This week in science the boys were learning about Mollusks. We were able to find tons of snails in our strawberry patch to study and also befriend. Emile particularly became quite fond of the little creatures, wanting to keep them as his pets!

worm hunt

We are moving on the the lesson on worms in our science book. Today we spent the morning digging in one of our compost piles for worms to put in the newly constructed worm motel. The boys had a great time digging for the poor critters, some unfortunately are now two, if you know what I mean. Let's just say it's a good thing they know how to regenerate. Avery learned the parts of a worm by diagraming and sketching pictures using a real worm as his model. The boys together collected all of the necessary items to make a temporary home for the worm and then went out on their search. The rest of the week will be spent doing more experiments involving worms, and luckily all to our gardens benefit.

science art

In science Avery is studying Cnidarians- the phylum that includes jelly fish, coral and other primitive animals. Avery did research on the Internet learning all he could then he found pictures to add to his Animal Kingdom book along with the different facts he found interesting. As luck would have it he just so happened to have been working on a sculpture and a painting of a jelly fish in art class.

Swampy Excursions

Today we went for an outing to Lake Martin for our science lesson. Learning about habitats, and being from south Louisiana, the wetlands are near and dear to us. So that is where we started. It was an amazingly beautiful day, and lucky for us the alligators weren't looking to eat any children today (a genuine fear that my boys have). We'll have to come back this spring when they are nesting!!!

We did manage to see a turtle sunning himself on a log, beautiful white egrets, few black capped chikadees and what I think was an osprey (our variety of an eagle!).

On our long drive home, I looked back to discover all three children sound asleep! I think it was a very worthwhile adventure indeed.

Tuesday

Today we completed our final lab in our Human body Unit. It was our favorite so far. We made fingerprints by using a pencil and rubbing it on a piece of paper and rubbing each finger into the pencil led. Then we took clear tape and pressed each finger to the tape and put the tape with the prints onto his lab sheet. It was really neat to see each print so clearly with this method. Avery compared prints from each family member and even tried to figure out a "mystery print" by comparing it to the other prints he collected from the rest of us.

Now he is very eager to start the Animal Kingdom, making Science his favorite subject without a doubt!



For language today after completing his spelling lesson we did a new journal activity from a little journal idea book I picked up from the education store last week. The first entry asked Avery what would happen if in the story Jack and the Bean Stalk the Giant caught Jack. What would they say to each other?

What he ended up writing was simple, maybe two full sentences, but at least he was excited to write something. I told him there are no rules, you can write outside the lines, you can use capitol letters where ever you like and I won't even correct your spelling! He was very pleased with all of that. When I gave him freedom to make mistakes I saw him relax and enjoy the process more. That is what a journal is for. Free thoughts, no limitations, just a place to be oneself with out scrutiny. Amen!

Weeks end

We have had a great week full of exciting activities and fun lessons. Emile has taken a great interest in learning his letters and numbers. I have these neat sandpaper letters that he traces with his finger while we talk about the sound the letter makes, also I have these dry erase number cards that he has been tracing ever so carefully and really learning his numbers, I don't think Avery did that until he was four! Homeschooling with siblings is so rewarding!

Avery this week learned all about the central nervous system. We conducted an experiment where I would drop a ruler into his hand and see if he could improve his reaction time. Then documented his findings in his Human Body Journal. Today we will do an experiment with the five senses- it will involve blind folds and paper bags filled with different items like cotton balls, jingle bells, coins, and a jar of vinegar just to name a few.

I finally threw out our math book (Singapore), and pulled out some good old fashion first grade workbooks that I picked up from the toy store. It's been fun, challenging in a good way and most of all easy to understand. This week it's been all about word problems and bar graphs.

Spelling- I'm now using Spectrum Dolch sight word workbook that Avery and I both like a whole lot. There are reading exercises included that I think have helped him a lot in his fluency. There are 6 sentences with a box next to it and each day we practice reading those sentences that use our sight words, if he gets it right with no error we put a check in the box, if he misses a word or two we save it for the next day. He feels like it is a good challenge, and feels so accomplished when he gets those checks!

back to work

It was a wonderful holiday for all of us here. Staying in jammies for most of the days, bundling up inside away from the cold. Loading up on sugary goodness, and playing for hours with all of our new toys! It's been heavenly having Adam home from work for so many days, you could call me spoiled at this point. So now it is back to reality, back to routine and the rhythm of a new and productive year.

Over the weekend in preparation for this new start I cleaned out the pantry and the fridge (major accomplishment!). I must have thrown out 5 lbs of candy/cookies/sugar. And in turn stocked both places full of nutritious goodness ready to start this year on a healthy note. Of course that means more preparation and planning to do on my part, but we'll all be healthier this way. My resolution this year is to get back to a more holistic lifestyle. Prepare more whole foods, start up a family yoga practice including the boys, and have more FUN with the kids in general. I want to laugh more and fuss less!

We started back at our school work today. We did the usual handwriting, and phonics lesson, then a writing exercise where he pretends to be a reporter and reports what he witnesses as me and his little brother play. He learns to record events chronologically and has fun role playing as well.
For science we completed a lab where we took yarn and measured and labeled the parts of the digestive system. We were both quite shocked to find out that a child's digestive system measures out to be about 22 feet long. I later discovered that when I asked him to label the large and small intestine I didn't check his spelling right away and found that he was calling those parts the large and small "innards" which I found quite hilarious!
I'm already laughing more, what a great start to a new year!

A beautiful day

What a beautiful fall day ! We woke up and made yummy pumpkin spice muffins and went outside for school and play. Emile busied himself with this homemade oatmeal "sand" box where he does loads of pouring and filling, also he had a Tupperware full of assorted dry beans that he pretended to cook and then after he was done planted them in the garden. Daddy will have a little surprise come spring when Lima's, black, red and navy beans start sprouting up all over the place.

Avery worked in his math book, finishing up the review tests. Now we are ready for the second half of the first grade workbook.

In grammar we did more labeling of sentences (nouns and verbs). For a little fun I had him make up some sentences talking about an animal and what the animal was doing- then acting the sentence out in the yard. They both had loads of fun doing that!

Here's a few of their thoughts:

"The lion ran across the field."

"The ant bit the man."

"The bat swung from the tree."

"The elephant danced on one foot."

The last one was especially funny to watch them act out!

This afternoon (so that I can have a rest) we are going to watch a DVD on deep sea life. Avery has always been fascinated with ocean life and all of the amazing creatures that exist in that ecosystem. So in asking him what he would enjoy learning about this week (just for fun) he requested creatures of the deep sea. We also went to the library and checked out books to go along with his peaked interest.

So a nap is calling at the moment. Enjoy this beautiful fall weather if you can!

We are loving our new schedule lately. Wake up, eat, read, eat, read some more, eat some more. Avery is especially grateful to my extremely slow state of being these days. Audio books have become my greatest ally. We've been listening to storyteller Jim Weiss who is absolutely wonderful!! Greek myths, Shakespeare for children, American tall tales, and a favorite around here- Rip Van Winkle, complete with Rip's rap!

We have still been doing our "school" work, it's just in disguise.

We are finished the first book in the first grade math curriculum, after his review we'll take the test to see if he retained all of the concepts, if so he can move on to the second workbook that will last the rest of this year. Still not too sure if I like this math curriculum. It's either too easy or worded too weird so that even I don't understand what they want him to do. If anyone who reads this has any great math curriculum ideas please feel free to share!

Also taking a break from the human body unit this week to do science experiments. Avery's request of course. Right now we are oxidizing pennies, soaking paper towels in vinegar and recording the reaction. Interesting how the side that is not touching the vinegar turns green but the underside that is sitting in the vinegar remains the same color. The book doesn't tell me why this happens so I have to do my homework now.

My camera is still out of commission, but hopefully will be back in working order to add some pictures to these boring blog post.

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.

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!!!

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!

Science observations

Today we accomplished so much and willingly I might add!

This is our tentative schedule we aim for each day- let's see how it evolves throughout the year (especially after the baby is born).

1. Spelling


2. Grammar or Creative Writing-alternating each day


3. Phonics lesson


4. History or Science-again alternating each day


5. Math


6. Reading- 30 minutes I read aloud, 30 minutes he reads independently


7. Piano practice

(See sidebar for books used in our curriculum)

Today Avery was most excited about the science lab. He had to make an observation plot, where he was to look and study a square yard that he measured and roped off and documented his findings. The purpose was to identify living and non living things and describe on our lab sheet how we came to know if they are living or not- answering questions like does it have respiration, does it excrete waste, does it move independently, does it grow and reproduce. He gets all of that, he thinks it is kind of silly to ask such questions, but the process of acquiring the info is exciting! So all day he planned, he plotted, and at the end of the day we took our dinner outside and sat by our plot and inspected inch by inch, discovering all kinds of life! It didn't stop there...oh no! He had Adam go and fetch some large garden stakes and staked out an official more permanent plot for future use. I love his enthusiasm and sense of wonder!