Magnet Letters

I have these magnet letters and I wanted to use them for something other than cluttering up my refrigerator. So I made these pages and laminated them. The font was a but difficult to find. I had to have a different font for some of the letters. I wanted them to match the magnets pretty close. the letter I was difficult. He now matched the letters. He doesn't stick with it long. He looses interest, but he is able to match them quite well. I want to add a magnet wall so that he can do this standing up.

Gummie Bear Science

We continued with polymers for science. The girls had to see how water & salt water effected a gummy bear (a polymer). They learned what a control was, how to measure and patience, they had to make observations the next day. They had fun.

Election

For English today Kit wrote about the election. She combined the election information that her father has been studying with her and a 3 point expository paragraph that she is learning in English. When she was done she choose 3 pictures to go with it. 

There are three types of elections that must happen before you can become president. They are the primary election, the popular election, and the electoral college vote.  First, comes the primary election.  The primary election is where the Democratic Party elects their candidate and the Republican Party elects theirs. Next,  comes the popular vote. The popular vote is where every citizen in the United States of America above the age of 18 votes for the candidate that they think would be the best for the country.  Finally, comes the big thing, the electoral college vote.  The electoral college vote is where every elector of each state comes in to read the certificates tell how many votes each state has given. The three kinds of elections primary, popular, and the electoral college vote is the way the country decided to pick the president of the United States of America.

Computer Ed

We are tech savvy at this house. There is not a day that goes by that we haven't looked up information, read about a topic, or practiced a skill, or produced a document on a media device. We are fortunate to have an Ipad and a laptop computer. Mr. Wheels is very proficient with the Ipad. We have a password on the device so that he can't use it anytime he wants. After that has been entered he knows exactly where to go to find his apps. You can see him know working on putting together a puzzle in the KidsApp Farm app. This particular one is the tractor. 

Kit is working on her typing. She does not like to do typing, but we don't always get what we want. This is a good skill to have. She has a memory verse each week. She copies (hand writes )it on Monday, I dictate it to her on Tuesdays, and then types it on Wednesdays, and Thursdays, then on Fridays she recited it to us.

Horse Lessons Day 4

Today Kit rode a larger horse for the first time. She has been riding ponies in all her previous lessons. She was a bit nervous at first. When she was grooming the horse before the ride she seemed a bit impatient. I was a bit concerned, but the horse did great. Kit needed to have a horse that didn't do everything right, but one that is not dangerous. I was proud of Kit she trotted today with her feet out of the stirrups.  She is getting very confident. I know that she is more brave with her teacher than she would be with me.

Keeping Him Busy

Most of the time we do math on the floor in the living room. I bring out the manipulative bin, my IPad, and pencil with paper.  If I don't find ways to keep Mr. Wheels busy he gets into all of the math manipulative. Today I brought out the bin of blocks and it kept him busy for a whild. Here he is building a high block tower. He got it pretty high. The trick is to keep Kit from getting distracted by him.

Apple Orchard Field Trip

Fall time is a wonderful time to be out doors. It not as hot a summer and not cold yet. Our home school group had the opportunity to take a field trip to an apple orchard. I was impressed at how educational the field trip turned out to be. The kids started out watching an educational/infomercial about the orchard, then shucked corn, milked a real cow, listened to a puppet cow give facts about cows, took a wagon ride through the orchard, watched pigs race, played with animals in a petting zoo, ate lunch, slid on two giant slides, and took a tour through a farmhouse museum.

Kit loved the time with friends the best while Mr. Wheels loved the tractors that were parked at various places on the farm and he was able to go the slide all by himself.   While at the petting area Kit was able to feed the goats and hold some chicks. Before they milked the real cow they practiced on a set of plastic utters.

Mr. Wheels was involved with most of the farm. He was a bit timid with the feeding of the goats. He didn't understand how to lay his hand out flat. We had a difficult time getting him off the wooden tractor that was inside the petting area.

Dad got to go with us on this trip. I love how involved he is in this whole home school process. He is an important part of this journey. Not only does he give me great moral support, but he teaches spelling and science. I could not do all of it with out him.

Going to Brazil

We have finished our exploration of the North American Continent and today we started are travel to South America, first and only stop on this continent is Brazil.

Multiply Math Game

Every 6 lessons we have a review practice sheet. This helps me assess what Kit remembers and what she needs to work on. If we combine the review sheet with a lesson this frees us to play a math game the next day. Today we played a math domino game I purchased many years ago. I believe that games are a wonderful way to practice math and have fun at the same time. This is a one of the ideas of the RightStart math curriculum that I have chosen to use. 

Canada

We have been studying Canada and for English today Kit wrote a 3 point expository paragraph of Canada. Here it is.

I have three cool facts about Canada. These cool facts are about Maple syrup, ice hockey and Canadian police. My first cool fact is about maple trees.  Maple trees produce sap to make maple syrup and maple syrup is cool because it tastes good and is good for you at the same time.  My second cool fact is about ice hockey. Ice hockey is cool because it originated in Canada. My third cool fact is about Canadian police. Some Canadian police called Mounties ride on horses instead of in cars. Canada is really cool but my three cool facts about maple syrup, ice hockey and Canadian police is the best of them all.

Shirt Painting

When we went to the library Kit found a craft book. She often finds craft books and wants to make all sorts of things. The title was Make Clothes Fun. We decided to do one of the projects. We designed a  a snowflake stencil with the Snowflake Station App and painted a t-shirt.

Materials

1. Fabric paint
2. The book
3. Freezer paper
4. Iron
5. Paint brushes

Top Shot Math Practice

We try to have some math drill time each day. Most of the time Kit uses the Skill Builder Numeracy app, but today for our we had a nerf gun and she had an idea. I would draw numbers on small white board that we have and I would call out the problem and she would have to shoot it and call out the answer. We modified it some and I drew numbers (multiples of fours in random order) on our window with window markers. In the picture at the right you can see her aiming at the window and shooting the numbers. She was to call out the multiplication fact that went with the number on the window and then try to shoot it.

P.E. With the Homeschool Group

I feel so blessed to be involved with a group of home school moms. We have a mom that has volunteered to do a group P.E. class once each week. Both Kit and Mr. Wheels can participate. As you can see there are kids of all ages. This is an example of one of the reasons we home school. We believe that kids should be involved with people of all ages not just their own age group. This is how it will be when they grow up. People interact and work with people of all ages.

Geography Vocab On The Floor

We do so much of our home school on the floor in the living room. This shows Kit using the computer to make her most resent 2 geography video vocabulary productions. This time we made a slide in PowerPoint with transitions and she narrated her content. I love that she is learning how to use the computer and the geography vocabulary at the same time. She gets a bit frustrated because she wants it to be perfect, but she enjoys not having to write out the definitions.

Tweezers

When I got the package of large kids tweezers in the mail and my husband asked what are these for. I told him they were for Mr. Wheels to learn to grip and squeeze. When I brought them out and he used them. I took a video so I could text it to my husband to show him what use them for. Here is the production. Here is the full size video

Spanish Fun

You saw previously that I have cards with the English days and Spanish days we were matching during our music time. Today Kit and I sat on the floor and tried to touch the words as we listened to the song. Kit decided to add another dimension to it, she added her feet. She said it was like twister.

Fun In The Rain

When it rains Mr. Wheels wants to go outside and stand under the rain spout near our back door. On day it was so cute that I had to video it and take pictures. I decided to make a movie out of it. Here it is. Here the full size video

Horses Day 3

Kit had her third day of lessons. She did very well. The day before she received a new pair of breaches in the mail from her grandmother. She was very excited. When she put them on she thought they were comfortable, but she was not used to the seam in the seat. Her instructor has been helping her with trotting and getting comfortable in the saddle. In this lesson she introduced the idea of cantering.  Kit didn't know what the horse would look like in a canter. Instead of having Kit canter she lunged the horse to a canter. I like that the instructor is watching to see that she is gripping with her legs enough to go to the next step and that she introduced the idea to Kit before so the idea will sink in.

Art

Today we had art. Mr. Wheels painted and Kit made a maple leaf stamp from clay. We were to make a ball of clay, flatten it out, then then press leaf to it. Next Kit used a toothpick to make the indentations more pronounced. She then put the clay into some paint and stamped it to paper. At first we were not very successful that is because we started with play-doe instead of clay. After we used clay it worked a lot better. I was really proud of how Kit handled the failure she actually became a scientist about it. She did experiments to see you how to make the best print. She counted sometimes to see if leaving it longer or shorter would make a better print. She also painted on the paint instead of stamping it into the paint to see if that would make a better print. In the end she was able to have two good prints. Mr. Wheels loves to paint . He gets his apron on and he uses his paint brush to smear paint all over the paper. He has his own easel, he looks so cute. Since Kit was making stamps I let Mr. Wheels use stamps too. We had jungle stamps, I would hold it, he painted on the paint, and then I let him stamp it on the paper. Most of the time it was just a big smear on the paper when he was finished. He didn't care he was doing the same thing as his sister and he loved it.

Mr. Wheels Painting

Kit above with her clay down for the print. Below are 2 prints. The left is one of her first, the right is one of the last.