Tuesday, May 27

Starting Bug Unit and Numbers

No comments:

Monday, May 26

Bugs and Bees

This week we are going to start our Bugs and Bees Unit Study.
Little Laplinks June Theme. Valerie has some great ideas about an Alphabug lapbook, and we will more than likely incorporate those great ideas into our summer study too!

I am thinking that this Unit might last all summer... because we have found so many interesting things to do and learn! And there are Sooooo many bugs! And I just can see James wanting to do it all!

So anyway, here are some things I have found that I will be using for our unit, and lapbook.

TONS of Bugs and Bees Resources:

  • FingerPrint Bees or Bugs

Supply each child with a piece of white paper and different colored non-toxic stamp pads. Show the child how to make fingerprints on the paper, using only one finger at a time. When finished, add legs and antennae with a black pen, or for older children, have them add the legs and antennae.

The Magic School Bus - Gets Ants in its Pants
The Ant Bully (Widescreen Edition)
A Bug's Life (Disney Gold Classic Collection)
Antz

Finger Print Craft Ants: (see on Valerie's site...under Alphabugs)
Materials: Non toxic ink pad (black) Paper Black pen or crayon Show your child how to make finger prints on a piece of paper (three sections). Have your child draw six legs, a head and antennae onto their prints to create ants.

  • The Ants go Marching Song

The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah
The ants go marching one by one,
The little one stops to suck his thumb
And they all go marching down to the ground
To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

2) (two by two) The little one stops to tie his shoe
3) The little one stops to climb a tree
4) The little one stops to shut the door
5) The little one stops to take a dive
6) The little one stops to pick up sticks
7) The little one stops to pray to heaven
8) The little one stops to shut the gate
9) The little one stops to check the time
10) The little one stops to say "THE END"

A great Ants Activity Page...tons of ideas...including this one:

Divide a paper plate into sections with a black marker. Place various food items on the plate (i.e. crackers, sugar, lettuce).Set the plate outside on a nice warm day, in a low traffic shaded area where you have seen ants. Check back after 1 hour to see what has happened. Check back in 2 hours. What foods have the ants taken? Which is their favorite? Ask your child what foods they like the best.
  • Ants on a Log Snack

spread peanut butter on a piece of celery. Add raisins to the peanut butter.

No comments:

Friday, May 23

Friday Funnies

I think that I will use Fridays for a silly time. After all, that is definitely part of my day...being silly!

Someone once said you don't quit laughing because you grow old, you grow old because you quit laughing.

So each Friday I will try to post a joke or picture...or video that made me laugh out loud.

This first Friday Funnies entry are two video compilations from AFV of funny kid happenings.
James and MacKenzie thought these were hilarious. Hope you enjoy and have a great weekend.



No comments:

Thursday, May 22

Coop and Reading Before Bed

Today was our Homeschool Coop Class Day- the last one of the year.

Here are some shots of the PreK class.

We start out by playing with Playdough.















Bella likes to hang out at the living center...I guess she likes to cook? She didn' t get that from me...lol




















She found the picnic food for the play kitchen. They have these neat play fruit that is connected by velcro, and comes apart as slices.
















After we play and get settled in, we clean up our playdough, and get ready for music. This is James being a great helper! He is pushing in every chair into the table...He was so sweet today.














Here they are stretching before our music and movement time. They eat this up!!!















After singing, we reviewed all the instruments and music theory that we had learned this year.
We went out to play (sorry- not one more picture taken!)
and then came in to have our end of the year party/lunch.
I think James and MacKenzie had 4 cupcakes each...
Bella chowed down on mac and cheese and peas.
YEAH...she finally likes peas.




We came home and all crashed- I love naptime!!!! When James woke up, he found some packing bubbles that came in one of Mark's packages the other day.


He came and sat in my lap and told me very sweetly that I could pop a bubble too. (He told me how to do it, step by step instructions...too cute) Then we took turns popping bubbles. Sometimes he surprises me by how sweet he can be! He then proceeded to ask if he could help me pick up. umm...yes!!!








Tonight after supper I found Bella pulling all the books out one by one... So I took that as a cue that she wanted to read.

So we all cozied up on the couch with lots of books and read before we went to sleep. (MacKenzie got to spend the night with us tonight)























Good night all!

No comments:

Wednesday, May 21

Rainbows and Swimming

MacKenzie loved the lapbooks so much...she wanted to start on a new topic right away: Rainbows. She saw a video of someone showing off their Rainbow Lapbook on little laplinks (April's Theme), and she wants one like it ...so we are working backwards. We have finished our May theme...so ... May Flowers bring April Showers....which causes a Rainbow (Lapbook).

We started out by reading the story of Noah, and the origin of rainbows.

I have this book that I love called Pray and Play Bible for Young Children by Group Publishing.
It has a Bible Story with huge illustrations (are yall familiar with the BIG books by Group that are used for Sunday School>this is a smaller version) And then after the story it gives tons of ideas for singing, crafts, games, snacks, service, family worship, praying, playing.

We sang a few songs relating to the Bible lesson. James and MacKenzie LOVE to sing and dance. And what is funny is Bella will start to dance now too! She pulls herself up on whatever is closest and starts to bounce up and down or sway back and forth with a HUGE smile on her face, squealing with delight at her own ability to dance.
They beg me to sing the songs out of this book all the time, just so they can sing and dance with me. I cherish these simple and fun moments!

Then we went over to our table and did a few rainbow activities for our lapbook:
We discussed what primary colors are...and what they make if you mix them.
We traced words of those colors, and colored a minibook about Noah...
then did their favorite, a dauber dot page (of a rainbow of course!)

After all those things were done, I remembered that I was supposed to be documenting all this for the blog...so I ran and got my camera. Whoops!

Here we are sorting counting bears into colors.
And then using them for a counting game and numbers review.



I go to my parents home in Glennville once a week to clean and today was the day. Unfortunately, we were locked out, I had left the hideaway key inside...oops.
So, we took the opportunity to water their plants.


I turned on the hose and they filled up the watering can and watered away!

Much to our delight, Grandaddy drove up....yeah...and let us in. Air Conditioner is nice!
And the kids got a special treat. CeCe had purchased an inflatable swimming pool with a slide too! Grandaddy pumped it up for them and filled it with water, and wala...an afternoon full of splishing and splashing!
And tonight we had our End of the Year PBYF pool party at the Bazemore's house.
This was Bella's first time being in a pool (last summer she was just a newborn, and we just haven't gotten around to swimming yet this season until now.)

She loves bathtime, but obviously she doesn't see many similarities to the pool.
She was terrified, and cried the whole time.
She was clinging onto Mark for dear life.
Oh well, she lasted about 5 minutes, and then went to Mommy
who was safe and sound out on dry land.



James had a great time though! He loves to be in the pool.
I think I might sign him up for swimming lessons this summer.



Whew...long day. I am exhaused and headed for bed. Tomorrow's another long one. Our homeschool Coop Classes are tomorrow, followed by our end of the year party and covered dish lunch.
Hope I can remember to take pictures!
1 comment:

OACHE Field Trip

Here are a few pictures of our first experience to geocaching. After Co-op we had some time before our field trip, so a few of us went to Mill Creek for a picnic lunch and we let the children play at the playground.


Melissa got out her gps and took the older kids to find the treasure. Once they made sure they could locate it, and had found it, they came back and got the preschoolers.



We had a blast. It was a great adventure for the young ones and parents too!


James took a long look at all the choices of treasures, and finally after weighing all the possible things, he chose this frisbee.



Then, we rushed off to our next destination, and the real outing of the day...




Our Homeschool Association,
Ogeechee Area Christian Home Educators (OACHE)
took a field trip to "Keep Bulloch Beautiful"


It is a presentation presented in an 18 wheeler that has been transformed into a mobile classroom teaching all about recycling.



They had great information for us and a great time was had by all.

Brooke Carney is the Executive Director and answered
lots of our questions.


Their web site has a list of items that they recycle at the Bulloch County Centers.


Here is the link to items they take and recycling center locations:
http://www.keepbullochbeautiful.org/recycle.htm


and a link to their backyard composting page:
http://www.keepbullochbeautiful.org/backyardcomposting.htm



Brooke also shared a web site http://www.kidsrecycle.org where kids can learn to compost and instructions on worm composting (vermi-composting).


Thank you Melissa Sack for setting up this fun and educational outing for our group!




No comments:

Tuesday, May 20

Flowers Unit and Lapbook

We just finished a unit on Seeds, Plants and Flowers. I think I had as much fun as the kids!
I stumbled upon a website www.lapbooklessons.com and fell in love! I had never heard of lapbooking, but I am hooked already. That site as well as www.homeschoolshare.com has tons of resources for numerous unit studies. I didn't have to spend much time at all finding activities for us to do, and no money spent! (I already had file folders, paper and art supplies)
I am so excited about the upcoming school year, the possibilities are endless.

Here is a link to see the PICTURES of our FINISHED LAPBOOK. Our very first one.
Hope you enjoy:
Http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/photo/photo/slideshow?feed_url=http%3A%2F%2Flapbooklessons.ning.com%2Fphoto%2Fphoto%2FslideshowFeedForContributor%3FscreenName%3D35mgotbxzhg11&back_url=http%3A%2F%2Flapbooklessons.ning.com%2Fprofiles%2Fprofile%2Fshow%3Fid%3DKathryn%26

Anyway, here is a look at our week...

We went shopping and they got to pick out their own seeds. MacKenzie liked forget me nots and sunflowers. James picked out Corn, beans, carrots, and pumpkins.

We started out our morning by sorting out different seeds into the proper place.

They learned each seed is completely different, and yields a different thing.


As you can see...James isn't much of a morning person *like his mommy* he is in both shots, but the first one he is hiding from the camera!






Then we went on a nature walk at Mill Creek Park.










We took our bug catcher nets and case to keep the plants in. (It was housing a giant toad too, which James had found late the night before...he let it go free into the woods) We also took one of James and MacKenzie's favorites...the magnifying glass that talks you through what you may be looking at by asking questions. We found red berries, and blackberries, and all sorts of flowers and plants.











Along the way, we discovered a geocache treasure "deep in the woods". (Geocaching is a treasure hunting game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers with other participants in the activity. www.geocaching.com )





James had found this the previous week with our homeschool group OACHE and we took MacKenzie to find it "sans" GPS. They had a blast! Found great treasures, MacKenzie even found a travel bug. We are going to have to find another geocache to let the bug travel on to the next spot.













Here are a few pictures from our field trip to the GSU Botanical Gardens.














It was a beautiful day and the smell of flowers was glorious!










The kids (and I) saw many beautiful flowers and plants.














There was a magnolia flower that had fallen off a tree onto the ground.
This gave us the perfect opportunity to "dissect" the different parts of the flower.



They had the sprinklers on while we were there, and the kids got soaked. It was nice though, because it was very sunny and hot. (hence, the hats...they were our Easter gifts from CeCe)

We came home and started to work on our Lapbook Activities.

Here are the pictures of the kids working on our very first lapbook. Seeds, Plants, and Flowers!


One of our favorite new arts and crafts projects is our Dots Pages. We went to Walmart and bought some Bingo Daubers in four different colors. Then the kids just fill in the Dots with the Daubers. Its great fun!

Print some out for yourself here:
http://www.dltk-kids.com/type/bingo_daubers.htm




Here we are discussing the parts of a flower, and coloring the parts as we talk about them.











James practicing writing his name. He is concentrating very hard.










This is a flower sorting game.
We sorted by size, and then another time we sorted by colors.
1 comment:

Monday, May 19

First Blog

Hello to you. Thanks for reading. I have started this blog to document my two wiggle worms school day adventures here. But my first blog will be to say a little about why I started here. I am not blog-savy...but I hope to learn along the way.

For those of you stumbling on to my site...I am a mom of two fabulous wiggle worms.

Lilypie
(one of his many silly faces!)

Lilypie

I also watch another child a few days a week... a precious girl the same age as my son.

I have always been interested in homeschooling (even before I had children), but as each day, month, and year goes by...I realize how great of an opportunity it is and I never want to take it for granted! Here's just one reason why I love homeschooling...James is very hyperactive and impulsive and would do terribly in the typical school system learning environment where he would be expected to sit still and be quiet all day. I don't think it would be pretty. I am grateful to be able to give him the opportunity to run and be "actively" learning all day. Of course there are countless other reasons I am homeschooling, and I am extremely blessed to be able to stay at home with my children and devote myself 100% to training them up in the ways of the LORD.

It is a bit overwhelming to think of all the things I want to instill in my children...but I know that it is an honor and privilege... and I don't have to do it alone! What God has called me to do, He will equip me and walk me through it all the way. I am thankful that He has given me a husband who works very hard for his family and is so supportive of homeschooling! I am thankful for all the friends and family that are supportive and understanding. I haven't yet run into many misunderstanding hurtful people...so I am thankful for that too! I am thankful for the homeschool co-op group I am involved in, and last but not least...thankful for the the world wide web of homeschoolers and dedicated mommies who share and care out there! (I know, I know...I am a poet and didn't even know it!) So, anyway...seeing all the website info out there, it has really encouraged and inspired me. (enough to get a blog and record all our learning and playing throughout the week.) This will help me to stay focused, knowing I want to document it all here. And I also hope that it will allow family to keep up with what we are doing...you can be a fly on our wall! So I hope you enjoy!!!
2 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)