The Learning Nook

READ ALOUD: 10 minutes

Used the Globe to locate countries we "visited" in Epcot on our last visit. Sydney went through her passport to check the ones we visited. Using the MUSIC setting, we listened to music from each of the countries. Also used the globe to learn about the 7 continents. Discussed Pangea.

Singapore Math 1B - workbook ex. 28 & 29

Drilled some addition flashcards (oh yeah - that went over well! NOT!)

FINALLY finished counting the blasted orzo's. Sydney counted the groups of thousands, hundreds, tens and ones and determined we have 5,618 orzo's in the jar. Thank god THAT is over!

Analogies for Beginners - 2 pages

Reviewed spelling words. Practiced writing them.

Dr. DooRiddles - 2 pages

Thnking Skills - 2 pages (used a map to answer questions)

Time4Learning - Completed Phonics s, es. Tested out of 13 math sections! I gave her the option of taking the chapter test for the Operations section and she only missed one! She gets to skip 13 sections and is thrilled!

Swimming

Read the rest of Saturday, March 31, 2007

We went swimming after PE today. We were all hot and sweaty and the pool was calling us. On the way out the backdoor, the Weather Channel had a snippet on about somewhere in Wyoming. It was a LIVE shot of someone shoveling out of a couple feet of snow.

Reason #4,532

Why I Love Where I Live....

Swimming in March!

Read the rest of We went swimming today…

5 Minutes for Mom is giving away a free Dyson vacuum!

Read the rest of I love contests!

READ ALOUD: 20 minutes

Analogies for Beginners - 2 pages

Subtraction Tic-Tac-Toe Game

Alpha-Sorting game (had to sort "ingredients" into bowls by the first letter in the word).

Finished her planning clover for 4H

Reviewed Spelling words for the week. Traced them.

Completed 5 math word problems based on current Singapore lessons.

Mindbenders - 1 page (we have finished this book! WooHoo!)

PE Class - continued with basketball. Playtime at park afterward.

Helped count orzo's for our estimation game. We're up to 4,000 and still counting. UGH!

Swimming

Performed another magic show for Mom & Dad.

Time4Learning - Language Arts and Math (I sat with her for Math and she just quizzed thru some lower level stuff).

Watched some psuedo-educational TV: How It's Made (steel, apple juice & cosmetics), Beakman's World, and Meerkat Manor

Read the rest of Friday, March 30, 2007

READ ALOUD: 20 minutes; 20 minutes

Field trip to Magic Shop.  After we got home, Sydney spent the afternoon perfecting her tricks and performing a magic show for me.  Dad was treated to the whole performance upon arriving home.

Mathblaster CD

Jumpstart Explorer CD

Finished writing letter to Fort Wilderness manager.

Singapore Math 1B, workbook ex. 26 & 27

Read and reviewed this week's spelling words.  Discussed "silent e."

Thinking Skills - 2 pages

History Pockets- Life in Plymouth Colony ~ started the "Working in Plymouth Colony" section.  Defined apprentice, craft, and barter.

Time4Learning - Math  & Language Arts

Read the rest of Wednesday, March 28 & Thursday, March 29, 2007

Truthfully, they never really left, but we don't see them as often during our "winter." Guess they were busy.

These guys are always hanging around our backyard. We had to stop hanging birdseed (they have QUITE the appetite). The cranes are one of those things that give me pause, and remind me to appreciate where I live.

In case anyone is interested, they are Sand Hill Cranes.

Read the rest of The crane’s are back!

READ ALOUD: 15 minutes

Analogies for Beginners - 2 pages

Mind Benders - 2 pages

Write For Real - Began letter to Fort Wilderness. Composed letter and started copying it in her own handwriting.

Antonyms worksheet

4H Meeting - used the solar oven she made to make s'mores.

The s'mores are ready to start baking!

The anticipation is killin' them!

THIS was worth the wait!

Our fearless leader enjoying a s'more! (You're going to yank that camera out of my hand next time, aren't you?!)

Read the rest of Tuesday, March 27, 2007

READ ALOUD: 30 minutes; 30 minutes

Logic Safari - 1 page

Thinking Skills - 2 pages

Completed 2 math worksheets from T4L - one on odd/even and one on skip counting.

Singapore Math 1B - text pg. 38 & 39; workbook ex. 25

Watch Professor Toto Spanish DVD

T4L - Language Arts (completed 1 phonics section)

Watched A Little Princess movie and compared it to the book we recently finished.

Read the rest of Monday, March 29, 2007

READ ALOUD: 10 minutes
INDEPENDENT READING: 20 minutes

Girl Scouts

Primary Analogies - 2 pages

Think-A-Minutes - 1 page

Worked with Regrouping Mat - 6 problems and had to write them out after discovering the answer

Completed 3 worksheets from Time4Learning - reviewed place value, greater than/less than, and -ed & -ing suffixes

Worked together to write 2 Mad Libs from her new Happy Feet Mad Libs book.

Played Totally Tut - reviewed basic addition & subtraction

Continued her reading of Bridge to Terabithia

Time4Learning - reviewed and completed another phonics section (trying to backtrack and learn spelling rules)

Gymnastics Class

Received her new Explorer Globe and we had a BLAST listening to music from around the world.  Didn't have time for much more, but she seems very excited about it.

Read the rest of Thursday, March 22, 2007

READ ALOUD: 40 minutes; 40 minutes

Time4Learning - 2 math sections and the infernal Language Arts

Went to see Step Afrika! at the King Center.  AWESOME show!  All the kids loved it and were practicing their "steps" afterwards.

J came over to play for a bit before 4H

4H meeting - made a solar oven (we'll actually cook something in it next week)

Drama class

Playtime with B & G at their house

Read the rest of Tuesday March 20 ~ Wednesday March 21, 2007

READ ALOUD: 3 hours (my jaw hurts!)

Art Co-op - hosted at our house. Made dreamcatchers and read The Legend of the Dreamcatcher.

Time4Learning - 2 Math sections

Finished reading A Little Princess. Used literature balls for discussion (main idea, setting, favorite part, words learned, etc.)

Read the rest of Monday, March 19, 2007

     Are you one of those perfect homeschoolers with immaculate houses?  I'm not.  The house has an inch layer of dust, the dust mites have formed complete cities in the carpet due to lack of vacuuming, and I actually went out and bought everyone in the house more underwear just so I wouldn't have to do laundry as often.

The education part has been rather bumpy lately too.  We took off a month around the holidays and never fully recovered.  My daughter is beginning to resist most efforts to sit down and learn, and the arguments have been escalating.  Oh yes, the threat of public school has been bandied about more than once.   Of course, she'd rather have someone else as a teacher at this point, right?  Who needs a raving lunatic whose temper flares and patience is rather thin?

Sometimes you just get this Aha moment.  Sometimes...just sometimes...you are reminded of why you homeschool and reaffirm in your heart that this journey your family is taking is the right one for you.

Today I was looking through one of my daughters Disney Fairies books.  It is part book/part journal.  (Calm down - she gave me permission.)  One section was on Schools.  Usually she won't even look at this type of thing and just skips over it.  But, surprisingly, she answered a question.  Just one question on the whole 4 pages.

"Who would you want for a teacher?"

The answer?  "Mom"

Wow.

Read the rest of Who would YOU want for a teacher?

READ ALOUD: 2 hours
INDEPENDENT READING: 25 minutes

Singapore Math 1B, workbook ex. 23 & 24

Wrote & reviewed addition math facts for the number 10

Worked with Regrouping Mat to review single digit addition

Spelling test of this weeks words

Homophones worksheet

Used Kumon Lowercase Letters workbook to work on fixing her "s." Practiced on additional paper afterwards.

Dr. DooRiddles - 2 pages

Primary Analogies - 2 pages

Continued our read aloud - A Little Princess. Discussed plot, character, conjectured what would happen next.

Independently read more from Bridge to Terabithia. Discussed character and setting.

Spent (way too many) hours on Time4Learning. She has fallen in LOVE with the Language Arts section and (of course) hates the math section. Also resistant to the quizzes. Go figure. My little rebel.

Has created 3 short stories during her T4L work. She took the 3 print-outs and made a folder, in which she is going to place her many great works (her words, not mine).

Read the rest of Saturday, March 17, 2007

READ ALOUD: 15 minutes

Helped engineer & design the dreamcatchers we will be making with our Art Co-op next week.  Syd had some great ideas on materials!

Singapore Math 1B ~ textbook pg. 36 & 37, workbook ex. 21 & 22 (I almost cried - there was NO arguing and a WONDERFUL attitude! )

Reviewed spelling words and practiced writing them.

Drama class

Read the rest of Wednesday, March 14, 2007

READ ALOUD: 20 minutes
INDEPENDENT READING: 20 minutes

Played the Subtraction Game

MindBenders, 2 pages

Analogies for Beginners, 2 pages

Read & reviewed spelling words for the week. Practiced writing them.

Completed Antonyms worksheet

4H meeting

Continued reading of Bridge to Terabithia

Read the rest of Tuesday, March 13, 2007

READ ALOUD: 1 hour
INDEPENDENT READING: 20 minutes

Reviewed The Estimation Game and counted the Skippers (M&M's) to see who was closest in their guess. It was Dad. We refilled the jar with orzo pasta. This will make for some intersting counting.

Introduced the weather chart. Discussed keeping track of the daily weather by date, and graphing the monthly results. Sydney is resonsible each morning to note the weather and add to the chart.

Long discussion on stranger safety. Talked about some recent abductions in the news, talked about Elizabeth Smart. The idea was to instill in her the understanding that no matter what she is told, she is ALWAYS wanted at home and not to believe anyone who tells her otherwise (or that they will hurt her family). Fortunately, she seemed no worse for wear following this conversation.

Read aloud The Little Princess by Frances Hodgsen Burnett

Watched The Secret Garden (book also by same author - discussed similarity in style).

Read the rest of Monday, March 12, 2007

Seems like all of last week was spent in preparation for Girl Scout Camporee.  We had a WONDERFUL time and enjoyed ourselves immensely.  I'll post some pics an commentary soon.  Really. 

Read the rest of Last week

INDEPENDENT READING: 20 minutes

4H meeting - did a solar heating experiment and a Boomerang story (that's what we call it - it is a story that one person starts and then the next person adds to it, and then the next, and so on).

Helped shop for fabric for Girl Scouts.  Helped to determine amount of fabric needed, cost, etc.

After purchasing her own fabric, she started laying out patterns for making some clothes for a doll.

Syd started reading Bridge to Terabithia.  I bought it for her, intending it as a read aloud, but she found it and read 2 chapters in the middle of the night.  She continued it today (on the way to 4H and while waiting for others to get there).

Read the rest of Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Visited Great Grandma Morgan and Great Aunts Anne & Marie.  THIS is the reason we homeschool!  Sydney got to talk to them about the Depression and how they managed, how it affected them forever, etc.  Talk about her Great Grandfathers work in a Navy shipyard and mess kits, and canteens, and deployments, and rations, and, and, and.....  It was so interesting to sit back and watch a 94 year old and these 70 year olds discuss with a 6 year old what she is learning as history and they lived through as reality.

Before we stopped at the house, we visited a park near Great Grandma.  A small school group stopped there.  Sydney asked to join their play and she was accepted.  Then one of them (about Syd's age) suddenly decided she had enough of Syd and left the game...taking with her the only other girl.  Sydney tried feverishly to get them to play again, but, well... you know how kids can be.  It was heartbreaking to watch.  When we left, I had to explain to her what was going on.  Somehow I need to help her "read" people and know when not to bother with them.

Read the rest of Monday, March 5, 2007

READ ALOUD: 2 hours

Syd played on her playset while I finished reading The Wizard of Oz to her. Then she drew a map of Oz and had the land of the Winkies, Quadlings, and Munchkins in all the right places, with all the right colors. (Read the book - the movie is the watered-down version).

Played Scrabble with Mom & Dad

Finished her gameboard for her 4H project. She was SO thrilled with herself! She designed, created, and wired the whole thing (I only wired the battery part). I just hope that it is acceptable to the 4H crew. They were supposed to create a matching type board to educate on a certain subject. Our example was pictures of snakes and then matching the snake names. My darling daughter did clothes (it was on the list of acceptable subjects - I swear!). You have to match the outfit to the place it should be worn. She said it was educational because "little babies might not know they shouldn't wear a bathing suit in a ballroom." Hmmm......

Earlier in the week she did her usual Girl Scouts, gymnastics, & PE class. We skipped a few other activities to go to Disney for our final mother/daughter trip. Our passes expire this weekend. Today actually. Oh...in an hour and a half.  Sniff, sniff.

Read the rest of Sunday, March 4, 2007