Keeping Busy

Late June is always the busiest time of year around our house and this year is no exception.  Steph is finishing up another year of school (a Senior next year – YIKES!), dance pictures, dress rehearsal, getting ready for recital and then Nationals.

Steph also attended her Junior Prom this week with her boyfriend Feyi. 

Georgie spent the week on vacation with Granny Franny so it was just us girls all week.  Vicki and I did play games and have some fun girl time, but mostly I spent the week preparing all the printable games I had from the various Scholastic Dollar Deal ebooks I ordered, and reorganizing some of our older games from Kelly’s Kindergarten. 

We school year round but a little lighter in the summer.  This year we are also going to be staying with my parents while our new house is being built so I need to avoid large projects.  Games, field trips and lots of reading is the plan for this year. 

The printable board games are easy – they are laminated into file folders.  The card games are harder.  I’ve been storing them in zip-loc baggies with the directions taped to the front.  But I didn’t like how I had to look through all of them to find what I wanted and the cards would curl or get bent.  So, I used cardstock and made boxes for the card games, with the directions printed on the lid.

They now store nicely in a shallow plastic drawer along with a variety of dice. 

As we play the various games, I’ll try to feature how we play them, any modifications we make for Vicki and where they came from.    We now have about 20 printable games which work on skills such as sight words, CVC words, letter sounds, following directions, counting and addition, as well as a couple of generic gameboards.

Let’s Bowl!!

A few weeks ago I signed the kids up for the Kids Bowl Free program.   Our local bowling alley has a homeschool league and I figured this would be the perfect chance to see if the kids would be ready for it in the Fall.   It’s also a good place to hang out when it’s raining or just too hot to be outside. 

This was their first experience bowling outside of the Wii.   We started out really strong – Vicki got a spare her very first frame and it didn’t even bounce off the bumpers.  She pulled off another spare her last frame but had a little extra help by then.

I was actually surprised that both kids were able to throw the ball hard enough to make it down the lane.  Georgie’s technique consisted of tossing the ball and falling to the ground.

After about 5 frames we started using one of the ramps the bowling alley provides for little kids to use.  Vicki would place her ball on the top, take a few steps back and run up to give it a push.  She actually scored worse with the ramp but I didn’t think the kids would be able to handle throwing the ball for two whole games.

Their favorite part of bowling was running back after they threw their second balls to watch the videos that played on the overhead screen.  When the player knocked over less than 5 pins total it played a video showing the pins marching out of a jail cell while the ball snoozed to the side.  That one was Georgie’s favorite.  ;-)

I’ve only been bowling once or twice in the past 7 years (since I was pregnant with Georgie) but before that I was on a league with George Sr.   Our company bowling league is actually where we met.   I had pretty decent scores – 129 the first game and 158 the second game (finished up with two strikes, a spare then two strikes and 9 in the tenth frame).   I swear I didn’t use the bumpers at all.  ;-D

Opening Day at the Pool!

Sunday was the Opening Day Pool Party and BBQ for our neighborhood pool.  Despite an air temperature of barely 73 degrees and a water temperature to match, the kids had a great time playing in the water with Daddy.  (Mommy was sitting on the sidelines wearing a sweater!)

The kids can both reach in the shallow end of the pool this year and Vicki had a great time paddling around wearing floaties on her arms.  I think this is going to be a great year at the pool – the first that I won’t have to spend the whole time holding one kid or the other.

Right next to our pool is a nice shallow part of the river that is great for searching for crawfish, river mussels, snails and other interesting critters.  (One kid found a dead turtle with a cracked shell – yuck).  Vicki enjoyed the river much more than Georgie, who didn’t care for all the mud.

We finished up with more swimming, than hanging out by the bonfire listening to folk songs sung by one of our very talented neighbors while having some tasty treats.

It’s official, Summer is here!

Searching for flowers

We finally had some beautiful Spring weather – not crazy hot and humid and not torrential rain.  We decided to give up on book work for a day (or two) and head outside.   We went back to our local county park for another try at the Wildflower Trail, where Vicki enjoyed playing with a large leaf from a marsh marigold and checking out the xylem ….

while Georgie used my camera to take lots of interesting pictures of rocks, moss and ferns (this picture just happens to have all three).

 

What we didn’t see, despite extensive searching, were flowers.

The kids were really disappointed so we decided to take a trip over to Frelinghuysen Arboretum where we saw lots and lots of flowers…

 

a cross-section of a tree with information on how to read tree rings and numbers to coordinate the rings with specific years….

an astrolabe sundial that the kids really found fascinating….

a fountain pool that the kids found it impossible to resist splashing in.

We left the formal gardens for a walk in the woods and saw lots of Chinese Dogwoods….

the kids flopped right down in a nice shady patch of soft grass (our yard at the moment is a mixture of dirt, rocks and weeds)….

and we scared a groundhog into running across a meadow.

There was a fern path that had informative signs telling about how ferns have been around for over 300 million years.  A great tie-in to our prehistory study.

  We finished up with a visit to the Carriage House inside the Education Center.

The Arboretum ended up being a lot more fun than I expected.  I have only been there once in the last 14 years (we went for Steph’s 3rd birthday) and that was in the middle of Winter for a Gingerbread House exhibit.  I can see this being a very useful resource when we next study plants.  They offer “backpacks” that you can rent which contain activities for kids to enhance the arboretum experience.    We will definitely give them a try next time we visit.

2 Week Wrap-Up: 5/16-5/27/11

We had a pretty slow two weeks.  Daddy went away on a business trip and that always leads to cranky children and tired Mommy.  But we did manage a few things.

Over the weekend, we went to a Fun Fair at a local elementary school after Georgie’s T-ball game.  Georgie rode a pony for what I think is the first time.  Vicki cried and refused but then spent the next two days saying she wanted to do it now.

Scholastic had another one of the Dollar Deals for ebooks so I bought a few more that had printable game boards.  Last time I bought things that went along with our themes or things for Georgie to do.  This time I looked for game activities for Vicki.   Since Vicki badly wants to learn how to read, but hates doing worksheets, I had been considering Happy Phonics or subscribing to the Evan Moor Teacher’s File Box.  Both are pretty expensive.  The Teacher’s File Box I would also be able to use to get worksheets and activities for Georgie but, since I was considering this right AFTER the sale stopped at the co-op, it would have cost $99 and I really wasn’t sure how much we would use it.  Especially since I already have a lot of the Evan Moor stuff that is specific to our upcoming activities.

I ended up finding 19 books that had games and activities that would be appropriate for Vicki.  Most also had stuff for Georgie and things that we could use for future years.   I spent some time printing out the games that were a good level for right now and Georgie spent some time helping me color them.

I also went to a Scholastic Books Warehouse Sale last week.  I love going to these.  The prices are wonderful and the selection pretty varied.   Two of my finds this time were two wipe-off books for Vicki.  While she hates worksheets, for some reason she loves white boards and wipe-off books.

The Learning book opens into an easel and covers letters, numbers, seasons, months, days of the week, addition, simple words, comparison words, color words, shapes, opposites, clocks and weather terms.  So even Georgie could get something out of using this book.   And, since it was 50% off, I only paid $4.49 for it.

Vicki and I also started MEP Reception.   She enjoyed Lesson 1 and it was the perfect amount of time to keep her attention – about 5 minutes.

She also did some dabber paint pages.  I have a pretty big collection of these from Making Learning Fun, Confessions of a Homeschooler and Homeschool Creations.  

She did two or three pages before deciding that stacking the tops was more fun.

 

We did complete Part 6 of our Prehistory study on the Ordovician and Silurian Periods.

What Georgie did in his core curriculum these weeks:

Handwriting Without Tears:
Page 15 (lowercase o), practiced c, o and numbers on paper.

Reading:
OPGTR Reviewed Lessons 41-48 and did Lesson 49.
Books he read this week were all repeats except Rainbow Fish: Spike and the Substitute.

Phonics:
I expect to add ETC back in soon since we will be doing beginning blends in OPGTR.

Spelling:
AAS Step 13 – Segmenting blends (very easy for him), Step 14 – final blends (very easy).

Grammar:
pg 25 Scholastic 1st Grade Reading Comprehension worksheet; Scholastic GUM pg 10 – review of capitalizing I and telling sentences.

Math:
MM Yr1 pg 58, 59, 84, 85 (addition/subtraction) and Yr2 pg 63 (shapes).

Sign Language:
Continued reviewing the alphabet and his name.

Read Aloud:
Our read aloud this week was Magic School Bus Dinosaur Detectives.  I found some great coloring pages (free downloads) from Dover Publishing that are pages full of sea shells.  Lots of intricate coloring like Georgie really loves these days.

Prehistory – Part 6 Ordovician and Silurian Periods

This week we learned about the Ordovician and Silurian Periods in Prehistory.    I combined these two periods because they were covered together in our Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History and our Usborne First Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life.    That and making cooksonia was the only craft/activity I could come up with (and I actually didn't even come up with that one - Angela at Satori Smiles did).  The creatures are starting to get more complicated and I am not at all artistic.

As usual, we started with going over our Charlie’s Playhouse Creature Cards and comparing them to our timeline.  I did separate the periods for this activity.  Georgie loves picking out critters from the timeline, reading what the timeline says, then learning more about them from the Creature Cards.  As we move on to reading in our encyclopedias, he’s been really good about recognizing creatures that appear on our timeline.

In our UILEWH they have pictures of two other spore-bearing plants besides Cooksonia – Aglaophyton and Rhynia.  Since they were similar to, but different colors from, cooksonia I let the kids pick what color they wanted to use to make models.  I did tell them to make each plant one color but their creativity took over. 

I thought it might frustrate them if the pompoms wouldn’t stay on the tips of the pipe cleaners well so I twisted the pipe cleaners into small loops to make a platform for the pompoms.   Once again the kids did their own thing and glued the pompoms on to completely different places.   They actually didn’t like this activity too much.  Georgie thought it was too messy since the glue kept running down his hand.  I stuck the pipe cleaners in straws to hold them upright and gave them cups to stick them in so they wouldn’t have to hold them but….


What they did enjoy was swiping a bunch of straws and joining them together into swords.  I have a huge bin of neon colored straws and pipe cleaners that I believe I purchased to use for color matching activities.  Since we are past that point, I guess I can let them be creative with them.

We looked at some web links with animations of Silurian creatures and watched Before the Dinosaurs: Walking with Monsters on Netflix.  Not everything on the video matched our current time period and we will probably watch it again in a few weeks.

We read the book When Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth and Bugs Began to Swarm and The Usborne Great Dinosaur Search.  The dinosaur search book actually starts with the Silurian period and we only covered that page but Georgie really enjoyed it.  He loves I-Spy type books and computer games.  I may have to buy this book since it’s already over-due from the library.



In getting these pictures from Amazon, I realized there is a whole collection of these books, they are only $7.99 to $9.99 each and they are part of a 3-for the price of 4 promotion.  Cool.

Prehistory - Part 5 Cambrian Period

We moved on to the Cambrian Period in our Prehistory study.  This was the era where there was an explosion of new creatures appearing in the seas, many with hard exoskeletons to protect their bodies and jointed legs – the early ancestors of arthropods.

We started out by reading about this explosion of life in our Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History.  We went online to learn more about a few of these creatures.  We were able to examine them closely and decide whether they were arthropods or not.

We played a game online where we tried to identify the different Cambrian creatures in a crowded picture.  We were really bad at this (yes, mommy too).  We were able to get a few of them that appeared on our Charlie’s Playhouse timeline but on the rest we were completely without a clue.

Speaking of our timeline I spent way too much time trying to figure out a way to hang this temporarily yet securely while only showing the 6 or so feet we had space for.  I finally managed it using an arrangement of binder clips, paper clips and rubber bands.  I think having it hanging during our entire study will be more meaningful for the kids than pulling it out only when we are going to actively use it.

We pulled out the appropriate Creature Cards and matched them up to the animals on the timeline.  Then we worked on making some critters of our own.

First, we made wiwaxia (basically because it seemed the easiest).  Each kid made a slightly flattened ball of clay (with a little help), carefully added scales made from black beans and then added yellow toothpick spines. 

They enjoyed this so much they were eager to try making another critter.  Since this was supposed to be their project not mine, I picked hallucigenia as the next easiest.

A long thick snake of clay, matchsticks for legs and more toothpicks for spines.



Next we learned more about Trilobites by reading a book from the Exploring Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures series called Trilobites.  We then made a papercraft Trilobite from here.  These could be laminated to make them last longer but I didn’t bother.  I also used tape (regular and double sided) to put them together rather than glue.  The kids had a lot of fun playing with these including opening up their bedroom window so they could grab leaves off the tree outside to feed them.

We finished up by doing an online coloring page on Trilobites from Enchanted Learning. (A membership may be necessary to do this activity).

I finally found the secret to reading aloud to these guys – letting them color.  It still doesn’t always work for Vicki but Georgie is getting very meticulous with his coloring and seems to enjoy it while still being able to follow the story.  While I read from Magic Tree House Dinosaurs Before Dark they colored a page on The Paleozoic Sea from here.  (The link for this coloring page is actually wrong in my Prehistory Lesson Plans tab but I will fix it).

We finished up by reading from our DK Prehistoric Life and Usborne Internet Linked First Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life.

Next we will cover the Ordovician and Silurian Periods.