The quiet way home (BFIAR)

 Alex is 3.5 years old

We did a row on this book a few weeks ago, The quiet way home by Bonny Becker.  It is a fun book about enjoying a walk home going the quiet way, not the loud way.  So we focused on the letter Q and the word quiet (and some other Q words like quilt, and Quetzal which you'll see below).

I checked out the book from the library because this one is hard to find to buy.  I was glad that one of the library systems had it, but the other didn't.

 Later in the week I discovered through another blog that this story was available as an app for the ipad, so we got that and he had a great time listening to it on the ipad too.


This is a bird called the Quetzal.  I found this printable craft at Learn Create Love, and fell in love with this little bird that I didn't even know about that started with a Q!  While Alex didn't go crazy over it, he still had some fun painting it.

Quetzal bird craft

I found a great idea from another blog (not sure which one, I can't find it now) to make a gel pack with the word quiet in it.  This was a big hit.  He loved this thing.  We talked a lot about the word quiet.

He loved that thing so much that it only lasted a day.  Need to find a better way to seal it, but it was a great idea.

He did this Q is for quiet page for about 2 minutes.  It was a good try.

I set up a letter Q basket with all the letter Qq's we had.  He always enjoys seeing a lot of the same letter.  Then he points out every q he sees after that.

 We did this q dropper activity from Totally Tots.  Squeezing the dropper was frustrating for him, so this didn't last long.

 We focused a little on ears and other body parts/senses since part of the story is about hearing/listening.  I had this body puzzle that I pulled out, he liked doing that a few times but still needed help each time.

Some other books we read...

 Too much noise (to go with the quiet theme)

The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle.  We focused a little on crickets.  I pointed out a cricket sound outside, and we watched a video about cricket sounds.  We perfected our cricket chirp, and now he tells everybody what a cricket sounds like.  We also did this craft, with an outline of the very quiet cricket and tissue paper.

This was a fun row, and book.  I think it's not a very easy book to come up with activities for, but I was happy with what we found and came up with. 

Linking this up with Delightful Learnings FIAR link-up.

Desiree

Book and Art: Charlie goes to school

We did a fun book and art project recently, and the book is just so cute!  I found out that "pioneer woman" aka Ree Drummond has made some picture books featuring Charlie the ranch dog.  I hadn't read any of them, but really wanted to see what they were like.  Well, fast forward to just a few weeks ago when I was looking on scholastic book orders and they had it for only $4.  I decided to go ahead and get it because I knew it was about homeschooling, and I knew my kids would love a book about a dog going to school at home.  I knew I wanted to add it to our collection.


This book did not disappoint!  My kids have loved it, and we bought the CD bundle so they have listened to it over and over again.  Since we did this craft we also found a few more copies of Charlie at the library.  I spotted Charlie the Ranch Dog, and Charlie and the Christmas Kitty, so we brought those home to enjoy too.  So, it has been a week of reading all about Charlie!  All the stories are fun and have some great pictures of loveable animals.

For a craft to go along with this book I thought it would be fun to re-create Charlie.  I found these great printable stand-up hound dog puppets to paint at Danielle's place.  They fit perfectly with our story, but you do have to have a subscription to use the printable.  A great place to have a subscription though!

We started out by painting with brown, black, and white paint.

I had the book open to a page so the boys could see Charlie's coloring.

They turned out pretty cute, but I had to redraw the eyes and face details with a sharpie because everything was painted over.

Alex's (age 3) dog.

Aric's (age 6) doggy.

Mommy's doggy.  I couldn't resist doing one too!

We just loved this book, and I'm looking forward to reading the whole collection. 

Desiree

My homeschool mother's journal: week 5

Life this week...

Another busy week has come and gone!  We had a good week, but it had its moments.  There was a lot of dragging feet, and they weren't mine necessarily.  Although, today (Friday), my feet seem to be dragging quite a bit.  I'm tired.  I've been feeling it all week.  It probably didn't help that I had 2 late nights, and 1 interrupted night of sleeping because certain boys thought it would be okay to get up and play minecraft in the middle of the night.  Oooh, that game.  That game has become quite a nuisance as well.  The boys are obsessed with it, so now it is a Saturday only game.  They have also lost it for this Saturday because of their little middle of the night fling.  Hoping to catch up on sleep this weekend!

In our homeschool...

On Monday morning we started out with both April practicing her violin, and Aaron practicing the piano.  It was loud, but not bothersome.  It made my heart happy to hear them developing such great talents.  April doesn't usually practice out in the main part of the house, but she decided to this week, and she decided she likes it.  I also like starting out each day with them practicing, that worked really well for us this week.  Aaron didn't practice on Friday morning, and sure enough the day got away, and he didn't get his practicing in.  I think doing it first thing in the morning really helps!

For science the boys finished the first chapter of Swimming creatures this week!  They really enjoyed it, and remembered a lot of facts in the review today.

They made these ocean zones flip books.  The books turned out pretty good, but the boys kind of petered off at the end and were tired of making them so not a lot of information got put inside them.  I ended up having them just draw something found in each zone because for some reason writing things is like pulling teeth around here.  We are working on that.

The inside of the midnight zone flap of Aaron's book...

They also finally got to making their "ocean boxes."  They were pretty excited to finally get to this part, and covered their own box in blue ocean colored wrapping paper.  Looking forward to seeing them add sea/water creatures to these as we study throughout the year.

This is all their project so it isn't necessarily going to be perfect, but that's okay!  It was tricky getting all that paper on there, and they used lots of tape!

It was fun to see them so excited about this project.  They were also talking about all the creatures they want to add.

We had some Fall fun this week.  Alex did plenty of these kinds of sheets, and read some fall books.  We also started Autumn treasures download and go unit with the boys.  Lots of Autumn fun coming up in school!

April finished her book report.  She did a "pinterest" style book report on The Giver.  It turned out pretty neat.  Some pictures she put more detail into than others.  I think she was in a hurry at the end there :-)

For history we finished chapter 26 in SOTW.  Yay!  It was about the ancient America's, Nazca drawings (which I didn't know about!), and the Olmec people.  So one of the projects we did with this was to create a bean and seed mosaic out of beans and seeds that are grown mainly in the Americas.  It was a neat project.

I made a sunflower.  Although I didn't have any green for the leaves.  I was thinking split peas would have been perfect, but I didn't have any of those.

Aaron did his mosaic on an outline of the Americas.  He wasn't too into this project so he basically sprinkled some glue and then put his seeds down, and done!  Sometimes this boy is just a "do what I have to do" kind of boy, and that's it.

April was creative and did a nazca drawing for her mosaic.  I think this is supposed to be the monkey.

Art.  For art we have been just doing whatever as I haven't had a "curriculum" or plan for it yet. So, this weeks art includes Aaron making a weaving out of construction paper.  He chose this out of a paper crafts book that he picked up at the library.  He loved doing that.

For a more formal art lesson I did this with the boys.  We painted apples, and explored mixing colors, although the 2 youngers didn't quite get it.  They thought that since there were 3 colors on the plate (red, yellow, blue) that they should paint each apple that color.  Oh well!  It's art.  I'm just glad Aaron got it.  He made a yellow apple, orange apple, and a red apple, and he got his stems green using the 3 primary colors.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

Last Saturday Aaron and April got to go to the Shrewsbury Renaissance faire with Daddy.  They got to spend the day there with Grandma and Grandpa (who have a booth there), and April even stayed the night so she could enjoy the faire the next day too.  I was bummed that I couldn't go this year.  I still was not feeling all the way better, so I stayed home with the 2 little boys who also had their soccer thing.

Here they are all dressed up...

Aaron apparently did really well at this catapult game and won his necklace, I think that's the right game that he was telling me about.

Our homeschool group meets on Friday's, and today it was at the library.  We had a great lesson on public speaking, and then a show and tell for their first time getting up and trying it out.
Three of my 4 did something!  Here is Aaron sharing his necklace that he won at the Renaissance faire.  They all picked fun things to share.

Alex was the only one who had a hard time getting up there, and actually talking.  He tried twice!  He really wanted to, but just couldn't bring himself to say "my name is Alex, and this is my yellow ball." That's okay, I'm really proud of him for trying, and sitting and listening so well.  He enjoyed that.

Here he is enjoying playing with his friends afterwards...

All of the kids waiting for the class to begin.  All the kids did so well in presenting their show and tell, and being a good audience.

Our first fall fun activity was picking apples this week!  I will share more on that in a separate post, but just wanted to include it in the places we've gone this week.

He just loved pulling the wagon.  Almost too much, so we ended up with 2 wagons because he wouldn't give it up.

I think that about wraps up our week!  We had a busy, fun filled week of learning, and I'm so grateful for it, and for the freedom to homeschool.

Desiree

I am linking this up to:
My week in review at Home to 4 kiddos
Weekly wrap-up at Weird unsocialized homeschoolers

Our week... (#4)

Life this week...

Last weekend a good friend gave us this family fun pass that they couldn't use before it expired. She thought I'd like to take the kids on some field trips. I did! The only problem was that it expired in exactly 7 days. One week. I had hopes that we would get to a lot of the places, but it turns out that we only made it to 1 with this card.  We ended up sick, and tired for most of the week.  I am glad that we were at least able to make it to the one place that the kids had been begging to go to for the whole summer, Portland Children's Museum, on Monday.  On Wednesday we managed to get to the Oregon Garden, but that wasn't with this card as you can see the family had already used that pass.  It was homeschool day, so I used an old expired groupon (the part that doesn't expire).  Both outings turned out to be great.

Homeschool this week...

We got some book reports started, but not finished.  For art one day the kids made clay creations.  We read through some science in Zoology 2 swimming creations, but still not done with the first chapter. The boys learned about the ocean zones, and did some labeling in their journals.  April is still on Module 1 in her science, but hoping to finish that this week.

For math Aric really loves his new Jump at home math book, and the other kids are plugging along in their Teaching Textbooks.

Highlight of the week...

This week's homeschool field trip to The Portland Children's Museum!  It was fun to explore since we hadn't been there in a while.  Some things were new, but mostly the same.

April was thrilled that there was a piano out front.  She loves playing any piano she can get her fingers on.

Everyone wanted a chance to play of course

I think I have lots of budding musicians around here

A good amount of time was spent in the stage/acting area. I love this one of all of them at the same time doing their own thing.

Some time in the clay studio

(Doctor Who of course!)

They have a new nature area outside with a really cool tree to climb.

I think we have a bunch of monkeys too!

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

Aaron started piano lessons this week.  He has been very excited, and is making sure to practice everyday.  He also started back at cub scouts on Thursday.  They got off to a great start for their first den meeting doing a service project picking at the local community garden to donate to the food bank.  He had a good time too!  We also had violin and horse lessons for April as per the usual week.  Finally, on Saturday the 2 little boys (Aric and Alex) went to "meet your coach" day for soccer.  They are both very excited to start soccer season. 

Some outings had to be missed like our homeschool meet-up at the park because of some sick days that were spent on the couch.

Other fun things from the week...

We checked out Dolphin Tale from the library, and watched it on a sick day.  This is an excellent family movie.  Neat story.  Makes me want to become a Marine Biologist!  Don't see that happening anytime soon though.  I'm thinking about taking the kids to see the sequel on $4 Tuesday maybe this week.

Aaron made this pinao LEGO creation one day.  It turned out pretty good.  He was inspired by a picture in one of his lego books.

We picked up this John Bytheway CD at the LDS bookstore this week.  Come unto Christ is the theme for the youth this year, so I thought it would be great for April to have.  We listened it in the car on Monday's drive back from Portland.  Turns out the boys really liked it too.  I heard them laughing at a lot of the jokes, and they were sure listening because the car was QUIET!  It's a good one!  Enjoyed by all.

That about wraps up this weekly post that I stayed up way too late to write!  Now onto a new week!

Linking up with week in review at Home to 4 kiddos, and weekly wrap-up at Weird unsocialized homeschoolers.

Desiree