Story Game - Racing seeds

STORY GAME

Make up cards (colored index cards or squares of construction paper). Write down the required things on the specified colors.

YELLOW: PLACES (ie – home, zoo, Canada)
RED: LIVE THINGS (ie – dog, cat, lion)
BLUE: THINGS TO DO (ie – play, climb, drive)
GREEN: PEOPLE’S NAMES (ie – Mom, Nana, Dad)
PURPLE:STUFF (ie – toy, car, tree)

Pick one card of each color.
Make up a short story using the words that you chose.


RACING SEEDS

1.Pick out 3 different seeds (we chose sunflower, pea and bean).
2.Label 3 baggies with the name of your seeds and place a folded dampened paper towel in each.
3. Label 3 plant pots with the name of your seeds and fill with soil
4. Place one seed in each of the correct locations.
5. water the pots and place in a sunny place
6. Tape the baggies to the window above the pots.

7. Have each kid or kid and parents choose a seed to "root" (haha) for. Then watch and wait.

Gardening

It's that planting time of year.
My seeds came in over the weekend and I'm itching to get them all in the ground, or at least start the ones that I can. M wants to help and have her own little flower garden which I think is a great idea.

I'm also thinking of doing the bean in the baggie science observation thing. This blog explains it well and I'm thinking of doing her blogging idea too. I think M would love to have a blog. She's only 5 but I think it would be interesting.

More to come....

Doing Good

M is still doing really well when I'm able to get her to work...
It seems like I need to make sure she knows at least one day ahead that she has school coming up. She doesn't seem to remember that there are certain days out of the week that we always work. She also freaks out when she doesn't know ahead of time. egads.

She's also decided that she doesn't want to do any outside classes or sports. When only a short few months ago when I couldn't afford it, she wanted to do it. I don't know. I just hope at some point she changes her mind. I think classes or sports would do really well for her socializing and learning.

The amazing thing is that when she is ready to work she breezes through everything. Review and new stuff. We did our work today and then I printed out some worksheets for her. One of the worksheets even had new stuff that I didn't even discuss with her. She breezed through all of it and got it right.

She's so damn smart.

I found a new place to print worksheets from
learningpage.com

It looks as though it's stuff from 2000. Although it all seems to be really good materials that could've been written more recently (except for the calendar that is a calendar fo 2000). Still the worksheets having to do with the calendar will still work to teach calendar months, days, etc.

Weather Journal

This is probably the best thing we're doing lately. We're doing the math and the reading and all that but the weather journal is fun.

I have her draw a picture of the weather then answer questions - precipitation, color of the sky, temperature, and ground cover. Then she has a spot that she can write what else she observes.

We do this once each week and it takes up a good amount of time but I think it's pretty valuable. She's observing, answering questions, reading temperature, writing, and really thinking about it.

I look forward to the end of the year when we can go back and look at it to see the changes in weather.

Goals for January into February

I meant to post goals just for January but as I started to write them I was being a little industrious and figured it might take into February to accomplish some of them.

LA/Reading/writing
Read a book - Lions at Lunchtime (Magic Treehouse series)
Re-write Moira's stories so they're legible.
Write new stories?
Vowels/consonants - work at recognizing them quickly
Syllables - clap them out (car game)
phonemes
Sentence structure maps
Title page of books - choosing a book from a library based on what you want.
Penmanship
Drag out Shel Silverstien book and maybe memorize a poem

Math
Continue with addition and subtraction exercises
write her own math problems
Count by 2's, 5's, 10's, etc.
Money
Temperature
Work on graphs
Days of the week

History
review Native American stuff
Famous Americans
Do more with national symbols

Geography
Maps
I'm thinking of having M map out where she would like to go on a field trip this spring. Look up the maps online and draw her own pictures and map out a place to go see. Even if it's only the beach or a hiking spot. I want her to be able to give a general idea of how we'll get from A to B.

Science
Weather Journal? - I had planned for this to be a spring exercise since the weather is so varied and interesting but I'm going to introduce it now.

Light and Shadows - Work also on the planets and how you can sometimes see the moon in the daytime.

Begin planting seedlings for the garden. Planting a bean/pea between wet towels and a clear glass so she can see how they grow.

Human body stuff - 5 senses - we'll work on this just because she likes to. We work on it much of the time anyway.

Start winter Lapbook

Misc
Spanish - work on songs
Karate - I need to sign her up for classes

Lady bugs

I think I may be better at the "unschooling" thing than the "homeschooling". Or maybe it's just easier at this point in M's education.

We have been over run with lady bugs in the past couple of days. My dad and I tried to count them yesterday, we got to 10 on the door and looked up to see a bunch more here and there. They were all over the place.

Today they were still pretty plentiful and M was just thrilled with it. She went around with a container and collected them, placing them on plants inside the house. I explained ot her part of being a scientist is to observe and report. I told her to watch the bugs and then report on them.

She gave me a one page report with drawings on it.
There are several lady bugs, one is even flying - very correct looking too.
She wrote:
Ladybugs fly
Ladybugs walk
Ladybugs eat bugs that are called aphids.

I think it's pretty good for a 5 year old.
I can't wait to se thenext thing she finds interesting. I hope to have a whole folder of these cool little "reports".

Hurricanes

M has been interested in all the hurricane news since we know people in Florida. I plan to do a lesson this week- hopefully later today. Here are some maps:
Moving Map

Still map from 0ct24 am


Projected paths and advanced info
National Hurrican Center

CLN Hurricanes