Home Learning Family Going Sane

Nov 12, 2009

Changes Again...

Sometimes life gets a bit overwhelming and you just need to change things up a bit! We have decided that due to the craziness around here lately, we are going to cut back to 3 full days, 2 light days of lessons and NO work on the weekends! This is our first week of trying this routine and so far it is already feeling like what we needed. It basically works out that the days that we have the Littles will be our light days and the days that we don't have them are the full days.

I have changed up some of her workload as well to accommodate this schedule. One of the new things that she has been enjoying is Brain Pop! She really likes the movie clips and activities. I really like that she can email me the quizzes and it is one less thing that I have to really think about. She is using with the Physics kit and has been searching the site for the key words in her manual to correlate with the program - LOVE IT!!! She is taking her own initiative to expand on the subjects - HOW GREAT IS THAT!

She completed the Writing Strands 3 & 4 and did a really fantastic job on them so we have also decided to take a break on formal writing and focus more on prompt writing. We will be using 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts and 100 Quickwrites both by Scholastic. They are great prompts and readings that you go over and then allow a set amount of time to write without stopping or correcting. This gives very little time for editing in the head before getting it down on the paper and allows for more of a flow of writing. You can go back later and edit or redo something if you want to, but right now it is more about just getting her to write and not feeling pressure about it.

KM has also decided that she really doesn't like the Ancient Greece thematic unit from Teacher Created Resources. We have tried few different ones with varied success and I thought that she would like this one because it was a more challenging level, but there were some errors in the mapping section - like it tells you to locate Egypt on the map, but Egypt was not shown on the map - and therefore she has no faith in the content. I am also wondering if she is just getting sick of the Ancients, so we are going to stick with the lapbook, more of the multimedia things, - another reason why we splurged for the BrainPOP subscription - and of course the myths, because she loves EVERYTHING about them!

She has also begun to use the Tell Me More Spanish - which we got during the Homeschool Buyers' Co-op group buy last summer - and she REALLY is enjoying it. I think that the voice recognition is such an incredible key to her confidence in it! This program really seems to cover all aspects of recognition, memorization and understanding. She has been doing it daily without any qualms or complaints.

As always we will be constantly evaluating and reorganizing our path, but hey isn't that one of the many reasons why we homeschool - to give our kids exactly what they NEED WHEN they need it!

Nov 10, 2009

A wonderful autumn day...

was had by all here at GCK Homeschool!

We started out this morning making some super easy baby food!

We took four apples and a nearly bad banana, cooked them up with a little bit of lemon juice and put them in the bullet...SC was soooo excited to help!...

We got 26 oz. of baby food for less than the cost of one 5 oz. package! When we put them on the window sill so they could cool we realized how beautiful out it was!
So we popped GC in the stroller with her new favorite toy and I decided to rake a bit

then the girls decided they would benefit from my hard work, but really it was worth it to see their faces!

For lunch they decided to dine al fresco...

After lunch the littles went down for naps and KM got a bit of work done. She has started using Brain Pop and is truly loving it, but more about some of our schedule changes in a later post.....
When the littles awoke all the girls decided that we needed to head back outside again!

All and all it was a fantastic fall day. These are the days that we would be missing if KM wasn't home with us! I am starting to come to the realization that we do truly need to enjoy, cherish and be completely grateful for all the time that we have together as a family! Things are changing up again around here, but as I said before, that is for another post!

Nov 9, 2009

Meet the Masters - Cassatt

We finished unit 2 of Meet the Masters which covered the life and works of Mary Cassatt. One of my all time favorite paintings is her Breakfast in Bed -

It always reminds me of how cuddly little ones can be all snuggled up in bed! I miss the days of waking up to a snuggling toddler.

KM worked on the techniques for making plaids and sketching faces...

Mary Cassatt was also extremely famous for painting pictures of women in incredible hats, so we decided - since neither of us are really comfortable trying to draw people - we would focus on the hats. We also choose to collage the hats using remnant pieces from our scrap box! Here was our outcome -

KM choose to do a few smaller samples and I choose to do one large one.

Nov 8, 2009

Ancient Greece - Unit Study Resources

We have begun our study on Ancient Greece and so far KM is enjoying it! This is such a great topic that I have put together a TON of resources from different areas and thought I would share some of our favorites -

Horrible Histories - I finally broke down and got the DVD set on Ebay and I am so glad! I had heard mixed things about it, but KM really likes it.
Ancient Civilizations for Children - Ancient Greece - we get this series through our library
We are continuing with our History Pockets from Evan-Moor to keep our GIANT Lapbook going!
We are using the Teacher Created Resource Literature Unit to go along with D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths.
We are also using an Interdisciplinary Thematic Unit from Teacher Created Materials.
We will be using a few of the activities from Hands-On Heritage Ancient Greece Activity Book - these activities will be done more on days when the Littles are here so that we can allow SC to participate as well.

We also have a TON of reading books, but I am not sure which ones she will choose to use and which ones will get shelved for later. I will keep everyone posted though if there are any really good ones.

Nov 6, 2009

PHYSICS FRIDAY - #4

She finished up the first unit in the kit this week by making a pretty neat contraption:

She will be experimenting with this all weekend, to see how far she can shoot it, what else she can shoot and she may even try to aim for some better targets....hopefully the dogs and cats won't be in the line of fire!

Nov 5, 2009

Cereal Necklace -

What do you get when you take...

and

and add your favorite cereal with a hole in it...

A very tasty treat!!!

SC was very proud of her Apple Jacks necklace!

Oct 31, 2009

Happy Halloween!!!!

Well in case you couldn't tell Halloween is THE holiday around here...second only to Yule!

The Littles were here today - so we had some fun reading books and watching the It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!

GC was in a very festive outfit and happy to act as our great pumpkin all day!

The purple hairspray did not go over the night before as well as we thought it would so KM and I got a little inventive for her fairy hair!

After more tweaking to the costume, KM headed out with a friend to go trick or treating this evening

----- and then back for a movie marathon!

Oct 30, 2009

1 Day to Halloween and

...we had to get ready for a party!

She tweaked the costume several times this week and I think it is JUST right!
Although I might be a bit partial to the wearer and the costume itself!

Physics Friday - #3

She created a force scale that measured in Newtons -

Then did a demonstration of Inert Mass and a Gimbal to show how something can stay stable even when moving.

Oct 29, 2009

2 days to Halloween

...so we decided to read some SPOOOOOKY stories and watch some "SCARY" movies!
Here are our favorite picks -

Here There Be Witches - By Jane Yolen is a GREAT compilation of stories and poems!
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow - From the Imagination of Gris Grimly - was a FANTASTIC graphic novel version of this classic.
Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz - this is such a great read aloud. As the kids get older and really INTO reading them they just get better and better everytime!
What would be a better time than this to check out Ancient Mysteries-Witches which we found available through Netflix!
We DVRed the Monsters vs. Aliens Halloween special that was on Wednesday night.
We ended our evening with Spiderwick Chronicles and KM watched SpongeBob Halloween - I bailed on that one...just can't stand it sorry!

Do you have any favorite halloween stories or flicks to share? We will have more to come!

Percy Jackson And The Olympians ~ The Lightning Thief

On our way back from the MOS on Wed, the girls in the back seat of my car saw a billboard for -

Percy Jackson And The Olympians The Lightning Thief

I can't even TELL you how excited they were! The entire way back from Boston - a good 50 minutes with the traffic - they talked non-stop about who should be in each part, who they hoped would be in it, what parts they can't wait to see!

It was the most interesting tween conversation I have heard in a long time!!!

Oct 28, 2009

3 Days Til Halloween...

so went to see the MOS to see the Harry Potter: The Exhibition! We weren't allowed to take pics put you have to check this out if you are in the area or it comes to your area! It was FANTASTIC! We of course then came home and immediately started watching the movies to try to spot all the things we saw in the exhibit!