• Nov. 7, 2007
Unit Study- Gifts Week 2 (or how to catch up on science class)
Just a simple overview of the Unit Study that we do weekly with our friends (a family of four who homeschool as well). Each week we go to a different country as listed in the book Gifts by Jo Ellen Bogart and illustrated by Barabara Reid. (These are plasticine drawings and the pictures have a bit of a 3-D look to them)
Tara arrives with her clan and announces that she almost made it through eveyr subject before they arrived except for science today and then takes off with the youngest for a doctor's appointment.
We're off to Australia. After reading the book, we visit the pages where the Grandma visits Australia. We take a moment to highlight the art work and study the different things that the illustrator has included in this page.
There is an Aborigine playing a didgeridoo,two children playing with a boomerang and the grandmother is recording the sounds of the National Bird-the Laughing Kookaburra while walking through some billabong goo.
The kids are enthusiastic as the point out Australia and ooh and ahh as they learn that it is the only country that is a continent. And then I tempt them with the knowledge that today's food treat is billabong goo--chocolate pudding.
Craft time--we make didgeridoos courtesy of crayola.com. And to make it uber-educational, the kids are to paint the didgeridoo following traditional Aborigine painting styles. They love it and come up with some pretty stellar art work.
Next I put on some didgeridoo music and we all join in. By the second song, Josiah asks us to shut off the buzzing noise. Everyone else begs for one more song and Josiah relents.
Next we sing "Kookaburra sits in the old Gum Tree" and everybody loves the part about how the bird eats the gumdrops from the tree. New dilemma: Everyone wants to play an imagined Kookaburra game and is on the lookout for gumdrops. Diversion: let's make billabong goo!
We define the word billabong and talk about where we've seen an "elbow in the river" before. Then, the gong show begins. I take out the chocolate pudding and realize that I have bought the stove top boil version of the pudding. No problem. Everybody gets involved in math(measuring) and pouring in the milk. I set it to go.
Five minutes later, milk has burned itself to the bottom of the pot and the chocolate billabong goo is horrendously gross.
No worries-ingenuity and creativity to the rescue. "Anyone want to try some science experiments?"
"Nah." "No." "Not really." "What kind?"
"Messy ones!" I answer.
Game on. We divide the chocolate puddings into ten different containers. We raid the fridge and pull out the maplesyrup, the ketchup the mustard and the soya sauce. We dive into the pantry and pull out the olive oil, the honey and the flour. We start bly asking, " What will happen to the pudding if we add..."
Messy, ooey, gooey fun transpires as we compare consistency, colour,texture and oooh, gross-slideability (is that a word?) Chocolate pudding mixed with oil is runny in a consistency that sets every kid laughing--"It looks like poo!"
Tara comes back to find the kitchen a lovely chocolate disaster and all of us grinning and saying, "Guess what we did Mom--science!"
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• Oct. 28, 2007
Carschooling, Swim class and Grocery store lessons
Lucy is in swim class. Yeah! Finally, we've been able to be settled enough for us to get into some swim lessons.
She loves it and is doing great. I'm glad I waited until she was a bit older so that she is responding well to the teacher (fancy talk for listening and following directions), and able to be ready to meet some new challenges (put her face in the water). All of it has gone well.
Her lessons are bright and early at 9 am, and since we have to drop Dad off at work at ten to 8. We have an hour to kill in the swimming parking lot. So...I have now officially become a carschooling mom! We're currently working on the 5 in a row curriculum (so great!) and we're doing the book Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. Classic. What a riot to be teaching my daughter the elements of symmetry and monochromatic art while she's strapped into her carseat. I love this flexibility of teaching. I love that school isn't confined to a classroom but that life--or in our case--the car is her classroom.
After class we went to the grocery store to purchase Daddy some food for the next few days since his crew was called to leave out of town. That introduced list making skills, math, size comparison on fruits, etc. and we were able to incorporate the elements of Madeline by going over the importance of taking care of our body, especially our appendix (since Madeline has hers surgically removed). We went through the supermarket finding foods that would keep our body strong and foods that would rot our guts out. We learned about organic products and the price difference of non organic products. So great. Just love capitalizing on all these little moments.
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• Oct. 4, 2007
Ramona Quimby
Remember the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary? Well, today I had the distinct impression that my eldest little charmer was having a Ramona moment.
The day started off with chores. Yay!
Then we went to the Art Gallery and picked a painting to draw and study. (How I love to homeschool. This is what it is all about!) We stayed for an hour and studied the different mediums used, the different strokes artist's would choose to display their work. It was enthralling. Cherry found the painting that we would all take turns working on. Lucy and I were in one corner of the exhibit and Cherry was pointing," 'ook, 'ook. Coluh!" Indeed, there was colour. A really bright green and red painting of a cowboy and, cleverly, the artist had an actual lasso coming out of the painting and framing the whole thing. Lucy drew a few pictures of the horse which were very impressive, I worked on my figure drawing and copied the cowboy, and Brie got acquainted with the green marker and her hands!
Later, I took them to Value Village--oh, how I love Value Village. Anyway, they had a huge costume section which my daughter's felt compelled to try on...like, all of it. And since I was being lenient as I knew they were hungry and acting up, I let it slide. Big mistake. Just as I am pulling a pair of blue jeans off the racks, Lucy goes dancing by with a polka dotted scarf complete with arm and hand movements. I ask her to stop. This only creates a new situation of boredom. Moments later, I hear the sound of a tobaggan being scraped across the floor and a "whhheeeee!" sound that is distinctly my daughter's voice. Cherry is standing in the shopping cart, watching Lucy dodge a clerk whose telling her to stop, and Cherry is saying, "Lemme down. Lemme down."
The tobaggon and child eventually run out of gas. I find my child and stuff the toboggan in a cart and high-tail it to the dressing room to hide my face and my children.
Let us not even begin to discuss the play-by-play commentary my two girlies gave as I changed my clothes to try on new outfits.
Needless to say, my daughter resembled "everyone's favourite pest" today-Ramona Q. And she did so with panache!
Current tune: Bet On it-Zac Efron, youtube. Yay for HSM2!
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• Oct. 1, 2007
what's the magic word that gets things done?
7:00 am I'm awake. Wonders of wonders!
7:30 am Snuggles over and breakfast on!
8:00 am Lucy isn't feeling too well and we all opt to stay in bed and read for this morning's activities. Peter Pan in Scarlet is starting to get to the really good part and it's hard to put it down.
10:30 am I've stopped Pan in Scarlet at a crucial point to 1. rest my voice and eyes 2.serve fruit snacks to the starting-to-whine bunch 3. stick on a video about the heart. I don't clean on Sundays and yesterday we had visitors, so I use this time to do the little bit extra tidying up
10:43 am Randomly start doing things that have no connection: write something down on my list of "Don't Forget's" (I'd write it here, but I've forgotten), throw teatowels onto the mounting laundry pile, eat an apple, go searching for the pair of pants I was wearing yesterday only to realize I'm wearing them again today and, yes, that paper is still in my pocket
11:02 am Build puzzles with the kids. We have this really cool layered puzzle of the body. It's five layers of the skeleton, then organs, then muscles, then skin-naked, then clothes. So much fun.
11:04 am Try and explain to Lucy why she needs to put the little boy's anatomically correct private body parts back into the puzzle and why she can't carry it around showing people it.
11:10 am A good time for science and math stuff. Get out the water bucket. Cherry and Lucy dye the water yellow with food colouring and we use different measuring spoons to dump water on the paper and compare sizes of splashes, observes what happens to water on a kitchen floor that is slanted, which one dries quicker, and which one they won't fight over!
11:30 am Lunch time. Gobble it up and straight for naps.
2:00 pm More Pan in Scarlet. Throughout the book, the characters ask each other: What's the magic word that gets things done? Please is the answer, of course. Lucy now decides that for the rest of the afternoon she will take every opportunity to ask this question to me or Cherry whenever we ask something, look sidewyas, breathe, (pick an reason). We ask her to stop and the only answer she gives us is: What's the little word that gets things done?
2:02 pm ENOUGH!!!!!
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• Sep. 28, 2007
Gypsy Kings
I love the Gypsy Kings. They have been the background music for today's lessons.
My favourite song is Volare! I first heard a different version of this song off of the Lizzie McGuire movie (yes, I'm admitting that out loud), and I loved it. And today, while we're mixing up pineapple cake and playing Mancala, Volare! came on. Good times and salsa dancing. Here's the youtube link for those who are seriously deprived of some good latin music http://youtube.com/watch?v=oNgSeJzLJFc
Ok, so homeschool life stuff. More heart stuff. Today Lucy tried to pump fluid as fast as her heart can. The heart can pump 150 ml of blood about 70 times per minute (on an adult). So we had Lucy try and take fluid from one dish to another and see how much she could pump in a minute. Not bad--she could do it 35 times. She was booking it.
We did lots of other stuff today, including: play CandyLand, race around outside to feel our hearts beating and, of course, we practiced our Latin dance moves which we made up because none of us know Latin dance...yet. Cherry had some pretty groovin' moves. We call it the "saggy diaper hip wiggle". If we could let the dance world know about it,i t would be a big hit on next season's So You Think You Can Dance.
Peter Pan in Scarlet is moving on swimmingly...looking forward to seeing how the Author is going pull it all together now that the old nursemaids are introduced.
Well, wompbompbaloolong the weekend's here!
Latah peoples! Monty
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• Sep. 27, 2007
Move your Body
Enjoying life to the fullest today and loving Jesus to my maximum potential. It's a great day to be alive.
Fingerprints are all over my house. For real--we did Lucy and Cherry's fingerprints today and they are now decorating my walls and a few more things that Cherry got her hands on before I could wipe the ink away.
After that, we played a reading game. I have a huge alphabet floor puzzle. Lucy would read the word I wrote and then jump to each letter to spell it out. Good times, until Lucy got into a mood about, "why do you always pick the games." After that it was time to train her heart on attitudes and such.
And since we're talking about the heart, we started looking at that muscle and we're going to draw it and cut it out and put it on her paper body. (We traced her body on good ol' reliable newsprint).
Story time: I read them the next two chapters in Peter Pan in Scarlet and then had a satisfying meal of pasta with pine nuts, pesto and cheese. I love you, Italy!
Later this afternoon, it's outside yard work and probably a game of soccer since we're learning that the heart needs to be exercised a little more than it gets from the daily Pilates routine.
Anywho, the wind is blowing. The leaves are falling. Looks like rain, but the skies are stalling.
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• Sep. 26, 2007
The Blue Car
I love this poem that my friend wrote:
Burnt, charred embers
leave marks on my hands
Easily washed off
with the grit of the sand
that stood under your feet
as you stood on my soul
Helpless and lame
Completely unwhole
Rhonderdons blooming
Stars shining the same
Blues music was booming,
To a tune that was slain...
eking a place in my head
For the swallows to sit
For the swallows, a bed
Drip-drops of the coffee
that I never drink
Sing songs of the melodies
that I never think
Questioned the running of time
through the land
of wheat that blows grandly
while slips through my hand
Wondered at silence
Why nothing was said
Sealed up like drum
That beat in my head
Rhythms stopped rhyming
And moods stopped their sway
Time hands stopped ticking
The moon slipped away
Frayed ribbons
Black hats
Scuffed shoes and dark shades
Under the blue car
that drove far away
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• Sep. 26, 2007
Africa
Today is when my friend Tara and her kids come to explore different countries. Thanks to Miss LoLo B we are using the Gifts Unit study. Gifts is a book by Jo Ellen Bogart and the amazing artist Barbara Reid illustrated it. This is our first week that Grandma goes a-travelling, so we visited Africa.
Here is a list of some fun things we did:
- Looked up Africa on the map and talked a bit about the countries within.
- We made a snack from Congo, called Congo bars. Oddly enough they look suspiciously like chocolate chip cookie dough, but whatever
- Then we filled 4L milk jugs with water and the kids had to figure a way to bring them home (we had them walk outside). Abby nearly dropped hers and we learned the valuable lesson of keeping one hand on the jug while the jug is on your head. Jo'ah, Tara's son, cleverly found a stick to use to carry the jug over his shoulder
- We came in and built huts like the Masai tribe do. Oh, what you can do with some cardboard boxes and some grass hula skirts
- We wanted to make masks and dance, and take time to pray for missionaries in Africa, but time got away from us. So Lucy and Cherry got to pray for them tonight.
It was fun. It was grand. It was Swaziland!
Highly recommend playing the game Mancala. I love that game. So does Lucy. It's a great counting game and teaches strategy and so many other valuable things.
Later peoples, Monty
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• Sep. 26, 2007
The skin in your ear makes ear wax!
8 am finally roll out of bed after a good time of snuggling!
9am breakfast is eaten, had to skip Pilates (promise myself to do it later), teeth is brushed, hoo-yah the day is ours!
9:15 am Found missing sock behind couch. A sign of a good day ahead.
9:30 am Learning about skin. Skin gives us our sense of touch. Spend 15 minutes touching everything we can and classifying whether it is hot,cold, fuzzy, sticky, smooth, rough or gross
9:45 am Blindfold Lucy and play a game where she has to guess what I've put in her hands. She's a smart cookie and I only caught her peeking three times. Her younger sister, Cherry (age 23 months), recognizes hot and cold objects. "Co'd mama."
10:00 am Stand outside in the cold weather with no socks on...conclusion:this produces goosebumps
10:05 am Do a happy dance to warm up from our silly experiment and wait for the hot water to boil
10:07 am Potty break for Cherry. And it's a miss...change wet pants
10:10 Create a multipurpose scavenger hunt for Lucy. She must find the following:4 hard items, 3 soft items, 2 fuzzy items, 1 paper item, 1 cold item, 1 hot item
10:11 Clever, clever me. Lucy has to read the scavenger hunt, find all the items, group them together and count. While I put the hot water to good use and have a facial...only to show the effects of sweating, of course
10:30 am Decide we all need something soft that can be hard sometimes: cheese and apple snack
10:40 am Lucy has to print out her scavenger list and Cherry and I use our sense of touch to clean up the massive explosion of toys she made while my head was under a towel for a mini-facial, I mean the sweating experiment
10:52 am Outside play to let our skin feel the textures of the outdoors
10:58 am Back in to let our skin feel the texture of liquid peroxide as Lucy's knee has made a new memory with the road
11:15 am We work together to get supplies for our African Safari tomorrow and then lunch
6 pm After naps, neighbour play time at the park, baking cherry turnovers and slapping together some cheese and mayo sandwiches for dinner, Lucy declares a hostile takeover. Charlotte's Web is out, Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary is in. Since this is bedtime and I'm not in the mood to quibble, we read chapter one of Ramona Forever. Ramona meets Howie's rich uncle, Hobart. Which begs the question: what were people thinking when they came up with the name Hobart? Just putting it out there.
7:20 pm Kids are in bed. Finish watching Phantom of the Opera, which funny enough is not the storyline I thought it was. I never knew what the storyline was but I didn't think that it would go in the direction it did. Not bad. That Lloyd Webber knows his stuff.
9pm email, chat, finally sign up on homschool blogger
9:15 pm fidget with my wedding ring
9:17 wonder if I have enough milk for cereal in the morning
9:19 continue to write random stuff on my blog that has no real bearing on anyone's life
9:20 Ok, i'll stop
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• Sep. 26, 2007
Bringing Funky Back!
Hello homeschool blogging world!
It's official. I'm now "one of you". I'm homeschooling my K grade baby, Lucy, who is imiganitve and fun and oh so lovely.
This year started off late. Hopefully, this isn't a sign of the future school years (hahaha). We moved into our first house and Lucy's first week of school consisted of counting the boxes that needed to be unpacked and then subtracting them one by one.
The next week was a little life lesson in organizing and I managed to get some printing and reading in. We also ravaged the sour cherry tree in our front yard and created a math lesson with ten cherries per bowl. Yahoo! My daughter can now count by tens and I have 6 months to figure out what to do with all the frozen cherries that have now taken up residence in my freezer.
I'm in the midst of searching for the school board that's right for us.Since K isn't funded we're going on pure interest. Lucy likes the body and so today was all about the skin. This deserves a whole post to describe the fun. And since it annoys me to read blog posts that are longer than the red light on Post street I'll just make the "skin" lesson the next post.
Monty
