Thursday, 9 August 2018

Back To School 2018-2019


Hi guys! We are officially back to school for the 2018-2019 homeschool year. We took the summer off which was much needed but now we are back to routine and schedule. Which I love by the way.

This was our first week and it went really well. This year I have a 5th grader, 3rd grader, Senior Kindergartner, and a toddler. That's a lot of grade levels to joggle so, I broke our schedule down into 4 parts.

1. Morning Independent Work for my older two-during this time they work on typing, Islamic studies, map drawing, sentence diagramming (5th grade) and math facts (3rd grade. While the older boys are busy doing that I do circle time and phonics lesson with my K student and toddler.

2. Morning Basket- after morning snack we all gather back and do read-aloud, map drills, states and capitals flash cards, poetry, etc. During this time all the boys are either building Lego, playing with playdough, drawing, or doing a puzzle. I'll share more about what's in our morning basket.

3. Independent Work (for the older boys)- the big kids work on spelling, grammar, independent reading, geography. While I work with my K student on math, sight words, and play with my toddler.

4. Group Studies- After my littlest one takes a nap which is right after lunch. We come back the school room and work on history and science, and ELA interactive notebooks.

Now that I've shared all that lets get to the fun pictures of our first week of school.

On the first day of school we always have a pancake breakfast and open a small gift I put together for the boys. This year I made them a monogrammed clipboard, coloring book/trivia book, some brain putti (they love this stuff) and their favorite candy or chocolate bar. It just motivates them at the beginning of the year.


Tot/Kindergarten shelf.

I keep all their hands on activities for phonics, fine motor, sight words, writing on this shelf. After our phonics lesson (K student) he can come here and do extension activities that reinforce our phonics lesson. He is currently doing word family study. My toddler can explore this shelf all day. The bottom half is his material. I keep an alphabet basket (he's currently doing the letter A) sensory play, a book, and some kind of math or puzzle.

I switched the activities in the middle of the week.

Tot School Activities:

This week he is doing activities for the letter A. He already knows all his alphabet and sounds but his too little, so I want to keep doing fun activities with him when ever he wants. He usually will do a couple of activities and walk away and that's fine with me.

Blue rice fine motor scoop and transfer activity. I colored the rice to go with our A is for airplane theme. 


Letter A sensory bin. Dig and find objects that start with the letter A and match them to the cards. He loved this activity. After he found all the objects he played with the beans all day long.

Name recognition bottle cap activity.

I'll share more of his tot school activities on another post.

Kindergarten Activities:

Like I mentioned my K student is going to work on word families for the first half of the school year and if he is ready we will start All About Reading with him.

Here are some of the fun hands on activities he worked on this week.

-at word family lacing activity. 

This week he is working on a community helpers theme so all his activities correspond with that. He reads the words on the stamp and matches it to the envelope with the correct pictures. If it's right he gets to mail his letter. 

Number puzzle and writing from 11-20.

Handwriting with out tears. 

This was his favorite activity. It was fun and completely independent work. Say the name of the picture, build the word, write the word, and open the card to check if you did it correctly. 


Since this post is already getting way to long. I'll share more pictures and fun activities in another post. Have you already started school? How's it going?




Sunday, 5 November 2017

Exploring an Iroquoian Village


History is a favorite subject around our house. Part of the reason why the boys love it so much is that we keep it as hands on as possible. This year is no exception, we've been learning about Canada's Native Groups.

We had an opportunity to visit a reconstructed 15th century Iroquoian village. From 1973 to 1987, excavations uncovered 11 longhouses on the site and over 10 000 artifacts from day-to-day lives of the Iroquoian people who once lived in the village. Three of the longhouses have been reconstructed based on the archaeological findings. (source:www.conservationhalton.ca)

The boys were in awe and loved every minute of our visit. We didn't go with a group and just did the tour ourselves. It was a good way to review and make some of what they learned in the books come to life.
Inside one of the longhouses

Here, the boys are pretending to pound corn just as the Iroquois did. 


Exploring deer/moose antlers and animal hides.
We even got to look at a turtle shell. 

The boys surprisingly found the beds comfortable.

A baby carrier 

exploring all the different baskets and food they harvested and dried. 

The longhouses were massive and just impressive. 

I hope you enjoyed taking a little tour along with us. The boys want to revisit and see the one longhouse that was under construction. They got to also play a game of lacrosse which was invented by the Iroquois. I didn't get any pictures because my battery died :(. But if you live in the Toronto area this is one place you must visit.

Linked Up:
Weekly Wrap Up

Friday, 13 October 2017

Water Filtration Project


Hi guys! I hope you had a fabulous week. I wanted to share with you a fun water filtration project the kids and I did. This activity ties into our science and geography units. We followed the instructions in Apologia Exploring Creation with Physics and Chemistry. The boys loved ever minute of this project.

 


We started by going for a nature walk and collecting water from 
our local river. 

Here's the water we collected. 

When we got home we set up our filtration system. I won't go 
into details because it's part of the lesson in the book. 

The boys started pouring the dirty water through the filtration slowly. 

our container was really large so it's hard to see the water
but it was clean. Of course not clean enough to drink because it 
didn't go through the treatment process. 

This was an amazing lesson and the boys got to see first hand how to filter water. I hope you enjoyed seeing this project.

Linked Up With:
Weekly Wrap Up

Sunday, 8 October 2017

Apologia Chemistry and Physics

Hi guys! Today I wanted to share with you all the fun hands on activities we've done so for using Apologia's Chemistry and Physics book. We recently wrapped up the last chapter for chemistry, and we are moving on to the physics portion. In case some of you were looking into this curriculum I thought I would share just some of the activities we did. I know I like to see how other people are enjoying a curriculum before I purchase it.

1.Gas takes Up Space

 
2. Elephants Toothpaste (chemical reaction)


 

3. Atomic Model of Water

 

4. Atomic Bonding (with pipe cleaners and beads)


5. Polymer Molecules (Balloon and Bamboo Skewer)


6. Smoke Bomb

This was by far their favorite experiment. Shocker! 
7. Growing Crystals

This project took a week, but it was well worth it. The boys checked on it
daily.


These are just some of the fun activities I managed to capture. I'll share more as we work through the book.



Saturday, 7 October 2017

Canada's Natives: Wampum Belts


Hi guys! We have been studying different native groups in Canada for history. We have loved learning about their history and traditions. The group we are focusing this time is the Eastern Woodland farmers. For this group the boys made a wampum belt.

What is a Wampum Belt?

Wampum beads were used to create intricate patterns on belts. These belts are used as a guide to narrate Haudenosaunee history, traditions and laws, The origins of wampum beads can be traced to Aiionwatha, commonly known as Hiawatha at the founding of the League of Five Nations.
 

The boys started off by first designing a pattern for their wampum belts. We used this printable here. 


Once they completed their designs, they strung the beads to their loom. 

Making the wampum belt took about an hour, but the boys found
it soothing. Well they made the belts we listened to our read aloud. 

Here is both boys completed belt.



To help us learn how to make this project we watched this video series. She walks you through how to set up your loom and step by step instructions on how to complete this project. It was very helpful. I hope you try out this activity!

Friday, 6 October 2017

Preschool Fall Activities



Hi guys! I can't believe it's already October. Today I wanted to share with you some of the fall themed activities my preschooler has been loving.

Literacy

Pumpkin seed letter formation. For this activity I gave him our Abeka
letter cards, a piece of orange felt (so that the seeds didn't move around) and 
some pumpkin seeds.

Beginning sound sensory bin. I filled our sensory bin with seeds, acorns,
pine cones, leaves, and apple beginning sound cards.He hunted for the picture that 
matched the sound on the apple baskets. 

This activity doesn't have a fall theme, but we worked on
rhyming words.

Letter formation with play dough and pony beads.

Math

Apple 1:1 correspondence. To add some fine motor practice I gave
him a bottle cap so that he could make round apples. 


Number bead stringing. I gave him number cards that had
pipe cleaners attached and some beads (yellow, red, and green). 
He would string the corresponding number of beads for each 
number.

Fall picture puzzle.


Fall leaf color sorting.

These were just some of the math and literacy activities I captured. I hope you guys are having a happy fall. :)



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