Weekly Wrap-Up #5

We started this week by taking full advantage of the beautiful, sunny weather on Sunday and Monday.

We also took advantage of daddy being home and embarked on an adventure of Geocaching.  This is something I'd been wanting to try with the boys and, after seeing it mentioned on another homeschooler's blog (of course I can't remember where it was now), I finally made a plan to do it.

Geocaching is, "a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location."

You can see why I thought the boys would like it.  They LOVE a good treasure hunt.

 

And I loved the idea of doing something outdoors and active that the whole family could enjoy together.  

That was free. 

We didn't venture too far on our first attempt - turns out there are geocaches everywhere.  We discovered there were three hidden in a nearby park that we frequent, so we thought we'd start there. 

Somehow, I actually found the first one.

I know. 

There were some trinkets inside (a keychain and some beads - all pink). 

The boys took a bit of time to examine some of the huge trees that were lying on the ground, of course.

We signed the geocache log sheet, put everything back the way we found it and moved on to the next one.

But first we had to decode a clue in order to find it.  

Jack and Jill went past the hill to fetch a cache in wood. Hmmmm...

We didn't have any luck finding that cache.  Or the next one.  The boys still enjoyed it, though, especially when they got a turn using the GPS device to try and track the cache locations (we used an iphone app). 

We will definitely try again with geocaching and hopefully our skills will improve with each adventure.

This week was a Cub Scout meeting week.  Matthew continues to be the most enthusiastic Cub Scout to ever live anywhere ever. 

It's a blurry picture and doesn't fully capture his enthusiasm, but the child counts down the days until each den meeting.  He learned all about safety with his Tiger and Wolf den, while Michael learned about U.S. Citizenship (including a copy of the citizenship test that many of us who have lived in this country our whole lives would most likely fail). His Webelo Den also listened to a talk about WWI and WWII by a historian who read from the journal of a veteran. 

My Bear Den talked about "What Makes America Special" and after the boring part of the meeting, we played a couple rounds of The Scrambled States of America - the boys LOVED that.

There wasn't much else noteworthy that happened this week.  Aside from their regular school work, the boys spent a lot of time drawing and reading. They have these spontaneous collaborative drawings that they spend hours working on.  

It's amazing how long a white board and new package of dry-erase markers can keep them occupied. 

Matthew and I took some time to work on his Literature Pockets this week. We finished up The Gingerbread Man and will be moving on to Little Red Riding Hood next week.

He's really enjoyed working on these and I'll definitely be getting another "Pockets" book to do with him when we finish this one.

In my never-ending quest to keep the little guy occupied during school time, I purchased a booster seat so he could sit right at the table with us. He's not a big fan of the high chair anymore.

So far, he seems to like his new "seat," as he refers to it.

He also LOVES a good story - can't get enough of them these days.  I often find him in his room looking at his books, like "Bear Bear See" (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See) and "Hat Oops" (Blue Hat Green Hat).

Yeah. It's pretty cute.

And that was our week!

We are looking forward to visiting with family over the next couple of weeks. There will be a Thanksgiving Feast, of course, and also a trip to Indiana.  Needless to say, the boys are VERY excited about seeing both sets of grandparents soon. 

Hope you had a great week and are finding many things to be thankful for this holiday.

~ Dori

Weekly Wrap-Up #4

We started this week with the excitement of the Presidential Election. The boys accompanied us to the voting booths on Tuesday, so they could see part of the process in action. Fortunately, we made it to the polls after the before work crowd and just before the lunch break crowd, so there was no line. We were in and out in no time and I'm pretty sure the most exciting thing to the boys was the machine that we fed the ballots into.

And the stickers.

 After the excitement of going to vote, there was much sitting around and waiting in the afternoon.

While we waited, I impressed my husband with my knowledge of the electoral college.

Him: "I think California is worth 56 electoral votes."
Me: "55 actually. And Florida is 29. Ohio 18, of course."
Him: Turns to me with look of shock and amazement.

You learn a lot when you homeschool.
  

With every electronic device we had at our disposal,  we spent the evening watching, listening and plotting the results on the electoral map as they came in. The two older boys managed to stay awake for a good part of it. About a half an hour later and they would have heard Ohio, and shortly thereafter the election,  called for President Obama.  I have to say, being a voter in Ohio made things a little more exciting this year.  Our state was kind of a big deal.

When the boys woke up on Wednesday, I let them know how it all turned out and we looked at the most recent electoral map of the U.S. together. Then we moved on with the rest of our week.

We worked on our Thanksgiving History Pockets.  I've used a couple of the "Pockets" books by Evan-Moor, and have found them to be a nice supplement to various things we are learning about.

I find them to be an easy way to incorporate some hands-on activities into our week, especially for lazy people like me.  The books usually include a variety of projects, making it appeal to each of the boys and also easy to adapt to their grade-level.

Our study of Thanksgiving includes taking a look into the 12 different claims to this holiday, using our Calendar Connections and library books.

 Thanks to a trip to the library early in the week, the boys have spent a lot of time reading this week. They always spend a lot of time reading, but nothing keeps them quiet and occupied like a new pile of books.

Except maybe Legos, of course.

There is this moment with each of the boys, where all the phonics and sight word practice comes together and it all just clicks. This "moment" has been happening lately with my first-grader and I feel so grateful to be a witness to it. 

That sums up our week. The older boys are off raking leaves with their Cub Scout Pack today - fortunately it's a beautiful day outside! It's my understanding that they'll be rewarded with some donuts at the end of their efforts, too.

I hope your week was a good one!

~ Dori

Weekly Wrap-Up #3: Halloween Edition

 I think we've seen the sun for a total of five minutes all week. But, we are safe and sound and thankful to have things we take for granted, like electricity.  We did feel the effects of Hurricane (Superstorm - whatever it's officially called) Sandy this week, though. Strong winds and rain moved into our area on Monday and took their sweet time leaving. As a result, trick-or-treating in our area was postponed until last night.

It was pretty cold out, but at least it had finally stopped raining! Indiana Jones kept losing his hat, though, so the wind hadn't died down completely. He also enjoyed handing out candy for a little while this year.

Yes, the boys wore the same costumes as last year.  Not that I minded using what we already had laying around.  Maybe next year they'll mix things up a bit.

Now we need to figure out what to do with all of this candy...

Since trick-or-treating was postponed,  we spent Halloween carving/painting pumpkins followed by a round of hot apple cider and board games. 

The boys also enjoyed baking some Halloween treats earlier in the week.

The cold, rainy weather was definitely an invitation to bake.

Benjamin was simply fascinated by the baked goods in the oven!  He was kept well-occupied just by having the oven light on.

In school this week we switched our Calendar Connections over to November and the theme of Thanksgiving.  I wrote more about this on Cleveland Homeschooler - you can read about it here.

Of course this week was also All Saints' Day and the Feast of All Souls. We read "Father Phillip Tells a Ghost Story" and "I Sing a Song of the Saints of God" and did some projects to go along with our discussion.

The boys each made a pumpkin with their name and its meaning on it.  We also read a story about each of their saints.

We also enjoyed continuing our new study of the World's Greatest Artists. We're using the books from the library and the lesson plans from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

So far we've read about Picasso and the boys are each working on duplicating one of his pieces. They got as far as drawing them this week, so I hope to have the paintings to show next week.

For the last couple years, the boys were in an art class taught by a high school art teacher at her art studio. It was a great class, but this year she had to close her studio, so we're taking a break from the class while she settles into her home studio. And while I loved the projects the boys did in her class, I felt like they could benefit from learning more about art history, so the series we are using now is a really good fit.

I'm proud to say that my six year old can now tell you about Cubism.

In other news, I will be the next President of the United States. It says so right here...

Yep. We're in trouble.

We continued learning about presidential elections this week and had a lot of fun playing the Electoral Challenge and On the Road to the White House games. The boys now know all about the election process ( I hope!). They can even tell you what it means to be a Swing State (or why Romney and Obama have been to Ohio approximately 400 times in the last two weeks) and how many electoral votes many of the states have.

This should make next Tuesday even more exciting for them. Maybe.

That was pretty much our week! I hope you are all safe, warm and dry!

~ Dori

Weekly Wrap-Up #2

Anyone else trying desperately to cling to fall?  I cringe as I see Christmas decorations and holiday ads moving their way into stores and onto t.v. Don't get me wrong, I love the Christmas season, but it's OCTOBER for peat's sake. So around here we'll continue to relish these remaining days of fall, thankyouverymuch. 

This week we finally made some progress with our Book of Centuries. This is an idea that I've been wanting to put into action for awhile now, especially since I read more about it in one of Maureen Wittmann's books.  I think it was "For the Love of Literature," since that's the latest book of hers that I read. It's an idea that's cropped up in many things I've read, though, so I was excited to finally get ours started.

A Book of Centuries is basically a history timeline in book form.  I'm using the Free Book of Centuries Printable Timeline from R.C. History (there's B.C. and A.D.), along with Ancient History Timeline Cards. Of course, we'll also add other things as we go along, depending on the activities we do as we study each period of history.

I printed the cards out, then sorted them by what we've already studied and what we're currently studying and then the boys added those to the book. We mostly follow a Classical Method in our homeschooling, so we are studying history chronologically, starting at the very beginning. I think our Book of Centuries will be a great way to record what we've learned and to also provide a visual and (hopefully) thorough book of information that the boys will enjoy reviewing.

 

History and Religion are subjects that we do all together, but I do some separate lessons and activities with Matthew, too, since he's only in First Grade. This week, we talked about angels and he made a Guardian Angel prayer card and practiced saying the prayer. Which reminds me that I promised him I would laminate it for him.

I know, ANY excuse to laminate something!

This week we had a Cub Scout meeting and my Bear Den joined the Webelo Den to listen to a talk and demonstration from the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District. They talked all about how they test the water quality of the different areas here in our part of Ohio and we also learned about fish and bug habits.

We carried on the water theme back at home for our science this week. We did three of the activities from our Magic School Bus kit about water, the first one being to test whether different objects will sink or float.  The boys quickly determined that the metal objects sank and the wood and plastic objects floated. Then we talked about how a large metal object, like a submarine, can float. Using a coffee can and a tube, the boys took turns blowing air into the can to demonstrate how this happens.

Then we came inside and tested how well different substances would dissolve in water.

Needless to say, the boys had fun and thoroughly enjoyed learning new things about water. We'll do the rest of the kit next week.

In a moment of genius/desperation, I got out the play-doh to keep the toddler happy and quiet. "Genius" because it actually worked and "desperate" because, well, it's play-doh.  So I think I'll keep this as a during-school-time-only activity. 

Whatever works, right?

This book was a bargain find on one of my Half Price Books shopping sprees - it was $1.00! It even included Presidents and States flash cards (which, of course, I laminated).

We've also been talking about the upcoming election. Michael has watched all of the debates and Thomas stayed awake for two of them. Kevin and I have enjoyed hearing the insightful analysis of an eight and ten year old!

We've used the related BrainPop videos (LOVE BrainPop!) to learn about topics like the Presidential Election, Branches of the Government,  and Political Parties. The Scholastic site also has information and activities for kids that I hope to explore more with the boys. I understand that the Electoral Challenge Game is especially helpful in clearing up the confusing topic of the Electoral College for kids (and, uh, some of us adults). I also ordered this book, on the recommendation of others, and we'll be using it more next week to continue our discussion.

That about sums up our week. The more interesting parts, anyway. Since I know you don't want to hear about the MOUNTAIN of laundry I tackle every day, or the unspeakable messes I have to clean due to having children, pets and a husband.  On my fun list of "to-dos" for the weekend? Tackle the seasonal changes in clothing. I started this project last weekend, became quickly overwhelmed and left it. Which was fine, since we ended up having beautiful weather this week. But, it really is time to dig out the long-sleeves now.

Hope you had a great week! 

~ Dori