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.

Pumpkin Mania

This week, in honor of Halloween, our studies focused around pumpkins.  It was kind of an easy week for us which was nice after the last couple of not-so-great weeks.  There were no spelling words, and I have cancelled the reading lessons for the time being until I get something that works better for us.  We still have the Reading Eggs program that Hayden appears to really enjoy.  There is a lot of review for him, and it seems to be a bit redundant for me (much more so than the 100 Lessons book we were using before), but the constant repeating of the same sounds in one lesson for him with this program doesn't bother him at all.  With the book, he would whine and complain every time I had him repeat the same word or sound over just once or twice.  The last time he got on the Reading Eggs program, he spent an hour on it (joyfully, I might add).  12 minutes with the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons was pure torture for him.  So, I guess this is better?

In addition to the Reading Eggs program, we also worked together as a team to write a Halloween story.  Sawyer also helped out with this.  Tomorrow (Halloween Day) we will put the story together in the form of a book with illustrations, title page, cover, etc.

Books we read this week were all about Halloween and pumpkins.  They are listed in the Books We Read post for October.

Probably the most enjoyable thing we did this week was the Five Little Pumpkins Felt Storyboard.  The boys absolutely loved it, and I videotaped them doing it themselves.  If I ever figure out how to connect the video camera properly to the computer to get just a certain segment, I will do it.  If you don't know the poem, it goes:

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.

The first one said, "Oh my! It's getting late!"

The second one said, "There are witches in the air!"

The third one said, "But we don't care."

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run!"
The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some fun!"

Whoo-ooh! went the wind,

and out went the lights,

And five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

Of course, my children like to ad lib to make the ending unique, and they are very fond of saying, "and the witches went dead." instead of the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.  Gotta love boys, right?

Our math and science went hand in hand this week.  We used pumpkins to measure, weigh, estimate, and count.  We recorded our estimations vs. actual measurements, and we performed a pumpkin floating experiment.   The boys compared pumpkins with other fruits and vegetables by guessing which ones would float vs. which ones wouldn't.  They played with that activity for ever.

Measuring the pumpkins



End results posted on board after weighing, measuring,
and estimating our seeds.

Floating pumpkin experiment

Recording results of floating vs. nonfloating foods

Everything but the carrot floats!

Time to count the seeds!
(Guess who wouldn't put their hands in
the pumpkin?)

In addition to these activities, we also had a Halloween party with our homeschool group.  The boys got to dress up and enjoyed playing with some of the other homeschoolers their age and older.

We also took a field trip to Vicar's Landing in Ponte Vedra Beach which is an assisted living facility.  We went with some friends (this was our third year doing this), and all the children dressed up in their costumes while the sweet little old ladies oohed and aahed over them and gave out candy.  It was very enjoyable for everyone, and it's nice to know that you can start working with your children at such an early age on the importance of being kind to others and giving them a sense of community, etc.

Add caption

Lesson Learned...for Me

This week was a real eye opener for me.  I finally realized (and probably not for the first time) that my son is not as old as he or I thinks he is when it comes to schooling.  He's articulate, loves science, has a great memory when it comes to remembering insanely long dinosaur names or whose house we went to last year on that Wednesday in June after playing at Ollie Koalas (or something along those lines).  However, when it comes to reading and writing, it's like someone switched my kid with someone else's.  Each week has gotten progressively more difficult with his cooperation, participation, and my patience when it comes to the reading lessons.  And since his spelling words come from the reading lessons, those have gotten worse, too.  Even his handwriting this week turned to crap.  I could tell he just did NOT care to do any of it.  I flat out cancelled one reading lesson after 15 minutes of complete frustration.  What's the point?  If neither of us is enjoying it, he can't possibly be learning, and if he is, then he certainly isn't developing a LOVE of the subject.  And I do not want to foster a hatred of reading and writing.  I love it too much.

I'm not giving up the Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, but I am going to back off.  You're supposed to do one lesson a day, but he just can't stand it.  When Sawyer is here, it's even worse because he's constantly trying to interrupt or even participate (but not properly), and it's extremely distracting.  I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to change it, but somehow or another, I've got to change my approach with his learning to read.  I did find a website that we tested out yesterday, and he seemed to really enjoy it.  It's called Reading Eggs.  This site has lessons in the form of a map that the child completes.  He gets to create his own avatar, he gets a house to live in, and special "stuff" to unlock as he does the lessons.  He also gets eggs to "spend" on games and additional features for his avatar or house, etc.  The animations are very captivating, and the lessons are fun.

As for math, we are continuing on with our money lessons.  Hayden is doing a great job with this, and because of this, it is the first thing we do after our opening each day.  He is learning to count by 5's and 10's very easily now because of the money activities, and he's gaining a better memory for which coins are which.  He's also figuring out how many nickels are in a dime, how many dimes in a dollar, etc.  We did/are doing some activities that I found at Math for School.  This site has curriculums, concepts, and subjects divided into separate groups and by grade level.  It has some great ideas.

Our fairy tales continued this week as well, but without as much gusto.  Either I picked the wrong books with the wrong morals/lessons, or Hayden is just not into the fairy tales.  Or maybe it was just that kind of week.  Seriously, this was the longest week ever.

Next week is bound to be better.  Pumpkins are on the agenda for every subject across the board.  I think that this will prove to be a better route to go - kind of like I did with the dinosaurs and Florida, Dr. Seuss, and the 5 Senses. 

Fairy Tales and Money

This week began a couple of new units for us.  It occurred to me the other day that I have never read fairy tales to the boys.  How could that have happened?  They don't know who Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Rumplestiltskin, Thumbelina, or any of those fairy tale characters are.  Shame, Mommy!  So, I decided that we needed to incorporate some fairy tales into our homeschooling lessons. 

Since Halloween is fast approaching, I figured that the Brothers Grimm were a good place to start with the fairy tale reading.  However, since the boys are still pretty young, I thought it best to stay away from the super creepy tales that they invented.  The Germans can get pretty twisted in their storytelling at times.  I had forgotten that the Brothers Grimm made quite a collection of tales with good morals to their stories.  So, that is what I am focusing on for the moment.  I have the list of books we read here. 

With the books we read this week, the morals we focused on were be kind to others and sharing.  With each story, we talked about the main characters and what their problems were, how they solved them, which characters we liked the best and the least, and we discussed how the story ended and what lesson the story taught us.  Mostly, I wanted Hayden to start learning how to discuss a story and how to pick it apart a bit.  I also wanted him to try to be creative with coming up with new endings, putting himself in the characters' places, etc. 

Since a lot of fairy tales focus on gold, trade, money, etc., I thought this would be a good time to start teaching Hayden about money.  This week was all about learning the names and values of coins, and next week will probably be similar.  I had no idea what a hard concept this can be for a child to learn.  It is incredibly difficult to remember which coin is which, what value belongs to each, the characteristics of each coin....and we haven't even touched on dollar bills! 


Making patterns with pennies and nickels



Using a number chart to count nickels.
Great way to count by 5's.  We will also
do this with dimes and quarters.



Coin Exchange and Counting Game

For the Coin Exchange and Counting Game, Hayden had to learn first that 1 nickel equals 5 pennies, 1 dime equals 10, and 1 quarter equals 25.  Then we were able to play a game where we roll a die and collect the number of pennies that the die shows.  Once 5 pennies are collected, you can trade them in for a nickel.  When you have 2 nickels, you can trade them in for a dime, and when you have 2 dimes and a nickel, you can trade them in for a quarter.  We played until we each got to the quarter.  He really enjoyed this game, and we'll probably play it as many times as he wants!

We also used money and a chart with a letter code to see how much each of his spelling words were worth.  Each letter had a cent value, and Hayden would add up the value for each letter after writing out each spelling word.

Last, but not least, we did a science experiement with the pennies.  I set out various ingredients to try to clean the pennies (vinegar, salt, ketchup) and some ingredients that wouldn't clean pennies (water, flour, milk, etc.).  The boys guessed which ingredient would clean the pennies the best and which would not clean them.  This one was a lot of fun, and I found an extension we can do with this experiment as well which we will do next week.

And for a completely off-subject project, a friend of mine sent me a link - the happy scientist - that has lots of fun science experiments, some of which are free.  This particular experiment involved collecting mushrooms and making spore prints, and they are definitely in abundance around here since we've had so much rain the last couple of weeks.  We collected at least 8 big ones.  It took us a couple of tries to get it right because they have to fully opened for the experiment to work, and the first ones I picked weren't completely mature.  However, in the end, we got some really good ones.  Below is a picture of our favorites.