Spring is here!

Still playing catch up, sorry this one is short....We spent a week on Spring and all the activities and weather that accompany it.

Our Spring nomenclature cards. We used these to talk about some of the things that happen in the Spring time, as well as matching.

One of our kite activities, plus we flew a kite...only I forgot to take pictures  ;p

We made a wind sock out of construction paper and tissue paper to watch how the wind blows.

Spring cleaning patterns from 2 teaching mommies. We also talked about what it means to spring clean. B wasn't really thrilled with this idea.

Weather was another one of our topics for Spring -

Size sequence from 2 teaching mommies.

Counting raindrops activities also from 2 teaching mommies.

Our tornado in a bottle. B spent hours playing with this, watching the funnel, putting in the 'debre'. He loves funnels, he has to watch any draining water go down...so there was no doubt this would be a hit too. While the funnel isn't as grand as the picture on the box, it does show how a funnel begins to form and makes learning about a tornado not so scary.

Travel and school

Since I'm so far behind with post, I figured I would post about one of the reasons why I'm so behind. Travel / Vacation
Typically vacation is a time to relax and forget about school, but not with our homeschooling family, it's another great way to learn about all kinds of things. 

We kept this USA map on one wall of our RV with an arrow of where we started and our destination. Each time we stopped we'd show B where we were and how much closer we were to our stopping point.

This little book has the states and capitols, it is meant for older children but it has such simple, colorful images of each state that were nice to show B each state individually.

Another book also meant for older children, it has the licence plate for each state with all the states information listed on the back...great for mom ;) Plus it was a great find at a thrift store for .50c!

This is a simple outline of the states, slipped into a plastic sleeve. I had planned to use this as a playdoh mat, to outline each state we went through; but B was much more into the activity below.

Yep a workbook. I try to stay away from a lot of workbook style activities, but on the road they are the easiest. This was a brand new book with about 65 pages, we easily went through half in a about two hours. I used these little post-it flag markers instead of a pen, because they are easier but I get the added benefit of being able to reuse the book or a specific lesson later. B loved the little flags, he liked picking which color he would use with each activity.

Another one of our activities, from 2 teaching mommies, matching lower and upper case letters. I had planned to use a pen for this activity but B insisted on the 'flags' again.

Along the way and at our destination we did a little exploring too...

We came face to face with a very inquisitive gorilla in Arkansas. Even better was B read the word 'zoo'.  Driving to the surprise B spotted the entrance sign and said, 'hey that said zoo!' 'Z-O-O'....no pictures, just the word zoo. Um, reading maybe coming faster than I expected ;)

In Louisville, we got to watch feeding time with a Jaguar.

We also went with family to the Louisville Slugger factory...sorry no photos allowed inside :(

B practicing his baseball.

A highlight of our trip, not only visiting family but meeting Great Grandma.

B found a best friend in a few seconds as you can see from the picture, he still talks about her.

Our science lesson after a night of hail storms....an RV is not a fun place to be if it's going to hail!

Ok, so we didn't stop here, but we were going to unfortunately the weather had different ideas. Have you every been...let me know how it was.

Watching the world go by in the RV...there were so many beautiful farms along the way. B has been really into farms and wants to milk a cow, some day we'll find one.

We even got to watch a crop duster plane...they are crazy fliers.

 

Hope you enjoyed our little adventure away, we did!

President's Day

I am SO behind on posting, between life, school, illnesses, travel, and everything else blogging was not my main focus. So the next few post will be quick and simple & forgive me if I don't link or list where I got what, because at this point - I have no idea. If it's you, let me know & I'll give you credit for it. ;)


We spent two weeks learning about the Presidents, nothing too deep just a few simple activities...

Popsicle flag puzzle

P is for Penny

Flip book on Abraham Lincoln.

Abraham Lincoln paper bag puppet.

Outline of P in pennies. 2teachingmommies

A heads & tails game where we counted how many times our pennies landed on either their head or tails.

File folder game made using images from Microsoft clip art.

 

Q is for Quarter.

Outline of Q in quarters. (see link above)

Cherry tree - First color by number activity, which B did quiet well at.

Counting the cherries on the tree.


We also spent time examining the penny, quarter, dollar and five dollar bills.

 

Some of the Presidential books we read...

 

Happy Valentine's Day

We've spent all week on Valentine's. We learned about how God loves us, loving others, caring for each other, and helping. 

Making Valentine's cards for family and the residence at a retirement home where we have music class. I personally loved seeing the residence receive all the cards the kids made for them; one resident, bedridden made the biggest impression. She just kept saying 'thank you' with tears in her eyes. I'm so glad B is surrounded by older adults and that he willing engages with them.

Matching hearts with numbers.

We started working on the more and less concept

I found this cute and simple graph which we used with conversation heart candies. I can't remember where this graph came from, if it's yours let me know and I'll give you credit.

Lacing activity from confessions of a homeschooler.

These super cute cookie cutters are from the grocery store. When I saw them I thought these will be perfect for size order.

B even stacked the size order like this.

Heart number puzzle, I wasn't sure this would go over well with B. He really resist counting combined with matching. I was surprised he was actually into this activity, of course looking back I realize it's probably because it was a puzzle & he had to fix the hearts.

Lower case & Upper case matching. You can find these heart stickers from Mardel's.

Since we live in Texas we don't really have Winter, and one day this week the temperatures were in the high 70's. Deciding to take advantage of the weather and some outdoor time, I brought our art outdoors. I hung a long piece of our easel paper to the fence, set out some red and white paint, and let the artist begin to create. So in my head, I thought B is going to love getting to paint this way and he'll spend at least 30 20 minutes....NOPE, 5 minutes...1,2,3,4,5! By the time I got it all set up and went to grab the camera, he decided he was done.

Practing cutting on some hearts.

I can't remember where I found this and it seemed like a simple task, but I learned B doesn't understand ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd etc). I'm not sure why I thought he knew this, but I did.  However, by the time we got to the third row he was beginning to understand it. I guess it's good to try things out of their cognitive level; some where along the way he'll pick something up from it.

Our science experiement this week, observing converstation hearts. 2teachingmommies provides a easy questionaire asking questions like, are the hearts big/small, hard/soft, sweet/sour. B was very into this, but only because he knew once we finished he got to eat the few pieces we had used.

Matching the heart boxes with the correct number. You can find the boxes at the dollar store & the little hearts are from the dollar spot in target.

Making pairs.

I love clearence racks! I snagged these felt hearts from Target after Christmas for .30 for a set of 4. When I saw them I first thought about using them on the felt board with a story, but then decided with several colors we could use them for making patterns.

Tracing the letter 'V' for valentine with hearts. I love that B is finally understanding that certain items in a tray mean we are working on a particular activity. He didn't ask about what we were doing with this tray, just pulled it out and went right to work; as well as a few other trays from this unit.

Here are a few books to enjoy over Valentine's week:

 

 

Here's my little Valentine.

Daddy was out of town :( so we got to spend a fun day together, just Mommy and B. We had music class, where we passed out our Valentine's we made. Later we exchanged our Valentine's to each other. B made Mommy a pretty card & B got "the bestest book". Actually he got a card that sings 'Life is a Highway' from the Cars movie (his favorite). His reaction was priceless, I wish I had a camera. He was extremely excited and overly sweet, continually thanking me, telling me he loved it. I knew he'd like it because it was Cars, but not as much as he did. Once the excitement of the card wore off a little, we headed outside where we had a picnic on his playscape fort. Overall a pretty good day, just needed Daddy to make it a great day.

Happy Valentine's Day to you all!