Spring Break

Ah, Spring Break. The week I stay home and hit the books hard, while everyone else and their dog is out crowding up all the fun places. Go to Thanksgiving Point with 2 zillion other people? No thanks, we'll wait until you're all back in public school so we can have the place to ourselves. 

I did get is some really awesome, solid school days over Spring Break. It felt good. Here's one of our art projects. A waterfront scene, done with construction paper and watercolors. The idea was to notice how the buildings would reflect upon the water, so that water is the color of the buildings. Pretty cool. Even Adelia joined in and did really well. 

Lincoln's

Ivan's

Adelia's

Adelia has been really interested in bugs for awhile now. Almost every night when I'm tucking her in, she tells me how when she gets up in the morning she's going to study about bugs for her school work. Sometimes I feel like she gets the shaft when it comes to school, because I spend a lot of time with the boys, and they pick a lot of our subject matter, and Del just sort of tags along. So during Spring break, I decided we'd do a little bit of studying about bugs, because I knew Adelia would like it. 

One thing we talked about was Monarch Butterflies and how the migrate thousands of miles every year, from Canada and North America to forest in Mexico, and aback again. We made butterfly sun-catchers to hang in the window. And watched a Wild Kratts episode on Monarchs. Del was in heaven. :) She's been asking for bug books for bedtime story each night. 

Lincoln has been learning about the Scientific Method at Harmony, and needed to conduct a simple chemical experiment over Spring Break that he could apply the Scientific Method to.

He chose to mix lemon juice and baking soda (which creates carbon dioxide, and replaces oxygen) to put out a candle in cup. He found, and conducted the experiment all by himself, all I did was light the candle and take pictures. :)


We have a Showcase coming up on Plants. For his project, Ivan wants to show how plants roots know how to grow down into the dirt. The answer is gravity. We are trying to sprout 4 different bean seeds, each facing a different direction. We think the beans will sprout and that no matter which way they are turned the roots will go down to the bottom of the container. I'm hoping we get far enough along in the experiment by Showcase time, but I think we may have started a little late. We'll see. But here's the set up:

We're keeping our fingers crossed that they sprout. :) My other kids still haven't come up with what they are going to do for their projects. Hopefully we think of something...we're kind of running out of time to get anything to grow in time.

Lest you think I'm a slave driver, you should know that we also went up to Hooper to play with Gramma Tam for part of Spring Break. And, Aaron had Friday off, and so we decided to make a wall around our front flower beds. We only got one side done. And we still need to put in the drip line and buy plants for that side, but it looks AWESOME! I'm so excited to get it all finished so that our front yard doesn't look quite so redneck.

School Days...

Wynter and I have been History and Science-ing up a storm. I just haven't posted about it. We studied the Great Plains tribes in Native American Cultures this week. The kids each made tipis. It was short and sweet, and still fun. :)

Wynter has been doing some fun things with the moon the last few weeks, including the phases of the moon in Oreos. Yum!

And, Adelia's preschool class went on a fieldtrip to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum. The boys and Rue and I tagged along.

This is Adelia and her buddy Brynlie. They are so cute, whenever they see each other they run together and give each other a hug. How did I ever get to be raising such a girl? Haha! I hate hugging people. But whatev...Del's all over it. :) 

Rock Cycle and Homemade Butter

We had another awesome week of Science and History this week! I love that Wynter and I do this together, it's more fun to learn with friends, and it's very motivating to me as a teacher to have a time and a place and a lesson I need to prepare. :) 

This week I taught about the rock cycle using Starburst candies.

I found the idea on Pinterest, and I was so happy with how it turned out. Here's what you need to prep for this lesson.

-3 squares of wax paper big enough to wrap around three Starbursts
-3 squares of tin foil big enough to wrap around wax paper that's been wrapped around three Starbursts
-9 Starbursts, in three colors. (ex. 3 purple, 3 yellow, and 3 pink)

Each phase of the "rock cycle" starts the same. stack three different colored Star bursts on top of each other. (ex. purple, yellow, then pink; the more the colors contrast each other the better you'll be able to see your results.) Wrap the wax paper tightly around the Starburst stack, keep track of which side is the top. Then wrap the tinfoil tightly around the wax paper, make sure no wax paper is showing.

To make a Sedimentary Rock, have the students apply pressure with their bodies. We ended up needing to stand on our to get them nice and flat. Then unwrap. You should be able to see the different layers squished together.

To make a Metamorphic Rock you need to apply heat and pressure. Turn your oven onto Broil. Put the tin foil wrapped Star bursts onto a cookie sheet and broil on high for about a minute. You want the Starbursts to be slightly squishy, not melted. Take them out of the oven, and remove the tin foil only. Now have your students use their hands to apply pressure. You really want to squish the Starbursts together and move them all around to kind of "blend" the colors somewhat, but not all the way. Then remove from wax paper and roll into a ball.

To make and Igneous Rock you need melting and cooling. Turn your oven onto Broil. Put the tin foil wrapped Star bursts onto a cookie sheet and broil on high for about 5-7 minutes. You want the Starbursts to melt all the way. Remove from oven and remove the tin foil. Careful, it'll be really hot! Open the wax paper up, and let the melted Starbursts cool until they are solid again. Then you can pull them off the wax paper if you like.

Wynter's History lesson was equally cool. I wish I'd taken more pictures, or that the pictures I did take had at least turned out better.

She taught about how the pilgrims had to make their own food when they got to the colonies, and how hard it was. The crops they grew in England didn't grow well in America. And the plants were all new and strange. With the help of the Indians, specifically Squanto, the pilgrims were able to learn how to grow and harvest food in the new world. Wynter fed the kids popcorn and apples, (corn and apples being things that grow well in America), and then she showed them how to make homemade butter but mixing cream and salt in a jar and shaking it. The kids took turns shaking the jar, and then got to have toast with the butter they'd made. Cool. I wish my pictures didn't suck. But here they are.

Crystals and Cabins

Today for science, I taught about crystals. I wanted a simple way to explain the relationship between rocks, minerals, and crystals. I found this information online, comparing rocks to a chocolate chip cookie, and minerals to the ingredients that go inside, and crystals to our human DNA that makes each mineral what it's supposed to be. Using that info, I created this worksheet. I made all the pictures and descriptions separate, so the kids had to cut them out and glue them in their notebooks. When they were done it was supposed to look like this picture below.

I thought my analogy was so great, and so simple...but it was totally lost on the kids. :) Oh well. Some day they'll flip back through their notebooks and read about it, and maybe it will make more sense then.

Then, using gumdrops and toothpicks, we built a couple of the more simple crystal structures, like salt.

And to finish off the lesson, we made our own, real live crystals, using borax and hot water. Basically, you take a mason jar, and fill it with boiling water. Then you stir in about 1/3 cup of borax (which you can find at WalMart in the laundry soap isle). Then you take a pipe cleaner and twist it into a cool shape, tie it to a string, tie the string to a popcicle stick, and hang the pipe cleaner into the borax water mixture. As the water cools, the borax will turn back into crystals and stick onto the pipe cleaner. It takes about 24 hours, so I'll have to get some pictures of the finished product tomorrow.

Next up, Wynter taught History. Today she taught us how many of the colonist got to America and knew very little about how to build a house for themselves, but that they had to do the best with the materials and knowledge they had. She gave the kids pretzel sticks, graham crackers, and frosting, and told them to go for it! It was definitely a trial and error process, which was the point, and which I also thought was SOOO good for my kids. They started out trying to make huge houses, but the frosting wouldn't support the weight. Eventually, the decided to break the pretzels down to a more manageable size and use the graham crackers for supports.

Homeschool Showcase: Getting to Know You

Today the kids participated in our homeschool group's Homeschool Showcase. Basically each month our group gets together, with a certain theme in mind, to allow the kids to get up in front of each other and present something that they've been working on. In my mind it's the perfect thing, I don't have to teach a class, or do anything extra, but my kids still get the opportunity to practice speaking in front of people, and explaining about a project they've been working on.

This month's theme was Getting to Know You. So, each kid got up and introduced themselves. I loved seeing the variety of creative ways everyone came up with to do this.

For my kids we turned it into an art project. I took our lamp from our nightstand and shined it at the wall, then I had the kids sit in a chair, so that their shadow projected onto the wall, and I traced the silhouette onto a piece of white paper. Then I had each kid tell me some things about themselves, and we looked around on the internet to find a clip-art that could represent that thing. Each kid colored and cut out their clip-arts, and glued them inside the silhouette of their head. Then using water colors, they painted colorful patches onto the remaining white space. Then we cut out their heads and glued them onto a black card stock. I think they turned out awesome.

Adelia: "My name is Adelia Swan. I like my name, Adelia, because it is my favorite name. I am 4 years old. I like to pick flowers for my mom. I like to cut things. I like to play soccer. I love everyone and I am good at making friends. I like worms. I put them in our garden. I know that princesses really exist, because there is one in England. I like to help my mom bake cookies. This year I am in preschool." 

Ivan: "My name is Ivan Swan. I like to build Trio castles. I like learning about scorpions. I like to learn about acting in my Triple Threat class. I also like to ride my bike and go camping. I like to exercise, and my favorite way to exercise is to pump weights. My favorite food is pizza. I like to look at books. I am really good at helping my mom unload the dishwasher, and going outside to check for eggs from our chickens."  

Lincoln: "My name is Lincoln Swan. I like snakes. When I grow up I want to be a scientist. I like to go hiking. I like to draw and build things. My favorite sport is tennis. I like to build robots. Some of my favorite things to do are read books, draw maps, and play the piano." 

Science and History Kicks Off

Wynter and I are teaming up again this year to teach our kids Science and History. This arrangement is so awesome, and adds a fun and social aspect to our learning each week.

First semester I am teaching Science and focusing on rocks and minerals, using the book Explore Rocks and Minerals with 20 great projects. To kick off our topic, we learned about the Earth and it's layers. First, I read them the book Under the Ground, to introduce the layers, then we made a paper diagram, similar to the ones my kids and I did for our volcano unit. Only instead of having the kids draw it free-hand, I made up the diagram on the computer and printed it out for them to color and label and glue in their notebooks. Then we did the fun part. We made the earth and it's layers out of Play-Doh. We started with a small red ball for the inner core, then an orange layer around that for the outer core. Next a yellow layer for the mantle. Then blue with green spots on top to represent the oceans and the continents for the crust. Once everyone had finished their Earth balls, we used a butcher knife to slice them in half, to show the layers.

This semester Wynter is teaching History and focusing on Colonial America using the book Explore Colonial America with 25 Great Projects.  Today she taught the kids about why the pilgrims decided to leave England. They colored a map of the 13 Colonies in order of where the pilgrims landed first. They will glue the maps into their notebooks as well. Then they carved boats out of bars of soap, and got to float them in the "ocean" (a bucket of water). How cool and fun! I was impressed.

Back to School

Adelia had her very first day of preschool last week. She has the cutest teacher (a lady in our ward whom I really admire), and a class full of 5 girls and 1 boy. I opted to put her in a neighborhood preschool this year, instead of helping to teach a co-op, because I didn't think I'd be able to give the co-op my best efforts with a new baby coming around Thanksgiving. Plus, a newborn during the winter and RSV season didn't seem like the ideal time to have a ton of little kids coming over to the house. At first I was really sad not to be doing co-op with Del. I kind of felt like I was letting her down in some way. But to listen to her excited chatter every time she comes home from preschool is enough to let me know that I did the right thing. Her teacher teaches the same way I would...lots of projects, lots of stories, lots of hands on, lots of doing. And Adelia is my social child. She is thriving with this new opportunity. And so I'm finding my peace with it too.

Lincoln started up again at Harmony. This year he is in the MAP (multi-age program) and goes on Mondays and Wednesdays. It was pouring rain on his first day, so I didn't get a good picture of him. He's happy to be back. And he also has a really great teacher. She encouraged him to bring a couple of his robots and his poster that he made and share them with his class. It must have gone well, because now he wants to take something new he's working on every time he goes. One time he even took a book he was reading, and shared with the class what it was about and why he liked it. :) It's hard for me to have him gone two days a week, but he enjoys it. And it gives me an opportunity to have some really good one on one time with Ivan.

My goal this year is to get Ivan reading independently. We're using a program called All About Reading (which is made by the same company who does All About Spelling), and I really, really like it. It takes a little longer than the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, that I used with Lincoln, but I also feel like it develops decoding and phonics skills much better. It also switches up activities more often to keep the kids interested. Some of the time you work with magnetic letter tiles, some of the time you do flash cards, some of the time you play games, and some of the time you are reading from the readers. It's working really well for Ivan. He's funny, because he always wants to choose a really strange position to sit in to do his review flashcards. Here he is sitting in a box:

 For Math, I have both Lincoln and Ivan working out of the Singapore curriculum at their appropriate level. Right now my boys are moving quickly through math, and Singapore also moves quickly, so they are staying challenged without getting bored. We'll adjust as needed when concepts get more difficult.

Lincoln also got a free subscription to Dreambox Math, which is an online program where the kids get on and play math games. I've been using "Dreambox Time" as a motivator to get the kids to finish their school work. Once they've done everything on their list for the day, the earn Dreambox time. So far it's working pretty well, and since they are still doing math it's not a complete waste of time.

I'm trying something new this year for writing, it's the Institute for Excellence in Writing's Primary Arts of Language: Writing. I like it so far because I can teach all three of my older kids, at their own level, at the same time. This program recommends using All About Spelling in conjunction with it, which I am doing with Lincoln. It also has a basic handwriting instruction, which I'm doing with Ivan for a review, and with Adelia to introduce her to writing letters. I'm also still using Handwriting Without Tears with all three kids, as an intro for Del, a review for Ivan, and cursive for Lincoln because he begged and begged for me to teach him cursive this year. (I think he sees a lot of cursive in books, and wants to be able to read it, I think that's his motivation.) Along with HWOT, Ivan and Lincoln are also doing Keyboarding Without Tears, which is a 1-year subscription to an online typing program. So far the typing is going really well, it's something the kids look forward to each day, and it's something they can do independently while I help the other practice the piano. :)

I don't currently have a specific reading program for Lincoln right now. But I do have him read a chapter or two, from a book of my choice, out loud to me each day. And he is assigned to read two non-fiction books every day and write down one thing he learned from each in his journal, and to read silently for 35 minutes from a book of his choice every day. When he finishes a book, he does a book report. I'm really trying to focus on summarizing with him right now. He really struggles with it, actually. He has such a good brain for memorization, that when you ask him to repeat what happened in a story, he usually chooses to tell the story back to you word for word. Now that he's reading a lot longer of books, this is getting harder for him to do. And I've been noticing that if he can't repeat the entire book back verbatim, then he gets frustrated, and can't tell you very much about the story in a concise way. So that's what I'm really focusing on with him these days. the IEW program is helping a lot with that. It has a story summary chart that gives you questions to ask that break the story down into it's parts, and once you do that, then it encourages you to come up with a main theme or lesson learned from the story, and state it in a single sentence. I'm surprised how hard this is for Lincoln, and how easy, and second nature it is to Ivan. Linc is making good progress though, and I think it's really good for him to see that he isn't better than Ivan at everything. :)

Even though Lincoln is my stronger reader, Ivan is showing the signs of being the better writer. He seems to just naturally understand the way a story works. And I'm excited to see this talent of his developing more and more. He's always liked rhyming words, and he caught on to those long before Lincoln did too. And now he's really interested in descriptive words, he's always trying out a new adjective just for the fun of it. And when we listen to stories or even songs or movies that have a lot of word play, he just laughs and laughs.

We had a pretty cool "homeschool moment" the other day. We were writing stories to go along with a painting the kids did for an art project. Anyways, Lincoln got really frustrated and said to me, "I am a robot builder and an inventor. I'm not a writer or an author. I like science, not writing. I don't even know how a story is supposed to start!" And all the sudden, I had an ah-ha moment. And I said, "That's a really good question, how so stories start?" I got out a white board marker, and asked them again, How do your favorite stories start? Ivan immediately gave me several options, "Once upon a time..." "It was a dark and stormy night..." "My name is..." I wrote them down, then I told the boys to go and find some of their favorite books, and that we would write down how each one of them started to get ideas for how to start our own stories. So we made a list, and by the time we were done with that, Lincoln was really excited to start his story, and no longer frustrated. Homeschool win of the day!

Speaking of art, I am having the kids to At Home Art Studio again this year, because it was so awesome last year. Our first project was a Party Pig. And after we painted it, I thought it would be a good idea to have the kids write stories about their pigs. Here is Lincoln's painting and the story he wrote to go with it. I still need to take pictures of Ivan's.

So there's a peek or two into what our back to school has been like for the last two weeks. I'm excited about our year, and the things we have planned.

Fossils

We've been studying fossils during our science time recently. And we did a couple of really fun activities to go with. 

First we used plaster of paris and pushed some of our small dinosaur and fish toys into it to leave an imprint. I used an old muffin tin, thinking I'd be able to pop the fossils our when we were done. But I couldn't get the plaster of paris out of the tin. So next time I do this, I'll use small paper plates instead. 

We also did two fun activities using pasta. For the first one, I printed out a dinosaur skeleton for each kid, and then they got to pick different kinds of pasta to glue on top. It was fun to see how different each one turned out, and how they thought the use the pasta to represent the different dinosaur bones.

 The second pasta activity was very similar to the plaster of paris activity. We rolled Play Doh out flat, and then I would say to the kids, make a plant eating dinosaur, or a meat eating dinosaur, or a dinosaur that flies or swims, etc. And they would use the noodles to try and create it. Then we'd pull the noodles away, and look at the imprints that were left.

After awhile they got tired of dinosaurs, and moved on to other creations.

 Adelia's

 Lincoln's

Ivan's