Check out how fun each activity is:
Paint Samplers with Clothespins
Is this cute or what? Just laminate some paint samplers from the hardware store after you've cut a strip off the end to glue to clothespins. This mom even put the secondary colours (green, purple, and orange) on the other side of the cards and clothespins.
Strainer/Hat with Pipecleaner/Benderoos
Simply get a strainer and pipe cleaners from the dollar store. Voila! Magic hat.
Magnet Fun Ball
Get a container (this happens to be a juice drink that was round and clear.) Fill it full of tiny objects that have paperclips attached to them. Also fill it with cut up pipe cleaners. Attach a magnet to a popsicle stick and wrap them both with tape to make the wand. Attach the wand to the container's lid with string. You might consider supergluing the lid on so that kiddos can't open it.
Mickey Mouse Paperclip Match
Get some paperclips. Print out mickey mouse templates of the same colour, then laminate them.
Pom pom Ball Colour Match
(This one was the one I did.) Get containers with different coloured lids and pom poms that match from the dollar store. Take a metal pipe and heat it up by placing the end on the stove's burner. Using a hot pad, take the pipe and melt the lid until a hole is formed.
Puzzles and Stickers
One mom gave us all a puzzle and some stickers. Perfect.
Zen Garden Rainbow Container
Buy a container and paintbrushes from the dollar store (the dollar store is my friend.) Laminate a rainbow that fits the bottom. Put a couple tablespoons of salt into the container.
Dino Stomp
Playdough and toy dinosaurs. Your toddler will figure it out....trust me.
Amber Creed is a good friend of mine who is awesome enough to hold "mom nights" where once a month, homeschool moms in the area are invited to come together and chat. There's good food and good times.
This is our respite. We meet new moms. We're casual. We are candid. We are real. We need it....or at least I do.
This month we swapped "busy bags." Thanks to Elisha, we learned about this world of "give your toddler something to do so you can teach your other kids" bags.
Eight moms made eight of the same bag. We swapped them at mom's night. Those same eight moms went home with eight different bags. Brilliant.
And it WORKED. Check out the joy on my busy little man"s face:
Okay, so I must say this was my first attempt at making my blog Pinterest worthy. This will probably be the last time too. Too much work and fuss.
Now on to the real me----
This week was so so busy. I didn't have time to do everything I wanted. This is starting to be a theme for this semester.
We did get a bit of history in. We learned about the first civilizations. I taught it super fast and incomplete, but today I quized Maxwell to see if he got any of it, and this is what happened:
Me "Hey Maxwell, what's something you need for a civilization?"
Him "Farmers"
Me "What were the two rivers surrounding the first civilizations?"
Him "Tigris and Euphrates."
Me "What were some things they invented?"
Him "The wheel and writing."
Booyah. Guess I didn't fail totally.
We weaved baskets as our activity, but I only had enough for one basket and it was actually really hard to do (maybe because we had no idea what we were doing) so, yah, whatever.
Science was CRAZY fun! We learned about polymers.....i.e.....SLIME! Well, slime, plastic, rubber, jello.....you know....all that not-liquid-not-solid stuff.
Among other things, we had jello, and stuck pencils through plastic water baggies and skewers through balloons.
But the main fun of the day was making slime. I wasn't prepared enough, so I made everyone's slime runny, but if they played with it enough it turned into putty. At least it was a nice day so I could send them outside with it!
So a few days ago I get a call from the new Cub Scout leader saying that the new time for cubs was 3:30 on Thursdays. Science "ends" at 3:30 on Thursdays but it's not a sure thing that we are done by then. I just told him that my kids would always be late.
I have 15 kids in my class right now! I can't worry about getting my boys out the door for cubs! I get the feeling that the leader doesn't think too favourably about homeschool, so I'm sure I'm just adding to his stigma about us, but I just can't cater to everyone right now.
We of course went way over 3:30 because of the slime, (I didn't even get to cornstarch and water; the best polymer ever) and Maxwell headed over way late, and Hyrum was too caught up in slime to want to go. Whatever. We can't do everything.
The slime was played with all day, and I'm not sure where it all went too....this kind of haunts me.
The kids were cute. They made little blobs and acted out blobs eating other blobs to make them bigger.
Daniel has loved all the things we've been busy with. Especially art. He's been asking when we can go back to his painting class everyday. He has started sketching on his own accord. I caught him drawing himself from a picture on the wall:
As for the math and reading world, can I just say again that I love Rightstart? It's the type of math the makes you UNDERSTAND math instead of just memorizing things. for instance, check this out:
Well, not sure if you can see it, but Maxwell was supposed to find the perimeter of these shapes. He was supposed to use fractions with eighths, but he didn't realize that, so he added fractions with fourths AND eighths. I've never taught him how to find common denominators, but because he understands how fractions compare, he could add them up no problem. COOL!
Also, I've started taking a college course on teaching Reading to Dyslexics via Coursera.
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