Dairy Farms, Gymnastics, Dance and READING!!!

Week 3

We had a fun week exploring new things... Isaac started gymnastics and earned his work book and vest at Awana's this week. We visited Blackwell Dairy Farm and Isaac sat and read 2 of the Bob book..I am one proud mama!! 

I realized that science and crafts (two of Isaac's & my most favourite subjects) are VERY time consuming...so when we do them it seems like we aren't accomplishing much other than them...and it makes for a very long day trying to get through the other subjects. I have changed things again..if nothing else I will learn how to not become dependant on my prepared plans and to become more relaxed with change! It's a stretch for me for sure :)

In bible this week we read and did a craft for Jonah & the whale, we discussed why we are to obey God and what can happen when we don't.

Isaac went to Awana's and really enjoyed it. I still have a hard time leaving him and thinking he will be ok with out me :) 

Isaac has been doing more printing and reading this week. On one of the days this we change it up.  He wanted to write on his board, so he told me the words he wanted to write, then I asked him to sound out the words and then right them....I am ONE proud mama!!! I can't believe my little dude can already do this! 

He's mastering his scissor skills!

Leaf rubbings :)

We talked about natural things vs Man made things, we made a game of it and Ik's had to find me natural and man made things in the house...it was actually really hard to find natural things in our house...we talked about how things can be natural but then changed or altered by man.

In Math we have been working on our lessons, and he's starting to recognize that number have value, he's grasping that 20 is more than 10 and 8 is less than 10...he's doing so good!! We are all enjoying our homeschooling adventure. 

Ik's really likes geography. We are learning North, South, East, and West directions! 

Our (R)ice Craft.

This was really fun, very challenging but he loved this. It was a website that had problem solving games. This game provided an abstract image and he had to uncross all the lines..my brain was even hurting just watching him. 

OOBLECK!!!! Enough said!!!

 Mixing, stirring, squishing, and exploring. 

The Math ladder. 

We had a great opportunity to visit with some friends on our field trip this week. We went to our Blackwell Dairy farm. We learnt about what the cows eat, that they are actually very smart, they produce ALOT of milk, and they are super cute at only two days old!!!

With the baby calf, Isaac listen attentively. 

Awesomeness!!!

Littles before our tractor ride.

The owner was so kind, she even showed us how they used to do the milking process... which look like it was dated back from the 70s or 80s...can you believe that this processing plant used this old milking process not even a year ago..April they moved to the new operating system.

This equipment is much more up to date. 

We had a full week.. I am seeing a pattern here. We went to our families cabin at 70mile, Green lake this weekend. We spent the weekend, riding the quad, going on nature walks, roasting hotdogs, sitting by the wood fire place...it was so relaxing and refreshing! 

Here we go week 4..

Day 9 & 10

Day 9,

We continue to learn different stories of the bible, today we read about Goliath and David, we talked about what it means to be brave and to trust in the Lord. Isaac was telling me.. "I am really brave mom." He makes me smile all the time :)

I am so thankful that he has the confidence to tell me that he is strong, brave and has what it takes to do the things he wants to do! 

Thank you Lord for your grace! 

We talked more about prayer and that it is something he can do anytime he wants too, that God is always listening. 

We talked about how God made the clouds today, so we decided to do cloud making for craft time. 

I love that he always had a buddy to do stuff with!

For Math, we did a lot of comparison, biggest to smallest, we measured our families traced feet, we did numbers up to 8, still following our Right start math. Math is a hard subject to blog on..right now..not a lot to talk about. I do love that this program has tonnes of games that you can do with your lesson. We use the abacus, blocks, and even strips of paper all different lengths so that you can graph them.

For PE today we went on a nature bike ride. We found huge sunflowers and a spider that camouflages in the middle of the flower. It's funny, as soon as I explain something to him with a words he doesn't recognize, he needs to know what it means...we had to have a little mini lesson on camouflages on the middle of the bike ride! We also talked about stranger danger again and who a stranger is and what we should do if we are ever lost and need help. 

There is more, but honestly I am boring myself with details... I need to find a better approach to this blog. Not feeling it today...

Friday Day 10:

Isaac worked on his scrapbook today, he said his favourite thing this week was riding the horses!! 

We also started some sprout seeds to watch them grow as we covered life cycles of plants and waters cycles this week in science.

Isaac is reading a little already! I haven't got any little books yet that are his level so I made a silly sentence from a BOB book...please...please don't criticize my drawings...I am NO artist!!! hahaha!! 

I know...right...it's bad. LOL! 

The boys came with me to the store and we filled our bag for the rotary food drive, we talked about what kind of people that would be receiving these items, we talked about why we give, what it feels like to give. Then we were able to drop it off and get a tour of the food bank. The young gent there was so nice, he explained the whole process to us, he showed us how they check the food to make sure it's not expired, where it gets organized, then where it gets put into hampers, and then where the people go to choose the food. It was amazing, we talked about volunteer work and paid work and what the differences are. We are thankful for all the volunteers that make organizations like these one run smoothly in our community!

Our busy..fun..homeschool day # 8

We are getting into a routine around here...sort of. The beauty of homeschooling is that we can seize the day and opportunities to learn as they come up throughout the day. 

We did just... that today, we did our normal scheduled curriculum (bible, printing, language, math, science) then we were able to visit with friends at a near by park, we visited the petting zoo where we saw the baby peacocks, sheeps, goats, ducks, geese. The boys are always fascinated by the animals and I take these occasions to explain things to them that maybe I would not have thought of had we not left our house and explored the world! 

We took our time down by the river, playing and exploring, we pulled bits of bark off of a dead tree, examined the bugs homes that they have had made. It was a delight to see little boys having so much fun exploring, learning, and observing their surroundings. 

We went to visit friends of ours in the afternoon and their horses, we watched a farrier clean and trim the horses hoofs, we spent time looking at the horses talking about safety around the horses..like no walking behind horses and why we wear our helmets.  

They went for a ride on the horses, alittle scary at first for Jakob but he soon got use to the idea and enjoyed every minute of it. Isaac was a pro, he had no problem getting on the 
horses and wanted to ride more.

We did learnt some sad news today..our friends (Isaac's buddies) have decided that homeschooling is not for them this year. We bless them and their ventures but are sad we won't be seeing them as much :(

Isaac feeding the horse apples! 

Iks also started Awana's, he enjoyed this first night and we saw some familiar faces there so I am sure it will go over well. 

Day 6 & 7 (I really need to find a better title for my blogs :)

I find I started my week off with a rested perspective and most of my days planned..and my "schedule" has went out the window ;) The weather is just too nice to be in the house learning about the world when there is so much to explore and learn in our own back yards!
 Nonetheless we did accomplished some "curriculum stuff".

Monday:
In bible we read about the firmament in the midst of the waters and dividing the waters from the waters, we went outside, looked for clouds, talked about water vapour and that a cloud is water vapour in the sky. We talked about the sky and why God created it for us, we took time to breathe slowly and really feeling the air going in our bodies,we talked about how air gets in our bodies...our nose and mouth and where is goes and what it does for us. Iks found out that the sky is like a shield that protects us from the suns rays. We talked about what things need water...plants, animals, trees, and humans.

We experimented with different coloured water... using our "guessing" and "observing" to see what happens ( a couple words we are using this week for science). Iks learned which colours to mix to make green, orange, purple, black, and brown. Super fun!!

 For language I made some words on paper with white crayon and lets Iks paint over top..as he painted it unveiled a letter that he told me the sound of..he finished his word and read me the word..he love it. I might be using that again! Fine arts and language all in one!! And it was like a little adventure for Isaac...which letter was going to be next! The boys were enjoying themselves playing with water and eye droppers so I just let them carry on, we used it for measuring, pointing out which square in the tray had more, the one that had less..it was an easy way to teach and he was doing the work..figuring it out in his head! Isaac had soccer for P.E. which goes until the 1st of Oct.

Oh and on a side note (which I was very pleased about :) we went to church on sunday and I found out that the sunday school is teaching the same memory verses as we are..going from the beginning of the bible with creation...yay!! reinforcement!!!








Tuesday:
We always start our day off with bible, a memory verse as well as a little prayer for our day! It helps to remind me of the gifts and opportunities I have to show my children the world that God has made.

We worked on our math as well as played with our geoboards. I realized that Iks capasity is about 1.5 lessons of math in one setting...I love that my son is open and tells me that I he's done. He tries so hard to figure things out and when he's done, he's done, and I am blessed to be there with him every step of the way!

We started our Come Sit by Me book, our first book was Big Sarah's Little Boots

by Paulette Bourgeouis. It sparked some discussion on what our bodies need in order to grow and what our spirits need in order to grow closer to God and stronger within us. 

We did a fun exercise called Expressive feet from the book Come sit by me, I took all different types of shoes, sandals, slippers, boots...rubber...winter...work.... he tried them on then told me what jobs or things you do in each type of footwear. They are so creative with answers...Iks said..MY slippers apparently are to keep my feet quiet in the morning when I get up before any one else...haha!

Iks practiced more printing in our lesson book the letter B as well as printing out his memory verse every morning. 

We also did some geography too. He worked on his lefts, right, up and down directions on a map. He's starting to understand that maps are for directions and that we follow them to get to a certain place.

Iks started Dance class on tuesday at a Dance studio in town, which he loved! He has such a love for music and a good beat! He's got some wicked free style too!

Gymnastics starts in a few weeks..now there is so much opportunity for children to get out into the community and to participate in classes or groups...I think it's rather funny that I get asked so often "What about socialization?" Seriously???? I think my child is more involved in the community and groups than a child in a school! 

Well, my eyes are sore and my body is tired, today (wednesday was a busy one!) I will blog about it later it was full of adventure, a little disappointment, and two VERY dirty tired little boys!! :) Night! 

Day 3, 4 and 5...cause the days kind of roll together :)

Day 3: 

Our highlights from wednesday:

 We did a experiment with milk, food dye and dish soap..we watched as the colors mixed and observed what colors were made when mixed together. 

While on a our bike ride, Isaac pointed out which were fall colored leaves, he showed me so many different ones then decided to bring home a red one, orange and yellow one. We read a couple stories that were Autumn themed books so he knew what to look for on our bike ride. (I enjoy teaching him something that he can observe in our everyday life and then reference back to the teaching.) 

In Bible we learnt of the burning bush that God spoke out of to Moses and the boys liked that, we colored a burning bush template, they loved the idea of God speaking and making fire. 

The book's we enjoyed: It's Fall by Jimmy Picking and Autumn Leaves by Saunders-Smith. 

Day 4:
This was a VERY busy day, it was fun and we did a lot of stuff..I think his brain was super duper full..in my professional lingo again ;)
My highlight was Isaac telling me that he actually "likes this homeschooling". (YAY!!! I was jumping for joy in my heart)

Bible: I printed out most of this memory verse but today I left the letters I knew he could do (a ingenious thing that a smart lady (my Mom) mentioned too do)  He felt so happy with himself and was proud that he could do the writing without even tracing it :) 
Math was good he still needs to be challenged a bit more he understands so much that I just don't know if we will even do this program. He worked on recognizing groups of 5.  

For language he did a game from my Konos character book, he went outside and identifying different things with words printed on paper for him.... hard, soft, broken, shinny, flat, wood, open, closed. 

We took some old boxes to the recycling bins and spoke all about what means to recycle, why we recycle, what we can put in our blue recycling bins at home and why we do that. We went to Lyons and spoke to a lady about getting a compost. We talked about what a compost is and does for us. We talked about what things we put in a compost and how it turns into compost. He has learnt from somewhere that worms make compost by eating and well...excreting it and we discussed that while compost is a waste or material that is broken down stuff, it is valuable in a garden as it feeds the plants when we plant our gardens in the spring and through out the year. 

We read about God creating light in Bible today so I decided to figure out a game or activity that we could do with light. We drew out shadow silhouettes of our heads and played a game called spot light (don't get caught in the light or you had to do a silly dance :) 
We watched a couple videos on jr. Brain pop about lights, shadows, light passing thru objects, and even energy sources. We talked about all different things that the light (from the sun) travels thru and doesn't pass thru which makes a shadow..glass patios set, the umbrella,  the flowers petals, metal, something shinny reflects the light. 

I had to work tonight so I asked dh to read a science book about light to them and he even did some experience with him. (love that the dh is supportive and even actually a great teacher!)
To end our day off we went and bought a friend a present for his birthday, I asked Iks to really think about what he felt his friend would like and I gave him a money limit, showed him how much the amount looked like on my calculator and he even did great picking something out age appropriate and is super excited to give his friend the present on saturday!

Day 5:
Today's Bible was about the firmament (sky & air) so we played with balloons, we blew them up using our air from our lungs that came from our noses that we inhaled..(that's a lot of info right there)
He printed most of his memory verse, letters G, D,A, E, I, D, M with no help :)
Math was better today we worked on 5 + 1 making him aware of 6 is 5 plus 1 more. 

We did more of our language book but then I decided when he was getting uninterested in saying the same sound over, and over, and over again... I just brought out the white board and he read me some simple words..LAP, SAT, HAT, CAT, MAT...and so on, he understand most of the letters phonetic sounds already so today we got more little reader books for him from the library. 

I think I might want to make him some little reader books, when I find time, just something simple. I have a laminator..maybe just for this :)
And maybe he could make his own too. Ooohhh..That would be fun. 

If you saw my house right now you would agree it has been a busy full homeschool week :)

Now off to the pool for P.E....and some needed family time. 

Have a GREAT weekend. 

Homeschool Day 2..

Today was a good day, I started my day before everyone else..that is something I treasure..ME time in the AM.
We started the morning off with Bible..we read our little picture bible about Noah building an ark, we also starting reading part of Day 1 of the book, "The World God Made." It is wonderful, we talked about how God created the world without anything except his word. Isaac really seemed to grasp it..and had his own aww...moment. The book talks of how the earth was "without form" and what that means, we talked about water and that it has no form. Then we did a water activity, filling all different types of jars, plates, bowls, and any different type of things that would hold water and let us see different shapes.

Isaac completed more printing, he first traced part of his memory verse and then moved on to E's. He loves the erasable board I got for him, we still do pages in this handwriting without tears book for reference but then we move on the letters on the board (he loves to erase them).

Our truck broke down, I know that seems irrelevant to this blog but it brought us an adventure today. We had a tow truck come and get it out of our drive way, you better believe the boys were excited to see that. We talked about how strong the cables must be to pull such a heavy truck, we saw which levers the driver pulled and what they all did. We watched as the flat deck flipped up and off of the tow truck to get lined up to our truck, then pull our big truck onto the flat deck. The boys loved it.

I took them to the gym this morning, where they love to go, they see other children and play with other toys it's a great trade off for both of us..I work out they play, everyone's happy :)

Iks worked on 2 pages out of geography book, which was primarily colouring and listening to instructions then following them. I wrote out different colors, red, blue, black, green, yellow, orange, purple, and brown on sticky notes and asked him to go around the house and stick them on those colored objects..he found some pretty interesting this to place this stickers on and really enjoyed it.

Isaac flew through his reading lesson..so I think we will be getting some easy readers this week at the library:)

We also did another listen activity which I loved! I got this book from my CHEK meeting last night. It has simple stories and pictures. I read them the story, I ask them questions which they have to remember from the story, then they follow instructions about coloring, drawing, and printing on the picture plus you ask them a series of questions that encourage them to expand their language. It was all about dentists today.

We did some finger painting for free art which is always fun. We did dancing to African music, even brought out our drums and tried to beat to the same beat as the music.
We ended the day off with a bike ride in the park and picked rhubarb from our garden then ate strawberry rhubarb crisp.
 It was a FULL day, but worth it when I see my boys going to bed with the content smiles they had on their little faces :)

Our favorite book from today was "Fall Leaves Fall!" author Zoe Hall

Homeschool Day 1

We eased into our 1st day of homeschooling, the weather was gloomy so we watched hail shoot down from the clouds..we talked about hail and how it is formed we even eat some of it and even put some in our glass of milk.

We worked on a 7 day mini book for bible. Iks liked creating his own little book, coloring and drawing something on each page for each of the days that God worked on creation.
We did some printing, the letter F.

We did some science work sheets together, living things & matching where food comes from.

I brought out the magnets and played a game around the house guessing which objects would the magnets hold too. Iks really enjoyed playing with them so I brought out the metal spheres that came with the magnets set and he played with them for 30+ minutes just exploring..which ones they attracted too, how many he could pick up, he even made up his own little game.

I am amazed with how spongy their brains really are (my scientific term..hehee) He learns while doing pretty much everything..and I have figured a goal for myself .....try to remember that this journey is not to be rushed, it is to be enjoyed, to give him time..time to explore, time to figure things out...time to enjoy what he is doing.

Curriculum and ALOT of it...

I think maybe there are some of you that have started this Homeschooling adventure like I have, super enthusiastic and ready to start back in August. Did you purchase every fun and interesting thing you thought you might need, want, or just looked neat?? if so you may have ended up looking at all of it thinking "WOW...that is a lot and I need....really...um...none of it for kindergarden."
And if you are one of the blessed ones that had self control and wisdom right out of the gates you may not have any idea of what I am talking..but for your dismay I will share with you.. this is the curriculum mess that I found myself in a mere week ago..

Let's get this straight...I am ONLY teaching 1 child...kindergarden..yes I know..reality set in for me too...and let's be honest here this isn't really all of it either :)

Well after a couple conversations with my veteran homeschooling friend who brought things into perspective ..I have narrowed it down:

For Bible I plan on doing it everyday either that be a study out of God's Promises or using The World God Made and/or also using a daily devotions just for little people...so cute!
Isaac will be participating in Awana's and attending sunday school when we attend church.
I will be focusing on reading to him about the boys/men of the bible and how they act Godly in bible stories.

As for printing I am going to start with Handwriting without tears..simple and I can build on it if I need. I have this book called the Complete Letter Book..it's AMAZING..if you are ever stuck for what to do for a letter and it's theme..this book has it all.
I also have fun little cards that you build three letter words with and a dry eraser board that he can practice his letters on.
We will be starting with How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons...my predictions for Iks..is he will breeze through the first probably 10 or so lessons so I had planned on doing writing and reading 4 times a week.

Fridays are our library days and as the weeks go on I hope he will be picking out his own early readers as well as our 15 to 20 books and audio books we get once a week. My goal is to keep up with a book log..maybe the books he really enjoyed.

For Social studies I have lost of field trips planned and well as talking to him about our everyday experiences..like going to the farmers markets, police station, fire hall, hatcharies, dairy farm, wildlife park, kangaroo farm, hospital, dentist, nature hikes around kamloops and I am sure there will be more. We will be taking lots of books out and reading all about families, changes in families and the communities. We are also going to work though the Beginning Geography Even-Moor book. I am sure we will cover stuff every day but we will only be using the Geography book once a week.

There are so many programs out there for Math but I narrowed down to Right start math now seeing the ministry's requirements for K I know this book exceed what he needs to know but I think he is ready for a challenge, we are doing Math 4 times a week as well.

I am going to try and use this as a supplement, I love that it covers subject and you make reference back to the same story for each subject, building memory. I haven't planned on using the whole book but I am open to see if we enjoy it. I have the first two books that you work through and I will be trying it for the 1st two weeks to see if works for us. We will do that 4 times a week.

Ok..so here's my science curriculum...HOLY BATMAN...there is a lot I know..and again this is not all of it, we are getting a ant farm, a worm home and possibly a tad pole which we will watch grow into a princess...no wait...a frog. :)
 My son loves any type of science right now. His little mind is consumed everyday about how things work and why they work the way they do. We will be doing science 4 days a week..but it's normally at my house every minute of the day... We will be doing a experiment once a week..as long as I can keep finding them to do :) He also likes to watch "how they make it".

I have a great big selections of craft stuff that I would love to use a couple times a week. As well as a Character book called Konos that we will be doing character activities from twice a week.

As for Physical Ed, we are always running around...does that count??? We have a trampoline, we go for bike rides, this month Iks is finishing up soccer which is 1 hour a week twice a week. He will be doing swimming, gymnastic's, hopefully skiing, skating, and possibly rock climbing and dance.

Friday's I think (things might change around here) but as for now friday's are our "free" day..Iks will work on his scrapbook..which is coloring, decorating, anything that he liked from the pasted week.

We are starting tomorrow, this is why I am writing this instead of going to sleep early like I wanted to, so that I could be "up to date"....we are only starting with a couple subjects tomorrow and we will increase them as the weeks go on.
Sorry to all of you that were reading this for pleasure...this was boring.... it had to be..I had to post all this for my support teacher.. which I am sure will be happy to see something from me :)
Next posts will be better...stay tuned for our adventure with homeschooling.

Apples and colors of fall...with a calendar.

I decided that I wanted to make a calendar for the month of sept with the boys to jump start things for them. Iks traced the month title September then we decorated it with fall leave stickers that I had stashed away with the long forgotten scrapbooking hobby. We talked about the colors of fall and the changing leaves he choose to color his title with the colors of fall...oranges..red...browns. green.. yellows. We talked all about what fall has in it for a season..pumpkins, apples, colorful leaves.

We talked about different colors of apples and that there are so many different colors and types. We went to the grocery store and bought all the different types of apples, different colored apples, and even a pear apple. Then we were able to eat them and choose our favorite. The kids ate lots of apples that day...they then colored their favorite on a apple template. It was fun..we also read a store we had about Colossians 1:10 with our apple book good job, Rob! We finished off our apple day with some apple sauce and talked about how things start out the same but can be turning into other things...like apple sauce, apple juice, apple turn overs...yum! The boys loved being able to "eat" their school..haha.