Class Day ~ Go Dog Go!

GO DOG GO by P. D. Eastman

Here are some of the ideas that I took to do with the preK class at Class Day today.  Not saying we got to all of them, but these were the ones I found that sounded fun.  I also took toy cars for them to play with, we talked about opposites & touched on dog safety.

What’s in a Hat?

Materials:

12 X 18 white paper, crayons, paints, yarn, buttons, beads, magazine pages, scissors, glue

Procedures:

Take a 12 x 18 inch piece of paper and fold it in half.  With the creased edge away from you, take the two upper corners and  fold them down so that they meet at the exact center.  Now fold the remaining flaps up, one on each side.  Tuck in the remaining points and tape them. Have the children decorate their hat.

FROM: Arkansas Arts Center (arkarts.com)

Red Light Green Light

Was a nice game for outside time to get some energy out!

Torn Paper Dogs
Supply the children with a full sheet of white paper and half sheet of brown paper. Ask them to make a dog by tearing pieces of the brown paper and gluing them onto the white paper. Small amounts of other colored paper may be used. 
Dog Ear Headbands
Have the children cut out two strips of paper that when connected will fit around their head. Connect the strips with glue or tape, (staples will catch the child's hair). Supply the children with brown paper for ears and have them cut the paper however they want to and tape them on the outside of the headband. Ask the children what they would like you to write on their headband 
Sticker Art
Supply the children with stickers of dogs and have them place them on a piece of white paper. 
Paint like a Dog
Supply the children with paper and paint and have the children paint like a dog might paint. You may want to have them put a pair of clean socks on their hands to help them imagine not having fingers to use. 
Sponge Art
Supply the children with sponges of dogs and paint and have them dip the sponge in paint and press onto white paper. 
Dog Collages 
Have the children cut out pictures of dogs from magazines, and glue them onto a piece of paper for a collage. 
Paper Plate Dog Mask
Have the children paint a paper plate brown. When dry have the children add facial and ears made from construction paper. Cut out holes for the eyes and add a popsicle stick to the back of the plate near the bottom with glue. 
Dog or Bone Rubbings
Cut dog shapes from paper doilies or sandpaper. Tape these shapes to the table. Have the children place a piece of thin white paper over the shapes and rub a crayon over the shape. 
Cookie Cutter Painting
Put a small amount of tempera paint in a large shallow container. (A pie tin works well) Show your child how to dip the dog shaped cookie cutter in the paint and press onto a piece of paper to create a print. 
Dog Bone Prints
Supply the children with dog bones. Have the children dip the bones into paint and press onto paper. 

Dog or Bone Shape Match Up
---Cut out dog or bone Shapes from different colors of paper. Give each child one dog or bone Shape. Ask the children to find one person with the same color dog or bone Shape. 
Dog or Bone Sizing 
Cut out many different sized dog or bone. Ask the children to line up the dog or bone from largest to smallest. 
Dog or Bone Numbers 
Cut out ten shapes. Number them one to ten. Ask the children to line up the shapes from one to ten. 
Dog or Bone Sort:
Supply the children with plenty of dog or bone shapes of many sizes and colors. Ask the chidlren to sort the shapes by size, color or type. 
Lacing cards
Cut colored poster board into a dog or bone shapes and punch holes around the edges. Then let your child lace yarn or a shoestring into the cards. 
Stamping Patterns
Use dog or bone rubber stamps to create a simple pattern on the top half of a piece of paper. Ask your child to help you recreate the pattern on the bottom half of the paper. Tip: Start with one stamp, and have your child pick which stamp you used. Start slowly and work your way up to more complicated patterns.
Musical Dogs
Cut out dog or bone shapes from colored paper. Laminate them and cut them out. Place them on the floor. It is best for younger children to have more shapes than children. Play music and have the children walk around the room. When the music stops, each child needs to find a shape to stand on. 
Dog and Bone Match
Cut out a variety of dog and bone shapes from different colors of paper. Have the children match the same color dog with the same color bone. 
FROM: The Activity Idea Place- (123child.com)

A Homeschool Mother's Journal

I think I may give this weekly meme a try, as not to bore you with the daily stuff... just the good stuff that stands out!

In my life this week… baseball and scouts!

In our homeschool this week…field trip AND skating on Friday!

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… hands on learning - love it!

I am inspired by… all of the ladies in our homeschool group

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… Toltec Mounds & skating with friends!

My favorite thing this week was… finding Civil War Markers fairly close to my house

What’s working/not working for us… a schedule!

Questions/thoughts I have…am I doing this right - without a schedule?

Things I’m working on…getting my school room clean!

I’m reading…the Bible in 90 days - and I am WAY behind!

I’m cooking… roast, chicken soup!

I’m grateful for…the right to homeschool my children

I’m praying for…a decision a friend has to make

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Read Aloud Challenge ~ September 8th

Ok, when your kiddos leave Saturday, don't return until Monday evening & you have music and a funeral on Wednesday, doesn't leave for a lot of read aloud time...

We did manage to get in one chapter of Get on Board & one Chapter of Little House on the Prairie this week... but that was all for me reading aloud...

Want to know more about Read Aloud Challenge? Join  Debra at Footprints in the Butter for her Read Aloud Challenge

Read Aloud Challenge ~ September 1st

I have seen this a time or two and keep thinking I need to link up, but with the summer as crazy as it was, we didn’t really have a lot of read aloud time (bad mom, huh?) but, since school started back up and we are about back into the routine/swing of things, I have gotten back to the read alouds and actually decided to start keeping up with them each week and joining Debra at Footprints in the Butter for her Read Aloud Challenge each week.
The past couple of weeks, we worked our way through Little House in the Big Woods.  We finished it up last week and started Little House on the Prairie this week.  We are three chapters into it.  This is a series that everyone should read, even though I didn’t read it (for whatever reason) until I was an adult!  The kiddos love it and don’t let me forget that we need to read a chapter from it!
We also finally made it to the library this week, you know, since we don’t have enough books around here as it is! Anyways, we searched through the books and decided that we would do some reading and studying on the Civil War.  I came home with a stack of Civil War books, as well as put a few on order from the other libraries.
We did read What Lincoln Said by Sarah L. Thompson & Freedom River by Doreen Rappaport, both easy reader picture books, but very interesting! We also started Get on Board, the story of the Underground Railroad by James Haskins.
We are just getting started in this study of the Civil War, so if you have any favorite books, interesting links or anything else that we can use for this study, please share!  I would like to do a post telling of our study and all of the links and books and such that we used and what we did learn!  I will give you credit for recommending anything to us!

The (original) first day of school -

according to the public school anyways!!

Since today was the first day of public school, we had our Annual *NOT* Back to School Donuts & playdate...

We meet at the local donut shop right after classes get started and munch on donuts with our homeschool friends until all (32 this year) kiddos are hyped up on sugar and then we let them burn that energy while we moms continue our chatting!  Last year, we were able to get the skating rink, this year - we headed to a local park!

We did do some school work before we went for donuts and we came home and did a little more...

Then we ended up at a GS friends house (they homeschool also) to swim for the afternoon... for more mom chat time...

If that wasn't enough, I wrapped the day up at US Pizza Company for a MNO!

Man, that was a tough first day of school - or 11th in our case!

Helping at the local school

One of the teachers at the local elementary school received approval from the district to have the air on the two weeks before school started and she spread the word about an *extreme makeover* for the upcoming year.  Parents, teachers and other members of the community all pitched in to help.

 Lowe's donated paint, Sonic donated drinks, Subway donated sandwiches and people in the area donated their time and hard work.  My kiddos, along with a couple of other Girl Scouts, met up there and started working where we were told to go.  It started in the front yard with the flower beds...

The girls quickly got bored in the flower garden and somehow (I'm not quite sure, because I was told children could not paint) they ended up in the boys bathroom...with ORANGE paint!

The room turned out really cute and they even had to help clean up their messes...

3rd Annual *NOT* Back-to-School Blog Hop

I may have already posted this once, somewhere, but I can’t seem to find it.  I’ll share again here since it is for a new purpose - NOT Back to School!  We love this time of year!  We always start way before public school does around here and we take their first day and go out for breakfast!  The first couple of years, we went alone, but the past few, we have meet friends from our homeschool group at the donut place and hung out there… I assume we will probably be doing that again this year - as soon as I make the announcement and get it on the calendar!!

Ok, now for our school year….

BIBLE: Grapevine Studies -New Testament Overview & Life of Joseph (we briefly hit on the NT studies last year, I want to do a bit more in-depth with it).

LANGUAGE ARTS- Spectrum Workbooks (Spelling, Vocabulary, Writing, Grammar and Reading); Mad Libs; Gram Slam Game

MATH: Math U See (Zeta); {looking into either Life of Fred Fractions or Key to…- anyone have any opinion on either of these - strictly as supplement}

SCIENCE: Apologia - Human Anatomy; plus, I found out that Aerospace Adventures would be offered as a small group in 4H. (plus the kiddos *really* want to join the rabbit group)

HISTORY: All American History, Level II; and I am wanting something simple for World Geography (maybe like Galloping the Globe- but is that too young for them) just a little something extra-

TYPING: Mavis Beacon teaches typing, and their (and my) blogs.

EXTRA ACTIVITIES: Co-op (art, music & geography), Scouts, 4H, Swim Team/Baseball, church, piano/guitar

And, we can’t forget that I am going to work in what ever we get blessed with from the Crew for review!  This looks like a lot, but it really isn’t and we won’t do ALL of it everyday.

So, there’s our year - we are actually starting on some stuff today - like the stuff I have! We will add more as it trickles in…

A day full of Indians!!

Today we had a field trip with our homeschool group!!  It was a very full day and the kidds learned so much about Indians!

We started our day out at Toltec Mounds.  We got a tram guided tour around the grounds.  Our park interpreter was AWESOME!!  It was cold out, so it was the quick version!  Once we were in out of the cold, we learned about the grounds and about the indians that once lived there.  She shared a lot of artifacts with us- that were found there on the grounds.  We learned about the food they ate, the shelter's they lived in and the tools they used.  All of the kiddos got to take a turn at using a blowdart gun.

After our tour, we all had a picnic lunch in a heated pavillion, the kiddos got to check out some more of the artifacts.

From there, we headed to Arkansas Museum of Discovery.  The first part of the MoD was listening to SD Youngwolf of the Cherokee Tribe.  He shared several folktales, some music and a couple of dances.  We went to another part of the museum and learned the history of Arkansas Indians.  Another cool thing while we were there, they are hosting the Mystery of the Mayian Medallion that we got to go thru as part of our admission.  The kiddos thaought that was really neat!

Whew...what a long day.  We left the house at 8:30 this morning and didn't return home until 4:30 in the afternoon.  The kiddos decided they didn't want to go to church, they just wanted to chill for the evening. 

Roger was hunting, so I fixed the kiddos dinner and waited for him to eat.  As soon as he got home, a friend called wanting his help.  He ate a quick bite with me then went to his friends...on his way from there, the fire department got called out on a vehicle accident.  That is where he is now...I guess I am going to bed!

National Talk Like A Pirate Day

So, how else would we celebrate National Talk Like A Pirate Day besides going to the Children's Theater and seeing the play Treasure Island!

Very good play - if you are anywhere close to the Little Rock area during the time this is showing, I highly recommend it!  It was a little longer than the others we have seen, and at times, it was a bit scary, but overall, it wa a great show!

From there we took 4 gallon size ziplock bags of poptabs to the Ronald McDonald House.  Girl Scouts have been collecting them since January and it was time to turn them in.  Also, while we were out running around, we ran by a picture studio and picked up the shot of the kiddos at Channel 4 - I say kiddos - it was all of us -moms included! 

We grabbed a bite to eat and headed for the park.  We met several other homeschool families there and had a great time.  Made for a long day though....

Fallen Firefighter Memorial Unveiling and Fire Truck Parade

That is what the ad in the paper said, so you know we were there!

We left out Wednesday morning and headed downtown to the state capital.  The roads were not closed off, so we drove around down town, since we are never down there.  We got to the capital and were still quite a bit early, so we decided to go in the capital for a quick tour.  It has been a while since we were there and the kiddos did not remember it.  We went up and down the stairs, looked around at all the busy offices and they loved the center, looking up, then down at the rotunda part. Upon leaving, the lady at the visitors desk gave the kiddos all flags.  They were pretty excited about these -

and it gave them something to do while we waited.  There were 4 kiddos all together and they were really good waiting.

Once the parade started, the flags went in my pocket so they could cover their ears...do you know just how loud 40 fire trucks - all with sirens on - can be.  They were coming down Capital Ave towards the capital, so I think with the way the layout is, the noise also bounced back at us....

Here are a few shots of the trucks coming up Capital Avenue:

Here is the statue being brought in:We were able to get up close to the statue, so I was able to get some really good shots.

It is an absolutely gorgeous statue and of course, my pictures do not do it any justice at all.  The plans are for it to eventually end up on the west side of the capital in the area that is called the Captial Mall.  They are hoping to start breaking ground on it in November. The nozzle in the hand of the ff in the center will be part of a fountain.

On another note along with this - me and the 3 kiddos I was there with were in the Thursday's paper!  We are in between the statue and the capital building and the photographer got us in the shot!

Here is mor information on the Arkansas Fallen Firefighter Memorial if you are interested.

Our relaxed day

I had a few errands to run (you know- since I didn't go anywhere Friday, then snuck up on me). So, they grabbed their folders and worked on their basics while we were driving.  We got to talking about Memorials again, so on the way to town, I swung by a place where I knew there was one.  We got out and read all the names on the wall, one of them being my grandpa, another my uncle, and talked about why they are there.  It is a Veterans Memorial Wall, so it had the war along with their branch of service on it.  We talked about Pepaw being in WWII. After we left there, we stopped and watched a helicopter with some sort of rope hanging on it. I guess it was practicing  something -we lost sight of it. 

Leaving another errand, we found some magnolia blossoms that had fallen off the tree. Who knew they had red seeds in them? We collected a few of them to bring home and take apart.

Walking in the library, the first thing that we saw was a book about WWII!!  Riley was excited and wanted it.  We searched for some books on trees to see about the seeds we just found - there was nothing, we searched for some books on Moths and Butterflies for our science this week- they found a few of those.  The kiddos got on the computer for a while so I could search and find some other books for the week, including some camouflage animals and a few on Delaware and Pennsylvania.

We came home and had some lunch, then out to the back porch for history. They stayed out and played for a while after I finsihed reading to them. 

Between the 3 of us onver the past few days, we have finished a 500 and a 300 hundred piece puzzle. Samantha played with a different puzzle called Scrambled Egg for while, then they made tickets for the premiere of Hoodwinked - one showing only in our den.  Sorry you missed it!

Dinner was chicken pot pie! I love it when the weather cools down and we can start making those winter foods!  The kiddos ate it up and then went to grammas while I went to the fire station to catch up on some work that I missed.

Unschooling? What are your thoughts?

Me, I love the idea. I love the relaxed, child led, focus on their interests idea of education.  I am trying really hard to let my head know that my heart likes that idea.  My main thinking with unschooling, or even relaxed school, I think that they need to know the basics.  They have to know how to read, write legibly, basic math facts.  There are some grammar rules that they need to learn.  Once they get that down, then I am all about learn what you want to.

I have tried real hard to be relaxed, and I think I do a decent job at it.  When the kiddos were younger, I read The Well Trained Mind and I really like the classical aspect of homeschooling. Well, maybe it was the levels that I really took to, that and the 4 year history rotation.  I am not to much into teaching them Latin, we aren't into composer study and they are not to caring about studying the artists.  I like the science rotation also, but the more I read and think about things, we will be going with Apolgia from here on out and doing some total immersion studying on the science side of things. The reason we have done science the way we have the past two years is because they have to test at the end of their 3rd grade year.  I felt it best to use something that covered all the areas, so they would be prepared for the test.  Come to find out, they do not have to test that part anymore....so, we will do what we paid for this year, plus, they seem to like it, then go Apologia next year.

So, tell me what you think...what are your thoughts on unschooling or relaxed schooling.  Tell me why I should let go and let them learn!

Relaxed Friday

For some reason, we managed not to have anything planned for today, so we stayed home.  The kiddos did what little bit of work they had to do and then we pulled out the jigsaw puzzles and spent the afternoon working on a 500 piece puzzle.  They got most of it done.  The weather was starting to get yucky, so we just hung out around the house.  The only thing we did was go to the bank and fill up the van. 

Field Trip Friday!

Ok, we went on our very best field trip ever yet! Even better than the elephant sanctuary a year or so ago!

We went to visit and tour Channel 4!  The kiddos got a full behind the scenes tour of the station. The News room, the LIVE ON AIR room, the master control board, the commerical room, the central control panel, and even got to be on the Noon News! (If you are interested in seeing the show, email me and I will send you the link). 

I got several pictures, but the lighting was weird, so they are not very good at all.  The kids all had a great time and learned so much!

Finally Friday

And what a long Friday it was!!  The kiddos were cooperative with their work, but they were a little distracted also!  They finished all of their basics and then we wrapped up Wee Gillis -got all of the stuff we have worked on all week in their notebooks. My parents came and got them for the night, then Roger cooked me my favorite dinner - homemade chicken strips! We are sitting here playing poker against each other online.  As soon as the game is over, I am headed to bed!  I am drained...I think because the kiddos took so long with their stuff!

Cool nature picture

This was taken upside down under a leaf. Can you see what we see?

 

 

 

 

 

Here are a few more that may help you figure out what is hiding there.

He turned and looked my hand when I moved the other branches

Skipping school already!

Well, we 'skipped' our first day of school.  We did get one thing done this morning before our day went south! Here they are with their family trees. We have been working on these since the first day of school and we are finally finished with them (with the exception of FIL family).  These go back to their great-great grandparents.

Skipping school ocurred for two different reasons.  Today is my neice's 11th birthday and we were invited to Chuck E Cheese with them. I really did not want to go, so I told them we would probably pass, but I thought if the kiddos worked really hard this morning, I would surprise them with it.  They didn't get the chance to work really hard because Roger came home from work early and said he was going to deer camp to work on his stands-well, that lost Riley for the day!  He promised me that if he could go to deer camp, he would do all of Thursday and Friday's work on Friday. We didn't have anything on the calendar for Friday, so I agreed. 

Since he was gone, do you think she wanted to work? Duh!   I was onthe phone with a friend who was down one child also and her other was done with his work, so we went and picked him up and the three of us, me, Samantha and our firend R went to CEC with my sister and her friend.  We weren't there long, but the kiddos had fun.  Sorry, no pictures....

The kiddos ended up at Gramma's for dinner - they wanted to hang out with their other cousins that go back to school next week. They had 'restuarant' for dinner - that is gramma's way of cleaning out the fridge!! Roger and I had Little Caesar's pizza.  We then got started and re-arranged our bedroom.  I was getting bored with it, but it also needed a good cleaning!!  When you have 2 large dogs, you tend to have tons of dog hair! If I would have thought and taken a before pic, I would share....sorry!

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HAPPY 11th BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!

I love you!

4H is underway!

This morning, I had a meeting with the 4H rep from the county office and the 4H Club for our homeschool group is OFFICAL!  I asked about it within our group and the response was overwhelming - out of 30 families- 12 of them were interested - pretty good odds if you ask me!  So, I have been on the phone and dealing with the paper work and such, to get us up and going.  This meeting was the final step for me before we open it up to the families!  YAY!  Pray that our 4H Club is successful and that the children all enjoy and have fun with it!

From our meeting, we went and visitied Meme and Pepaw.  They have a new addition at their house. Meet Bo :

They are elderly, and do not really need a dog, especially a puppy, but when their other dog Teddy passed, about 3 months ago, my Pepaw went into a major depression - which is worse for him than a new puppy! So, my sis and my cousin found a liter, they both got one and got one for my grandparents.  While I say they do not need a dog, man - he was in a GREAT mood yesterday when we stopped by. This little fellar follwed him EVERYWHERE ~ makes his day! So, I guess he can keep him.  He is kinda cute anyways....

When we got home, the kiddos got straight on their school work and even though they drug it out longer than I cared for, they did get done before dinner!  Today was Language Arts, Math, and History.  They loved the connection of the Queen of Scots to our FIAR book Wee Gillis!  After reading Wee Gillis, we talked about family names, that went along with our family tree from last week!

The kiddos are begging to 'stay up all night' so I think I will let them, we will see how long that lasts!  I, however, am not staying up all night, so off to bed for me!

Field Trip Friday!

My goal for this year is to have Friday's be a light day and try to have a field trip or fun outing that we get to go on.  In between errands of course!  This Friday, we chose to visit theJacksonville Military Museum. My original intent for this trip was because the book Grandfather's Journey, talks briefly about war.  I am hoping to spark some history- specifically wars - in my kiddos - since our history goes into quite a bit of war.

Anyways, the trip was more sucessful than I thought it would be, we met several other homeschool families there and all the kiddos - even mine! - were pretty interested and we stayed for a long period of time.

He looked like a turtle

Now I know why - it was HEAVY!!

We planned on leaving there and going to a park, but everyone flaked out on that except us and one other family, so we just went to their house for lunch.  We hung out there for a while, then we left to the library and to pick up a few groceries, then home to finish school work. 

While I read Grandfather's Journey for the last time, they finished their coloring and cutting of all our pieces that we have worked on this week with the story, then I helped them get them all together and add them to their passport we are working on.  It is a combination of notebooking and lapbooking.  We have it designed like a passport and I am using a story disk for their counrty stamp and they are adding everything pertaining to that book in there.  It is just a spiral bound scrapbook that we are using.

We also have 2 different spiral bound scrapbooks that we used last year for science and will continue to add to them.

We finally got to stay home...

and have a NORMAL school day.  I know - there is no such thing as normal, but we did have a great day!

The kiddos woke early - of course, because we can sleep in today - and were ready to get started.  We made some muffins, while they were baking, the kiddos got thru their Language arts stuff - reading, handwriting, grammar spelling.  We had breakfast, and while we were working on math, I threw in our FIAR lesson - the days of the weeks and the months of the year.  They have the days down pat, and have for a while - but for some reason, we cannot seem to get the months down.  They know them, they just have issues with keeping them in order. I read Grandfather's Journey to them again and we moved on to science.  Our experiment wasn't done yet, so we just peeked at it and talked about it for a minute, we will finish it up on Monday. 

It was 11:00 am and we were finished with what I had planned for the day!!!  They pulled out the legos and turned on Legend of El Darado - it was a go along we got it from the library for our history this week.