History - Africa

For this week's history we focused in ancient Africa.  It turned out to be more of a general cultural exploration, which was actually a nice change for us.  Today we fried plantains, created giraffes, danced to modern African music, read a few picture books and performed a puppet show to Anansi and the Turtle.

Riley - Age 4

Viktor - Age 4

Evie - Age 6

Bug Candy

Santa had a sense of humor and brought the kids suckers with real bugs in them.  Never did I ever imagine they would actually eat them!

It's hard to tell but there's a cricket in that sucker!

Viktor had a delicious scorpion in that one.

He ate the whole thing.

Nature Study - Bird Feet

We recently had a lesson on why different birds have different types of feet so we decided that a trip to feed the ducks would be the perfect opportunity to check them out up close.

It was VERY windy!

Klee Cat

Many thanks to Patty over at Deep Space Sparkle for this lesson inspired from Paul Klee's Cat and Bird.  My kids loved doing this as well as the 2/3rd graders I teach on Fridays.  

Cat and Bird by Paul Klee

In Progress:

Final Product:

Viktor - Age 4

Evie - Age 6

Riley - Age 4

Archimboldo Collage

Vertumnus by Giuseppe Archimboldo

We had some fun with the kooky Archimboldo earlier this month.  I used his work to introduce the idea of a theme.  The kids each chose a topic and cut out images from old magazines in order to create a collage self-portrait.  

Viktor chose a food theme.

Evie's theme was fashion.

The Gift of Books

Books play a huge role at our house.  The teacher in me likes to pull out free reading selections that tie into what we are learning in our school lessons but there are some titles that the kids love to read again, and again, and again.  Right now Viktor can't get enough of Robert Kraus' Leo the Late Bloomer,  The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss and any of the Tintin comics.  We read these daily.  

Evie's not your typical 6-year-old reader and blows through books faster than I can keep up with her.  The latest one that she's been talking about is Little Women.  She read it under her covers when she was supposed to be sleeping (the best way to read) and was really inspired by the character of Jo.  She has decided to be an author now and keeps bringing me "manuscripts" to send off to get published.     

It's such a treat for me to see which books appeal to my kids.  Every time my children take a special interest in a title I get a deeper understanding of who they are and sometimes, what they may be struggling with that I might have missed in everyday happenings.  Viktor's attachment to the character of Leo was so very eye-opening for me.  Viktor is a very bright kid but unfortunately lives in the shadow of his sister's reading talent and general spotlight grabbing personality.  He is quieter, can be quite shy and slower to warm up in groups.  I have never worried about his learning pace but I think he internalizes a lot more comparison to his sister than I recognize.  Leo has helped Viktor to show me he will "bloom" when it is his time.

Just having a small library of quality books in our house has been the best gift we could give our children.  For instance, I would have never chosen Little Women for my 6-year-old's reading list.  She found it on our shelves on her own time and read the whole thing before I even knew she had it.  Because I had it available she was able to see some part of herself in the character of Jo and now has a new passion for writing.

What have you learned about your kids through the books they read?  What are some favorite titles in your home?

 

Snow Day

Normally when public schools get a day off because of snow we carry on as usual but this one fell on a day that we had planned to be at our co-op anyways so Legofest it is!

Check out this coal powered artillery Viktor created:

He says that the black base is the coal and explained to me how when it gets heated steam rises through the metal tubes building pressure enough to shoot things out of the barrels.  I never formally taught him any of these ideas.  We had one quick conversation about steam at the Cincinnati History Museum several weeks ago but I honestly thought I was talking to a wall.  This goes to show they are listening even when you think they aren't.

So Blessed

Just look at these two.  It doesn't get much cuter than that!  I often hear people who are on the fence about homeschooling say things like, "But what about socialization?"  We get out and about plenty so we have no shortage of quality friendships but it's the friendships at home that concern me the most.  My kids are very close to each other and I look forward to watching their sibling love grow over the years to come.  Familial closeness must be so much harder to foster when your kids are away at school for 8 hours a day.  I'm sure there will come a day when they'd rather be with their other friends but until then I will enjoy knowing that brother and sister are also best friends.

Penmanship Is Important

Usually we work out our our Getty-Dubay Italic Handwriting workbooks but sometimes you just need to do something different.  Evie has a new interest in fairies so I gave her my old Cicely Mary Barker flower fairy book and told her to choose a poem to copy in her best writing and gave her the option to illustrate.  I think it turned out so sweet and what a nice change from the daily workbook page.

Monet Inspired Birch Forest - Day 2

When I teach art the most important part is having fun and gaining confidence but I must say that the finished products on this project FAR surpassed what I expected.  I am so proud of my little Monets.

Riley - Age 4

Viktor - Age 4

Evie - Age 6

Monet Inspired Birch Forest - Day 1

I'll be creating weekly masterpieces with a group of 2/3 graders beginning in a couple days.  I like to test lessons on my chicklets first so I can get an idea of what curve balls I can expect during class time.  Today our inspiration came from Monet's "Magpie".

I love, love, LOVE Patty's blog over at http://www.deepspacesparkle.com and used her Birch Trees Winter Landscape Art Lesson as my springboard.  She did this project with 6th graders.  I'll be doing it with 2/3 graders and my test subjects are 4 and 6 years old so I was bracing myself and keeping my expectations in check.  Besides repeated attempts to stop my son from mixing colors in the palette and shaking water all over everything while "drying" his brush I think they are turning out nicely for their ages.  I can't wait to see the finished products on Thursday!

I couldn't resist the urge to do one myself as well.  We'll lift the tape and paint in the shadows below the horizon line in 2 days.

  

Composer Study - Beethoven

We began a new series on Beethoven today.  Todays audio selection was Moonlight Sonata, one of my favorites.

Monday Nature Walk

What a beautiful day to spend some time outdoors!

We talked about how turkey vultures have dihedral wings which helps it to rock back and forth when flying.  The tilted tips and rocking flight pattern is how we can tell from the ground what sort of bird is flying overhead.  Birds are so neat!

Pow!

Found this on my bedroom door today.  Should I be worried?

Fun With History

It was back to school today after a nice and loose December schedule.  Today's history lesson was about Hammurabi and the Babylonians and I just want to say that the internet-linked Usborne Encyclopedia of World History is AMAZING!  It's a new resource for us so I wasn't sure what to expect but after cracking it open today I am so pleased we have added it to our library.  Not only did it have excellent text and nice graphics in just the right amount for my elementary aged kiddos but the internet links on todays subject were awesome!  That alone takes hours of prep off my shoulders.  We especially enjoyed checking out the Code of Hammurabi Stela from the Louvre website.  My 4 and 6 year olds were so into it and the art history geek in me was definitely showing.  Then we proceeded to take turns playing "King Hammurabi" and sentencing each other to all sorts of crazy punishments.  The best was when we pretended to throw Vik into a river to see if he was lying or not.  He floated so naturally that meant Evie was the liar so she was put to death.  Those crazy Babylonians.  Anyways, win for Usborne!  I'll be adding the other encyclopedias to our collection soon enough.

    

Schedule Cards

Thanks to a great friend's gift of a fabulous new laminator I have been sealing everything I can get my mitts on but I'm extra proud of these new Schedule Cards.

Each day has a list of which subjects need to be tackled.  Then they can use their dry erase markers to cross them off.  This has been great for my kids who work best when they know what to anticipate for the day ahead of them.  Maybe it's just the fumes from melting all that plastic but I haven't ever been this giddy over an organizational tool.