Mardi Gras!!

George Sr., Steph and I spent most of last week visiting with friends in Mississippi and taking trips over to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.   It was crazy and fascinating at the same time.  We saw some great parades, including one where Steph caught beads thrown by Mariska Hargitay (star of L&O:SVU).  Cyndi Lauper, Harry Connick Jr. and Hillary Swank were also riding in the parade.

We visited the St. Louis Cemetery Number One.  It was like a little city with all the above ground crypts.  The history was fascinating with some graves from the early 1800’s.

 

The grave of Marie Laveau, the voodoo queen of New Orleans.

We had some wonderful meals while we were there, including lunch at Bubba Gump’s.  Steph and I spent a lot of our time shopping at the French Market and all the little shops.  Steph loved the elaborate masks and bought a few to start a collection.

  

Pirates Alley was really cool and slightly creepy after dark.

Everyone thought I was weird to want to take a ride on a riverboat so I settled for a ride on a streetcar.

It was a great trip and I hope to go back again sometime.

4-H Cloverbuds – Weather

We had the first theme-based meeting for our new club – the Curious Cloverbuds.  Cloverbuds is for kids who are too young for traditional 4-H.  Instead of the long-term projects in specific areas (sewing/quilting, gardening, raising small animals, breeding livestock, shooting, etc.), Cloverbuds uses activities to introduce kids in Kindergarten through 3rd grade to a variety of a topics.  We are a homeschool group so grades are a little more flexible then they might be otherwise.   We have 4 to 9 year olds in our group.  Which does offer some challenges with finding appropriate activities but I think I have a pretty good plan going.  (More information on Cloverbuds can be found here.)

We meet in a local library’s meeting room which offers some limitations on what we can do, especially when it comes to experiments, cooking and crafts.   My plan for each topic is to have a library meeting which will include a discussion/demonstration, an active game and a craft; and on a different date, a field trip appropriate to the topic.  I was unable to arrange a field trip for our weather theme so we only have the library meeting for this particular topic.

Each meeting starts with the Pledge of Allegiance and the 4-H pledge, led by one of the kids (with assistance).

We started our Weather meeting with some discussion questions. 

“Who knows what today’s weather is?” 
(cold, cloudy and windy)
“How do you know?”
(we went outside)
”What is another way to tell what the weather is or to see what the weather is going to be later today or tomorrow?”
(look at a weather report, online or on television).

At this point we looked at a print-out of the day’s weather report, discussed the various components, and decided whether our earlier assessment (cold, cloudy and windy) was correct and where that information could be found on the weather report.  We discussed the terminology used (humidity, wind speed, high temperature, low temperature, etc.)

We continued with a discussion of the people who study weather to make predictions (meteorologists) and some of the tools used (satellites, thermometers, hygrometers, barometers, anemometers, etc.).

We discussed how one of the reasons it is important to know what the weather is going to be is to avoid unsafe situations.  We played a game called Safe/Unsafe, that I found here.  I read different scenarios to the kids -
Putting on sunscreen before going outside.
Playing in deep puddles or streams after rainstorms.
Staying away from downed power lines after a storm.

If the described scenario is Safe, the kids stood up.  If it was Unsafe, they sat down.  We would then discuss why.

Rather than haul a bunch of items to the library, I printed out cards with various pictures on them to play part of the “Weather Mystery Bag” game.  Each kid drew a card showing an item associated with a different kind of weather (umbrella, sunglasses, mittens, swimsuit, etc.).  They then took turns coming up and telling everyone about their item and what kind of weather it would be used for.

 

At this point I told the kids we were going to play a game in honor of the weather we ALMOST had that day (snow).  I pulled out pom-pom “snowballs” and let the kids have a brief snowball fight with them.   I made 15 yarn pom-poms for this activity.  The first two I made using two cardboard donuts wrapped with yarn and cut apart.   I used a popsicle stick to keep control of the yarn while threading it through the hole.

After I managed to stab my hand with the seam ripper I was using to cut the yarn (and realized that it was taking forever) I decided to change tactics.  I made the rest of the pom-poms by wrapping the yarn around a small book, tying off the middle and cutting the loops.  Turns out the kids actually preferred these floppier “snowballs”.

I had the kids line up with a snowball each and we did some fun relays.  They would see how far they could walk holding the snowballs different ways (under the chin, on head, bent over with it on their back, on toes walking on heels – thank you to my Facebook group for suggestions :-D). I let the kids suggest a few ideas and let them play until things deteriorated into another snowball fight.

For our next activity, we talked briefly about wind and then the kids were each given a straw.  I scattered cotton ball “clouds” on the floor and the kids blew them around using the straws.

We finished up with a craft.  Since our meeting was on Valentine’s day, I brought construction paper and foam Valentine’s stickers and let the kids make pictures. 

Our next topic is Pets and includes a field trip to a local Petco store.

Weekly Update: 2/6/12 – 2/10/12

We had a great week!   Lots of visible progress with both kids.  

First for the fun stuff.  I lied when I said we’d be starting our new Science, History and Geography this week.  I decided to hold off for a few weeks since Steph, Daddy and I are going to visit friends in Mississippi and take in a few Mardi Gras festivities in neighboring New Orleans, while the little guys enjoy some time with their grandparents. 

We decided to have some Valentine’s Day fun instead.  We participated in a Valentine exchange through the Secular Homeschool forums.  The kids were very excited as their Valentines came in the mail and eagerly looked for the right state (and one from Canada) to mark on our map.

Georgie made Valentine cards for his special cousin Jade and some other friends, while Vicki just made decorations to put up all over the house.

Vicki had a real break-through this week.  I’ve been periodically trying different phonics reading programs with her including Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, the sample pages from All About Reading Level 1 and Progressive Phonics.  But she just hasn’t been ready for blending.  She knows all her letter sounds (thanks to Leap Frog videos) but she’s been working on the pre-level book Get Ready for the Code for extra reinforcement (and because she wanted to “do school”).  We are almost ready to move on to Get Set for the Code and she’s been doing very well and enjoys the work.   This past week I pulled out an old copy of The Reading Lesson which was the first thing I bought for Georgie to homeschool with when he was 4.  He hated it but Vicki loves it and it worked!  She was able to do the blends in one of the initial lessons (a t, c a, c o, t a, s a) without any problems. 

 

She has been continuing along with Handwriting without Tears and has shown more willingness to carefully trace the letters and taking her time coloring the pictures.   She hasn’t wanted to do the name tracing pages I prepared for her but I continue to bring it out everyday and just put it away if she doesn’t want to do it.

Georgie spent a lot of time this week reading a couple of the encyclopedias we have.  He says he likes reading the books with “lots of different little informations in them”.   His favorite was A Scholastic Kid’s Encyclopedia: Science but he also enjoyed the Little Kid’s First Big Book of Why.   He had no trouble with the vocabulary in either of these and just started at the beginning and read them through in order.

 

I’m continuing to alternate Georgie’s Handwriting without Tears with some short copywork.  I made the mistake one day of putting his HWT workbook out at the same time as his binder.  He ended up writing a word in HWT, then doing a problem in the binder, then back to his HWT workbook, then back to his binder.  Probably not the most efficient way for him to be working.

He has almost completed Explode the Code Book 3.  Many people recommend postponing Book 4 since it is a big jump in difficulty.  We will probably start with Book 4 and if it proves too difficult, switch to Book 5.

Georgie is also almost finished with Math Mammoth 1st grade.  We will be working completely within 2A and 2B by the end of next week.  He still enjoys being able to mix up topics.

He’s continuing with the free Scholastic GUM and McMillian/McGraw Treasures Grammar.  We are currently working on adjectives and Georgie loves making things more complicated than they need to be.  He had to pick an adjective for the sentence “The sheep ran down the _________ hill.”  He had to think about this for a few minutes and then stated “well, sheep aren’t very good climbers so I’m going to go with small for the hill”.   He also had to write other answers to fit the word – “red” was written in red, “pink” in pink, “big” was written BIG and “pretty” had to be written in pink and purple because “they are pretty colors even though I don’t like them”.  Once we finish the first grade level of these we will be switching to Spectrum Grade 2 workbooks.

He is also almost finished with Level 1 All About Spelling.  I’m taking some time to review all the past lessons to make sure everything has been mastered up to this point before we move to Level 2.

Next week we have 4-H Cloverbuds on Tuesday (topic for the day is Weather), Homeschool Bowling on Wednesday and Homeschool Gymnastics on Friday so we’re going to concentrate on our core subjects along with some more Valentine’s Day activities.

A couple weeks update

After a really good start getting back to school right after the holidays, things pretty much fell apart.   Between continuing improvement projects around the house, the resumption of homeschool bowling and gymnastics, the start of our 4-H Cloverbud club, and some absolutely gorgeous weather – formal schooling has taken a bit of a backseat. 

It looks like we are going to have a great group for our 4-H Cloverbud Club.   15 children were enrolled ranging from 4 to 8 years old.  I’m very excited at the possibilities for field trips and group activities.  Vicki spent some time studying our Pledge of Allegiance and 4-H Pledge board, although she seemed to think it was a story about aliens and monsters.

The kids had fun playing grocery store with the cash register they received for Christmas.  According to Georgie, the hat (from an old dance costume of Steph’s) is completely necessary for the cashier to be official.

We spent one day without power and without a car, thanks to a large tree falling across the road and on power lines.  The kids spend the day camping in front of the fire and setting up tents all over the house.

We enjoyed some of the absolutely gorgeous, Spring-like weather outside preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse with the Nerf guns the kids also got for Christmas.   Those bright orange darts showed up real well against the blue sky.  I drew a target on a large box with chalk so they would have something to aim for and I wouldn’t have to spend so much time searching for darts in the neighbor’s yard.

 

Both kids did progress a little bit in their regular school work.  Vicki insisted on doing “the duck page” in her Handwriting without Tears book so we ended up jumping ahead by about 10 pages. 

After she worked in some of her wipe-off books while I worked with Georgie, which included coloring her toe nails blue and some face painting.

Next week we will be back to full days of school.  We will be alternating topics in History (US starting with Native Americans), Geography (US starting with our home state of New Jersey) and Science (rocks and minerals).

Weekly Wrap-Up: January 6, 2012

Yikes, 2012.  It feels really strange to be typing that.  Time sure is going by fast. 

We jumped right back into school this week, at least our core subjects, and even finished everything that was planned for the week.   Much better than I expected considering Georgie has pretty much spent the previous two weeks bouncing between the Wii and the computer. 

The living room is still a little rearranged from the holidays so we moved school into the dining nook.  We might stay there for a while since it worked pretty well.  I set up the kids office boards as a divider and worked with Vicki while Georgie started on his binder.

Once Vicki finished her official work she played with their TAG, did her wipe-off books, cut paper into little pieces or did wooden word puzzles.  Other than one incident of her cutting her hair, the week went very smoothly.

We seem to have settled on a good amount of school work for Georgie to do each day.   It is enough for him to continue progressing in all his programs at a typical pace (at least one grade level per year) but not so much that he gets whiny and frustrated by the end.   

What George is currently doing:

Handwriting: either a two page spread in the Handwriting without Tears workbook or a page of copywork each day.  The copywork is mostly a short quote from one of the What Your x Grader Needs to Know books.   He is about 2/3 of the way through the 1st grade HWT book.  I don’t think he’s even close to being ready for the smaller spacing of the lines in the 2nd grade book, which is why I added the copywork.

Phonics/Reading:  one lesson in Ordinary Parents Guide to Teaching Reading and 6-8 pages from Explode the Code each day.  We will continue this pace until he starts having trouble with the lessons.  He is currently on Lesson 75 in OPGTR and about 1/2 way through ETC Book 3.  He’s reading well ahead of what either of these are actually teaching. 

One page from Scholastic Second Grade Basic Skills: Reading Comprehension each day.

Math:  3 to 4 pages from Math Mammoth 1B/2A each day.  The pages are a mix of topics.  Usually one or two pages from the Adding/Subtracting within 0 to 100 and one page from Place Value, Coins or Clocks (2A) each day.

Grammar: 1 to 2 pages from Scholastic Grammar, Usage and Mechanics and McMillian/McGraw-Hill Treasures Grammar each day.

Spelling:  Two days to do one step in All About Spelling if he is able to spell the words easily.   Usually one day to introduce the rule and practice and the next day to make sure he remembers.  We do a mix of using the tiles, orally or writing on the white board or a magnetic doodler.  I usually prefer the tiles or orally since he feels the need to draw pictures for each word when he writes them.  We have five more steps to be done with Level One.

I’ve increased the amount of “official” work for Vicki since she is constantly asking for more.  She plays a lot with various games, puzzles, scissors and crayons but it’s the work we do together that I count as “official”.  She is not required to do anything and if she shows resistance, I put it aside.  She offers the most resistance to anything that involves coloring but actually likes tracing letters, circling answers and drawing lines to show answers.

Handwriting: one 2-page spread in the Handwriting without Tears: Get Set for School book and an activity using the Capital Letter pieces.  This week I also added a sheet to practice tracing her name since she has been asking to learn how to write her name.  We actually ended up ahead of my plan for this week since I didn’t assign any HWT pages on those days I gave her the name tracing but she asked to work out of her “green book”.

Phonics: 2 to 4 pages (one or two sheets front and back) from Get Ready for the Code.   She already knows all her letter sounds thanks to Leapfrog videos.  I printed out the sample Lesson 1 for the new All About Reading Level 1 to try with her but she is definitely not ready for blending yet.

Math: 1 to 2 pages from Evan-Moor Teacher’s File Box and/or 1 to 2 activities from Mathematics Enhancement Program Reception Level. 

I am hoping to add our elective subjects back in a week or so.  We will be studying US History starting with Native Americans, States Geography starting with our home state of New Jersey and Science starting with Geology/Rocks & Minerals.

Last Weekly Update of the Year!

We haven’t done much traditional school work in the past few weeks.  Lots of games, lots of reading and LOTS of Christmas crafts.  Georgie’s reading is improving at a very rapid rate and he’s now reading Level 2 readers quickly and easily.  I may have to make reading to his sister an official part of our school day.

Our last two Christmas crafts were making paper strip candy canes and salt dough ornaments.  I found about 4 completely different salt dough recipes online and used the one that used the least amount of salt since the only large container of salt we had was sea salt.   Despite over 30 minutes of baking, the ornaments never became completely hard but I still let the kids paint them and we’re going to attach a few of them to the presents going to the grandparents.

We had the last day of homeschool bowling for the Fall session this week and the kids received their participation trophies.

We finished up the week with a trip to the movie theater to see Chipwrecked.  This was the first time these guys have been in an actual movie theater in over 2 years, when we saw Up in theaters.   That was such a traumatic experience that we blocked out all the details and only retained a strong feeling of dread at the thought of bringing these two into a movie theater again.  But, they are more than two years older now and it was a school day so the theater was likely to be empty or full of younger children, so I decided to take a chance.  They did pretty good.  At least I don’t think they disturbed anyone but me.  Georgie kept turning around to wave to the pretty girl in the row behind us and danced around at the end of the movie but all in all it was pretty good.   By the time they have the free movies next Summer, I may even be willing to do it again.

More Christmas Crafts

We have been doing lots and lots of Christmas Crafts.

We decorated foam stars and ornaments with glitter glue and stickers…..

crayon resist Christmas trees (which didn’t work well because the kids didn’t do enough crayon and I evidently watered down the watercolors too much).

 

Ornaments using sticky boards and tissue paper squares.  This one is Georgie’s.  Each piece of tissue paper carefully placed.

 

These two are Vicki’s.  The one on the right was Georgie’s until Vicki threw a handful of tissue paper at it and he had to start over.

A wreath from a paper plate, bowtie pasta and pompoms.  The symmetry tells you this is some of Georgie’s work.

popsicle Christmas trees….

There’s more to come.