Aa is for Apple

I am pretty behind on my blogging and keep being tempted to quit, but i really want to blog each unit for my own sake to keep record of what we did. So... here it goes :o)

Our apple unit was delicious! I really wanted to go apple picking, but because of a freeze in April there were no local apples. Sad stuff! We still did a lot of fun activities outside of our regular school stuffs.

We went to the grocery store and lij helped me pick out a few different kinds of apples. We used these to make apple graphs,  

discussed and organized by largest/smallest, first/last,

read books about apples and practiced apple stacking, 

Explored the 5 senses with apples,

we had a taste test to compare and contrast the textures and flavors,

and made fun apple snacks including apple crisp (not pictured), apple sandwiches, apple muffins, apple sauce, and apple sugar cookies.

I filled a bag with different fruits and had lij feel around without looking to guess what he felt and to compare/contrast the items without looking.

 

We also made apples to hang on our tree and he made an apple tree by tracing his hand.

We also learned about Johnny Appleseed, the Fruits of the Spirit, and all about tally marks for counting.

In the middle of the unit, we got to have our awesome nephew come stay with us for a few days. I decided to pause the apple unit and do a few random things instead. We learned about Daniel and the Lion's Den and all about lions and we also learned all about fire (and a little bit of gun) safety and worked on patterns.

 

I LOVE all the Clifford and Let's Find Out papers I have from my mom. I finally got them organized and as soon as I decide on a subject I want to teach about, i pull out a few of these and I have a lesson ready. I highly recommend looking into getting them if you are homeschooling and can do it.

The boys and I went on a walk and I found this leaf that looked like fire.

The boys spent a lot of time playing in the yard and eating outside. I LOVE seeing my kids enjoying nature. So wonderful. I also love when they make silly faces...

I was super proud of my son for saving up his money to buy Legos, his current obsession! He was so proud of himself, which made me even more proud. :o)

Hansi was proud, too.

All 5 kids together in Nashville :o)

My sister and I threw a personal shower for a friend and it was BEAUTIFUL. We did it outside on her deck in the evening and it was too dark to get good pictures, but this gives an idea of how lovely it was. 

We had wine, warm cider, chocolates, cheeses,  and other lovely foods.

                                      
                                      
                                                             Mmmmmmmm, cheese!
                                      

Easy, Fast Fun with the Boy

So I am realizing more and more how fast and easy it can be to do fun things with kids. Thanks to my parent's being teachers and good at encouraging that kind of thing and thanks to far too much time spent on the internet, specifically pinterest, it has been rather easy for me to pull up projects or crafts to do with Elijah that make the day special. And, honestly, that entertain him and prevent tears over the fact that i cannot play wrestle or cars for hours on end. Or even minutes at this point. Today was a day where I decided to do multiple projects throughout the day until my husband got home.

-5 minute project: First things first, we made an Ant Restaurant.

I saw got the idea from this site, which i use as a resource often. We raided the kitchen and picked out 6 foods for the ants varying from honey to avocado to leftover spanish rice. Then we came up with a hypothesis of what we thought the ants would eat the most of on the menu and what they would eat the least of. We took it outside and put it in the sun. We checked on it throughout the day and after 6 hours of business and not a single customer in sight, we decided it was still too cold for ants. Kind of a bummer, but it was still fun. And it took... maybe five minutes. At most.

-5 minute project: Next up, we turned our hallway into a road. Well, it already served as one for all kinds of cars, remote controlled and otherwise, today we just made it look like one. I wanted to give him some inspiration to play on his own and i saw some tape sitting on the desk. So we took a few minutes to make this.

I didn't even do the middle line, i just ripped it off and he laid it down, which he thought was totally fun. He used this road over and over today, including while i took a 40 minute nap. Well, he probably was only using the road for half that time, but either way, I got a nap! Tomorrow I think I will turn it into a "school time" thing by adding letters and numbers to the pieces of tape in the middle. Not sure exactly what we will do with that, but certainly there are all kinds of ways to make it educational!

-3, 10, and 10 minute projects: One of the biggest hits today was his new pirate sword. It is one of the most basic things you can do and he was thrilled. He found a big(ish) stick and a smaller stick. I used some twine to tie them parallel and viola! A new pirate sword, rugged style!

We continued with the pirate theme by making this spyglass. Basically you cut a hole out of a paper or plastic cup, stick a toilet paper tube through the hole, and decorate! We skipped a couple of the things on the directions from the site just cos our way was simpler. He painted the spyglass and we checked out our restaurant while it dried. I drew a couple rings around the top and he had another accessory for his pirate attire. Lastly, we made a treasure map. I did a very rough sketch of our house and he decided where the treasure would be hidden and we made the map take the follower throughout the house in circles before coming to the "X". Lij also did a Pirate Elijah work sheet from this great site while i sketched the map for him.

So we hid the "treasure", which was his new spyglass and a picture he drew for Mike, and checked on our restaurant again. When Mike got home Pirate Elijah greeted him and gave him his map. 2 minutes later it was over with and Elijah had so much fun he said it was, "like a birthday party".

None of this took any real effort from me. It was all done with stuff we already had, and it made our day fun and special. Special is something I am trying to make every day as I know this time alone together is going to be gone any day now once this baby decides to be born.

Fizzy Science

Today I did *not* get to sleep in. I still decided to make great effort not to be grumpy about it... once I had coffee and a banana muffin, that is. Yesterday's fun activities inspired me to continue my list of fun things to do with the lad as it is another late work day for my husband so I might as well make it fun for both of us, right? I mean, if he had siblings to play with I would honestly probably be significantly less hands on with this kind of thing. But he doesn't (yet) so instead of being begged to play cars for hours on end, this is how I would rather roll. And I admit, I do really enjoy these kinds of things.

Anyways, yesterday had more of a math/numbers focus so today we went with science. Fizzy Science to be exact. Before we got started I looked up why vinegar and baking soda react the way they do, then I explained it to my son as if I had known all along. I kinda doubt he grasped the dual reaction thing, but you know, it's all about exposure, right?

Our first two experiments were done one right after the other, not only to see how the two ingredients responded to being combined, but also to contrast the difference between adding the vinegar to the baking soda and then vice versa. He was pretty excited to get started.

Both were a lot of fun and *super* easy. He especially loved the color mixing part of the prep. Adding the colored vinegar to the baking soda was more of an art project for him. It fizzed enough to be fun but he really liked the color aspect of it. However, the second part, where we added the baking soda to the colored vinegar really got him. He expected less of a reaction and got really excited when it started overflowing over the muffin cup. Even after both projects were done he had fun moved the different colors to different cups and making it fizz as long as it could. This is something we will definitely do again. Great rainy day project. Or a great take it outside on a nice day project.

A couple of hours after those, we did one last "fizzy science" experiment. I got this idea and directions from here. Read the order of doing it at that site, but basically you use these items:

Take it outside and put them in the bag in the right order, then watch it explode.

okay, so ours was a bit of a bust. It looked like there were two tiny holes in the bag so the pressure didn't build up like I had expected. And then, in his true style, my son didn't have much of an immediate reaction. He likes to think about things before really showing what he thinks... oy

All in all they were all three fun and educational and something I hope to do again. Especially with an un-holy bag.

PS Sorry about the video being sideways and poorly recorded! No idea how to fix that....

Fun Day

Today my son slept in. I thought for sure he would be getting up soon after my husband left for school/work, but instead he slept in until 8:50AM! I was thrilled. I decided to reward him with making today really fun. It is probably my job as a stay at home mom of one to help make all of his days fun, but that doesn't always happen. Especially with it being chilly out and my being very pregnant, and only knowing a handful of people in this town who don't work all day.

I definitely play with him and do activities with him, but I feel like at this point much of my time is spent trying to figure out how I will get through the next few (or many) hours until my husband gets home or until bedtime. I know this is normal for stay at home parents, but I am also realizing more and more how numbered our days are of it just being Elijah and I. Very soon we will have another one that will be with us constantly and while those will be special days, I do really want to cherish this one on one time with my eldest. SO back to my being determined and motivated to make today fun.

Almost everything I decided to do was activities I found on Pinterest. If you don't already use it, you should. It's amazing. A major time waster if you let it be, but fabulous and quite useful nonetheless. I spent about 15 minutes looking stuff up and just a few minutes prep time for each one. And then I became Fun Mom :o)

But first, we started our morning with tea time and a bit of watching Green Eggs and Ham.

After taking this picture I realized he needed a hair trim. So we did that and then got on to the more fun stuff. I let him choose what order we went in. First, he chose this project.

It was so easy! Basically you just cut out your shape out of colored construction paper. Then, using a q-tip and baby oil you can "paint"your designs onto the shape. We taped some twine to the backs and then hung them in the window. Unfortunately the sun has yet to shine through said window today, so we are still waiting on the finished product. I have to say though, if you do this, use lots of oil. we kept ours a little thin in most parts and I don't think those will shine through as much.

Next, we did this. My son doesn't have a nerf gun (yet) so instead I gave him a straw and made the object of the game be to blow the lego men off without knocking over the cups. Then he decided to make a second tower and compare knocking over his lego men to his dinosaurs. Turns out dinos are much stronger. This kept him busy long enough for me to do some dishes and make lunch. And now there are lots of little towers around the living room and I kind of love it.

After lunch we kept with the lego theme and printed out this cool coloring sheet. Instead of doing sums with dice, we did more number identification using the cards from this game. Whichever card he picked he got to color once he matched it and could tell me what number it was. He tends to get bored with coloring quickly but he loved this one.

After that, we moved to the other side of the table where I had placed this worksheet and some coins. We talked about the different sizes of the silver coins and how many go into the dollar. He filled in all the spots and found that we only had $2.65...the downside to not planning ahead.

Lastly, we kept the money theme going and went to play in his room. He has been really into setting up "toy stores", which he also calls "a different kind of Target" and has us come buy things. We always just pretend the money part. Today I gave him some coins and I was the shop keeper. Each section cost a different kind of coin. He came in, learned the cost of each item, made some thoughtful purchases, sorted through his money, then paid his bill. We did this probably 10 times and I let him keep part of the change for when he goes to a real store.

After all this it was time for quiet time, which just ended as I am typing this. It has been a fun and educational day but I honestly cannot believe it is only 4PM and I still have a solid 3 hours before my husband comes home! Movie time... :o)

Parking Cars

I am working on number identification with my son and he really is not terribly interested. I do "school time" with him, which varies from crafts to working on letters and numbers, and really just about anything I decide to do with structure (It is something I have to force myself to do, being structured). I try to make efforts to have it be fun for him (he is only 4 after all...) and to include things he really likes to help him to care more. One of the main things he really cares about is cars. The child has been obsessed with cars since he was 17 or 18 months and his love has only grown. So today I told him to load up his dump truck with cars of varying colors and to meet me in the living room for school time. He was intrigued.

I showed him the "parking lot" with spots for 14 cars and told him he would be practicing parking his cars, but that they had to match the cards.

I set out the number line for him to use if he needed help identifying the number, then had him pick a card. He could then see how many cars he was to park, as well as what colors the cars needed to be. It was up to him as to how many cars of each color to use. It ended up being a lesson in addition as well with things like, "how many orange cars did you choose?...4... How many blue cars?...3...So 4 plus 3 equals...?" It was easy to set up, educational, and he really enjoyed it. Plus, it was something that once he got the hang of it he really didn't need me to be very involved other than to affirm that what he did was correct. Definitely a keeper for us!