Week in Review

I am behind in my posting again, I have just been so busy!!  Here is a quick look at what we did 2 weeks ago.

Hailey made this soldier when we learned about Veterans Day.

Hailey is learning about money in math.  We played a game with the coins- each person had to roll the die and then use the coins to make the amount that was rolled.  The first person to reach 25 cents was the winner.

We continued our Thanksgiving Unit study, using a unit from The Razzle Dazzle Classroom.

This week we learned about the Wampanoag Indians.  There is a lot of great information on Scholastic, we really enjoyed using this site.  We also read “If You Lived in the Time of Squanto” and Hailey made this project based on what she learned.

The cover of her Wampanoag project.

The inside of project.  On the left she drew what the Wampanoag homes looked like during the summer vs the winter and the wrote a little about each.  On the right she drew and wrote about what the Wampanoag men and women wore.  In the middle she did the jobs and food and then drew a picture of a Wampanoag village.  She had fun making this and we both learned a lot!

In language arts Hailey has been learning about irregular plural nouns- we played a fun matching game to get a little practice.

Hailey loves to read!!  We are using the emerging readers that go with Heart of Dakota.  Right now the books are too easy for her, but things are going to pick up soon.

In science we did a unit all about spiders.  You can see the full unit here.

Hailey also put on a little puppet show for us.  She wrote a script, made puppets and painted scenes.  She worked hard and did a great job!!

Another scene in the show 🙂

Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.

Bee Crafty Kids- The Mayflower

Welcome back to the Bee Crafty Kids link up that I am co-hosting with To The Moon and Back and Look! We’re Learning.

We have been learning all about Thanksgiving this month, and having lots of fun!  This week we focused on the Pilgrims and what it was like on the Mayflower.  Then we made our own Mayflower.

Hunter and Hailey painted a box brown.  We actually ran out of brown paint, so we had a little mini-lesson on which colors you can mix together to get brown.

The next day, Hailey added some windows.

Hailey made a sign and we added some sails.

Hunter and Hailey both enjoy sitting in the Mayflower 🙂

Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.

Now it’s your turn! Link up and share what you and your kids have been busy making. Grab a button so others can join in the crafting fun too 🙂

<div align="center"><a href="http://ourcraftsnthings.com/" title="Our Crafts N Things"><img src="http://i1165.photobucket.com/albums/q594/dustybug83/BeeCraftyKids3_zps44074ad6.png" alt="Our Crafts N Things" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Rules are simple:

~Enter the direct link to one or more of your own posts that showcase a craft or hands on activity for children.

~A link back with the above button is appreciated, but not required

~Try to at least comment on one or two of the other blogs that took the time to share and join!

Spider Unit

We had a lot of fun over the last couple of weeks learning all about spiders.  I was hoping that once I learned more about spiders I wouldn’t be quite so scared of them.  But that didn’t happen.  They were still very interesting to learn about though, and I am still amazed at how much I learn now that I am homeschooling.

Here are just SOME of the things we did- there was just way too much to share everything!

Of course, we had to have a real spider to observe.  I tried not to look at it very often 😉

We learned how spiders eat their prey by injecting venom into it, which turns the insect into liquid and then the spider drinks the food.  We put our prey (a sugar cube) in a cup.  Then we injected it with venom (water) and drank our prey.

We also made these cute Spider Glyphs, which you can see here.

We played a fun game where we threw little plastic spiders onto this spider web I made on the floor and added up our scores.

We did a little experiment to learn why spiders don’t stick to their webs.  First Hailey put her fingers on a piece of masking tape and her fingers stuck to it.  Then she dipped her fingers in vegetable oil and tried it again, and her fingers did not stick.  Spiders make an oil that makes it so they do not stick to their webs.

  We read about the spider life cycle and then Hailey made this Life Cycle poster.

We sang a little spider song.  We sang it to the tune of 10 little Indians:
Crawl, crawl, crawl like a spider.
Crawl, crawl, crawl like a spider.
Crawl, crawl, crawl like a spider.
Crawl around your web.
We used different words in place of crawl like pounce, jump, etc.

If you click on the picture above, you can see some of the other fun things we did with spiders- made hats and some different fun snacks.

We made a Spider Schema chart.

Hailey matched up spider vocabulary words with their definitions.

Hunter and Hailey made an All About Spiders book.

Hailey observed our classroom spider and wrote down her observations.

We ended our unit with a Spider Report.  Hailey picked an interesting spider (she picked the tarantula) and wrote a report about them.  They really are very interesting, but if I ever saw one in person I don’t think I could handle it.

Many of the printables we used came from The Razzle Dazzle Classroom or A Day in First Grade.

We also watched these videos about spiders:

and

It was a fun and interesting unit, but I am glad I won’t have to look at anymore spiders for a while!

Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine Review

A few years ago when I first started considering homeschooling, I asked for advice from some people who had been homeschooling for a while.  One of the recommendations I was given was to check out The Old Schoolhouse.  I immediately loved it!!

The Old Schoolhouse has been around since 2001 and there are many different aspects of their site that offers help to homeschoolers.  One of my favorite parts is The Old Schoolhouse magazine.  I absolutely love it!!  There is a wealth of homeschooling information available in every issue.

The Old Schoolhouse magazine is a bi-monthly magazine.  The columnists are all experts in homeschooling, and many have homeschooled their own children.  I like getting advice and ideas from people who have actually been there and know what it is like.  The articles are well-written and interesting, as well as being pertinent to my daily life.

Do you know what one of my most favorite things is about The Old Schoolhouse magazine?  It’s free.  Yes, absolutely free!  There are six digital issues each year that you can get for free right on your computer.  If you would prefer, you can download The Old Schoolhouse app so that you can read The Old Schoolhouse magazine for free on your Apple devices, Android devices, Kindle Fire or Nook HD.

If you’re like I was at first, you might not be too sure about reading a magazine online, but once you give it a try I think you will find that you really love it!  No magazine to look for or carry around, it will always be in the same place- or for me several places.  I love that I can read it on my laptop, my tablet or my phone.  Another thing that is great about a digital magazine is that when I see something in an article or an advertisement that is interesting to me- I can click on direct links to get more information about the topic I am reading about.  There is a lot of interactive content and even videos.

In the November/December issue there are some really great articles that I think you should go and check out.  There is an article titled “Creating Holiday Fun With the Littlest Ones” and another one titled “10 Tips for Teaching Reading.”  There really is an article for everyone!  If you’re just looking for some product reviews as you try to make your decisions about what homeschool tools you want to purchase, you can find that too.

There is also The Schoolhouse Review Crew blog where you can get some great ideas to use in your homeschool.  For example, right now you can get some fabulous suggestions for creating your own Christmas traditions or get some advice about how to homeschool a wiggly and talkative child.  In addition to that, there are some great reviews to check out.  If you’re trying to decide on a curriculum to use and you need to read the advice of people who have used it- this is the place to go.  Maybe you need to pick a science curriculum, a foreign language curriculum, or you’re just looking for a fun way to get your kids to practice the concepts you are teaching- you can find ideas for all of those right on the blog.

Beginning to homeschool and trying to find the best curriculum to use is a very overwhelming time.  The Old Schoolhouse can take some of the stress out of that time with all of their fantastic resources.