Farm Unit - Final Week

This week, we finalized our farm unit. We learned about sheep, pigs, and goats. We are done with our first Journey to Learning unit and I think we are going to take a break and try something new.

Kaleb is working on doubles in his math program. Thought it would be a great time to bring out the dominoes and write number sentences using them.

He is also learning to add. I found this super cute number line printable from Royal Baloo (link below). He uses this when he comes across a math problem that isn't a double.

He compared pigs and cows with this cute printable from Kelly Bates (link below).

He made two colorful pigs, a few fluffy sheep, and a goat for his mural.

His farm looks full of super animals. I don't think that we could add anymore if we wanted. We finished up our unit. We are going to change things up a bit. Why not? He didn't seem impressed with our farm unit, so I asked him what he wanted to learn about. You know what he said? Alligators. We are learning about alligators next.


Links

Paging Fun Moms - has a cute paper plate sheep craft.

Kelly Bates - TPT store has the From Farm to Table free printable used to compare cows and pigs.

Royal Baloo - has the free printable number line that Kaleb used for math.

Tot Tuesday

I just had to share this picture...this is how our day goes....my tot is not far behind what we are doing at all times of the day. I love his smile. Here he is sitting on J's lap while she works through math. He's up to something, I just know it!

Florida Unit Study

As part of J's fourth grade curriculum, we are working through a year long study of the state of Florida. We are using several different resources that I have found to learn about the state including an old textbook that I found in a thrift store. We learn about Florida one day a week, if we can manage:) Here are a few activities that we have worked on lately.

We read a section from the textbook and make correlating mini books and such for her Florida lap book that she is creating.

She created a large Florida map out of butcher paper. Each week, she will add items that she reads about to her map.

This week, we read about the largest lake in Florida as well as a few of our national parks. She also labeled the large bodies of water.

We read about the tightest and lowest points in Florida as well as what our border states were. We also learned about the state reptile.

Because of the recent events in Florida about the alligators, J decided to make an alligator book depicting the dangers of Florida waters.

She made this cute alligator shaped books to discuss what to do and what not to do in our lakes and rivers. It has tips on how to stay safe around the water of florida. Because J opted to work on our state study the whole school year, we only do a little each time. After her unit is over, she will have a huge lap book on her state. See you soon.

Little House in the Woods - Week 4

As an extra to J's fourth grade curriculum, we have been working through The Prairie Primer and reading the Little House series. J and I have had so much fun doing this. We had a full week of Little House in the Woods activities. We spent the week finishing up some experiments and activities that we had on our list. We also finished reading our first book - yay!

We always start our Prairie Primer activities by reading the selected chapters for the day.

One such reading mentioned Ma making cheese from whey. So, J worked on separating the curds and whey from milk. The experiment came from Go Science Girls (link below). It was relatively easy and I had all of the ingredients on hand.

Here's a picture of the milk separating after several minutes on the stove.

J wasn't so sure about tasting them though. Laura said in the book that she loved eating the whey and they squeaked in her teeth. (sounds good, doesn't it?)

After some encouragement and a taste test of my own, she found that they weren't half bad. We saved some to share with daddy when he came home. She did find, though, that they didn't squeak in her teeth!

Another project on our to-do list was to make bread. I truly wanted to try the salt rising bread that Ma made but I found this easier recipe of making bread in a ziplock bag. It was easy enough and tasted pretty good. The recipe came from Your Home Based Mom (link Below).

Pa does some whittling in the book and I thought it would be another good project for J to complete. Instead of whittling wood, she worked with Ivory soap which was relatively easy to carve away. She needed something with a point to carve the soap, so I gave her a golf tee. Worked well.

I had her choose a simple design for her carving, so she picked the letter J. It was an easy project which she finished in about an hour. I stressed for her to take her time otherwise she  might carve too much of her design.

Lastly, in one chapter Laura and Mary each receive a cookie when they visit their neighbor. But they had a dilemma on how to equally share two cookies with three people. So, I had J cut out paper cookies and figure out the best way to make the sharing equal.

We finished Little House in the Big Woods as well as most of the projects on our to-do list. Most, I say, because you could truly find a ton of cool activities for this book. We are going to finish up the Woods unit with a field trip and a small party. Then, on to Little House on the Prairie. Thanks for reading.


Links

Go Science Girls - has a curds and whey experiment. Ma used the whey to make cheese. This also came in time for our Little Miss Muffet rhyme.

Your Home Based Mom - has the bread in a bag recipe.


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Nursery Rhyme - Jack and Jill

Kaleb is currently working through his kindergarten year and, as an extra part of his school, he is working through Nursery Rhymes. We are using Literature Pockets - Nursery Rhymes as our spine. This week's rhymes was Jack and Jill.

After reading the rhymes each day, Kaleb worked through a Jack and Jill sequence activity. This free printable was from Melissa Moran (link below).

We discussed labeling and he labeled several items from the Jack and Jill Rhyme. This was also a free printable from Melissa Moran (link below).

He bandaged Jack's cuts and scrapes using the printable from the Nursery Rhyme book.

He made some Jack ad Jill tp puppets. This free printable was from Homeschool Share (link below).

We discussed opposites and he worked on a mini booklet of opposite words in the rhyme...up/down, in/out etc...

We spent some time creating block hills and sending Jack and Jill down them. We measured how far they rolled. Then, he would make the hill taller and see if the puppets rolled farther.

Kaleb weighed different items around the house against the puppets. He loves when I bring the balance/scale out. Which one is heavier? Or lighter? On to Little Miss Muffet and...a possible hurricane/tropical storm. Hope to see you soon.

Links

Kid Artists - has a cute sheep in the meadow art project.

Science Matters - has the water jug experiment.

Let's Explore - has a cute idea for Jack and Jill.

Homeschool Share - use the J note booking pages.

 Melissa Moran - TPT store has the free Jack and Jill sequence activity as well as the labeling activity.

3 Dinosaurs - has a free Jack and Jill printable activity set.

Tot Tuesday

I finally brought out the noodles for Riley to play with. It took me a while to do this because he loves throwing things and I truly didn't want a ton of crushed noodles floating around my house.

A ladle, a few cups, and some large dry noodles....half an hour of fun.  A few of the noodles ended up crushed but, oh well, nothing a vacuum can't clean up.

Character Training - Gentleness with free printable

Last year, J and I began working through the Virtue Training Bible. Each week, we learned a new virtue, highlighted key verses in the bible, and worked with some notebook printables that I created. We didn't finish the Virtue Training Bible so we picked up where we left off. This week's virtue was gentleness.

First, she started with our gentleness word ring. She colored the word and read the bible verse on the back. This is a key verse for her to learn while we are reading about gentleness.

She looked up the definition of gentleness in the dictionary and added it to the top of her notebook page. This helps her to understand the meaning of the virtue and gives her some dictionary skills as well :)

Then, together, we look up the verses and highlight them in her bible. A tab is added on each page that a verse is highlighted. You can see from this picture that we have quite a few tabs. We may not have time each week to complete a new virtue but we do enjoy it when we can. This is definitely a great fit for our school. We love it. If you would like to download the notebook printables that I created for gentleness, link below. Enjoy!

Download Gentleness Virtue Notebook Printable HERE.

Links

The Learning Basket - has lesson ideas for gentleness.

Life As Mom - has a super cute craft idea for Christmas - Fruit of the Spirit ornaments. Yes, I know it isn't Christmas but the ornaments are cute! I may have to do a Fruit of the Spirit study soon.

Kids of Integrity - has a bunch of ideas, games, books n such for gentleness.

Ministry to Children - has a complete lesson plan for the virtue of gentleness.

Kathy Hutto - has a great visual for gentleness using a balloon. Love it.

Confessions of a Homeschooler - has a bible study on gentleness.

Meaningful Mama - has a few games and ideas in teaching about gentleness.