"Catapull"

"Catapull" is how Thing 1 pronounces this past weekend's Lowe's project.  It was a cute little catapulT, and here are some pictures (hey look, it's ME!)  These are a wonderful thing to do if you're bored on a Saturday and have a local Lowe's.  You can also buy the kits online at their website.  We're seriously considering going next week as well :)

Socialization

Now, I find the whole "homeschoolers are unsocialized" argument to be a bit silly, but that doesn't mean that I intentionally keep Thing 1 inside all day and don't let him meet anyone.

Every week (at least until it gets too hot) there is a group of homeschoolers around his age that get together at a local park and play.

Here Thing 1 is "fishing" in the nearby stream.  The "pole" was made by one of the girls who goes (who turns 6 this coming week!) and she was over there fishing as well.

You can't see it very well, but here Thing 1 is pretending to shoot a bow and arrow, using sticks.  (You can barely make out the "arrow" stick being held near his face)

This picture was not long before the swordfighting that occured with sticks, that resulted in this

LOVELY mark above his eye.  (He had dropped his sword and bent down to pick it up, the other boy didn't realize what he was doing and Thing 1 got whacked)  Not long after it happened, the other boy and Thing 1 were playing with teh sidewalk chalk like nothing had ever happened!  Gotta love kids :)

Fun Trip!

In our area, one of the fun things to do this time of year is to go strawberry picking.  Usually, it's a half hour drive or so to get out anywhere that's good for it, but the last couple of years apparently there has been someone right near where Thing 1's homeschool friends meet!

Soooo this past Friday, (May 21) we went and picked some strawberries :)

Not very many pictures, I know, but I was trying to hold the basket/bucket and keep Thing 2 happy and inspect strawberries )Thing 1 kept picking any that looked even remotely good ;)   ) and so was a bit busy to do much else.  And I got yelled at by Thing 1 for taking pictures.

We ended up with a couple pounds of strawberries, and they are DELICIOUS!

Continuing Australia, and a Growing Boy

So as this week has progressed, Thing 1 has refused to do anything about Australia that is not animal related.  No real big deal.  He has his map of the continents that he points Australia out on, and enjoys drawing pictures of the animals and stuff.  I think we'll do something like this for all of the continents because he is REALLY enjoying it right now.

Here he is with all of the animal worksheets so far spread around with his continents map as well.  On Monday, I had filled out the koala page for him (words like eucalyptus and marsupial would've probably resulted in a temper tantrum because he hates not being able to spell correctly) and he's using that to complete the others.

~~~~~

He also has been getting up in the morning and getting his own breakfast as best he can.  (I grab a bowl for him, but other than that he CAN do the rest; the other day he used a stool to get a bowl himself >.< )

My house looks a lot messier than it actually is.  I promise.  Well, this picture is actually from a couple days ago and I've cleaned up the dining room more since then.  Still working on getting things settled after the move :)

He dresses himself and chooses his own clothes, too.  In the two above pictures, it hasn't been a big deal.

However, some days we get a more creative outfit.  (I make him change to something that matches better if we're going anywhere)

He's growing up so quickly :(  Make it stop!

Review: Download N Go: Expedition Australia

I was given the opportunity to review a copy of The Old Schoolhouse's Download N Go - Expedition Australia unit study.  Amanda Bennett (Unit Study series) and The Old Schoolhouse have put together these studies on various topics (such as Pizza, Kites and China; all for $7.95 a piece or $152.00 for a total of 38 units) intended for grades k-4, that are meant to be an entire unit in one e-book (this one in particular happens to be over 100 pages).

Due to some time constraints that are pretty much entirely my own fault (my email and I have had a one sided discussion since then) I have the opportunity to REALLY see if these are "download and go" studies.

As I was going through the e-book, I at first was concerned about the lists of books suggested for each day.  How on earth was I going to get this started TODAY as soon as Thing 1 woke up without any of these books?

Well, true to the name, once I actually looked at it better , I realized that with the multitude of links throughout the pages and the worksheets and activities suggested for use, I really did have a full unit study sitting in front of me.  I did not have to do anything other than print a few pages for today and be ready to show some things on the computer.  Day 1 included an introduction to continents (which is good considering Thing 1 had no introduction to the concept previously), the Great Barrier Reef, and koalas.  We did not actually get a chance to get into the Great Barrier Reef because Thing 1 became fascinated with the koalas, so it looks like this one week study will take us a little longer overall ;)  He's much more interested in the animals portion of it than anything else.

One thing I really like about this is that it can be expanded on.  With the use of lapbook elements within the e-book, as well as anything one might choose to add, this one week study really could be expanded to be a LOT more in-depth and take a lot more time.  And because of the ease with which you could expand on it, I feel this could be used with older children, or even multiple levels of children - which may prove useful in the future considering Thing 1 and Thing 2 are about five years apart in age.

Pros:
~Seriously an entire unit in one place, with the use of links within the e-book
~Easily expanded on; lists of books for helping to expand on concepts are included
~An e-book, so it sits on your hard drive instead of taking up shelf space
~The concepts in the one I received are not 100% dependent on each other, so if necessary things can be cut out for comprehension levels or attention span "issues"
~There is a variety of activities within the study

Cons:
~Depending on how exactly you use it, it can take a lot of printing (which means paper and ink usage)
~Contains a LOT of information, so with a child like mine who will shut down if there is too much information being given, it will either take longer than a week or you'll have to cut some things out
~While it's not a problem for me, a lot of the information is given on websites.  If you prefer your child to not be on the computer, you would need to check out books from the library or have other resources on hand for the unit study.

 In the end, after just one day of use so far, I am really enjoying this and planning on finishing out this study with Thing 1.  He's looking forward to it, too; particularly learning about kangaroos tomorrow :)


One thing to keep in mind is that there are still more being added to the collection.  So if you do not really see one that you like now, but like the general concept, keep an eye open to see if a topic you are interested in using gets released in the future :)


Some legalese:
I was given this product to review and use within my own homeschool.  I have received no compensation from Amanda Bennett or The Old Schoolhouse or anyone else.  All opinions and experiences within this review are my own.

How is it...?

How is it that I did not so great in math, and hated math with a passion for a good bit of school, yet my older son LOVES math, anything related to math, and is doing SO awesomely in it so far?

Last week, at the beginning of the week we were on lesson 10.

Now, after a few days of not doing any math in the last two weeks (letting things sink in and allowing him to continue practice and exploring with the manipulatives)  We are on lesson 20!  There's only 10 lessons to go in Primer!

This may be because Primer is meant as an introduction, and Alpha is where he'll have to start memorizing things, but he is FLYING through it.  Once he seems to understand a topic, we do a couple of teh worksheets and then go to the next lesson.  Math is only during Thing 2's naptimes because Thing 2 thinks that the blocks are potentially delicious, so any time we can move on to the next lesson we do because we never know when math time will be cut short by the little one.

Also, how is it that my little baby is now hitting 8 months old?!  Thing 1 is rapidly approaching 6, and Thing 2 is rapidly approaching 1 and I just can't stand it :(

Box 12

In the First Day! post I mentioned the perpetual box 12.  It is Thing 1's chore folder.

I have a bunch of the library pockets that I ordered, as well as tagboard, so I made a lapbook style folder for his chores.  On the front it has his name and Chore Folder, as well a note that it is to be kept in box #12.  I wrote his chores down on index cards, and when he completes them, he moves them from the Note Done pocket to teh Done pocket.

Very very simple, but he enjoys it and so enjoys his chores now too.  He loves being able to move things from one folder to another.

His chores are:
Make Bed
Clean Playroom
Put Books Away
Feed Impa
Put Silverware Away (from the dishwasher... he can't reach any of the cabinets where the other dishes go)
Clean Bedroom
Read (Thing 2) a Book

As we get better settled in the house and he gets older we'll be adding things, and may also have to split into two separate folders for morning and afternoon chores.

First day!

We are moved in now for the most part, and enjoying our new home.  Today was our first day of school in the new house, and Thing 1 thoroughly enjoyed himself.

He practiced writing our new address, his full name and the letter A.  I used some of our primary lined paper, write what I wanted him to practice, and laminated the pages, so we can do this many many times without wasting paper.  YAY!

He finished lesson 9 in Math-U-See Primer (he actually got a head start the other day and we did the first few lessons because he was begging me to be allowed to do some math stuff).  Tomorrow he may either be building numbers using his hundred board and Decimal Street and blocks, or we'll move on to lesson 10.  I haven't entirely decided yet.  Maybe we'll do both ;)

Since our handwriting letter for the week is A, he learned the ASL sign for the letter A as well.

He played with the pattern blocks and did the first activity from the Pattern Blocks for Primary Grades notebook that I have.  He also made a little person with them.

And last but not least, we discussed our plans to go to a big park on Thursday.  He then watched the garbage episode of Bill Nye the Science Guy and we discussed trash and things like why we don't use paper plates and why Thing 2 is cloth diapered ♥ (I happen to have some disposables in the house because they were given to us "just in case" and as soon as I picked one up, Thing 1 said that they are gross LOL)  And he wants to pick up trash at the park Thursday, so we will be taking bags with us.

All that is left is the perpetual box 12, which I will talk about in a separate post ♥

Mysterious Ways

So we still haven't moved yet.  We had a couple things go horribly wrong with the closing, and it went insane.
Last week, we ended up going and looking at different houses.  We found one that has ended up being the same price, but a little smaller.

HOWEVER, it doesn't require any work to make it presentable.  It has all new carpets and all of the walls are teh same color (the other house you could tell someone had TRIED to paint, but done a REALLY bad job, and in a few places didn't even go all the way up the wall... so the stairwell had three different shades of off white).  There is also a fireplace in this one, and a couple of rather large mirrors in the largest room downstairs.  The yard is a lot smaller, but the back yard is already fenced in, so that is less work for us as well.  This place went on the market literally right as the other one was falling through.  So some mysterious ways have been worked, and even our realtor feels like this was meant to be.

We are supposed to close later this week (in 2 days to be exact) and then will start the whirlwind of activity to get everything moved and get this apartment cleaned before the 10th of April.


In other news, Link and I celebrated our second anniversary yesterday!  We didn't do much, instead choosing to relax.

(And Thing 1 has just informed me he wants a baby chicken...)

Wow!

create your own personalized map of the USA
 or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

I have seen this type of map around a lot lately, and finally got around to making one of my own.  These are all states that I have personally set foot in, although most of them were while in the process of moves growing up.  I Was born in Virginia, but have lived in both Carolinas, California, Arizona and Maine.  All but Maine were before graduating high school and were more like VA, SC, NC, CA, SC, CA, VA, AZ.... then back to VA, to ME and now VA again.

I have family and friends scattered all over though.  It's just amazing at how many states I have set foot in while on those moves... (54%!)

Tick Tock

Time is moving right along while we get ready for this move.  And with this move comes settling in in a new place and then starting to more diligently do SCHOOL!

I've started creating a basic plan on what we'll do when, especially since I am slowly adding more subjects as we go along.  By the winter "term" we should be done adding things finally.

So for Thing 1's kindergarten prep and year I have chosen the following:
~Math-U-See, Primer and Alpha
~Lesson Pathways lessons plans for Science introduction and Social Studies introduction
~Astronomy study later on, this is what he WANTS to study, so we'll do a LARGE unit on it
~US Geography/states study
~Edcon Literature worktexts level 1
~Wordly Wise 3000 Second Edition, Level K
~Hooked on French (this is on the computer, and looks like lots of fun for a basic intro to foreign languages)
~Sign Language cards for learning a few signs (probably just once a week to begin with this year)
~Many many types of manipulatives, including pentominos, tangrams, pattern blocks, linking cubes, cuisineaire rods, opaque counters, colored wooden cubes, a geoboard
~Free-reading
~Handwriting practice, using the ream of handwriting paper I got, not workbooks
~Writing letters and such to family
~Drawing both on paper and on the computer
~Introductory typing (he uses the computer, and I want to try and steer him away from bad habits as much as possible)
~Playing with his brother and the dog and me and Link and a group of local homeschool kids


If at any point he seems overwhelmed (keep in mind that many of these are only once a week!) I can always back off some on most of this.  The joy of being able to work at HIS pace, not someone else's.

Box Day #2!

I got (most of) the rest of my stuff I ordered today!  This was the box from Rainbow Resource.  I am missing the student book for the Wordly Wise, but I just got the tracking number for it in my email.  Woohoo!

Can you tell I have a love of manipulatives?

Box Day #1!!

Our Math-U-See stuff has arrived.  I already switched the blocks from their cardboard box to another box (which I think originally had makeup in it)

We have Primer, Alpha, the starter set of blocks (you can't see all of them in the picture, but they're there) and the skip counting CD.

In a couple days my order from Rainbow Resource should be here, and then I'll have everything from this round of ordering :)  (I forgot to order something, so have to convince Link to let me order it)  (Don't mind the other stuff in the box, that's the stuff I bought at Borders a couple weeks ago)

Totally Non-Observant!

I just realized a little bit ago (before the realization about the lapbook, honestly) that one of the ladies from the There's No Place Like Home forum that I have been frequenting most recently has commented on a number of my blog posts from BEFORE I knew ther ewas a comment issue.  I had no idea anyone had gone BACK and commented on the older posts.  Thanks Jenn~!
And thanks to anyone who comments (like Heather whose comment about the GM lapbook reminded me I hadn't posted it)

Apparently the comments hold me more accountable than I hold myself.  OOOPS!

Hey look, baby picture!  And Impa-Puppy and my foot apparently.  This was just taken a couple days ago ♥  (And I really wish Blogger would quit being weird and let me put text AFTER my pictures!)

How did I forget?!

I apparently at some poitn along the way forgot that I hadn't posted Thing 1's Goodnight Moon lapbook pictures.

I am horrible with the slacking thing!  Back, inside and then the underneath of the flappy part on the right inner section.  Because that TOTALLY made sense as a description.  The things in this one are a lot more spaced out because there were a lot of bigger things, and I have only ever been involved in the making of one other lapbook, y'know?  He seems to REALLY enjoy making these at least :)