Happy Thanksgiving!

Short week this week due to the holiday, and thank goodness!!  I had already forgotten how unfocused children become this time of year.  They are CRAZY!!!  I think the next month is going to be a real challenge.  How does everybody get through this time of year homeschooling little ones?  If you have any tips, please feel free to share because I am all ears!

As for what we managed to accomplish this week:

• Our Letter Qq Mini Book (for Sawyer)
• Practice writing the letter Qq and some q words (for Hayden)
• Reading Eggs program
• Measured Mommy's belly for the 8th time and discovered that I have grown 5 1/2 inches since we first started this weekly activity
• Read a few more books related to the letter Q and Thanksgiving
• Went to a Thanksgiving chapel program at Sawyer's preschool
• Played corn darts, a Native American game that the boys learned about last month when we visited the Old Florida Museum in St. Augustine
• Added more leaves to our Thankful Thoughts Tree
• Practiced our French words
• Attempted a writing prompt called "The Family Meal" that didn't go so well because the boys were too distracted with Daddy being home from work and the fact that we are leaving this afternoon to go visit the grandparents.

Corn Darts



Sawyer's turn



Hayden's turn

He shoots!



He scores!!










I guess, for three days of school before a major holiday, we did okay.  Not so much in the math department, but the boys are having too much fun, and right now, that's what really counts, right?

As for our writing prompt, this is what we ended up with:
If you could cook any meal for your family, what would you make?  Describe the meal and tell how you would make it. (I should insert here that I gave a little help in the beginning because all Hayden wanted to make was dessert, and I had to explain that a meal included dinner - and for this writing activity, an appetizer - as well).

"I would make granola bars for my appetizer.  They would be honey granola bars and chocolate chip granola bars.  I would bake a turkey in the oven for dinner, cook some fish on the stove, and also cook deer in the oven with the turkey.  There would be carrots, lettuce, and cranberry sauce to dip the turkey in.  For dessert, I would bake fall leaf cupcakes.  They are the shape and color of fall leaves, and they taste like cinnamon rolls."

And, last but not least, I will leave you with a list of the boys' thankful thoughts from their Thankful Thoughts Tree:



Hayden is thankful for:

1. our money because we can buy stuff.
2. holidays because on Thanksgiving we get to eat turkey and on Christmas we get presents.
3. lizards and frogs because we can sometimes see the frogs jump in the water and the lizards run around.
4. our toys so we can play with them.
5. our Wii because we can play Mario Kart and Wii Sports Resort.
6. our library because we can get all different kinds of books.
7. our food because it keeps us healthy.
8. turkeys because we can eat them.
9. our clothes because they keep us warm in the winter.
10. our house because have a bed to sleep in and we have a a kitchen and a schoolroom.
11. the ocean because we get fish to eat from it.
12. the zoos because we can see all sorts of animals there.
13. our friends because we can play with them.
14. my family because I love them so much.

Sawyer is thankful for:

1. lions because I love nice lions.
2. America.
3. the rocket ships because we can ride in them so much to different planets like Mars.
4. apples because I like them.
5. bananas because we can eat them.
6. our dog because I love him so much!
7. the nice ghost because I love him so much.
8. fall leaves coming down because I can jump in a pile of them.
9. the turkeys because I like them to lick me.
10. the ocean because we can go scuba diving.
11. the rain because we can play in the rain.
12. bats because I can pet them and they're not so scary.
13. cereal because I can eat them.

For the record, I would like to state that I have never let Sawyer go scuba diving, ride a rocket ship to Mars, or pet a bat.  Nor has he ever seen a ghost to my knowledge or had a turkey lick him.  With that in mind, I am thankful for my childrens' active imaginations, the opportunity to be with them daily and to nurture their desires to learn and grow, and my ability to love them unconditionally on the days that they drive me insane.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week

As the title suggests, this week was National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.  So, we focused more on these two issues as well as Thanksgiving which is coming up way too quickly!

We did some of our normal routine stuff such as the Letter Mini Book of the Week (Letter Pp), the Reading Eggs program, money in math, and some games with spelling/recognizing words.


Bean bag toss game for spelling words



Using Boggle dice to spell out words



Counting coins worksheet

For working on hunger and homelessness awareness, we read several books (which you'll find listed in the "Books We Read" post), did some group activities and discussions which I found from the 2003 Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless website.  They have several lessons listed for different grade levels that were very helpful.  For us, we identified our basic needs (food, clothing, shelter) and completed a "What Do I Need?" worksheet together, and we identified ways that we can help homeless people and families.  In doing that, we decided to partipate in the Sulzbacher Center's Stocking Stuffer Drive.  We went to Walmart and to the Dollar Tree store to purchase gloves, hats, socks, chapstick, coloring books & crayons, calculators, pocket calendars, coloring pencils, etc.  The week after Thanksgiving, we'll be taking all of these things to the Sulzbacher Center in downtown Jacksonville, and we'll be getting a tour of their facility.  In addition, we are also collecting canned goods for the Second Harvest with our homeschool group.

For Thanksgiving, we read more books (also listed in the "Books We Read" post).  After reading each of these books, we did some sort of activity such as a pilgrim hat craft project, made harvest bread and butter from shaking heavy cream, made pumpkin muffins, and we added a new leaf to our Thankful Thoughts tree each day. 

Two little shifty-eyed pilgrims

Kneading our harvest bread

Shake that butter!

Finished product with mouse & cheese decoration

November Books We Read

Natasha and the Letter N by Klingel and Noyed
Naps, The Sound of N by Klingel and Noyed
My "n" Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Oscar, Me, and the Letter O by Klingel and Noyed
Quentin's Quiz and the Letter Q by Klingel and Noyed
Quack! The Sounds of Q by Klingel and Noyed
My "q" Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Word Bird's Fall Words by Jane Belk Moncure

Wonderbooks Thanksgiving by Kathryn Kyle
Thanksgiving Day Alphabet by Beverly Barras Vidrine
A Pioneer Thanksgiving by Barbara Greenwood
The First Thanksgiving by Linda Hayward
P is for Pilgrim - A Thanksgiving Alphabet by Carol Crane
An Awesome Book of Thanks! by Dallas Clayton

The Lady in the Box by Ann McGovern
Silly Tillie by Jeanine Wine
Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan
Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting

A Time to Be Thankful

This week began our unit for Thanksgiving as well as our unit on the homeless and those in need.  We read several books on both subjects, and we did a lot of discussions and group activity.

Some things we did this week for our Thanksgiving unit:

Thanksgiving Bingo - This was printed out from DLTK's website which has a bunch of preschool games, coloring activites, art projects, etc. to pull from.  You can print out these things in color or in black and white.  For us, I printed out 3 cards (you can print much more than that if you want), and we played forever!
Thankful Thoughts Tree - I made a tree out of brown packaging paper and a bunch of maple leaves from red, orange, yellow, brown, and green construction paper.  For the first day, the boys had to come up with 4 things they are thankful for.  After that, we all come up with one thing a day, and I write those thankful thoughts on the leaves and add them to the tree.  It was very entertaining to hear some of the things that they said.  For example:  one of Sawyer's thankful thoughts was, "I'm thankful for my dog because I love him so much!" and then, three seconds later, "I'm thankful for lions because I love nice lions!".  Hayden had some pretty typical thankful thoughts such as, "I'm thankful for our toys because we get to play with them." and "I'm thankful for holidays because on Thanksgiving we get turkey and on Christmas we get presents."  It will be interesting to see if these thankful thoughts morph as we get more into our homeless/helping others unit.
TeePee Craft - This was just a fun little art project where the boys got to color and decorate a small version of an indian teepee. 
Roll a Turkey Game - This was a game that involved rolling a die and getting a shape based on the number rolled to eventually build an entire turkey.  The first one to complete their turkey won the game.  Hayden enjoyed this game so much that he played it again over the weekend with his Dad.
Make Cranberry Sauce - After reading a couple of chapters in one of our Thanksgiving books, we made cranberry sauce from a pioneer recipe that was in the story.  Later in the week, we taste-tested it with some roasted chicken.  The boys didn't think they were going to like it, but were pleasantly surprised to find out how delicious it was!

Our Homeless/Helping Others Unit will really take effect next week during National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.  However, just to kickstart the boys thinking about it, we read a few books and had some discussions on respecting others' differences, being kind to others, and being helpful to those in need.  On Friday, we joined the Stocking Stuffer Drive with the Sulzbacher Center located in downtown Jacksonville.  We'll use the next two weeks to collect items for this campaign, and then we will take them all to the Center where Hayden will get to see how the items will be given to the Sulzbacher's residents as well as to needy community members as part of holiday gift stockings.  We'll also be given a tour of their facility so Hayden will be able to get a feel for what it is like for those without homes.

In Between Holidays

It occurred to me today that I completely forgot to do the new post on this blog. 

Since Monday (2 weeks ago) was the 31st, we were able to stretch out our Halloween theme for a couple more days.  Hayden had a great time sorting and counting all the candy that the two of them got on Halloween night.  We made a line graph using all those candies.  It was definitely the most candy the boys have ever gotten, and I'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of it all since we missed the boat on donating it to a local dentist's office for it to be sent off to the troops overseas.

The Loot

Graph of our candies - Bubblegum was the winner

We also did a project from The Happy Scientist that involved me telling a story while painting a picture with the spice, turmeric, in addition to using rubbing alcohol and ammonia.  It freaked Hayden out a little bit.  Even after the explanation of why the picture did what it did, he had no desire to hold the picture whatsoever.

We began french lessons this week as well at a friend's house once a week.  Hayden participated really well.  Sawyer was hit-and-miss.  It mostly involves playing while using french words for objects that they are already familiar with.  Since the holidays are here, the focus is on food and cooking utensils now.

For math, we went back to learning about money.  Mostly, I had Hayden learning to count out pennies in groups of 10 so that he learns that 10 groups of 10 equal 100 (cents) or $1.00.  We expanded that to dimes this week.  He had to place one dime for each group of 10 pennies, thereby learning that 10 dimes = $1.00 and 10 pennies = 1 dime and 10 dimes = 100 pennies.  We then used that knowledge to "buy" some toys around the house.  We talked about what was easier to manage - 100 pennies or 10 dimes or 1 dollar bill?

Our "bulletin board" with our money poem and large versions
of each type of coin and dollar bill up to $100.  

For language arts, we did our letter Nn mini book, read some books about the letter N, and Hayden got to work on his Reading Eggs program.  The boys also worked together in matching letters in different fonts to the correct letter box.  Each letter of the alphabet was sectioned off, and there were 5 different styles to find the letters in.  This activity was mostly to encourage them to see that the letters of the alphabet don't always look the same (i.e. Aa, Aa,Aa, Aa).

Hayden playing his Reading Eggs program while Sawyer watches and learns.