Some fun things we are working on-

Sydney's grammar project-

Sydney will be doing a Language arts project this semester in which she will create and contribute to a blog. Now this int like a blog about her life in general. This is what she is learning, interesting facts, book reports, etc. Feel free to check it out. She has a schedule at the bottom of the page of what she writes and when. This is to help her on her grammar, writing skills, and her computer skills. This has been great because I can pull in our other subjects pretty easy! She is really excited about it so we will keep it up as long as this semester and we will see from there. As always when doing anything on the internet please use common sense and do not give out personal information. Safety first!

http://lolastarneal.blogspot.com/



Sydney- The States!

I wanted a fun way to help my daughter learn about the all the states so I came up with this idea and it seems to be working! What is great is that it pulls writing, geography, and history all into one! Sydney writes to each state. (You can go online and look up the dept. of tourism for each state and write to there.) She has to hand write each letter and ask for information about the state for a report for school. She has to use good handwriting and has to use the proper form for a request letter (you can find it online). Then we wait for the information to come. She writes one state or more a week so we are starting to get more packets coming on a regular basis now. Once we get the information she puts it in a large binder. I have clear sheet protectors that we slip the information into. I print off a map of the state and she colors it and labels it with the capital, and mountains or rivers or lakes. I also have her write the population and what states border the state. We also list any interesting facts we have found out from the information sent such as major events that have happened in this state. The states usually send a map of the state with the information. This is fun to unfold and look for certain cites and where things happened. I also save these so when we read in any other subjects about something that happened in that state we can really where it happened. This is a great tool for helping kids grasp history and current events. I found a great book for super cheap called “Don’t know much about the States” which has funny or interesting facts about each state. For her cover on the binder I printed out a map of the United States and she colors in the states she has received information on. In the front of the binder we have a sheet with all the states in alphabetical order written out. Once she writes the state we write what date we sent it out and when we get information back we also write the date of that. It is neat to see how long sometimes it takes, plus it helps you not write the same state twice! I have includes the link below where I print out my maps from for her to color and for the front cover. I think you could use this for any grade. The older the kids the more in depth you could go. I had a 1^st grader and a 4^th grader doing this project at the same time.

art appreciation

One of the ways I teach my daughter art appreciation is we check out books of one artist work from the library. I have her pick a couple of the works she likes and let her draw her own version on another piece  of paper or I let her use tracing paper to trace the picture and color it. We find books and look on the internet to find neat facts about the artist. Check out my resource page as well to use some of the great sites I like for some fun art appreciation!

Science observation notebook-

Sydney has started a science observation notebook. I got this idea from a great Charlotte Mason educational style information book I read. I have Sydney go outside and draw what she sees. If it is a yucky day or she wants to do something different I let her look through some of animal and science books and pick a picture of an animal or something that looks cool. She has to draw it in her science notebook (which is just a binder that I filled with white paper) and color it. She also has to find out some neat facts about whatever she draws. If it is an animal she has to tell me certain things like- predator, prey or both. What kid of mother the animals is (does it lay eggs and leave the baby or stay and nurture it for so many years), what does it like to eat, where does it live and why is it important to its ecosystem. She has really done well with this and I have learned some great facts as well as she has improved her observation skills.

The boys are doing learning posters and making their own books. We start with a piece poster board. I put different categories on it. I have theme, number, letter, shape/color, animal, and books we are reading. I got this idea from another mom’s website that is listed on my resources page. (She has lots of great ideas!) I put pictures under each section that let the boys know what we are learning this week. I make several posters and put them up all around the house where I know the boys will see them. We talk about them a lot through out the day. And I have one hanging up in our school room (the dinning room but that is where we do school with the little guys) and we talk about it and review it while they work on their school work that day. That is where the books come into play. I bought two big binders. I bought the clear sheet protectors (I got mine at Wal-Mart for $3 for 50). I print out pages from the links below and let the kids each color their own. We do craft projects and worksheets that correspond with our learning posters sections. They love to color or use water colors and when their masterpieces are dry I slip them in to the slip covers and they have their own book. I also included some pictures in the back and let them design their own covers. They both love their books very much and are always ready to show them off when anyone comes over. They look through their books at least once a day and we review it alot as well. It is a great way for them to remember what we have gone over and I have a great way to keep their work preserved for many years to come. It is the closest to scrape booking I have been able to do!

We look at books all throughout the week that contain pictures of our animal and we talk about where it lives and what it like s to eat. We also talk about what the animal looks like and we make small craft of the animal each week that the kids are aloud to play with. I love to use the books from the library for this.