School!

Yes, school is back in session, at least in our home. :) Remember, we do 6 terms of 6 weeks on and 2 weeks off so we only get about 4-6 weeks off for summer. My kids are now in 3rd and 5th grade! I can't believe it. Anyways, here is day 1 of school. So, here's out day until the end of school.

I generally let the kids sleep in. So, they do breakfasts around 8:30am.

At 9am we start chores. In case you're wondering about the headphones, Collin loves listening to audio books so he walks around the house all day listening to an audio book. I figure there are much worse things he could be doing so it doesn't bother me until I need to talk to him. LOL!

 Math

She often sits in this little cubby under the desk to do school work or read. 

 After math we did literature. I am currently reading The War That Saved My Life aloud to them. They are loving it. After each reading session we have an activity and discussion questions we go over.

Lunch Break!

After lunch break we go into writing (This is Collin's least favorite and can often be very stressful so we have to have a fun subject after it). In this picture they're working on persuasive essays of why the animal they chose is the best animal in the world. Ryanne chose a dog and Collin chose a manticore. 

 So, this is how I do direct instruction. Schools have smart boards, I have a laptop I plug into the television. :) It works. This was science. We're doing a unit on energy for this 6 week term because we're doing a history unit on WWII. We're going to go into nuclear energy and atomic energy later in the unit so I thought they'd fit well together. We alternate history and science -- science 3 days and history 2 days each week. 

Ryanne didn't finish all her math during math time so here she is finishing up her math worksheet.

 The kids then had to finish their chores. They went out to play. Then I fed them a quick dinner before I took Ryanne off to dance, again. :)

Curriculum

So, I have been asked lately - several times actually - about the curriculum I use because curriculum is SO expensive. So, here's what I do, I write my own. Now, just so you know, my degree is in educational studies which means it was all about learning different methodologies of teaching and writing curriculum. Ta-da! So, that's how I saved money, I spent thousands of dollars on a degree to teach me how to write curriculum so I don't have to buy it. Make sense? Yeah, I didn't think so either. LOL!
I do buy math curriculum. I use Singapore Math.

Now, for the rest of the subjects... I normally choose a book for literature and then the rest of the topics revolve around that. So, for this next 6 weeks we are using....The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley.

This is what Amazon says about it:

Nine-year-old Ada has never left her one-room apartment. Her mother is too humiliated by Ada’s twisted foot to let her outside. So when her little brother Jamie is shipped out of London to escape the war, Ada doesn’t waste a minute—she sneaks out to join him. So begins a new adventure of Ada, and for Susan Smith, the woman who is forced to take the two kids in. As Ada teaches herself to ride a pony, learns to read, and watches for German spies, she begins to trust Susan—and Susan begins to love Ada and Jamie. But in the end, will their bond be enough to hold them together through wartime? Or will Ada and her brother fall back into the cruel hands of their mother? This masterful work of historical fiction is equal parts adventure and a moving tale of family and identity—a classic in the making.

So, now let's break up the subjects:

• Vocabulary/Spelling
• Math
• History
• Literature
• Writing
• Science
• ELA

I've already mentioned what I do for math so we won't even worry about that one now. Vocabulary/Spelling -- I choose words from the book. Easy peasy!

History - well, this book is set during World War 2 so we're going to learn about WWII

Literature/Writing/ELA - let's just put all these in the same section. So, for literature, obviously we're going to be reading this story. I have lots of discussion questions and writing assignments to go with it as well. (See, that includes some writing as well.) Then, for ELA (English Language Arts) we will be working on parts of speech and how to better write a paper with topic sentences and supporting details and such so there will be a lot of writing involved in there as well. This 6 week period is going to be very heavy on the writing of essays and things. We are even going to start a blog (private) for the kids to practice doing that as well. I thought it could be fun.

Science- Since this is WWII, the kids are going to start with energy and work up to nuclear energy and the atomic bomb. Collin is excited because it's going to include a tiny bit of chemistry, which he is very interested in but doesn't know a lot about yet. 

I do a lot of the lessons as power points (with videos and interactive games as well) and plug my computer into the television so they can see it well. It works great! Here's an example of a slide I made from the radioactivity lesson. 

 Here's an example of a slide from literature.

This is an example from writing. Now... let me say that I love using the animation stuff so each picture appears on there one at a time and  not until after everything has been read. I just think the animation is more fun. LOL!

So, now you have a little taste of how I am able to afford the homeschool curriculum we use. :)

There are many examples of premade curriculum that follows this same format, but it wasn't hitting the places my kids needed work and they found the books we were reading to be very boring so.... I do it myself now. :)

A Day in our School

A day in our life looks something like this....

Trip to the zoo

My mom has been asking me if I forgot my Blogger password b/c it's been so long since I blogged so... here we go. :)

My kids with nieces and nephew on a giant chair.

We took the wood walk from the gardens to the zoo. We also found a rattle snake... not cool. We survived though and made it to the zoo.I seem to be a snake magnet lately - corn snake while mowing lawn and cottonmouth while hiking with Ryanne. So, outdoors with me could be dangerous. Just sayin'.

We can't go to the zoo without a ride on the carousel. 

koala. I love the koala. I just want to cuddle it.

The little rock star feeding the goats.

This was the Little Rock Star's goat. He was sweet with her so all the other kids liked him more too. We had to get a picture of him.

We love the giraffes. It's always so cool when they are right there for the kids to pet.

Gorilla

Kangaroo... to the right of Collin.

Collin's favorite creature of the trip... he loved the reflection on its scales.

Ryanne's favorite animal.

The boys. :)

Brian P. Clearly

My sister introduced me to this author. You can see a list of his books on Amazon here. I'll focus on only one book but I think all of his books are probably amazing! :) I haven't read them all... only 2 of them but such a fun concept.

This is a very colorful book. The graphics are bright and fun to pull a student in and entertain them. Even the font is exciting. It begins by defining an adjective but then it goes on giving examples. It goes on with funny pictures and the text describes the pictures with lots of adjectives and rhyming words. Such a fun read and great way to show students what an adjective is.

I recommend these books and can think of so many uses for them. The author not only writes these for grammar but for math, science, and other language arts words like antonyms and such. Really cool. Below is a cute video some students created about the book. hehe! It's their own little adaptation.

I guess, overall, I'm saying I totally recommend these books. I think classrooms should use them, parents should get the ones needed, and home education families should have them. Luckily, our library has a lot of them and so does my sister so I have places to borrow it from. hehe! YAY!!! :)

Manic Monday: QR Codes in the Classroom!

I am working on my practicum. I am lucky enough to be in an awesome class of 2nd graders with an incredible teacher. I have been learning so much from her. I needed to create a lesson that includes the instruction, guided practice, and independent practice. It had to be on phonemic or phonetic awareness. My teacher said it should be a lesson that can be taught in the dark. So, I tried to think of a way I could teach an independent lesson that can be done in the dark. Then, it hit me. Audio! QR codes! So.... here is what resulted in it. :)

It uses the book Can I Keep Him? by Steven Kellogg. It also aligns with Common Core RF.2.3.A. There are two sets of task cards... one uses qr codes and a second set that doesn't. ;) They are the same questions though. If you want this freebie then click HERE to download it.


Also, May 6-7 is a SALE on TPT. 20% off everything in my store and many others if you use the Promo Code TPTXO. My store is here.

We are the shapeshifters!

Today (April 15th) I had the opportunity to complete my bulletin board assignment. So, I got to teach a mini lesson with the students and do an activity. I read The Greedy Triangle to them.

They were completely glued to the story. It was awesome. I guess that means my voices and expressions passed the second graders test. ;) Then, I gave them their instructions, showed them an example and we worked on our anchor chart.

The bottom one is the sample with the sample also written on an index card in the corner for my shape sample. I also asked them for words they thought they would need help spelling and wrote them on the top chart. :) The parallelogram stumped both the teacher and myself. LOL! We had to look that one up. I told them that was a very good word. ;) haha!

Here are some examples of what the students' did. There are two boys who have autism in this class as well. Both of theirs are pictured. I just loved the creativity. I know, you are thinking, "Why didn't I give them something to trace?" Well, I did this for a couple of reasons. I wanted them to know the shapes and to do them on their own. The other reason, and much more important reason, was that I wanted to students to be creative and make their own shapes. I wanted all the shapes to be different, just like they are. I wanted the shapes to show character. There were two girls who did pink stars. If they had things to trace then the stars would have looked exactly the same. However, they didn't have templates or anything to trace so they looked completely different and totally fabulous! I loved the way the students used their own imagination to create their shapes.

Here is how the whole thing looked. Two students were absent so theirs will be added later. ;)

I had so much fun!!!

By the way, I earned an A!!! :)

Wednesday Reads: How Do Apples Grow?

How Do Apples Grow? by Betsy Maestro


This is non-fiction and science-y. ;) We've been doing a unit on plants and while he was focusing on flowers -- the pistils and ovaries and reproduction of flowers, we decided to read this book. It starts with winter of an apple tree's life and goes through the process all the way until the next winter. It includes the bees, parts of a flower and everything. It's the perfect book for a plant lesson. I wouldn't recommend it for preschool but it is great for elementary school!

Learning Resources

There are two things I have recently learned about that I have incorporated at home but could easily be incorporated in a classroom as well. All students need brain breaks, right? Especially since so many students are only given one 15-20 minute recess each day. That's crazy!!! Most teachers do "Movement" in their class. It's an opportunity for students to get up and move. I recently learned about a website called Go Noodle! It's a fun opportunity for brain breaks. You can set it up for FREE!!! :) Just go to https://www.gonoodle.com/.
You set it up for your class and choose a class champ. The champ is sort of like a mascot. As the students complete different brain break activities, they get more points and the champ grows.

See, here is our champ. This is actually our second champ because we completed the first champ. The program is cool because all you do is click that big green "PLAY" button on the bottom. Then, it takes you to a screen where all the activities are. You can favorite the ones you really like. My kids favorite the ones they like, I don't. I can also decide if they choose something from the Energizing section or the Calming section. If they're falling asleep on me or just plain lethargic and bored then they choose a Energizing activity to wake them up. If they're too energetic or stressed from school then I put on the Calming section and let them choose one from there.

Here's a screen shot so you can see some of the options. There's dancing too, it somehow hasn't made it to our "favorites" section yet. And, yes, that's Frozen in the corner. ;) Some of these are olympic sports where Olympians actually exercise "with" the students. My kids think that's really cool. They have them stretch a bit and then they show them how to do their sport and then they do it. Collin really likes those. Ryanne prefers the dancing ones. Neither of them mind Frozen and the calming videos came in very handy when I had a very frustrated child on the verge of tears. YAY!!!





OKAY, now for the second resource I discovered.... Wonderopolis!! This is a fun site that has a bunch of things kids have wondered like... How long is the longest bridge? Why is the ocean salty? What do you mine in mincraft? Why do fireflies glow? Why does skin get wrinkled in water? and many, many others!

So, now you're probably asking what do I use these for? Well, writing prompts! :) We watch the video and then I ask the kids the question. They think about it for a moment and then write about it. Once they've written their thoughts, I show the answer with another video or reading the article.

Today's question was "How are gummy bears made?"
Then we watched this video:


Haribo gummy bears from kolbovskiy on Vimeo.

Afterwards I asked them the question and then they got to writing. Ryanne wrote that jellyfish are cooked with strawberries and then cut into bear shapes. She said she knew it was wrong but didn't know the right answer so she decided to get crazy. Collin wrote about making gelatin and putting it in bear molds. Then... we watched another video to answer the question...



Modernist Cuisine - Recipe - Olive Oil Gummy Worms from Modernist Cuisine on Vimeo.

The kids said this was the best writing prompt I've ever given them. They've already picked out the writing prompt for tomorrow.

Phone Purge Friday 4-18

New excitement from the discovery of GoNoodle (blogpost coming on it).

Flowers from my husband, just because. ;)

This is the armoire I have my eye on at Goodwill. It may sell soon or may have already sold but I LOVE it! :)

Me trying on pants that are 3 sizes smaller than what I wore at the beginning of Feb!! They weren't comfortable but they buttoned. That's exciting!!! :)

Paul built me a book shelf to go behind my couch. no one can even tell it's there! :)

I taught did a math activity in the classroom I'm working on. I talk about it in a future post. :)

We started our Week of Easter celebration we do every year.

This is part of the activity I did with my class I'm working in. Like I said... details to come.

Collin and I like to play basketball after cub scouts.

A fun shirt I found at Goodwill.

 For spring break we had a day with the cousins! :)

Cousins having fun at the park.

Another shot of them... it's hard to tell but there are 7 kids on here. :)

My youngest niece carrying a bag of puppy. She just looked so cute!

 After the park we went to the bowling alley only to discover they weren't open yet so we went to the museum instead.

 I have lots of pictures of dolls b/c my toddler niece wanted pictures of all of them. haha!

This is a shot of the inside of the dollhouse. It was very detailed. Loved it! I was trying to get my phone through the windows. haha!

Circus room!

In case you can't see it the sign in the clown's lap says, "Please don't touch me and I won't touch you!" hehe! It was a creepy clown.

The kids play room. They were able to play with in here. So fun!

This is blurry b/c the kids wouldn't stay still and I was using my camera phone which isn't that great. There are 8 kiddos here.  

The girls in the school room.

The boys in the school room.

Refrigerator Perry

This was hilarious! My sister and I had to explain how this phone worked. The kids thought it was horrible how long it took to dial someone.

They really thought this was crazy.

There is a small town outside our city that was moved so they could build a nuclear plant on the site. This was a sign they posted. So sad...

Old fire truck.

Going through the arch to the buildings in the back.

The outhouse. They even had a bowl of corn cobs out there. ;)

cellar

school house!

Ryanne got a new maxi skirt!