teddy bears & sugar sand

K is halfway through Unit 3 of LHFHG and loving it!  She begs to do school FIRST each morning!

I was talking to my husband the other evening, telling him that I am happy I began LHFHG now and not last August.  I've seen major improvements in her listening skills with the book, The Adventures of Reddy Fox, since we restarted HOD in mid-December.  I'm afraid if we began in August, it might not be such a good fit for her as it is now.  God knew!  :)

Last night at dinner, she shut off the dining room lights and showed us her star/flashlight science activity from yesterday (Unit 3/Day 2) and even told Daddy her Bible story about Abraham!  

She is doing subtraction in math (Singapore 1A) right now - she loves these little bear counters and so today she made up little bear stories to go with each of her subtraction problems.  This picture shows 8 bears in a family with 4 bears doing school upstairs while 4 bears play downstairs (sounds familiar to how we school in our home)! 

We have only a few bigger bears and so she uses them as the "Daddy" & "Mommy" in her stories. :)  It makes math fun and she really understands it!

D enjoyed his science experiment today (Bigger Unit 3/Day 3) figuring out what causes changes on the seashore.  Below he's blowing the sugar (sand) across the dish to show the effect of wind on the seashore.  He also discovered it tastes really good! ;o)

Now he's adding "rain" to the sand...

Finally, he added the "ocean" to the pan and made waves to see what happens to the shore.

 His notebooking page...(his guess was water & people affect the shore...only partially right)

One of his vocabulary cards from today was "explorer" - 

I love that he made a boat "Or" a horse for explorers we're reading about right now in history.   We also talked about explorers today who use deep-sea diving equipment/submarines for the oceans and rockets/space station in space.  I wanted him to realize we had explorers years ago but also today!

saltwater & pictures

We finished Unit 2 of Bigger and LHFHG on Tuesday and began Unit 3 in each guide today.   The kids are doing well.  

D is enjoying  his hymn study and has really loved singing "Holy, Holy, Holy" each day while I play along on  the piano.  We're singing verse 1-3 right now (added 1 verse per week) and it's great to see him excited about the hymns & know hymns!  I love reading the stories behind the songs.

D's science from Tuesday: learn the difference in density between freshwater & saltwater.  Both he and K already knew the egg would float in saltwater...thanks PBS!  ;o)

Mixing in the salt...

It floats!

K learned to fold pants & shirts, then packed her bag & is riding a camel in a silly way imitating people spreading out from Babel.

D's line drawing of a tree from the book on the right.  The drawing is really faint in the picture...sorry!

D's timeline pictures he added today for his biography we're reading (George Rogers Clark) - I love his cute little stick figures!

Check out the deer's tail?!  Ha!  We're definitely not a hunting family. :o)

teddy bear boat & disappearing art project

K's Bible story was Noah today so her science activity was to build a foil boat and load it full of counters until it sunk.  She decided to use teddy bear counters.  

 She got 25 in the boat.  

 When she added #26 the boat began to sink and soon all the bears were "swimming" in the ocean.  :)

 Her foil boat that held 25 bears - I was surprised it held that many!  Those bears are chunky!

To go with her Reddy Fox chapter today she had to write what she does that Reddy can't do (he was shot by Farmer Brown's boy).  After much thought & a bit of discussion, she decided to write "kneel."  I then drew Reddy for her to color.  She added a bandaid to his hurt leg.  Miss Creative had to COLOR the bandaid "striped" so it was a fun one for Reddy. :)

D's art project was a flop...I must have read something wrong.

He drew a fish on the back of wax paper trying to get the wax to come off on the white construction paper.  Then he wet the paper and painted 3 colors of water colors (I actually bought REAL water color paints as they are amazing compared to the Crayola ones.)  It was very disappointing to him that his fish showed up for a second and then disappeared.  (I should have just made him draw it with white crayon.)

He was supposed to press crumpled saran wrap over top the paint then remove it so it would appear "under water" but it didn't work as the paint dried too fast.

I asked if he wanted to do it over, but he didn't - it was too close to lunchtime. ;o)

The fish should be in the middle of the blue...

I loved the vibrant COLOR though!

It's all fun & games!

D had a bit of complaining this morning as we were sitting at the table doing his math.  He told me he wished school didn't take so long (obviously getting back to HOD activities & notebooking) takes him a little longer than the Sonlight/FIAR that we did earlier in the school year.  He finished up his math and cursive and then I had him use his new Nerf gun to review his memory verse.  His attitude changed immediately saying, "I LOVE SCHOOL!"  Ha!  :)

I had lined up the words of his verse (out of order) using stick-tack & tiny paper cups across the couch.

 He took his best aim to knock down the cups in the order of the verse...He had to keep saying the verse over & over again, especially when he wouldn't get the word knocked over in 5 discs (he had to reload his gun).  It was great review - only he didn't realize it! :)

 Almost done...two words left!

He enjoyed working on his vocabulary words today.  His dictionary skills are improving - we've been focusing on using the guide words at the top of the page to find exactly what page the word will be on...it tricks him a little but he's getting it!  (I do realize we could use dictionary dot com but I want him to know how to use a real dictionary!)

K LOVES LHFHG!  Today she created this art project (bright crayons on white paper, dark crayon on top and then toothpick etching of a heart).   She chose to put sunflowers in her heart.  I do believe that is what is in her heart - she's always cheerful & happy (except when tired). This went along with her Bible story today about Cain/Abel.  We focused on our heart condition as God looks at the heart just like He did with Cain/Abel.

We did D's science discovery/experiment after lunch today.  He used a clothespin, tweezers & pliers (bird beaks) to pick up popcorn kernals, raisins and cheerios (bird food - insects, small creatures etc) at the beach (oatmeal).

D's notebooking page that went with his science is in the pic below.  All on his own, he drew little circles above/beside each instrument (bird beak) to show the best way it was used.  His conclusion:  "My guess is good."  We will be working on writing better conclusions, but he was right.  He remembered a similar activity he did like this last year in Beyond.

Back in the swing of things...

After a long Christmas break, we were back at it today and without complaining (yeah!).  I'm so thankful we're back with HOD!!!

Both kids began Unit 2 in their guides...

K surprised me and really comprehended the Reddy Fox chapter we read today!  She even read Giggle Bunny without complaint and used her little "window bookmark*" to isolate the words so she could read them clearly.  (*I cut a small square out of half a sheet of pink paper.)

Her Bible story was about Adam & Eve (sin entering the world) and to go along with the story she did a listening activity where I'd make two noises and she's have to tell me "ssss" if the sounds were different or "Yes, Lord, I will obey" if the sounds were the same to demonstrate lies vs. truth.  She did well.  She then wanted me to listen and for her to make the noises. Of course, we did it.

D is enjoying listening about Christopher Columbus.   We talked about humility today as it goes along with his memory verse for the week.  He also enjoys his science - reading One Small Square Seashore.  His geography activity today was all about the equator.  He built a tiny Lego boat to sail around the world following my directions to go to certain countries and after visiting a country he would tell me what the weather would be like based on the country's location (near/far) from the equator.

At the end of the activity, he sailed along Columbus' route from Hispaniola (Haiti) to the Azores to Portugal and then to Spain.  He was so serious about it!  He eventually got a minifig to sit on the boat so if I told him to go to a country inland, he could have the minifig walk there.  Ha!

Christmas

We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas with family.  We almost finished all the Truth in the Tinsel ornaments - next year we will probably do it 3-4x a week instead of daily.  We did finish Jotham and D LOVED the ending!  Next year we'll read another book in the series...can't wait! :) 

I loved how by using Truth in the Tinsel & Jotham's Journey, our kids were focused daily on the Christmas story.  They really weren't all consumed with presents - in fact, on Christmas Day due to church, we didn't open gifts until almost 2 p.m.!  And the kids didn't drive everyone crazy asking about opening gifts...I'm sure much of it was due to the fact we didn't make Christmas about gifts but about THE GIFT - God's Son, Our SAVIOR!

Unit 1 Complete!

Both kiddos finished Unit 1 today (K-LHFHG and D-Bigger) and here are some pics of school the past 3 days along with a few pics of little C staying occupied.  :)

C pushing pompoms through the holes of an empty (clean) Parmesan cheese container.  (This is a new addition to our busy bag activities.)

Science Experiment answering "Why do some things float & other sink?"  (U1/D3)

 History activity from Bigger (U1/D4) - labeling a balloon with all the continents and major oceans...

K's science activity (U1/D4) - stepping on brown paper when I would say an animal name that lives on land...

 ...and stepping on blue paper when she heard an animal's name that lives in water.

 Updating her daily calender with Christmas stickers!

 Another activity to keep C occupied...

D's history notebooking (U1/D5) about Columbus' voyage.  He was really complaining at first, but then did a great job!