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!!

 



Anatomy Class

Another great class that Holly has been enjoying is a series of classes being held by a gal who dose an amazing job teaching the human body. She has been hosting a series every couple of weeks that are pretty hands on with a circle time lessons, stations with different activities to reinforce the lessons and then a final regroup and game. Holly is learning a lot.... even I am learning a lot!

Fizzy's Lunch Lab

We have been using some fun Health Lessons from PBS this winter, they have been great! Holly has been working her way around various aspects of food and the health benefits offered. The lessons are fairly short, easy to accomplish, open up dialogue and include some fun cartoons from Fizzy's Lunch Lab. Typically her lessons have started with a very short cartoon clip, we do the lesson at hand and then she might watch one or two more small clips to bring the ideas together.

Today her lesson was on whole grains. I unloaded the pantry with both whole grain and processed grain foods. We discussed whole grains, looked at whole grains up close, looked at labels on food, talked about foods we eat and then enjoyed a whole grain snack of freshly popped (on the stove top) pop corn. She enjoyed this lesson a lot... because it involved pop corn - but I enjoy it because it is opening her mind to a better diet, how it helps her to stay healthy and feel her best!

Dental Fun

This month is National Children's Dental Health Month and with that we have had a little fun learning more about teeth. What is fun is that Holly has already lost two teeth and has three current wiggly teeth - so, she was really into this.

We found some fun online games and videos to watch on the proper care of teeth and visiting a dentist... which she is familiar with. We printed out a diagram of a tooth and talked about all the various parts, discussed/tried proper brushing and flossing techniques and then she had some fun creating a small poster from other goodies I had available for her to use.