Field Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

This past Friday our COOP went on a field trip to the Pumpkin patch! The day was gorgeous, sunny and warn, although after about an hour it got really warm!

As soon as we got there it was time for the Hay ride!
Hay rides are so much fun and we all get to pick a pumpkin!

The kids had a great time with all their little friends, there were a few bees around which was not cool, but no casualties...

So many pumpkins, it's hard to pick one!

A7 and X5 got their pumpkins! After the hay ride we went to their little outdoor market, we got a few goodies to eat and some fresh apple cider, it was the best apple cider I've ever had(I haven't had much :).

After we ate and drank the kids went to the playground side of the patch, they had two giant slides, one open and one covered. A corn maze, you get to feed goats, climb Noah's ark and just play with weird stuff.

We had a great time!!! See you next year Pumpkin Patch!!

Week 9 Art Project

This week we are taking a break from lines!! Since we are rowing The Story About Ping, I decided to let X5 work on a ducks art project. He had fun coloring and then gluing the yellow pieces of felt to the duckies!

A7 got to work on some Autumn art work. This time she used the "feathering technique".
Outline the leaves using a red and orange crayon, lucky for us Nina got A7 a set of
Crayola True to Life Crayons(They create wonderful texture and give a "painting" look).
Then outline the acorns with orange and yellow crayons(again we used our true to life crayons) and the caps of the acorns with a brown crayon.

Then use an eraser to pull the color toward the center of the nuts and leaves. This produces a "feathered" look!

School Week 9

This week we are rowing the book The Story About Ping. We rowed this book two years ago with A7. Back then we knew very little about lapbooks, we did a few activities and she colored some China coloring pages but that's about it. I've been wanting to do a Ping lapbook and here's our chance. I'm sure X5 will love the book as well!

Geography: China, Yangtze River, Symbols of China
Social Stu: Chinese culture, discernment, learn about China kit
Art: origami
Language Arts: copy work, repetition
Science: float or sink

We are going to use our "learn about China kit" for this book!!

X5 will be working on a Veggie Tales mini lapbook that will look something like this:

Week 8 Art Project

This week's art project is part of our US geography unit study. Both kids got to color the American flag plus A7 made a patriotic bookmark!

This is X5's flag!

A7's flag looks similar but hers has all fifty stars! She also made a bookmark, here is a pic of both front and back of the bookmark.

School Week 8

This week we are rowing the book, How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA. This is not a FIAR book, but it has all the elements of one! I've been wanting to do a US geography unit study and this book is perfect for it!

Geography: states of the US
History: symbols of USA, how do you celebrate the 4th?
Language arts: copy work, word find, vocab words
Science: US natural resources, manufacturing, measuring tools
Home Ec: how to set the dinner table?
Art: fireworks! map of US

This unit study plus math is all we are doing this week, I really want to spend a proper amount of time on this.

X5 will be doing a mini USA lapbook as well! It will be age appropriate of course. We've been reading the Pledge of alliance book everyday, hopefully this week he'll have it memorized!

Surprise of the Week

This past Monday morning, as the kids and I were doing our read alouds, we heard the doorbell ring. To our surprise it was my Mom and my sister Jeannie!
They came over to see the kids and to give X5 his birthday gift, since they were not able to make it for his actual birthday.

Needless to say the kids and I were pleasantly surprise and very happy to have Grandma visit us during the middle of school. We canceled school(we finished everything after they left) and spent some quality time with Grandma and Titi of course!

We all went out for a delicious lunch and after we got back it was time for them to leave. We took pictures with Titi but forgot Grandma, sorry Mom!!!
After we got done with school we went for a Fall scavenger hunt. We had to find pine cones, feathers, acorns, spider web, empty nest, maple and oak leaves and so on...

We found a few of the things on the list, but we're going to a different park tomorrow to find the rest.

Here is what we've found so far:Pine cones!
Feathers!

Wild berries

Maple leaves

Mushroom

Spider web

We had a ton of fun looking for this stuff, the kids were exhausted by the time we came back home. They can't wait to find the rest tomorrow!

Week 7 Art Project

Line Delight: Create a design beginning with two lines, they may be horizontal, vertical or diagonal. They must travel in the same direction and one line may be curve and the other bent.

I can tell that A7 really understood what was being asked, the book always shows examples, of course, but she really went for her own thing here!!

Color by number.
X5 did really well with his art project considering he doesn't enjoy coloring that much. I helped him out in the beginning just to show him what he needed to do, he did all the rest!

School Week 7

This week we are doing an Autumn unit study. We'll be reading an assortment of books that deal with Fall and fall activities, we'll have a leaf hunt and a fall scavenger hunt...

• How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin
• Fall
• Going on a Leaf Hunt

We'll also be doing Fall crafts that I found at AC Moore. X5 is going to be working on a pumpkin lapbook that A7 did last year. I'll be adding some new things but overall it will look very similar to the one she did.

Picture Day!

Every year the kids get their pictures taken for their birthday. X5's birthday was four weeks ago, we finally got his 5 yr. old pictures taken this morning. We were able to go online and look at thumbnails of all the poses.

Now, this is not copyright infringement or anything, we already paid for the pictures!! We'll get them in about two weeks. But here is a little sample of them, because he looks too darn cute to make you wait two weeks to see them!

Week 6 Art Project

This weeks' project: Curved or Bent? Combine curved lines and straight lines to create interesting designs.

• two squares(6") of white construction paper.
• on one square use only straight, bent and angular lines.
• on the other square use only curved lines.

X5 had a cool project today, a mosaic Autumn tree.

He is going to be taking this to COOP for show and tell, since this week we are to show something related to music or art!

Quote of the Week

"Christianity isn’t a crutch for the weak; it’s a stretcher for the dead. The gospel doesn’t claim to help the weak; it claims to make the dead live again. We reject the notion of the crutch of Christianity because we don’t need something to help us walk along; we need something to make us truly alive." by Michael Kelley

School Week 6

This week we are rowing the book Night of the Moonjellies.
"This beautifully illustrated picture book debut evokes the fullness of a New England childhood through descriptions of a single summer day"

Geography: New England
Soc. Stu: Responsability
Lang. Arts: Vocabulary words
Science: biome, moonjelly fish

X5 will be working on his C & D lapbook & Big Machines lapbook. It will look something like this.

Fall Table

I love Fall, it is my favorite time of year. All of the best holidays happen in Fall... Halloween(lost of candy) Thanksgiving(lots of food) and Christmas(4 days after Fall ends so I include it in there!).
I love Fall decorations, especially in the kitchen/dinning area. It makes everything so warm and cozy!

Thanks to Nina (for pointing out centerpieces ideas) I finally have some Fall decorations for my dinner table. Yesterday I had a tea party for the ladies of the Church and I decorated the table with a Fall theme!

I know for some this looks way simple but for me this is a BIG DEAL!! ha ha! I'm going to look for some plate settings that'll look good with the table cover. My DH told me I should dress the table up for dinner everyday like this! I'm trying to convince him to let me get a Fall plate set, a small of course, 4 plates, 4 mugs maybe salad plates shaped like leaves!!!

Update:
Here is a pic of the table now!

Fall

Fall has come to Webkinz world!

Letter Factory

I'm still trying to figure out what type of learner X5 is. I know he learns by hearing, because there's been many times I've read a book to A7 while X5 was in the room playing with somethings else and he knew the details of the story I was reading.

I know he learns by watching what others do and I know he learns by doing hence the reason he is so good at computer games. How do I use that to teach him how to read though?

He is not very good with the alphabet, he knows about 3/4 of the alphabet. I'm told he does not need to know the name of the letters to learn the sounds the letters make. The thing is he is not very interested in any of it... so I visited other homeschool blogs with 4-5 yr old boys learning how to read. One Mom posted about this Leap Frog DVD Letter Factory.

She said it really helped her 5 yr old son get interested in letters and their sound! I went ahead and bought it from Amazon.com. It is about 30 minutes long which is perfect. The kids watched it today and X5 loved it!, he kept pointing to the letters on my keyboard and telling what their sound was... yeah!!!!!

LampPost Homeschool Exchange

This Friday we start COOP aka Lamppost. We are doing 8 weeks with a week off after the first 4 weeks. The week off we'll be going to the Pumping Patch!
This semester I'm teaching the K to 2nd graders. We are doing art. Yes I know, me?? teaching art??

I'm doing Scribble Art with the kids. It seems really simple and fun, plus one of the coop moms who happened to be a special ed teacher in another life told me scribble art was great for developing some stuff in kids that would be very beneficial for some other stuff, which makes it a really good art thing to do... ha ha!

I don't remember all the words that she used but she was clearly impressed with it and wants her daughter in the class, so it has be good!!
Here are some sample pages...

Club Carnival

Last night was the Club carnival at our Church. We had games, prizes, snow cones, soft pretzels, pop corn... you get the idea.The purpose of the carnival is to kickoff Reach Kids Club! Parents can register their kids for the club year. We meet every Wednesday at 7PM to 8:30.
We have bible stories, games, activities and usually a snack. Kids get to sing during the club opening. Dh and I are the club coordinators, which means we are in charge of the schedule, yearly activities and our year end camp out.

It is a lot of fun in the beginning, of course once we get to May we are ready for a long break! But this is September and we are eager to start! We have a lot of adults helping this year. We are short two people, hopefully we'll get them before next week, if not, we'll do with what we have!

It has been nothing short of a miracle to see this come together this summer. At the end of Clubs last May we had some of the leaders and helpers tell us they were not coming back in the Fall. We truly needed to rely on God, knowing that if He wanted to keep this going, He would be faithful to provide the help we needed, and with two weeks to go before kickoff He did!!

Here are some pics of the kids at the carnival last night...

A7 enjoying her snow cone!

X5 playing pop the balloons!

Week 5 Art Project

Continuing with our line unit, this week we learned about other types of lines:

• zigzag
• curly
• scalloped
• looped
• wavy

Today's project was to divide a paper into 8 squares(2 papers) and draw all the different types of lines in each square.

X5's art project was to use different shapes to form a person!

Nature Walk

We went on a nature walk today and saw this...