Blog Archives

Word Blog Hop Challenge

1/30/2013

This post is part of the World Blog Hop Challenge put on By Hidden Valley Simplicity.

Part One:

Subreption

Lie, lie tell me why
hide yourself in plain sight
Lie, lie tell me why
is it not hard to keep things straight?

Lie, lie tell me why
Do you want to cause a fright?
Lie, lie tell me why
Can not truth be your mate?

Part Two:

What is that noise?
The young one said
That noise that's banging in my head?

What is that noise
The old one said
That noise that calling me from bed?

and through the window they both heard
the plangent music of the band
the trumpets blared
the trumpets moaned
Their plangent offering brought them all.

Definitions

Word of the Week: subreption

1. (Christianity / Ecclesiastical Terms) Now rare the concealment of facts in order to obtain a benefit, esp an ecclesiastical benefit or, in Scots Law, a grant from the Crown Compare obreption
2. any deceitful misrepresentation or concealment of facts

Super Challenge: plangent

1 : having a loud reverberating sound <a plangent roar>
2 : having an expressive and especially plaintive quality <plangent lyrics>

This week is proving busy so

1/30/2013

We are focusing on the essentials this week.

We're doing A+Tutorsoft Math and Target the question. The lad is enjoying Tutorsoft math. He's quite uncertain about Target the question.   It's not as interactive and just asks questions.   It will help him develop his critical thinking skills though I think. :)

We're doing our book a day reading.
We're reading in general (we always do) and when we read I ask questions, sometimes we draw pictures, and just incorporate what we learn into life.

The lad did an impromptu science experiment this morning.   He cut open some hot pad hand warmers and explored the used pack. I think we'll open on up and see what happens if we mix it up.

As to what is keeping us busy?   Funerals, offering support to grieving families, trips to the big city, and various other endeavors.

That said we'll be doing other stuff as we can fit it in. :) I'll add more later...

Apple Pancakes

Recipe came from All-recipes.com
Ingredients
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 1/4 cup flour
1 cup shredded apple
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Directions.
Mix the dry ingredients.
Mix the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
Mix together.
put on griddle until nicely browned on both sides.

Enjoy.
We found them to be lovely drizzled with maple syrup and a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.

Gymnastics

My camera was too slow to get more nice pictures OR I didn't want to post pictures of children other than my son (neglected to get permission to do so).

Living with an Artsy Boy

1/27/2013

Doing up this post for the Virtual Curriculum Fair. The theme for this fair is : Seeking Beauty: the Arts and Everything that Brings Beauty to Our World.

I live with an artsy drawy boy. it's what he does. he tells stories, he draws picture, he's always got something he wants to have a story about or a picture to draw.

Here's how I utilize that in our curriculum.

When studying acids and bases we drew pictures. :)

we will read poetry until something captures our imagination and then we'll draw a picture from it. sometimes we see elements that the other person has added that we go WHOA COOL I wanna do that too!

We will have fun making collages. We'll be doing this with each of the provinces as we study them this year.

Storytelling with math

One of the things I will often do with my lad to help him see math in real life is to tell a story about something he is interested in, and as I tell the story I add in some math facts. For instance one day a spider was sitting in a tree and she spotted hungry robin about to swoop down on her. This robin had three babies who were also hungry and looking for food...so spider had to quickly zoom into a hiding spot but OH NO it was taken ACK...tell me quickly now...how many robins were after the spider???

Art in Geography

a model of the earth's layers anyone? :)

Nature Study is a natural

Study the beauty in all that God has given us. Occasionally take a moment to draw it as well.

Including beauty in our schooling in easy.... and done in so many different ways. I look forward to seeing what others do with it as well. :)

37 FREE Online Art and Music Resources by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds

Homeschool Without Traditional Art by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool

Draw What? by TechWife @ A Playground of Words

Flower Pony Tail Holders - Beginning Sewing Projects by Julie @ Highhill Education

Seeking Beauty- Virtual Curriculum Fair by Karyn @ Teach Beside Me

Creating an Artsy Homeschool, even if you're not by Erin @ Delighting in His Richness

Living with an Artsy Boy by Annette @ A Net In Time

Sites I want to peruse

1/24/2013

The Atlas of Early printing.

Free Piano Lessons.

Planning A Large Unit Study.

Free Fitness Printables.

Earth's Layers and Soil Composition - edible project.

Pancreas, Spleen, Liver and Gall Bladder

1/24/2013

First we watched some videos to give us an overview of what these three parts of the body do. I needed to break down some of the material so that the lad could understand it, but overall he understood more than I would have given him credit for.

The Pancreas

The Spleen

Liver

The Gall Bladder

we technically weren't supposed to do the liver today, but it fits well with the gall bladder that I added it. The book we are using as a basis of study is

our human body continues to grow

Todays work led to an impromptu science experiment. Bile helps to digest fat, much like soap does fat in the dish water. SO, knowing that my boy said.. can we do that mom? Therefore we did. :) Will upload pictures later since right now the computer is being finicky. :)

The Snow Bear

1/23/2013

We were supposed to go to the Kitchener Children's Museum today for an event but the snow and my lack of sleep made me say I don't think so.    So we stayed home.

The lad worked on A+Tutorsoft. The more I use this program the more I like it. The lad likes that if he thinks he has the concept he can skip forward to the Q&A part and see if he does indeed know it. Most of the time he does and since I"m right there when he does it, I can print off the worksheets for any areas that he struggles with. :)   He earns a sticker for each lesson he gets done. :)

He continues to work through the Handwriting without Tears App.   He has a goal in mind of earning some Angry Bird erasers or Tim Horton's Donut when he completely fills a screen with letter cards.

We finished off a Geronimo Stilton book. The lad has a thorough enjoyment of these books and keeps asking...can we finish it today... just one more chapter mom?    I use these books to do reading comprehension, learning new words, and to stimulate an interest in reading.   I've recently discovered a website that is devoted to using Geronimo Stilton to teach from. Pretty cool eh? :)

Our big project today was to re-read the Snow Bear.

this was our book of the day to read. I helped with the big words, but the lad needed to work hard with sounding out words.

We also talked about adjectives, adverbs, rhyming, using the pictures to help us figure out the story and such like. It's an excellent book to use for such things. We discussed why an author might use certain words and how words can mean different things depending on the context.

Then the helpful ladies of the TOS review crew helped me to find this page on The Snow Bear activities which has things one can do to enhance learning. We decided to pick a page from the book and see how well we could copy it. We had quite the discussion on should we do it all the same or should we use mixed media to do it? We talked about what mixed media meant and that kinda captured my sons interest so off we went to work on that. :)

Final Result

Materials used: construction paper, cottonball, white "foxy" material, Christmas cards, pictures from magazine, and felt.

We made the musk ox shaggy, gave the hare a fuzzy tail, and had fun discussing how to do it all. WE couldn't figure out the best way to do the musk ox horns so in the end he just got a face without horns. :)

Ideas were rejected, accepted, exclaimed over and groaned at. Over all, it was a good cooperative effort. It did take a long time to do though, longer than anticipated so at the end of it, we said.. "We're done schooling today". A boy child needs to play. :)

Working around weather and more

1/22/2013

Today I had a doctor's appointment so homeschooling was put off for a bit.

Then this afternoon the lad had a gymnastics group time with our homeschool group HOPE. The lad had fun and had an opportunity to practice his gymnastics skills.

The weather played a role in how little homeschooling we got done today as everything took longer to get to and come back from.

When we got home after all the running around we did our math with A+Tutorsoft. We finished up section one. Tomorrow he's going to do some practice sheets to reinforce what he knows.

Ultimate Homeschool Linkup

1/22/2013

From the site

What is eligible? Anything applicable to homeschooling: daily life, stories, how-to posts, encouragement, curriculum reviews, giveaways…basically anything that another homeschool family might find useful or interesting.

Go here to linkup

Exploring Canada

1/20/2013

I am doing this post for the Virtual Curriculum Fair hosted by Homeschooling Hearts and Minds. Today's topic is Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science. This theme can include history, geography, world cultures, worldview, biology, botany, geology, etc.

I asked the lad last year what country he would like to learn about this year and he said "Canada". Being that we live in Canada that makes sense. It's a good place to start our explorations.

We are using a number of books to helps us along the way. And I'll do my best to put up pictures and links to them all. :) BUT i won't be able to do it for all of them since we go to the library, pick out lots of books on Canada and read them. Right now we are reading through a book on immigration. We're have read so many books it's amazing the materials out there. As we study immigration and it's changes in Canada we've been learning about WHY people come to Canada, and what changes are happening in Canada because of it. What Canada has to offer people of other cultures and so forth. This causes lots of questions in a boy child who lives in a very safe neighbourhood and hasn't had to think about poverty, war, disease, over-crowding and such like.

One of the most recent books we read that captured the lad's imagination is one called Cryptic Canada.

This is a book filled with mysteries about Canada. Like...the Great Lakes Triangle (much like the more famous Bermuda Triangle). Mummies in the Artic, Canada's Stonehenge and five other fascinating things about Canada. We often read as he plays and with this book he'd stop his play, come over look at pictures and ask tons of questions. Within three days the stories in the book would be added to his play time. It's so neat to see my seven year old lad learning and incorporating new ideas.

How I've laid our course of study out

When I started out learning about Canada I thought it would be a good idea for the lad to have a bit of grounding on the world first. To that end we have learned the layers of the earth, learned about the continents and oceans, learned landforms, taken side paths to study mold, used paper mache to make an earth and a moon, and just so much more.

Then we read a lot of books about the "first nations" people.   I need to do a bit more work in this area. I've plans to make a chart of the different people and show the lad that where the natives lived in Canada changed how they lived (as in some were farmers cause the land supported that whereas others were more hunters as the lad better suited that lifestyle).   This coming week I hope to build an Indian loghouse with him. This past fall we went to the bush and collected a bunch of wood (we really needed birch but couldn't find a lot of that).

Next week he'll be visiting his grandparents and asking them questions about where they came from so we can start building a map of where immigrants come from.

One of my cousins is into genealogy and he sent us a big PDF file on the history of my side of the family and it was quite interesting to read.

Once we are done immigration we'll be looking into the different provinces. I've captured the lads interest in this by using his favourite "angry birds" as part of our explorations. He'll be painting rocks, and making collage out of things that the angry birds might like to do and see.

Resources

Tourism Canada is a wonderful resource. Finding the tourism boards of all the provinces is helpful. You email them, they send you nice packets of information. Full of pics to clip and paste. :)

Books from the library. Story books, factual books, just books all about different aspects of Canada and the world. Read copiously!

Books purchased that you can write on (I photocopy sheets) and use to make lapbook type pages and what not. If you get a variety different authors have different ways of approaching the same subject matter. Variety is good.

Read what other talented bloggers have to say on this topic. :)

Exploring Eastern Cultures with Sonlight by Susan @ Homeschooling Hearts & Minds

Cell Unit Study - Mitochondria and Energy by Julie @ Highhill Education

Our Blended Social Studies by Christy @ Unexpected Homeschool

2013 Virtual Curriculum Fair-Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science by Leah C @ As We Walk Along the Road

Exploring Canada by Annette @ A Net In Time

Project Passport: The Middle Ages by Missouri Mama @ Ozark Ramblings

Virtual Curriculum Fair- Exploring Our World by Karyn @ Teach Beside Me

Our Absolutely Positively Favorite History Curriculum Ever by Wendy @ Homeschooling Blessings

Science: learning to use what you are given by Piwi Mama @ Learning & Growing the Piwi Way

Historical Significance by Kristi @ The Potter’s Hand Academy

How We Are Exploring Our World as Homechoolers by Laura O in AK @ Day by Day in Our World

VCF: Week 3 The Social Sciences by Lisa @ Golden Grasses

A Trip Around the World: Homeschool-Style by Nicole @ Schooling in the Sun

Virtual Curriculum Fair ~ Exploring Our World: Biology by Dawn @ Guiding Light Homeschool

Virtual Curriculum Fair: Learning about our World by Joelle @ Homeschooling for His Glory

marshmallow smiley

1/19/2013

Materials needed

• A Straw
• A Mirror
• Modelling Clay
• A Nail (adult supervision)
• A Hammer (adult supervision)
• A Clear Glass Jar with a metal screw lid
• Marshmallows (use large - not miniature)

Instructions

1. With adult supervision - Using a hammer and nail, make a small whole (the size of the straw) in the middle of the metal lid.
2. Place the straw in the lid and form a clay ring (air tight seal) around the straw and lid (about an inch from the bottom of the straw).
3. Screw the lid on the jar and place the short end of the straw through the lid. The clay should keep the straw from falling in. Make sure that no air can pass through the hole around the straw.
4. Take your marshmallow and draw a face on both flat sides.
5. Open the lid and drop the marshmallow in and screw the lid on tightly.
6. Hold your mirror to where you can see the marshmallow in the bottom of the jar.
7. Now suck the air out of the jar making sure there are no leaks in the clay or lid.

What happens when you stop sucking on the straw? The marshmallow is not a solid object. It has many air pockets like a sponge. By sucking the air out of the jar you decrease the pressure inside the jar which causes the marshmallow to decrease in size, becoming a solid. When you release the straw from your mouth the air rushes back into the marshmallow allowing it to return to its normal size.

Taken from Kids Science experiments

<<Previous

Word Blog Hop Challenge

Part One:

Part Two:

Definitions

This week is proving busy so

Apple Pancakes

Gymnastics

Living with an Artsy Boy

Storytelling with math

Art in Geography

Nature Study is a natural

Sites I want to peruse

Pancreas, Spleen, Liver and Gall Bladder

The Pancreas

The Spleen

Liver

The Gall Bladder

The Snow Bear

Final Result

Working around weather and more

Ultimate Homeschool Linkup

Exploring Canada

How I've laid our course of study out

Resources

marshmallow smiley

Materials needed

Instructions

Who Am I?

Archives

Categories

2013 TOS Reviews

Other Reviews

Part One:

Part Two:

Definitions

Apple Pancakes

Gymnastics

Storytelling with math

Art in Geography

Nature Study is a natural

The Pancreas

The Spleen

Liver

The Gall Bladder

Final Result

How I've laid our course of study out

Resources

Materials needed

Instructions

Who Am I?

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Archives

Categories

2013 TOS Reviews

Other Reviews