Geoboard Introduction

We will be using a Geoboard in our near future for some math skills. So, I decided to introduce Holly to a Geoboard now and let her enjoy some free time on it and have the novelty wear off a bit. Today was simply to practice putting on the rubber bands - which is a skill in itself for her... fingers were getting snapped and tired. For the next few times she will have some open play with the Geoboard, creating pictures and then we'll move on to some other fun math skills!

Snowy Scene

This morning we read some books and poetry on winter. As well, we through our art book on art done with torn paper. Combining the two interests Holly created this lovely 'Snowy Scene'. What was nice about this project is that I gathered the materials I had planned to use with her and she went through them in her work box and created the scene entirely herself with what she had to work with. She did not have any direction, except a 'torn paper' art project, the rest is all hers!

Hibernation Art Project

While working through our weather and seasons unit we are taking a longer pit stop with Winter in which we are covering the full season, weather, animals habitats in winter, migration and hibernation. Today we talked about hibernation, read some cute books and then Holly created a little bear cave with a small bear to 'hibernate' him. She had a really great time creating this very easy bear cave for her little guy.

Tomorrow we will be working a bit more with hibernation and working in some migration too!

You can see her little brown bear in there all nestled in!

Art Lessons

With the new year we are infusing a lot more art into our weeks. Holly will be working her way through our art book, learning about some artists and trying her hand as several new techniques.

This past week she was introduced to mosaic art. We did a small lesson on mosaics and looked at several types of mosaic art works. Then she set to work creating her own mosaic art piece.

A couple days later we started to learn about collage style art. Again she looked over several art pieces that included collage after a small lesson on it. Then she created a free style collage piece. Later in the week Holly will try her hand at a more designed art piece in both mosaic and collage materials.

For The Birds

This week has been cold -- freezing cold! We have been making sure the birds are well fed and have water. And, we have spent much time watching the little feathered cuties as they enjoy the feeders... there are a lot of them out there lately.

To have some fun though we decided to make some bird feeders we can hang from the trees, to offer more feeding opportunities to the many, many birds gathered waiting their turn for a feeder spot. We looked up a recipe and got right to work.

The recipe is really easy and we had it all on hand:

1/2 cup water

3/4 flour

3 TBSP corn syrup

4 cups bird seed

Combine water, flour and corn syrup into a smooth paste and then add bird seed. The seed is really crumbly and moist but will harden well!

I keep an old beat up muffin tin on hand for projects just like this one - it came in handy today! We packed the bird seed mixture into the muffin tin and made a small whole in each one with a straw. Then they air dried for about half a day or so. Tie then up and hang on trees for our fine feathered friends. A really fun project!

Working on Weather

Holly is working her way through a weather unit to start the new year. We have been following our lessons from the curriculum and adding in a lot of other fun books, art projects and science lessons - with many more planned.

So far we have read a lot about weather, watched a video on clouds, discussed weather descriptions, related weather to our environments, discussed weather in relation to habitats, read fun stories related to weather, learned about thermometers, used a thermometer and we are graphing out weather this month to see what kind of weather January offers us. It's been a busy few days and more busyness is on the way!

Back to Work!

Well, the holidays are behind us and it is time to start back in with some school work. With the new year we are taking a new approach to Holly's schooling. We spent the first half of the year getting our feet wet with homeschooling and now it is time to start encouraging more 'independent work'. So, we are going to try out work boxes for her. I believe this will be up her alley.She has nine boxes filled each day with a variety of her school work, some is strictly for independent work and others are for us to work on together. I will teach in between her work choices and help her to combine projects that work well together. If we have larger scale projects or lessons, they might be included in her work box, but rather a smaller fun project would replace that.Holly is very excited to see how her boxes are filled and likes the idea of selecting her work in the order she would like to do it. Should make for a nice second half of the year!