Science is VERY cool — as long as there’s something a little disgusting involved. All this stuff is from Pellets, Inc.
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Marie, 2009 Learning Notes for Martin, 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling, Science & Nature | 4 Comments »
Do you want to hear something ironic? Friday afternoon, Missy and I rushed out of a playdate with our friends to pick up Marie from school. She was waiting for me in the parking lot. I found out this morning that at that very moment, the school was initiating a lockdown. Police had [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Marie, 2009 Learning Notes for Martin, 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 5 Comments »
When I first pulled Marie and Martin out of school, in 2003 and 2004, respectively, homeschooling seemed like a wild experiment. I was in the midst of grieving for my mom, having a new baby, and running a day care business to keep our heads just a millimeter above water, financially speaking. How was I [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Marie, 2009 Learning Notes for Martin, 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 6 Comments »
Breaking news … we finished a project. Yes, US! We actually finished a project!
For this project we used a map in Kris Bordessa’s Great Colonial American Projects You Can Build Yourself. I sketched a grid over the map in the book.
Then I sketched a larger grid on the cardboard. I think we quadrupled the size [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Martin, History & Geography, Homeschooling, Specific Subjects & Methods | 10 Comments »
Catch-up learning notes for Marie are here.
Missy and I have mostly finished our Lit.Studies on The Mitten and The Three Snow Bears and she helped me do some notebooking.
Monday morning Missy and Martin played several rounds of Rat-a-Tat-Cat with their dad.
Martin worked on a salt dough map of the original 13 colonies (plus Florida). I [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Martin, 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 6 Comments »
One day last week, Marie and I watched a bit of the inauguration and read part of To Kill a Mockingbird, which she finished the next day. I thought it was incredibly powerful, setting aside a portrayal of racism in Depression-era Alabama — a world that existed around the time my father was born–to watch [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Marie, History & Geography, Homeschooling, Language Arts | 3 Comments »
Missy (who just turned 5) had her first go at doing narrations today. She narrated The Mitten and The Three Snow Bears by Jan Brett. I deleted her narration of The Mitten before I could post it. (I do have a printed copy of it, though.) Here’s her narration of The Three Snow Bears. I [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 5 Comments »
In keeping with the “Snow Bears” unit, Martin and Missy did a few simple ice-themed science experiments:
They did a simple demonstration of how a polar bear’s blubber enables it to swim in frigid water.
Making Crystals — We’re still waiting to see how this one comes out.
Ice Fishing — This was a really fun activity for [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Martin, 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 1 Comment »
TUESDAY:
We read The Three Snow Bears again; we also read this version of The Three Bears.
We did our polar bear poem and songs together.
We started a polar bear craft, and we did a math activity with little bears.
The object of the activity was to introduce the concept of zero, reinforce counting and numeral recognition through [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 4 Comments »
We are doing literature studies inspired by Five in a Row, blended with some Montessori-ish stuff; this week we’re “rowing” The Three Snow Bears.
MONDAY:
We read the book, and she pointed out the large, medium and small things. (Math: Concept of Size). We sang a song from Can Teach Songs & Poems Page (Language Arts; [...]
Filed under: 2009 Learning Notes for Missy, Homeschooling | 1 Comment »
