homeschool!

robots!

2010-03-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

noah got stacking robots for his birthday. they are so cool.

nicholas was playing with them and learned about gravity, balance and (a)symmetry.

birthday boy!

2010-03-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

noah's birthday was march 3. (the day after his cousin reilly's. they missed sharing a birthday by 2 1/2 hours.) we had his party on that saturday. i'm a little late with the pictures. :p

(i don't know why all my pictures have been coming out grainy *shrug*)

birthday boy <3>

he hid in the kitchen with daddy for the first half hour.

one he finally came out of the kitchen, he sat on my lap. haha

nicholas let noah open one present.

then he opened the rest.

i'm not sure noah will allow that next year.

he didn't get anything plastic!

his cake got contaminated with chili and little boy fingers. oh well. it still tasted good.

everyone had fun with the punching balloons.

nicholas in particular! lol

rain!

2010-03-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

it rained last week. which is always exciting around here. we didn't even know it was supposed to rain. we just looked out the window and there it was. :p

noah was kind of confused

nicholas wanted a closer look so he procured a collection device.

it's not a beer cup at all.

noah got cold pretty quick.

nicholas kept playing.

zeer pot

2010-03-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

i read about zeer pots a few months ago. it is 2 pots. one pot inside the other with sand and water in between. the water evaporates and cools the inside pot. you can put food inside and it acts like a refrigerator. they only work where the humidity is less than 20%.

our fridge went out on thursday. it didn't get fixed until monday. it was horrible. it's hard to realize how dependant we are on modern conveniences until they are gone. we have a mini-fridge but it only holds a few things. we had to throw out everything from the freezer. even food that didn't necessarily go bad because it all stank like rotting meat. gross.

if the small zeer pot we made today works out, we are going to put together a big one and use it, along with the mini-fridge instead of a regular refrigerator.

here is the pdf from the guy that invented it.

and an article from Science in Africa.

the set up (plus our sage and basil plants in the blue pots on the end)

sifting sand

we plugged up the holes with modeling clay.

pour sand in the bottom until the top of the small pot is level with the top of the big pot.

pour sand down the sides.

noah wanted to help.

fill it up with water.

<, >, or =

2010-02-25T13:04:00.000-08:00

right now, in math nicholas is working on greater, less than or equals by looking at the number only. when he was doing <, >, or = by looking at the number and objects, steven made him some alligators. the alligator wants to eat the bigger number so it faces the number it wants to eat. the mouth shows the correct symbol. the equals guy is underwater and can't decide which one he wants because they are both the same.

books!

2010-02-24T16:29:00.000-08:00

i <3 book sales. we went to one on saturday and got all this for $2.25!

~the owl and the pussycat - edward lear & jan brett
~david and goliath - penny frank
~happy faces - celebrate reading textbook (i'm not sure what grade level)
~big bug, little bug - a follett beginning to read book (it's old and falling apart but i can't resist old books. the page with the copyright is torn out. i researched it a little more and it's c.1963)
~you're in love, charlie brown - charles schulz
~happy birthday, noah - june morris arnold (a noah's ark book - not a happy coincidence like i originally though)
~sword in the stone - disney
~the young folks shelf books, vol. 7, the animal book - a collection - c. 1938
~houghton mifflin literary readers textbook, book 3 - a collection
~the ugly duckling and other fairy tales - hans christian anderson
~junior science book of trees - robert lemmon - c. 1960
~homonyms - joan hanson - c. 1972
~synonyms - joan hanson - c. 1972
~more synonyms - joan hanson - c. 1973
~a treasury of mother goose - illus. hilda offen
~the ladybird book of fairytales - rose impey
~the picture dictionary for children - garnette watters & s.a. courtis - c. 1968 32nd printing
~literature based geography activities - tara mccarthy - scholastic, grades k-3

grown up books:
~don juan - ludwig lewisohn - c.1923
~astronomy - john charles duncan - c. 1926 (this book is so cool. it has ton of notes penciled in in the margins. like when certain events happened "8pm on thursday". in the front cover it has a name/address/phone number. the phone number only has 3 numbers in it - 698.)

they played sword in the stone while i read it to them. :)

queen of hearts

2010-02-24T16:16:00.000-08:00

last week's poem was the queen of hearts.

nicholas was VERY upset by the line "and beat the knave full sore." it made him sad. :(

the idea of making some tarts made him feel better though. we made some lemon tarts with some lemons steven got from a costumer's tree. we used this recipe for the filling. i cheated and used frozen pie crust. pie crust is on my list of things i still need to learn but am nervous about messing up so i haven't tried yet.

no pics of the finished product because i burned them. ahem.

they were still edible... just not pretty. :P

lunches!

2010-02-24T16:00:00.000-08:00

we've been keeping up with the muffin tin lunches. noah's been getting one too because he wants everything the same as big brother. :P

yogurt, organic cheese-its, bacon
apple slices, granola, carrots

leftover fried rice, granola, peanuts
carrots, yogurt, chicken

noah stealing nicholas' lunch. don't worry. he didn't eat the peanuts ;)

and just like noah has to do everything like nicholas, nicholas has to be just like steven.

felt balls

2010-02-19T12:14:00.000-08:00

we've been making felt balls like crazy. today, we dyed some in kool-aid.

you put a little water in the bottom of a pot. colander goes in the pot, balls with dye on them go in the colander. steam for 20 minutes.

red, blue, purple and yellow
they are all koolaid except the blue. the blue is regular food coloring. it didn't dye as well as the koolaid.

our new collection on handmade wool balls.
(now we can get rid of some plastic ones!)

noah discovering that some balls make noise and some don't.

fun with wool

2010-02-10T14:42:00.001-08:00

today's muffin tin lunch was on a mozz cheese, golden grahams, crunchy granola thingies, baby carrots, and a turkey and cheese roll-up on a homemade tortilla.

this afternoon i got a pound of wool roving from my friend kellie at mindful life shop. first, we watched a few videos on youtube of sheep being sheared. then we watched a video showing how to make a felt ball (part 1 and part 2). we made the inner core the same as in the video. we don't have any felting needles so we used regular wool yarn and big needles.

ran out of yarn!

felting the yarn.

felting the yarn didn't really work but that's ok! we can still play with them!

last 2 weeks

2010-02-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

last week, nicholas started 2 new workbooks. one for math and one for phonics.

the math book is one that i made that goes along with chapter 3 - counting to 20 in AAA math. he should be done with it by the end of this week.

the new phonics book is a lot more advanced than the one he just finished. there is a lot more writing. the last book had him just writing one individual letter multiple times everyday. the new book has him writing multiple whole words every day. he's doing really well with it.

we skipped animal of the week last week because i was sick on tuesday when i usually put it together. one day, we made bread instead. he learned a little about yeast and how it eats sugar.

noah help too.

while the bread was rising, we made an apple pie too.

bread and pie!

one day, instead of a montessori transfer activity, nicholas transferred meatballs.

we started doing some yoga this week too. nicholas really likes it. it's fun!

here's the video.

it started out clean....

2010-02-04T14:38:00.000-08:00

but did not end that way.

muffin tin lunches

2010-02-04T14:18:00.001-08:00

in an effort to get nicholas to eat more different foods, we've been putting together muffin tin lunches. it's fun!

celery, clementine, mango
organic honey & bran cereal, blueberries, extra sharp cheddar

blueberries, baby carrots, clementine
raisins, goldfish pretzels, regular goldfish

animal of the week - eagle

2010-02-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

Bald Eagle

day 1 - intro - we used this pattern to do a perler bead craft -

day 2 - animal -

what do they eat? fish. they glide just above the water, snag a fish with their feet and fly off to eat it. they also eat dead animals. By eating dead animals, they help with nature's clean-up process

do other animals try to eat them? no other animals try to eat bald eagles

what is their skin like? they have feathers.

what color are they? adults have a white head and tail, solid brown body, and a large, curved, yellow bill

hatch or born? hatched. eagles nests are called aeries (AIR-ees). they build their nests at the top of very tall trees so their eggs stay safe. The female lays 1 to 3 eggs. The eggs take between 1 to 1 1/2 months to hatch. Both the male and female will take a turn of sitting on the eggs. After hatching both the male and female feed the hatching's until they learn to fly.

what are they like as babies? babies are called eaglets. they are light grey when they hatch then turn brown. when they are 4 or 5 years old they start to look like an adult eagle. they learn to fly at 11 or 12 weeks old.

can they be a pet? no, they are too big and dangerous.

what size are they? their wingspan is 6-8 feet and they weigh around 7-15 lbs.

other description? they have VERY good eyesight. bald eagles are one of the largest birds in north america. each eagle has 7,000 feathers.

do boy and girls look different? girls are bigger than boys.

habits? Bald eagles may use the same nest year after year, adding more twigs and branches each time. One nest was found that had been used for 34 years and weighed over two tons.

day 3 - habitat -

land, air, sea? they fly through the air but they can also swim. they use their wings to swim through the water.

what is their habitat like? Bald Eagles live near large bodies of open water such as lakes, marshes, seacoasts and rivers, where there are plenty of fish to eat and tall trees for nesting and roosting.

what other (of the same) animals live around them? they live in groups called kettles. they also mate for life but prefer to fly around alone.

What other (different) animals live around them? all kinds of north american animals. they eat small animals though so they have to be carfeul.

where do they live on the map/globe? north america. about half of them live in alaska.

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Animals/CreatureFeature/Baldeagle
http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/baldeagle.html
http://www.seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-bytes/animalia/eumetazoa/coelomates/deuterostomes/chordata/craniata/aves/falconiformes/bald-eagle.htm
http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/index.html
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/www/critters/eagle/826572782.html#18

animal of the week - dolphin

2010-02-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

for a craft, we printed out a picture of a dolphin, colored and cut it out. then we used water colors and painted an ocean to glue the dolphin on to.

(bottlenose) dolphin - animal -

what do they eat? they are carnivores. They have cone shaped teeth which they use for catching food. They do not chew. They eat 10 to 30 pounds of food a day, primarily fish and occasionally shrimp, crab and squid. sometimes they follow boats hoping to eat any food tossed over the side.

do other animals try to eat them? people used to kill them by accident but now we are more careful. people also used to eat dolphins, use their skin to make leather and their blubber for oil. sometimes sharks eat them.

what is their skin like? The skin has a rubbery feel and is quite sensitive. It can be scratched and damaged easily but also tends to heal quickly. Its smooth texture helps the dolphin to slip easily through the water along with its streamline body shape. the fin on their backs are called dorsal fins. they are made of cartilage like our nose and ears.

what color are they? they are gray colored.

hatch or born? they are born. The gestation period for a bottlenose dolphin is about 12 months.
what are they like as babies? Babies are called calves and are born tail first. They range from 2.5 to 4 feet long. As soon as the calf is born, the mother helps it rise to the surface to take its first breath. Calves stay close to their mothers for at least 4 to 5 years. they nurse for 12 to 18 months.

can they be a pet? dolphins are tough to take care of but you can visit them at aquariums.

what size are they? Adults range from 6 to 13 feet in length and can weigh from 400 to over 1,000 pounds.

other description? The name Bottlenose came from their bottle-shaped nose. They have a blowhole on the top of their head to breath through. They have very good hearing. They have almost no sense of smell. They have excellent vision in and out of the water.

do boy and girls look different? The adult males are usually larger than the females.

habits? Bottlenose dolphins usually swim 3 to 7 mph but can swim at a fast speed of 20 to 30 mph. They can jump up to 20 feet out of the water.

Bottlenose dolphin - habitat -

land, air, sea? they live in the sea even though they are mammals and breath air.
what is their habitat like? tropical and temperate waters.

what other (of the same) animals live around them? they like to live together in big groups called pods. pods have about 12 dolphins. research has shown that the have a dolphin language and can speak to each other.

What other (different) animals live around them? they live all over the world so the animals that live around them vary greatly.

where do they live on the map/globe? In the Pacific Ocean, bottlenose dolphins are found from northern Japan and California to Australia and Chile. They are also found offshore in the eastern tropical Pacific as far west as the Hawaiian islands. Off the California coast bottlenose dolphins have been observed as far north as Monterey, particularly during years of unusual warmth. In the Atlantic Ocean, bottlenose dolphins are found from Nova Scotia and Norway to Patagonia and the tip of South Africa. They are the most abundant dolphin species along the United States from Cape Cod through the Gulf of Mexico. Bottlenose dolphins are also found in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the Indian Ocean from Australia to South Africa.

what is that place like? they like warm water. if they live in a place that is warm all year, they stay there. if the water gets cold in the winter, they swim south for the winter and swim back in the spring.

what a week!

2010-01-19T15:27:00.001-08:00

we moved last week and have been super busy getting our new house set up, including a school room! i haven't taken any pics of it yet though because it isn't done. it's coming together though.

nicholas finished his first phonics workbook on sunday. we are starting fun fonics: book 1 on thursday. which works out because he liked doing the vowels in the last book and asked to do more. this book is all vowels.

he's almost mastered counting to 20. he forgets 15 and that gets the rest of them jumbled. when he remembers it, he's good. next for math is to do <, >, or = with only numbers. not like he did in the first math chapter (which side had more dots). steven drew/laminated alligators to help before. i think they are going to really help him understand the next section.

i've been keeping up with the daily montessori activities. i haven't been taking pics everyday but we've done some pom pom transfers, some patterns, lacing, water transfers, bells, and some others. he really really likes it. especially when noah isn't bugging him. :p

we did 2 lacing cards. one had a crab on it and the other had a spinning wheel and a cat. the crab one went with AotW and the spinning wheel went with this weeks poem.

noah liked it too. :)

new addition to our school room. a book rack to hang on the back of the door.

blue crab craft. the red clawed one is the girl and the blue clawed one is the boy.

learning about molting. it wasn't as boring as his face makes it look. haha

learning about david and goliath with daddy.

playing with the parachute in our new backyard.

where's waldo? ultimate travel collection.

montessori activity. i took some of the jinglers out of the bells. half made sound and half made no sound. he put them in the correct container.

vegetable dying. yellow was onion skins. orange was carrots and sweet potato peels. purple was green beans and romaine lettuce. (yep, the green stuff turned them purple.)

no school!

2010-01-08T13:33:00.000-08:00

no school this week because we are moving. school will resume on wednesday in our new school room!

(blue) CRAB

2010-01-05T15:51:00.000-08:00

day 1 - intro

- read a story (pdf): http://www.lsuagcenter.com/en/family_home/family/character_education/character_critters/read_a_story/Cindy+the+Citizen+Crab.htm

- craft: http://familycrafts.about.com/od/eggcartoncrafts/ss/eggcartcrab.htm

day 2 - animal -

what do they eat? they are omnivores (meaning they eat plants and animals). they eat seaweed, snail, mussels, fish and plants. They will hide under the sand to attack unsuspecting animals to eat them. a crabs teeth are in it's stomach.

do other animals try to eat them? crabs are eaten by people, sharks, eels, bass, other blue crabs, trout, catfish, stingrays, herons, raccoons, turtles, and ducks.

what is their skin like? They have a very hard shell that has 8 sharps points on the back. They are invertebrates, meaning they don't have bones. the shell acts as their bones. it's called an exoskeleton. (pictures of molting: http://www.serc.si.edu/education/resources/bluecrab/molting.aspx)

what color are they? olive, brown, red, and shades of blue
hatch or born? hatched. they are carried in her belly until the eggs hatch. they are then called larvae. they are .25 mm long.

what are they like as babies? They do not look like their parents. They molt. Which means that they shed their shell and grow a new bigger one. everytime they molt, they look more and more like a grown up crab.

can they be a pet?

what size are they? they are about 4 inches long and 9 inches wide and weigh 1 to 2 lbs.

other description? if a crabs looses it's claw, it grows back. They are decapods. That means they have 10 legs. their eyes are on antennas.

do boy and girls look different? They have different shapes aprons on their stomachs. The girl crab carried her eggs in her apron. a male molt over and over. a female only molts 21 times in a lifetime. females have red spots on the tips of her claws. boys are called "jimmy" and girls are called "sally".

habits? they walk sideways. they have 10 legs. 2 are claws, 2 are paddles to help swim and the rest are for walking.

day 3 - habitat -

land, air, sea? the live in the sea and are excellent swimmers.
what is their habitat like? they like water that is brackish (salt water and fresh water mixed). they like warm water (over 60*). if the water gets too cold, they will bury themselves in the sand to warm up.

what other (of the same) animals live around them? lots of crabs live and migrate together. (migration path: http://www.serc.si.edu/education/resources/bluecrab/migration.aspx)

What other (different) animals live around them? they live among lots of sea life.

where do they live on the map/globe? along the eastern coast of North and South America

what is that place like? the water is warm. if the water gets too cold, they will migrate to a warmer place.

resources:
http://www.howard.k12.md.us/res/crabs/default.html
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/blue-crab.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/70184/blue-crab
http://www.kidskonnect.com/subject-index/13-animals/24-crabs.html
http://www.bluecrab.info/lifecycle.html
http://www.edc.uri.edu/restoration/html/gallery/invert/bluec.htm
http://www.serc.si.edu/education/resources/bluecrab/migration.aspx

activities!

2010-01-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

The last few days nicholas has been asking to do activities. so we have been.

Steven's mom gave us a wetlands and an underwater nature search book. they were steven's when he was young. They are like where's waldo of nature. on each page there are little pictures to look for with the magnifying glass. nicholas likes them a lot.

while nicholas was playing with them, Noah read a colors book that i made him for christmas.

Later on, we clipped clothespins around the outside of stockpot. (fine motor skills!)

we stood noah up inside the pot. he thought it was so funny. he sat down and started pulling the pins off and putting them in a cup.

this morning, we did some marble painting. Noah was very interested. haha he was so frustrated that he couldn't stick his hands in the paint. fingerpainting is for another day.

finished painting to be hung up when they are dry.

for a while i've been trying to explain patterns to nicholas. we tried the mancala board. we tried using worksheets. we tried all kinds of things. he just wasn't getting it. we read through the Bob books: Set 1 and that was all it took. he is finding patterns everywhere! He made this pattern with jumbling tower pieces.

I've been obsessed with My Montessori Journey for a few days. nicholas and i looked at it for like an hour this morning finding fun activity ideas. so i decided that we are going to start coffee table games. hopefully, a new one everyday. here's today's:

It's a tin of bead blocks and a jar with pipe cleaners that have small stopper beads attached to the end.

noah went right over and started playing. he couldn't thread the beads on the pipe cleaner but he liked playing with it anyway.

2009-12-31T11:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday for life skills we did a perler beads project.

he practiced his fine motor skills. those little beads are really tough to get on the pegs.

he practiced following directions. i would point out what beads we needed next and he'd put them on. he finished almost the entire thing himself. i did the last 3 columns because he was starting to get bored.

he also iron for the first time. he was really nervous about burning himself. he only did it for long enough for me to take the picture.

We also did a 1-20 activity. he clothes-pinned the numbers in order.

Noah played with the ones on the floor waiting to be hung up.

he did some painting today. he's showing how beautiful the paint looks on his brush. haha

They got a busy zoo from steven's grandparents for christmas. Noah was playing with it while nicholas was painting. opening and closing the doors is his favorite.

We also did more about bulls for science since last week was a short school week. Nicholas cracks up at slurping up water like the bulls do. :)

homeschool works!

2009-12-28T13:21:00.000-08:00

last week, nicholas learned to read the numbers 11-20. he's known 1-10 for a long time now. we read baby books with 1-10 in them all the time so they were easy.

i tried a couple different methods to try to get him to understand. i printed out these jan brett 1-30 cards. i laid them all out and we looked at them together. once he realized that counting to 20 was just like counting to 10 but with a 1 in front, there was no stopping him. he read all the cards over and over. Then had daddy read them with him too.

This was last wednesday. On saturday, we went to target. When we got in line to check out, he noticed that the next lane over was empty and he said "hey! not 16, let's to over to 17!"

Using numbers in a real life situation. I like it.

He got this toy for Christmas that is a white board with a pen attached. The pen, instead of ink, is a UV light. When you write, the white board turns purple. It's called a light sketcher.

(Honestly, i hate the thing. It's plastic and uses batteries. The 2 things I constantly tell people not to get for them.)

He was scribbling around with it christmas night. I glanced over and he'd written a letter N! I told him he'd done a good job then went back to whatever I was doing. I looked over again and he'd written N-I-C-H. whoa! he needed me to tell him the next letters but that was a really great start! we've never gone over how to spell his name or practicing writing it before.

He learned how to write it just from seeing it written and practicing the letters individually.

Homeschool works!

Book bounty

2009-12-22T12:50:00.000-08:00

We got a package in the mail from my aunt Susan yesterday. It had some Christmas presents for the boys. It was mostly books. Nicholas was very excited.

One of them was a high frequency readers bundle. Reading them turned into a double lesson. This week he is learning the numbers 11-20 for math. There are 18 books so we mixed them all up on the floor and when we finished one, he searched for the next number book.

He also got another scholastic sight word stories bundle by shelley harwayne; head, shoulders, knees and toes; merry christmas, stinky face; happy halloween, stinky face; an alphabet puzzle and an alphabet game (and i got some burt's bees stuff. :) ). Nicholas LOVES the stinky faces.

This week instead of doing rimes and rhymes for literature, we are going to read about paul bunyan. I printed out this story about paul bunyan and this story about babe the blue ox. i will probably find a couple more too. i thought it would be appropriate since we are doing bulls/cattle for animal of the week.

Animal of the Week - Bull

2009-12-22T12:46:00.001-08:00

day 1 -

craft - http://www.first-school.ws/activities/hometoys/ccow.html

- poem - THIS LITTLE CALF
(Extend fingers, push each down in succession)

This little calf eats grass.
This little calf eats hay.
This little calf drinks water.
This little calf runs away.
This little calf does nothing
But just lies down all day.
(Rest last finger in palm of hand)

day 2 - animal -
what do they eat? A bull is a herbivore. A bull's diet is mainly grass and hay. They graze on grass for 8 hours a day. They wrap their tongue around the grass and pull it (they don't bite it with their teeth.) Sometimes people give them vitamins and/or corn to eat. They use their mouth to suck up water (not their tongues like other animals). they drink about 35 gallons of water and eat 100lbs of grass a day. they also like fruits and vegetables.
do other animals try to eat them? People eat them. People also use their skin to make leather.
what is their skin like? They are furry. Some have long shaggy fur and some have short sleek fur.
what color are they? bulls come in many colors. red, black, white, yellow, brown, and grey. They can be a mix of any of these too. No two bulls have exactly the same pattern of spots.
hatch or born? They are born. A calf weighs about 80 pounds at birth.
what are they like as babies? Newborn cattle, called calves, are able to walk and then run shortly after they are born. The calf drinks mother's milk and eats grass for the first six months, until it is weaned from its mother. It weighs about 400 pounds at this time. gestation is 9 months.
can they be a pet? Dexter breed is the smallest type of cow. This cow was bred to be a small size for household living.
what senses do they use? They can not see all colors. They have very good hearing and smelling.
what size are they? 5-11 feet long, 2.3-7 feet tall, 330-2600lbs,
other description? they live about 18 years. the oldest recorded was 48 year old.
do boy and girls look different? bulls are boys. cows are girls. Cows have udders and make milk, bulls don't. They both have horns but boy's horns are bigger. boys are much larger than girls.
habits? everyone in the herd will do the same thing at the same time. ex. everyone will eat. everyone will lay down. they only sleep from 2 to 10 minutes at a time, and they only get about an hour’s worth of sleep in a 24-hour period. Cows can sleep standing up.

day 3 - habitat -

land, air, sea? bulls live on land. They can swim. Not very well though. They have a lot of air in their stomach to help keep them afloat.

what is their habitat like? very grassy, not many other large animals,

what other (of the same) animals live around them? the families like to live in groups (10-350)small families only have 1 bull. large families have a few bulls but still a lot more cows.

What other (different) animals live around them? no other large animals share space with cattle. lots of medium and small animals that are native to the area do though.

where do they live on the map/globe? parts of Africa, Asia, and the islands of Southeast Asia; eastern Europe; and North America

what is that place like? islands, prairies and steppes, rain forests, wetlands, savannas, temperate forests and taiga

Sources:
http://www.watersheds.org/farm/beef.htm
http://www.kidsarus.org/kids_go4it/growit/raiseit/cattle.htm
http://cow_baby.tripod.com/cowfacts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle
http://www.alphabet-soup.net/farm/farmpoem.html
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/t-cattle.html
http://www.fergusonfoundation.org/hbf/cow_in_out/cowmoreinfo.html
http://www.funshun.com/amazing-facts/cow-animal-facts.html
http://homepage.usask.ca/~schmutz/colors.html#White

pickles!

2009-12-18T14:37:00.000-08:00

We love making pickles.

Getting ready

He smelled all the spices. They were all just ok, except for the garlic. It smelled interesting.

Noah stole a cucumber. (Look how weird my toes look. LOL)

Filling the jars with cucumbers.

Done!

Our weekly schedule.

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Wednesday
Language arts
Science
Life skills
Math

Thursday
Math
Language arts
Science
Art

Friday
Social studies
Math
Language arts
Science

Saturday
Theology
Social studies
Math
Language arts

Sunday
Language arts
Life skills
Social studies
Math

Saturday and Sunday are daddy days. On Saturday, theology takes the place of art/life skills. They talk about things that are relevant for that particular week. Last weekend, they talked about Hanukkah and the Festival of Lights. 2 weekends ago, they talked about St. Nicholas. When there isn't a holiday, they talk about a bible story.

For math, we are doing AAA Math. It's all online but Nicholas sees computer time as fun time and doesn't want to do school stuff. So I take the lessons from there and make fun worksheets. This week we are working on the counting to 20 chapter.

For social studies, we look at maps. He LOVES maps. (He's getting a globe for christmas. Shh! don't tell!) We have a big map of the U.S. hanging up. He likes showing us where he lives and where Mimi lives. Once I get Animal of the Week going smoothly, I'm going to start an historical figure of the week.

For language arts, we do literature and phonics.

For literature, we are doing Rimes and Rhymes. This week is week 11. I print out/laminate the poem and we read, read, read it and read it again. Usually by the second day, he can recite it. If he goes all week without being able to recite it, it's no big deal. It's just for exposure, not memorization.

For phonics, we are doing Fab Phonics workbooks. He can pick out which works begin with the correct letter in no time. He tends to get frustrated with himself when he can't write the letter easily.

For science, we started Animal of the Week this week. He likes it. He thinks the anteater's tongue is ridiculous and keeps talking about how long and skinny it is. :P

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Maps to use to show where animals live.

Tropical Rain Forests

Savannah Grass Lands

Animal of the Week - Anteater

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Wednesday
anteater craft

Thursday
Animal questions

what do they eat? The anteater is a mammal that uses its long, sticky tongue to eat ants and termites whole. anteaters have no teeth. their tongue can get up to 20 inches long (giant anteater. they will also eat very ripe fruit.

do other animals try to eat them? yes, pumas and jaguars

what is their skin like? anteaters are furry

what color are they? Its coarse hair may be gray or brown, with a white-banded black stripe running along the body

hatch or born? born. one baby is born at a time. after 140 days of gestation.

what are they like as babies? they like to ride on their mother's back for about 9 months. they nurse for about 2 months.

can they be a pet? yes. anteaters are very friendly. they need plenty of space to roam though.

what senses do they use? anteaters have poor eyesight but very good sense of smell and hearing.
what size are they? anteaters vary in size from squirrel-sized to 7 feet long. they can weight up to 110lbs.

other description? their claws can be up to 7 inches long.their tails are 28-35 inches long.

do boys and girl look different? Male and female anteaters look so alike that females can only be identified when they are accompanied by their babies

habits? can sleep for up to 16 hours a day wrapping their tails around themselves like a blanket. they are woken up easily though. some are awake during the day and some are nocturnal.

Friday
Anteater Habitat Questions

land, air, sea? anteaters live on land but can swim very well.

what is their habitat like? small anteaters live in trees and hop from branch to branch like squirrels.

what other (of the same) animals live around them? anteaters live by themselves. except for mothers with babies

what other (different) animals live around them? Rainforests are populated with insects (like butterflies and beetles), arachnids (like spiders and ticks), worms, reptiles (like snakes and lizards), amphibians (like frogs and toads), birds (like parrots and toucans) and mammals (like sloths and jaguars).

where do they live on the map/globe? live in Central or South America

what is that place like? tropical rainforest and grasslands

what is it's weather like there? it is almost always raining. always between 75*-80*

Resources:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/giant-anteater.html
<--- this one has a place to click to listen to what an anteater sounds like
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Amazonia/Facts/fact-anteater.cfm
http://www.thebigzoo.com/Animals/Giant_Anteater.asp
http://www.arkive.org/giant-anteater/myrmecophaga-tridactyla/
http://gomestic.com/pets/why-anteaters-could-be-the-perfect-pet-for-you/
http://www.curator.org/legacyvmnh/WebOfLife/Kingdom/P_Chordata/ClassMammalia/ClassMammalia/OrderXenarthra/giant_anteater.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/5053/SouthAmerica/giantanteater.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/rainforest/

animal of the week

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I can never think of anything to do for science so I'm starting Animal-of-the-Week. We have science for 3 days a week - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

Wednesday - Short introduction to the animal, color a picture/do a craft, read a story
Thursday - Talk about the animal
Friday - Talk about the animal's habitat

Thursday and Friday's talks will have questions to answer about the animals. It isn't meant to be a Q&A session just info to have a conversation about.

Animal questions -
what do they eat?
do other animals try to eat them?
what is their skin like?
what color are they?
hatch or born?
what are they like as babies?
can they be a pet?
what size are they?
other description?
do boy and girls look different?
habits?

Habitat Questions -
land, air, sea?
what is their habitat like?
what other (of the same) animals live around them?
what other (different) animals live around them?
where do they live on the map/globe?
what is that place like?
what is it's weather like there?

Animal list -

Anteater
Bull
Crab
Dolphin
Eagle
Fox
Grasshopper
Hippopotamus
Iguana
Jellyfish
Kangaroo
Lamb
Moose
Newt
Otter
Penguin
Quail
Rooster
Starfish
Triceratops
Urson - porcupine
Vulture
Whale
Xiphias - swordfish
Yak
Zebra