A is for Apple

Finally it's Fall and time to return to our My Father's World curriculum!

We started last January, but we stopped because there were no leaves (L) or apples (A) to enjoy in winter! I am so glad I held off, because we went to an apple farm with our co-op friends!

This was a first for me too, and it was a wonderful experience. 

We then took all those apples home that we picked and used them for school.

 We made our very first chart.

 My five year old organized them by color, counted them, and then placed them on the graph I made

 (this idea comes straight from the My Father's World kindergarten manual).

 The MFW also had the idea of making applesauce and an apple pie. I dutifully bought the apple pie at the apple farm. We made applesauce, but it wasn't very good. Good thing I didn't try making the pie:).

 My three year old had a blast playing with the peelings in the sink. He can always make me smile, even when I am frustrated with clumpy applesauce:).

We painted with apples ....

 and we did a science experiment too. The right plate of apples has lemon juice on them.

 We also painted with tissue paper (leaves) and corks (apples)

We read the book Ten Apples Up On Top

I had the magnets of the boys already, so we made magnet felt boards with 10 apples on top both of their heads. They loved this! It was an easy winner!

I am so glad we are back to our regular curriculum. Making your own unit studies is a lot of work and organization! My Father's World makes it so I can relax and make sure we thoroughly cover every letter, number, and season. 

Mexican Fiesta

While Daddy was in Mexico on a business trip, we studied Mexico at home. Thanks to Dora and Diego, my boys understood the concept of speaking Spanish. We learned 1-10 in Spanish, and how to sing "Gloria Dios," "Alleluia," and " Dios es Amor" (with finger puppets).

We looked at pictures I had pinned on pinterest, and we enjoyed our children's atlas book.

http://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Altas-World-Craig-Froman/dp/0890517061/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381949882&sr=1-1&keywords=children%27s+atlas+of+god%27s+world

We also watched the Kratt Brothers learn about the Monarch butterflies that fly to Mexico every year. My boy LOVES bugs. He retained this information better than anything else we talked about.

Oh, and we talked about shapes. I didn't really find a way to make that about Mexico, but I wanted to review them and add some new ones to his vocab, and I figured now is the best time. We also made symmetrical drawings (butterfly/house/tree), and my little man made a hopscotch game (good way to review his numbers). 

We made a pinata, which was much more time consuming than I had remembered. Tobin was excited about the first layer of slime and newspaper, but after that, I was on my own.

He didn't realize he had cute dots of paper mache glue on his nose:).

We then got ready for the fiesta to welcome Daddy home! Naturally, the boys decided to do something I would never think of: making felt ponchos and pom-pom/foam sombreros for their dinosaurs to decorate the table with. 

The boys and their friends made a "bienvenida a casa" (welcome home) sign, and we finished our Mexican Angry Bird pinata. 

Daddy made it home safely (but sickly-thanks a lot Mexico). Family came over, and the fiesta began. We ate tacos and queso, and we enjoyed listening to some Herb Alpert. The boys loved breaking the pinata, eating candy, and showing off their finger puppet skills.

Out of all my do-it-yourself unit studies, I enjoyed this one the most. I have always loved learning about other cultures, and it was fun to share things I had from my own travels to Mexico.  I can't wait to learn about more cultures and what a big, big world we are a part of with my boys. 

Music and Learning

Life would be better if it was a musical. I grew up on musicals, I grew up playing music, I think in tunes, and guess what... so do my boys:). So many lessons can be taught with music. I have a cd of skip counting songs that we started listening (and learning) this week. Tobin can now play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the piano. My boys both love finding the beat and play rhythms on whatever surface they can find. Tobin started his homeschool music class this week too, and he has no problem hitting his little drum to the beat.

           I introduced the idea of what music looks like in written form, and Tobin loved writing the music language of circles and lines with A-G. I love how he just accepts the concept of music theory as another fun thing to learn.

We also incorporated the Bible truth of using music to praise the Lord! We learned Psalm 150:6, and sang lots of praise music together. 

We also enjoyed painting with blue paint while listening to Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin. 

Being a stubborn musician myself, and not very good at technology, this post has taken me about a month to actually post. Why? Because I finally figured out how to post the above videos... I think. Oh, the stubborn part is that I don't want to ask my techie husband who would have figured it out in 3 seconds. So I have lots of posts to work on so that I can catch up! I really want to keep up with this as a journal/diary of sorts so I can feel accomplished in my daily doings:). Hope you enjoy!

and add more music into your lives!

Lessons in Being Kind

   A couple months ago, I had the privilege of attending our local curriculum fair and listen to some wonderful speakers. I had decided to go to a Simply Charlotte Mason meeting because the theme was how to teach preschoolers. I did not expect to come away with so much wisdom on the importance of teaching good character. The simple yet new lesson (for me) was  to teach good character/habits first, and then home-school days will be smooth and enjoyable for all. Considering the behavioral troubles I was dealing with, especially between brothers, I was and will always be striving for good character in my boys (and me) and smooth days. We already have been reading about honesty and believing in yourself.

           This week we began learning what it really means to be kind. My boys memorized the above verse, and we read the story of Catherine Frye and The Value of Kindness. My boys have such beautiful, thoughtful hearts as they led this week in ways I did not expect. My 5 year old decided he wanted to write a letter to his Uncle Tom, who he had so much fun playing with the day before. We also wrote another dear family friend who was grieving over the loss of her husband. The boys also experienced their first funeral this week, and I was impressed by how they understood that it was a serious and important time and behaved very well. That in itself was a kindness and a lesson in respect.

Being the teacher, I of course used the letter writing as a school lesson as well. We learned how to write our address, about getting letters ready to mail, and of course wrote lots of words practicing our "ABC"s. They love to make cards for their Grandma and Aunt. Thank you sis for having a variety of letters in your name so that we had lots of practice:). 

The most important lesson that I wanted to teach was to be kind to your brother. I loved watching Tobin help his little brother write his name on his card. Jonah was so proud and glad to be included.

We ended our week with a science experiment, and a Bible lesson. As we watched the egg in vinegar bubble and change into something like a rubber ball, we talked about how we should be kind to everyone, and we should pick good friends that do not try to change us into bad people (that was the best I could do in trying to put the big idea into little people words). The idea and lesson came from this article:

http://comfyinthekitchen.com/2013/08/egg-experiment-and-a-biblical-lesson/

 24 hours later:

This science experiment was really cool and easy. The boys loved it! 

I just hope I can continue the theme of kindness through the school year by my own example and with Biblical truths at the ready. I find the only way to have this attitude is to begin my day in the Word. "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young has been a lifesaver and eyeopener for me in my morning devotions. My goal is to be authentic with my children, so I share my thoughts and daily readings with them, even though it can be very hard to explain what is on my heart. I just want them to hear and understand how we can live our lives for Jesus. One day at a time...

Kindergarten Science Experiment Failure

Let's start with the experiment that worked:

Congratulations, the wet bread in the test tube turned moldy.

 I didn't need to buy a science kit for this one as I am capable of letting bread mold on a weekly basis.

Yeast experiment failure #1: 

The first and second had sugar and yeast and water and were suppose to immediately bubble and overflow in time. The one labeled "c" did not have sugar and was suppose to do nothing. Guess I shouldn't have used that same stir stick for all three. Geez, Mom!

Yeast experiment failure #2: The balloon took three hours to blow up, when it was suppose to take 30 minutes. It at least popped in the end, so the boys thought that was cool. 

Yeast experiment failure #3: So this is when I finally realized that the kit came with bad yeast. Oh, by the way, this all came from "The Magic School Bus Germ Kit" off of Amazon. Don't buy it. That is suppose to be bread. 

Another reason not to buy the germ kit: It didn't even have the agar I needed to do the bacteria experiments. Thanks a lot Ms. Frizzle! (from Magic School Bus)

So I thought fast as my boy thinks we need to do an experiment daily. I vaguely remembered something about mixing oil and water to make a do it yourself lava lamp. All I did was oil and dyed water. I am pretty sure I was missing an ingredient or two. It looked cool for awhile.

Eventually it just looked like a lot of colored, wasted cooking oil. At least Tobin thought it was fun.

Here is another example of me trying to do an experiment based on memory. I was in the grocery store, and I saw some lettuce that was long and attached at the bottom, and I remembered seeing the pinterest idea of showing water moving through a plant. Only problem is, after actually reading the article, they used a certain kind of cabbage that attached at the top, showing the color moving in a really vivid and beautiful way. My experiment was a flop.

Go to the following link if you want to learn how to do it right:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mslaura/4023084459/

Lessons learned? Well, my 5 year old already knows I don't know everything. I learned to actually read directions and ingredients lists FIRST.

Most importantly: Remember to just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...they can't all end in failure! 

Learning about God's Beautiful Creation

The boys love singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands", and their favorite verse is "He's got you and me brother." We made our creation lapbook modified to show the brothers together.

here is the link to printables//lapbook idea: http://www.lapbooklessons.com/CreationLapbook.html

My favorite part on the lapbook, was  the boys' answers for what their favorite number was.

 Tobin said "#1 -  because he likes to win" (he is so my child).

 Jonah said "654-3211 - batman's phone number" (he is so his father's son). 

We enjoyed the beauty of the flowers God created:

we bagged up some of the blossoms to make out own watercolors

We crushed the petals, and then boiled them in water.

 They sorta turned out, but they weren't bright on paper. Still a cool science experiment.

We painted anyways with watercolors and q-tips. They loved making cool hairdos on the tops.

Neither child wanted to do the dot q-tip idea. Oh well.

My creative 3-year-old added some of the flower petals to his tree.

This week, our first full week back, served as a review. We reviewed creation, as that was the first week in My Father's World that we did back in January. I was surprised how much my 5 year old remembered. He knew day four was birds and fish before I even said it! We also reviewed alphabet and numbers, and we started our 100 day count and calendar again.

 I do plan on continuing My Father's World this fall...when it is L for Leaf and A for Apple time. For now, I am enjoying making my own unit studies. I am getting a taste of different styles of homeschool right now and sorta testing the waters. Planning unit studies is very time consuming, and hard to organize. That being said, it is enjoyable to customize what my boys are going to learn on a daily basis.
As always, this journey is... to be continued...