I've decided to try to keep this blog about things like decorating, crazy stuff in the military, our home life and of course shoes. In keeping with that, I started a new blog just about homeschooling! You can check it out over at Bent Grass Academy. I hope you enjoy. Indy came up with some interesting insights about the election this morning.
I previously showed you our Amber Dig on Fun Friday, so I thought I'd show you some of the other stuff we do/did/use in our homeschooling.
When we studies dinosaurs we made a paper mache bone out of a paper towel tube, crumpled newspaper and 100 mile and hour tape (it's an Army thing-they call it that because it's supposed to hold up to 100 mph). I learned something that day: I do NOT like paper mache. MESSY! Indy liked though. And yes, he is wearing an old shirt backwards. M contributed it to the cause. The cause being keeping Indy's shirt clean.
Cool huh? We painted it white but I forgot to take a picture of that.
This is a little game we play with site words. See those M&M's? If he can read all the words in front of it (starting from the bottom left) he can eat the M&M. If he gets a word wrong he's got to start over. I'm a freaking genius, I tell you.
This is the chalkboard we use. They were obviously taken a while back. In case you're wondering, the word below Wednesday is how you say it (Wed) in German. We also talk about the weather and how you would write the date numerically.
This is our wipe board. Like the frame? 70% off at Hobby Lobby! Cost me $8! Woohoo! Yes, I do realize these are HUGE words for a 6 year old, but I don't believe in dumbing things down for him. We discuss every word and I quiz him on the meaning. I don't expect him to read them just yet (though that would be awesome), just be familiar with them.
And look! We made a volcano! There's a small water bottle in the center, surrounded by crumpled newspaper and 100 mile an hour tape (seeing a trend here?) and covered in air dry clay. After the clay dried, we painted it (actually Indy and M did this while I went shopping-yea!). Isn't it cool?
Look at it explode! Here's a tip, if you put a few drops of liquid dish soap inside the volcano with the baking soda it will bubble for a long time. Also, a few drops of red and yellow food coloring in the vinegar makes it look more like lava. I think M and I liked this as much as Indy did.
I can't even begin to describe how excited Indy was when I pulled out this new box of crayons. He's never had such a variety of colors before. The possibilities are endless. I can only imagine how much he'd love the box of 96.
We're beginning our study of archaeology, which is obviously right up Indy's alley. This was how he spent some of his outside time today. Isn't he adorable?
Tell me you can't hear the theme song when you look at this picture. Dum-dee-dum-dummmm. Dum-dee-dum. Dum-dee-dum-dum. Dumm-dee-dumm-dum-dum.
We started homeschool 2 weeks ago. It's been going really well and I am constantly amazed by how much C knows. He scares me sometimes he's so smart. It's not just that he's smart, he's clever. He thinks about things. Want an example? On Thursday morning he lost his second tooth. He thought he had swallowed it because he was eating breakfast and couldn't find it. I jokingly told him that if we didn't have a tooth to put under his pillow, the tooth fairly couldn't come. Without missing a beat, he looked at me and said "Well, you can just take a picture of my gap and we can put that under my pillow so the tooth fairy will know it fell out." See? Who thinks of that? I was on the phone with my mom at the time (I had her on speaker so she could hear him) and she couldn't believe he came up with that, let alone that he came up with it so quickly. We did eventually find the tooth though. It had fallen out and landed just under the edge of his plate. We did not have to take a picture and he got a shiny quarter to add to one of his 4 piggy banks. Three of them are so full they can't hold any more. The 4th one is almost full. The boy likes to save.
Okay back on track: homeschool. We've been learning a lot and having a great time. It's not all fun and games though. Handwriting is killing us both. He hates to practice handwriting and complains the entire time. I, smart mom/teacher that I am, decided to schedule (I use that term very loosely) a really fun activity afterwards as an incentive to get him to finish. Now you know where he gets his cleverness from, don't you? Still he complains the whole time and it drives me nuts. He must get the complaining from M. I never complain. :)
I decided, in order to mix it up a bit because he really does work hard, that every other Friday would be "Fun Friday" with special activities. Oh boy, was he excited for Fun Friday. We decided that we would do minimal school work and go to a movie. We opted for Space Chimps. Very funny. I'd give it a thumbs up. Not 2, but 1. Before Space Chimps though, I had a little trick up my sleeve. We started our Dinosaur/Prehistoric Unit last week and in my cabinet of wonders (I totally call it that in my head), I had an archeology/dig kit. His eyes got as big as saucers when I showed it to him. The fossil inside the 826,795,534 teeny tiny rocks (why yes, I did count them, thankyouverynuch) was a fly trapped in amber.
When we lived in St. Louis, his absolute favorite thing in the STL Science Center was a small piece of amber with a mosquito trapped inside. He was completely fascinated by this maybe 2"x 1.5" piece of amber and would literally stare at it (through the little magnifying glass poised over it) for a good half hour every time we went there. I don't know what was so interesting, but by golly it was. When we went to Chicago for Thanksgiving last year he was in rapture over the cases and cases of amber chunks filled with various kinds of bugs at the Field Museum. I had to drag him out the room that contained them. You can see why I chose this particular activity.
He thoroughly enjoyed himself. He even had to go get his Indiana Jones bag and gear (you can see the bag in the top left of some of the pics) so he could use his brushes to carefully remove the rock from around the fossil.
Very excited:
Getting into it:
Got it!
He drew a picture of it in his Indiana Jones notebook and labled it:
Yea for Fun Friday!!!!
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