Florida History

We are moving along with our state study and this week, we learned about some tourism attractions in our state as well as baseball teams that spring train here in Florida.

She read about Disney and made a Mickey shaped book with some facts about the parks.

She added several attractions to our state map as well as the baseball spring training sites. I made a printable page with the logos of the teams and she added them to the cities.

Her Mickey book, complete with facts about the park. Her Florida lap book will definitely be super cute! She is definitely learning a lot about her home state.

Tot Tuesday

Riley is in love with the little Ikea step stool. He uses it when he can and when he shouldn't, so it isn't often that I bring it down off the top of the fridge. I brought the stool down and asked him to help me put the (non-breakable) dishes away.

He may not have put them away correctly...

but he had fun doing it:)

Sweet boy:)

Little House on the Prairie - Week 3

We are currently reading our way through The Little House book series while using The Prairie Primer as our guide. We are in our third week of The Little House on the Prairie. We ended up with another jammie day as well as a looming hurricane to get our school work done. No hurricane days for us:)

Being stuck inside because of a ton of rain seemed to be a good time to start this little house quilt block that I found from Wee Folks (link below). It is small enough to finish in a day or two and it had a free printable template, which I love.

J picked the fabrics that she wanted to use from my fabric stash (thanks to my mother:). We traced the pieces on the wonder under and irons them onto the block.  She then sewed around the pieces using her machine. She loves her machine and trying to get her to hand sew is difficult.

Because she wanted to use her machine, she did the quick quilting of her block. This is her cabin block sewn on the machine. It turned out cute.

I decided to make my own cabin quilt as well. Mine os on the left. I finished everything except the binding.

The next project was thanks to her dad. I asked him to help her make a popsicle stick little house for J's peg people that she and her sister painted. I figured since her father had a hurricane day, it was a great time to get him involved. Little did I know what I was asking?....

He brought out the power tools and saws and helped her create a little house masterpiece! There is no way if I had helped J make it that it would have looked like this - wow! My DH used a tutorial from Almost Unschoolers (link below) to base this house on.

I was thinking a simple house of popsicle sticks and he was thinking doll house! The nest news is J loves it. And besides the sawing and such, she truly helped glue all of the sticks and such down. It was a great father/daughter project for them on this hurricane day:)

J wrote a letter home to Laura's family about how she missed them and her home in the woods. J had some experience with this because of our recent moves.

We had two great days of nice weather which probably sums up our fall season. The days were just calling us to do school outside. J took her little house outside and played while I read from our chapter books.

I found a simple 2 page comprehension test on the chapters we just read. I had her complete it just to see if she is understanding what we are reading. She did fine:)

Lastly, we read the chapter on the wolf pack that surrounded the little house and howled at the moon. How scary! They didn't even have a real door, just a quilt hanging in the doorway. Talk about being scared. But it seemed like Laura knew that her Pa would protect them and it turned out fine. I just can't imagine the odds that were against them on the prairie! Wow.

Links

Wee Folk Art - has the free template for the cabin quilt that we used for our block. It was originally made from wool felt but we used fabric.

One Crafty Mumma - has the popsicle house that I was thinking about, easy to do.

Almost Unschoolers - has the version of the house that my DH used.

Tot Tuesday

J is such a big help with Riley during school (as well as other times).  Riley loves riding piggyback on J. It is pure fun. They run up and down the hall having bouncy fun.

States Notebook - Minnesota

As part of J's United States History program, J is learning about the states and their capitals. She learns a new one each week. This week, J learned about Minnesota.

Before each state study, J works through the states and capitals.

She works through her notebook page for the state. We read several books and add to her pages.

We were able to open a cool new puzzle that Grandma bought for us :) Thanks, Ma! J, Kaleb, and Riley loved it. It was a magnetic puzzle of all the states. J out it together for review. It was a quick and easy review. See you soon.

Little House on the Prairie - Week 2

We are in our second week of The Little House on the Prairie using The Prairie Primer as our core book. I love The Prairie Primer. It has a ton of ideas for each book.

After reading our selected chapter, J compared the life of Laura to hers. We talked about differences in housing, chores, how children are to behave, etc... She wrote about these differences in a mini book for her notebook.

She looked up the word Providential an old Webster dictionary online.  She wrote the definition on her notebook page.

This week, we read about Pa and Ma building their new house on the prairie. I just happened to have some pretzels (logs) and peanut butter. J made her own log house using the items and licking her fingers lots. After the fact, I found a real cool version by Martha Stewart but oh, well.

She is using complete concentration, trying to fit the logs together...

Her finished masterpiece....well, sort of :)

I had to add this picture. She brightens my day with her smile. Enjoy your day.

American Artist - Joseph Cornell

We are working through our second year of Great American Artists for Kids as our art program to compliment our American History study. This week, our artist was Joseph Cornell. He was an artist who liked to make boxes with interesting items. 

We read about his life and J worked on a note booking page for her art book.

She also wrote out a timeline card for our art timeline. Every time she adds an artist she mentions that our composer timeline is very sparse. I think we will have to bring back our composer studies:)

I wasn't sure that J would take to the art project for Cornell - it required making a box like he used to make. But J began collecting items from her desk and random items around the house.

Her finished project - her box entitled "J's Desk" contains all of the items on her desk. She had quite a collection! When Kaleb saw this, he had to make one for himself. Now, to just keep this from my tot Riley. He would have a ball with all of these little items! Have a great day.