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.

B4FIAR - Ask Mr. Bear

To increase Kaleb's interest in school, I recently asked him what he wanted to learn about. I wrote down everything he had to say and, if I can make it happen, I will. This week, as per his list, we learned about bears. Since he wanted to learn about bears, I paired our learning with a Before Five in a Row title that we hadn't had the time to row - Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack.

We started with B for bear craft, easy to do but he enjoys them.

His finished B for bear craft.

He made a beginning sounds pocket for the letter B. He sewed the sides with yarn and added b cards in the pocket. This was found from Making Learning Fun (link below).

Since we are reviewing the alphabet (until he is ready to read), he worked on a beginning sounds page for the letters A and B. He used the counting chips to cover each word that began with the correct sounds. These were found from The Measured Mom (link below).

Each letter I like to make a chart that we leave hanging all week in case we find more words that we want to add. Here Kaleb is working on our B chart. He really took an interest in this. He looked through the picture dictionary pages and added pictures to our B words.

As a part of the book, the boy Danny gives his mother a bear hug. We measured Kaleb's hug and added some string to his hands for his own bear hug.

He matched the gift ideas from each animal to the animal who suggested it. He even colored them. We added these cards to some pockets in the Bear book we made. These came from Homeschool Share (link below).

We just had his birthday so he learned to write his birthdate.

I had him choose a bear and he worked on a math page. He measured the bear, compared the bear to other animals. This was a free printable I found Julie Lee (link below).

Even though Kaleb is not ready to read right now, I still want him to work with letters. I printed out several word cards from the story and had him make the word using magnetic letters. Then, we discussed each letter sound and I showed him how to blend the words (just in case he changes his mind about the reading part:).

Here is our finished bear book. I added the items from the Homeschool Share books as well as our bear projects for the week. I copied the cover of the book to add to the front. Now he has a memory book for his bear learning. We are off learning about bats next. See you soon.


Links

Grade Onederful - has a few bear activities and ideas that may work for a bear study.

A Little Pinch of Perfect - has a hibernating bear craft idea that looks super cute and easy.

Growing Book by Book - has a free printable for the book The Bear Ate Your Sandwich.

A Special Place Called Kindergarten - has a free printable for comparing fictional and non-fictional books.

Glued to My Crafts - has a sleeping bear paper plate craft that is cute and easy.

Making Learning Fun - beginning sound lacing project came from here.

The Measured Mom - beginning sound worksheets free printable.

Homeschool Share - Ask Mr. Bear free printable lap book items.

Julie Lee - teddy bear exploration page freebie.


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Tot Tuesday

Riley the wrestler.....

he tackled J and wouldn't let her get up...

I love that face :)

Pumpkin Fun

I know that we are late on our game but we were finally able to work some fall crafting into our schedule. I found a simple tutorial to make some stuffed pumpkins from bandanas (link below). They looked easy enough and you can get two pumpkins from one bandana.

J is now my sewer :) She sewed the bandanas and got them ready for stuffing. It was a simple straight stitch and then you close the bottom and top with a running stitch.

Our finished pumpkins. We had a snafu - we didn't have a long enough needle to run the thread through the pumpkin but we improvised. Instead of running the thread through the pumpkin (and killing our fingers), we tied the pumpkins with yarn on the outside. They still turned out cute and now, we have four pumpkins that my tot can carry around the house without fear that he will drop and break one (true story).

We were able to go to a fall fest in our area and purchase several pumpkins at their pumpkin patch. I wanted them to do a small investigation of their pumpkins before we started carving/painting them. We used a free printable from Busy Me Plus Three (link below). Kaleb is discovering how many blocks tall is his pumpkin. He is amazed, can you tell?

J is making a face at her brother because he is informing her that his pumpkin is way bigger than hers.

I didn't really get a good picture of this but the highlight of the pumpkin investigation was to see their faces when they discovered that pumpkins float! J couldn't believe it.

Kaleb was sure since his pumpkin was heavier and larger that it would sink (even though J's floated). But, it did not sink. That was great. After our investigation, we will carve and paint our pumpkins but at least we had some Science fun ;) See You soon.

Links

Sadie Season Goods - has the tutorial that we used for the bandana pumpkins. You need a long needle but if you don't have one, you can tie your pumpkins with year like we did.

Busy Me Plus Three - free printable pumpkin investigation sheet from her TPT store.

Little House on the Prairie - Week 1

This year, J and I are embarking on a new adventure - a life on the prairie:) We are using the Prairie Primer as our guide and The Little House books as our maps. We finished The Little House in the Big Woods and we are now reading The Little House on the Prairie. Please forgive the jammies -  the kids wanted a jammie day. One of the many perks of being homeschooled!

After reading the chapter, J wrote on her notebook page what she learned. She usually dictates it to me and then, she copies it from the mini white board.

She looked up some key verses that pertained to what we learned in the chapter. She highlighted them and copied her favorites on the notebook sheet.

The Little House on the Prairie talks about how the Ingall's family moved from their family home, packed up everything they could in their wagon, and headed west (of sorts). The wagon's dimensions were 10 feet by ____. We measured it out on the floor, added the bench for Pa and Ma and I had J lie down to get an idea of just how much room they had. Not so much, if you think that they had to carry food, supplies, tools and such. If kinda reminded me of when we moved overseas....we only had a few suitcases.

Kaleb joined us and they headed out West:)

Because of the wagon trip, J decided she wanted to make a covered wagon using popsicle sticks and a ton of glue. We will see how it turns out. See you soon.

A is for Alligator

I recently asked Kaleb what he wanted to learn about in school. His reply was "Alligators." So, since we finished the farm unit and he seemed so disinterested in the way school was moving currently, I decided to take his suggestion and run with it. Alligators it is:) At this point, if he said roaches, I would have ran with it. I am putting away the Journeys curriculum and creating my own. We will be learning about animals through the alphabet, suggestions will be from him. The need for an easy curriculum (open and close) has changed and we are back on the kindergarten track. I just hope this gets him interested in school.

We started with the letter A and made it into an alligator.

Not the best smile here, but he liked his A alligator.

He also made an alligator pocket that we filled with cards that began with the letter a. He liked sewing these and has asked for the next one - b.

I ordered a ton of alligator books from the library. One book was The Watermelon Seed - cute book about an alligator that swallows a watermelon seed and is afraid that a watermelon will grow in his tummy!

We made an A chart and added all of the words we could think of that began with the letter A. When we needed help, I had him look through a picture dictionary for some ideas. I wrote the word and, if possible, I drew a simple picture to help him remember. I am not the best artist but I think I did okay.

We played Alligator math. I made a simple greater than/less than chart with alligator teeth and I used the green Uno cards. He picked two cards and placed them on the mat. Then he turned the alligator to the largest number so he could eat it! Kaleb loved this game.

I found an alligator Toob so we had some fun checking out the alligators. You may not be able to tell here but Kaleb placed the soft shelled turtle in the mouth of an alligator. I guess he was listening when we talked about what an alligator ate.

After he played the gators, we made some treasure rocks or "Alligator Eggs" as I called them. It was a simple recipe with coffee grounds and flour (link below). Our Riley was helping the project along:) These took several days to dry, so do them early.

He painted a cute alligator that I found at Color Me Michelle (link below).

As we read those alligator books, we added facts to different shapes and he glued them onto his alligator. Cute!

We learned the poem, Alligator Pie. He made a simple mini book about the pie and then we made the pie (below).

He thought we were going to add cut up alligator but he was glad we didn't. (You can get alligator meat here at the fair.) Instead, our alligator pie was banana cream pudding pie tinted green I added cookie eyes and whipped cream nose just before serving.

He made an alligator briefcase, after reading The Lady with the Alligator Purse.

After the alligator eggs were dry, I hid them around the yard and had the kids find them. I hid some harder than others, so it took some time to find them. Then, they broke them to rescue the alligators inside.

Lastly, just for fun, I found an alligator that would get larger when submersed in water. We started out with the measurement before adding water and then, we waited to see just how big it would get. My tot Riley did not like the look of that thing. Whenever he was sitting on the counter while I was making dinner, he asked me to move it.

It was a fun week of alligator learning, a full week. It looks like he enjoyed it. If not, I give up...haha. We are on to bears, dinosaurs, sharks etc... See you soon.


Links for Alligators

PreK Projects - has the idea for dinosaur eggs which we in turn made alligator eggs.

Narrating Tales - has a free printable alligator template for a cute craft.

Color Me Michelle - has a super cute alligator craft. We used it to record alligator facts on the squares.

I Heart Crafty Things - has a cute stand up alligator craft with free template.

Recipe for Teaching - has an alligator number comparing cards freebie.

Crazy for Crust - has the recipe for Alligator Pie, easy to do.

Shannon's Book Nook - has a free printable template for an alligator purse that will go-along with The Lady with the Alligator Purse book.

Welcome to Mommyhood - has the free alligator printables, if you are looking for some:)