A little of what we've done this week...

I've done a horrible job of taking pics this week of school things, but here's some of what we've done...

We've read a lot of books this week about random subjects including a science book today about seasons - why we have nighttime/daytime (God made it & designed it), how the earth spins, orbits the sun, etc.

We've also watched a few neat videos for science this week including Bill Nye (garbage) and Popular Mechanics Roller Coasters and Extreme Sports.  I love taking advantage of our library resources!

For math this week, D began learning about liquid measures and did an estimating activity today with liters of water.  He told me he really likes doing "interactive" math.  His vocabulary makes me laugh sometimes!

He wrote his first story this week after drawing 3 pictures (what happened first, second & last) - it was all about Chain-Chomp (Mario Brother's character).  I was amazed at how well he spelled all the words in his story - he asked me to spell only a few.  I saw capital letters and periods where they needed to be and only a few errors.  Guess all the copywork (with all the grumbles the past year) has paid off?! :o)

He's been reading a TON and this week it's been several of  The Cul-de-sac Kids books by Beverly Lewis.  He's really enjoyed the short mysteries.  Again, I'm thankful for the library!

K had more fun with the dry-erase crayons.  Her drawing abilities are really improving!

She was able to read a story to a dog this week and was VERY excited about it!  The library had therapy dogs for the kids to read stories to and it motivated her to practice reading an easy reader book EVERY school day the past few weeks.  She read to a really cute dog that looked similar to my parent's dog.

She's 3 pages away from finishing up her Earlybird Math book.  She's been flying through the $ unit and earlier this week we had a "store" for her to practice counting change.  She enjoyed it and would do it every day for math if I set it up. :o)

The other day I found a Tangrams workbook that was tucked on a school shelf and pulled it out for D.  He LOVED it.  Solved the first 5 puzzles after he other school work was done earlier one day this week. :o)

We've also played a lot of games including Sum Swamp, Whiz Kidz and Sum It Up.  The kids are always begging for more games!  I LOVE it!

Cowboys & the Wild West

Life gets busy & my blogs get neglected...we've had fun reading a lot of books about Cowboys, Buffalo, Prairie dogs, Prairies & the Wild West. :)  The kids have enjoyed it.  They made these cute little cowboys/girls early last week...K even chose pink "yarn" to be her lasso and colored her cowgirl's boots pink, too! :o)

The re-discovered the dry erase CRAYONS and had fun drawing pictures last week...

 They drew a picture of the 3 of them in their treehouse.  Not sure why there's a PacMan & Red Ghost cloud in the sky though?!  :o)

We've played Telling Time Bingo, Monopoly Jr. and Up-Words as parts of our school the past week, too.

It's hard to believe this week marks the halfway point in our fall semester of co-op!  The kids really enjoy it (after C's initial 5 minutes of crying in the nursery) and are planning play dates with their friends.

D is finishing up telling time in his math book - he is ready for a new challenge!  K is just a few pages away from finishing her Earlybird math book.  She has been counting by 5's!

K has been reading an easy reader book over and over each day.  She's practicing it in order to read it to a therapy dog at the library next week.  It's motivated her to "read" (along with coloring in a slice of pizza toward her October Book-It Pizza Hut award).  We've shelved 100 Easy Lessons again and are working on recognizing/sounding out words in REAL books.  She really likes it.  :o)

D just finished reading The Marvelous Inventions of Albert Fernald last night. It was the perfect book for him because the boy invented/designed all sorts of gadgets and was caught up in a mystery.  I picked it up for 10 cents at a garage sale this summer thinking I'd read it to him at bedtime and he ended up reading most of it himself!  One night after tucking him in I said, "Isn't it fun to take a trip with a book?"  He agreed and then told me to leave his room so he could begin reading.  I LOVE it!

This & That

We finished up Grandfather's Journey today.  The kids completed their lapbooks - reviewed the location of Japan & California, drew various land forms from the book, made a 4 generations booklet with family member pics, and reviewed/colored pics of the Japanese culture.

For some extra "art" K has been enjoying making potholders (I did this when I was little, too)!  She's made 2 potholders in the last three days (having my help to tape the loops to the edges of the loom and chain the loops to finish the edge).  She loves weaving & putting colors together...such a little creative-craft-chick after my own heart!  She wants to start/finish the project in the same sitting, too!  ;o)

To the right is our crate of library books from our trip to the library this morning...we're studying cowboys, the wild west, buffalo, horses and more the next two weeks or so!  The kids are excited!

More Origami, Snap Circuits & Fractions

Today we read Grandfather's Journey again. D dislikes reading the book each day, but I try to point out something new to renew his interest. So today we talked about a simile used in the book and it worked!

We also read a book about things that come from Japan to our country (food, clothes, video games, etc). This really interested D when he found out Super Mario Bros. was originally made in Japan years ago!

The kids made BIG origami hats out of wrapping paper - the directions were in the book about what comes from Japan. It was an easy folding project they could do themselves!

Unrelated to our unit study...K discovered she could build her own circuit with D's Snap Circuits set.

D began studying fractions yesterday for math and BEGGED to do more pages. He completed 4 pages yesterday and 4 more pages today. He gets them all right and tells me he LOVES fractions!

Grandfather's Journey & Japan

This week, we're learning about topics from the book, Grandfather's Journey. The kids are learning about Japan, California, trains, origami and more!

On Monday, they watched a Netflix movie about origmi. It was intriguing and showed lots of amazing origimi creatures including a dragon that had 1000 scales and took HUNDREDS of hours to fold! They were excited to try it themselves...we finally did it today, not the 1000 scales on the dragon though!!!

They made fun origami animals today thanks to the instructions from a library book called Origami Zoo. They took turns picking what animal to make & thankfully chose the "very simple" or "simple" ones. We had enough trouble with the simple ones, though I may try an "advanced" one just for fun tonight after they're in bed. :o)

Frogs...

Butterflies...A mouse...eek!

We watched this video to learn a few words in Japanese. K loves kiwi and thought it was fun to hear the same word said in Japanese. We also watched a really goofy Japanese game show clip so the kids could hear a lot of Japanese being said at once.

We searched for Japan (and especially the city of Tokyo) on Google Earth. The kids enjoyed watching the globe turn and "fly" us across the Pacific Ocean to the islands of Japan. :) We were able to go to the street level in the city and they discovered Tokyo looks a lot like big cities in our country. We were able to move the mouse around and see the mountains in the country, too.

One Call Away by Brenda Warner (book review)

I was encouraged reading Brenda Warner’s book, One Call Away. She has been through so much in her life including an injured child, divorce, extreme poverty, sudden death of close loved ones and being thrown in the media spotlight with her husband’s successful career. While reading the book there were many times I thought I was reading an incredibly, well-written fiction book. It kept my attention and was hard to put down when I had to change a diaper or make dinner. I would think, how could all of these things happen to one person? As she tells her story, her emotions and thoughts are honest and real. Her book is inspiring to others because she did not give up, even when it felt as though everything around her was threatening to destroy her. Her faith in God is real and evident and He has given her the strength to move forward through each of the trials. It was exciting to read at the end of the book how she has used her success to be a blessing to others in the midst of their trials.

I was given this book from Book Sneeze. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Apples & Math

Here are pics of Wednesday through Friday of this week...they are in somewhat random order. (Blogger is not making it easy for me today. :o()

D was begging to play the dice math game Wednesday (roll the dice, multiply and color in the correct answer in squares on graph paper) so we did...We read How to Make an Apple Pie... once each day and complete more projects around the book. The kids learned where Sri Lanka, Jamaica and England are located. They also matched up the vocabulary words from the story with pictures. Today they'll be assembling their lapbooks.

K made this little subtraction book (words based off 1 page in the book) and carried it around all day Friday reading it to C. ;O) She also wore her "Johnny Appleseeding" shirt all day Friday.

We baked an apple pie on Friday. It was from an amazing recipe on allrecipes. Delicious!

The kids sliced the apples...

Helped roll out the pie crust...

Put the lattice on top...

And then ate it when it was out of the oven after lunch...MMmmmm!

K's apple math activity on Friday - using dot pens to make her own orchard coutning by 10s (1o apples in each tree - 5 trees total).

We went to a farm to pick apples on Thursday as we had beautiful fall weather! The kids met a few new animal friends...including an angora goat and pot-belly pig!

They were hard workers and helped pick an entire bushel of apples!