Tot Tuesday

Oh, boy. Look what my little one can do now!

We are in trouble now! Look at that face. He is so proud of himself.

Be Salt and Light

We are still working through Telling God's Story Book 1. This week's lesson was Be Salt and Light. 

We started the lesson by reading from the text and the Bible while J colored her coloring sheet.

We talked about being Salt and Light. One experiment was to add salt to a can of soda. This was to represent how being Salt in the world "overflows" to the people around us. She was truly surprised by the reaction of the salt with the drink.

Then, we made salt crystals by boiling salt in water until it became saturated.

J added red food coloring to the solution. We watched them grow all week.

Another project was to color salt with outdoor chalk to use in creating a picture.

She used the color chalk to create a picture of the world. This was to remind her about being the Salt and Light in the world. This was a fly-by-the-cuff lesson. I was rationing salt all the way through because I didn't realize just how much salt we needed for these projects (and I didn't have time to go to the store). So, if you are working through Telling God's Story Book 1, make sure you have a full container of salt on hand:) Just warning ya!

Links

Teach Them - has a salt experiment object lesson. I would have done this experiment but I ran out of salt - silly me.

Science Week 5 - Rocks

We are on Week 5 of Considering God's Creation - Rocks. J was super excited to get to this mini unit because of the extras that I bought to go along.

J started with looking up the vocabulary in the dictionary. She is using a flip book that I created for the lesson.

I purchased a mini rock kit for the unit. Each rock is numbered with an answer key. J used several methods to discover the type of rock.

She used observations, the scratch method, as well as some watered down acid. 

She worked to name four rocks. We figured out three of them. Then, we looked the others over and made a few observations.

Another fun activity that I purchased for this unit were geodes. J tried opening her with a hammer and, believe it or not, they were somewhat tough to crack open.

Kaleb joined  us for this. He actually cracked his geode with the hammer!

J also made some crystals. She placed the rocks in a pan, added some food coloring, and some white vinegar. We are waiting for these to grow. Not a bad week, learning about the different types of rocks and having some fun.

If you would like the pages I created to add to her notebook - the vocab flip books, review questions, and scientist photos, please contact me. I will make sure you get the files. I will not post them here because the questions are from the text. See you soon.

Social Studies - Week 5

We are reading through Sonlight Core D - American History as well as New World Explorers by Homeschool in the Woods. J craved a more hands-on-approach to school and New World Explorers has fit the bill. 

This week, J learned about Brendan the Navigator and Leif Erikkson. She worked on a notebook page for each. We read a book about who really discovered America.

J is practicing cursive handwriting so I write it out for her to make it easier for her to copy.

J added mini explorer books to her timeline. Rather than keep her timeline in a notebook, I hung it on the wall for easy reference..

We will be adding explorers to it weekly. When the unit is done, I will transfer it to her notebook.

This is our learning mini pocket chart. We add to it each time we learn something new. We also use it for review before each lesson.

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J worked on mapping Leif Erikkson's travels. Not only did she trace his route on a map for her notebook but also placed his route on our world map.

J is still working on her state notebook and she added Rhode Island to it. She is practicing her states and capitals.

J worked on her notebook pages for the state. She will hopefully have at least 25 of the states and capitals memorized by the end of the year. Not too much of hands-on stuff but we still had a good week. Hope you did too. See you soon.

American Artists - Edward Hicks

We are working our way through Great American Artist for Kids and our artist of the week was Edward Hicks. What I love about this book is that it starts with early artists at the birth of our country and works its way through the timeline. It contains information about each artist as well as a simple project for each. Edward Hicks was an early American folk artist who was also a Quaker minister.

We usually read about the artist and add some information to an artist notebook page. We looked over a few of his paintings on the internet.

We added Edward Hicks to our timeline.

We also have a wall of artists that we add to every time we learn about a new one. J writes a fact on an index card along with the artist's picture.

Here are our artists on our wall. We have studied four artists so far.

The art project was to create a collage based on Edward Hicks' The Peaceable Kingdom. J was to look for pictures of animals in magazines and create a collage of sorts. Well, for some reason I couldn't find any animal magazines (thought I had some and even went to the library to buy some used!). J used a book about dinosaurs that was in give-away bag. J was funny about cutting up a book - I always taught her to respect books.

I brought out some different items - buttons, feathers, ribbon, newspaper... and this is what J came up with. I think she used all of the buttons I own! I love the feather in the dinosaur nest. I love to see what J comes up with when we do art. We are learning a lot and being introduced to many artists that we had never seen before. I love that! See you soon.

Links

Incredible Art - has an art project idea for the artist Edward Hicks.

Insta Reyog - has a post full of pictures of Edwards Hicks paintings.

Tot Tuesday

This was the first year we participated in Pirate Day at Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. If you talked like a pirate, you received a free doughnut but if you dressed like a pirate - you received a whole dozen. J dressed like a pirate and we received a whole dozen doughnuts! Wow! What to do with them?

Well, I thought it was time to give Riley a little taste. Here is hid first taste of a Krispy Kreme.

Hmmm, what is this strange item?

I think I like it! (who wouldn't love a doughnut?)

Love that smile. See you soon.

Character Training - Be Truthful with free printable

This week's lesson from Telling God's Story was Be Truthful. Since truthfulness is a great character virtue, I decided to study it all week. Truthfulness was not on our list of virtues from the Virtue Training Bible. I created a few printable for our Bible notebook that I will share with you (link below). Here are a few of the activities we worked on this week.

We started our lesson as always by reading the text and the Bible while J colored her sheet.

Then I told her a story about the lie monster. I found this story from MM Printables (link below). It is about a lie monster that follows a kid around and keeps getting bigger with every lie!

We talked about how lies continue to bind us and trap us. I used yarn as an example. First, with a lie, I tied it once and she could break free by telling the truth. Then, if she didn't tell the truth, the yarn kept wrapping around her hands and it made it harder for her to break free. This idea came from A Year of the FHE (link below).

J worked on adding her truthful pages to her character notebook. I have her look up the definition of each characteristic in her dictionary. She writes the definition under the header in her notebook. Then she adds the Ways I can be Truthful note booking header adding her own ideas on how to be truthful.

Here is her finished truthful note book page, complete with side tab. I am really liking the way this notebook is turning out.

We added truthful to our character ring. She decorates/colors each one. On the back of each character ring page, there is a bible verse to practice each week.

Her finished character ring page all decorated. I love that smile.

We talked about how lies can trap us in a web this week. So, we made a spider web to remind us to tell the truth and not get trapped in a web.

We made our spider webs using popsicle sticks and rainbow yarn. We also added a spider ring that I found in our craft stash.  This idea was from Crafts Unleashed (link below).

Our last craft idea came from my free Truthful printable. It was to make a banner of the I will statements for the lesson.

I printed the banner on card stock and she drew a picture for each I will statement. We hung this over our window to remind us about being truthful and living in the light. We had an awesome time learning about being truthful.

If you think these printable will be helpful, lease feel free to download. I would love to hear if you are using them. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. Hope you have an awesome week!

Download Be Truthful Notebook printable HERE.

Links

MM Printables - has a free printable lie monster. The story for the lie monster is also included. I would personally change the name since my son is named Kaleb but I like the idea of the lie monster growing with each lie.

Confessions of a Homeschooler - has a free printable bible study on honesty.

Meaningful Mama - has a few posts about teaching kids about honesty.

Character First Education - has some free printables about honesty as well as a few videos.

A Year of the FHE - has a great story visual for lying using string.

Crafts Unleashed - has the popsicle stick web craft to remind us not to get caught in the web of lies!