Workbook FREE Day

Holly is moving along rather nicely in her workbook curricula we are using this year. She is doing fantastic in her spelling, in fact she finished her week with a 100% on the final review. Many new rules for reading and phonics are being introduced to her this year and we are chugging along with this... I am adding more to it though to take more than a day discussing the rules. Math is in a review cycle and I am debating jumping forward a bit - for now though she is enjoying the books and other work we do - I have added in story problems a few times a week now and extensive place value learning.

Making sure to keep things interesting and not a day in & day out workbook learning method I mix it up, a lot! If we cover 8 subjects in a day at the most half of those lessons will involve a work book. The other half I really want to make as hands on as possible including a bit of computer time, a lot of art, several books, artifacts when possible, actual experiences, field trips, outdoor time and games. To add to this though I plan 'workbook FREE days' and she loves these! This is when we do little games to experience our lessons and a lot of reading.

I thought I'd share in today's workbook free day. I took some photos of the 'work' she is doing today but along with this we have completed a puzzle on the United States, made play dough salmon, reviewed the salmon life cycle with materials we have, read a book on salmon, she finished up a poem she wrote,taught Hudson how to do a farm puzzle and observed a bird for her nature journal today. And, she has a fun art project planned for later. Here are some other items...

This is the poem she finished.(I'll share more on this later)

Halloween Greater Than & Less Than

Mathematics File Folder Game

Compound Word House Hunt... still working on this.

Read City Mouse, Country Mouse - did a Venn diagram.

Read, Build & Write mats for spelling list and fall words.

Books for today's reading - we'll be doing a leaf hunt as well.

Rainbow Weaving

Holly is interested in weaving and I think it is a great chance to practice some patience and fine motor skills... as well as creativity of course! This project is quiet simple to create and accomplish successfully. Take a tray, like a meat package tray, and cut even lined up slits on each side. Then run a piece of yard or ribbon back and forth between the slits and tie it off. This will be the weaving loom. Then provide a dish of several colored ribbon or yarn lengths for your little one to weave. I cut all sorts of basic rainbow colored ribbons curious as to what would happen... and she created a rainbow pattern all on her own. Holly is a rainbow girl!

Butterfly Release

This week our chrysalis all hatched offering up beautiful butterflies! All six of them made it without a hitch, were healthy and simply amazing! Once we found a sunny day Holly took them out to release them in the garden - what an enjoyable experience. We took it slowly and released one at a time, each offering Holly a small visit before taking flight.

First Grader!

Last night we enjoyed an evening of saying good bye to Kindergarten and hello to First Grade! We joined several other homeschool families to celebrate over good foods, children sharing about their year and favorite works from school and a ceremony to say 'job well done' to each child. Holly had a wonderful time! It is so strange to think she is starting First Grade... where has the time gone?

End of Year

This evening we are celebrating the end of our school year with some other wonderful homeschooling families. The children have all been invited to bring along some of their school work to share: a special project, a collection, a talent, an assortment - whatever the child would like to share. Holly has thought on this for a couple of weeks and just recently decided she wanted to share some of her art work from the year... an Art Exhibit she called it.

Last night we got out an old display board and she sorted through her entire collection of art we kept, unfortunately some pieces did not make it to our storage (several 3-D styles). After much debate... and it took some time, she narrowed it down to about half of her collection. She laid it out many times over until she found the right display and then we attached it. She added some various small art pieces throughout and chose others for the table portion of her display. When all was said and done -she was SO PROUD of her display!

I am looking forward to this evening for her, where she will get to celebrate the end of Kindergarten with homeschooling friends and share a bit on her life as a homeschooler! She is excited! I'll share some photos tomorrow from our evening... in the mean time here is Holly working hard on her display. I didn't think to take any photos in the beginning part of her creating this mini-exhibit... so bummed! But, here is the final stages.

Waiting....

We are still finishing up some lessons on butterflies and moths. Our caterpillars have created their chrysalis homes and are in the midst of changing to a beautiful butterfly. In the mean time we have been enjoying some fantastic books and collecting wild butterfly & moths to inspect and release. Another fun tool we have used in our journey was a great video from DK Eyewitness DVD called Butterfly & Moth ~ this was beautifully done and a wonderful compliment to our studies. I love Netflix!!!

Now, we wait for these little critters to become beauties!

A Living Lesson

We have been planning to adopt a new kitten into our family, we are a cat family. However we also have a goal to enroll Holly into the 4-H program that focuses on cats when she is seven years old in preparation for learning about caring for and showing her cat when she turns eight years old. Training a cat to be comfortable with crating, traveling and people as well as mature enough to handle it is our goal before we enroll her in 4-H. We are a family who plans - so.....



Meet Lilly!



Lilly is the newest addition to our family and part of Holly's newest learning lesson - a living lesson if you will. Holly is beginning to learn about care for this personal cat. While she has always assisted in the care of our two oldest cats she is taking responsibility for this one - feeding, watering, litter box, play, proper care, etc. We have some great books on cats that we are reading through as a good reminder on behaviours of a kitten.

Today we take Lilly to the veterinarian for her first post-adoption check up. This will be a lesson for Holly as well - she has been but was too young to remember. Now she will get a chance to learn what happens at a vet check and those following.

We are excited for this new journey in our lives. Lilly is a very sweet little girl who is playful, snuggly, easy going and so far a wonderful fit for our family.