Week In Review

The first week of school here was fantastic!! Both kids worked really hard this week, explored a ton, enjoyed many hours of more free flowing learning and had fun!

 

Hudson had a great time learning with his preschool week. This week his theme was centered on apples. He practiced colors, letters, numbers, counting and creating in sets of ten, reading short vowel a words, learned the life cycle of an apple, taste tested eight varieties, looked at an apple tree through a magnifying lens and observation, baked apple hand pies, did a load of art, mastered some fun puzzles, watched a video on apple orchards and the harvest, spent some time on Starfall.com and read a lot of books with me!! An excellent week that he loved with full rich days of learning and playing... he could not get enough of!!

 

Holly also enjoyed an amazing week of third grade! She started the week off with brand new curriculum and a mix of some familiar curriculum too. The week starts off in review for math as she masters some skills learned last year, a book study was kicked off with Little House In The Big Woods, she finished up her chemistry unit with a final project in baking bread from a cold yeast start and a warm yeast start and a review test which she rocked, loads of art, many great books, a look at ancient civilization, learning about history and how we learn from it as she created a history pocket and notebook project, learned about becoming an archaeologist, watched a video on archaeology, jumped into the country of France as we start year two of Expedition Earth, she started a poster from her new health program and did some reflection writing. It has been a full week with so much more than listed... a wonderful week!!

 



Inspired Art

We have been looking at various artists from children's books this past few weeks. This week we enjoyed some time with Eric Carl, Leo Leoni and Lois Ehlert. While they are different, they are pretty similar. It was great to pull out books and really take a look and compare the styles, uses of materials and design.

To finish up we read The Tiny Seed (which also ties into some planting we have recently done) and the kids both created flowers. Hudson's was modified as he isn't cutting in round form yet, so he created a rather square flower but a flower none the less. Their art is colorful, full of texture, creative and perfect to have up this time of year! Holly even created a another small project where she made a hummingbird. So pretty!!

Tissue Paper Garden

A beautiful spring art project Holly created a week or two ago has been a wonderful addition to our art wall. This project was so much fun and produced such great results that she wants to create a much larger version that will include more nature to put in her bedroom as art. This child loves art!

The project was simple and with easy, around the house supplies. We took a piece of thick cardboard and she painted it a light yellow and then watering down a white Elmers glue and using a paint brush she decoupaged a whole sheet of lime green tissue paper over the whole board, this was her canvas to work on. The cardboard was not a lighter color surface to create on, however if you have a white canvas or white cardboard I do believe the tissue colors would be a lot more vibrant.

Next Holly used an array of tissue colors I keep on hand for art to cut out grass shapes, leaves and various styles of flowers. She then layered her grasses (in different greens) and added a few leaves. When you add a piece of tissue you use a paint brush and paint a light layer of watered glue and place the tissue, then paint over the tissue gently with another light layer of watered glue, ensuring it is fully covered in glue. After she had her greenery completed she then added her different styles of flowers repeating the same process with gluing, tissue, gluing. Careful with the glue as if that hand is not gentle or rushed you can smudge the tissue up or break it, creating frustration. Once the final design is completed she used a larger brush and painted one more layer of watered glue over the entire artwork. Allow to dry and display.

Rain Forest Lapbook - 2nd Grade

I let Holly choose a couple of subjects to do special projects on each year. And, for this school year she chose Rain Forests and Coral Reefs. We wrapped up the rain forest unit a couple weeks back - it was a lot of fun! I created the objectives I had in mind for her unit and then planned around them with tons of books, documentaries, art work, games, online resources, mural, and a lapbook.

Holly chose all the elements she put in her lapbook. We did not include every little project or study in it as there is just no way we could do that and keep the sanity and fun in lapbooking. She did include some pretty key elements though, so that is good. She kept lists of animals, plants, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects and foods from the rain forest that we learned about and researched. She also included a couple of art projects and drawings, maps, work packs, vocabulary review, layers of forests, comparisons between tropical and temperate, locations of forests, small projects and more! She had a great time designing her lapbook as she went along. It is all her work, a representation of how she enjoys being creative and a wonderful end product that stores easily.

Water Color Painting with Bob Ross

Holly adores watching Bob Ross on our local PBS channel, she is mesmerized by him and his painting skills. I understand this because as a child... I was as well.

The other day after our studies she had some free afternoon time and turned on the TV to find Bob Ross 'just starting'. She quickly squealed with delight to please help her get set up as she wanted to paint with him! So, we moved a table over and broke out the supplies for painting. I was worried she might become frustrated in her ability to keep up with him but boy, was I wrong! She kept up beautifully and the results of her painting... amazing! Truly, I am very impressed with the final work, she created a stunning piece of art.

Winter barn scene!

Leaf Man

One of our favorite books for fall is Leaf Man by Lois Elhert. This is one we started when Holly was very little and is a tradition to read each fall and then create our own leaf creations. This was Hudson's first year creating with leaves.

We start by collecting leaves in the yard and drying them out as the weather has been damp. Then they enjoy sorting and inspecting for awhile. After reading the story together and really taking a fine look at all of the leaf creations we sort through our collected leaves and play with them to see what kinds of creations we can make. Then to finish up they glue some down and create a leaf masterpiece.

Simple but fun!

South Korea

We spent a little over a week learning all about South Korea with our Expedition Earth curriculum as our guide. I found many books at the library, a couple of DVDs, poetry, music, artwork and more -- making for a great week!

Holly really enjoyed the video on South Korea best. She learned about female divers who dive for sea creatures to sell.... only women do this, a career they've had their entire lives. The gals they interviewed were in their 50's and 60's. Pretty cool!!! The changing face of South Korea, new technologies and world influences however are causing the new generation to not follow their families paths in careers as history had once dictated, including this one. This generation will most likely be the last to continue this tradition/career, one of many dying careers.

The weeks work included reading up on South Korea and a small discussion on North Korea (the best we could for her age), making some various art work, a fan, learning about their culture, listening to some music, animals of the region, map work and writing. Another fun week... we are now off to Japan!

Little Learning

This year Hudson has become a big part of our learning environment. I can no longer do simple stations of activities, he desires to be a part of what is happening at the table in general. I am working very hard to accommodate him and still keep things on his level. He is not afraid to try things, enjoys art tremendously, is very interested in letters and numbers more than ever and pours over books all day long.

With that knowledge I have decided that even though he is only 2 1/2 we will move forward with more letters and numbers. He can identify all letters in upper and lower case but lately wants to know what 'they say', his words.This means he is ready for phonics, basic but phonics none the less. So, we are beginning some small projects to work on the order of letters, review them in different fonts and now sounds... which he LOVES!!!

Aside from this we are mastering counting to 10 and number recognition. Many little games or transfer work to master this. Beading, pattern work, memory games and one to one counting -- all through ten only. As well, he is enjoy an abundance of art and scissor work in which he is getting pretty good at. I still put out some activity stations for him each day and work with him side by side and we read many, many books a day.

There is a LOT of learning happening during our schooling hours for Hudson and I can tell he loves it!

Here he is working on sorting his lowercase letters and gluing them into a Letter Book. He then read the whole book and told you all about how his project. Hudson adored having a final product to share with Daddy and has it tucked away in his books now.

Paper Mache Project

Holly enjoyed her first ever paper mache project. In her Expedition Earth curriculum she had to create a paper mache earth after reviewing the continents, oceans, parts of the globe such as equator, prime meridian, etc.

Doing paper mache is a multi-day project that is messy, both in building and then painting. I blew the balloon up and then explained what paper mache is and how you build it. She didn't mind the mess... me, well - it was messy! Not to bad but it did require a lot of plastic and paper coverage, dripping and wiping up. Despite the mess it was well worth it!

Her earth project turned out fantastic!!! She is very proud of her work - as she should be!