I didn't really supervise their activity. I only came in to the kitchen to snap photos and save them from a sticky mess. I let them know they should have floured their hands and boards before kneading. They had quite a sticky mess on their hands! I'm sure you can picture it because I forgot to grab the camera. I formed the bread for them and threw it onto the baking sheet so they wouldn't become frustrated. I helped a little but it was mostly all them. From reading the recipe, finding the ingredients, to mixing and setting the oven and cleaning up.
Eagle said he could see why the vikings ate this bread because it was very filling. I agree, it was heavy. With a mild baking soda flavour to it. haha *wink*
They ate their bread with leftover meat sauce from a spaghetti dinner a few nights back. Talking like vikings throughout lunch was just a given. Think of How To Train a Dragon "ya" "ie" "lad" Funny stuff! The boys did a great job! I know they're proud of their accomplishments. With this activity I can check off
I find our days flow better when things are in the right place, easy to access and of course easy to work with. Trying to share a book between 2 or more people can be challenging. Especially when most subjects are done together.
Textbook Stand or Cook Book Stand (tomato - tomato)
Both boys are sketching in their notebooks pictures of different types of geophytes.
If you don't already own one or even if you do and don't use it for homeschooling, I encourage you to give it a try! You might not have known how useful a book stand is until you've owned one. I bought mine in college for my enormous Art History books.
useful for picture study (similar to an easel).
reading together, when Zazu and I worked on his reading lessons (How to Teach your Child to read in 100 easy lessons).
Bible reading
sharing a book during family work time like in the picture above with our Exploring Creation with Botany book.
to stand up your iPad when ie: watching a youtube clip on volcanoes erupting.
and of course for cooking with your kids so the recipe book doesn't get mucky.
If you ever come across one at a thrift store or garage sale pick it up, it's a handy little item. This is the one we have
We are fairly new to this practice but I do my best to work it into most of what we do in our learning time.
In the summer when preparing for this coming school year I purchased a digital voice recorder. I initially bought it for creative writing and/or Eagle to get his ideas out verbally.
One of the problems I find is multi-tasking multiple children's needs throughout the school day. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. It seems that at the moment I need to spend time with Zazu (7) of his narration, Alba requires some TLC, or Eagle needs to run something by me. So using a voice recorder I'm able to kill two birds with one stone.
Just recently I decided to pull out the recorder to give to Zazu for his narration in history. I just told him to tell back what he could remember from our reading into the recorder. I prompted him a few times to jog his memory (because I knew he knew). He pressed pause when he needed to think and used the recorder quite well, I found. I played it back for him to hear his narration. And as a bonus he finds it fun to use also.
Then I took the digital file and I transcribed it, and popped it into his notebook. He can also add images to it from the web, or drawn and coloured by hand to make it personal. Or of course, leave it as is without any illustrations.
It's been a great tool for Zazu (7) to narrate all on his own. As, it's taken the pressure off of him to present what he knows to me. Because sometimes there's an off day and he just needs to get alone with his thoughts.
This is the one we have
Another idea
An older student could upload the file onto the computer for a multimedia presentation, using an application like Keynote (Apple) or Microsoft's Movie Maker.
Chugga Chugga up the track... I'm writing this in the midst of optimism. I love these times. I really do feel optimistic. You may wonder why I feel the need to write about feeling optimistic. Maybe it's the fact that spring is around the corner? Yes and No. Actually... When I look back on the last couple weeks it's been pretty good around here, overall. The past couple months however, I've been climbing the big hill mountain in hopes to eventually gain enough momentum to cruise along the track with ease. Climbing up that mountain, I've felt in my case, included setting up house, which affects our home school. This entails forming new habits with new responsibilities. Because of our location out of any town or city, Daddy working away, and the two new dogs. We've got heavy loads on our train cars, but we have to get up that hill to get things done. Charlotte Mason refers to good habits as following a track. I find, that since moving here it's been quite difficult to lay down train tracks or rails of habits. School days have been more often than not, hard work and don't flow as I wish. I played this video for my kids (but mostly for me), to teach a little lesson on hard work and to motivate us to keep going even when it seems hard.
We can learn a good example from that little engine.
Alba commented on how the engine helped the other out. Sweet girl. It does take team work to run through our days. To get things accomplished and enjoy eachother in the process. Just a thoughtI wonder if The Little Engine knew Charlotte Mason.I Can I Ought I will, ...I Can I Ought I will, ...I Can I Ought I will! CHOO CHOO...!kidding Press On Dear Mothers,Mo
I mentioned in last weeks wrap-up that we did school on Saturday. I had photos and totally forgot to add them, so here they are. Alba on Starfall. Love, love that site. Fell in love when Zazu was a toddler. It's really a treat for any of my kids to go on a device (computer & iPad). I usually make it "Educational". Eagle gets annoyed when I pull the educational card, but, oh well. I'm the Mom(hee hee).
Our progress in Song School Latin. And also on each of the boy's cork board they have their phonegram charts up from All About Spelling. I hope to be on our way into the next section next week. We're right at the beginning of Level One but so far, the program is living up to the reviews and hype I've read over the last few years. On to This Week... Monday Sniffles, Cleaning & Lego
Even though the sniffles have struck two of my kids (Alba&Eagle), Alba and Zazu wanted to help wash puppy drool windows. I caught Alba working hard to get the goobers off. My little helper!
Tuesday I walked into the school room to find Alba and Zazu had already started on the things I set out the night before for school in their pj's. Alba said with a huge smile, "Thank you Mom for making all this for me!" I felt so special when she said that, it made my morning.
If anyone wonders, Zazu is on Chapter 11 in Life of Fred Cats. The boys REALLY enjoy Life of Fred! Math has never been the same since we brought that little 5 year old genius into our home!
Wednesday Some items on our agenda which were completed.
Baked Viking Bread for History (family work)
Botany (family work)
Reading
Read Ch.2 All-of-a-Kind Family (family read aloud)
Math
Thursday Considering Daddy came home Thursday, it was a little more relaxed around here. Daddy gathered everyone to pray before school (love when he initiates prayer with the family). Chores and a bit of school work were on the agenda. The boys worked on little chunks of things, like spelling, history and botany. Besides their independent work of math and copywork for the day.
Friday The kids and Daddy hopped in the vehicle this morning to drive to Edmonton to take in a Star Wars exhibit. It's a 3 hour drive, but for Daddy and the boys it's well worth it. Only 2 cities in Canada are getting this exhibition apparently. I would have liked to tag-along, but Daddy insisted I stay home and have some quality Mommy time. So here I am with you, and the dogs. I hope they bring back a few photos I can share with you. I did pack a workbook and reading material for each of the kids for the drive.
Alba is 3 yrs old
Mommy helped make a "letter E" word in the Word Whammer
E Week &
Wrap up to The Snowy Day
We've had fun reading The Snowy Day many, many times. Alba has worked on most of the activities, and some, well just not yet. The lapbook we made will surely entertain her in the future. I plan to keep it in our cloth storage bin filled with all the other age appropriate activity books, lapbooks, and other fun things for Alba.
Melissa & Doug Cube Pets Puzzle.
She almost had it, except for two middle pieces.
I'm noticing that she seems to have more fun with the rice in the Letter sensory bin than anything else I put in. This week I've taken away the rice and the bin, to see if she'd be more inclined to explore the themed items on their own. It seems she's stuck between big girl preschooler and toddler sometimes. So, I'm at a loss when she proclaims she's bored. One of her favourite tot activity, is sticking tooth picks in a spice container. I set it out for her, but she wasn't interested.
If you read previously, Alba and I planted Touch plant seeds on Valentines. Things weren't looking great in the germination department, so I covered the dirt with plastic wrap last week to help keep the top moist. I think it may have helped. We checked on the Touch Plant seeds today and there's GREEN, wonderful living green! I think I may need to do a little research on our new plant, to insure it's continual growth.
Eagle doesn't get stuck with a new math concept very often. Eagle had to balance equations in Life of Fred - Pre-Algebra 1 with Biology. And well, I'm no help.
In the photo Eagle is holding a bow he made from some willow from the river near our house. The boys chose to talk about that event for the project.
The Zoo
We took an afternoon trip with the two younger kids to the zoo. Here they are looking at the otters (Daddy's favourite zoo creature).
Valentines Day
We don't usually do anything extra during school time for holidays. If I would even consider Valentines an actual holiday. It's extra effort on my part and in the past with the boys, it's never really been an issue not to do anything. Sometimes Eagle would prefer not to in all honesty. We recognized St. Patrick day with home schooling friends of ours a few years back, which was good, but that's about all.
This year for Valentines Day, we made fruit loop necklaces only because we were invited to a little V-Day party hosted by another HS family. It was great to get out of the house to a "pink and red" themed get together. On the fly, we brought a jube jube guessing game (fun) and our couple dozen fruit loop necklaces. It was sweet how my kids went around and placed a necklace on each child at the party.
Planting Touch Plant seeds.
Last Valentines Day (2012) our church had given a small packet of seeds and a special note for each family.
I bought this book when we first started home educating after reading into Miss Charlotte Mason's idea of handiworks and life skills, and Eagle finally picked it up and started something.
Eagle made his own sling shot.
Water Tea Party
The Snowy Day
A little while ago I mentioned printing a bunch literature studies and lap books from the web.
Zazu is joining in with Alba's fun with The Snowy Day here.
At Alba's request we've read the book and watched the video reading many times. Let's say she has it memorized quite well.
Q-Tip painting her snowflakes
Zazu reading Henry and Mudge (his first chapter book)!!
Sorting colour and size with Alba. She enjoyed the flower cards.
Letter Fun
Alba and I are going through the ABC's together. We started talking about the alphabet together exactly a year ago when she was two years old. Now at three I find it's not just repeating what I say out of mimicking but she can actually understand now that letters are associated to people, places and things. I'm trying to make a real effort at this with her at this.
I made verse strips (idea from 1+1+1=1) using the A-Z Memory Verses from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Alba loves going to the A-Z printout and asking if we can work on her memory verses!
Letter C& P for pink ...she loves pink!
(video)
I finally decided to make a letter sensory bin. It really adds to the fun of letters.
Sensory Bin Play with Alba & Zazu
(videos)
We pressed the number 3 cookie from Counting Cookies into her pink play dough. (photo credit to Alba)
Sorting yellow "C" things from the sensory bin.
I used to stress about finding items by theme and having a place to put anything. Now that we've moved up in square footage, it's much easier to store and create fun bags and bins for Alba. I'm having fun with it and well, ...I'm sure she is too.
Zazu shovelling snow off the front porch.
We were going to start Exploring Creation with Anatomy, but Eagle suggested that we just finish Botany and then start a new topic. I agreed, and off to our Botany book we went. I'm glad we did because we found pictures on the internet of a really amazing plant. The Banyan Tree in Maui. Amazing!!
I walked in to the school room to an impromptu lesson in multiplying fractions with Eagle. I had to take a photo to remember this cute little moment. Zazu, if you know, is only seven and is currently working on the clock and odd and even numbers, so I think multiplying fractions was a little over his head. But it was a cool moment of Eagle teaching what he knew to Zazu. Wonderful moment!
For a little laughter. Eagle thought it would be a grand idea to put some masks on the poor dogs. And of course I included photos on here.
DINO KAYLEE
KERMIT KAYLEE
On a more serious note. I'm becoming more thankful that God moved us here; out of the city and deeper into His creation. We've all, not just the kids, had many wonderful experiences in the last three months. Which I really couldn't anticipate. Like building a slingshot, chopping wood, building a bow (with a neighbour Dad), walking along the river, sliding down river banks, counting blue jays, watching deer, learning how to care for dogs, Eagle working for our friends landscaping company... etc.
I'm sorry for doubting what you have in store for this family. Help us to be ever thankful for how you have extremely blessed this household. Thank you Lord
