Blog Archives

stuff I want to look at more

7/22/2012

I'm seriously considering getting the anatomy book for the lad for next year. That and the journalling book that goes with it. Apologia is having a 30% off sale right now.

then there's the national geographic for kids, which is on sale right now.

And then there's this list of a variety of homeschool planners which I want to go through. Mind, since I get TOS magazine I get their planner for free and it's simply packed with ideas and different ways to do things that I wonder if I should bother.

anyways, time for bed. Will check this all out tomorrow.

Struggling with Lessons

7/17/2012

We have a student living with us from France for almost three weeks this summer.

Part of his time here is to do lessons in learning how to speak English. Neither of us are particularly happy with the lessons provided so I'm attempting to supplement those lessons. My problem is I don't know how. I don't quite get how to teach conversational English to a young man who knows a great deal, but is missing some of the finer aspects.

So I was searching through some of my PDF's that I've collected over the last couple of years for teaching the lad and came up with a story for teaching action words.

I thought, why not change it into a fill in the blank.

It's simple, it's meant for children as opposed to teens but it might provide some challenge and perhaps laughter while learning. I don't know.

Anyways, here's what I came up with I can't link to a PDF until I upgrade this site so you'll have to make do with my copy and paste jobbie. :)

Fill in the blanks.

One ________________ (time period)while I was __________ through the woods (verb)
I _____________ (verb) a rustle in the _________ (noun). As I got closer a little bunny __________(verb) out on the path. The bunny _________ (verb)me and _________ (verb) __________ (number)times to get back in the ________ (place). The bunny ________ (verb)from
me because he was ________(emotion). I kept __________ (verb)until I came to a _______ (Place).
At the edge of the _________(same place) a _______________ (descriptive word)snake ____________ (verb) beside me. I don't like snakes so I _____________(verb) on a _________ (thing).
My house is in the __________(place) so I ______ (verb) home and _______ (verb)my _______ (person).

Egg Experiment Final

7/1/2012

This experiment took a full week to complete.

We took our egg out of the jar today. It was a bit of a challenge as it was wedged in there. The lad was quite nervous about it and wouldn't help me with it, so I surprised him by using a straw to break the suction seal and the egg just slid out nicely. It grew more than I anticipated based on the pics I had seen. As you can see it is quite large.

The lad asked: why did it get so big mommy?
I was smart and said.. why do you think it did?
He said.... cause some of the vinegar went inside the egg?
My response was: precisely. Smart thinking lad.

CAN I BOUNCE IT????

Sure you can bounce it.
What if it breaks mommy?
well...that's why we're using the bowl.

We learned it bounces really well up until about 12 inches and then well.. it goes splat and gooshes. The bowl didn't quite catch it all and that bothered the lad. I helped with the clean up. But first we checked everything out really well. The membrane was quite thin. The egg white wasn't clear, it was cloudy. it did NOT smell like a rotten egg, it had quite the vinegary smell to it. The white felt different than a regular egg, BUT the liquid the gooshed out didn't feel or smell like vinegar so that had the lad stumped.

ANYONE with an explanation why that would be???