Heather Adamson. We did not have a field trip to the vet's office, because we go periodically. She is familiar with the vet.

• How Animals Look - We named animals that fit the following descriptions: Animals with 2 legs, animals with no legs, animals with fur, animals with lips, animals that live in water, animals with antennae, animals with soft, squishy bodies, animals with feathers, animals with wings, but no feathers, animals with scales, animals with shells, animals with paws and animals with hooves.
• How Animals Act - Shayla gave animals for each of these catagories: Eat meat, dig, fly, hop, crawl, live underground, live in trees, swim, run, live in groups, live alone, travel long distances, and stay close to home.

We discussed how the type of bodies affect the way the animals act. For example: the bunnies, frogs, and kangroos all have long legs to hop. Dogs have claws to dig. Fish have fins to swim, not walk.

• Shelter for Animals - Our property is home to many creatures. What great fun to go outside and take a nature walk. We observed the following: birds, baby birds, deer, squirrels, raccoons, oppossum, rabbits, snakes, bees, ants, mice, bugs, butterflies, and coyote. We have a stream with many little creatures. We have caught fish, salamanders, and crawl dads in it before. We also noted animal tracks in the mud around the stream. We believe they were dog, deer, and raccoon tracks. We have tall grass, woods, and hollow trees also for animal habitats.
• Animal Sounds - We talked about animals communicating in different ways including touch, smell, and sound. While we were on our nature walk, we just stopped and listened for animal sounds. We acted like the following animals: Chicken, bee, cricket, monkey, rattlesnake, cat, dog, lion, frog, alligator, horse, whale, squirrel, fly, parrot, skunk, elephant, donkey, lizard, robin, and bat. We did this activity also with our scout troop. This was definately more fun with friends.
• Endangered Animals - We watched Banana Zoo Endangered Animals video to learn a little about endangered animals. We learned about the dodo bird, and several others which are extinct. I explained these key words to her, too. We learned about what animals are endangered in Ohio at this site. We discussed what it means to "adopt" an animal and another way of helping endangered animals is to dispose of trash properly and pick up pieces so that animals aren't killed by it.

In addition to these activities, we went to our local zoo for a field trip with our homeschool group.

Shayla also dressed in costume like several animals. I took a cute pic of her in her lion's costume, but I can't seem to locate it now!