Wednesday

The kids played with Legos and built some motorcycles and other vehicles.

Ben and Noah played together with the Little People. They are learning to play together and Ben is learning to let Noah come up with parts of the game. The Little People were trying to avoid the hot lava and were going to see volcanoes.

Hannah and Ben got to work on the computer a while online. They love to go to Noggin and play games but they also visit pbskids too. There are a lot of games that they can do so they can veg out and have special alone time on the computer without getting too frustrated.

They built different shapes with linking blocks as well as with the k'nex. Noah loves his k'nex sword.

Ben had karate tonight. He loves that class.

We found soccer sign-ups so we may sign them up for it. It starts in August and goes through November. Ben and Hannah are at a great age for learning soccer and I think they would love it. 

The challenging part of today was that everyone was tired from a late night so they were all grumpy towards each other. We managed it though.

Friday

Ben made breakfast for everyone. He got the bagels, cut them, toasted them and spread cream cheese or butter on them, different for each person. He toasted himself some toast.

Ben and Noah built a train track with our Thomas train set. They played for a long time with it.

We read about volcanoes and earthquakes a bit more. Ben likes learning about them a lot.

Ben had his karate class with the other homeschooling kids. They worked on Udo (rolls).

Wednesday

We looked at the Volcanoes and Earthquakes book this morning, Ben had questions about the pictures he was looking at. After I was done explaining to him he turned to Noah and told Noah all about what was happening in the pages. They talked about hot lava and the dead people (Pompeii) and eruptions and how dangerous it is to be near a volcano when it blows. He wondered if volcanoes move. I explained that volcanoes don't move the earth moves but it doesn't go somewhere else. I reminded him that volcanoes were not living things but that they do change. He's nervous.

The kids went on a short hike with Daddy this morning. They saw lizards on the trail and had a nice time with him.

Ben built a cabin with his Lincoln Logs (yes, he have a great of variety of building materials for him) complete with railings (the looked like little benches). He visualized how tall the people were to stand next to them and told me all about it.

Ben and Hannah worked online for a while doing SuperWhy and Noggin games.

Ben had karate today and they worked on their rolls (Udo), he's getting really good at them. He tests at the end of the month for his 3rd section.

Daddy read them some books about the solar system (Magic School Bus).

Tuesday

Ben started the day eating a brownie. We talked about smart choices for breakfast. I don't blame him though ...no one else was awake!

He built with Zoob building different structures and animals.

All 3 children played with cars and trucks for a while.

They watched SuperWhy.

We went to the library. Ben is asking lots of questions about volcanoes, earthquakes and the solar system. We got Ben and Hannah library cards and they are feeling good about that. They have their own cards and can check out their own books. We used the computer to find out where the books we wanted were kept and found some. We read some books in the library The Louds Move In, Click Clack Moo and another. They really enjoyed those books and borrowed them too. So we came home with a load of books that we are going to read! They did great today, hopefully this is the start of good library times.

At home we read about earthquakes and volcanoes. I even showed them some volcanic rocks that we have in the backyard. Ben is worried about volcanoes and earthquakes because it is unknown. We got some great books for him today so hopefully he'll be prepared for when we go and visit some of the areas this summer (San Francisco, Lassen National Park...)

We went to the park with some friends and Ben really wanted to know about what to do if there was an earthquake. He's very concerned.

Monday

Ben woke up early and started playing with his Legos. He built 3 spaceships and even made one for Noah.

They watched Super Why on PBS.

Ben went outside and worked on the easel. He drew with chalk (unicorn, snail, roly poly bug). Hannah took a turn on the easel and drew

Hannah and Noah played with Ponies.

Ben and Hannah worked on Super Why online.

We worked in the garden. We planted our giant pumpkins and some sunflowers that have sprouted in the peat pots we put seeds in. So now we watch, water and wait.

They played baby while they ate lunch and even pretended to take a nap in the backyard. Noah was the baby, Hannah mommy and Ben daddy.

After lunch Ben and Hannah were introduced to a word search. There were only about five words that they each had to look for but it was perfect for their ability. They can't wait to do another!

Ben had his karate lesson with weapons today, he doesn't seem that into it anymore. So I think we'll take 2 months off and see if he can do something different. His last karate class will be the one right after he tests for 3rd section.

Friday

Ben watched a video online about space. Actually it ended up being more about the earth than space so he was a little disappointed.

Ben had karate class. Hannah and Noah watched, while coloring.

We went to buy flowers for Marissa (older cousin) to give to her after her ballet performance tonight.

We watched Marissa's ballet and learned first-hand what a ballet is! Hannah is not interested in taking dance classes but she sure loved watching.

Thursday

Watched Word World in the morning while eating breakfast.

On the drive to playgroup we saw a plastics recycling truck full of crushed plastic bottles. We discussed recycling plastic and it's process. We also talked about recycling paper. We plan on making paper from some that we get in the mail.

At playgroup the kids played and shared for 3 hours.

Ben played on the internet and then gave Hannah a turn. It was mostly games on Noggin.com and we monitor the time spent on them. They love those games...

Wednesday

They watched Word World while they ate breakfast.

They all played together with the Ponyville ponies that Hannah got for her birthday. They played very nicely together.

Ben and Hannah took turns working on Word World on the computer while Noah watched. They worked on rhyming and word finding.

Ben worked with Legos and K'nex. He loves building things.

We learned about living and nonliving things. We discussed how to differentiate between the two and they are going to keep their eyes open for living and nonliving things in the world around them. We also talked about how nonliving things aren't living but they do change. We looked at some pennies I had in my wallet. One was from 1971 and was very tarnished and brown, the next was from 2003 which was a little tarnished but still a little shiny and the last was from 2007 that was brand new and shiny. They saw the difference and understood how time made the older penny brown. Then we talked about how rocks could change over time too. We'll check different rocks out on our next hike.

They played pirates together. They couldn't build a ship in the backyard because we wanted to keep the grass clear of stuff, thinking it might rain. We need the free water if it does.

Ben and Hannah worked on making envelopes for the sunflower seeds that we are sharing with our friends. They all came out cute and they wrote "sunflower seeds" on each one. Hope we see some friends to give them too!

We went outside to wait for Daddy to come home from work after Noah woke up from his nap. While we were out there we looked at the flowers we planted. Some of them are dying (normal part of their life) so Ben picked them and we started to take them apart examining all the little parts that we found.

They rode bikes, scooters and Ben tried roller skates for the first time. Then Ben went to karate.

Flower parts

Tuesday

I saw this format on a friends blog so I think I might try it...I had never had the intention of deleting our homeschooling blog, just still looking for a way for me to do it that works for me. 

Ben and Hannah worked with Daddy on spelling some short words together using our dry erase boards. They got a few minutes to color and draw pictures too. Noah drew pictures of pirate ships.

Snack time was watermelon, crackers and hummus and pirate booty.

We harvested the sunflowers we planted in October. Two of them were ready and the third wasn't. We (mostly Ben and I) picked the seeds out and put them on a cookie sheet to bake them. We also saved some seeds to plant later and give away to some friends. Our main blog will have an entry about that.

Paper crafting. Ben is totally into paper crafting and he is creating windmills and various other stuff. 

Computer time. Hannah worked on the computer and Ben watched then they switched turns.

Update...

I am finding it difficult to keep 2 blogs going. Our main blog is all about the kids and their learning experiences already so I am thinking that this blog is a little much for me to keep up. I'm thinking of changing it around, maybe deleting this blog and incorporating more into the other one. Just thoughts...

Getting organized

We have been trying to do some 'school work' lately. I think the kids need a little structure, maybe it's me that needs it but they love to do 'school work'.

I found some bins to put their stuff in. Hannah found her beads and wanted to work with them. She decided that she needed to organize them first. So she pulled everything out of it, cleaned out the little box and put everything back in, sorted, all neat and organized "in their spots".

Ben worked on 3-letter words. He has a ring that has a bunch of notecards on it with words with pictures. He put the 3 cards together and then copied it onto his card and drew a picture of the item or animal. His first word was "zoo" then came "cat", "dog" and son on. I think he really wants to learn to read. He has been working on sounds of letters for a couple of weeks pretty consistently. Always asking about the sounds, to hear them and say them over and over. It isn't very often that he wants to write them but I suggested that today and he seemed pretty interested in that. Now he has a nice-sized flip book of short and longer words that he can read. A couple of years ago he started asking about what sound that letter makes but it wasn't as intense as it is now.

Start school...

While we primarily unschool, I decided to try and start teaching them (mostly for Ben) the sounds of some letters. Ben is very close to 'cracking the code' and is so interested in reading. So this is our goal for the next few weeks. We'll see how it goes. I've never taught someone how to read and am not sure how to do it. We've always read a lot and he knows how to recognize his name and a few other words that he sees a lot (Cheerios, Diego, Dora, Hannah, Noah...).

I think it went well. We only did a few letters while we practiced writing them and I hope they remember them tomorrow. If not we'll go over them again. I was trained to teach Johnny Can Spell when I was teaching (a million years ago) and it really did wonders for the little kids trying to learn how to read. However, I was learned in my teaching credential program that there needs to be a good combination of phonics and whole language for the children to be well-rounded and learn how to read. I think we do a good combination, although we haven't started to do the phonics in writing until now. Ben has been interested in sounds but has preferred to do it orally-on the run, in the car, on hikes... so that is how we've done it. I think it's important for him to learn them in writing too so that is what we're doing now. I'll just have to see how it goes, I don't expect it to work immediately.

Ben is also very interested in math and how numbers work so we'll be working on that a bit to see what he wants to learn.

It's almost Christmas!

I haven't posted in here in a long time. I haven't given schooling up! We have just been taking the kids' leads for what they would like to learn. Somedays all they want to do is play and so I let them. If they want to do crafts, that is what they do.
Here are some things that we've been doing...
Wood work. We have been doing work with popsicle sticks. The kids love to glue them together and create shapes, then play with them together. I just handed the popsicle sticks and glue to them and said: What do you think you can make? Ben's eyes got so big and he went right to work, and has been working on it for a couple of weeks now. Also, Ben makes shapes for Noah so that he won't be left out. What a nice big brother. We built a snowman and a Christmas tree for the front of our house, the kids helped out with that. They love to help with projects, they can't wait to get their hands dirty.
Sewing. I taught them to use a needle and thread and they love to sew with all the fabric scraps I have laying around the house. They make little bags and big bags and their biggest project was a teddy bear. They have loved it. They want to learn how to embroider now, I'm lucky to have 3 hoops so we will start on that soon!
Friendships. We have been trying to find some friends for Ben. We've met with a couple families who have boys who are his age and it seems to be a good thing for him. He doesn't get to see that many kids his age so we are constantly working on this. We are also meeting at the park for play with different ages, Ben and Hannah are good at finding other kids to play with too.
Karate. Ben loves karate, he practices the moves throughout the day and even as he is falling asleep.
House work. They are learning to fold their own laundry and put it away. This is important because they get some control in where their clothes go, they are helping out with the house work and building on their independence.

Writing. The kids worked on letters to Santa, while practicing their letters and learning how to spell new words.

Library. We go to the library quite frequently to check out books to read. The kids love the storytime too, it allows them to hear stories and songs led by someone other than us.

PE. We've gone walking around the neighborhood, riding their bikes, scooters or big wheels.

I hope to be back in here to write about a lot more of what we've been up to... until then!

Hard week...

This week was a difficult week for schooling the kids. We butted heads a lot and they weren't interested in school, doing games, reading their library books... nothing. So we didn't 'do school'. We did hang out in the backyard or in the house and play together, we watched some TV, did some computer games (actually educational ones, does that count?), did some gardening... Ben went to karate and is doing very well. Hopefully next week will be a lot better!!

More on our apple theme days...

We went on a field trip and apple picking over the weekend. See our main blog for the entry on that.

These pictures are from our graphing activity when comparing the 6 different apples using our senses.

Talking about apples brought up fall/autumn so here the kids are doing some leaf printing with the fall colored leaves that we found on the sidewalk down the street from our house. We are always watching out for the signs of fall these days!

Weekly review...

This seems to work well, a weekly review. So I might do this for a while and see how it goes.

This week was a busy school week. The kids worked on tracing their letters quite a bit. Hannah has been getting tired of this quickly even though she is always excited to start and is the first to come to the table to do it. Ben is learning the correct way to draw the letters. It will be something we will have to keep practicing. We don't want our kids to have doctor's handwriting!

We went to the library on Tuesday. I feel that it is very important for the kids to learn the library, the system, how to choose books, and about the different books they have so we will be going to the library frequently. We found the non-fiction section and sat ourselves in the aisles to find some books. It was hard with Noah running around, then Ben joined him (this is when we left) but Hannah really did well. She found so many books. I tried to show them how to check out a book to see if it is one that they are interested in reading about. It is something that we'll keep working on. She found some on animals and the post office while I found some activity books that we'll work out of. Ben did find a few books on flies that he wanted to read and learn about. Really, house flies!

We started to go on night walks. We handed the kids flashlights and we walked around a couple of blocks while the kids hunted for crickets on the sidewalk. They were really good at spotting them. We had no idea how many crickets are on the sidewalk...until now! They also spotted lots of signs of fall on our walks, with all the yellow and brownish leaves (not many, really) falling on the ground.

They worked on their Alligator Pies a couple of times this week. The first time they used them they made up dialogue to go with the clothespins (alligators). The little apples kept falling off the clothespins so I'll have to buy wooden ones so the glue will stay stuck longer. They really did well with them. They also made up some little games while working on them.

All three kids played with cars and trucks or blocks (amongst other group play time), they practiced sharing with each other. The big lesson is to share so that Noah will learn how to share by observation. They are doing pretty good at that but it is still hard on the bigger kids when Noah decides that all the cars are his, screams and starts hitting them on their heads (usually with a truck in hand). He only acts this way with his brother and sister, with other kids his age he does very well with sharing.

We played together outside and bounced the ball to each other. They did pretty well, again it is a control game where they have to be able to control where the ball goes. I think that with practice, by next year they might be able to get to play 4-square! Another day the kids played soccer with Corey. Ben went to karate three times this week. Ben was rewarded with praise for helping another student with a move he was working on. The Head Instructor recognized it and made a big deal about it. It was nice for him to be noticed in a good light.

We graphed the different types of apples we bought. We had 6 different types of apples and we charted info about each one. We observed the apples from the outside and then we cut into them and observed from the inside. We used almost all of our senses: sight, smell, taste,and touch to record on the graph. Even though they couldn't read all the words on the graph, they knew what we were doing.

We celebrated with some of our homeschooling friends with a "Not back to school" party in the park. It was great fun. They played and then we did some party stuff too. Someone even brought ice cream (raw and vegan) and the kids lined up to get a cup. There was a parachute game and water balloons....and to make it a real party there were party favor bags! That made it official in my kids' minds.

They worked on their computer games for a little bit. We can't get everything in that we want to do during the week, but htere is always next week. And the good thing about this education at home is that they can work on it during the weekend and in the evenings too!

That's all I can think of right now. So until next time!

This week...

It was a crazy & jumbled week, so I'm going to do an entry for the entire week instead of separate days.

We worked on the calendar, month, days and year. We talked about fall and how Friday was the first day of fall-and no longer summer. The weather is going to change and get cooler. I explained that some people like to call fall 'autumn' but that they mean the same thing. Ben said that he likes to use the word 'fall' for this time of year.

We read 2 theme related books: The Life and Times of the Apple by Charles Micucci and Apples by Elaine Landau. We learned more about apples, the apple life cycle, the role of bees in the apple's life, about different types of apples, parts of an apple flower, and how to graft an apple tree. Before reading non-fiction, we always start out by pointing out the cover, checking out the title page, table of contents and then begin reading whatever chapter we're interested in.

Ben went to karate class 3 times this week. He worked on kicks, sparring and with his weapon (chong bong). He is learning to control his movements. His instructor is having him count 2 seconds between moves so that he slows down. He really seems to love his karate class.

We worked on letter formation by tracing letters (Hannah joined us for that). They love doing letters and especially tracing them.

We worked on our little color books and added more words onto the flashcards (seen here). I have the flashcards on a ring so anyone can grab them to read, look at and practice them. We have words that we find in our books: apple, red, stop, orange, goldfish, carrot, yellow...

We worked in the garden (science). We planted some lima bean seeds as well as repotted some snapdragon flowers that Ben has been growing (from seed) & taking care of. They were getting a little big for the pot they were living in so we transferred them to a pot with a little more room. We observed the roots and talked about how they are looking for more space and water so that they can grow their flowers. We also turned the compost piles, we love to see the black compost under all the kitchen scraps and yard waste as we turn it with the pitchfork.

We met with our playgroup on Thursday and the kids got to see some friends and meet new ones. The park we went to is always pretty busy so there are always kids playing.

While I was sick for two days (Monday and Tuesday), the kids worked with Corey on letters, they went to the Museum of Man in Balboa Park and they checked it all out. They even were shown the way to the kids' section...Corey wasn't happy about that because he wanted them to learn about the museum, not to play with legos.

Alligator pie....

Today Ben helped me make "alligator pies". We didn't make it to the directions exactly. The difference is that the clothespins should be painted green and decorated like alligators with teeth and eyes. We don't have alligators. Ours are made with the apples and that will work just fine. It is an activity that he can grab and do on his own. Hannah has her own version.


They practice counting the apples on the pie and matching that number to the clip with that number. I added a feature for Ben because he already knows how to count to 10 and identify most numbers. Ben's has the number written out so that he can become familiar with reading the number too.

Hannah's Ben's

Miserable...

Today was another sick day. Ben has scarlet fever. It's not fun being him these days. Poor little guy.

Sick day...

Today Ben was sick all day. He did a whole lot of nothing on the couch and slept a whole bunch throughout the day. His fever topped out at 102 and he was miserable. No school today :-( Hope he feels better tomorrow!