Storms & Pumpkins

We had an impromptu lesson about severe weather & safety today as the big fall storm came through around 12:30 p.m. D was glued to the weather channel - I'm sure he learned more than he wanted about the low pressure, wind speeds & tornado activity. I'm so thankful for our basement, as we hung out there for about 45 minutes until the tornado warning was lifted. We also talked about God's power - no matter what rages around us (strong winds today) God is more powerful! He is truly amazing!

Today we also learned about pumpkins by reading through the book From Seed to Pumpkin. I love these books, we have a few of them for other topics and our library has a big selection, too. D&K then colored, cut out and put together their own pumpkin life-cycle from HERE.

K is doing a great job coloring INSIDE the lines! She doesn't prefer to color large things and will often as me to help color an area that is BIG. She does great on her own with the detailed images!

K had fun carving her own pumpkin HERE. It's obviously less messy. I'm planning to carve pumpkins with the kids later this week, but D keeps telling me he doesn't want the mess. We'll see...

D compared pumpkins & apples using a Venn Diagram. He quickly learned how to fill it in (same characteristics in the middle overlapping circles and differences in each circle on the side). He also discovered that it is best to do it it in pencil (as mommy suggested) next time so he doesn't have to cross things out every time he makes a mistake. :o)

After these activities, we read two more books In Search of the Perfect Pumpkin (with neat facts about pumpkins on each page) and The Biggest Pumpkin Ever (a cute story about two mice who love the same pumpkin and share it at the end). I've planned the rest of the week to do more with pumpkins, harvest & Halloween.

It's been awhile since I've blogged about the kids math & reading...

K is loving her Earlybird math pages and begs to do "just one more" page each day. Today she had to color the longest/biggest items yellow and the shortest/smallest items red. She also was able to do some measuring using Lego bricks & paperclips.

She's moving right along in 100 Easy Lessons, too. She learned the word "I" today. :o)

D is finishing up Singapore 1B...learning about money! He's doing well and excited to get into "2nd grade" math next week. ;o)

D reads everything, but especially enjoys non-fiction books right now. I have a quite a few from the library for the animals class I'm teaching at co-op on Mondays. He has read through a number of these books already - he could teach the class! I'm also trying to get out a few each week to go with our theme - he will often re-read what we've read earlier in the day. He reads at night with his book light usually after the girls go to bed. He loves the extra time he has to "stay up" and I'm glad he's reading!