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Friday, January 29, 2021

Homeschool Highlights #3 & Five in a Row: Lentil

We've read this book by Robert McCloskey many times, and I knew it would be a fun book to row this week! There were so many different directions we went with this book and so many more we could have explored. Silas is 10 in the 5th grade and Titus is 8 in the 3rd grade.




Monday:

We chose to focus on the American flag today. The townspeople hang up flags in honor of Colonel Carter who is returning to their town on the train. We read this book about the flag and the boys completed a notebooking page with six facts that they learned about the flag. 

Next we read this book about Betsy Ross and did another notebooking page with facts about her life and a picture of the original flag which contained 13 stars and 13 stripes.

Then we followed the directions in the back of the book to make our own 5-pointed star just like Betsy did by folding a square sheet of paper and then making a *snip*! It took a few tries to get the snip just right, but the boys finally had stars they were proud of!


Tuesday:

Today we focused on sound. We read this book about sound, which seems like a book for really young kids by looking at the cover. However it presented information about sound, sound waves, and decibels in a really clear and interesting way. The boys enjoyed reading it!

We then did an experiment on seeing sounds. We wrapped plastic wrap around a bowl and added a bit of rice on top. Silas banged on a metal sheet pan with a wooden spoon right next to the bowl and we watched as the rice hopped up and down! 



They drew a picture of their experiment and I dictated a few sentences to them to write down.



Next we looked at a print-out of sound waves at different frequencies. They boys copied the diagram down and wrote examples of what each sound wave could be. This required some critical thinking!


I also printed out a reading comprehension worksheet (I rarely do this) on sound. They took turns reading paragraphs aloud and then answering true/false for the statements. I'm not a fan of these types of worksheets, but this one was well written.

Finally we made Stick Harmonicas! We got the idea from Frugal Fun For Boys. It was super easy to make and only required 2 jumbo craft sticks, a straw, and three rubber bands. The boys were super surprised that it sounded just like a kazoo. Who knew you could make a musical instrument from craft sticks? Mercie even made one when she heard the boys playing theirs! I'm glad she still wants to join in on the fun once in a while.


Wednesday:

Today we did our book worksheet and filled in the title, author, illustrator, summary, main character, and our favorite parts. Both boys gave the book five stars! They do enjoy listening to it every morning.



Next we did a quick worksheet on facts about Ohio that I got from 3 Boys and A Dog, since that's where our story takes place.


Then we used chalk pastels to draw pictures since the illustrations are done in charcoal. They found this a challenging medium to work with, but I really enjoyed it! Here are their drawings (neither were too happy with their finished products).




Thursday:

We talked about the sense of taste today. I gave them each a slice of lemon, a piece of unsweetened chocolate, a saltine cracker, and a piece of candy. They tasted each one and we discussed the different tastes - sour, bitter, salty, and sweet. We read from a few books that had information on taste buds. 




They each drew a tongue on pink paper and label where the taste buds are. They cut it out and glued it to a notebook page, then did some dictation from the book. Did you know we have over 10,000 taste buds?

Finally I had them cut pictures from magazine of food that have the four different tastes and glued them on cardstock.




When we read the book today, I asked them to notice something about the illustrations we hadn't noticed before. Silas noticed a lot more! There are so many surprising things in the pictures.

Friday:

Today we talked about national monuments. I gave the boys worksheets with four monuments from our country. We did a bit of research and they wrote down information about each monument. 




Then we painted our lemons! We used watercolors.




Finally we made homemade lemonade! We took turns squeezing the juice from five lemons, which gave us a bit more than 1 cup of lemon juice. I boiled 5 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar to make a syrup, then we mixed it together! It was delicious. The kids drank all of it with lunch! It was much better than the Country Time lemonade we usually make (a powdered mix). 




We had a blast this week with Lentil. Next week, we will be rowing "The Bee Tree!"

How was your week? Link up any homeschool related posts below!


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Thursday, January 28, 2021

Tot School Thursday: K is for Kitchen

Zeke is almost 26 months old - that's so hard to believe! He is such a bright and happy toddler, follows directions very well, and loves to learn. Last week we learned that K is for Kitchen using Moms Have Questions Too tot school curriculum, along with my own tot tray ideas and worksheets.



TOT TRAYS:

Utensil Sorting:

I put some plastic knives, spoons, and forks on Zeke's tray along with six paper cups. I showed him how to sort the utensils in the cups. He picked this up easily (he loves sorting activities), dumping the cups out and doing it again as soon as he finished!



Button Sorting in Muffin Tin

This was an easy set up - buttons and muffin tin! Zeke had to sort by color, but he was more interested in filling up the tins with buttons. 





Toothpick Push

We used a sugar canister and cocktail toothpicks for this activity. He also loves pushing things through small holes, so this was a hit. We had a tough time getting the plastic on the toothpicks through the holes until Zeke figured out that if he put them in upside down, they went in much easier. 



He also did many worksheets, which he just loves. Coloring, gluing, stickers - all of these are right up his alley!

I made this worksheet for him to use foam shape stickers with. He loves doing this and even peeled the backing of the stickers off by himself - a great fine motor activity. You'll notice I do a lot of worksheets using these foam stickers - my mother in law gifted me a huge bag from Michel's Craft Store! They are really great for tot school activities. 



He used a letter J stamp to stamp on this page. He somehow got his entire hands turned blue!

He put kitchen related stickers on his letters. I found these baking stickers in my scrapbook sticker box and they worked perfectly!




He used dot markers on his letters.



He colored the oven mitts the correct colors. 


He sorted oven mitts by size.


He matched pictures to their shadows.




He matched shapes to their outlines again. We will keep doing this until he correctly names each shape.



He also matched these puzzle pieces. I printed two copies of this page, cut on of them out, and he glued the pieces on the right places. He did a good job - he loves puzzles.


I keep all of his work in a sketchbook. We've about used up an entire book so far. I need to pick up another one! I glue or tape his worksheets in and I also print out pictures of Zeke and his tot trays and put those in as well. It's a really easy way to keep track of his tot school stuff.

This was our K is for Kitchen week - next week is L is for Leaf!

Link up any toddler related posts below.


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