To All Of the Moms

This is a GREAT video. We hear it all of the time on a kid's radio program on Sat mornings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxT5NwQUtVM&feature=related

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish each of you a VERY Merry Christmas! Thank you for reading my blog/s!

Mama Grinch

It's the first day of Christmas Vacation for the public schools here and probably all over America. Here at our house...We are having school (part of the time). I know, I know. So for the next two weeks I am the Grinch!! They will have days off, just not a full two weeks.

So in honor of my Grinchiness, here's a song for ya!

You're a mean one Mama Grinch.

You make your kids do school.

How could you be so evil.

How could you be so crueeeelll!

Mama Grinch!!

As you know long division has been a bit of a bear for DS. I have tried many different things. Anyway, the light has come on!!! I believe he's gotten it! Here he is working out the problem.
Notice it's money...which used to throw him.

Did I do it right?.....

YES!!!!! This makes it all worth it!

In other news. My dear friend, Anne wanted to to print out the Word by Word Story that the kids and I wrote.

The Mad Scientist Strikes Again

Today when I opened the window I saw that our yard was very, very strange. A man was wearing a purple hat, with a bag that stunk up the whole neighborhood. He was standing in a boiling pool from sobbing because he lost his book about bombs. Then he started banging on our door. I did not know why he was doing this thing. My dogs and the neighbors had noticed the smell and came to my rescue. When they came they captured the strange man. he went to the kitchen to tell why he had put the bomb in the tree to see what would happen. He was sorry that he was going to blow up the tree. We invited him over for chicken. The End.

This is what happens when you put a 10 yo boy, 12 yo girl and a mom together to write a story! LOL!! Again, this game is only to get the kids to love, interested in writing. we didn't correct spelling, etc.

We just did another writing game. The name escapes me.

Here's how it works:

Everyone thinks of something (animal, place, food)

Then we ask each other questions that can only be answered with Yes or No.

For example:

Subject is places. Q. Do you have to fly to your place?

Subject animal: Q. Does your animal have fur?

They wanted to do this game for awhile. We did 3 subjects.

Next we may try an arguing game. (Which they've been doing lately.)

In this game you have to argue your point. There is a judge.

You pick a topic ex. why Dogs/Cats make a better pet.

Then each of you write down 10 or so reasons to prove your point.

The judge then picks the winner.

Using the Force!!

The kids and I did our first "Nature Walk" yesterday. It went okay. They were not all to excited about it. I am slowly implementing the Charlotte Mason Method. Anyway, here's a photo I took of the Sleeping Indian. We also collected seeds that we will put into our nature book today.
Onto math. I am going to order Math-U-See for both kids today!! DS is really having a hard time with long division. So I took a step back the other day a went back to simple division. But this time we used the "force"!!! Haha! We used Legos and Star Wars Legos as manipulatives. He had a blast. I told him that there were so many kids and there was so many Legos. Divide the legos amongst each kid. We did have remainders too.

Icing & Icicles

Here's another one for you. Ok, here's a photo of the cake C made for history. It's called Yogurt Cake with Honey frosting.

It is the last piece. It went fast. J wants me to make it again. It's different but really good. It really sticks on you...all the honey!

Oh, do you have any ideas for photo series you'd like me to do?? Please tell me and I'll do my best.

Icicle

Okay...the dog is not part of the series, but he's just too cute not to show off. No this is not our dog. I need to remember this photo when I think it's too hot where we live! Yikes!

New Series

Some of you have mentioned that you liked my clothesline series. So, I've got another for you. Icicles.

A Few Projects to Do!

We are still here! I haven't forgot about you. I wanted to show you a few projects that the kids just did. The first one is a homemade Planetarium. It was for C's science but J wanted to make one too. Here's what you need:
Empty/clean salt carton or hot cocoa can, etc.
Nails of different sizes
marker
Hammer
Flashlight

Draw the constellations, stars (dots) on the bottom of can. (If using salt carton, you'll have to cut one end off.)
Use hammer and nails to make the hole for the stars.
When you're done shine the flashlight into the can. If using metal can you'll need to shine the light to the side of the can.

Was great fun. We're going to save it for a show and tell with other homeschoolers.

Next is a writing game.
It's called Word by Word. I got the idea from a library book.
Here's how it works. This is only to encourage kids to write so don't correct the spelling.

Works best with small group.

You'll need:
Writing paper
Pencil
Die

You start off by picking your title. Helps keep you focused on what to write about.
Each person takes turns rolling the die.
Whatever number you get is the number of words you can write.
So, J rolls a four, he writes four words. C rolls a one she adds one word. Then I roll a six and a write six words. Clear as mud?

It took us two days to write our story...The Mad Scientist Strikes Again. J had great fun and rolled right along with it. C who is 12 wanted to write her own thing. So she had a bit of trouble with being limited to what and how much she could write.

And last but not least is Solomon's Temple, made only as a ten year old will, with LEGOS!! What else is there?! This was for history. Picture by J too.

Oh, C made a very yummy cake (milk and honey) for her history project. I need to take a picture for you before we eat it all!

Weekend Clotheslines

They do laundry in the Bahama's?

Looks like they haven't used their line in a little while.

We interrupt...

We interrupt this scheduled clothesline post o actually talk about homeschool! We have changed things up a bit since vacation and it's working out great! Before we tried to do all of the subjects each day. Now we are doing "Block Scheduling" and really like it. So, every day we do Bible. M/W/F is Math and Lang. Arts, T/Th is Science and History. Doing math & science on the same day was too much. We do more work on each subject and everything is running very smooth. J actually is looking forward to doing Math and LA tomorrow! WOW!

Also, for his science we started a sketchbook. He had a hard getting a lot of the last few lessons. So we are doing a major review. So instead of Q&A he is making a book of his science facts.
Ex. Science (ecology) is the Web of Life, so he made a big web with yarn in his book. He has a chart of decomposers, consumers, producers & predators, etc. You get the idea. He LOVES it!


C is learning astronomy, and the night sky has been neat to watch. With Jupiter and Venus lined up under the moon. She is tracking star patterns in her book right now for about 30 days. We will check the same part of the sky every ten days to see how it changes.

Now, I must get off so I can take pics of them making their gingerbread house!

Here's one to hang your clothes on...

I love the colors here! This jumped right out at me! And notice there are no clothes pins...must be a dry, warm day...ahhh... Either they have a bunch of kids or don't eat much! LOL!