How to Make an Apple Pie & See the World

Yesterday was our first day of co-op for the fall semester. The kids really enjoyed it. D is taking Legos, Jr. Acheievement (Communities) & Art. K is in the Kindergarten class that is always full of fun learning activities, games & snacks.

After co-op we came home and worked on the basics (reading, writing & math). :o) K copied her first two sentences today and a did a great job! She enjoys writing! I need to break a few pencils into little ones to help her grip improve. :o)

Today we began a new FIAR book study...How to Make an Apple Pie & See the World. The kids enjoyed it, even C sat on my lap and listened to the story about a little girl who goes all over the world in search of ingredients for her apple pie.

We concentrated our country study on Italy today (it is one of the countries the girl in the story visits and picks semolina wheat to grind into flour for the pie crust).

They looked at the shape of the country, reviewed/learned what a peninsula is, browsed a few pics of things in Italy (Leaning Tower of Pisa) and colored the flag for a mini-book in their lapbook for the week.

They both did other apple activities...D an apple type wordsearch (he loved it) and K colored baskets and filled them with apples then used the dot markers to "paint" the apples red/green.

Drew began a science experiment today...He boiled water to mix with salt and pour into a dish.

He is going to watch the dish each day and see how many days it takes the water to evaporate. (Obviously if we sat it outside in the sun it would take only hours...but we may have our friendly squirrel drinking it up!)

It was a fun morning! :o)

Miss Rumphius

Last week the book we needed for our FIAR studies was MIA at our library...so we just read lots of other books we have at home and learned about various other things...including Airplanes (D). We also took a few field trips including the allergy doc, the dentist and an awesome splash/play park. :o)

Today we began studying subjects from the book, Miss Rumphius. The kids enjoyed it, especially D! We sat cuddled on the couch reading Miss R, plus A Seed is Sleepy and How a Seed Grows.

The books about seeds told us how "smart" the seeds are since they include a coat, the seed leaves and can lay dormant for years and then grow. I asked them, "Who made the seeds smart?" They knew the answer...Our Amazing Creator...God!

We also talked about what a lupine is as that is the seed that Miss Rumphius plants in her town. D looked up what a "bushel" is in the dictionary since the book we read said Miss R ordered 5 bushels of seeds to plant. Hopefully, he will see a BUSHEL of apples soon!

K displaying photosynthesis...she's a plant with leaves (hands) getting sun, carbon dioxide and water from her roots (feet). Silly, but it helped her remember!



D displaying his pic of photosynthesis. He told me, "I remember this from last year, Mom!" Hooray!
C wants to be right up at the table with D&K...she colored with markers today. She gave herself half a blue mustache...ha! D is being kind and drawing a pic for her to color. :o)

They are working hard with their math. D is still studying $. K is learning/ordering the days of the week.

K does not like her reading book (again)...so I'm figuring something out. She does a great job with words she knows. She knows all the sounds...just doesn't want to do actually read. For now she's doing phonics worksheets reviewing letter sounds...I'm thinking I may just teach her to read using REAL books. Imagine that! Ha!

Her handwriting is awesome! She's writing 2-3 letter words after learning a new lowercase letter and she is NEAT!

D is wishing he could rush his cursive...he'd love to know it all write now and write everything in cursive as it's much neater/cleaner than his printing. He's such a boy! :o)

Madeline Finished

LAST Monday we finished up Madeline and below are the pics of some final projects. I've been blog-absent the past week. :o)

K made this cute little Madeline out of a TP roll and a printable from DTLK's site.


K's lapbook cover...



K's lapbook inside...she learned about symmetry, the body, manners, France and sizes.

D's lapbook cover...

D's lapbook inside...France Facts, Rhyming words, Buildings in Paris, symmetry, manners, Flag and the body... We were at a friend's house yesterday playing and he drew the Eiffel Tower and the flag of France. Wow! He remembered it a week later! ;o) I love when they play/pretend about subjects we've learned about...they are truly learning!!!

More Madeline, Math & ABCs

We've been continuing with Madeline - though D doesn't want to read the story each day, he wants to hear the other Madeline books. Ha!

They watched the movie (with real people) yesterday that incorporated the original story plus a lot of the sequel stories we've been reading. (Madeline & Bad Hat, Madeline's Rescue, etc.) We also read Madeline Says Merci today. It was a book about manners and we stopped and talked about each part. The kid's are learning a few French words this week...including "si vous plait" and "merci" (please & thank you).

K continues to call the Eiffel tower the "Rifle Tower" - makes me laugh and D always corrects her every time they see it in one of the Madeline books.

D studied a map of France today and learned how to read the topography map of France...he found it fascinating. He also learned a bit about Paris, the Euro and what the weather is like in France.

I've been making a few new file folder math games for K to help her with addition. This game came from File Folder Fun's website. She will finish up Singapore Early Bird math in a few weeks and I need some things to keep her busy before moving into 1A. (I'm not sure she'll be ready for it this year or not...)
D began a math unit on money on Tuesday. Today, we pulled out a fun game (found at a thrift shop Sunday :o) called Cool Cash Bingo. He loved it and I love that it's a fun way to count a lot of $ including half-dollars!

K finished learning to write all her uppercase letters Monday and reviewed all of them on Tuesday...

She loves to write and I'm happy with the HWT book! Should have used it for D's printing two years ago! Oh well, I'm learning...

Madeline

Our Five in a Row book this week is Madeline. We've read it before just for fun, but haven't used it in a unit study. D&K enjoyed listening to it today. In the story, Madeline needs her appendix out. When the story was over, both D&K asked if they need to have theirs out. I assured them they are fine, if they weren't they would have really bad pains in their sides. Hopefully, they won't be like this every time we read the story this week. :oS

We discussed how the girls in the book are orderly...their lines to go places/do things and their schedule. We realized order is good and was created by God. D looked up a few verses in the Psalms that deals with God ordering the steps of man and talked about ways we can do what God wants us to do...so our lives our orderly. (Obey God, those in authority over us, read our Bible & learn more about Jesus, etc)

K enjoyed the pictures...The story takes place in France and so the kids found France on the globe and stuck Madeline to it! They also colored the flag of France and colored France in Europe for little mini books to go in their Madeline lapbooks.

The best activity of the day was building the Eiffel Tower out of vanilla wafers & icing!

I would have thought D, being the Lego-Zoob-Tinkertoy-Skyrail builder that he is, would have had the most solid structure...not so, he was more interested in licking the icing off his fingers.

D's tower is in trouble!!! (It fell just seconds after I took this pic!) :o(

The kids colored their own little France flags for the top of their towers (toothpicks & a blank address label folded over). K was so proud of her work!

She really enjoyed eating the top of the tower as a special treat BEFORE lunch today!

Here are all the Madeline books from our bookshelves & the library...I even checked out the DVD of the Madeline movie to watch one day.
I'm finding that our FIAR activites take about 45 minutes. The kids do their independent work (math, LA, HWT, etc) on either side of the time and so far, 5 days into the school year, it's working well. C is getting her fill of preschool shows on Netflix, DVDS or PBS during that time...not ideal, but it works right now. I'm hoping she'll do more indpendent activities (busy bags) as the year goes on and she gets a little older. :o)

1st week!

We made it through our first week of the school year!

We all enjoyed learning about ducks, boats, China and water safety this week through books, DVDs and online videos.

Today, the kids watched a Danger Rangers water safety video and filled out a little book to go in their lapbooks. They drew pics for each "rule."

K's pic for the rule...don't swim alone.


K's pic for...check the water depth before entering the pool. (Notice 1 pool is 10 and the little pool is 1.)


D's pic for...always wear a lifejacket in a boat.



D's pic for...walk don't run near the pool. (Black lines around person are to show motion.)


Kids completed their lapbooks for The Story of Ping. (Printables from homeschool share's website...except the cover. Cover is my freehand in a thin black sharpie the kids could color.)

D's cover...


D's inside...


K's cover...her coloring skills have really improved!!!



K's inside...


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Float or Sink?

We had a fun second day of school getting started a little later this morning after a bike/walk in a nearby park.

We read The Story of Ping again and the kids completed a science activity...




They had to predict which items would float/sink and then figure out if they were right. K surprised me and predicted more right than D!

They also colored Ping's family (a line in the book repeats... two sisters, three brothers, eleven aunts, forty-two cousins etc.). Coloring helped them visualize that there were more than just a few ducks!


They illustrated a poem and practiced drawing "water" using similar lines the illustrator uses. D's is top left above in pic and K's is lower right (she colored a duck outline I drew for her).

K picked back up with 100EZ Lessons. She did a quick review of 1-19 today. She was on 50 when we stopped it last year.

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