HomeSchool Blog
2009Entries:
Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009: We were so happy because one of the half-hour Jack Hanna shows on Hallmark Channel last night was about Antarctica,
perfect timing for the discovery's birthday of it this week. (see
below) So we got to learn extra history of the people who mapped it
out; extra facts of the amazing huge continent, and great tidbits on
Antarctica's prime residents, penguins. (Noah had fun walking like a
penguin.) And we'll do a special segment on penguins for our alphabet
book.(see more info on Jack Hanna and ongoing details of our alphabet
book below.)
We also watched Hanna's half-hour show featuring the Red Sea while
waking up this morning. They have a great aquarium where you can swim
with dolphins. People there are also raising endangered Hawkbill
turtles for release into the sea, in addition to sea horses. Apparently
polution and man-made encroachment made them scarce in the Red Sea, but
they're hoping to change that now. Perhaps they'll help another
miracle take place, although of course on a smaller scale then
when the Red Sea got parted by Moses through God during the Exodus.
We're going to read about that again in the bible.
Noah's also going to do a couple experiments with a couple of our cats
Truffles & Earring (the pic at right looks a lot like them!)
because we watched DragonflyTV again this morning (see link below or on
homeschool resources page) and they were experimenting with their cats
to see which paws they preferred, left or right. Like the kids on
DragonflyTv, he'll put a treat in a tube and see which paw she uses to
take it out. Then he'll put a tiny bit of peanut butter on her nose
& see which paw she uses to take that off. Then he'll see which paw
she uses most to play with a hanging cat toy. We learned a big zoo
pairs up baby cheetahs with dogs as babies so they become best friends.
Then the cheetah will learn to walk on a leash around the park and
learn not to be scared of people. 
I'm also going to read him something I found online about cat (and some dog) intelligence etc. (please click cat pic to left.) Please
note: you might want to read it before you share it with your child so
you too can edit out any short details on some of the sad medical
experiments they do on cats, if you don't want your child exposed to
this. Otherwise, this page has some very interesting info.
Friday, Nov. 20, 2009:
Today is the anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. We don't do much on
battles, but if we were learning about Mexico right now, or just plain
needed an extra excuse for a little party (don't we always?,) we would
go here (click pic at left) for background research. 
Then
we would make a pinata (click pic at left) and castanets. Here's a
simple way to make the musical instruments: out of 2 paper or styrofoam
cups duct taped together, (after adding dried beans or rice inside for
a nice sound when shaken) and then wrapped in fancy paper.
We'll eat Mexican food for dinner (Noah loves helping to make tacos!)
and maybe dulce de leche ice cream for a treat. (click pic at right.)
Don't
forget to have a mini concert with your castanets before you break your
pinata open. You could sing a fun Mexican song like "La Cucaracha."
(click to left for fun animation & song lyrics demo of song.)
Thursday, Nov. 19:
Today in 1863 Abraham Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address so we
went here to read more about it (please click pic at right.) (For
some reason not all the links showed up when we first got to the page.
They did eventually, but if they don't "show" click where you think
they would be (after headers) and you'll find them.)
This week I've been discovering more joys of "motivation"
to do school for an active 7-year old boy. After each online lesson, I
gave him something small but fun and yummy as a treat, whether a
cheesie or a chip. (I know food isn't the best form of bribery for
health reasons, but I have growing boys, and they LOVE food, so it
works great for now. Don't worry, we don't overdo it. It's even better
when the item starts with a letter sound we're focusing on. 
Even
better I also discovered he prefers me to tickle him for a while after
each lesson, so we both get to laugh and giggle. We both love it! Yay!
He looks forward to it! Yesterday I discovered another treat motivator:
he takes a couple minutes to bounce a blown up balloon around: it's
exercise and a mood uplifter at the same time, not to mention a reward
of sorts. CWednesday, Nov. 18
Happy Mickey Mouse's Birthday!
We watched a Mickey movie on tape in honor of the event after school.
Plus we did math and language arts from some Mickey Mouse workbooks I'd
gotten at the dollar store. We should have made "birthday" cupcakes to
eat during the movie.
Today in 1307 William Tell
supposedly tried to shoot an apple off his poor son's head with an
arrow. This pretty famous "folk tale"seems best described by Wikipedia
(please press pic at right.)We
also listened to a funny version of the "William Tell Overture" with a
mother reciting things parents often say to kids, on YouTube Always
good to laugh! (please click screen at left.) We're
going to play with Noah's play bow & arrow set for P.E. I'll make a
target that includes some of the letter sounds he's learning for him to
try and shoot in the order I suggest. He loves it when I turn language
arts into a hands=on game!
We also found out that today in 1820 Antarctica
was discovered. We're going to do a page about it for our alphabet book
and find it on our globe. We researched some "cool" facts about it on
this website: (please click pic above left.) Also ordered a travel
brochure from one of the advertising companies. The pics will be great
for our mini report and we can always dream of visiting, right?
Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009:
Happy Homemade Bread Day!
Yum! I LOVE the smell of homebaked bread. Nothing like it as far as I'm
concerned. :) Need to find our breadmaker again, or do it the good
old-fashioned way. (Here's a recipe: great activity to teach the
science of yeast activation, etc.) We're going to figure out if yeast
is alive with the experiment (in PDF or Word form to download) here:
The next time we can get supplies in town we're going to try this yeast experiment: http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects/109/946/76ef3b258e498f04c6bda80ca08231fb.html
Meanwhile, we have extra bread right now, so we're going to do several bread activities for school:
For art I'm going to have Noah "paint" on some bread. (Please click on pic on right for instructions.)
We'll also make some bread clay and model alphabet letters and other things (Please click http://www.kidsturncentral.com/crafts/crecipe23.htm.)
Noah found some balloons I'd gotten for papier mache, so I suggested an
impromptu science experiments of sorts with one of them:We
stuck up ourstandard sized balloon Noah blew up (without helium of
course) at 1:15 p.m. onto our spreckled (little bumps) ceiling using
the force of "friction" to get it "charged up." (Noah remembered that
on his own from past different experiments.) I explained it is staying
up because of Static Electricity. The fan was going a d Noah turned on
the a/c too, so it moved about, but it's still sticking even after
moving onto a smooth poster we have tacked to the ceiling! Please click
balloon pic at top right for a great school science site we found with
a whole "how-to" we found on "Sticking Balloons to Things" and static.
It's called the "School for Champions" and we plan to visit often,
keeping in mind most science sites are secular (including the one I
list below), so we have to beware of macro evolution references.etc.
(At least they're less likely in a Physical Science experiment :))
At
6:50 p.m. Noah was amazed that the balloon on the smooth poster was
still sticking, while another on the bumpy part of the ceiling had
fallen long ago. So we went to ScienceMadeSimple.com for the nitty
gritty on static electricity, and we plan to do some of their
experiments another day. (Please click link upper left)We also found some static goodies on Creative Kids At Home, http://www.creativekidsathome.com/science/staticelectricity.html(not to mention a free kids activities ebook when we signed up for
their newsletter) We plan to do this experiment sometime to, not to
mention many of the others on this site: http://www.kids-science-experiments.com/resistingballoons.html If you've got older kids (like in 6th through 8th grade level) or just like to go more in-depth, you
might check out: http://www.sciencenetlinks.org/lessons.php?BenchmarkID=4&DocID=202
Static Electric Experiment Result: The
balloon fell at exactly 7:59 p.m. I was on overheated mode today so the
fan had been on all day, but it was dry and not humid, and temperature
outside is now 52 degrees. (Was in high 60s when Noah rubbed the
balloon on his hair and stuck it up there.) We'll think about why
before bed tonight and we'll discuss it on this blog another time.
Bouncing Egg Results, part 1:
Well,
the good news is the egg looked so neat when Noah took it out of the
vinegar after 7 days! (Please see entry a few days below for first part
of experiment.) But, as often happens to "real" scientists, there was a
mishap on the way to filling the sink with water so he could see if
the egg would now bounce: he dropped it and it hit something sharp and
it broke open. So when he took it out of the vinegar it looked
much bigger than before when he took it out, and we could see through
it with
the flashlight. It was the "see-through" clearish yellow of a natural
rubber
ball (the super bouncy kind from my childhood.) We were amazed. Too bad
we didn't get to take a pic before it fell, but we'll do do the
experiment all over again, like any great scientist does.
Noah's
report: "The
whole egg was yelow like when you crack a normal egg open and get the
yolk, except the
whole egg was that way. The big yolk thing acted like an alien or
rubber, except it leaked through my hands. That was weird. And the thin
white skin of the egg, all
soft, as if it's the shell but now a sticky see-throyugh membrane,is
left. Stronger than the regular membrane inside an egg, as if some of
shell strength leaked into it.
Happy Take a Hike Day! (Please see our Nature Nuggets page for a couple ideas soon.)
and
Happy Lewis & Clark Reached Pacific Day! (We'll do something about this another day too.)
Last night we had an impromptu late ending to the school day that was
biblical from a surprising source. Yay! We already have been enjoying Jack Hanna's Animal Adventures
half-hour television show on "regular" tv stations on occasion and now
on the Hallmark Channel. It's a fun source for some animal science
info. (Please click pic above for link to his site.)
But this weekend we were thrilled to find that three of his shows
featured him and his daughter in the Holy Land, so Noah got to see some
historical biblical spots and learn about some biblical animals at the
same time! We watched two of them, and learned some cool facts about
Camels, Ibeks (a fancy goat mentioned in the bible with cool big
horns), etc. Plus we saw a pool of water in an Oasis where King David
himself must have taken a drink.I'll add more to this portion of my
blog tomorrow. My eyelids are getting heavy :)
Monday, Nov. 16,2009:
Happy national Button Day!
In honor of that, I think we'll go to the About.com Family Crafts Site (please
click pic above.) I'll have Noah make a necklace out of buttons for his
sister for Christmas. I'll incorporate math by having him do it in a
"Pattern" of colors and shapes.Plus of course a "B is for Button" page
for our Alphabet Book.
We're excited because tomorrow the Leonid Meteor Shower
is supposed to put on a fantastic show, especially if you're not in a
place like a city with lot's of light pollution. Since we're blessed
with living in the middle of nowhere, we're planning to get up early
and watch it! I got information on it (and some cool free science and
sky newsletters) from Space.com (see link above.) Tomorrow we'll do
more Meteor-related lessons, which go with our recent theme of "M is
for..."
We also did our daily routine stuff of course, Time4Learning online curriculum and speech therapy included.
Plus now that he's reading and excited about it, Noah is grabbing every bit of packaging, mail etc. he can get his hands on and sounding out the letters to try and read the words. 
Like
him, I wish the English alphabet were less confusing for beginners, and
only had one sound per letter plus no "silent" tricksters, lol.
Wouldn't that give our kids much more confidence when learning to read?
That's probably why I've heard many times that English is one of the
toughest languages to learn!
Have I told you I'm labeling everything possible in the house with
easy-to-read words? From the microwave to the television etc., I want
Noah to be in a "print-rich" environment, as one teacher called it. I
did this for Novel when he was young for some Spanish words, and he
enjoyed that.
I was just given a fantastic gift. To me one of the huge blessings of
homeschooling is being with my kids almost all of every day. So I get
even more expressions of love and giggles. per 24-hour period. :)
Noah was watching a show, having finished his school for the day.
Suddenly he arrived at my bedroom doorway, his cute fingers shaped like
a heart and his even cuter face saying "I love you Mom." Then he made
his "heart" "burst out" like fireworks.This hand movement is a sign he
created one day especially for Mom and Dad, and we love it! He's been
offering it more to me out of the blue: He loves our new homeschool
method because I can fit Christian stuff into everything when possible
and it goes at his pace to fit his needs, so he's happier and showing
it. Yay.
Sat. Nov. 14, 2009:
We were so excited today! Noah was REALLY READING from the decodable
book on the online site we use, "Time4Learning." He's been reading some
words, but this is the first day he admitted it himself and read four
words in a row! Woohoo! I sang a silly song I made up impromptu, "You
are reading" to the tune of ":La Cucaracha" and we laughed together.
Yay! Isn't it grand?
Another thing that made me proud. Noah had seen a "smart kid" on his
Disney Channel's "Phineas & Ferb" cartoon that made himself a
color-coded schedule of all the things he had to do every day. So on
his own, Noah got out his art set markers and made his own schedule
through Christmas (featuring Christmas and my birthday as "holidays"
lol.) It doesn't have words yet, but it includes his chores (like
feeding the cats and dogs) prayer, meals, and even making me the
occasional cup of fancy coffee (he's a budding chef :) So cute!
While we're on the subject of "colorful" (that's how his schedule
looks) one of the things we did for art this week was Noah created
animals and abstract art out of one of his favorite materials, modeling
clay. He also formed the letters we've been focusing on this week,
practicing the sounds while he made them. Everything helps for his
speech therapy!
Saturdays are cool because one of our favorite learning shows, "DragonflyTV",
is on regular TV (Channel 24 on our DISH Satellite system anyhow). It's
a great show produced by PBS, but I don't find it on that station
anymore. (You can go visit their website at PBSKidsgo.org
though and find past episodes of DragonFlyTV plus lot's of other
science activities related to the show.) The shows are great and
feature all kinds of kids doing science firsthand.. Today, for instance, there were three themes on DragonflyTV.
The
first was Coral Reefs. The kids used a remote control underwater camera
sub they'd made to take pics of both busy reefs people-wise and ones
without any people visiting. Not surprisingly the people-less
reefs were faring much better health- and fish-wise. They hypothesized
from their data that pollution might be involved. We'll use Coral for
our special Alphabet Book we're working on. 
We also learned more about Manatees from the show. Please see our
"Nature Nuggets" page (link at side left) for a poem I wrote about them
you can download for copywork along with a coloring page from
royalty-free art.We
also focused on "m" recently on the online Time4Learning lessons so the
manatee segment worked perfectly. Of course, blueberry Muffins were the snack de jour to keep with the "M" sub-theme of the past couple days.
Finally, DragonFly TV focused on determining the types and quantities
of different Fish in a lake, which turned out to be healthy. Noah loves
fishing! Like the time he went fishing with brother Novel and Grandpapa
and sister Tenaya in the bay and they caught a couple different kinds.
So this intrigued him. F is for fish page! 
All week Noah's been doing
several vocabulary words (copywork writing, etc.) in his "Connect With
Words" book from School Specialty Publishing too (see below.) Isn't it great when they have a marvelous attitude? Love it!
Busy,
busy week as usual. :) It seems almost everything we do is an
opportunity for learning, so it never really stops, in my mind. But I
like it that way. If I make it fun, Noah and I are both happy and it's
another bonding experience. For instance today: another tickle session
after math. I adore Noah's squeals of glee and asking "more, more!" 
One everyday life learning experience, for example: Noah on his own has
played our "counting" game several times: where he starts counting
something in the house such as magazines etc. out loud, until he gets
to the highest number he knows. Then I mention the next number in line,
and he tries over and over again including that one, til he has that
one down. (We do activities with that new number in between too, of
course.)
Family
Game Night has also focused on "numbers" and strategy this week. His
dad taught him "Stratego" board game. He loves it and even won the
first game, knowing which number is higher and lower than the other.
He's also really enjoyed checking up on our "Bouncing Egg" science
experiment (see below.) Which led us to a discussion of "embryos". We
backed that up with a half hour "Magic School Bus"
episode on Discovery Kids Channel (they are fantastic animated learning
adventures that make the topics so much fun and more memorable!) about
the chicken and the egg. Then we saw on the wonderful "The Creation Series" episode by Kent Hovind (that airs weekly on the religious station "Inspiration")
that many of the different embryo pictures comparing human and animal
embryos like chickens, shown in standard secular textbooks still show
FALSE drawings made by a German man in the 1800s that was trying to
illustrate what he read by Darwin about "evolution," because no proof
has been found yet (Still no proof, never will be!) The illustrations
were since proven false, yet they are still included in recent, modern
textbooks. Human embryos do NOT have remnants of gill slits as many
secular textbooks still claim!
We did some rocket science this week too! Noah loves "MythBusters" on the Discovery Channel,
so we watched the one that featured them building rockets from scratch.
The shows are cool because they show the science behind stuff along
with the fun. We're going to build one of the model rockets I got him
soon, to extend the lesson further.
Wednesday, Nov. 11:
Happy Veteran's Day!
In
honor of today's remembrance of our armed service people, I went to KB
Teachers.com to make and print out a color worksheet that includes
"Veteran" among the 3 "V" words. Noah prefers color to black and white
whenever possible, so it's cool they have that option and that we can
choose our own words, font etc. I haven't been able to afford to get
the paid version so we have to deal with the big watermarks that also
get printed, but for free, what can you ask, huh? I also included
"Vine" among the words, for "fruit of the vine" from the bible.http://www.kbteachers.com/alphabet/learn-to-write-in-color-worksheet-maker.html
His dad and I also made Veteran's Day real for him by discussing Noah's
Grandpa, who lost his older brother in World War II when his brother's
plane was reported missing. His brother was a gunner. The plane
probably got shot down into the ocean. I explained to Noah that if this
brave man had not died for his country, he would be Noah's Great Uncle
right now. Next we'll do another Veteran's Day activity, this one from the many available at TeachersCorner.com.
We also checked on Noah's Bouncing Egg experiment he started yesterday
and got a great surprise! The one in the vinegar was now soft like a
bouncing ball! Apparently after a few hours the egg shell becomes
decalcified by the acid in the vinegar! Noah can't wait to see what
happens after 7 days when the experiment continues!
Since our online curriculum is focusing on the "M" sound today, afterward we watched an hour "Wild Kingdom" episode I'd taped all about Meerkats. This show, available on the Animal Planet television
station, still puts on a wonderful entertaining and informative
learning show about animals, like it did when I was young way back
when.I made a copywork sheet about it for Noah citing several
interesting facts in a story. When he's done we'll put that in his
special Alphabet Book I've mentioned we're working on.
Plus of course his daily Speech Therapy. And possibly more learning
lessons if there's time: likely outside to appeal to his outdoorsy
nature.
Since
today was a "V" focused day, we started some research on our coming
"Volcano" science experiment. We watched a really good show on the
university station (this one's by Arizona State University and has
several good programs for teachers, especially in science, that are
from Annenberg Media.) This half-hour "Earth Revealed" show we watched focused entirely on volcanoes and vulcanism, so it was perfect to learn all about them.
Tuesday Nov. 10:
After
praying for those who have submitted prayers to our Prayer Requests
page on this site (and others), as we do every morning, Noah and I are
going to have another busy day!
I
let Noah choose a science experiment to do out of our great "Giant Book
of Cool Stuff" Grandpapa got us on bargain sale at Borders. He chose
"The Bouncing Egg" and is patiently waiting to look at them after a few
hours (and then 7 days for the final part of the experiment!) "B" is
for Bouncing Egg, so that fits with our extra "B is for...:"theme this
week. 
So
we watched the PBS special I'd taped by Nature about bees and how they
are disappearing and how important they are to us since they pollinize
so much of what we eat.
He'll do worksheets today pertaining to "B is for Bible" from Sundayschoolprintables.com too. Since
the bouncing egg experiment will take long to come to fruition, I'm
letting him start another experiment too he wants to do (we'll use it
also for our "C" part of the book, about caves) He's going to make a
stalactite using the directions in the same book
above.
First Week of Nov., 2009:
This has been one of our BEST homeschooling weeks ever!
We found a superb homeschooling help site at time4learning.com
(you can click the link to the right to check it out, but don't forget
to come back here after :) ) We spend much of the school day doing that
online curriculum so we are sure to cover the requirements of all the
states regarding what is taught. Noah loves the "games" that are really
lessons and other animated lessons so much he did 35 lessons of it the
first week alone! We love it! This from a kid who used to "hate" school
with our old program.
It's SOOOO much more enjoyable than the other homeschool curriculum and
set-up we were using before, which was MUCH too stressful. (The one we
were with before was free through the local school district, so wound
up not being like homeschool at all almost! Zero flexibility, no
freedom at all to focus the curriculum on my child's needs.)
We also did a lot of other fun stuff I got to plan on my own (with help
from marvelous online sources sometimes). I just love gathering and
creating things to do to help make learning fun!:
We
had an "A is for Angel and..." Week where we focused on the 2 "A"
sounds for review. We are learning to sing "Angels We Have Heard On
High" (we got the music and words for free from: and sometimes I let
Noah conduct me so he can "make" me sing funny, so as to make Music
lessons not too serious ha ha) We plan to do a mini-concert of it in
our outdoor Sanctuary for Dad and friends and family when we've got it
down.) 
I had him do the Angel Alphabet worksheet I printed from the Sunday School Section at PreschoolPrintables.com (and
several ideas for Angel activities I also got from there, including a
story I downloaded and printed about the "Anunciation" and of course we
are learning a bible verse associated with angels:
I had him do some more alphabet worksheets I printed out too,
including one that had him copy the names of some short- and long-a
words like ape and apple. Plus we read several times the "Nat's Cat"
phonological book I downloaded for free as a sample from " We
love it, since we have cats and he wants a pet rat too. It's a great
book for the "at" sound! Plus you can color it in.
We also worked on some more"A" pages for our special alphabet book
we're working on: including "A is for African animals" we learned about
from an hour-long show I DVR taped on our Satellite TV about them. 
(My
Noah is suitably named, since he adores learning about animals! That's
why God had me name him that name, which I decided upon after the Holy
Spirit guided me to it while reading the bible during my pregnancy for
my youngest. I'm certain of it!)
I've found a great resource for animal science- related lessons is the
half-hour Cable in the Classroom-sponsored shows called "Champions of the Wild." They air on the "Animal Planet" station at 3 a.m. PST on our Dish Satellite system. They
go indepth about different animals and the people trying to save them
for extinction, with some really cool photography. Please keep in mind
that
they are secular and not Christian, so you might have to counteract
something they say about evolution or the age of the earth, (It's
gotten that Noah does it automatically himself by making a "bzz" sound
like they do on game shows when you get something wrong: it's so cute,
yet so wonderful at the same time he won't be fooled by evolution
claims, which are not based on fact but actually have been proven as
lies.) This week we watched one about the Octopus.
We'll use it for our "O" part of our special alphabet book we're making
by creating a special page about them; plus we'll use some of the
amazing facts we learned by making game cards with index cards of them,
to use in our trivia and other games.
We also did several "Vocabulary" worksheets about directions etc. from the School Specialty Publishing "Connect With Words" workbook
I got as a bargain for $4.95 a while back because the company no longer
sells it. I've found Borders has some really good resources available
in their "Bargain Books" sections on occasion, as long as you don't
mind if the enclosed extra CD is no longer valid for an additional 200
worksheets online, which I admit was disappointing to me.
Let's not forget the great-fun Dr. Seuss-inspired Science experiment we did with OOBLECK!
Noah just loves it, and all we need are cornstarch and water (and food
coloring if you want to color it.) I tie it in to Christianity by
saying "With God, all things are possible, even a mixture that is both
a solid and a liquid at the same time!"
For research, first we went to the Wikipedia website. .
(I don't trust it entirely for something vital, since ANYBODY can
add to it,) but it's fun to check out and has some cool entries for
Oobleck. (click pic to right for link.)
Then we found a great site from the National Science Foundation which
gave excellent directions for making OObleck and all the science behind
it. (click pic to left for link.)
The cool "Instructables" site also has good visual directions etc. for OObleck: Click robot at right for link:Finally, we found several cool videos like the one above on YouTube.com about
Oobleck we enjoyed, where people make Oobleck dance, or they run across
it, etc. We also liked the cute one by kids that refreshed us on how
to make it since it had been a while since I had Noah's older brother
make it for his classroom, way back when at a time when I wasn't
homeschooling him.
Plus the other night we
watched a 2 hour special on the Discovery Station about "Inside Planet
Earth" so we learned how hot the earth's core is and some extra stuff
that can apply to earth sciences.
My boys on a great homeschool field trip to learn about Chumash Indians last year.
Do you like their charcoal "beards?"
