Hurricane Sandy

This week we had a couple of days inside due to Hurricane Sandy's visit.  No going to work for mommy and daddy.  So we had plenty of time for homeschooling and for catching up on our homeschooling blog. :)

Starting with our homeschooling activities from last week:

Here is a picture of LO reading his science books and magazines.

Here is a picture of LO watching a video from the National Zoo app about animals.

Here is a picture of our little budding paleontologist excavating his baby dinosaurs out of plaster of paris.

And here is a picture of our Magic School Bus Dinosaur Kit.   We made the diorama and finished off the whole kit.  We have been working on the kit for a couple of months.  The diorama is the culminating activity for the kit.

We learned about the letter "E" last week using our CatholicIcing Preschool Curriculum.  Here is the letter "E".  LO traces the "E" with his fingers and we use this to discuss how to draw the letter "E".

After practicing with our finger with the "E" on the board, I had him practice writing the letter "E" on a lined dry erase board that I picked up from Target's $1 bins.

He drew the "E" on the bottom all by himself :)
Here is a picture of our craft for the letter "E".   He made it all by himself.  (I did the writing, of course.)

Here is a picture of LO at his Gymboree School Skills class.  He goes once a week for this drop-off class.  It's 90 minutes long and he loves to go.

When coming back from LO's School Skills class, we discovered 16 bees on the bushes in front of our house!  Yes, 16 (sixteen) bees!   Incredible!  I had never seen this before.  This was a homeschooling experience that we did not plan on.  We discussed bees and nectar and plants.  Very cool.  One of our neighbors are also homeschoolers.  They are teenagers and also came outside to study the bees.  It was like a little co-op activity for our two houses :)   It was very interesting to me that the teenagers and my preschooler could all learn about the bees together and converse about them. 

On Sunday I learned that my LO knows how to sing his ABCs :)   Here is a link to a video of my LO and his cousin singing their ABC's together :) https://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?v=10151147861891843

On Monday we did our next Dinosaur Train PBS lesson.  http://www.pbs.org/teachers/dinosaurtrain/lessonplans/dinosaurssatoz/
We listened to the song and watched the video.  The lesson called for options of memorizing the song (which we have already done) and making notecards with the letters on it (which we had also already done).  So we decided to do the extension activity which involved making a book about dinosaurs.   The book is still in progress, so I will post pictures when it is completed.

Today (Tuesday), we focused on the Letter "F" and did the next lesson in our CatholicIcing Preschool Curriculum.

The craft was to make a sunburst to represent Our Lady of Fatima.  We put paint on the bottom of  a paper plan and then spun the plate on white paper to make the sunburst.  Pretty cool!

During our "hurricane" days we also played loads of board games, read tons of books, and practiced playing Hide and Seek.  I also learned that LO can count to 10 all by himself without error :)  

Thanks for reading!

Running like an Argentinasaurus

And here is LO running the length of an Argentinasaurus :)

Another "reading" video

Pre-Reading Skills :)

LO "reading" his alligator book :)

Running like a Spinosaurus

For some reason the blogger will not let me load multiple videos in the same blog.  Maybe there is a limit . . .

Here is LO running the length of a Spinosaurus. :)

Dinosaur Activities!

Hello!   Today we had a lot of fun with dinosaurs! :)  We started with a Dinosaur Train PBS Lesson that asked the question "How big are dinosaurs?"  We went outside and measured out approximately 40 feet (length of a T-rex), 60 feet (length of a Spinosaurus), and 100 feet (length of an Argentinasaurus).  Then LO ran each of the distances while I took videos :)  Check out the pictures and videos :)

After the outside activities we moved inside to make some dinosaur cookies!  :)  Yummy! :)   The recipe was in the back of one of LO's books.  He loved helping make the cookies!

And that was our awesome dinosaur homeschooling day :)

Our Rosary Board

Hello!  I got this idea from Catholic Icing :)  I think it turned out pretty awesome.  Thanks, Lacy!

Please go to Lacy's blog to read about the Rosary Board idea and for directions.  I modified the directions and used materials I already had around my house.   The circles are poster paper and the backing is a poster board (it's actually the back of my felt board).  I printed the pictures from the Internet.  I liked that it had the descriptions of each one so that everything I need to pray the rosary with LO is in one place.  I added the days of the week for each of the mysteries in glitter glue. 

Hope someone else find this activity useful :)

Letter D, Felt Board Stories, Gymboree School Skills, Right Start Math, and George's Secret Key to the Universe

Hello!  We have been very busy homeschooling the last two days. :)   Here is what we have been up to:

Yesterday we worked on "Letter D" using our CatholicIcing.com Preschool Curriculum.  We focused on St. Denis and made a craft on Jesus' Divine Mercy.

We also spent quite a bit of time yesterday doing some new Felt Board Stories.   My mother-in-law (MIL) graciously ordered for us some of the classic felt board stories.  (Thanks, Gigi!  We love you!)  LO has been "telling" the stories over and over again using the pieces. 

Here is a picture of the dinosaur felt board set.  LO loves dinosaurs!

Here is our felt story for Old Macdonald had a Farm.  We also have a book and CD to go with each of these felt board sets.   I love how the sets included the word cards along with the pieces.

 
The next set we did was "The Wheels on the Bus".  The bus even beeps!  It has a squeaky toy in it :)

And one of my personal favorites from childhood was "There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly".  DH (Dear Husband) thinks it is a morbid song.  LO (Little One) thinks the song is hilarious :)

The coolest part of this set is that the pieces actually can be put in the "Old Lady's" mouth and into her stomach!  There is a piece of plastic keeping them in. :)

And our final storyboard is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", which has many more versus than just the first verse that we had song prior to getting this set.  So much fun! :)

Once acquiring these sets and putting them together, I quickly realized I needed a way to organize the numerous pieces.  I put each individual story set into a gallon ziploc baggie, labeled them using my label maker, and then placed them in this nice Longeberger basket. (Thanks to my BF [Best Friend] I have had this basket since my wedding 7 years ago and have used it for many awesome purposes.  Thanks Kim!)  Also, please note the cute basket next to the felt board stories that is housing our Spanish curriculum. :)

Today LO attended his Gymboree School Skills drop-off class.   They studied the "Letter U".  They always start with a show and tell.  LO took in a dinosaur encyclopedia with a picture of a "Utahraptor".   For his craft today he made a "Unicorn."

After his Gymboree class we came home to our Right Start Math lesson.  We worked on quantities 1 to 6.  We used craft sticks to learn tally marks for representing "5 and 1 is 6".  He also used the craft sticks to make Triangles and Quadrilaterals.   We also learned a new song called "Yellow is the Sun".  And we used color tiles to work on our groupings of numbers.

For our bedtime reading, we have started reading "George's Secret Key to the Universe" by Lucy and Stephen Hawking every night.   I don't remember where I picked up this book as a suggestion for science (I'm sure it was on some homeschooling blog or at a homeschooling conference.).  Anyway, it has definitely turned out to be a good idea!   We read a chapter a night and discuss the book and  science concepts.   LO constantly surprises me with his reading comprehension.  He understands and remembers way more than I thought he would!   After reading our chapter today, we decided to do a quick science experiment.  In Chapter 2 of the book, the characters take a ruler and rub it in the person's hair to make static electricity.  Then they take the ruler and put it near a stream of tap water.  The water goes from being straight down to moving over when the static electricity is near.   So LO and I decided to see if the book was accurate.  We tried it with a ruler and couldn't  get it to work.  We hypothesized that it was the ruler and static electricity that we could get going with the ruler that was the problem, not necessarily the experiment itself.   So we decided to use a balloon instead of a ruler.  It worked!  :)   LO was really impressed!  (And myself, I have to admit!)   I rubbed the balloon in LO's hair and then put it near the stream of tap water in his bathroom sink.  As soon as the balloon got close to the water, the stream of water bent!  Pretty cool :)

And that is what we have been up to :)  Hope you enjoyed reading!

Letter C, Being a tourist in DC, and some math :)

Hello there!  It's been a while since I have updated my homeschooling blog.   My grandmother passed away so we had out-of-town company visiting.  We only did a few homeschooling lessons while they were in-town.  We mainly did a lot of the high tourist attractions in the DC area.  I figure LO is learning regardless if we are doing curriculum or if we are visiting the sites.   Actually, I think that LO is probably learning more from touring DC than from doing curriculum at home.  There is definitely a little "unschooler" in me. :)

The curriculum we have done recently was our Catholic Icing Preschool Lesson on the Letter "C".  We started by reviewing the letter by writing it on our board.

Our craft for the letter "C" was to make a crucifix. Here is a picture of LO making his crucifix craft.

And here is a picture of his finished crucifix.

One of our educational activities recently was that we attended the Library of Congress Book Festival on the National Mall.  Here is a picture of LO at the LOC Book Festival.  He loved the Lego building activities :)  We also visited the National Archives the same day.  Seeing the Constitution and Declaration of Independence is always a good education. :)

Another one of our educational activities was that we visited Arlington National Cemetery.  We saw the changing of the guard and visited the Kennedy grave-sites along with the Arlington House. Here are some pictures.

Today we went back to our curriculum and worked on our RightStart Math lesson.  Here is a picture of LO working with his color tiles. The laptop in the picture has my HomeschoolSkedTrack loaded.

Thanks for reading! :)