on the Shelf

Time keeps passing by much too quickly and before I know it, I've missed a bunch of posting. sorry! I'll try and be better, but make no promises! Needless to say much catch up has been happening here.

Our library run this week besides yielding us $0.90 in fines (for being one day late) also yielded us an arm load of books. I ended up renewing Fletcher's Poetry Matters, because I wanted a better look through it! Also renewed the Shark books one last time so we can get a really run on the work! New this week are Samantha, the Unschooling Handbook and Pony Pals

M: is reading Samantha's Collection of Short Stories along with another AG book which didn't make the photo cut. She has restarted Heidi, and we're working through Poetry Matters (though I need to be more diligent about that!)

S: is working through a Shark Lapbook for science so we're reading Shark books! She is also listening to The Runaway Pony (we couldn't find the start of the series! LOL!)

ET: is currently listening to whatever someone will read her... but I'm hoping to get a little more diligent about picking up entertaining books for her.

I: am working my way through the 39 Clues (starting book #5), trying to find a new approach to homeschooling (ie unschooling and more!) Working through Poetry Matters.

in other news : M is making her way through history and we are currently in Mexico and S. America, learning about the Maya, the Aztecs, and the Inca. She is also working through her Science though at a much slower pace. S is working on reading and remembering that you can't get to 20 if you miss 16, 17, and 18. M is faithfully fulfilling her obligations to the Book It challenge (of 4 books per month.) And S is just getting comfortable with reading and learning that she has to understand and listen to hear more. Its hard to sit and listen when you're 4 (almost 5.) ET, our youngest pupil, we'll she sits with us when we read and I'm working on getting M to read to her during school while I work with S. My goal is to get ET loving books too!

future hopefuls : M is making noise about wanting to learn to crochet (which is exciting to me!) I've been making swap squares for blankets and scarves for some friends and I guess this peaked her curiosity! She is super busy with sewing this month - for an upcoming GS meeting and also Christmas plans. She seems to really love sewing. S has decided also help me put together some Christmas gifts. She picked the fabric and will also sit and help sew it on the machine! Me, I'm dreaming about Roving and Drop spindles! LOL! but have so many crochet, knit and sewing projects on the go, that its almost impossible to get there.... after Christmas I guess!

Anyway happy thursday!

Dinosaur Lapbook

I can't believe I never got around to posting S' pride and joy! Her first REAL lapbook!
We did Dinosaurs (sorry pic is sideways!)



All books and printables were found at HomeschoolShare under the Creation based Dinosaur Unit Study.

Because we weren't studying the religious aspects of dinosaurs and I personally don't share the same philosophy or views as the creators of this lapbook we left some things out. We do still have big blanks in our lapbook just because we never got around to putting the finishing touches on it before S proudly ran off with it! LOL!


She loves this book though it is lacking a bunch of info... She seems to be able to re-tell me the facts easily from this book, so its a really cool tool.

We might finish it up soon and play with it by adding things that are important to her. But it was good fun to do... and it was our first lapbook.

Current Kindergarten Plan

We don't do a very structured kindergarten plan, just because I think much of their learning comes from play and interacting with us. This plan was drafted up when my 4.5 yr old demanded that she start school with her sister this year (2010-11). Many of these activities except for the reading and calendar time are done as she is interested. I think 20 minutes of learning to read (as she requested) and 5 minutes of math is more than enough for school at this age. (and that's cool if you disagree - different strokes for different folks!)

Calendar Time
- Counting to 31
- Learning the days of the week
- Months of the Year
- Weather
- Time (to the Hour)

LANGUAGE ARTS
- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
- Various reading level books - read alouds and reading together
- (no spelling yet)
- writing practice - some cards to family and various workbooks
- lapbooking nursery rhymes, folk tales and fairy tales

MATH
- Spectrum Math (Grade K)
- Various online computer games

HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY
- making it up as we go!

SCIENCE/HEALTH
- making it up as we go!

LANGUAGES
- Signing time Baby and Signing time videos
- still searching for the right foreign language program

ARTS/CRAFTS/MUSIC
- various projects

EXTRACURRICULAR
- add swimming in the winter
- possibly ballet or dance class
- maybe some art classes

I will continue to update as we progress through this first year! :)

Grade 4 Plan

We're always fine tuning and making adjustments here and there.

LANGUAGE ARTS
- Growing with Grammer 4
- Various Reading materials.
- Creative Writing assignments from various topics
- Penmanship various letters and thank-yous to family

MATH
- Singapore Math (4A & 4B)
- Various online computer games
- Various Worksheets for practice

HISTORY/GEOGRAPHY
- K12 History (Grade 3&4)

SCIENCE
- K12 Science (Grade 3&4)
- various topics (including Junior Badges and other subjects of interest)

LANGUAGES
Not in Practice yet - haven't found what we want!

ARTS/CRAFTS/MUSIC
- Extra Curricular Art Projects
- Junior Arts, Crafts and Music Projects
- extracurricular classes as appropriate

EXTRACURRICULAR
- Junior Girl Scouts
- Soccer
- swimming
- outside classes as interest deems necessary

*****************

If anyone out there reading has an absolute favourite program that they want to share, I'd love to check it out! :)

I will continue to update as we progress through this year! :)

Book It Program

M signed up for the Book It program through Scholastic and Pizza Hut. This year she is INTO pizza, so she has agreed to read 4 books (about 300+ pages each) a month to earn her awards. It runs from October through March, but you have to sign up by June 30... they still accept enrollments while supplies last.

So keep an eye on her Shelfari on the right to keep up on her books!

They didn't have a program for S (kindergartener) but maybe next year, and I figure too if we have her pledge a certain number of books, she can earn a pizza - we just have to pay for it! LOL! I'll be putting up a Shelfari for her too, but it'll be further down the page.

An Now Back to Our Program

Kindergartener
For the last little while we've been working on learning to read. Progress is going well. Its amazing what a few months makes, where at first she was reluctant and not really interested, now she is ready moving full steam ahead, its now her idea to do it. We're up to 6 word sentences with words 3-4 letters long!

We're still working on "Where We Live" for social studies. It was really nice last week at the beach having people ask her where she was from and her astounding them telling them where she lived. She's big for her age - often asked if she is 6 - when she's only 4. So when they get a load of what she knows they're pretty surprised!

For Science, we're working on Living and non-living things. I'm thinking I might just take S along with M (4th grader) for science and just making it a little easier. I think it would make it easier for everyone all around. I think that S would gain the advanced materials but to her level, and I think M would gain the patience of listening and helping her younger sister learn.

And Math, we found a Spectrum K mathbook that S is madly in love with - she's currently doing about 4-5 pages a day with great ease and at her request and leisure! LOL! It'll be neat to evaluate in December and see where she stands! But so far Math and reading are her fav subjects!

4th Grader
For a full year I've been putting off the whole Weather unit that my then 3rd grader, now 4th grader was supposed to get done. First I didn't have the supplies then I didn't understand the instructions. Then I understood the instructions and couldn't find the supplies, and life happened in the meantime ... hey things get lost over a year! LOL!

So today we sat down and built a hygrometer. 2.5 stinkin' hours to build the thing that should only have taken a few minutes. The kicker, is the thing probably won't even work. We had a devil of a time getting the pivot in the right spot and the papers fanned out right and ... well .... yadda yadda yadda. Its done.

After the cursed couple hours that it took to build the hygrometer, I wasn't hopeful that the Barometer would be easier, but that only took 10 minutes. I've at least built those before and they're really cool when they work. Dang I miss living close to my folks, as this is the kind of thing my dad loves to do! LOL!

Back to School - First Project

It's labor day and school starts tomorrow for the oldest, the middlest has been doing stuff seriously for about a month now.

Anyway soccer for the oldest started last week and I realized that I had bought fabric for her to make a soccer bag, but we never got around to it. So today's project to get her away from the computer was to make a soccer bag - just a bag for her to keep her shinguards, soccer ball and anything else she needs in between games and during the game.

She did this all by herself!

And we're gonna make a shrinky dink tag tomorrow for art... so she can hang it on her bag, just in case it gets stolen!!