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.

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!

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....

Snippets From The Week & The Big Plan

For some reason, the past few Julys have brought about the need inside of me to make The Plan. The Homeschool Plan. To put down, on paper, exactly what our goals are for the next homeschool year.



Up until this point, my plans have been lofty. Reese has been young, & our Preschool years (are they gone already??)were spent learning from life. I'm glad he delighted in things that also taught him his letters, sounds, counting, colors, patterns, etc. Other than a few attempts here & there, we didn't do any formal sit-down-and-listen lessons. Reese wasn't ready, & I'm not pushing it.


He's a wickedly smart, motivated boy & he'll learn when he's ready.


So what's different this July? Well, technically, Reese is of Kindergarten age. I spent 4 years in college being taught how to teach. I was trained on techniques, curriculums, projects, objectives...all to help children learn.


The problem is now, though, that I have my own child who I get to spend 24/7 with. I watch him learn on his own, asking for our help when it's needed. I don't have to force anything down his throat that he's not ready for. He picks up bits of knowledge here & there from simply interacting with Mom, Dad, friends, coaches, life every day.


But now that my precious 5 year old is of "Kindergarten Age", I feel like I should have some sort of plan. A framework for our day. A plan of attack for our one main goal this year: Learn To Read.


My simple plan of attack quickly grew into something much more than Learn To Read. While I have chosen a phonics curriculum that I am completely confident in (the one I used when I taught 1st grade), I have also set out to incorporate activities in subjects such as Math, Social Studies, Science, Cooking, Literature.


I feel like I argue with myself. On one hand, we've been unschoolers up until now & it's worked extremely well. Reese could tackle any age-appropriate question and succeed with flying colors. But the Teacher Me has a hard time continuing this way. I spent too many years of college & work seeing the success of Teacher Led Learning. But I also know Reese, & my head and heart says take it slooooow, listen to Reese, and perhaps my goals are a bit too lofty. He has learned and absorbed and grown through living and experiences.


In a few days, I'll post my plan, a great Excel document Jeff created for tracking progress, and the curriculum choices I've made. At least I feel comfortable knowing I have something up my sleeve. Whether or not it all happens, only time will tell. If it's not working for Reese, I won't shove it down his throat. We'll find another method that works better. But I feel I'm failing him if I don't have some sort of plan...so that's where we are currently.

And now, some snippets from our week:

Reese was so excited when he found our old bubble blower that had gone missing...it was behind the washing machine! We pulled it out, washed off the ton of lint, & had great fun blowing tons of bubbles. The bubble solution from Gymboree is the BEST solution I've ever found!

Hey! It's the Taco Bell Cowboy! May I take your order?

Oh, my carb loving boy. We brought this huge loaf of french bread to feed to the ducks, but Reese decided it was for him instead. To the catty stranger-moms at the park who felt the need to comment: There's nothing wrong with a child running around the park with a loaf of bread. So kiss off.

Reese, Jessie, & I all pitched in to make Daddy's favorite dessert. I made the crust, Sissy made the white cheesecake-like center, and Reese topped the whole thing with cherry pie filling. He worked very carefully to spread the cherries just right...

I loved this picture, not because Reese has a deadpan face. Check out who is hovering a few steps above...waiting...for something...to fall...