Day #37/Day 175

After 10 days off because Conductor had his tonsils & adenoids out on the 4th of the month. He's finally feeling up to doing some school work (or at least I think he is) so we begin again today.

Together School

• We began a new read aloud for the month - Stories of the Pilgrims. If you want to read it to your own kiddos - click the link. It's a free public domain book. I have a bound copy I'm using though.
• Grapevine
• Story of the World (still trying to finish Volume 2. My goal is to start Volume 3 in January.)

Workboxes for Lego-Man:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing Journal
6. Photo Reading (this is for the homeschool class I'm teaching in photography)
7. Mr. Q Science lesson (This absolutely thrilled Conductor to make.)
8. Tektoma (This is an amazing website we're reviewing for the TOS Crew. Lego-Man loves it & I've been impressed with what he's done with it. They are tutorials on how to make video games. Lego-Man is working on his 2nd one.)
9. Adverb page - I'm pretty sure this was from ABC Teach
10. Thank-you note for our new bunnies
11. Mad Libs
12. Assigned Reading (He's almost done with The Hobbit - being on vacation the last 10 days allowed me to read ahead of him & finish it already. I had forgotten how enjoyable it was to read!)

Conductor's Boxes:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing Journal
6. Paper Bag Turkey (he asked to skip this on so I let him)
7. Shell Fact Family (ABCTeach)
8. Mr. Q Science - same link as above
9. A Dot-to-Dot that counted by 5's
10. Thank you note for the bunnies
11. Mathletics - again - a membership we were given to review to TOS
12. Assigned Reading

Happy's Boxes:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. Creation coloring book - A pages
5. Calendar work
6. Paper Bag Turkey - skipped this with him as well - we'll try again next week
7. Thanksgiving Maze page
8. Thanksgiving Math counting page
9. Read to him:Sarah Morton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl by Kate Waters Tapenum's Day: A Wampanoag Indian Boy in Pilgrim Times by Kate Waters

It was a good first day back - for the most part.

Day #36/175 Days

Together School

I have been pretty annoyed lately at all the nitpicking that goes on here between the three boys. It's just little things. I'm trying to foster and teach them how to be friends. But it's tough at times. Today I had them sit & think for three minutes to come up with three things each liked about the other. Sadly they couldn't do it. Here is what they did come up with:

Happy on...Lego-Man: His laugh and on Conductor: nothing (although these two typically get along the best)

Conductor on....Lego-Man:

1. You are older.
2. You can read long books.
3. You have a small room.

Happy....

1. He's cute.
2. He likes to play games with me.
3. He likes to play trains with me.

Lego-Man on....Conductor: I like to rough house with him. And on Happy: I can scare him easily.

Obviously this is something we'll continue to work on.

We continued with Together School by:

• read aloud
• Grapevine studies
• Story of the World volume 2 (We actually used this last year but didn't finish. I am simply trying to finish the reader this year before we start on the next volume.)

Then on to workboxes.

Lego-Man:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing Journal
6. "Sweet" break (Skittles & Starbursts today)
7. Gummy Bear experiment Day #2 The small one is of course, an original size Gummy Bear. The large bloated one has been soaking in water for 24 hours. Today it was put back in salt water to sit for another 24 hours. It should shrink back.
8. Blog
9. Read to Happy - two books I chose (Green Eggs & Ham & Wacky Wednesday)
10. 15 minutes taking photos
11. Play Toss & Tally with Conductor
12. Assigned Reading (The Hobbit)

Conductor:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing Journal
6. "Sweet" break (I need to make sure these don't become a habit! LOL)
7. Gummy Bear Experiment
8. Quarter Mile Math drill
9. Math dice (I gave him 3 dice & a sheet of graph paper. He was to roll all three dices & line up the three numbers on the graph paper. Then add together.)
10. 15 minutes taking photos
    
11. Animal magnet tangrams
12. Assigned reading (Amelia Earhart: Courage in the Sky by Mona Kerby)

Happy:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. ABC write on/wipe off book (Dollar Tree)
5. "Sweet" break
6. Scissor Skills/Fine Motor Skills workbook
7. Bible Dot-to-Dot book

Again - most of the school took place during Miss H's nap time. She did spend some time on her favorite activity this am though - coloring books!

Day #35/175 Days

Together School (aka Circle Time Revised)

• Read aloud (just started reading On the Banks of Plum Creek)
• Grapevine Studies (bible)
• Composers study (music)
• Over Our Heads in Wonder (science)

Lego-Man workboxes:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA verses
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing
6. Break (You are a "smartie." Take a 15 min. break. A smartie candy is included - I think I got this from the workbox Yahoo group I am in.)
7. Gummy Bear Experiment (May 2009 in the archives)
8. Quarter Mile Math drill
9. Blog
10. Read to Happy - 2 books of Happy's choice
11. November Glyph from abcteach (member's only site - sorry!)
12. Assigned Reading (The Hobbit)

Conductor's worboxes:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA verses
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing journal
6. You are a "smartie" break
7. Gummy Bear Experiment
8. Mitten (from Hearts & Trees Winter 2008 kit)
9. Quarter Mile Math drill
10. Fix Verb Puzzle Page (part of a literacy center -pages 5 & 6 - on abcteach - members only again - sorry)
11. Assigned Reading (working on a book about Amelia Earhart)

Happy's workboxes:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA verses
3. Math-U-See
4. Creation minibook (I printed these & laminated each one. Happy put them in order. Then I gave him a dry erase marker & he traced over the letters & numbers. Then he cleaned them off. It was a hit.) This website has TONS of great printables on it.
5. Read three books to him: Little Blue Truck, Truck Stuck, Millie Waits for the Mail (a really cute book!)
6. Kindergarten Scholar workbook
7. Dog Bone Sorting File Folder game
8. Geometry box

Most of our school work was completed today after Miss H was down for her nap so no list for her today. It was so nice outside that we did our school work out on the porch. Lovely.

Day #34/175 Days

I have been talking about workboxes here for a bit. Today I'll share how it's working in more detail. I just reviewed Sue Patrick's book (Workbox System: A User's Guide) over on my family blog (The Berry Patch).

I am not using 12 bins per child as described in Ms. Patrick's system. I tweaked it and I am using one bin per child with 12 Ziplock bags inside. It's is actually working very well. It keeps all their items separated and visible so they can see their progress. Here is what Lego-Man's bin looked like at the end of the day on Friday....

Anything that needs to be corrected is to be placed on the table. Everything else is placed back in their bin. While they do school, they do make a pile out of the bin but place it all back inside when they are done. This keeps it all close.

Here is what Lego-Man's bin looked like last night after I finished getting it ready for today...

The small plastic box in the front holds pencils, glue stick, scissors, markers, and colored pencils. I put these together last year to save time with gathering supplies we needed during the school day. They work great as long as the boys remember to put everything back in the boxes after they are done using them!

I also write out what I have in each bag on a 5x7 index card. I have a spot for each child plus Miss H & what I want to do together in the morning. That is what I use to type up these posts.

Today our school consisted of this:

"Together Time"

• Read two chapters from our newest Little House on the Prairie book - On the Banks of Plum Creek
• Bible Drill (sword drills - I call out Bible verses and they race to find them. Lego-Man is pretty fast at it)
• Outside for PE - 20 minutes of play (while I spent time searching for the above mentioned index card. I had accidentally thrown it away.)
• Science - today's lesson was on light & shadow. We went outside and tracked our shadows. The book called for using chalk on the driveway - doesn't work that great with a gravel drive. However, red spray paint on grass works great! Each child (even Miss H) picked a marker to use (a branch, a brick, a small rock, and a large rock) & stood there. I spray painted a mark where the head of their shadow was. We did this at 10am, 1:30pm, and 3:30pm. I meant to do it again before the sun set but I missed. Tomorrow they will draw a picture showing what happened.
• Grapevine studies which was a bit frustrating today. While the boys were outside I pulled up Sumo Paint where I drew all the things we'd need for today's lesson. It worked fine. Then I went to pull them back up to teach the lesson and it kept locking up my computer and crashing Google Chrome. It was extremely frustrating. I'll be using regular Paint from here on out.

While I did the read aloud this morning, Miss H did this:

colored - her favorite thing to do

and Conductor did this....

While the big boys did the rest of their school together, Miss H got to play with all of this:

• A bin of sorting things...she's holding a glucose tab bottle with milk caps inside. She's reaching for an old Tums container with pom-poms inside. There is a Pringle can laying there and all the straws go in that. There is a hole cut in the lid. And the small container on the floor is an old spice jar that has toothpicks that get stuck through the lid. After she made this mess, she picked it all up and stacked it neatly in the bin.

• Then I gave her a small notebook, some Pooh stickers and a bin of crayons. She didn't do much coloring in this but she did put all the stickers inside it. She loves stickers second to coloring I think.

A short break to show you the view I had today while the big boys were doing school. I think it's pretty nice....

• And this is Miss H's newest game. I call it "Where's me?" Well, actually I call it "Where's Miss H" but she calls it "Where's me?" Love it.

There she is!!!

• The puzzles finally caught her attention. I had put them out earlier but she didn't want them then. I had all the pieces mixed up & just dumped them on the floor. She put them all back together in the right puzzles and pronounced herself "all done!"

• I then let her pick out some toys to play with. She chose these binoculars. She actually had them facing the correct way but moved them like this before I could snap a photo.

Shortly after lunch Lego-Man took his workbox out to the shop area to work. I didn't expect him to get all 12 done today and we did skip a few. Here is what he did accomplish (I hope!):

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA verses
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing Journal
6. Work on his blog
7. Nature journal (sketch a fall scene)
8. Go outside & take photos for 15 minutes
9. Assigned reading (The Hobbit)

We had some difficulties today as I mentioned on my other blog. We're definitely still learning how this will work for our family.

Conductor chose to wait for Mr. H to wake up from his nap (he slept in the living room today) so he had a very late start to his workboxes. As a result he did not get many done:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA verses
3. Math-U-See
4. Private Devotions
5. Writing Journal

I did not do any formal learning with Happy today. The upside to this - his workbox is all set for tomorrow.

Day #33/175 Days - LC Bates class

Not a lot of photos today. I never passed off the camera & Mr. H kept trying to help. The class today was on mollusks. There are a lot of them & I learned some neat stuff. My boys did too. We discussed a bit of it on the ride home today.

We again started upstairs & Serena let the children explore the "sea" room & look at all the different specimens of mollusks in there. There is even one of a giant clam - it's over three feet long!

Then we went to check out the fossil display. Here is Happy with his favorite pal & his mom.

Downstairs in the classroom area, where it was only slightly warmer than the rest of the museum (it's not heated), the children saw all kinds of different types of mollusk shells and learned some interesting facts about how they grow, their colors, and their patterns.

Miss Serena showing the children how a mollusk (clam I think) would move through the water.

Interesting fact: The patterns on a mollusk's shell (sea shells) come from the animal that lives inside of it. Whatever pattern is on the shell, that is the pattern/colors on the animal. I thought that was especially interesting given the colorful shells we examined today.

As a hands-on project, the children all made a shell collection:

We are really enjoying these classes. It gives the boys a chance to see some friends and learn some science as well. I'm hoping we can put something together for the spring as well. We have one more class in late November. It is going to be cold but hopefully fun.

Day #32/175 Days

More work boxes....this may start to get boring...I need to find more fun learning ideas to pop in here.

Although, I spent time getting caught up on correcting Tuesday night & discovered a problem. My sons aren't following directions - particularly my oldest. I'll address this in more detail when I do my review of this system early next week. I did have a talk with him & I think things will work better but we'll see. I like this idea as it does foster independence & that is something I want for Lego-Man, but I don't want him spending time every day redoing what he should have done the day before simply because he's rushing to finish.

Lego-Man:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math (problem #1 - he was to correct the problems he got wrong previously - he was missing regrouping on his reviews - he didn't even touch them & moved on to the next lesson. Today he fixed them after some instruction from me to remind him how to do this. I'm glad MUS builds in review.)
4. Private Devotions
5. Quarter Mile Math drill
6. Writing Journal
7. ASL File Folder game (problem #2 - he was to correct this FF game as well. He had just put all the letters on the manual alphabet without making sure they were correct. He didn't even touch this "bonus" item from the day before. He fixed it today.)
8. Edward Hicks art study from Hearts & Trees Winter 2008 kit. These are great craft kits & I'm now pulling some of the projects for the boys to work on.
9. Computer pages (continuing on from ABCTeach - these are free pages from their site)
10. Hmmm...I wrote "Fix" on my index card for this number....ahhhh yes - the nature walk page which had a word bank. (Problem #3) Lego-Man attempted to spell the words himself & a number were wrong.
11. Make mittens - another project from the Hearts & Trees Winter 2008 kit. These will be a set of fleece mittens. Lego-Man completed one today.
12. Assigned Reading (The Hobbit)

Conductor:

1. Handwriting
2. AWANA
3. Math-U-See
4. Place Value Worksheet (ABC Teach member page)
5. Private Devotions
6. Apple Addition & Pumpkin Subtraction games
7. Writing Journal
8. Quarter Mile Math drill
9. Fleece Mitten project (see link above)
10. Edward Hicks art study (see link above)
11. Assigned reading (The Stolen Train)

Happy - we didn't get far today - there's always next week!

1. Roll a Fall Tree game - we use a regular die
2. Fall matching game (can't remember where we found it)
3. Magnet pattern blocks (makes animals)
4. Wooden puzzles

And Miss H - I have her things in their own bins & on the table. She was able to pick which ones she wanted to do:

1. Markers/stickers/paper - I found some washable, non-toxic, chunky markers at the dollar store a while ago & picked them up for her. She had those, a sheet of construction paper, and some regular stickers. This kept her busy for about 20 minutes.
2. Milk jug caps/glucose tabs bottle and pom-poms with a Tums container. ;-) This kept her busy for another 20 minutes as she took them in & out of the containers.
3. Color your own stickers (I printed about five pages of these awhile ago & she still has some left). I gave her a sheet of colored construction paper & crayons. This didn't last as long as she's been doing it a bit.
4. Coloring book & crayons
5. Reading books
6. Fall sun catcher (I used the tree from the Roll a Fall Tree Game to make these) We did this after her nap & she loved it.

Miss H putting her tissue paper leaves on her tree.

All three of my boys ended the day at AWANA club. This is 1 hour 45 minutes every Thursday night & I do count it as school time.

Day #31/175 Days - Corn Maze Field Trip

I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Although, I will say this was really fun, not that pricey and the best part - we were the only ones there (my sister & nephew came too) for at least the first hour. I love that.

This photo make me laugh every time I see it. Happy couldn't reach so I told him just to wave. LOL

Hey - that's me!