Posted by Cindy on February 24, 2010
It’s time to fess up. February turned out to be a really cold and snowy month in Central KY. Even with a bad case of cabin fever, we didn’t get out very much to study conifers like we had planned. One beautiful snowy day we did take a photography walk and here are a few of the pictures.
This picture has nothing to do with conifers, but I thought it was so beautiful that I wanted to post it. There’ a sheet of ice gracefully laying over the flowing water from a dam – it was so cool to see in person!
Our Creation Club did a study on conifers last year that you might be interested in, too. Otherwise, below are the main resources we used.
Books We Read
Posted by Cindy on February 17, 2010
The Roaring 20′s led way to the Great Depression of the 30′s. Such a stark difference from one decade to the other.
When we went through our first four-year cycle of history using The Story of the World as our main spine, I have to admit that we glossed over modern American history at the time. For starters, Story of the World Volume 4 was much harder than my children were ready for at the time so it was easy to back off. And, secondly, we were building a new house and getting settled in during that year, which made backing off of history even more enticing.
That being said, this is the “first time through” for a really in-depth look at the 20th century. And, my, oh my, we’re enjoying it! Wonderful books, movies, games, recipes and projects are making this study just fabulous. I’ve been requiring more daily writing from the kids, too, in the form of mini-posters (aka notebooking pages.) These mini-posters are solidifying their learning SO MUCH! Here’s a look at a few of the notebooking pages from the 1920′s and the Great Depression.
We’ve also been keeping a timeline of many important and interesting events for each decade. Before we dive into learning about each decade, I usually have them write out the timeline first, so they have a general picture in their mind of the things we’ll talk about. Each decade’s timeline is made on a different colored piece of cardstock. This happens to be the timeline for the 1930′s.
Below are the resources that have been in the sidebar. Each one of the books/dvd’s was wonderful!
Websites
Mr. Donn’s American History
Education World Lessons
1930′s WebQuest
I’m still working on the WWII resources in the sidebar. We’ve already jumped into the unit, but I’m still in the planning stages, so more resources will be added over the next day or two.
Posted by Cindy on February 16, 2010
Boys are curious creatures if you ask me. One day I think I’ve got mothering boys down, and the next day I realize I have no clue! They want different things than girls – they need different things than girls. One thing I’ve seen in both of my boys, as compared to my daughter, is the need for independence. They both want to do things their way, feel like they’ve made the decisions and done the work, and feel as if their efforts have reaped wonderful fruit.
The problem – they aren’t quite ready for all this independence yet…
This is the start of a review I wrote at The Curriculum Choice. Click here to read the entire review.
Posted by Cindy on February 15, 2010
The children and youth of our church prepared a lovely Valentine’s Day spaghetti dinner for the adults of the church yesterday. They set up a very special dining experience with decorations, music, greeters, waiters and waitresses, and a yummy meal! Here are my two servers in action.
I LOVE activities that bring all ages of the church together. I think it’s so important to make generational connections – that’s why our family VBS was so special to me this year and why we’re doing an Easter program that involves all ages. That reminds me, I never posted about the ins and outs of our weekend-long family VBS. Maybe I’ll do that soon.
Wanna see why I didn’t participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count this weekend? Go here.
Posted by Cindy on February 12, 2010
Today is bittersweet for us. As you’ll see below, the boys and I have been having lots of fun celebrating Valentine’s Day. However, today is Mahayla’s 13th birthday and she’s sick. She and I were supposed to be going to CIY Believe together later this afternoon with the Jr. High youth group, too. Oh well, there will be plenty of time for celebrating birthdays and worshiping our Lord when she’s better. I just hope I can convince her of that.
On the happier side of our day, see what the boys have been up to…
Caleb’s Activities
Candy hearts are a fun tool for finding area and perimeter.
They're also fun for creating patterns.
We worked on using Excel to create a bar graph from a handful of candy hearts, too.
You can find the area/perimeter sheet and patterning sheet on my Homeschool Launch page. Look for The Measure of a Heart and Candy Heart Patterns.
Another fun math activity was Pascal’s Heart Triangle from Mathwire.com, where you can find several great ideas! We also did a fun language arts activity called Heart Idioms.
Eli’s Activities
Have you heard of Confessions of a Homeschooler?? If you’re a mom of a preschooler, head over there right now! She has SUPER ideas and FREE reproducibles that go along with the letters of the alphabet and seasons or holidays. I can’t tell you how wonderful her ideas are!! Just about every idea below came from her Valentine’s ideas and resources.
We sorted candy hearts into color groups.
We used candy hearts to make a physical bar graph.
Eli wanted to paint his graph while his bubby made the spreadsheet graph.
These patterns to match were wonderfully challenging for Eli!
Candy hearts come in handy once again!
Add glue and glitter to anything and Eli is HAPPY!
Usually, we have a fun V-Day themed meal, but none of us have been much in the mood for eating this week. I’m hoping everyone is well by Sunday because the big kids are supposed to take part in preparing a spaghetti dinner for all the adults at church as a Valentine’s service project. I hope your Valentine’s celebrations are healthier than ours!
