Friday, November 9, 2012

"I don't want to do school today."

I'm sure this is not the last time I will hear that sentence from my LO.   Ahhh, but I am a sneaky mommy.  ;)  We still did school today.   He just did not realize it.  (evil laugh)  

My intention was to practice his math.   He did not want to do what I wanted to do.  So I suggested we play a game instead.  ;)   We started with "Toe-ga".  It's a Yoga game for kids.  So I am counting this activity as PE (physical education) and math.   The idea is that you pick up these little pom-poms with your feet and place them in cups.   It's a contest to see how many you can get in your cup.  So we practiced counting.  And sorting. :)  Hehehe.  Math skills totally built in.  Check out this picture of my son sorting his pom-poms.  https://www.facebook.com/cagannaway?ref=tn_tnmn#!/photo.php?fbid=10151163368916843&set=a.10150938835981843.419452.533871842&type=1&theater

Then we played a Discovery Toys color matching game called "Color Clowns."   LO wanted to play another game that "wasn't school."   Ok, darling.  Let's play a game and NOT use school skills.  (evil laugh again)   In "Color Clowns", you roll the dice to get a shape and a color.  Then you take a plastic colored disk of the appropriate shape and place it on the game board.  So it's a game of practicing colors and shapes.  Plus, it is teaching color blending.   The disks and game board shapes are different colors and the players have to make the appropriate blends.  (Pink and yellow make orange; blue and red make purple; and yellow and blue make green)   It really is a lot of fun to play.  Here is a picture of my son playing "Color Clowns".  https://www.facebook.com/cagannaway?ref=tn_tnmn#!/photo.php?fbid=10151163436536843&set=a.10151149693981843.449864.533871842&type=1&theater

We also did some math skills today when we decided to bake some cookies. :)   All that measuring really should count for "math".   Here is a picture of our cookies.  https://www.facebook.com/cagannaway?ref=tn_tnmn#!/photo.php?fbid=10151163365161843&set=a.10150251777686843.328464.533871842&type=1&theater

And finally we had a BLAST making a marble structure with our Discovery Toys "Marbleworks" set.  Talk about using our physics skills.  :)   LO said he wanted to "play, not do school".  Hehehe.   So we played and played and played.   We learned a lot about gravity and architecture.  We also had to count a lot to make the structure and we had to count all the marbles.   Pretty cool.  Here is a video link.  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151163589436843&set=vb.533871842&type=3&theater

So-all-in-all, a very good "school" day that LO didn't even realize was a "school" day.  I love homeschooling!! :)

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Preparing for Advent

Hello!  Just a quick here that we are going to use "Getting Ready for Christmas: A Daily Advent Prayer and Activity Book for the Family" to prepare for Jesus' birth this year :)  My copy just came in the mail from Amazon.  We are excited to get started :)