Today's activities and some old ones too

We're on to ancient China, which is fascinating... okay, all of it's fascinating to me. A product of US public education, I am encountering all of this for the first time. So today we opened up our Ancient China Treasure Chest and ground an ink stick to practice a little calligraphy. Sylvia wanted to try it out too, but I was surprised by it and didn't get her in the pics.

Grinding the ink

Calligraphy - she was determined to do them ALL!


Other highlights from today:

Sylvia marching around while singing along with the Latin songs. Why does this seem so out of reach for preschoolers? I think Song School Latin, at least the songs and vocabulary, would be completely doable with a small 4 year old class. Or maybe I just don't know 4 year olds very well. One of the songs says, "If you bump into a little man and make him spill his tea, say ignosce mihi." Becca said, "But what if he doesn't speak Latin?"

Right Start math - I just got Level B and after a brief period of mild panic, I think we can do this. We - Becca and I. I could do Singapore, maybe Becca just couldn't. So far our Right Start results are promising. Becca asks to do math first almost every day. She loves the card games and really seems to be getting it. Maybe it's because we went back and are re-doing things we already covered in our Singapore experiment, or maybe RS has a better touch. All I know is that Sylvia - SYLVIE, my 4 year old - is starting to remember number pairs that make ten. Yes, "Go to the Dump" really is that great.

Speaking of Sylvia, she took a ton of books off the shelf and just started to read them. She counted them and had in the neighborhood of 22. She's starting to truly take off in her reading and become a little more fluent, less halting.

I just love the little things in homeschooling. The silly, strange moments you'd never get with any other experience.






Becca tracing her digestive system - 4 and 6 year olds find the manufacture of poop to be endlessly amusing.
Sylvia posing with her outline
"Helpful Spit" from Head to Toe Science. It would have been helpful to have unexpired iodine, which I think might have affected the outcome of this experiment. I don't know if I was able to accurately convey to Becca the role saliva plays in our digestive system, but it's all about the experience when you're five - er, six. Right?

The Golden Apple, from our studies on ancient Greece (SOTW Ch. 23). The whole thing says "For the Most Beautiful." DH presented it to me. Smart man.


Olympus Family Tree, also SOTW Ch. 23. The book that more thoroughly explains this was perpetually checked out of the library, so we just got our hands on it. We tried to put the gods and goddesses in some sort of hierarchical order, but who knows. It's the experience that counts, it's the experience that counts...


Pharos lighthouse (SOTW Ch. 25). I just couldn't buy a whole roll of yellow plastic wrap, so we just put it in the window so the sun would shine through the windows. Becca was more fascinated by the library in Alexandria - girl after my own heart!



We're almost done with our Mommy-designed human body studies and I'm making preparations for a short unit on plants. Very short, as in, how can we get this stuff in before Mommy kills all our specimens? I just killed a batch of three seedlings we were growing "just for fun." *rolls eyes at self*

Meet Tommy and Rosie

Here are our frog friends Tommy and Rosie. Tommy is the big guy in the top pic. We got him as a "froglet friend" when we sent off for the larger Stage 2 habitat. Rosie is smaller and more delicate (second pic). We raised her from a tadpole. We actually don't know if Tommy is a boy or Rosie is a girl - it's hard to tell in Grow-A-Frogs. I wanted to name our tadpole Tommy, but Becca won out and named her Rosie (short for Rosella, from Barbie Island Princess). So as a compromise, I got to name our next one Tommy.



We got our friends from http://www.growafrog.com/. They're definitely worth checking out - Becca and Sylvia both love Tommy and Rosie, and they're suitably low-maintenance for a lazy - er, busy - mom like me!



Rosie went through her metamorphosis a lot faster than we expected, so we may end up getting another tadpole later on so the girls can get a closer look at the true transformation. I'm not ready for it right now though - Becca's already begging for caterpillars and an ant farm!

It's all fun and games 'til somebody loses a tooth.

Look, Mom, homeschooling's FUN!

This is the culmination of our first sort of official science unit. The general ocean life theme was strictly for fun; the whale unit was for real. We read encyclopedia entries, picture-filled books, created a whale mobile, and baked some cookies. Science is a blast when you're five, isn't it?

Our next unit is on frogs. I was going to cover seals and penguins next, but Becca got so excited about having a frog that I went ahead and ordered our tadpole. Unfortunately, she morphed really quickly, and the girls missed it completely since they were visiting Grandma. But they still get the fun of feeding our two little grow-a-frogs, Tommy and Rosie. I'll have to get some pictures soon. Tommy is about three times bigger than Rosie - he was the free froglet friend that came with our stage two set. Rosie looks so tiny and delicate next to him! They're getting along well though.

Updates, changes, etc.... Sylvia is still stubbornly resisting the potty, so it's looking very unlikely that she'll be going to preschool in the fall. As much as one can ask a three year old a question and get an answer, I asked if she wanted to go to preschool and she said no. I was shocked!! I guess I wasn't thinking - just because Becca had a blast at preschool doesn't mean that Sylvia would want to go. The girls' best friend and Becca's 3 yr. teacher are leaving too, which doesn't give Sylvie any motivation at all. She says she wants me to be her teacher too... I didn't bargain for that much!

And thank Bush... or the oil companies, or whomever you'd like to personally flog for the outrageous gas prices - we're not going to be able to do the aforementioned Fine Arts Fridays. I'm upset, but I saw it coming. Between the tuition and the 50 mile (one way) drive, it would cost us way more per month than we could possibly pay. So now I get to make full use of the fine arts center in our town and whatever else I can find in the area. I'm nervous about being out on my own. I know there are other homeschoolers locally; maybe we'll come out of the closet and band together for a little fun.

Finally, there's nothing like the prospect of teaching your own child to get you to want to polish up your own learnin'! So I'm reading some classic literature and an ancient history overview. I also want to take Latin and logic courses (self-taught at home). This whole classical approach is the education I wanted and envisioned when I was about 15. I just wish I'd learned about it years ago. I would have been able to do so much extra learning if I'd even realized these things were available!

What we have been up to...

We did a nice long study on ocean life, which we actually are still working on. We just do a little here and there, and the girls are having tons of fun. My main resource has been a book called In the Ocean from Teacher Created Resources. Those teachers sure know what they're doing! LOL I got every single penny's worth out of this book. Remind me of that the next time I'm wandering the toy aisle with the girls.

So here are two of our habitat posters - I'm sure you can tell which one the girls glued together and which one I did. Looking at it now, my tide pool looks a little forlorn.

One of the girls' favorite activities from this ocean study is Ocean Bingo. The cards only have nine squares, so I make the girls fill their whole card before they get to call Bingo. They added a silly little twist to it - when they fill their cards, they then stuff all the fish crackers into their mouths. Davey calls it a toddler version of a drinking game.

We haven't done all the projects with this study yet, but we did make some barnacles and bumpy sea stars - you can tell they're proud of their work!

We're also starting the very basics in history. We'll be having a lot of fun with ancient history this year, but first Becca needs a little idea of what history is. So we did a little timeline of her life.

And I received my Living Learning science curriculum today - I've decided to capitalize on our ocean focus and kick it off with a study on whales. I'll keep it around the ocean and we'll do seals and penguins next. Then I'm thinking we'll do frogs - so I'm going to send off for a Grow-a-Frog kit!

At least I'm not getting an ant farm.

Mystery gloop!

This was just too cool not to share it!

1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tablespoons water
ziploc bag
measuring cup
plastic spoon

Pour the cornstarch into the bag and add the water. Have your kid mush it around in the bag. Then pour it into the measuring cup and play! This is really neat - it pours like a thick liquid but then solidifies in the cup or on your hands. We had a lot of fun being gross with it. It's messy, but if you homeschool your kids, you're probably expecting a mess! Very easy to clean up.

We just made it for fun, but it can also be valuable when teaching about matter. We're not quite there yet. Example:

Me: "Water is an example of a liquid. It runs, like this goop runs off my fingers."
Becca: "Like I run! I'm a liquid!"

Er, not quite... we'll get there soon enough! LOL

(Becca is reading over my shoulder right now!)