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 was originally made in Japan years ago!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!

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)