Life Schooling~

These are just a few of the highlights from the week.
We love these math stories and just happened to have marshmallows to go with it today~

It's funny how certain themes come around over and over but we are always learning new things.
This time in our study of rainbows, we learned the acrostic Rainbows Over You God's Blessed Vow~

 We sketched what we learned and made a rainbow with light and water.
Calla was really taking it all in~

The next day we learned all about Fish~

 Everyone chose a book with fish in it to sketch and we added silver scales like The Rainbow Fish~

Poetry Teatime is getting more and more fun now that the kids can choose and read their own selections~

In science we learned all about sea turtles, and we just happened to have some shells on our nature shelf to touch and observe~

 The kids all enjoyed a simulation of a sea turtle pulling herself onto the beach to lay her eggs~

We continue to enjoy our Around the World with Picture Books and continue to study China~

 which of course is our Most Favorite!!!

Today was Fun Friday and we celebrated Earth Day early with dirt cups, jokes,

 and painting earths~

 We all decided on a way we could each take care of the earth~

The Life Schooling journey is definitely a beautiful way to spend our days!!!

New Math Game~

With the beginning of a new year, I am reading all my favorite school books
and watching video series.
My favorites are by Carole Joy Seid and happened to watch the math and science one.
She said if there was ONE thing above everything else to buy it would be Pre Math-It and Math-It~

SO I immediately ordered Pre Math-It (even though EK&SJ are past this level)
and we began playing it today.
They loved it even though we were only matching numbers today.
This is one way the older ones help teach the younger ones while creating a team spirit within our family.

Want your kids to be friends and play together?
Pick a game and just sit it out on the coffee table and walk away.
They will come, they will play, and they will have fun!

(Except when they lose and then we have another character building moment!)

Good Strategy for Teaching New Games~

We have had this Sudoku game for a while and the big girls are pretty good at it~

so I decided I would pull it out and try it as a group game~

 Each one chose their favorite color and was in charge of placing it on the board~

 The big girls helped the littles learn many of the strategies and it was amazing to watch it happen~

I think by playing it as a group and supporting the thinking gives more chance of success.
Such a great brain building problem solving game!!!
{We LOVE the unifix cubes too!}

Corduroy~ {BFIAR}

Corduroy is continued this week and while I read

 the little girls cut out their own piggy banks~

 Next I let them punch circles for play money

and we made up a game~

Using a color die they rolled and put the corresponding color money into their bank.

Then we used a number die and counted the correct number of coins as well.

I'm pretty sure Evie punched about 100 coins and I'm not even kidding!!!

One of those activities that made the morning quite successful!

Summer Schedule~ {FIAR: The Bee Tree}

We have two college girls already home for the summer

and it just made sense that we would embrace a summer schedule as well.

Year round school works for our family and children because...

1. we thrive on a schedule

2. allows us time off whenever needed

3. learning never stops anyway!!!

Our summer schedule started this week with a three days (Tues, Wed, & Thurs) on

and two days for free choice learning (well four if you count the weekend).

I am learning I am a rabbit trail kind of homeschooler with a twist of Charlotte Mason and smidge of unschooling as well.

What all that means is I am very likely to take something happening in real life

and twist our learning all the way around it with lots of idea spinoffs...

Thus The Bee Tree!

This week we embraced all things honeybee as a spinoff from our field trip

to Blue Haven Bee Company last week~

It just made sense for us to learn as much about the amazing honeybee as possible

and to do that we read

The Bee Tree by Patricia Polaco~

 We loved reading about honey even in the Bible!

How sweet are Your words to my taste,

Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

Psalm 119:103

Two sources I gather ideas from is the FIAR manual and a website Homeschooling Share 

and both suggested we study Michigan since that is where the story takes place.

We did using this 50 States book and then compared to our state of Georgia~

 We LOVED learning the Honeybee is OUR state insect!!!

That called for a honey video, life cycle study, and honey snack of course~

 We finished this day of schooling out on our breezeway and ended up lunching out as well~

The next day we watched our story read via YouTube and also a piece about Polaco as well~

Loved using Google Earth to zoom in on some favorite places near us!

 Our lesson was All About Georgia (unit from my teaching days)

where we traced the outline, labeled famous sites, and discovered landforms~

Today we enjoyed a wonderful math lesson.

I found this hexagon sheet @ Homeschool Share along with color blocks.

I had them cut the hexagons out and glue into their journal~

 I made up a game where they rolled a dice and had to create a hexagon with that number of shapes.

If they had already used an amount, they rolled again until 1-6 was complete.

I was pleasantly surprised how fast they caught on and wanted to play over and over~

 I thought this might go right over the bitty girls' heads but Evie left the room

and came back with one of our Magformers and said, "I found another hexagon!"

Bam! Living her learning!!!~

 Once they had created with real pattern blocks, we used paper ones to glue down~

 The whole reason for this lesson is quite amazing...

God gave honeybees the knowledge to make their cells in the form of a hexaagon~

Isn't God SO amazing!!!!!

Thankful for honeybees and the yummy honey they make!

Week done and that's a wrap.

Mr. Popper's Penguins~

We continued reading Mr. Popper's Penguins today

and added a fiction and non fiction selection to the mix.

For our 'activity' they traced, cut, and created a little penguin for some math work~

 Evie was so cute tracing the right side of pattern with her right hand

then switching to her left hand when on the left

{and I didn't correct her because it worked for her}

and just look at Payne working with that cast~

 Then there is Holly that actually understood the directions to cut ON the lines

and glue all her parts correctly... SO excited for her!!!

We played a fish eating game by putting a few fish in the penguin tummy~

 Writing it on the dry erase board and showing me with their fingers,

they loved subtraction!

{baby for EK/SJ but they humored us!}

So fun!!!

Math U See~

EK moved up to Beta and SJ to Alpha SO

I put the younger 4 in Primer~

They really think they are big now!!!

LOVE their enthusiasm!!!

Telling Time~

I introduced counting minutes to SJ last Monday

and gave her a watch for practicing~

As of this weekend she is a time telling whiz...

hour and minutes.

Every time she gets the time correct she tells us we have to pay her a $.

I guess she's practicing time AND money. :)

Smart girl.

More Story of Ping~ {FIAR}

We missed a whole week of school due to sickness 

{although learning truly never stops}

but so far no one else has gone down! 

SO... this week we are continuing our row of The Story of Ping

and today we watched it on the computer~

The least fav subject for the big girls is math so I chose that as our focus for today.

Really want to show them math is fun!

We read the pages in the story with family information and discussed how we could 'show' the information.

Above you see a chart we made on our white board then pulled out math manipulatives...

First was unifix cubes that we placed on signs made with family members listed~

 Everyone worked on a number they could manage from bitties to boys to girls.

Once one to one was matched I had them snap so we could compare using lots of math vocabulary.

The cubes were an easy way to create a bar graph and talk about it.

Our next manipulative was links and followed same procedure...

matched to our sign then linked them to compare~

 Then our very favorite thing was using the balance scale.

I had EK&SJ place all their cubes on one side then each of the others added their's to other side...

lots of observations were made without my input at all~

Sometimes the best learning occurs when a foundation has been laid and free exploration is given~

Placed all the learning materials at their table today during rest

and look forward to watching/hearing what they discover!

Math might just be fun after all. :)

IT WORKED~

Roxaboxen and Math~

Today was math day.

I changed up the book choice and we read Roxaboxen since it was illustrated by Barbara Cooney.

The kids loved it~

I pulled out some flower stamps and let the big girls teach the little kids about AB patterning.

I also gave each one several turns playing Flower Match Garden Patch.

We are at a place with Math U See where addition facts must be memorized before moving farther.

Both girls have been playing lots of math games on their Ipads as well as Xtra Math on the macbook.

Their facts are getting better everyday!

Maybelle the Cable Car~

Monday was a great day of school and then the rest of the week happened... just a lot of appointments but today was a good day!

We LOVE Virgina Lee Burton books.

Perfect reads for the boys and just enough personification for the girls to really love them too!

On Tuesday we read The Little House and talked about cities, street signs, and set up a play area to role play.

Today I read Maybelle The Cable Car and I have to say it may be my very FAV of all

We plan to row this one next week too but today we focused on the theme of voting and ballots~

I introduced surveys to them...

I had each one grab their journal, think of a question they would like to ask, and then head off to collect their data.

PC, WP, and EC all chose Do you like orange/green/blue respectively Yes or No.

EK: Do you like black bears or brown bears?

SJ: Do you like unicorns or horses?

EK and SJ even texted several family members and waited through the day to compile their conclusions.

We talked most and least with the littles and a little more in depth with the older girls.

EK plans to transfer her data to a bar graph and I even want to show her how to make a pie graph using the computer.

SO many themes running through this book and look forward to another week to explore.

Owls & Math~

Mondays seem to be a catch up day for us after the weekend especially when we have a big one 

so this morning I let them play and I got our house back in order.

When the younger three went down for rest, the girls and I got busy with school.

Today EK read Owls by Gail Gibbons and decided on some of her favorite facts then she drew the Great Horned Owl~

with three important things to remember.

When we came to math today they needed a little pick me up so instead of working in our journals~

 we grabbed markers and wrote on the windows.

THAT is the way to make the boring FUN!

Funday Monday!!!

 

Singing and Learning~

The girls have been learning the Presidents through song and I stopped by School Box to get them a placemat with the photos.

They even sung their song for the ladies in the store :)

and this morning they were SO excited to sing so I videoed~

 The boys are pretty excited too now that they know all those words the girls are singing actually have pictures~

Both boys are learning their numbers as well as counting.

I wrote the numerals 1-4 on their fingers so they could see and touch the numbers all that day.

Payne especially LOVED that I wrote on his hand!

Watch them count~

 and you KNOW Evie had to be in on the action~

LOVE they enjoy school and learning so much!!!

Ping and Math~

After reading today we decided to find out just exactly how many family members were in Ping's family~

 We grabbed our bear counters and made some counting mats~

 As the younger ones counting onto the mats, EK began adding up the groups on the white board~

 We also used our base ten blocks to build the numbers too~

 We thought we had a big family until we counted Ping's!

Great Math Day!