Oct. 10, 2008 - Happy Fall Y'all! ;)
This week we did a unit study with the book, When the Frost is on the Punkin. We also read parts of Crinkleroot's Nature Almanac (Arnosky), Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf (Ehlert), Leaf Man (Ehlert), and Why Do Leaves Change Color? (Maestro). We didn't do a lapbook; we stuffed everything in the pockets of a folder instead! Here are some random pictures of our week.
Simon painting with some fall colors


Simon reading Trains
Elijah painting (with TWO brushes)
Elijah's Draw Write Now


Pumpkin Pie (from a real pumpkin!)
We used this recipe
Elijah getting the pumpkin ready to bake

Pouring the Pumpkin Pie Filling


Finished Pie

Fall Tree Painting
Instructions found here
Blowing the ink (to make the tree)


Chromatography Experiment

The colors separated! There is yellow in a spinach leaf!
Who knew?

Fall Paper Bag Album
Instructions to make a paper bag album
For the inside, we found a fun idea in Crinkleroot's Nature Almanac. Elijah insisted that we do this! You trace a leaf then color it in (we used oil pastels). Cut it out and paste it in your book.





Final Folder

Left Pocket: Lifecycle of a pumpkin, Cheerfulness Who's Who Book, Bible verse pumpkin, Fall Funny Faces Page, Watercolor/Ink Painting
Right Pocket: Rhyme Scheme, Fall Paper Bag Album, Handwriting, Fall Colors (not pictured)
Bible Verse Pumpkin
Happy pumpkin-pickin' and pie-bakin'!
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Oct. 8, 2008 - Park Day
I love homeschooling because we can school when we want and break when we want! Last week was a break week. We hit the park, and it was SO much fun!



Aunt Lisa and Uncle Brian came to play, too...





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Oct. 8, 2008 - Electricity
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Oct. 8, 2008 - Happy Birthday #7
Elijah wanted a PIZZA party for his big #7.
Here's the pizza I made for dinner:
Here's the pizza Aunt Lisa made for dessert (isn't it AWESOME!?!)




And, here are some birthday morning pictures (SEVEN chocolate-chip pancakes, of course!)

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Oct. 8, 2008 - Too Cute...
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Oct. 8, 2008 - Art Exhibit Pictures
Here is Elijah posing with his bears drawing
Close-up of the drawing

Alien Art

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Oct. 7, 2008 - Funny Fall Faces
Take your nature walk and collect a shoebox full of stuff (nuts, berries, leaves, grass, seeds, etc.). Get some sidewalk chalk and draw a circle. Decorate your funny face!
This was an easy way to make a good memory and enjoy the great outdoors at the same time. Here are our faces.
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Sep. 25, 2008 - Tot School

Painting ORANGE

Making Play-doh (in pajamas)!




Other things we did
Read books - new favorites include: Mr. Gumpy's Outing, If You GIve a Mouse a Cookie, and That's Not My Lion
Hide and seek with puzzle pieces- this put a new spin on some old puzzles. We "hid" the pieces around the room and Simon went around finding them and putting the puzzle together.
Sandbox Play (does this count as school? It does for a tot!)
Fingerplays and Songs- Simon loves to sing and do motions with songs like "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes; he also just loves "Old McDonald!" I let him fill in the blanks this week (choosing the animals and sounds
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Sep. 25, 2008 - Weather Words Lapbook
This week Elijah got to choose what we learned about. His choice? Weather!
For the extention, we cut the right side off a file folder and paste the entire thing in to the lapbook. It opens on the right side. The printables are found here.
Some of the answers Elijah wrote in, others he dictated to me and they were pasted in, some were typed straight from the book and cut/pasted inside the minits




Rainwords Hotdog Book

clouds accordion opening up


combination clouds flap opened

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Sep. 25, 2008 - Fun Festival Field Trip - Sights and Sounds
Johnny Appleseed

The Bands



Making Cider

Metalsmith

Making Lace

Spinning Wheels

Trapper/Trader

Magician

Shredding Cabbage for Coleslaw

Dancers

Musicians

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Sep. 25, 2008 - Fun Festival Field Trip Part 2 - Faces and Names
Silly Simon
Uncle & Lindsey

Elijah & Jason

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Sep. 25, 2008 - Fun Festival Field Trip Part 3 - Games & Toys


Simon searching in the corn

Elijah in the Obstacle Course

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Sep. 25, 2008 - Fun Festival Field Trip- Part 4 - Elijah learns about flax
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Sep. 19, 2008 - Apple Copywork
I just love these pictures of Elijah working so hard! I printed up pages for him that have the starting dots included. He loved this. It makes life so much easier for him. I plan to keep on doing it all year long! :)
Here is the part of a poem he copied:
"When autumn comes, our apple tree is full of things to eat. The apples hang from every branch to tumble at our feet."
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Sep. 19, 2008 - A Good Apple and a Bad Apple
Really, this is one of those end-of-weeks where I'm going, "WHEW!" I feel like we've covered a lot of ground in this notebook (we hole punched cardstock and put it in a binder instead of using the tradtional file folder). This kid keeps me hoppin', that's for sure. He is SUPER proud of this notebook (and he should be). He just kept wanting more, more, more (good apple)! And me? We'll I'm all appled-out (bad apple).
Most of the printables came from Homeschool Share (Apples to Oregon Unit & Johnny Appleseed Lapbook). A few are from Enchanted Learning (apple tree through the seasons, Johnny Appleseed circle), and one is from Evan Moor's Giant Science Resource Book (lifecycle printable).
The first page is his copywork/apple drawing in a plastic protector.
Apples to Oregon Section

Mapping Oregon, A tab-book about Oregon, Map showing the Oregon Trail (Iowa-Oregon) that the family in the story probably took.

Figures of Speech- we reviewed alliteration and personification; had an introduction to hyperbole and allusion

This exercise kind of happened spontaneously. Elijah thought the allierations in the book were so funny (cause they are!) that he started alliterating everything. I made up this page for him to have more fun. He didn't complain about the handwriting at all!

Close up of fruit alliterations
All About Apples Section


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Sep. 18, 2008 - Win FREE Books! :)
Write a homeschooling review (or two!) and you might win some free books!
Click the button to find out about it.

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Sep. 14, 2008 - Tot School
You've got to keep the tot busy...

Building with Smart Shapes by Lauri
These are great for teaching shapes, colors, sorting, and numbers in quantity (the Rightstart way!). Simon also loves to build with them. The shapes fit in to the main piece like a puzzle, too, so you get some fine motor action going on as well. I like them because I can use them as a tool one-on-one with Simon, or he can just experiment with them all by himself.
Simon tried something new with them this week (which is why I grabbed the camera); he stacked the shapes up on each other.

Lots of trial and error to get the tower to stack right, but he hung in there and did it!





Here's another fun sorting activity I've had since Elijah was a tot. The first time I had Simon do this (a few months ago), I thought he was doing it wrong, but as I stepped back (instead of telling him he was wrong and) watched, I realized that he just does things differently! He instinctively sorts by animal instead of color. What a great reminder to me to not rush in to teach him the "right way" to do things.




As for other things we did this week- nature walks, apple orchard, caramel apples, tea-time with poetry, stories, and markers (notice the green on his forehead and the red on his arm!).
Happy Tot-schooling!
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Sep. 14, 2008 - A Bigger Bargain
I went to a neighborhood garage sale a few weeks ago, and found something fun- two puppy dog quilts (and pillow shams) from Pottery Barn. They are so cute! I was so happy to find bedspreads for the boys!
Guess how much I paid for TWO bedspreads and TWO pillow shams? (If you already know the answer, you aren't allowed to guess!)

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Sep. 12, 2008 - Smart Shoppin'!
Ooooooooooh! I love library book sales. I know I shouldn't throw the word love around, but I REALLY love book sales!
I felt like I got a great haul tonight and my total was a whopping $34. Okay, so $34 seems like a lot, but look at what I got! Lots of books and even a stack of audio books!
Disclaimer: I have no clue if some of these books are suitable for my dc to read, but I will preview and preread.






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Sep. 10, 2008 - Apples and some CHEESE!

This is one happy toddler. Why is he smiling so big?
Aunt Ann is here and we're making
CANDY APPLES!


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