what a week!

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!

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

(blue) CRAB

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!

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.