Weekly Wrap-Up For The Birds Part 2

We continued with our bird theme this week. I thought we would wrap things up today before taking some time off to visit Disney World, but the kids are really enjoying themselves. There's always more to learn so maybe we'll extend our studies for one more week before taking a few more days off to tag along with Hubby when he goes to a conference near the beach.

We do most of our heavy work from Wednesday to Friday. Mondays are devoted to the basics and Story of the World Volume One. Sport has a religion class and Cub Scouts on Monday nights so I like to make sure he has some time for fun during the day. The kids have homeschool enrichment classes on Tuesday so I also don't like to start in on our unit study work on Monday just to be interrupted by Tuesday! We do math and grammar every day of the week. Wednesday through Friday are more of our FUN days - assuming the kids like the unit we're working on. So...when I write these weekly wrap-ups and go on and on about what we did Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday that doesn't mean we didn't have school on Monday and Tuesday. It just means whatever we did wasn't exciting enough to share. We actually did have school this Monday, despite the holiday. Hubby had to go out of town, so after a morning of family mountain climbing, he left and the kids and I had night school. They were intrigued by the idea at first until they realized it was just regular school held in the evening.

Wednesday we started the day by going to Mass, then made a quick library run and visit to the park with friends. We came home and spent some time in the backyard looking and listening for birds. Then we put together profiles of the birds we spotted. Sport's profiles came from Cornell University's online bird coloring book, an awesome free resource.

Spice's profiles were from Enchanted Learning. We added to our collection of bird profiles throughout the week. Spice also had fun using her Math-U-See manipulatives to complete this Duck Stories worksheet from Home Education Resources.

We studied bird nests on Thursday. I'd been waiting for this day so we could work on our big art project for the week - making yarn nests! I've seen this project all around the web. Some crafters refer to them as yarn bowls. The basic idea is to cut strands of yarn, dip them in watered down glue, and stick them all willy nilly around a curved surface. Let them dry overnight and viola, you've got a nest (or bowl). I picked up a skein of brown variegated yarn from Wal-Mart for Sport to use because I knew he would want to go au naturel. Spice wanted to make her nest out of her favorite color...rainbow, so I dug out the yarn stash I put together for 75 cents a skein at Big Lots earlier this year. We started with about 30  4-6 inch long strands each, but ended up cutting more, so I'd double that amount.

My little darlins' hate to have messy hands so the idea of swishing yarn around in a bowl of glue was almost too much to bear. They did it, but weren't happy about it. I think both of them could have used more glue, especially on the ends of each strand. Here's how the nests looked about halfway through the project:

The original instructions I saw for this project said to turn a bowl over then place a piece of plastic wrap over the bottom of the bowl to provide the nest shape. I decided this would be too aggravating 'cause we all know plastic wrap never actually stays in place. I taped a barely inflated balloon to a large cup for each kid and had them glue the yarn to the balloon. I drew a line just above the halfway mark so they'd know where to stop with the yarn. Overall the project turned out well, but it was difficult to get the balloon unstuck this morning without messing up the nests. Here's a look at the finished products:

Today, as a fun activity to close out the week, we played hide and seek with these little birdies we colored in earlier this week. The template came from Preschool Express.

The first time around I hid the birds in easy to find places, like the red cardinal on a black TV stand. Spice quickly found all 6. The next time around, I made it much harder by camouflaging the birds. I stuck the bluejay on a blue part of their American Idol dance mat (it was free people) and the cardinal on a sheet of Strawberry Shortcake stickers. Spice had a much harder time finding the birds which led to a discussion about how birds camouflage themselves to hide from predators.

We read or referred to these books throughout the week:
















All in all we had an enjoyable week of school that did not feel like school at all! If only every week could be that way! To see what other homeschoolers did this week, check out the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up...For the Birds

Last week seems so long ago, I hardly remember what we did! I felt like we had a pretty boring week, but looking back at the pictures, it doesn't seem so bad afterall.

I found these synonym cards at the Dollar Tree a few months back. Sport has been learning about synomyms, antonyms, and homonyms in grammar, so I cut these cards apart to make a matching game for him.

Of course Spice had to get in on the action too. I pulled out some of the easier synonym pairs for her to work with. She begged me to do this over and over the rest of the week.

As promised in my last wrap-up (sadly I haven't posted anything since then), we started a unit on birds. I purchased two unit studies from Currclick (Birds of North America and Birds) and we have based most of our work off of them. I also looked around one of my favorite websites, The Crafty Crow, and found quite a few bird feeder related projects to work on. On Thursday, Spice strung Cheerios on pipe cleaners to make food rings for the birds in our backyard. They obviously enjoyed it because the whole thing has completely disappeared!

The always resourceful Sport dug through the recyle bin and crafted a bird feeder out of a Laughing Cow cheese wedge container.

On Friday we set our new hummingbird feeder out on a table on our deck until we could find a place to hang it. It wasn't long before we were rewarded with a visit from a fine feathered friend. The picture isn't the best because it was taken from inside the house looking out the window, but the green blur on the lower left-hand side is a ruby-throated hummingbird.

We also read these two books:
















We will continue with our bird theme for another week or so. Check out Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-up to see what other homeschoolers have been up to.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Twenty days down and 160 to go for the 2010-11 school year! We started school at the end of July because we knew we would be taking time off here and there to travel in August and September. We're using Story of the World for history this year and, honestly haven't gotten very far. We spent some time last week putting togethere our family history books and personal timelines then moved on to archeology this week. I set up an archeological dig sight in the backyard and told the kids to pretend they were scientists from the year 3010 looking for clues to human civilization in the year 2010. Before starting the dig, we read this book by Kate Duke:

Sport and Spice had a fun time digging, once they finally came across the first artifacts. For awhile it was a little iffy and both kids decided there was way too much work involved in being an archeologist. Here's a tip if you do this activity: Draw a treasure map for yourself to remember what's buried where. I was sure I'd remember from one night to the next morning, but as it happened we actually did not get to complete this activity until 4 DAYS LATER! By then I could hardly remembered what I'd buried, much less where. At least I had kept the dig site contained to a small area.

 

I had the kids mark off their dig site with string and sticks then draw a diagram on graph paper showing what artifacts were found in each cell. After everything was found, along with a bonus bottlecap that Sport unearthed, we talked about each item and what kind of clues it could provide...pen and can showed they had a developed alphabet and knew how to write; the skaterboard dude and army guy showed what kind of clothes they wore and that they had weapons and wheels; the Mardi Gras doubloon could have been a form of money and the fork showed they had highly developed eating utensils (and perhaps worshipped frogs?) They had a good time with this and of course wanted to stay out digging afterwards which is why I planned this as the very last project of the day.

 

In math, Sport is humming along with Teaching Textbooks Math 4 this year. This is our first year with Teaching Textbooks and so far it seems to be a good fit. We started around Lesson 40 though because the first part was way too easy and I didn't see the point of spending the entire year in review. He is still reviewing, but he could always use more help with multiplication facts. Spice, meanwhile, is having a blast with Math-U-See Alpha. She loves Decimal Street and has asked everyday this week, "Are we going to go back to Decimal Street today?" So of course we do. Yesterday we used Mrs. Bear, one of her purple bear counters, to go from door to door asking how many units, tens, and hundreds were home. Spice has quite the imagination and can tell you a story that goes on for hours so this was right up her ally. I finally managed to tear her away after about 5 different number stories and two tornadoes on Decimal Street.

 

In just about every other subject, we've been studying John James Audubon. I'm employing more of the unit study approach this year and so far we are having a really good time with it. It has been much more relaxing for me too. Planning out 2-3 weeks at a time seems so much more managable! Sport has always loved birds, but his interest was piqued again during a recent trip to Avery Island in Louisiana. I promised him when we got back from our trip we would study birds. Next week we will focus on two bird units I picked up from Currclick. I thought learning about John James Audobun would be a nice way to ease into the unit. This week we read The Boy Who Drew Birds by Jacqueline Davies.

Then followed many of the unit study ideas from Homeschool Share. Today we recreated some of our favorite Audubon prints using this idea from Incredible Art Lessons. Spice drew a mallard.

Sport, the bird afficianado, used the ceramic birds he just had to have from the thrift store as models. He drew a cooper's hawk and a Florida Jay.

Here's a look at the finished products. (That's my Carolina wren in the middle. I can't resist getting in on the art action.)

That's pretty much a wrap on our week in homeschooling. Tomorrow we'll go to morning Mass, do some math, head to art class, and then enjoy an afternoon at the park with our homeschool group. Hope your week was as fun as ours. To find out how others are homeschooling, check out Weird Unsocialized Homechoolers Weekly Wrap-Up post.

Learning All Summer Long - Board Games

A while back I decided to clean out our game/puzzle cabinet. Here's a before picture of all the games and puzzles. This doesn't include the stack hidden behind the couch...



Sadly, the after shot didn't look much different. The fact is, we LOVE to play games (and do puzzles) so while our game cabinet is bursting at the doors, it's really hard to clear out too much when we really do play them all. I've bought pretty much every one of our games at garage sales or thrift stores, or picked them up for free at one of our homeschool swaps, so for us board games are a way to have a lot of fun at a very low cost. I lean heavily towards games that have an educational purpose. That's just my way of sneaking in a little more learning each day. We use board games regularly in our homeschooling as well to spice things up a bit.

I think all board games provide an opportunity for learning...patience, focus, winning and losing gracefully...but some teach much more than others. Here's a look at some of our favorite educational games:

Smath
Consider this a math version of Scrabble. Instead of spelling words, players create number sentences using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Though it is difficult, Spice plays this game too. I have access to her tiles and will guide her in coming up with equations, but leave a certain # out for her to figure out for herself. For example, I'll say, "Place your 3 tile before the addition sign, place the four tile after it, add an equals sign and the answer." She'll look through her tiles and find the 7 to finish off the equation.

SET
This is an awesome critical thinking game! Players lay out 12 cards and race to make sets of three. Sounds simple, but it's not. I have been making a real effort to teach Sport to FOCUS on one thing at a time. This game is excellent for that. If you're not giving it all of your attention all the time, you're toast! Spice has not played this with us yet. (It's hard!) But the last time we played, she watched and did call out a couple of sets of her own so maybe she's ready.

Boggle Jr.
This game helps preschoolers learn their letters and beginning words. Players roll the letter dice and try to find all the letters needed to spell the word on their card. Players can see the word they are trying to spell to make it easier, or the word can be covered up for added difficulty once the child becomes more proficient at spelling and sounding out words.

What's Gnu
Similar to Boggle Jr., but geared towards early readers who can put together three letter words. Instead of dice, it uses a cool sliding dispenser thingy that kids love to spit out letter tiles. Spice could just sit and play with that part all day.

Scrabble Junior
Like the grown-up version, but has words already spelled out on one side of the board for players to match their letters to. More advanced players can turn the board over for a blank slate.

Yahtzee
Not much explanation needed here, but we use it for math practice. I let Spice count the dots on her dice when needed to add up her score. For Sport, I quickly scoop up the dice and have him add or multiply in his head.

Uno
This may not seem like an educational game, but if you have a preschooler it's great for reinforcing numbers and colors. When Spice first started playing, I pretty much knew every card in her hand so I easily could have run her over, but sometimes it's not about winning the game, but providing lots of practice on certain concepts instead. (I have to remind myself of that often.)

Go Fish
Another one that's good for number and color recognition. Even those he's mastered those skills, Sport still likes to play this game. That darned fishing pole is just too much fun!

Monopoly Jr.
After I played my first game of Monopoly Jr., I knew I'd never go back to the grown-up version. Monopoly Jr. is fun, easy to follow, and most importantly, doesn't take 3 hours to play. This is a favorite of Sport and Spice. In the beginning, Sport was our banker, but lately, Spice has taken over that role and is getting in tons of math practice.

Trivial Pursuit for Juniors
I picked this up at an estate sale in my neighborhood recently and much to my surprise, the kids have really enjoyed it. There are questions that are easy enough for Spice to answer, but sometimes if she gets one that's too hard I might rephrase the question or make up a different one altogether. No one's ever the wiser. The science questions are much more on my level too! Most importantly, both Sport and Spice have been able to spout off facts they remember from the game.

Wiz Kidz
There are two decks of cards, one with a set of topics like "a piece of furniture" or "something found at the mall" and another deck with letter cards. Two cards are flipped over at the same time and players try to be the first to come up with a word that fits the category and starts with the correct letter.

Money, Money - A Discovery Toys game that is no longer produced, but if you see it at a garage sale or thrift store snatch it up. Players make their way across a board earning or spending allowance on every space for things like recycling cans or feeding the fish. The player with the most money at the end wins.

Math Magic - A self correcting game by Ravensburger that focuses on addition and subtraction.

Don't forget old fashioned favorites like dominoes (great for math skills with all of its different scoring versions), checkers, chess, and a good ol' deck of cards. Sport and Spice have been hooked on Solitaire lately (another one that I hope will improve Sport's attention span.) I think there is a Bingo game available for pretty much any subject too. We probably own about 95% of them - addition, division, ABCs, human body, Spanish...

This post is linked to WFMW's "Mom I'm Bored" edition.

Learning All Summer Long - Math

We Are That Family is hosting a special boredom busters edition of Works For Me Wednesday this week. We keep boredom at bay around here with lots of games, preferrably educational ones. Over the next week or so, I plan to write a series of posts about how we keep learning all summer long.

Did you know in Singapore children attend school 25o days of the year? Japanese students log 243 days, while those in Scotland, The Netherlands, Israel, South Korea, and Thailand total 200 or more. Heck even the French spend more days in school than Americans, and their countrymen are on vacation for more than a month out of every year. Is it any wonder our students lag behind the rest of the world in so many areas?

Call it "brain drain" "education eraser" or "loss of learning" the 2-3 month summer break students so look forward to only makes matters worse. It's estimated the average student loses 2 months worth of learning each summer. As homeschoolers, we could easily school year-round, but we don't. I admit, I like my summers and haven't been able to give them up completely although they do keep getting shorter. : ) Our summer break officially started last week, but being the sneaky mom I am, I continue to sneak in all kinds of educational activities for Sport and Spice. Sometimes they're on to me, other times they're clueless. This post will focus on the subject that seems to suffer from "brain drain" the most...math.

Sport will be reviewing his multiplication and division facts everyday. We could go the boring old flashcard drill route, but why do that when you can have FUN! Here are some of the ways we practice basic facts (any of these games can easily be adapted for addition, subtraction, or division):

Target Practice: Choose three (or more) multiplication facts for your child to practice (sixes, nines...) and write each of those numbers on a separate sheet of paper. If you want to go all artist like, draw a bull's eye on each piece of paper and write the number in the middle. Remove all of the number cards from a deck of cards. If you have a deck for each person, even better. Players stand behind a line and take turns trying to hit the targets with their cards. If a card lands on any part of the target, the player has to multiply the number on the card by the number on the target. If correct, the player earns that many points. If incorrect, the opposing player gets a shot. Set a number to play to and the first player to reach that # wins (200 works well for multiplication). As the child improves, make it more fun by adding in the jokers as wild cards. It's tempting to use the joker to create an easy equation, but a thinking student will realize a harder equation likely adds up to more points!

Football: Draw a rectangle on a piece of paper. Mark off 2 end zones and 10 yard lines. Randomly label the yard lines with the numbers 1-10 (or whatever facts you want to practice). Make several footballs out of cardboard or heavy cardstock and label each with a #. Player 1 selects a football (without peeking). Starting at one end of the field, the player multiplies the # on the football by the # on the field. If correct he continues across the field. His turn ends after scoring a touchdown (and earning 7 points) or committing an error. Player 2 then takes over with a new football from his end of the field. Set a time limit in advance to keep things exciting and keep the game moving quickly. The player with the most touchdowns at the end wins.

Multiplication War: Using only the # cards from a deck of cards, two players flip their cards over at the same time. The first player to correctly multiply the two numbers together and call out the product wins the pair. The player with the most cards at the end of the game wins.

Use a clock to practice the fives times tables. Point to a number on the clock and have the student quickly call out the number of minutes it represents.

There are tons of websites and software programs that offer fun math practice as well. One of our favorites is Quarter Mile Math. Sport loves to race against his previous scores to try and set a new personal best time. Students can choose horse or auto racing. Parents get to set parameters to determine exactly what is practiced, for example addition facts for the numbers 1-5. The best part about it is both of my kids can use it. QMM topics range from kindergarten to 9th grade. At the kindergarten level, letter recognition is covered as well as numbers. Spice often practices finding what letter comes before/after another and identifying vowels or consonants. Sport has tried everything from multiplication, to fractions, decimals, division, and estimation.
QMM is offering a $5 discount to anyone who orders the software using the following link:


Another favorite around here is Timez Attack. This program offers a truly entertaining way to practice times tables, but at $30 or more, is a bit pricey considering it only tests multiplication. We have enjoyed the free basic download available from the website though.

Hope this post gets you to thinking about how to sneak in a little learning this summer. Check back tomorrow for a look at some of our favorite educational boardgames.

Homeschool Bling!

OK, maybe bling is too strong of a word, but here's a short list of places that offer discounts or other rewards to homeschoolers. Most require proof of homeschooling. This will vary by state, but in Georgia most places simply ask to see a copy of your declaration of intent to homeschool that must be submitted to the state board of education each year. If you're wondering if a retailer near you offers such a discount, I find the best way to find out is simply ask if there is an "educator's discount" rather than a discount for homeschoolers. They tend to take you more seriously that way. : )

JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts - Sign up for the educator's discount and receive 15% off all purchases. Upon registering, you also receive a 20% off coupon for one time use. The best part about the JoAnn's discount is it can be combined with their 40% off coupon that comes in the Sunday paper and it can be used on every purchase. I've used the discount for everything from art supplies and home decor items to fabric and patterns to make Spice clothes. Hobby Lobby may have a similar program, but I have not been in there recently to find out. I've also heard Michael's offers a discount, but the last time I was there and asked the cashier looked at me like I had turnips growing out of my head so who knows. I'll have to try again next time.

Borders/Waldenbooks/Barnes & Noble/Books-A-Million - Each of these stores offers a 20% discount to educators. The discount is supposed to apply to "classroom materials" only, but I find that is left up to the discretion of the cashier. I hand over my card with every purchase and see what happens.

Hancock Fabrics - The Red Apple Card gives you 15% off.

Staples - Sign up for the Teacher Rewards card and earn points for each purchase you make. I don't spend enough there to get much out of this, but I do love their ink recycling program. If you have the Teacher Rewards card you earn $3 for every ink cartridge returned to the store - regardless of the brand or type of printer. You earn credit for up to 10 cartridges per month. I had fun spending my $30 recycling rewards check last month on magazine holders and dry erase markers. Office Depot has a similar program.

Scholastic - When I was a kid I loved bringing home the little flier each month full of books. Once my mom narrowed my original 20 or so selections down to a more reasonable number, it was so exciting to bring home a new stack of books to delve into each month. When I started homeschooling Sport I knew one of the things I would miss was those darn catalogs. Now we get it all shipped straight to our house and while we do not get a discount, we do get to earn free books and bonus points to be redeemed for other cool items just like a classroom teacher does. To sign up as a homeschooler, you have to send in your first order pre-paid. Go to their website, check out the fliers, then call 1-800-scholastic to place your order and mail the check. Once your first order arrives, you will have a customer # that can be used to access the book clubs online. While you're at the site, check out the book fair section and see if there are customer appreciation warehouse sales in your area. If so, get on the mailing list! We love the warehouse sales and have found huge deals there.

I've also heard Blockbuster offers free rentals on educational materials, but I haven't tried it yet. Let me know if you've tried this one or know of a place offering a discount that's not on this list.

This post is part of We Are That Family's WFMW carnival. Check it out for lots of great tips and ideas!

Workbox Wednesday

We've been studying space in science, focusing on the moon lately. Here's a sampling of our workboxes last week:

We started out with this book. It is the spine for Sport's current Noeo science unit. We read about the moon in here...

then read this book I picked up at the library to explain things a bit more on Spice's level.


The highlight of our day was recreating the phases of the moon using Oreo cookies. I based the project off of the info found here. We only focused on the 4 main moon phases though to keep things simple and lessen the sugar intake. The kids had a blast, especially after the sugar started to take effect.

Sport's complete project.


Spice works on her phases.


God created the moon and it was good!


Looks like Sport had a good time.


We wrapped things up with an activity from Pop Bottle Science.

My sister-in-law gave this to Sport for his birthday a few years ago. Bet she didn't think we still had it! This activity focused on the craters on the moon. For some reason Spice has been fascinated by the idea of craters on the moon. We filled the bottom part of the bottle (it comes apart) with flour then dropped small objects (raisin, chocolate chip, marble, candy corn...) into the flour to show how craters were formed. Some objects were dropped gently just an inch or so away and others were dropped from way up high (do this outside if you don't want flour everywhere) to show how different sizes of craters were made. We all agreed these activities made for a fun day of workboxes.