Our Social Atom

On Monday we were at Tressa's house learning about communities. We discussed business and services in our community and the people who help us. We created our our community by cutting and pasting buildings and vehicles onto streets that we had already drawn. After snack time we discussed people in our lives who make up our social network. We created a social atom.

Trip to Hillsburgh Fire Station

It was Joanna's turn to teach our group today and our theme was community workers. We started off with a trip to the fire station in Hillsburgh run by volunteer fire fighters. They did a great job of presenting the information. Taught the children about dialing 911, emergency escape routes, how to be saved and all about the fire equipment. After our trip we went back to Joanna's house for free play and lunch and ended with a craft which will be given as a thank you to the fire fighters.

Busy day today. Mickey had preschool in the morning. She's potty trained. Yippee!! Did it all on her own! Mason had music class today. He loves music. I must continue this interest. After we picked Mickey up we met some friends at the Children's Museum which is part of the Civic Museum. What a great set-up they have. Us moms were able to sit and chat while the kids explored. Lots of neat stations, including; a kitchen, digging for bones, bird's nest, etc... Two and a half hours later I fianlly peeled two very tired children away. Great day!

Today was our Early Learners Day at Laura's house. This is a small co-op group which was formed out of our larger homeschool group. We have six families with a total of ten children. Today our theme was math. The kids warmed up with a play time. We then had some circle time with some adding activities. They built towers by adding to them. We then played store. This was a super activity. Three of the moms ran a store and hand penny items to sell. Each child was given a bag of pennies. They had the opportunity to visit each store and purchase 3 items which they could keep. They had to read the penny price tag and count out their pennies for the sales lady. Lots of fun! We also did some subtraction fun with Chomper the fish and goldfish crackers. Finally we made fraction pizzas. Great day and lots of play with our friends.

An Enjoyable Day

Today was a day of odds and ends which can sometimes be good. I had nothing concrete planned but we accomplished so much today. It all just fell into place. I started a drawing portfolio for both kids today. I labeled Mason's drawings for the purpose of teaching him words and to see improvement over time. His drawing is really coming along. He's starting to add detail and is focusing on his use of colour. I don't interfere too much with his art. Occasionally I'll throw out an idea or mention something he could add to his picture.
We also started a printing and picture journal. I pre-print a word (3-5 letters) and he traces them. He then draws a picture to match. On his own he decided the print the word on his own underneath his picture. He was very motivated by this today. Worked on this activity for at least half an hour.
We started our banking activity today. We made up 4 different piggy banks out of shoe boxes. One for; Saving, Giving, Gifts, and Spending. We will start off with pennies and will divide up the number of pennies into each box. In a few weeks they will get to spend their pennies from their Spending bank. This will show them how far the pennies go!
We're still working on the lessons from "How to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". Sometimes things that were mastered just vanish. Mason's having trouble with the letter t and he had mastered a long e but nows it has vanished!

Still experimenting with this whole blogging thing. I'm probably spending far too much time on it!
Today Mason had music class (Orff) which he loves and Mickey had preschool. First time at preschool without a diaper. She potty trained herself all on her own! Whew!
We are starting a community unit with our homeschool group so today we were trying to make a map of our community. We will continue this tomorrow. I think it will be a multi-step attempt!
Thought I would try and post some pictures of our Halloween costumes. Both kids insisted on being race cars. Mickey was pretty cute running through the neighbourhood yelling Vroom Vroom.

New to the world of blogging!

Well I've caved. I keep hearing about this world of blogging which I know little about. I've decided to give it a try. It's a way for me to document our homeschooling journey while providing a resource for our friends and family. I'm hoping that this will be a place where people can drop in and see what we're doing. Maybe it will clear up some of the questions. We'll see how it goes.