Little Simon was too sleepy to pick a pumpkin

Yesterday, we went to the Pumpkin Patch.   It was so much FUN and the best patch we have ever been to!    We did so many things, I don't know if I can remember everything, but I'll try--

Played tons of games--
Pin the nose on the Pumpkin
Bean Bag Toss
Bowling with Milk Jugs
Nature Scavenger Hunt
Found (and hid) mini pumpkins in a wooded area

Other activities--
Listened to stories from a LIVE scarecrow!
Ate a pumpkin bar snack
Went on a tractor hayride!
Stuffed/made a scarecrow
Went through a hay maze complete with a slide
Petted goats and watched donkeys
Jumped in a giant pumpkin with lots of orange balloons
Stood around a bonfire to WARM up!
Picked out a pumpkin (of course)

Stuffing a Scarecrow with Friends

Hayride!

At co-op we compared the past with the present (clothesline vs. clothes dryer, indoor plumbing vs. outhouse, lightbulb vs. candle, etc.).  Then we played games from the past. 

We played
French and English (tug-o-war)
Puss, Puss in the Corner
Hide and Seek (a game similar to hot/cold-- only you yell "you burn!" and "you freeze!"  depending on how far someone is from the hidden object)
Potato Sack Race
Marbles (Elijah's favorite!)

We studied the following science topics at home--

*Dogs (Enchanted Learning + some go-along books -- Our Puppies are Growing, Usborne Dogs and Puppies)
*Shadows (Read Let's Read and Find Out Science-- What Makes a Shadow)- we made handshadows on the wall at night-- even dad joined in!
*Tornados (Read LRFOS Tornado Alert! and made a "tornado" with our tornado tube and two 2-liter bottles-- we were able to see what a vortex is and how it works)

For our field trip, we went to Conner Prairie and participated in a program called "Churning Up Chores"

We churned butter, dipped candles, and made *delicious* cornbread on an open fire by covering the pan with coals!  (See pictures below).  When we got home from CP, we tried making butter with some heavy cream in the stand mixer; we did it!  It was really cool to actually watch the cream undergo the various transformations as it turned to butter and to see all the milk left over. 

Our guide, Gladys, shows us how to churn butter.  It's quite a work-out!  It took all five moms plus all ten children to churn the butter (and 90 minutes worth of work!)

Elijah dips a candle

Elijah helps make the cornbread

Here are a few pictures from Elijah's fifth birthday party.  He wanted a dinosaur theme, so that's what he got! 

Elijah and I worked on the large paper mache eggs that each guest got to take home; they used them for the dinosaur egg hunt that we had after a BBQ dinner.  After the egg hunt, we had dinosaur cake (made by Aunt Lisa) and ice cream then opened presents before everyone headed home.

Happy Birthday, Elijah!

These are from our second field trip.   After spending a week on Make Way for Ducklings, our co-op visited IWU's Ron Mazellan (who is an illustrator and has illustrated children's books including The Harmonica). 

Mr. Mazellan taught our students about perspective using images from the movie, Ice Age.  Each student was encouraged to draw a picture of the squirrel from the movie, too (see picture of Elijah drawing above).  They were taught to draw by recognizing the different shapes in the animal and simply drawing those shapes; the kids did really well.  Also included in this art lesson was some basics on how to draw shadows and some hands-on experience with real clay.

Who can draw? We can!!!

Here are some pictures from our first field trip this year (in August).  We went to a Natural Dyes Workshop the week after we rowed A New Coat for Anna.

Our guide took us through the woods letting the children test different leaves, flowers, and berries to see what color of dye might come from each item.

Another highlight of this field trip was painting with different dyes that our guide had made up ahead of time.  She made dye from carrots, beets, tea, and many more other natural items! 

Here is Elijah's robot painting -- he used raspberry dye and elderberry dye to make this picture.

We used the template at Homeschool Share to help Elijah write his own "Round is" poem like the book we read, Round is a Mooncake.

He did great, but got really tired of thinking of round things by the end (he pointed at the laterns on the string in his room, but wouldn't say the words!).  I added the "round are apples on a tree" and he approved with a head shake and a smile.

Oh, and mushroom is code word around here for marshmallow, but we kept mushroom for sound purposes!  :)  Plus, it will be great to look back someday and remember that he thinks marshmallows are "mushrooms"  :).

Round is a balloon

Round is the clock
Round are the animal faces on my birthday card

Round is a light that I found
A potato head nose that makes no sound

Round are hats in my room
Round are little white mushrooms

Round is a can of beans

And the laterns on a string

Round are apples on a tree
What other round things do you see?

I tried to record this dictation exactly as it was told to me (this is based off of The Story of Ferdinand):

The Story of Jakes

The End

Unit Study (Homeschool Share): Round is a Mooncake

Geography/Culture
Found China on the map and placed storydisk (reviewed storydisk throughout week)
Colored Chinese flag/outline map of China
We also made a flag for China using red construction paper and two different sizes of gold star stickers

Discussed the Chinese Moonfestival
Made our own "Moonfestival" --
Created a money tree out of construction paper and put envelopes on it for each family member
Made a string of laterns for Elijah's room complete with white lights Aunt Lisa brought us REAL mooncakes from a Chinese bakery!  We ate Mooncakes and drank Jasmine tree under the laterns one night (everyone sampled the four different kinds of mooncakes-- red bean, lotus seed, pineapple, and date; one kind made me gag and another smelled like soy sauce-- I love soy sauce, but not in a mooncake!  I couldn't believe that Jason and Elijah tried something I wouldn't!  Pineapple was the favorite among the adults, but Elijah liked the date one the best).

Made a Chinese Meal
Aunt Lisa and I made some egg drop soup (FIAR Cookbook recipe) and some Fried Rice.  We all ate our meal with chopsticks (Elijah had to have help from me), and Elijah really liked the Fried Rice!! YIPPEE!  This is something I am going to add to our regular menu (cheap, easy, and yummy!). 

Math
Looked for *more* shapes in the story (round things, rectangles, and squares)
Played with tangram puzzles (we used some that had outlines and some that we had to figure out on our own; some are really challenging!)  We learned that tangrams are great brain builders!
Reviewed shapes (and introduced pentagon and hexagon)
Made a shape book from Enchanted Learning -- read over the shape book each day to reinforce the names of the shapes

Language Arts
Read the unit study book each day
Discussed some of the words in the back of the book

Wrote a poem in the same style as Round is a Mooncake

Science
Read What's Alive (Let's Read and Find Out Science)
Discussed what's living/what's non-living
Went through the book (Round is a Mooncake) and made two lists (one for non-living and one for living) using the items/objects in the text and illustrations of the book

Looked at the harvest moon (the "Moon Festival Moon" as Elijah calls it) on Friday night (October 6)

Art
Discusse name chops; I gave Elijah a special E stamp that he can now use as his name chop to sign letters, cards, and thank-you notes that he sends. 

Phonics
ABeka K-5 Phonics Lessons 40, 43
Read BOB Books
Played Get on the Ark!
Sight Word of the Week:  the

Handwriting Without Tears
L- pg. 14 in Letters and Numbers for Me
Grey Block Paper Writing Practice

Other
Kumon My First Book of Mazes pgs. 24, 25, 26, 27, 29
Kumon My First Book of Cutting activities 10, 11, 12
Card for Aunt Lisa
Learned the basics of how to play checkers
Dinosaur Activty Fun Book-- Counting Dinosaurs and Follow the Dinosaur Activities
Played with Wikki Stix

FIAR Unit Study- Ferdinand

Geography/Culture:
Found Spain on the map and placed story disk (reviewed each day)
Colored Map of Spain/Outline Map of Spain
Learned to count in ten in Spanish, learned words for mother and father in Spanish, learned how to say hello in Spanish, too
Listened to Teach Me More...Spanish
Made Spanish/English Dictionary at co-op (learned color words and words for seasons)

Language Arts:
Short Story Writing Lesson at co-op (introduced to four short story elements-- setting, character, conflict, resolution); given a book to write his own story at home
Animal Fiction Lesson from FIAR Manual
Wrote short story in book given at co-op (template used from Ferdinand; Elijah wrote The Story of Jakes; I will post his story later)

Vocabulary Cards (acted them out/discussed them/found them in the story/filed them in his box)

Art
Drama lesson from FIAR Manual

Science
Cork Tree lesson from FIAR Manual
Read different books about trees
Tell Me Tree by Gail Gibbons
The Life of the Forest
Meeting Trees by Scott Russell Sanders
A Tree is a Plant (Let's Read and Find Out Science)
Our field trip was science related.  We learned all about trees-- the lifecycle of a tree, all about apple trees (even tasted some cider), learned how trees make food/get water, observed a large tree cookie (and a small one), learned new terms like xylem and phloem. Elijah also made a vest that turns him into a tree complete with leaves, xylem, and phloem.

Phonics
Completed ABeka K-5 Phonics Lessons 35, 36, 37, 38, 39
Read BOB Books
Played Spell Time

Handwriting Without Tears
K- slate work
pg. 13 in Letters and Numbers for Me
reviewed all letters learned so far using grey block paper

Other
My First Book of Mazes- completed six mazes
My First Book of Cutting- completed activities #7 and #8

Played Animal Lotto a few times
Went on a "leaf hunt" -- we brought the leaves home and made them into fun leaf people! 

9/18- Field Trip; I hope to post an entire blog on this tomorrow...check back for details (and pictures!).

Unit Study- I Will Never NOT EVER Eat a Tomato

Geography/Social Studies
Discussed Sibling Relationships
Found Greenland in our Great Big Children's Atlas; placed a story disk there
Colored an outline map of Greenland
Colored Greenland's Flag

Reviewed Greenland on the map each day

Language Arts
Read the story each day
Vocabulary Words-- fussy, rare, nibble, gobble
Elijah listened for the words as I was reading and help up the appropriate card
Filed cards in box according to alphabet tabs
Creative Thinking-- came up with new names/stories for foods Elijah doesn't like

Supplemental Reading
Green Eggs and Ham
Usborne Flip Flaps- What Happens to Your Food?
Growing Vegetable Soup
Eating the Alphabet

Math
Measurement: Cooking- Orange Twiglet Dippers and Dip

Art
We really spent some time discussing the details of the illustrations.  The illustrations are made of cut-out drawings, textures, and real photographs.  Elijah identified all three parts throughout the story.  We made a replica of the page with Lola on Mt. Fuji eating "cloud fluff"; I wrote "I love to eat cloud" on the picture, but that wasn't good enough for Elijah.  When I went back to look at the picture, he added "fuf" with a purple crayon.  He told me, it says "fluff! -- Lola loves to eat cloud FLUFF!"

Science
Read about Jupiter.  Colored an Enchanted Learning page about Jupiter.  Elijah knows that "it's the largest planet" and "it has a red spot"
He wants to field trip to Jupiter, but I told him that's just not going to happen!

Health
I printed a copy of the food pyramid for 2-6 year olds.  We discussed each group (grains, fruits, veggies, milk, and meat).  We classified the foods Lola and Charlie ate for dinner (tomatoes, potatoes, fish sticks, peas, and carrots); we decided they should add a glass of milk, some bread, and grapes to make the meal more balanced.   We started a chart (from the food pyramid website) to mark off what Elijah is eating so he can see if he is getting everything he needs.   It will also help him to remember the different food groups.


Phonics
We did a few pages in his workbook Letters and Sounds
I also found a folder with some fun phonics sheets in it that I had printed off a long time ago.  He put them in his clip board (has a clear top) and used a dry erase marker to complete MANY of them.  I think we did A-C, D-F, G-I, J-L, M-O.  He had to circle the correct initial sound.  He did all of them *perfect*
Read Bob Books 1,2,3,4.

Handwriting Without Tears
Completed Letters and Numbers for Me H page.
I wrote some random letters across the top of the grey block paper and he completed two rows of the same letters.
Practiced writing his name.

Other
Kumon- My First Book of Cutting Activities 1,2,3,4,5
Kumon- My First Book of Mazes -- pages 1-17!  I had to make him stop! 
Coloring Pages
Pattern Blocks
Wrote a thank-you letter to Ron Mazellan (field trip related)
Made a birthday booklet for Nana
Played a Memory Game along with our Unit Study using the foods from Lola's NO list

Final note:  I think this book has really gotten to Elijah!  :)  He tried (and LIKED) duck and crab.  In fact, he wants more crab legs!  We went to Red Lobster and spent more on his meal than on ours!   What are we going to do?   He really wanted to try lobster, but we just couldn't do it...maybe someday

FIAR Unit Study: Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
Read MWFD everyday.  Elijah *loved* this book!  (And, I must admit, I became quite attached to it, too)

Science: 
Read the following books
Ducks Don't Get Wet (Let's Read and Find Out Science)

did three experiments (two found in the back of the book); through the experiments we learned that oil repels water ("oil and water don't mix!")
Usborne Eggs and Chicks
Chickens Aren't the Only Ones (love this book!)
A Nest Full of Eggs (Let's Read and Find Out Science)
Animal Dads

Learned about animal babies at co-op including their names and how their parents care for them.  Alligator babies are hatchlings...and the mom can listens for them to call from inside their eggs!  Once they hatch, she gently carries them to the water for a bath to clean the sand off.   We played bingo-- a board made of animals with the adult/baby names.  The Mallard Duck was the free space and when someone won the game (Elijah was the first winner!), they had to yell "QUACK!"

Learned about the colors of the Mallard Duck (male) at co-op.  We replicated these beauties with a duck outline and GLITTER (much to all the children's delight).  Green glitter heads, gold glitter beaks, red glitter feet, and silver glittered collars.  When we got home we added bunches of feathers to complete our duck's look.

Started our Animal Classification System
Read a library book What is a Reptile? (plan on reading more from this series too)
We made a notebook with dividers for vertebrates and invertebrates...then we added categories within each section as appropriate for mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, reptiles, arthropods, arachinds, mollusks, annelids, etc., etc.  We hope to keep up with this project for the next few years!
Classified sheep (from A New Coat for Anna)
Classified Mallard Duck

Social Studies:
Learned where the ducks lived-- in Boston, MA.  Colored an outline map of Boston that included state symbols.   Elijah put the story disk on Boston and we reviewed where Boston, MA was each day. 

Language Arts:
Completed the rhyme lesson in the FIAR manual.

We read a duck poem by Odgen Nash ("Behold the duck..."); we read it almost every day!  Elijah loved the part about "bottoms up" because there are various illustrations in the duck books we read this week of ducks bottoming up while they hunt for food

Started our Vocabulary Box (I hope to do four words each week)...Elijah demonstrated his knowlege for Jason yesterday...he really "got" this week's words-- Boston, cozy, incubate, and molt

Read additional Robert McCloskey favorites such as
Blueberries for Sal and Lentil

Art:
Discussed the Caldecott Medal at co-op
Illustrated the duck poem mentioned in LA (Elijah made LOTS of peanuts for his duck to eat!)
Going on a field trip Monday to learn more about drawing!  I will post about it later.  I still need to post our *last* field trip


Phonics:
ABeka Phonics Lessons 31, 32, 33, 34 complete with Letters and Sounds pages and fun games (we used our Little People Noah's Ark to play the game mentioned in the manual and Elijah couldn't get enough of it!  He would read words all day long if I'd let him!

Read Bob Books 1, 2, and 4

HWOT:
I don't have the book in front of me.  Not sure what pages we completed, but we are finished with M, and played the Mystery Letter Game (completed that page, too)

Other:
Played about 100 rounds of Zingo!  (a Discovery Toys Game); it's great for memorizing some simple words and to develop fast thinking!
Weather Calendar
Made stick Puppets
Made a birthday card (more like a book) for Uncle B's birthday
Played a cheerios card/counting game (go-fish!)
Read various library books (I'm too tired to make a list!)

Well, Homeschool Share has been updated!   30 NEW Unit Studies!  HOORAY! 

We also have some new (and fantastic) Five in a Row Resources added to our collection! 

Click What's New on the homepage to see all the new stuff!  www.homeschoolshare.com  

I'm so glad our contest is over!  Now, back to regular life (whatever that is!). 

:) Ami

Co-op
We read A New Coat for Anna
Educational Activity
Learned about bartering (trading)- discussed the examples from the story 
We read “A Rooster and a Bean Seed” aloud
Divided the story into parts (hen, farmer’s wife, farmer, cow, blacksmith, rooster) and had a mini-drama (each child had a part in acting out the story) complete with props.  The lines were done in rebus fashion so even the non-readers could take part
Fun Activities
Each child made a woven placemat
Each child got to choose four pieces of fabric and sew them together on a real sewing machine!

FIAR Unit Study- A New Coat for Anna
Applied Math
We measured Elijah as if we were going to make a new coat for him (and then he measured me!)
Language Arts
We read the book each day
I had Elijah look for the word the (our sight word that we are working on)
A New Coat for Anna tells us the story of how a coat is made, so Elijah wrote his own how-to story—“How to Take a Bath” complete with illustrations.  We are going to have it bound with a comb-binder and laminated.
Art
Discussed war and how we can see the effects of war in the illustrations
We also sewed (hand-stiched) our very own Lauri Ladybug puppet
Social Studies
Geography—We chose Germany to place our story disk.  Elijah colored the flag and an outline map of Germany.  We also reviewed where Germany is each day by looking at the atlas again.
Supplemental Reading
A Visit to the Farm
Farmer Duck
Charlie Needs a Cloak

Handwriting Without Tears
Letter N
Worked on the slate
Completed workbook page 9
Completed 2 rows of N’s on the grey block paper

Phonics
ABeka K-5 Phonics Lesson 29
ABeka K-5 Phonics Lesson 30
Letters and Sounds pg. 35
Read BOB books--
Mat
Mac
Sam
Dot
Dot and Mit
Peg and Ted

Other
Scissor Practice
Weather Calendar

Unit Study- The Honeybee and the Robber
After we read the book, I pulled down the Usborne Big Book of Playtime Activities and we followed the step-by-step instructions to draw some bears of our own.   While we were coloring, Elijah asked questions about what bears eat, so we talked about that (thankfully I know the answer to that one!).

Phonics
pg. 33 in Letters and Sounds
read various ladders in My Blend and Word Book
Read Mat again; he also read Sam! (the second book)  He read both to Jason last night, too. 

HWOT
Completed the R page-- pg. 8

Other
Read chapter 3-4 in The Littles Take a Trip
Called the weather man! (Elijah listened) to find out what the weather was going to be like.
Made a puppet (this was spontaneous fun in the afternoon).  Elijah wrote on the back of it "Elijah made you"  and on the front his name "Dla" 
Nature Walk -- we didn't do a journal entry, but we did find a Robin's feather and a Japanese Beetle

Unit Study:  The Honeybee and the Robber
Elijah loves this interactive (pop-up picture) book by Eric Carle!  We also read Are You a Bee? (yet another winner!).  Elijah colored a Yellow Jacket in his Dover Coloring Book and we read the blurb in it.  I learned that Yellow Jackets aren't really bees, but they are wasps which makes total sense to me...they are so aggressive and pesky!  Once I had about 60 in the house that I swept up with my vaccum sweeper attachment.  I think they nest somewhere on our property. 

HWOT
Worked on the slate making R's.  He had a hard time with this and told me he didn't want to try the R's in the workbook, so we just spent longer with the slate.

Phonics:
Elijah read his first little reader today.  I plan on using the ones that came with the Abeka curriculum, but this was a BOB book.  My sister bought the first set for us, and he's been asking me to read them to him (they are so cute and irresistable for little hands), but I've held out telling him that they are for him to read to me (I didn't want to read them to him because he memorizes things so well that I didn't want him to simply memorize these...I want to know he has some basic phonics understanding).   So, today was the day!  I picked out the first one-- Mat -- and handed it to him and asked him if he wanted to read it to me.  He did perfect!  I know it was only a few different words (Mat, Sam, sat, on arranged in different sentences), but he didn't need any help and he was fluent (he didn't hesitate or take a long time sounding the words out-- and these were words we haven't worked on before).  It was a bright spot in my rather intense and hard day today.  Hooray for Elijah!  He's reading!

Other:
We have been keeping up with our weather calendar-- I just don't add that to the list everyday, but there is no way Elijah will let me forget about him getting to stamp the weather on the appropriate day!

Read chapters 1-2 in The Littles Take a Trip
Cut paper (and lots of it!)
Wrote two letters to friends (one to Josephine, one to Gabriel)
Made a card for my friend who had gallbladder surgery

I am adding a new category for my blog entries.  I thought it would be fun to snap pictures of various pieces of art that are too cute and post them.  I also feel guilty when I throw away these masterpieces, but now I can simply snap a picture and not have to worry about keeping the hard copy (unless, of course, you think they will be worth gold someday!) 

This is part of our Little Miss Muffet drama (read today's blog).
We must've done 10 different variations of the true nursery rhyme; this time Elijah wanted there to be two spiders to frighten Mrs. Potato Head away.

Today I watched my friend's daughter because my friend had to have gall bladder surgery, so our day went a bit differently (but what day isn't different?).

HWOT
I asked Elijah to do a row of B's on a new sheet of grey block paper (each page has 6 rows, I think).  He told me he wanted to do ALL the blocks.  He worked really hard and completed an entire page of B's!  I knew I had to recognize this behavior, so I took him over to The Blessing Chart (www.doorposts.com) and showed him the spot for diligence.  We talked about how he had been diligent and what that means, and I gave him a big bear hug (he loves this kind of recognition from us).   I also told him that he did a great job being responsible this morning.  While I was putting Simon down for a nap, Elijah dropped our big (and I mean big-honking-huge) box of crayons.  When I came down stairs, he was almost finished picking them up.  Wow.  They really do grow up. 

Unit Study-- The Very Busy Spider
I taught Elijah the nursery rhyme, "Little Miss Muffett"
Then, we had a great time acting it out with Mrs. Potato head and a Kid K'nex spider that Elijah made.  Elijah was laughing so hard every time the spider scared Mrs. Potato head away...we kept adding dialogue and changing what she was eating (what are curds and whey, anyway?)

Elijah and his friend looked at The Big Book of Bugs and Creepy Crawlies.

Other
Cutting Card #3

Nature Walk with our friend.  She found a huge beetle (dead), and was not afraid to put it in her bag!   She also picked up a cicada (live) and it buzzed and screeched at her; she dropped it and picked it up again!  I told her she was bug-brave.   Elijah found some pinecones and sticks (sticks...boys...why must they always grab sticks on their nature walks?).  For Elijah's nature journal he chose a milkweed bug we'd brought inside.  Our friend Josephine chose the purple cone flower she picked for her mom to nature journal about. 

Well, I finally counted and we've mailed out eleven letters to family and friends.  I think six have responded!  This is a great way to demonstrate to a child how rewarding it is to be able to read and write (even if they can't yet...it makes them more word conscious).  Not to mention my family members are happy to hear from Elijah (I play the part of personal secretary and write down his dictation in letter form).

I would love to post some pictures later tonight.  I will see if Jason will upload the pictures for me.

Elijah found a few things to put in his bag to take home and nature journal about today-- an oak tree leaf and a maple tree seed.   We also saw some squirrels, honey bees, a few different types of butterflies, and lots of ants.