Halloween 2012

Post Catch Up

The other day I was frantically searching for some missing photos and had the chance to scan through my blog. This blog is so precious to me as it chronicles the kids and our homeschooling experiences. Although I don't have a ton of time to spend on the written portion of the posts, I do my best and it essentially acts as my personal journal.

I seem to have neglected my blog in 2012 - probably during the time when my mom was ill. I've decided to do some catch up. These posts are mainly for my records but perhaps you'll enjoy them too!

Co-op update: Tuesday March 19, 2013

Welcome back everyone! Hope you had a great March Break. We loved hearing about everyone's adventures over the holidays.

We started the day with a brainstorming session. The kids had to come up with different was of saying "I said," in a writing piece. This challenge was met with silence at first! I gave them a couple and then slowly the wheels started turning! 

Next we did the Peanut Butter Sandwich challenge. This is always fun. The kids had to do instructional writing. They had to individually write the instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich. The intended audience (or sandwich maker) is an alien. I chose three and followed their instructions (exactly) and made their sandwiches! This was lots of fun. We made note of what language was successful, what wasn't, and perhaps details that could have been added!

Break time for some fun in the snow (that won't go away!).

After break we read about Quebec and had some great discussions about the significance of the St. Lawrence and what would happen if Quebec separated. The kids who have been to Quebec were able to recount their experiences to us.

I divided the kids into two groups. One group worked on freehand drawing a map of Quebec while the other group worked with me on drawing triangles. We made it through; right angle triangles, isosceles triangles, and scalene triangles. Protractor use is still fairly new to them but most seem to be catching on.

Lunch and more outside time.

After lunch we read two more chapters of BFG (almost done). We continued our work on our lapbooks.

 

We started an art project but cut it short because we had some chicks (1 day old) come to visit. The kids were thrilled!

Phoebe did really well with the kids. She's going to be tired tonight!

After Easter we will start studying Medieval Times. We will also be doing a book study on "The False Prince." I have copies for each child and it would help if some of the reading could be done at home. Let me know if this is a problem. Also, a lot of the kids are interested in creating a model of 'something' medieval. If you're opposed to this, again, let me know! Thanks for a great day!

Update: Tuesday Feb. 26, 2013

Sorry folks for the late posting. I completely forgot. It will be a quick one.

1) Played a quick game of Duple. We simplified the game but kept the idea the same. Turn over two cards, and the first person to come up with a 5-letter minimum word, wins the cards. It's a fast paced game but good for vocab and spelling practice.

2) Homonym practice

3) Worked on some stained glass style art. They were focused on this project for at least an hour. Some needed to finish theirs.

4) Lots of fort building time outside! Had to take advantage of the snow and milder temperatures!

Lunch

5) Divided the kids into two groups.

Group 1: Researched Ontario animals and classified them as carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.

Group 2: Gave the kids a lesson on protractors and we practised measuring acute angles and then obtuse angles. No problem!

6) After lunch we looked at the radar map and watched the incoming snow storm. The kids came up with hypotheses as to why the radar map was showing the weather changing from rain to snow in certain areas.

7) BFG reading.

8) More time outside!

Co-op Update - Feb. 11, 2013

We seem to finally be on track today - no illnesses and no snow days! Yeah!

Over the last two weeks when I had a skeleton crew, we:

1) played with fractions and making equivalent fractions

2) played the "Tens" game. 

3) learned about prisms and pyramids and made a variety

4)  drew maps of Ontario - freehand and labelled important cities and waterways

 

5)  Worked on our birch tree art

6) Started studying homonyms

and had our reading time.

Today we:

1) Started with "BFG." Using some guidelines from "Writer's Jungle," we then studied the poem, "Jabberwocky" and made connections to "BFG" and "Alice in Wonderland." We tried to infer what this poem was about based on the few words we could identify and the tone of the poem. Next, came the big challenge. In pairs, the kids had to locate nouns, adjectives, and verbs in the poem. Some could easily identify the parts of speech just based on their position while others had a hard time wrapping their heads around the usage of these non-sensical words. All-in-all, it went fairly well. To put what they learned into practice, I had them take a passage (that I had written out) from the Berenstein Bears, and turn some words (nouns, verbs, etc...) into language similar to that used in "Jabberwock." Again, a few had a hard time learning to 'break the rules' and make up words. Once they figured out the goal, it went well and we had fun reading them allowed.

2) Snack and outside time. 

3) Over the last month we've been working on some birch tree art. The first step of this project had us using tape to create the trees in the positive space and then the kids painting the negative space. When the tape was removed the following week, their trees appeared! 

The next step was to paint on the lines of the birch bark.

And then this week, we added paper collage birds. I think they turned out great!

4) Reading time

5) Lunch

6) Worked on homonyms: to, too, two

    

7) Nets of pyramids and prisms. First we looked at a cereal box and it's net. We talked about it's properties. 

Next, the kids were given a net (each one different). They had to look at their net and tell me what they thought the shape was. Then they constructed it. Once constructed, we compared them all and we noted the number of vertices, edges, and faces for each one.

8) We finished the day with more "BFG" and they worked on their lapbooks. The kids added to their character comparison, their plot graph and their senses circles. Phoebe joined in for some reading fun! Once they were calm...she was calm!

For the last 15 minutes the kids played some games. 

Thanks everyone.