Week in Review: the house hunting edition and family

Our second and third week was a very light week of homeschooling. Between searching for a new home, making calls and visiting properties, we managed to only get a few days of school done during the last two weeks.      

Last month (August 22), the boys began working on their “All About Me” book and this month they continued working on them with our Family unit study.  

Here are the highlights

Week in review: Our first week

This Monday we started our first week of school. I’m glad we waited until late August to begin because it gave the boys a few weeks of summer vacation time.  We had a light week with basic subjects and a few electives such as health and science mixed in. 


Each day we are doing Calendar Math. We made a new Calendar and Morning board this year and the boys really like it.  The boys are learning

Week in Review: a Snow day to end our week (wk 19)

January 31 to February 5This week we began our study on the Polar Regions: Arctic and Antarctic Animals.

We stayed indoors most of the week due to below freezing weather but no one mined that because the boys were looking forward the to the chance of snow that was in the forecast for Friday morning.

We used Monday to review of the previous week. Last week we did not have a unit study and

Groundhog Day (Ideas for teaching)

February 2 is a Groundhog day.Punxsutawney Phil is the world's smallest and furriest weather forecaster and the 2nd of February is his day! On Groundhog Day, it is said that if the groundhog sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of bad weather, and if he doesn't, that spring will be here soon. The legend of Groundhog Day is based on an old Scottish couplet: "If Candlemas Day is bright

Our plans for this week (Thanksgiving unit)

This week, we are learning about the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower, Pilgrim and Indian life, the first Thanksgiving and about Turkeys. I have a general outline of our plans for the week that I thought I would share with you. Next weekend, I will have our Week in Review on our week posted after we complete our study on Thanksgiving.

Here are the books we will be reading throughout

Week in Review: Learning about Harvest (week 10)

November 1st to 5th
This week we started a unit on a Harvest theme. We learned about different fruits and vegetables that are harvested in the Autumn season as well as the different types of Harvest celebrations held in different countries.

Did you know?
Harvest festivals take place all over the world, and have for centuries. Click HERE to find out more.

Here are just some the interesting

Week in Review: All about Fall (week 8)

October 18th to 23 This week went into full gear with a tree nature study, a unit on Autumn (Fall), a trip to pick pumpkins. The boys enjoyed a fun week and so did I and we haven’t even painted our pumpkins yet (we decided to paint ours next week during our Pumpkin unit study.
This week we read several books on Fall. Some books we revisited from last Fall because they were the boys’ favorites

Nature Study – Fall Bird Migration, plans for study

As our neighbors to the North get vibrant colors of foliage in the Fall, we here in South Texas are not fortunate to see the many colors of Fall except in the Hill Country north of San Antonio. One thing we do get is an opportunity to see the different birds that migrate to the south during the change in the seasons.

With the cooler weather this Fall season, we will be viewing our feathered

Water Density (Science Sunday)

This week we conducted an experiment on water density. We have been learning about earth’s oceans as part of our geography studies so we thought it would be interesting to learn how salt water is heavier that plain water.

We discovered in our research that Oceans make up about 70 percent of Earth’s surface and contain lots of different salts: sodium, chloride, sulfate, magnesium, calcium,

Nature Study: Signs of Autumn

This week with a small break from the rain, we embarked on our first Fall walk outdoors. It was party sunny as we took a walk down our street and enjoyed the cool breeze.

We noticed some cumulus clouds overhead and some darker cumulus clouds not far so we knew that it was not long before it would rain. My oldest son was able to identify the clouds using the Field guide Cloud cards I made for him

Air Pressure (Science Sunday)

This week we conducted a experiment on air pressure. Last week we learned how a cloud forms (particularly fog). We are reading a number of books on weather and clouds and this experiment helped us understand how air pressure affects clouds.
Our Question of the Week… How does air pressure affect clouds?

Items we used for this experiment:An empty jar
water
a playing card or index card

Week in Review: 2 steps forward, 1 step back (wk 2)

August 30th to September 4th
This was our second week of homeschool but it it still felt like our first. The boys are still waking up late (and by late, I mean noontime). Hubby has been staying up late due to restlessness and is keeping everyone up. We live in a small apartment so any noise can be heard throughout our home. I am hoping that these late night antics come to a close soon. I may

Make a Fog (Science Sunday)

This week we conducted a experiment on clouds. The boys were interested in learning how a cloud forms (particularly fog). We had been reading a number of books on weather and clouds and this experiment was perfect for us.
Our Question of the Week… How are clouds formed?
Items we used for this experiment:An empty jar
Hot water
a strainer
2-3 ice cubes


Predictions
The boys each try to predict

Art Caddy and some fabulous finds

We have seen during the last two months some bloggers display their handmade art caddies on their blogs. I had been meaning to find materials to make with the boys but when we saw these adorable plastic ones at Target, we could not pass them up, They were $2.50 each and made of sturdy plastic. We found ours in the Target dollar section so we bought two, one for each son.



While there, we

What my child is reading for May 24 to 28, 2010

This week the boys had fun reading our selection of books on Bugs and Insects. What boy wouldn't? We had a wide assortment of story books on Insects and made some new favorites to add to our family library.

My youngest son was delighted to add a new author that he likes to his list of favorite books. Bob Barner writes some delightful children books and we plan on looking for more is his books

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and making our own for play

This week we began our study on Bugs and Insects. We have a great selection of books and my youngest was drawn to one that looked similar to the book "The grouchy Ladybug" that we read last June.


We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. In this story, an egg on a leaf hatches on a Sunday and out pops a tiny and very hungry caterpillar. After searching for some food, on Monday to

What is an insect?

That was the question we tackled on Tuesday. We have been reading books this week on Insects and wanted to know what an insect is? We looked at our DK First Animal Encyclopedia to find out.

Here is what we learned:



After reading some of our other books, we discovered there are more insects in the world than any other animal. They are invertebrates which means that they have no backbone. They

Our Bug and Insect Decor

Since the beginning of the month my youngest has been looking forward to help decorate our calendar and bulletin board with bugs and insect decorations.


During the first week in May, we decorated our calendar with bees, butterflies, caterpillars, ladybugs, and grasshoppers. The snail at the bottom is a mollusk and is neither a insect or bug. I explained that to my preschooler but he wanted a

Plans for the week

To make your own stickies, click HERE.

Plans for the week

To make your own stickies, click HERE.