Shakespeare & the Renaissance

Great American Authors

Homeschoolmania

We were finishing up a unit on geography, mapping, and archaeology, before we begin our study of the prehistoric periods, so I though it would be fun for the kids to design their own islands!

I took out the Crayola Model Magic, paint and let them have at it.....

KM decided to draw out a plan for her island on the whiteboard first.
Then they formed the bases and began painting.
Next she formed the higher points, painted them, glued them on and stuck toothpicks in to be able to label them after it was dry.
She named her island "Homeschoolmania" and declared that EVERYONE WOULD BE HOMESCHOOLED HERE!

SC's was a bit less structured, but I believe it would be a very interesting place to visit!

Celebrate Imbolc & Groundhog Day

Imbolc is the holiday in which we celebrate the midpoint of winter! As during Yule, we celebrate the return of sun. Spring is nearly here, though the days are not warmer they are getting longer. I really liked the image above, as it can mean so many different things. KM felt that it was mother earth rejuvenating the "earth's energy".

Here are some great links for information and activities to help you celebrate Imbolc -

• Fun Things for the Kids
• 13 Ways to celebrate Imbolc
• Pagan Dad's Blog has some incredible ideas

The mainstream for this holiday is of course Groundhog Day so I thought I would also add some links for things to go with that theme -

• The Official Punxsutawney Phil site teacher's section has some cool resources
  
• About.com has a ton of printables
• Enchanted Learning also has some simple projects and printables

That should be enough to get you started, I will be back later to let you know how our day goes!

Mostly just a TV DAY!!!

We really NEVER do this, but we have spent most of our day today in front of the television!!! Sometimes you just need to have one of those days, to unwind and not do much of anything.

We started off the morning with part one of Gulliver's Travel - I absolutely adored this book when I was young and remember watching the movie when I was pregnant with KM. They do such an incredible job of bringing the book to the screen.

When part one was over I decided to get the bread baking started and KM watched some Saturday Morning cartoons, a rare happening around here. She is usually so into things that she doesn't realize that they are on until well after the ones that she likes are over. Her favorites are part of Kewlopolis on CBS and therefore she can watch them online at Kewl Cartoons, but I think she really likes the novelty of the "Saturday Morning Cartoons" idea.

While the bread was having its first rising time I made some lunch and got some dinner prep ready. Then we watched the second part of Gulliver's Travel. It was amazing to watch her try to figure out what was going to happen. We had to pause it several times to discuss what was happening or to have a further discussion of the comparisons that Gulliver was making along his way. If your kids - or even you for that matter - have not seen this movie I highly recommend it! It is a great family fantasy film, but can lead to such great realizations of society and the way that our lives are built.

When the movie was over, KM decided she would go out and see what CJ was doing - sure enough she found him outside sculpting the sledding hill. I am thinking it more closely resembling a luge at the moment, but I could be exaggerating a bit. Whilst they were out in the snow, I decided to go to the big screen TV try out my new Jillian Micheal's game for the Wii - it came in the mail yesterday afternoon...I am however waiting to make a full opinion of it until next week's Fitness Friday posting!

When they came in from the cold, I made some hot cocoa and we snuggled up by the fire to listen to a few more chapters of Dragon Rider - Can you tell we are on a fantasy kick lately? I have even reorganized our literature units to accommodate this need for the fantastical.

We made breakfast for dinner together and then we watched Before the Dinosaurs Walking with Monsters - I thought it would be a good way to start our prehistoric studies and since we had already spent most of the day in front of the screen, I thought we should throw in a really fantastic educational one for good measures!

I wonder if she realizes how much schoolwork she actually did today? On a Saturday - I know I am a cruel CRUEL mother!

Fitness Friday - week 2

I have done better this week, but it has just been the body tests, some games and aerobics part. I just get so aggravated with the wasted time during the yoga and strength training. They should have a way to set up flows or routines once you have the moves down. KM and I have also been doing the Wii Ski a lot - together as well as individually with the balance board. I was pleasantly surprised at how much you need to use your core muscles to really control yourself during this game. In case you didn't see my comment from last weeks Fitness Friday - I am awaiting the arrival of Jillian Michaels Fitness Ultimatum 2009 which I ordered last weekend from Amazon. I am very excited about the Jillian game...especially the fact that you can use it in a multi-player mode. I have seen widely varying reviews on a number of sites, but I am going to make my own opinion - and of course I will post it, hopefully by next week. Until then -keep up the good work everyone!!!

Happy Freethinkers Day!

Observing the birthday of Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense which advocated the independence of the American Colonies.

Here is an incredible list of Famous Freethinkers that prove thinking outside the box is what has brought about inventions and innovations that have changed the world!

Here are some other pretty cool things that I came across to help you celebrate this rather interesting day -

• download this handy lesson plan - Freethinkers Day from ESL holidays
• Secular Seasons - has several links to other Thomas Paine related sites
• Movie-a-day - recommends the 1960s classic INHERIT THE WIND
  

Great Free Resources for Stories

I have been wandering around the WWW lately trying to find some new and interesting things to keep SC a little occupied on the days when I need to get a bit more one on one in with KM. Now since I don't have SC all the time, I do try to schedule our bigger projects on days when she is not here, but sometimes life gets in the way and you just have to push through and get things done! Anyway I thought I would share some of the great things I have found, so here are the top five in no particular order -

1. On one of the many homeschooling/parenting Yahoo groups that I belong to someone passed along this site and SC can not get enough of it. The site is called Silly Books and here is a synopsis -

Literacy is contagious. Catch it here. You'll find animated books, children's music, puzzles and games that entertain kids while promoting child literacy. Have your children had their stories published HERE yet?

2. From the previous site I stumbled across an equally interesting one for emergent readers - Mighty Books - It says that you can get a subscription, but I am not really sure what more you would get with it, the free content including stories, songs and games in several categories seems very good -

Thousands of young children around the world have discovered the joy and power of reading at MightyBook.com. Now, we'd like to introduce this wonderful reading resource to your students. With more than 500 animated read-aloud books, songs, poems, jokes, puzzles and games to choose from, MightyBook provides many exciting opportunities for children to discover how much fun reading can be. Five new books or songs are added each month throughout the year

3. This next one I have known about for a while now, but never really had a reason to check it out. Now that I have KM has actually been poking around on it as well - Storyline Online - it has activities and printables to accompany all of the stories as well -

The Screen Actors Guild Foundation is proud to bring you Storyline Online, an on-line streaming video program featuring SAG members reading children's books aloud! Each book includes accompanying activities and lesson ideas.

4. This next one has lots of clips, games, and activities as well for the younger crowd - Up to Ten - I thought it would be great and though she may like it when she is a bit older, right now when I put it on SC walks away or squirms in my lap as soon as she sees the little guys - don't know why, I think they are awful cute!

UpToTen has been building prize-winning early-learning games and activities since 1999. Your child will love the reassuring, friendly world that our unique games inhabit. S/he will have enormous fun whilst building independence on the computer.

5. Finally this is just a fun click, click, click site - SC likes to move the mouse around and make the balloons and bubbles pop and she likes anything that allows her to be free to click away! Poisson Rouge or Red Fish Soup allows her to be able to do that. As you will see in the intro below, they are a very freethinking bunch and I think it is such a great site. If you get through the language features and can find English, you can also find a lot of cool printables as well.

There are no instructions on the site and there are some good reasons for that: most people, even adults, do not read instructions, children who cannot read will ignore written text anyhow, but most importantly for us, there is no need and in fact, instructions get in the way of the experience : the navigation through the various sections of the site is purposefully simple and intuitive, the functionalities within games are carefully thought out to afford a maximum of possibilities while keeping that special relationship to the real World.

So these are our newest favorites for SC, if you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!

Thinking Ahead -

She has been diligently working on her Valentine's Day cards all week - she thought it would be more personal to make them this year instead of buying the generic ones.
She is using lots of leftover craft papers, stickers and stamps ~ they are very unique and she is really taking time each day to make them all a little different from each other.

SHE DID IT!!!

Scholastic Book Club has this program called Classrooms Care, where they challenge classes to read 100 books and they will donate books to a children's charity of the classes choice! Well she missed the deadline (but luckily Scholastic is not really big on deadlines) but she did it all on her own! She read 100 books and Scholastic will be donating books to the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center from our little GCK Homeschool - KM picked this charity herself from the list on the Scholastic site.

They also offer some free character education materials to help supplement and reinforce the ideals that programs like this instill.

New Black Belt -

My youngest brother - DP - at 9 years old received his Black Belt last night! These children were amazing! Before the presentation began they were all running around, joking each other and being silly, but as soon as they were on that stage it was a different story!






We had such a great time watching the little skits the groups performed and the youngest group, of 4-5 yr old future black belt holders were just so adorable!

The dedication, discipline, and expertise of these children, at such a young age, is truly awe inspiring!

Fitness Friday - Week 1

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses -

I could sit here and list dozens of excuses as to why I have not been vigilantly sticking to some sort of routine on the Wii Fit, but I am not going to bore you with all that!

I can only HOPE and KEEP MY FINGERS CROSSED that I will get better. We have been using the Wii Play a lot in the evenings - bowling and tennis are KM's favorites, but I know I should be more diligent in my routine with it and I know if I am I will see results.

I think there are also some things with the Wii Fit that drive me a little crazy which is making me not want to use some aspects of it. For instance I am a yogi - in case you never noticed the pic on the side or my bio - I love yoga, but I can't stand the waiting in between and the getting into one pose then having to go through the controls to get to another it so not ZEN! I do like the basic premise of it and have heard that there is a game for the Wii that is just Yoga, so I may look into that when I get a little extra money - hahaha that's like an oxymoron these days right? -

I do LOVE, LOVE, LOVE most of the aerobics and balance games though. My favorite is the step, when I do get myself on there I have been working my way through the step levels and then doing the free step for 30 minutes with 1.5 lb hand weights - while I change the input and watch something on the DVR - LOVE THIS FEATURE! I also really like the boxing and will generally do at least one 6 minute set on there - again though I do wish that there were at least a little less in between time.

So in my strive for more consistence in a fitness routine, I will do what any good homeschooling mom would do - put it into the schooling routine! If it is in that school schedule IT WILL GET DONE! One way or another! It is magical how you write it in there and it manifests itself within day!

Lets see how it works!

Sledding, Sledding and More

SLEDDING

This was earlier in the week...

Then CJ decided to have his friend come over with some machinery to move the snow so he could park his truck in it's usual spot - CAN YOU GUESS WHERE THEY PUT THE SNOW?




The mound is at a high spot in our yard and crosses part of the driveway and heads down into the far back corner where the jeep mounds usually are. Originally it just went smoothly down a slope in the hill, but of course that wasn't good enough for the men with the machine - all I could think of was Tim "The Toolman" Taylor!!! - they had to redirect the course so that it went faster and off a pretty good jump! They did also make a side hill for SC when she comes back on Saturday. As for the BIG hill - I don't know which set of kids liked it better!

Spelling Giveaway at Freely Educate -

One of my FAVORITE blogs is Freely Educate - tons of FREE resources for learning at home - and she has a chance to win a great new product called Spelling Quizzer.
It looks like it would be a really interactive program and she usually has GREAT recommendations, so swing on by and take a peek at what else she has listed!

Inauguration Day!

Good-bye Georgey!!!

Hello Change!

This will be quite a historic day!

Here are some links to check out -

• http://inaugurationday2009.com/
• http://www.inauguration.dc.gov/index.asp
• http://www.insidetheschool.com/2009-presidential-inauguration-day-lesson-plan
• http://inaugural.senate.gov/index.cfm
  
• http://lesson-plan-help.suite101.com/article.cfm/lesson_on_obama_inauguration