homeschool

May Goals

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Finish 2nd grade math with Munchkin.

Make sure Seahawk is prepared for his 3rd grade standardized test.

Schedule said test.

Work hard to limit our waste output by shopping in bulk using cloth bags or jars in lieu of the plastic baggies the stores provide.

Finish weeding the flower beds (they’re pretty bad…) and plant flowers and/or vegetables there.

Repair or replace sewing machine (it won’t turn on anymore :() and continue work on my “Sunbonnet Sue Through the Year” quilt.

Take the kids out for a walk at least once per day.

Lose 5 pounds (gotta start somewhere…)

That should do :). Do you have any goals for the month? Share them here! Accountability is a big motivator, and at the end of the month, we can chat about how we did.

Homeschool: Hand Art Illusion

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When I saw this idea, I knew it was the art project for us. Easy, creative, and used only supplies we already had on hand (namely plain paper and colored pencils). While the original used only circles for the concentric shapes, I let the kids use any shape they wanted.

Seahawk used rectangles:

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Munchkin used hearts:

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And I used circles and Small Fry’s hand:

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If you think it’s easy outlining an 8-month-old’s hands, think again, lol. But it wasn’t the hardest thing in the world, either.

The black outlines is one way we deviated from the original post on this art project, but I found ours were too muddy to tell what they were without them. So if you try this with your kids, feel free to leave them off if you want :).

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Homeschool: Human Body

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For our homeschool science right now, we’re working our way through the major organs in the human body. I found this site that has some pretty good information on each one, as well as games if you can access it from a computer (which I never can, so we just use the information).

I bought a roll of brown shipping paper from the Dollar Tree and traced each kid life-size. The first day, I just did that and had them draw their face in. Starting on Tuesday, we’ve been adding 3 organs a day. As of today, we’ve got the voice box, lungs, heart, liver, stomach, spleen, kidneys, gallbladder, and pancreas done. With each one, they draw in the organ and then I read the information to them. I quiz them as we go to make sure they’re retaining the information – at least a little. I’m sure we’ll have to go over the topic again during their school career, but we’re at least building a foundation here.

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Homeschool: State Study of Washington

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Inspired by Confessions of a Homeschooler, I’ve been working through the 50 states with my kids. First up, we did Hawaii. We had dinner with my brother and sister-in-law that week, and the kids looked at all of their pictures from the three times they’ve been. The next week was Alaska (I’m going basically west to east with a few variations when needed). There is a couple from our church who live in Alaska about half the year, so we picked their brains on what life is like up there. The thing that stuck with all 4 of us the most? The fact that there are virtually no roads; you have to fly to get from city to city.

Our third state was the wonderful state of Washington. We started the week, as we always do, by having the kids trace the outline of the state from our huge wall map. We don’t have a wall big enough to display it (there are 2 that would work in the school room except for the fact that one has the windows and the other was painted to be a chalkboard wall by the previous tenants – and I’m not complaining! That wall is pretty awesome!), so we keep it rolled up and bring it out once a week for this activity. Once the state is pencilled, the kids go over their lines in ink and then bring it to me, where I write in the basic facts that I want to teach them within the outline of the state. They’re basically the same from state to state (except for Hawaii, because that was our first one and I didn’t really have a plan yet when we did it): Nickname (The Evergreen State), Motto (Alki), Capital (Olympia), Largest City (Seattle), Area (71,300 sq mi), Population (6,897,012), Highest Point (Mount Rainier), Lowest Point (The Pacific Ocean), and its Admission to the Union (November 11, 1889). Additionally, we put in the location of the capital, largest city, and highest point. In Washington’s case, we also included Mount Saint Helens.

Here’s Seahawk’s map:

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And Munchkin’s:

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I still owe them a baking soda and vinegar volcano to represent Mount Saint Helens. That’ll happen probably next week :).

We also worked on our “Fifty Nifty United States” song. Only three states in and they can already sing the whole thing start to finish! Since they mastered that so quickly, we’re going to work on the Presidents song that Confessions recommends starting next week.

I also plan to make a printout of the “Lower 48” and laminate it for each kid, cut the states apart, and attach magnetic tape to the back of each one to have them use as a geography puzzle. I haven’t been able to make it to Staples yet to get that done, though…

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Homeschool: Newspaper Unit

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My hugest apologies for the long time with no posts! We moved in December and hubby decided to move his office out of the house. What that means for me is no computer or internet at home… I have access to the computer approximately once every other week (it’s not that strict, that’s just about what it ends up being on average).

Anyway… here’s a peek at what I’ve been up to. Enjoy :).

We recently studied newspapers with my boys. It was a pretty fun unit to have worked on, and I’m pleased to share our experience here with you!

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First thing each morning, we read a chapter of Henry and the Paper Route by Beverly Cleary. They kids had attempted a Beverly Cleary book on their own before, and while the writing was fine for them, they were put off by the length of the chapters. So having me read aloud to them helped them notice that even though the chapters are “24 pages!” (emphasis theirs) each, it’s really not so bad. Having done this now, they’re trying again to read their copy of Henry Huggins with much more success :).

We also did a lap book about newspapers. I don’t have ready access to a computer, so everything in the lap book was handmade by me. Except for the covers. I just had them cut a page from one of the local papers to about the right size and glue it to the cover.

Here are each of their covers:

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Inside, I included things not just about newspapers, but about paper in general. We learned about how a tree is made into paper:

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The life cycle of a newspaper from tree to recycle bin, different parts of a newspaper, the people in the newspaper office, and the importance of ads:

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On the final side of our lap book, we drew a comic. Because my husband draws comics, I had to specifically ban the kids from just copying his characters and ideas. Hubby thought that was absolutely hilarious! We also talked about the similarities and differences between newspapers and books.

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In addition, we made our paper – but from other paper, not from trees ;). I used this tutorial for that.

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This week, the kids are making their own newspapers. Because of that whole “no computer at home” dilemma, those will likely end up looking very similar to the lap books – handmade and rustic!

To top the whole thing off, we went in and got a private tour of the newspaper office in our town today. The publisher was incredibly generous with his time and showed us everything from a detailed going-over of the current issue to meeting the staff and showing us the computer program they use to lay out the paper.

Overall, a huge success!!

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