Our Week!

     I have really lost count on what week number we are on! My blog has been so messed up not being able to post pictures, not being able to do anything and of course blogger has been ZERO help!!! Messing around I finally figured out something was screwy with the compatibility. Oh well, my blog is now working so I am back!! This is the week after Thanksgiving and our first week doing Christmas Around The World!!!! Our little elf came back too! He for sure arrived in style in his Elf Rocket!!!

Now if you go here this awesome mama made this rocket printable for free!! Took all of 5 minutes to put together, but the smile on my daughters face was just priceless!!!!  Since his arrival we of course got his house out of the shed. He made this house about 2 years ago. We had wondered for days why all the green and red paint kept vanishing!! LOL

He also was attacked by lego men and saved by a Skylander named Hotdog

Skyler said after all that she wanted him safe and sound in her dollhouse for the day

Now onto Christmas Around The World!!!

I made the cutest little suitcases from here.

They were just so very adorable!! By the way this was a freebie too.

Made them each a passport and they will get tickets for where they visit!! The notebook folder will hold all their pages they make for each place and I got stickers for the passports just by googling free passport stickers or flags for whatever country. Now I also bought a study at Teachers Pay Teachers. I bought it because there were printable mini books for a lot of countries and some other ideas but it wasn't a must have just something I liked. You can for sure do a Christmas Around The World for free. Most of the notebooking pages I am using came from this free study. This is awesome as well and it has blogger links to a lot of people who contributed in different places.

And wouldn't you have known of all places at Walmart I found the perfect book for us!!!

We had to have it! Skyler loved it, Fox was ho hum about it but she really enjoyed it. Of course while reading it I changed one of the towns names to our own so that made it even better by her. We then went to Hawaii because they do Christmas a bit different than the rest of the US. We watched a video and learned how to say Merry Christmas in Hawaii!! They really enjoyed that. We made some crafts.

we then went on to Canada. I really couldn't find much in the Christmas in Canada way all I could find were Canada day crafts and coloring pages so they made Canada Day fortune teller.

We then went to Germany on Friday and I think they liked that most of all. We made cute little shoes from a pattern this mamma made. They were so stinking cute!!!

Here they are by morning

I also printed some cards off about St. Nicholas from the St Nicholas website and found a little print out about the pickle tradition in Germany and my mom even found her old pickle from when she was young. We made paper Gingerbread houses that would store in their suitcases.

Hot chocolate with some gingerbread man marshmallows

The unit I bought had some German paperdolls so they had those to add to their suitcases

We also found our little elf in the fridge after he had a night of making some fudge!!

This is our map after the week we have labeled where we learned about. I just used some little Christmas stickers we had to mark the places and Fox put some twine to each place.

It was a pretty fun week. They did all the other school stuff I just didn't bother with pictures of yet another math sheet or whatever. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Because even rats deserve Thanksgiving!!!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Welcome Fall! Week 6

This week we are celebrating Fall! Fall is my favorite. Not too hot, not too cold but just right! The framed images come from google image from searching fall subway art. I think they turned out quite pretty. It is also homeschool spirit week! Here is their website and here is their facebook page to tell you all about it! First up is jammie day!

Not quite sure what is up with the hat..she has been wearing it a few days now and don't seem to be wanting to give it up at all. Fox and pajamas have kinda went away as he has gotten older usually it is a pair of lounge type pants with a t-shirt. Skyler still loves jammies! She is my child that will fight me tooth and nail about leaving her childhood! For our Fall study I am using a few different things. Some videos from Amanda Bennet's Fall download and go, ALOT of library books, various free things I have found online, A Journey Through Learning Fall lapbook and the Dynamic Moms free Fall Unit. Just whatever I like out of those things. The first two videos we watched the kids liked but they said were sad. They were kinda a goodbye to summer thing and the kids said the music was really sad.

I figure when all is done I will make a BIG lapbook of everything so I had the kids make a cover for it.

 

Skyler is the only one who liked hers well enough to post a picture. We are going to turn this into a pretty big study, adding all the holidays and things associated with Fall. We also made a blood cell model today. This was OK I am glad the kids knew what was what and could tell me all about it!

 

Here is Fox adding the red blood cells. (these are those red hot candies)

Skyler adding white blood cells (dried lima beans) and platelets (sunflower seeds)

 

Now for the plasma (corn oil)

 

Here is a side view of their blood cell!

 

Skyler just had to pose with it. She has already ditched her pj's and now is wearing a fox costume she has for Halloween. Yes she realizes it is over a month away, she had to get in the mood she told me! Tomorrow is school away from home day and I think we will take it to the park! My kids like finding nature goodies and eating outside so it will work out perfect.

 

On Tuesday we took our school to the park for a picnic lunch and some nature time!

We also took the time to work in their yearbooks they are making.

It is a bunch of printed pages with frames and designs where they add a picture each moth or little drawings that they will work on throughout the year. Should be cute when the year is up!

Math time!





There wasn't many leaves on the ground yet but Skyler started to gather what was there. My kids love leaves.

 

We saw a lot of little caterpillars traveling along the walkway. Fox was convinced all these leaf skeletons looked like dead fish. I actually kinda agree! My kids have a thing about mushrooms. They have to look at everyone they see. They also love the waterfall that looks like rootbeer. I have been told by a few librarians this is the only natural waterfall in Florida all the rest are man made. Tomorrow is crazy hair day so not quite sure what we are going to do with that one!

 

 

 

Well, I knew Tuesday I was feeling low and by Wednesday I was pretty worthless. For the rest of the week my kids played while I slept. I have heard it is going around, don't you always hear that when you are sick? I really wanted to go and volunteer with the animals and do crazy hair but it just didn't happen. On Friday my daughter still insisted on dressing up for hero day and I did manage to catch a pic!

 

She looked so cute for the few minutes I was awake!

 

 

 

 

 

Weeks 4 and 5

Week 4 and 5 report so just a bit behind! We also took a week break as well. For week 4 the biggest thing we did was to study the brain for science. Instead of using a lot of different stuff I used the Amanda Bennet Download and Go unit for the week. It was also National Waffle Week that week so we started the week off with waffles of course!

 We did a few experiments on the brain. One about brain safety.

The egg that was not protected broke of course.

The egg that was wrapped up didn't break all the way it only cracked a bit. As Fox put it a crack in your head was better than your brains spilled all across the road!

They also did a memory exercise. I put a few things on a plate they looked for one minute then I took it away and had to see how many they could remember. Fox did pretty well with it only forgetting two. It was cool to hear them talk out loud about the plate such and such was next to this and that it's like they were making a picture in their head!

They also made plaster of paris brains to paint each day they learned a new area of the brain, We made these using The Horrible Science Blood Bones and Body Bits.

At the end of the week they had a cute little souvenir!

I think the highlight for Fox was dissecting the brain though. All week long I would ask him questions about what part of the brain does this or that and all I got was I don't remember. Well as soon as he started cutting into it he could tell me all kinds of things. He really is a hands on kid which is so different than me and Skyler, we can read and tell you all about stuff not Fox though he has to see it, touch it, and everything else! I will say right off Skyler had no part in the dissections. I don't force my children to do any of these types of activities. I refused in high school to cut up a frog so I respect their wishes. She did label a diagram of the brain and had to tell me verbally what each area did. She did it all with no issue. Fox has no problems doing these things and obviously learns very well from it.

We also had microscope slides to look at as well.

As he cut off the brain stem he reminded me if it was ever damaged in our bodies we would have no balance!

Onto week 5.

This week was all about the eyes and ears. We also made a squirrel lapbook in honor of the little houseguest that left us. I will make a separate post on that later. Our squirrel Brownie was found in a parking lot a few weeks back and brought to me by another homeschool mom. We all took turns caring for our little friend and then I realized he was just getting too big for any of the cages yet not quite ready to go out on his own. We hooked up with some rehabbers in the area and delivered Brownie to them. Squirrels are not pets but it sure was fun to actually touch, hold and even feed one for a while. It was a bittersweet day for us all. Even Fox cried when we said goodbye. That boy steals my heart he loves all the creatures, even spiders.

So onto our week at school. Skyler is now learning how to read a clock with hands. This is a skill I totally slipped with the boys and then wound up doing it again on Skyler. Thank you for math u see!!

We did some experiments with the eyes and ears this week of course.

By filling up a bottle with water and glitter we learned how your ear keeps you balanced. This idea came for The Magic School Bus Human Body kit.

They spun in circles till they got dizzy!!

We used a tuning fork to hear sound vibrations through our teeth. This came from Blood and Guts book.

We also built a stereoscope from the Blood Bones and Body kit by Horrible Science.

They covered up one eye and tried to play catch! This is also from the Blood and Guts book.

We also dissected an eye which again Fox could tell me all about and Skyler had nothing to do with!

This is the part which I cannot remember its name is only on animals not us. It is the part of the eye that makes it shine  when it is in the dark I guess. I read about it briefly when Fox pulled it out and said, this don't go here! Next week it is all about blood and Fall! I love Fall. It isn't too hot or too cold yet and everything just smells crisp and yummy. So those were our weeks 4 and 5. I have tons more pictures if you would like to see.