Farm Unit, Tot Trays, School Schedule

Even though we have been on break from school the month of April, I have still been doing learning activities with Joe and Jack.  My goal with Jack for this month was to get him acclamated to being at the school table with his older siblings so that when we started back up full swing in May we could do half of school in the morning and the other half in the afternoon.  He has done SUPER!  He loves his school time each morning.  Being able to break up the school day like this is going to make it much easier for me.



Hanna totally enjoyed a complete, all-out break from anything school related:-), but the boys and I have been completing a farm unit from Itty Bitty Bookworm, Bailey curriculum.  This is what I plan to take most of Jack's lessons from each week.  I will plan some of his tot trays around these unit themes as well.  Since Joe is too old for the Bailey curriculum I planned some farm themed activities that were more for fun--just to have him involved.  It's worked out well, if one boy is at the table the other wants to be there too, so this is great. 



We got lots done....

• #'s 1-2:  I used our leftover Easter eggs for one of Jack's tot trays, which I'll explain further down.  I used more of them to make a simple three letter word game for Joe.  I wrote letters on construction paper to make words--I color coded the words, then put the individual letters in the eggs.  I let him take them out and make words with them.  He loved this and did it often throughout the month.


• #3:  The boys had fun with play doh mats that I downloaded and printed from Homeschool Creations.


• #4:  cotton ball sheep craft from Itty Bitty Bookworm.


• #5:  Jack has been coloring like crazy.  He especially likes these oversized coloring books I got at Dollar Tree.

We read tons of good books....







They enjoyed painting, gluing, tracing and cutting.

I will explain these crafts and trays further down, but I do want to point out that I printed out several farm themed pattern block template cards from prekinders.com--they  have lots you can print for free.



Here are the boys' completed crafts.

• #'s 1-2:  I had Joe pick a farm animal from some of the books we read that he would enjoy tracing.  I taped tracing paper down on top of the page and then had him trace and color the picture.  He did this over the course of a couple days and really liked it.  He took his time and put lots of effort into it happily.


• #3:  Jack's letter "P" pig.


• #4:  Joe's geometric tractor. 

A few more crafts....

• #5 and #7:  I mixed up brown salt paint (for texture), and had the boys paint pigs in the mud.  Jack's was printed from a random site I found.  Joe's was from kidssoup.com.


• #6:  Jack's thumbprint sheep and cow jumping over the moon.  He did as much of this as he could--glued the cotton balls, colored everything, glued spots on his cow.  I thought it was so cute an idea to use thumbprints for the sheep heads.

I introduced Jack to his Tot Trays.  He loves them!  It is a morning highlight for him.  Here are the trays we've used so far.  I plan to rotate them on a bi-weekly basis, and add ideas as his attention span and abilities grow.

• #1:  leftover Easter eggs filled with a pom pom.  He finally figured out how to open the eggs this week.  He uses the ladle to put the pom poms back into the eggs.


• #2:  Stone spooning--this is his fave so far!  I purchased the stones, measuring cup style pitcher and shot glasses from Dollar Tree.  He has had a blast spooning and pouring with this tray.  Joe even uses this one.


• #3:  Stringing beads on pipe cleaners.


• #4:  Stickers--I purchased little notepads from Dollar Tree.  I have lots of reward stickers I put on Joe's work.  I've let Jack use them for his sticker book.  It takes alot of patience for him to get these stickers off with his little fingers, but he is persistent and doesn't give up.

I love the whole idea of Tot Trays and have been waiting for Jack to be old enough to use them.  I purchased all of my little containers and most of the items for all of my trays above, and future ones I have stored, from Dollar Tree.  I used all of the planning forms and suggestions from 1+1+1=1 for our trays.



Since we were doing a farm unit I wanted to incorporate in a little on gardening.  I have to add, of all the books we've read my faves by far (that were new to me) were Farm by Elisha Cooper, The Little Farm by Lois Lenski, The Rusty Trusty Tractor by Joy Cowley, The Milk Makers by Gail Gibbons.  These books were so interesting to read, illustrated nicely, very educational but fun.  Here are the rest of our reads that I couldn't include in the first widget.





I took this opportunity to plant our second round of seeds for our light hut. This batch we plan to transplant to the garden when they are ready.

OK, one last thing I want to mention--I've had several emails asking for further explanation on why we are beginning a school year in May when schools are getting out now? 



Well, one of the beauties of homeschool is you can school when you choose as long as you get your 180 days in.  Our family has chosen year round homeschooling because that is what suits us best.  I found several year round school schedules *here*.  



We have chosen to school three months on/one month off with a week off in the middle month all year.  Here is an example of how this will work.

• May, June, July--school


• one week off mid-June, month of August off


• September, October, November--school


• one week off November, month of December off

We are all ready to begin this coming Monday.  I am excited about all I have planned and the few new curriculums I have chosen as well.  Joe will be in "real" school this year and Hanna will be a middle schooler.  What's the best part of all of this--I am their teacher:-)!!

Curriculum {tweaked again}, awesome sites & storage that’s working for me

I think hope know I am satisfied and ready now for our new school year which will begin May 3rd.  First though, let me say Hanna rocked her IOWA test and got super scores!  Can I tell you how proud I am?!

I made a few changes to our curriculum.  Here is what each of the kids will be using—this can always be found *here* too:

6th Grade Curriculum:

• Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals


• Junior Analytical Grammar


• Spelling Wisdom


• Apologia Botany


• History Odyssey Level Two~ Middle Ages


• The Classical Education Timeline


• Wordly Wise 3000 Book 6


• The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas


• Discover the Book of Mormon for Grades 4-7

5K Curriculum:

• Explode the Code Books 1,2


• Happy Phonics


• Singapore Math Earlybird Kindergarten Books A and B, Standards Edition, and Singapore Earlybird Activity Books A and B, Standards Edition


• I Love America Part 1 and accompanying CD


• Science Experiments in a Bag Book 1


• Oobleck, Slime, Dancing Spaghetti (literature based Science experiments)

Preschool Curriculum:

• Itty Bitty Bookworm--Bailey


• ABC Book with letter crafts


• Tot Tray Activities


• Colors, numbers, lots of reading, love and fun!

I found a few sites I wanted to share that I’m enjoying, and that have been super helpful to me lately.  Here they are:

• Latter-Day Homeschooling


• The Literate Mother—GREAT book ratings for tweens/teens books!!


• Discover the Scriptures


• Simply Charlotte Mason


• Scriptures 4 Kids

A few storage ideas that are working for me:

 

First Sprouts

My dad’s neighbor, Ray, who he plants the garden with went the extra mile and gave us a sheet with all that has been planted so far, and what is left to be planted this Spring.  There is much more than I’d thought there would be in the garden!  A big variety.

I took pictures of the garden today.

 

We haven’t had a good rain in about two weeks.  We need some soon, the ground was pretty dry today.  I also took some pictures of several of the plants that are growing and that have sprouted. 

Corn:

 

Okra:

Butter Beans:

Bell Peppers:

Romaine Lettuce:

Red Cabbage:

 

There were lots and lots of other plants growing.  So many!  I really was surprised to see all that has been and will be planted.  I am very thankful for the opportunity to watch this garden grow, and grateful to my dad and Ray for taking so much time to see that it is done, and allowing my kids to be part of it too.

Super Animals

Joe and I spent the first half of our day at the zoo.  First, we went to a zoo class about animal “super” powers.  This class was super fun!  It focused on several different animals and characteristics that they have that make them unique.

First up was the octopus and it’s ability to squirt ink.  Joe made a tie dyed coffee filter that he sprayed with all different colors of ink.  At each center, their was a bead to collect and put on a bracelet.  Joe thought these bracelets were so cool!  He wore it all day long and has it on right now as he sleeps.  There were tie dyed beads, glow in the dark beads and color changing beads to name a few.  I made a trip to Hobby Lobby tonight and picked up some cool beads like these to surprise him with next week.  Here is his coffee filter creation.

 

Next, he made a chameleon—super power being color changing.  He colored a chameleon with these cool Crayola markers that after you color, you can go back with the clear end and color over your original color and it changes to something totally different.  He loved these markers.  I also got these at Hobby Lobby tonight.  He is going to be so excited when I pull out his new stuff over the next couple weeks!

He made a glow in the dark angler fish—super power, it’s light.  More cool markers, Crayola Glow Explosion—haven’t gotten these yet, but I hope to eventually.

He also learned about the archer fish who can shoot a stream of water up to fifteen feet away killing it’s prey, then swim over and eat it after it falls into the water.  For this center, he got to go outside and shoot insects Jenny had placed in the trees (laminated paper ones) with water guns.  Definitely a huge hit with Joe!

After class we explored the zoo.  This trip we caught the tram out to the Botanical Gardens.  Joe loves riding the tram and also likes flowers so this was fun for both of us.  For some reason to me these purple flowers look like something you’d see in a Dr. Suess book.

Not sure what these pink buds are, but they sure look pretty.

 

Joe really liked these blown glass flowers.  We have the coolest place in Columbia called One Eared Cow Glass where they make all sorts of cool blown glass objects.  They made a bunch and donated them to the zoo.  You can see them throughout the gardens.  I love blown glass.

Speaking of cows, our cow was lounging at the zoo farm.

Back to the gardens….they’ve put a huge chair in one of the garden walks. 

 

The tortoises were sunning.  Joe insisted on touching this one that was real close to the fence.

Here are one of the mommy/baby giraffe couples.

 

Joe’s favorite part of our zoo trip besides his super power bracelet….

….an ICEE.  I enjoyed one too.

One more picture Joe wanted me to take that is super cute because he is so handsome.

Gotta love those fireman boots.  Joe got new boots last week and has been wearing them everywhere!  He’d worn holes in his old ones.  I’m sure he’d even wear them to church if he thought he could get away with it:-).  I LOVE boots on kids, so I don’t mind one bit.

Another fun trip to the zoo.  Can’t wait for our next one!