Thanksgivukkah

It's a little late of a post, but like I said in the last one, the holidays get a little crazy.  This post is going to cover a period of three weeks, and then we will be back again after the Christmas holidays.

Language Arts
I've been trying to go through Hooked on Phonics with Sawyer.  He's big on using the computer (it has a little DVD that you use along with it), and he's big on the star sticker reward system.  He's not so big on trying to read.  So, it's been hard trying to find something that works for him.  Hooked on Phonics works, as long as I read the words along with him, we don't do it every day, and he figures out a lot of the words by memorization.  A lot of times, I go back after a week-long break from it (or more) to an early story that he's learned to see if he can still read it, and he seems to be remembering them by inferring from the pictures, but he's still having a difficult time blending all the sounds together in a word.  I'm pretty sure that I remember Hayden doing the same thing:  reading the first letter, sounding it out, and then just guessing what the rest of the word is.

With Hayden, I'll be glad when we are done with the Blue Book of Learning Language Arts through Literature.  I am SO ready to be past it and moving on to the Red Book.  Hayden's reading ability has actually skyrocketed these past few months, but there are just a few little things that need working on that keeps me from just chucking the Blue Book aside and moving on to the next one.  Maybe I'm just impatient…..?

Adding a star to our HOP book after completing a story on his own.

Slight close-up of book.

Coloring in pictures to cut and sort in the correct order.

The finished project.

Another ABC arc activity.  So far, we've done this forwards a few times
and backwards a few times.  Now, he's assembling it forward again, but without
the letters to look at as a guide.  Only A, M, N, and Z.

Handwriting without Tears wood pieces.  Being used to make a pirate.
I'm thinking that this purchase was kind of a waste for us.  But, at least it's
getting used?

Wet-Dry-Try letters on the chalkboard.  It's been a while since we did this.
This is a good one for him to do.  He enjoys it, and it forces him to slow
down and pay attention to what he's doing.

Cookie Sheet Challenge Time!  He finishes these activities in no time flat.
Part of me is happy that it's so easy, but the other part wishes he would slow
the heck down so my time isn't rushed with Hayden.  

Close up of the Cookie Sheet Challenge.

A little workbook on phonics.  This is something else that Sawyer really
seems to enjoy.  Maybe it's being able to see the progress of his completion?
Hayden can't stand workbooks.  I love how different they are.

Making word family flip books.

The last of Sawyer's Do-A-Dot worksheets.  He's been doing these since
last year,  I think?  Another activity that he's way past, but he enjoys doing
it.  So, I let him have this little fun time.

Working on a double story chart from the easy reader of the week.
He cuts out the pictures of the two characters, glues them on each side of the
paper, and then puts sentence strips below each picture that describes the
characters.

Lacing Letters
Sawyer said that he does NOT like doing this activity, but I have to say that
he has gotten exponentially better at doing it than the first time he did it over
the summer.  Again, he flew through this activity, way faster than I expected.

Cutting and pasting pictures in the correct order.
I think I'm getting tired of this type of activity from our curriculum.  We've
got the whole "order of events" down pat, I think.  I also think that Hayden
is over this as well.  He didn't even bother coloring the pictures this time.

The finished project.

Some fun with Skylanders.
Sawyer had to match each sentence with the correct Skylander.  I had to help
him read each sentence, but he sailed past it with flying colors.

Using the pocket chart sentence strips to help complete the next activity:
matching names to the correct Skylander.

More cookie sheet challenges.  

Reading all the past word family flip books that we've made.

Math:

Math is a subject that I don't think I spend enough time on with Sawyer.  I feel like he might be getting a little bit of the shaft with this, but I'm also trying to keep in mind that it's not a subject he's interested in right now, and he does get a lot of math when playing MathSeeds on the computer.  When we do get chances to do math together, it can get really frustrating because he doesn't want to listen.  He gets really silly, doesn't fully cooperate, and just basically makes it difficult to want to even sit with him.  I don't know if it's the material that we are using or if he just wants to go play.  Still figuring that part out….

Some more Skylanders to keep things interesting with money.

Then we played a money game where we rolled the die and selected that
number of pennies.  As we collected them, we had to trade them in for nickels
and dimes until we reached a quarter.

Hayden worked on adding 4-digit numbers without the use of the abacus.

Greater than, Less Than with adding 

Learning a little about even and odd numbers.

Writing the numbers 0 and 1.

Counting out objects and keeping track of the number using tally sticks.

Making numbers with the abacus that match what's on the dot cards.

Subtraction using part-whole circles, the abacus, and tiles.

More part-whole circle sets, and writing equations to match for addition and subtraction.

Social Studies:

Here's where the title of the post comes into play.  Since the beginning of last summer, we've been members of the JCA (the Jewish Community Alliance).  Not because we are Jewish, but because we were looking for a good workout facility that had a decent child care.  Plus, they have a swim team with the RCSL (River City Swim League), and since Hayden was going to be on a swim team for the summer, I thought, "Two birds, one stone!" Since then, we have learned that there is a lot more to this place than just the swim team and fitness center.  So, I decided that this year, we'd learn about some of the Jewish holidays, starting with Hanukkah.  Of course, Hanukkah, this year fell right at the same time as Thanksgiving.  Hence, Thanksgivukkah.  P.S. Please ignore the papery stuff on Hayden's head.  He was getting creative with the packaging of the Hanukkah wooden set I purchased.

Frying up some wooden latkes.

Lighting up the wooden menorah.

Stacking up the gelt in preparation of playing the dreidel.

Sawyer's turn.

Hayden takes a shot at it.

Books about Hanukkah that we read:
Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah by Susan L. Roth
Eight Days of Hanukkah byHarriet Ziefert
Jeremy's Dreidel by Ellie Gellman
Celebrate Hanukkah with Me by
This is the Dreidel by 

Menorah lighting started off the Hanukkah celebration at the JCA.

Eating a dinner of hot dogs, applesauce, and latkes after
the lighting.

 

Decorating frames for family pictures.

Listening to, and helping to act out the story of the Maccabbees.

Cookie decorating! (Always the best part)

And that's two weeks with a bang.  Next post will cover the rest of December with some Christmas stuff.  After that, we'll be taking a short break.  Happy Thanksgivukkah!

Pre-Holiday School Days

This is when it starts to get hard to stay on top of things with school.  There are too many fun projects that we could do.  It's WAY too easy to get sidetracked, and it's even harder to stay motivated with the "required" stuff.  But, we are trying (sort of).  Here's the last two weeks of the boys trying to stay focused……

*On a side note:  I noticed that I duplicated some pictures and projects on this post and another.  I deleted a few, but in an effort to keep myself from getting confused, I'm going to stop with the deleting now.  Viewers will just have to scroll past the duplicates.  Hopefully, this will be a one time thing.

Language Arts

Working on beginning sounds in the workbook.

Creating word family flip charts.

Do-a-Dot Letter Hunt worksheets.

Sawyer's Sight Word Caterpillar in the making!

Hayden's early reader review from the last month of his language arts curriculum.

Handwriting without Tears workbook activity.

Cutting out shapes and colors to make a color book after reading several books
about colors.

Searching for colors in magazines to go in his color book.

The books we read about colors.

Math:
Sawyer got lucky with math these last couple weeks.  It was either MathSeeds on the computer, or Skylander themed fun with addition, money, and sorting.  He was in heaven….

Cutting out the Skylanders and putting them into their proper element.

He knows these guys pretty well.  

Figuring out coin names and values.

Using the abacus to add numbers in the thousands.

Practice, practice, practice!

Reinforcing counting in the thousands by playing the Corners Game

Figuring out how many pennies equal a nickel and a dime.

Playing a coin exchange and counting game to help remember how much
each coin is worth.

After a week of using the abacus, we are now working on adding numbers
in the thousands without the use of the abacus.  

Science:

These last two weeks were spent finishing up the dinosaur unit (and lap book) we've been working off and on with over the course of the semester.  We talked about the diets of the different types of dinosaurs, how dinosaurs were born, the theories of extinction, and in the end, Hayden picked out one to learn a little more about.

Making carnivore and herbivore teeth out of playdoh.

Pretty sure that the one on the left is supposed to be sharp and pointy like a carnivore,
and the one on the right is supposed to be a flat peg-like herbivore tooth.

Filling out the mini book about dinosaur diets and how dinosaurs were born.

 These next few pictures are of experiments we did to explain the two most popular theories on dinosaur extinction:  the asteroid theory and the volcanic eruption theory.

Quick demo of what would happen to the Earth's crust if a meteor/asteroid slammed into it.
When we dropped the  marble (aka meteor) into the pan of cocoa covered flour (aka crust of
the Earth),  it left a nice sized crater and threw out a ton of flour up from underneath and out
onto the outer areas.

Ammonium Dichromate
An EXCELLENT way to show how volcanos really work!  Screw the baking
soda and vinegar experiment - this one is AWESOME!!

First you light the ammonium dichromate with a (preferably) long lighter.
It can take a few seconds for it to actually catch, and with a match or regular
lighter, this could inevitably burn your fingers.  Once it catches, the orange
crystals begin to turn black, burning from the inside out.

As it burns, it starts shooting the burned pieces up through the center and out of the
hole it is creating within the middle of the pile.

The ash blows out and off to the side, just like a volcano would if it were erupting.

The bigger the pile you start with, the bigger and longer burning experiment you will
get out of it.  This pile was barely a tablespoon full!  It was incredible! 

Hayden and Sawyer also got to make their own mini dinosaur worlds (a pie tin diorama, if you will).

This one is Sawyer's.  :)

They worked on these suckers for EVER!

Writing a pocketful of information about the Spinosaurus to add to the lap book.

Hayden's finished lap book on dinosaurs (this was our biggest one yet!):

Outside cover

Open all the way to show all the mini books.

Tabbed book on dinosaur diets and wheel of theories
on extinction

Pocket of Spinosaurus information

(Sideways) matchbook mini books on the definitions of
paleontologist, dinosaur, and fossil.

The flip flap book on types of dinosaurs (open)

Flip flap book on types of dinosaurs (closed)

The dinosaur accordion timeline (all folded up).

The dinosaur accordion timeline (open)

Social Studies:

And last, but not least, in our school for the last couple weeks, we finished up on learning about Japan.  We didn't get around to doing all the cool stuff that I really had in store for us, but that just means we'll get another opportunity the next time around….

We learned about Children's Day in Japan.  Families with a son fly fish-shaped windsocks outside
their homes on a long pole.  The windsocks represent carp swimming upstream.  Parents hope their
sons will overcome obstacles as they grow up and become men.

The work begins on adding scales to the fish windsocks.

Hayden was able to paint glue on his own. 

Their finished windsocks!

After the Children's Day activity, we learned about the cherry trees that bloom every spring in Japan.  it's apparently like walking through a fairyland with all the pink blossoms everywhere.  So, we made our own little cherry blossom art with blown watercolor paints and pink tissues.

Getting started was harder than we anticipated.

It helped when I was able to find a fatter straw for Sawyer to blow through.

Hayden was finally able to get the knack of it as well, even with the skinny straw!

Finally putting on the "blossoms"!