Blood

We made BLOOD! OK, not really blood...but we used some stuff from the kitchen to represent the different components of our blood.

*Yellow liquid=plasma

*Cheerios & red food color drops=red blood cells

*White marshmallows=white blood cells

*Purple pompom balls=platelets

*Salt=salt and other minerals in blood

We talked about the job of each part of our blood & the Reese helped me put each item in our jar. It ended up looking pretty gross at the end :) but he had a great time putting it together!

Pizza Fractions

I found this Pizza Fractions game at the educational supply store last week & couldn't help myself. Love the pictures, and I especially love that it has six different spinners for the different games so that you can play it for the most basic level (identifying smaller fractions...perfect for Reese at this level) all the way up to making equivalent fractions for higher grades.

Of course, Reese was ready to dig right in when I brought it home & he loved the realistic look of the pizza photographs!

Science: Mixture vs. Solution

In Science we have been working with water & reading about all the things it can do. Today, we read about solutions & mixtures and set out to make our own!

We gathered our materials. Reese chose what we would mix into the water...

oil, flour, sugar, blue food coloring drops, sand, & red powdered paint.

We made our predictions on which would become a solution & which would remain a mixture...
Reese was in charge of the mixing & observing...

And tasting...

he wanted to see what the blue food colored water tasted like...

gross....

and I had to stop him after a few sips because I just couldn't stomach feeding my child a cup full of food coloring!

We used a filter to see if we could separate the particles...

Reese watched to see if our predictions were correct...
Mixing our red powdered paint...

Mixing oil & water...

Once we were finished, we recorded our observations...

I'm still not sure about the flour though. When we stirred it, it looked like it had completely dissolved and was gone. But after it sat and I was cleaning up our things, I noticed a big lump of flour at the bottom of the glass, so I guess it remained a mixture?

Ancient Greece

In History we have been learning all about Ancient Greek culture so this week we had a Greek Food Festival! Reese was beyond excited to wear a toga (thank you Hubby for knowing how to put a toga on Reese....Mommy failed miserably at that task and had Reese in tears!)

I made the laurel leaf headband from cardboard, tin foil, & a paper-sack headband...

My laurel leaf headband was construction paper leaves & a paper sack headband,

and my outfit was a sheet with a hole cut in the middle and a rope around my waist.

I read multiple accounts that women did not wear togas unless they were prostitutes (!!)

so this is NOT a toga! It is a traditional drapey-fabric thing women wore.

Our togas/drapey-fabric things lasted all of about 15 minutes and we decided they were uncomfortable for cooking & eating & playing...but they made for a fun picture!

Our Greek feast included roasted chicken (food of the peasants & land owners...for city folk, meat was too expensive with the exception of pork), cheese (goat cheese was what they ate, we ate colby jack because Mommy forgot to buy the Feta), grapes (grapes & raisins were popular fruit choices), and Goldfish (fish was a staple of their diet but Reese said a big "no!" to fish, so Goldfish were our substitute)!

During meals, they used bread to wipe their fingers instead of napkins, so we used tortillas as our napkins. The Greeks would then throw those pieces to the dogs after they wiped their fingers, but Reese liked bread too much and ate them! And no forks, so we dug in with our fingers.

The Greeks drank wine (although they watered it down because to drink it straight up would be barbaric!) so I bought some sparkling red grape juice for our feast. Reese also thought it was cool that he didn't get to drink milk with dinner because the Greeks thought drinking milk was also barbaric, as they saved the milk to make cheese & a thick yogurt-type drink.

While we ate dinner, we watched a Wishbone episode called Homer Sweet Homer, & it told just a bit about the Odyssey (although we had read much more about Odysseus already).

For dessert we made Loukoumades, which are a sort of Greek donut (although I don't think these were an ancient Greek treat...but whatever!). We made the dough (flour, yeast, salt) and let it rise. Then we took balls off the dough & fried them. After cooling a bit, we poured a syrup over them made from honey, sugar, & water (cooked down into a syrup) and sprinkled with cinnamon. Honestly, I wasn't sure if I would like them because I don't like honey, but Reese pegged the flavor just right when he said they tasted just like a cinnamon roll! The texture was more like a little dinner roll but the taste was really, really good.

Valentine's Day Homeschool Ideas

This year, we're taking the day off from our regular curriculum for a day in February to have some fun with Valentine's Day themed activities! Here's a bit of what I have planned so far....I would love to hear any ideas you have to add to our list!

*Of course, the obligatory Valentine Candy Heart Math activities.

Predicting how many hearts are in the box

Identify how many tens & ones in the estimation number & actual number

Sorting by color & phrase

Graphing the results for number of each color

Creating word problems & algebraic equations using the numbers of colors of hearts (How many green and orange hearts do you have? If you have 3 green hearts and you need a total of 7, how many more do you need...3 + x = 7)

Identify greater than/less than using colors

Use an internet site to create a pie graph showing different colors & discuss different types of graphs

*Using a large version of graphing paper, Mom will draw hearts & we will use RedHot candies to find the area & perimeter of different hearts.

*Play a matching game using "broken hearts" and addition facts

*Play Heart Bingo

*Play Hershey Kisses Battleship.

Using a 10 x 10 grid, we will label the x-axis with letters and the y-axis with numbers. We'll place a few Kisses on our grid and will play Battleship. This will help teach map reading skills, along with graphing skills and how to read the x-axis and y-axis of a graph or map. If you find the Kiss, you get to take it & eat it!

*Using a Hundreds Chart and clues, solve the Valentine's Day Hundred Chart Puzzle

Reese will have to follow my clues (Place a heart shape on the number that is equal to two tens. Place a heart shape on the number that is 10 more than 36. etc) in order to solve the puzzle, which ends with a picture.

*Place Value Chocolates activity

By reading the clues (I have a two in the thousands place. I have a five in the ones place, etc) we'll find the chocolate with the correct number and glue it into place. As an extension, all even numbered chocolates will be colored dark brown and all odd numbered chocolates will be colored light brown.

*Make Sparkling Valentine's Hearts with borax

We'll shape pipe cleaners into heart shapes & suspend the shape into a large jar by a pencil. The Borax solution will crystallize on the pipe cleaner. We'll talk about the science behind our work. The Borax dissolves in warm water but when the water cools, the molecules of Borax crystallize 0ut of the solution and stick to the pipe cleaner. We'll use our hand-held microscope to view the crystals.

We have been studying body systems in Science already, so I don't think we'll focus too much on the heart & it's job. If I can find an appropriate picture book about Milton Hershey I'd like to read that as well...or maybe there's a good website about him. Need to check that out...

So, we'll be doing a day full of math & science activities for our Valentine's fun :) What are your plans?

Week 17

We are finishing up Week 17 of our Sonlight Core 1 curriculum. In Science, we are talking about our water system & the water cycle...how water gets from outside to your sink faucet. Very interesting stuff! We currently have saucers of water in various locations to see which evaporates faster, and we also have 4 petri dishes growing germy swabs from places on our bodies to see what will grow.

In Math, we are continuing to work on adding 3 numbers, double-digit addition, memorizing facts, fractions, skip counting, greater than/less than, equal/not equal, counting money, telling time, graphing, patterns,...whew! At the beginning of the year, I did not like our curriculum much (Horizon 1) but I have come to really like the spiral learning technique & the constant review Reese gets daily. I didn't' think we would do Horizon 2 next year, but I am starting to think I may stick with it. Reese has been doing really well with it, and it seems foolish to change if it's working.

Our History & Geography talks have gone from Egypt to ancient Greece. We started reading Greek Myths this week & Reese is fascinated by the stories! Yesterday, we read about Odysseus, the Trojan Horse and the Cyclops. Some of the stories are pretty gory (sticking a stick into Cyclop's eye to escape the his cave? Heck yes, Reese loved that story! ) We are reading a cute book called Usborne Greek Myths and I like how the stories are compacted down in to two-page versions. I have reserved a big stack of Greek myth books from the library & will pick them up today so we can read a little more in-depth about the different myths. Another favorite is King Midas & The Golden Touch.

We are using Handwriting Without Tears to work on our letter formations & I have been so very happy with this program. I like that it has given Mommy the "language" to help make letters properly. For example, for the number 8, I had been having Reese just make two circles because I could NOT figure out how to explain the figure-8 shape. Well, HWT explains it like this: "Make an S and go back home". Duh. Seems so common sense, but I couldn't think to explain it that way! We are almost finished with the Yellow book (I think that's book 1?) and we are going to move onto the Blue book (Book 2?) in a few weeks.

We do daily reading & comprehension, grammar work, & creative writing activities. We also have a Bible study from our book Leading Little Ones To God that we do about 4xs a week.

We are also going to begin Explode The Code 3 because Reese has caught onto pretty much everything phonetic very easily, but the silent -e at the end of the words is not sinking in. So I'm going to pick that up next week along with the Blue HWT & start incorporating that into our mornings.

On Fridays, Reese has AGAPE homeschool PE classes. He has done gymnastics, bounce houses, & played group games, and this month he begins karate followed by a month of ice skating. I have also been happy with this program, & he seems to have fun for the hour of PE.

Let's see...what else...I think that about covers it. We work for about 2.5 to 4 hours a day, depending on what we have that needs to be covered...

That about sums up our year so far. We start Week 18 on Monday and will keep plugging along! We have 36 weeks total, and I have us finishing the first week of June as of now.

Fun at the Sci Tech Discovery Center

We're always up for a good Children's Museum, and the SciTech Discovery Center fit the bill recently! On display was the travelling exhibit "Grossology". Pretty much anything you never knew you wanted to know about your body.

How 'bout a pinball game where you get points when you hit the foods that cause gas?

Potatoes anyone?

The rectum & a pile of poo? Funny stuff!
Take my picture Mom!

Yes, you could even *smell* the anus at a smelling station...

but I passed on that one.

*har har...pun...har har*

This is the smelling station, and this little number is what almost made me throw up...


The smell? It was "FEET". GROSS.

Here, my dear boy is climbing the wall of skin with all its imperfections...
warts, hairs, zits, moles...
Reach for the scabies honey!

Reese, posing as a booger, in the huge nose...

We learned the difference between a booger & snot.

Wanna know?

According to the museum man, a booger is what you can flick, & a snot is the goopy stuff.

Now you know.


They even had a life-sized Operation Game.

Luckily, my friend Holly knows about organs, because I told Reese the lungs were the liver.

Thanks for setting me straight Holly...

Random Pictures From The Past Few Weeks :)

Working hard at homeschool....
Family picture, Thanksgiving 2009

Jessie, Reese, & Austen, Thanksgiving 2009

Brothers!!

The Christmas tree is decorated & we're excited about Christmas!

Hey....It's Me!

Well hello! How long has it been now? Almost a month I think?

Oops :)

So what has Reese been up to? Let's see...the last post was about our September cruise (fun!) so in the past month, we have:

*Gone to Grammie's for a dinner with my cousins and their kiddos. Stopped by Pottsie's for breakfast on the way home & found a new favorite breakfast potato casserole.

*Visited the Ft. Worth Zoo for homeschool day. It started out as a very rainy morning, but it burned off about 2 hours into our day and the rest was nice. Luckily, Mommy is always prepared and had our Disney ponchos ready for the rain!

*Had a blast at homeschool PE each week. We've met at the park on nice days, at the rec center on rainy days...Reese is in a group of 6 & 7 year olds and they've spent the month of October playing group games. November takes us to a bounce house place for lots of fun!

*Reese visited the dentist and had his first cavity. Boo!

*Played baseball with our wonderful Coach Picquet from last Spring season. While our team may not have won many games, Reese has had a blast playing & I'm glad Coach came back again for the Fall. I'm hoping he puts together the team again in the Spring because Reese really meshes well with Coach Picquet & you can tell he likes coaching the boys! Our last game is tomorrow...if it doesn't rain!

*Saw Charlotte's Web at the Irving Arts Center. Love the prices, love the location. Their performances are always great, and this one didn't disappoint. I thought it would be fun to see the play at the IAC since we had just finished reading the book together for school.

*Traveled to Disney for a few days. Reese is *almost* tall enough for the last roller coaster in the entire park that he can't ride yet...Rockin' Roller Coaster in the Hollywood Studios park. He's got about 1/2 inch to go, and he was bummed he didn't get to ride it this time. We'll be back soon though, so maybe he'll have a mini-growth spurt between now & then and can ride!

*Visited two pumpkin patches, neither of which were the FM Pumpkin Patch. With all the rain we've had, I think there were only 2 sunny days when we could have gone, and both of those days were already full of things we had to do. So...this is the first year in about 8 years I haven't taken someone to the Pumpkin Patch!

*And, of course...SCHOOL! Reese has completed one of his readers and was very proud to put the certificate at the back of the book on the refrigerator! It is interesting to see his speed progressing, & I'm pleased his comprehension remains high.

Math is probably Mommy's least favorite subject to teach, and we tackle that first every day to make sure it gets done while we're both fresh! Lucky for me, Reese has grasped concepts like telling time, counting money, and addition fairly quickly. The only thing he struggles with is place value so we keep working through that. And lately he seems to want to read his numbers backwards ("36" is sixty-three) and that little skill is driving Mommy batty. But, again, we keep working through that and he'll figure it out, I know!

In History & Geography, we've been talking about ancient Egypt and mummies and King Tut...fascinating stuff for both of us! Did you know that King Tut's father's tomb has never been found? Reese declared that we need to travel to Egypt and find it :)

We also do a daily Bible study, handwriting practice, grammar, poetry & nursery rhymes, & other things thrown in here & there.

I am completely pleased with our Sonlight curriculum, and have started thinking about what we're going to do next year. The *only* part of our curriculum I'm not totally keen on is the Horizon Math program. It's just OK, but not something I really like...how it's laid out, how it jumps around concepts. I am hoping to attend a curriculum fair in the Spring so I can look through some other options for 2nd grade. Horizons Math, however, is one of the options Sonlight offers, so I can either choose a different program through Sonlight, or order something completely separate. We shall see!

So...in a (big) nutshell, that's what Reese has been up to! He is very excited about Halloween and trick or treating tonight. He's going to be a "Gold Scorpion Ninja". Mommy misses the days of cute clowns and piggies and pumpkins...but I know it comes with growing up!

Never Underestimate The Importance Of Creature Comforts

I'm just glad I made the list this time...

Reason #23 I'm Glad We Homeschool

Today, during 1st grade Math, we were working on word problems.

The very first problem of the day was about balls...

And the conversation went something like this:

REESE: "What kind of balls can I draw? Any kind?"

MOMMY: "Yes, you can draw any kind."

REESE: "So I can draw testicle balls?"

Perhaps this would have been his first visit to the Principal's office today! Instead, we had a silly laugh and he decided to draw tennis balls. That boy...I tell you what....sometimes he's a walking one man comedy show...

---

**Sorry for the really bad picture...my cell phone doesn't quite understand focus!**

Tell A Story About Your Family

The Assignment:

"Dictate a story about your family."

Guess who loves his Daddy? :)

Reading To Mommy

I meant to post this last week, so now I'm catching up! Reese reading:

Place Value

Working hard with our place value math manipulatives...

Place value was always such a hard concept for my first graders, but perhaps it was confusing because it was done in a large group.

Reese and I had fun making up our own games with the "cubes" and "rods",

and we'll keep working on it but I think it made sense!

Camp Tonkawa: Native American Day

Last week, Reese & I joined our AlphaBuds and went out to Camp Tonkawa for their Native American Camp day.

We had a fantastic, full day (we were there for about 6 hours!) and learned all about the Tonkawa Indians. How they lived, followed the buffalo, how they hunted and cooked, what they lived in, etc.

The pictures from the day are on my other computer, but there are two videos from the day that I liked.


Mrs. April taught us the Water Song, which they sang to give thanks for the water. Reese dug the tune...watch the head-bob at the end...


The second video was one of the activities Reese was most excited about...archery! During his first attempt, the arrow just lobbed into the ground. But his second shot went much better..


I'll do a post soon with our pictures from the day. It really was a neat place.

And we'll just forget about how Mommy managed to lock the keys in the car, and our friend Patti had to give us a ride home (over an hour!), and how Daddy had to take us back out to the car that night (another hour), and then we drove home (another hour).

Not the best ending to an amazing day...but we won't talk about that!

Power Rangers Can Read Too!

One of the things I adore about this age is the progression of learning to read. We worked on Saxon Phonics K last year, & this year we are using Sonlight's phonics program.

I can't tell you how proud I am that Reese is reading. And I'm even more proud that he's comprehending what he's reading. Even when it's choppy & I don't think there's any way he's making sense of the sentences, he can answer my questions about the story.

AND...it's pretty cool that you can dress like a Power Ranger for your school day :)

Overwhelmed. What? Me?

Exciting stuff happened last weekend...the FedEx man delivered two important boxes!

Reese's 1st Grade curriculum arrived and we couldn't wait to dig in and see what Mommy had ordered!

Lots of exciting books, instructor guides, manipulatives, experiments...

And more....

Overwhelmed with all of the items? Me? *cough cough* Nah!

I have to keep reminding myself that these are the supplies for our entire year and that if I laid out the supplies from my 1st Grade Teacher Days it would have looked just as massive an undertaking.

Luckily, Hubby always reminds me to eat the elephant one bite at a time & it does help me to remember that this isn't all for Day 1! :)

I've sorted through all the Instructor Guides and placed everything in the notebooks for Mama. We will begin our school year on August 17th & I can't wait...this curriculum from Sonlight is heavily literature based which makes me so excited!

And...it is a little less intimidating once everything is put on the bookshelves, in the cabinets, organized in the binders, etc.

But don't even get me started on the fact that my baby boy is a 1st grader...I remember when I taught 1st grade that the students seemed so independent and "big" by the end of the year. Don't even get me started I tell 'ya....

"Does he ever get to see other children?"

I took Reese to the pediatrician this week & he asked me this question...
"Does Reese ever get to socialize?
Does he see other children?"

I wish he understood the greatness of our friends.

And the fact that we come together to learn & explore.

Wednesday, we gathered to play outside & then

Learn about fractions...

They took turns, shared, played together, discussed, participated.

They were not confined to a classroom to accomplish this.

We gathered in a garage

(which was insanely clean & organized by the way!)

and sat around the group table...

learning with our friends.

Does Reese ever get to see other children?

Why, yes he does.

And what a group of wonderful children it is!!!

Needing Some Direction In Life....

Mrs. Deb hosted our CoOp three weeks ago (yikes...I'm way behind on posting!) & it was a big morning talking all about directions. North, South, East, West. Maps. And why they're important!

I love that Deb always, always puts so much effort & thought into her lessons. One week, when discussing Monarch butterflies, we arrived to find Mrs. Deb decked out in 4ft wide butterfly wings!

So, for our lesson on this day, Mrs. Deb became a pirate. Reese asked why she was dressed like a pirate, & she said it was because they were the best navigators! If I don't have my GPS, I'm so very lost :)

We looked at a real compass to determine North, South, East, & West. Everyone figured out which direction their houses faced. I only knew our house faced South because our satellite dish points towards the front of the house, and the dish must point South for proper reception!

Mrs. Deb is fantastic at knowing her directions, especially when driving...

We looked at different maps. A world map, a US map, a Texas map. Mrs. Deb pulled out a Disney World map too & we loved that! I think the map below was a map from the zoo...everyone took turns identifying water, roads, and different items in the key.

Then we went to the kitchen for some large-scale map fun! Mrs. Deb had put a compass rose on the map & everyone identified N, S, E, & W.

Then they took turns with their cars driving from point A to point B, and describing which direction they were driving as they followed to road's turns.

Reese thought it was neat to be able to get on the kitchen table, and you can see Reese & his buddy looking at the compass rose to figure out which direction he is driving his white truck.

I taught map skills when I was a 1st grade teacher, and this morning was WAY more full of exciting activities than I could have ever done with a group of 22 wiggle worms! Thanks Mrs. Deb for such a fantastic morning!!

A Visit To Grammie's!

A few weekends ago, we headed to San Marcos to pick up Austen for Spring Break & we stopped at Grammie's for the night along the way.

This ancient green phone was a toy of mine when I was Reese's age...

I love it that he loves something that was a favorite so long ago...

And it weighs about 20lbs...

So don't drop it!

Pottsie came to Grammie's with dinner for us all.

He made spaghetti and of course brought garlic bread.

No matter what we're eating, Reese has two requests for Pottsie...

To bring his famous garlic bread,

And to wrestle....

And he never lets Reese down on either one!

We also got to meet Maddie, Grammie's newest dog.
She has the softest fur,
But she can't quite seem to fit all her tongue in her mouth at one time...
She usually has it stuck out to the side.
I guess she sucked it up in this picture :)

I brought along our Phonics work to try and stay on schedule...
See that cup Reese is eating a snack out of?


This is another ancient relic from my childhood...

I love that my Mom saves stuff like this!
And it's the only cup Reese eats his snacks out of at Grammie's!