More School Things This Week

We've almost made it through the first week of school...and we're still alive to tell the tale! :) Actually, things have gone just about as smoothly as they could go this week, for which, I am extremely grateful.

Adelia likes to play with the pattern blocks while I do school with the older boys.

Wednesday was an awesome day. Our morning subjects went smoothly, we did them all, AND we were done by 11:30am. Perfect. That left just enough time to clean up, make lunch, eat it, and get everyone in the car so we could be to Science Club by 1:00pm.

My friend Wynter is the best. She really is, in more ways than one. This year, she has offered to host Science Club at her house every week. The other moms with kids involved in Science Club take turns teaching, and I enjoy taking my turn to teach. But thanks to Wynter I don't have to worry about having everyone at my house, which is the part that stresses me out the most. And I am grateful.

This is Lincoln's Think Chart. Mammals have: hair/fur and backbones. Mammals can: breath air, nurse their young (Linc drew a picture of a bottle of milk for this one). Mammals are: born alive, warm-blooded.

This week we learned about mammals. For the First Grade class I read Animals Born Alive and Well by Ruth Heller. And then we made a Think Chart to diagram some things we had learned about mammals. Then I took some Animal Kingdom Flashcards (I found these in the dollar bin at Target last year during Back to School season) and passed them around to the kids. We looked at each card and went through our Think Chart to determine if the animal on the card was a mammal or not. If we answered yes to all the things on the chart, then we could say it was a mammal, but if we answered no to anything, then we decided it must be something else. The kids were sharp, and they caught on quickly.

For the preschool class, I decided not to do the Think Chart. I read them the story, and then passed out the animal cards. While the kids looked at the cards, I asked them to pull out all the ones that had feathers. Then I explained that these weren't mammals because mammals have hair/fur and not feathers. Then I asked them to pull out all the ones the have scales, then all the ones that lived under water...you get the idea. When we were left with only mammals in front of us, I told each kid to pick out their favorite mammal in their pile and draw it on a piece of paper. Here are Ivan and Adelia's:

I thought they both did an excellent job on their drawings. This is probably the first time Adelia has drawn anything that wasn't a circle or a scribble. So that's awesome. And I really like the way Ivan put spots on his giraffe.

Each first grader and each preschooler got to go to three 20 minute classes, with a snack break in the middle. I didn't get to see much of what the other teachers did in their classes because I was either teaching or taking care of Ollie, but the glimpses that I saw looked super fun. And even though we all taught about mammals, we all took a different approach in how we taught, and I think that was awesome. What I do know, is that all three of my kids came home with a good understanding about what a mammal is, even Adelia. When Aaron came home, she ran up to him with her picture and said, "Daddy look at my panda bear, it has a backbone!"

And so, I am thrilled with our Science Club. I think it is going to be so great.

Today was a good day too. Lincoln went to Options Day and Ivan went to preschool. That left Adelia and Ollie and I at home. I decided that I needed to do something special with Adelia, since the older kids have been doing a lot with school this week, and she has kind of been entertaining herself. I wanted to give her my full attention while Ivan was a preschool. So I let her help me make zucchini cake. :)

Trying to cook with three kids helpers is enough to make me want to slit my wrists, but cooking with only one kid helper is actually kind of fun! And Del was really excited. She followed directions well too.

Ollie was getting cranky towards the end, so after we put the cake in the oven to bake, I told Adelia that she could lick the bowl while I went upstairs and put Ollie down for his nap. Apparently she decided to bathe in it instead, because when I came back downstairs she had batter all over her face, in her hair, up and down both arms, and all over her T-shirt. But that's Del for ya. She is my messy child, and I don't think anything I say or do is going to change it. So instead of getting mad, I just helped her wash up and we found her a new shirt, and waited for the cake to finish baking. (It doesn't look as bad in the picture as it did in real life. She was covered!)

Then we went to get Ivan from preschool. They were learning about colors today, and he brought home this cool painting.

I don't know why I love this painting so much, because it's just your simple hand print painting, but I love it. I can imagine that Ivan had a lot of fun making it, and he was really excited to show it to me. Maybe that's what makes me love it. Anyways, it's currently in a prominent position on our refrigerator.

At the end of the day we picked up Linc from Harmony. He was very excited to show me his Shaduf, that he had made and tell me all the things he's learned about Egypt. Apparently, a shaduf is a catapult-like structure that the Egyptians used to dip into the river and pull up a container full of water to water their crops with.

I checked in my Story of the World activity book and confirmed my theory. Lincoln's teacher is doing Story of the World with them. Which is fantastic, and I'm happy that she is, especially because she's doing a lot of the more time/resource consuming projects; but, I was planning on doing some of that as one of my Friday activities, so now I need to decide if I still want to do the readings and the maps with different activities, or if I want to do something else entirely. I'm going to have to think about it some more.

Anyways, we had a good school week. We did some awesome things. And it was so nice to have a game plan, and some structure. And I also felt like we got a decent amount of friend-time as well. So my kids aren't lacking in that area either. Hooray! I love home school!