Tot and Pre K with letter O craft

Tot school today was fun - DD2 spent most of her time with play doh making a tower and what she assures me was a bumble bee.

She also decided that it was time she had her own cutting practice and sat with the scissors and a piece of paper for about 10 mins making little cuts along one side - the result was a lovely fringe on the paper.

DD4 saw DD6 working with the number flash cards and wanted me to get hers out, hers have been adapted to create 3 part cards and she uses them in the traditional way of matching them correctly but then she also likes to put them in numerical order as well - 2 for the price of 1 is always good in my book : )

She also had her letter P worksheets but just to confuse things she had a letter O craft (I'd managed to misplace it when we were doing O and have only just found it).
We used an O shaped ring to make a pom pom

then turned it into a fox with some felt cut outs and google eyes. I am now thinking I should have insisted she turned it into an octopus rather than a fox but she decided it really needed to be a fox as it was orange.

Math - more number bonds

I have been working with DD6 to get her to memorise her number bonds. I used the ladybug cards (available on the download page) for number bonds to 10.

A while ago I saw another great idea for number bonds on fairy dust teaching where they are given a number card with the correct number of paper clips and they have to work out all the ways of creating that number by moving the clips to each side and recording their work. I recently bought some flower pegs and thought this would make a cute activity with my flower number flashcards (on download page).
In this example DD6 was given number card 7 and 7 pegs and her first task was to put all the pegs on the left side of the number card to create her first sum 7+0=7

next she had to move one peg across to the right side to create her next sum 6+1=7

and so on. At each stage she had to record the sum on her sheet (on download page)

This provided a great opportunity to discuss a+b=b+a again as some of the sums were the same just inverted. She drew a line under the key facts she needed to know and wrote 'same' next to the rest to show she already knew them.
She seemed to really enjoy this and asked for additional recording sheets to look at the other numbers.

Mothers Day

Mothers day is fast approaching - in the UK it is this Sunday (I think the rest of you have it in May)

As an extra special treat the girls have made me some honey lip balm.

The recipe is very simple and it takes about 5 mins to make - it does involve heat so probably only suitable for the older ones or heavily supervised young ones.
Ingredients
1 Tbsp Beeswax
6 Tbsp Sweet Almond oil
1 Tbsp Honey
2/3 drops essential oil of choice
Optional - 1 Vitamin E capsule

Method

• In a small pan melt the beeswax and oil together and remove from heat.
• Add honey and mix until it is well blended
• Allow to cool slightly (stirring all the time to prevent setting) then add vitamin E oil and essential oil
• Pour into containers

Montessori Giveaway

If like me you spend hours salivating over the Montessori Print Shop downloads then you need to know about this giveaway.

Deb over at Living Montessori Now is offering the entire collection on CDrom - yes that's right the entire collection !
pop over now to have a look at the terms - BTW this is open worldwide : )

Elementary work and tot school chaos.

DD8 and DD6 both focused on grammar today.
DD8 worked on past tense / verbs.

DD6 concentrated on the apostrophe and contractions.

DD4 was happy with her letter work but DD2 decided to 'borrow' the sand tray, she tipped the whole thing on the floor, built a lovely tower and then decided to rub it all into the carpet - now I know what I'll be doing tonight :(

Later she decided that the flower sticker match game was better as a decoration for her arms

We spent the afternoon making some origami animals and out in the garden enjoying some spring sunshine.

Our workboxes today

One of the best things about HS is the ability to school anywhere.

Today DD6 decided she wanted me to read out her spelling words while I was in the shower : ) she sat outside and as I called them out she called back the spelling - I think she had an aversion to writing today.

DD4 decided she was fed up with the table and sat on the school room bin.

DD8 was conventional and went for the beanbags.

DD2's drawers had an opening exercise (zip, jar, clip purse and pull off lid)

sensory bin, puzzle, filling bottle (she opens the lid and fills her bottle with little spring themed flower beads) and drawing paper.

DD4 had letter o worksheets (from confessions of a homeschooler and 1+1+1=1), math eggs, number templates, paper doll from china and salt tray/sandpaper letter.

DD6 had reading, math, geometry (drawing angles), spelling(which she did before school), creative writing and a logic puzzle game.

DD8 had copywork (The voice of Spring by Mary Howitt), geometry test sheet, periodic table 3 part cards, creative writing and a ladybug mini unit - she requested this because she befriended a ladybug in the garden (built it a little home and everything) and wasn't pleased when I didn't know much about it or it needs.

Roman History

As I've mentioned before we have just completed a Roman History unit (mostly based on the Evan Moor Roman History Pocket). This is DD8's finished article

(Yes she needs to work on her spelling - aqua ducks ?!?) She decided to put all the pockets and information together to make a history book and even wrote her own blurb for the back cover (if anyone knows the correct word that would be great)

They have enjoyed this so much they have asked for another unit on Ancient Egypt so we started it this week with a wonderful interactive book I found - Mummy Mysteries - this normally retails at £17.99 but I found a copy last week in a cheep bookstore called The Works for £2.99 which I thought was abit of a bargain.

Their favourite part was the hieroglyphic decoder - a small wheel that tells you the meaning/letter of each symbol. They spent about an hour examining the book and starting the activities so I think it was money well spent.

And for the icing on the cake I found out that a local theatre is staging Horrible Histories this April - the two plays? you guessed it - Rotten Romans and Awful Egyptians, talk about perfect timing : )

Pre School activities

DD2 and DD4 have had a day yesterday.
DD2's been learning colours

playing with her phonics toy

and using her Bright Baby flashcards

DD4 has worked on some more addition, letter o, traced her wooden numbers

used her hammering set

and both have planted loads and loads of seed (peas, sweetcorn, carrot, tomato, cucumber, spinach and lettuces)

We have a winner!

Thanks for all your entries into the 'Considering Gods Creation' curriculum giveaway.
I have used Random.org to select a winner and it is .......

Number 31 from Eternal Treasures

Congratulations and I hope you enjoy this curriculum as much as we have :)

Homeschool Mothers Journal

In my life this week...
SPRING IS HERE! The girls and I have been busy planting seeds, rebuilding our raised beds and cleaning the greenhouse.

In our homeschool this week...
We have had lots of fun - the girls have been super good and as a result the week has been amazing. We have flown through the work and got loads accomplished (fingers crossed it continues - I need more weeks like this)

Places we're going and people we're seeing...
We were at a service project yesterday and we have another lined up for Fri. A HS group will be planting a new garden at the visitors centre for a local museum.

My favorite thing this week was...
Being outside and finally enjoying the spring weather.
What's working/not working for us...
 
This week everything worked (for a change) - they especially loved the new living math book 'Sir Cumference'. Think I'll be ordering the rest of these.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...
How much screen time do you allow your children?
I usually limit.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...
'One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child'
Maria Montessori

Friday Fun

We had a more relaxed day today.

DD2 & DD4 played for ages with their spring sensory tub (yellow feathers, spring animal toys, wooden eggs, fabric flowers etc)

as well as some new letter activities for DD4 - my favourite being create the letter with tangram shapes.

They also enjoyed an Asian animal magnification game and find the Chinese dragon (hidden under a numbered lantern – so many ways to play with this) both of these were from making learning fun.

All the girls got to try their hand at ‘writing’ the Chinese characters for number 1 – 10 and had a play with the costume and fan (it was so cute seeing DD4 try and do the oriental buttons up).

DD6 & DD8 did some more research into life in China and Japan and we discussed the recent earthquake and tsunami with it impacts on life there and how they could help (both have decided to donate some of their money to a relief effort).

Rock Study

We started our rock study yesterday with a bang! I found a dig for gemstones kit a few months back and have been saving it for this study. You start by hammering, scraping and brushing the plaster until you uncover the gems, once found and cleaned you use the poster to identify what you have found.

On second thoughts maybe I should have covered the floor first :)

We used the afternoon for a nature walk and our Chinese feast.