Desert Animals Lapbook

Ds3 studied desert animals in Sept. and we made a lapbook from his endeavors.  All the items for the lapbook come from Homeschoolshare and are free!

Here are the books we read for our studies.

He really liked the one titled Desert above as it showed the animals in the desert from a fun point of view.  It started with an ant and says "Someone sees the ant..." and it describes who sees it and the next page shows it's a scorpion!  Then someone sees the scorpion, etc.  He did not like the Magic School Bus book, which saddens me.  He thinks he is too old for cartoons and childish drawings (he's only 7 and I don't think the Magic School Bus is all that childish.)

Here's the cover and the inside.  Very simple lapbook but he learned a lot and enjoyed making it.  I enjoyed that it was all done for me. ;)  What we did was pick an animal, read about it in the books, look it up on the internet and then complete the booklet for that animal for the lapbook.  Can't beat that for free!

Farm Lapbook

Wow, can't believe September has passed by so quickly.  Ds4 (my 3yo) and I studied about the farm this month.  It was a blast!  We read lots of books, did tons of coloring and even play-acted being farmers in the backyard with pretend and real tools.  And we compiled a lot of our endeavors into a lapbook. :)

Here are the books we used for our farm study.

Also a cute little book called Duffy On The Farm.  Some of the resources I used for this study were The Mailbox Thematic Unit for farms     and the farm and zoo lesson plans from Kinderplans.com. 

Here's the cover of ds's lapbook and what it looks like upon opening.  You open the barn door and see what large animals live on the farm, and you slide the strip across the hayloft and see what smaller animals live there. The barn outline and the pics of the animals are from Kinderplans, but I made up the little sliding thing.  There are little booklets about what baby animals live on the farm and what sounds farm animals make, as well as a math activity where he had to add the correct amount of spots to numbered cows.

  The top pic here is of some worksheets from The Mailbox book, re-telling the Little Red Hen story and another one teaching prepositions that you can't see.  The bottom pic is off some little arts/crafts things we did.  I tried to find a farm in our area that would host a tour for us, but in our neck of the woods it's more about peanuts and cotton fields.  This was a fun unit with plenty of resources available from your library and the internet. :)

Book Review: Teachable Moments

I picked this book up at the library as the title intrigued me.  I am always in search of teachable moments in my children's days, but most of the time they present themselves unannounced and unplanned. ;)

This book is geared toward parents of children in public school and offers tips to help them succeed.  I liked many of the ideas it presented, but was not pleased with the author's tone.  This book seems to assume that any and every child can be a perfect reader, researcher, writer and student if only their parents will implement a few easy tutorials.  Oh, and from a young age as well.  While it gives ideas to use with all age groups, it assumes you have a child who has been given these helps from the beginning.  I know from experience with teaching other children and rearing and teaching my own that every child is different and you cannot make a child into something he is not.  My oldest, despite me following all the "rules" from the beginning (several of which were mentioned in this book) is not a reader like myself.  He is a proficient reader, can read fast, comprehends what he reads, etc.  But he doesn't like to sit and read like me.  He is however a writer, and I didn't follow any of the so called rules with regard to that.  My second son is a reader yet, despite all the help I've given him over the last 8 years of school, is not a writer.  I am listing here some of the advice I found in this book that I found helpful, new or insightful.  It does have plenty of that.  But I go on record as saying the advice could have been rendered in a better manner and that the book's title is misleading imo.

In the section on reading there was the usual advice such as surrounding your child with books, reading to them at all ages, being a good example of a reader, etc.  The section on writing is pretty technical, with information about planning charts, clustering, free writing, etc.  It seems more along the lines of what the child should have picked up in school, not really "help" the parent can give the child at home after school.  (Although helpful for a homeschooling parent who may need help in the area of writing instruction.)  There is an entire section devoted to quite clever ways of using the newspaper for "teachable moments" for all age groups that I did find interesting.  It seemed to fit in with theme of the book, where some of the other chapters did not ("Using the Computer" and "Attending Back to School Night" seemed out of place to me.)

All in all, I'm glad I got this book from the library and didn't purchase it myself.

Pets On Parade: Mimi

I have a ton of pics of my kitties that I need to do something with, so I'll share them here.  Oooh, maybe I'll make it a weekly thing or something.  That's one way to make sure this is the only post I'll do ;) (lol)

Here is my Mimi.  My precious little soft cuddly bundle of love.  We found poor Mimi under a car at Wal-Mart.  She has been a lovable blessing ever since we brought her home.  She lets the kiddos carry her around and never complains.  She is my constant companion, to the point that we refer to her as my "executive assistant."  Here are a series of shots that show her as executive lizard chaser as well.

She spots it!  Ds is sending up a warning, but to no avail...

Whoa, did she just jump up there?  She's so agile.

Made it to the top.  Be careful Mims!

Is she too cute or what?

She has forgotten the lizard and is just posing for the camera now.

Mimi.  The most cuddly sweetest executive assistant ever!

Outdoor Hour Challenge#30: Weeds and Seeds

This has been the most interesting challenge (at least for me) yet! I guess you could say we are in our element LOL. We did not have to go far to find weeds and seeds in our neighborhood. We have a nice large backyard with a bad weed problem. :( All along the edges of our fence it is wild and overgrown. We cut it down all the time, it grows back. We even applied a heavy duty weed killer to no avail. And now, our backyard weed haven actually came in handy! ;)

I began the challenge by asking the kiddos what they thought weeds were. Then I had them look up the definition in the dictionary. Ds2 compared weeds to art, in that some people's idea of art is not what other people think art is...same goes with weeds. I thought that was pretty observant.

We decided to do the sock seeds experiment. It was tons of fun and I suggest everyone give it a try.

Here is ds3 with socks over his shoes. He looks thrilled, no?

Ds2 and ds3 stomping through our weeds. Ds4 opted out of this part.

Whoa, I think we have a winner! I dug three shoeboxes out of my closet and placed them on my bed.

They promptly grew a cat.

Here are ds2 and ds4 preparing the boxes for sock planting.

Digging in the dirt, their favorite part. You know something, I just realized, we will never be a featured family on Barb's website if my kiddos keep parading around in their skivvies LOL ;)

Now we wait to see if our socks grow anything. *WANNA SEE WHAT HAPPENED? CHECK OUT THIS UPDATE* Meanwhile, we have been checking out all the different weeds in our yard. We've had lots of fun looking up and finding out their names and such.

I am constantly pulling this sucker out of my hibiscus patch. It's called a Rosary Pea and it's poisonous to cattle and humans. At least the berries are. Here's a closeup of the little berries.

This is actually one of my favorite little weeds in our yard, because it attracts butterflies. It's called Common Beggar's Tick and the flowers look like little daisies.

Wild radish. While these weeds are usually killed off by the cold, they can live all year round in Florida. I can attest to that.

This is the most unusual weed in the bunch. It has purple stalks, grows quite tall, and produces purple berries. The bad thing about these is the birds eat the berries and poop purple everywhere.

See?

Anyway, the weed is called the Common Pokeweed or Pokeberry and it is poisonous to cattle, swine and humans (mostly the roots.)

It was such a beautiful day here, sunny, breezy and ever so slightly cooler, that we did our natural journal entries outside.

I think this challenge will go down as one of my favorites. :)

Homeschool P.E.

I haven't done any formal phys ed. with the children before this year.  My kiddos have always been exposed to sports and are very active so we just never bothered with any "formal" lessons.  This year I acquired Homeschool P.E. for the P.E. Challenged Mom by Anne Elliott  and figured I'd try it out.  So far we have loved it!  Basically you introduce various challenges to the kiddos (mostly from the presidential fitness challenge) each week, along with lessons on various popular sports.  Here is how a typical week goes:

• Monday:  Introduce new challenge.  This week ours was push-ups.
• Tuesday:  Kiddo picks a "movement card" to perform.  (I made up little cards with "go on a bike ride" or "jump rope" for activities.)
• Wednesday:  Introduce a sport.  You actually learn about the sport for a month.  This month has been volleyball.
• Thursday:  Play a fun game
• Friday:  Research a health concern.  This week is saturated fats.

Dh and I have even gotten involved in the challenges.  And while a new challenge is introduced each week, you still practice all the old ones.  So far we have sit-ups, endurance run, and push-ups.  I stink at all of them, but am slowly improving.  At the end of the school year we can take the president's challenge to show off our physical fitness.  Can't wait. ;)

Anywho, today was "movement card" day and ds picked "obstacle course."  Basically I had them construct and then run through a homemade obstacle course.  Getting fit has never been so much fun. :)

Here is the first part of their course.  Jumping over an overturned car and borrowed swing.  Creative little buggers, aren't they?

Ds3 getting ready to vault over the car.

Next they had to run from the patio to the fence and back in a sideways shuffle.  Here is the ref, making sure they touch the fence. :)

Finally they had to run across the yard, scoop up a ball and jump off a step stool to make a slam dunk.  Here is ds2's dunk attempt.

Look at that reach!  Go ds3!

Ds4 decided to modify the course and run around the jumping challenge.

Someone always has to fall. :(  Ds4 is down for the count.

It was a fun activity that not only had them exercising, but working together.  Can't beat that with a stick.

Homeschool Memoirs: Summer Photo Essay

What a neat assignment for Homeschool Memoirs this week!  Gee, living in Florida and near beaches I bet you just can't guess what all my photos will have!LOL!

Let's see, we start our summer break with swim lessons at my alma mater.  This year all three boys participated (this was ds4's first time!)

That's ds3.  This was his second year of lessons and he had a ball.

There is ds4.  This was such a fun group to watch.  They were alternately thrilled and scared.

Ds2, "the pro" in the deep end.  He did dives off the big board this year.

Next a trip to one of our favorite swimmin' holes was in order.  Dh helping ds1 get his fishing gear ready.

Ds4 practicing his surf moves.

Ds3 just being ds3.

His big catch!

Next we spent the 4th of July at my inlaws.  We celebrated ds2 and my niece's bday, saw fireworks and played with kittens.  Oh, and swam. ;)

Bday people blowing candles!

Aw, kittens!

Check out that jump!  The boy can hold his ears and nose closed at the same time. LOL

 

Ds3 participated in a junior ranger program at the Gulf Island National Seashore.

We went to the park a lot.

We visited a butterfly house.

 

That was fun.  I really look forward to seeing everyone's photo essays!  Happy Homeschooling!  Julie