The circulatory system

We have moved to the circulatory system in our science lesson. Today we made a model of BLOOD! So appropriate with the upcoming season (er...I'm talking about Halloween, our favorite time of year!)

We used Karo syrup for the plasma, lentils for the platelets, red jelly beans for the red blood cells and large lima beans for the white blood cells. We mixed it all together in a large mason jar and viola-what blood would look like under a microscope! After the project Avery was able to identify the four major parts of our blood and tell me the jobs that each part performs. It was a really fun lab to do and the clear visual seemed to really help him remember the important information.Unfortunately I have a broken camera so no pictures of our model today.

Check list

I've been struggling lately to get Avery excited about finishing his book work. As much as it is a drag for him to hear me repeat myself 20 times, there are so many other things I'd rather be doing!! So a friend suggested that I make a list for him to check off then after that is completed he gets his reward which is 30 minutes of computer time (during the week it must be educational) . So today I tried just that. The list included...

1. Grammar
2. Science
3. Spelling
4. Math

*30 Minutes Math Blaster*

It took much less time in doing this because there was a definite end in sight for him. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel as opposed to a never ending list of subjects coming out of my mouth.

I wrote out the list so that he could read it clearly, next to the subjects I drew a box were he could put a sticker to show that it was completed. It became a fun game to finish his work quickly!

This afternoon: reading and piano lessons (and nap...oh please let there be a nap!)

Story time

Here is a funny story Avery made today after I asked him to create an adventure story that includes him and other people. We needed to use our new pronouns : we, us, our and ours. He
had a blast brainstorming about crazy plots and funny twists to his already wacky story. He
ended up with a very long list of potential stories that include such titles as "The forest on a full moon", "A boat ride on a sunny day", and "The slimy sea monster". You can tell we read a lot of Magic Tree House books by the sound of these titles. Here is Avery's story...

The Haunted Mall

Once upon a time my friends and I went to the mall. We were looking for a magnet. The magnet was to trick our moms. We were going to do an experiment pulling metal out of cereal. So when we drop the magnet into the cereal it attracts all of the iron.
We started to get lost in the mall. We were in the army section. We looked around for a second then we got out because we all had a bad feeling we were being watched.
We ran and ran and ran until we got to the doors that were open and it led us into a toy store.
We stared down at the ground and there were two toys walking toward us. They were dolls. My friend Olive thought they looked familiar. Then we looked up, we saw twenty-three dolls lined up to jump down. They were about to jump when I had the idea to spray them with antioxidants. They were all electrocuted and walked away for good.
We realized we were in the magnet section again. We found our magnet and zipped out of that creepy mall.

The End.

Lots of letter writing yesterday! We are learning about pronouns this week and decided to get creative with it, so we wrote letters to our friends and afterwards I made copies and put them in our language binder where Avery highlighted all of the pronouns in the letters. I also wrote sentences and had him highlight the ones with pronouns used incorrectly.

While Avery did that Emile insisted on writing his friends letters as well. He now wants to do whatever Avery is doing in "school". If Avery is doing math Emile wants to do math. He brings me Avery's old math workbook from last year that I gave to him to play with and says "momma talk to me about this!" I foresee it being much easier to school him when the time comes. I won't have to bribe and beg him to do his work, he'll just follow Avery (hopefully).

We also started in our human body unit learning about how muscles work. Completing a paper model of a working arm, yarn representing the muscles. When the yarn is pulled the arm moves. The point of the lab was to demonstrate how muscles work in pairs. Fun stuff! We also are loving the human body coloring book that we have listed in the learning tools icon on the sidebar. It goes along perfectly with our curriculum!

Later: Finish reading Harry Potter (almost through with book two!) then art class and soccer practice! Big first game this weekend!!!

A good day

I'm not too sure if I should post everyday, as most days are pretty routine and uneventful. Like yesterday for example we did our book work (spelling and math) then spent the whole day reading the rest of Harry Potter! We stayed in our jammies, locked ourselves in the boys new bedroom and ignored the rest of the world so that we could spend the day in Harry's world! It was so exciting!! We cannot wait to get started on the second book in the series. It is so wonderful to see Avery really get into a novel like this, where you are so attached to the characters and find it hard to tear yourself away from the book. Such a good feeling, so glad to share this with him!

Today we focused on our grammar lesson where we are learning about adjectives. We played a fun game kind of like I spy where one person thinks of a noun to describe and the other person has to try and figure out what the noun is according to the clues (adjectives) given. He loved that and it really helped reinforce what adjectives are.

After we got all of the writing out of the way, did some math puzzles in his workbook then onto history! This week it's all about ancient Africa, specifically west Africa. To go along with the history text and map work we drew pictures of life in this region at that time, read tons of African folk tales and today we even made handmade African beaded necklaces made from recycled magazines. Tonight I think we will cook an African inspired meal from a story we read today about Anansi the spider- Plantains, cassava (I think we will just use potatoes) and rice.

until next time...

Human body unit

After our math and spelling lessons today we made a Human Body book to keep all of our projects and worksheets related to this Science unit. We started talking about the skeletal system and completed a skeleton puzzle that we glued to construction paper and put into our new book, naming some of the major bones in the body as well. Emile of course wanted in on the action, so I gave him a glue stick and some real glue (yikes), cut up some bits of scrap paper and let him go. It was a lovely mess!

Sick Day

Friday which is normally designated for field trips and fun excursions was spent in bed where the three of us read Harry Potter, drew wild pictures from the story and did other fun quiet things while Avery fought off a draining fever. We brought all of our pillows and stuffed animals into my king size bed and hunkered down. And today Avery is feeling much better with the fever gone completely!!

We did manage to complete a fun science experiment that made perfect timing. It was a comparison of animal and plant cells using jello! We put half of the jello into a round bowl (animal cell) and the other half into a square bowl (plant cell), put green grapes in the square bowl to represent the chloroplast and whole strawberies in each for the nucleus. Avery documented his observations, diagramming the parts of a cell in his science binder and happily eating his discoveries.

Have a great labor day weekend!

Morning work

We took our school work outside again this morning, and like magic I didn't hear one word from the little guy for nearly half and hour. He was amazed at the smallest things. It really has been a long time since we spent alot of quality time outside besides being at the pool. It has just been too hot and the mosquito's too ravenous.

I caught Emile in a mischievous moment writing on my satsuma tree. I watched before interfering, and was surprised how gentle he was being. No satsumas were injured in this event thank goodness!

Being outside for school also has it's draw backs. Distractions are every where, especially the love bugs that are just calling out to Avery! We did manage to get our spelling and math done, leaving plenty of time for his nature journal and of course chasing the love bugs (definite sign that fall is just around the corner!)

History this afternoon, art class and possibly a nap for me!!

Change

There is always that time of day, right before dinner, where the kids are at their worst and think there is nothing better to do than to irritate one another to tears. I am pulling my hair out repeating "I'm done, I'm done!" I Watch the clock, waiting for Adam to walk through the door and relieve me of my parenting duties for a moment or two so that I can cook dinner. And everything after that moment is a whirlwind! A feeding frenzy, full of demands, messy hands to clean, and chattery voices to continue to listen to. Bath time is a saving grace, but then back to chaos- drying runaway naked boys, finding jammies, playing musical beds and reading our bed time books. Kids are finaly asleep by 9:30 and Adam and I look at each other like an army just raided our house! I am not complaining, it would be very boring without this stuff. There is lots of laughter, tickles and good times. It's still a frenzy, and all adults crave some silence, right?

So the reason for my rambling is just to point out that the change in the seasons touches all, especially little people. The weather shifted a bit last night and this afternoon, when the usual chaos would reign, we went outside and heard only the sound of the birds and once in a while the ohh and ahhh of a child discovering something wondrous in the natural world. The cooler air soothed and calmed us all. I'm so grateful for days like today! We all need a shift sometimes. Seasons change and internally we do too! Welcome September!