Tot School: Pumpkins

Kayleigh is 44 months old

This week our theme was pumpkins!!!  We love them.  Especially eating them.  We started our week with a trip to the local farm to get some pumpkins.

For the rest of the week we did a lot of pumpkin activities from Two Teaching Mommies and Confessions of a Homeschooler. 

While waiting for sissy at music school, Kenzie made faces on the pumpkins.  I just made that out of felt.

Instead of magnets or do-a-dots, we decided to use stickers on this page.

She made a “Pumpkin Colors” book and colored each page the correct color.  And she stayed in the lines for the most part.   She also did acColor-by-letter:  This time she mostly wanted to scribble all over the page.  Sigh…

A pumpkin patch number “maze.”

A pumpkin jumble game that I found HERE.  We used pattern blocks and our Education Cubes to play.

Pumpkin “spelling”: She named all the letter for me, although she refused to do it order. lol

Which one is different?  She did awesome on this and didn’t even ask for help.

Pumpkin Vine Measuring.  This was the first time we’ve done anything like this.  She did a really good job and seemed to like it.  At least until the next time we try to do it. lol

She did a pumpkin number puzzle and practiced her writing skills by following the line.

 

Her favorite activity, which she’s been waiting for a whole year too do again, was…

Candy Corn Math!!  We sorted, patterned, graphed and tasted. 

All you need is a bag of Autumn Mix candy and my printables.  Click on the picture below to download them.

In her Star Boxes…

Peg Stacker

Ice Cream Shoppe Play Doh

3D Feel and Find, We took it to music school with us this week.

Latches Board

We’re going to continue on with more pumpkin fun next week. We had so much going on last week that we didn’t get to the fun stuff involving actual pumpkins and crafts.  It was all we could do to get this much done.   I hope to stay home more next week.

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where We Were Crazy Busy

This week was one of those weeks were I felt like we spent more time out of the home than in it.    Field trip and soccer on Monday.  Music/art classes on Tuesday.  Hooked up with friends and Christmas play auditions on Wednesday.  Baby gym and a play date for the tot on Thursday.  A trip to the passport office and back to music school because I forgot to leave the check on Friday.  Ugh!!! 
Needless to say, we did not have a full school load this week.  I planned for math and LA everyday and we did about 2 days worth of social studies over the course of the week.  Even that small load was pushing it. 

Math

We’re taking a hiatus from our beloved Math-U-See for the time being.  We’re reviewing another math program for the Review Crew.  It’s certainly different but we’ve learned a couple neat tricks.

Language Arts

We’ve finally started Advanced Language Lessons and Writing With Skill by Susan Wise Bauer.  We’ve been waiting forever for their release.  Technically, we’re still waiting because neither text is out.  LOL
But SWB is graciously allowing customers to use the the proofs until the texts are ready to be sold.  For FREE.  They’ve emailed me the proofs of both texts, student and instructor guides.
I wasn’t sure how I’d do with the e-format because I really HATE reading large amounts on the computer.  Makes me nuts.  But they’ve all loaded nicely onto my iPad and I love reading on that.  I don’t know why reading on that is okay but it doesn’t bother me. 
At any rate, we’re enjoying both programs.  We’re finally seeing the results of all the repetition in First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease.  It’s like you’re finally seeing the picture that the pieces of the puzzle are forming.
I’m particularly impressed with Writing With Skills.  In just three weeks, she can outline an article or a story like a pro.  And that skill his helping her with other research projects.
And I absolutely have to mention that even though we’re using proofs that have NOT been through the final phases of editing, I’m not finding even a tenth of the amount of errors that I found in the Winter Promise products that I paid for.  Just sayin’…

Science

We didn’t have any new science lessons this week but we did finish with an experiment from our unit on the skeletal system.  You’ll recall that last week we dropped a water buffalo tooth into a jar of soda?  The results a week later…
 

Besides looking totally gross, it was cracked and there were spots where the acid from the soda ate away the enamel away.  Ewwww!!!  Certainly drives the point of brushing your teeth home, doesn’t it? 

Social Studies/ Reading

We are almost finished with Torches of Joy.  Soooo good! We finished Island of the Blue Dolphins a week early.  I’m not sure how we managed that.  I thought we were only reading what was scheduled. LOL  Mackenzie is finishing up Call It Courage, an adventure about the son of a Polynesian chief.
We’re a little further into our study of Australia.  We didn’t get too much farther this week but we’re enjoying it.  Maybe because we’ve actually been to Australia and it’s bringing back fond memories.  =o)  Look how little Mackenzie was way back then.

Other Stuff

This week in Visual Latin we studied the nominative and genitive cases.  Oh how we love our Latin teacher.

We finished up with the typing program that we are reviewing, much to my daughter’s relief.  I think my little one enjoyed it a lot though.  Except that she didn’t do any actual typing. lol

We went on a field trip to the pumpkin “patch”  I use the term patch loosely though.  As they were pre-picked pie pumpkins.   As every trip to the farm, it was HOT HOT HOT.  And as a further downer, the chicken coop wasn’t open.  Normally they let you in and you can hold the chickens but there was a PS group there and they wouldn’t open it until they left.  Apparently they’ve had a lot of problems with the PS kids hurting the chickens because there are never enough adults to monitor them.

See how bummed they are over the chickens?

And that was our CRAZY week.  Check out other homeschool happenings over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Review: Wits and Wagers Family, North Star Games

We were recently given the opportunity to review a really fun game called Wits and Wagers Family by North Star Games.  It's a simplified, family-friendly version of their award winning Wits and Wagers.

How to Play:

The game is for 3 players and up so we invited our good friends over for a little fun.

One player reads one of 300 family friendly questions.  All players then write their best guess to the question on their mini whiteboard.  The boards are arranged from lowest to highest and each player is to place their meeples, super cute playing pieces popular in Europe,  on the guess that they feel is the closest to the right answer.  You can split up your meeples and chose to answers.  Scoring is then based on who wrote the correct guess and where each players meeples were placed. 

There are questions for every type of player.  They cover sports, trivia, cereal,  math, popular fads.  You might not have a clue about one but there will be one for you.

Webkinz?  What do I know about Webkinz?

You keep score on this handy, dandy score card.  It's also fun to pose with when you win. First player to reach 15 points is the winner.

Win or lose, it's a lot of laughs.  

FYI

Website: www.northstargames.com
Ages: 8 and up
# of Players: 3 and up
Purchase: Wits and Wagers Family is available at many local retailers including Barnes & Noble and Amazon.   Amazon is currently selling it for $15.23.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this game for review as part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew.  All opinions are my own.  Click the banner for more reviews of North Star products.

$10 off Visual Latin

We started Visual Latin 7 weeks ago and we are loving it!  Check out my review.  


If you are interested in adding Latin to your homeschool, Visual Latin is a fun and easy way to implement the language in your home.  Plus they are currently offering $10 off of any Visual Latin product.  
  
Just use it quickly: it’s only good through Friday, October 21. I'm off to get the first set of Latin 2 for $15.  Can't beat that deal.
  
Gift Code: OCT$10 

Tot School: Ballerinas

Kayleigh is 44 months old

Lately we’ve been “working” on a ballerina unit.  Kayleigh’s been a bit disinterested in school lately so we didn’t do as much as I had planned. 

Our ballerina activities came from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.

   

This cute little ballerina puzzle also gave us some counting practice.

We did some more counting with the spin and graph activity.  She always loves the graphing because we use stickers. 

 

She did some pre-writing exercises.  Some days she does really well and others she just draws a line wherever she wants. 

 

 

We worked those scissors skills.  She did a great job on the first line but had a much harder time with the more complicated ones. 

 

These transportation puzzles have nothing to do with ballerinas but she did them every day.

 

She matched “mommy and baby” letters.  And she did it all

on her own and named the letters.  She can be very tight-lipped about what she knows so it was awesome to get a clue about what she knows. lol

 

She dotted painted “mommy and baby” Bbs as I called them out.

 

Ballerina “spelling”.  She hasn’t done this in quite a while so she did it over and over. 

She colored a ballerina and attempted to stay within the lines.  At least at first. lol

We finally finished our Raising Rock Stars H craft.  Honor your father and mother.  I think she captured our likeness quite well.  Except that I’d never be caught dead in a dress.  =o) Plus I have more hair.  A lot more.

 

She drew this adorable picture of her daddy.  She’s really been missing him, as he’s in Germany.  Lucky guy!

We read her favorite book every day.  Especially the creation story.  It has a picture of a snake.

We also read a ton of Angelina Ballerina books and watched a few videos.  When Mackenzie was little she loved Angelina so we own tons.  And I also found some Angelina Ballerina apps for the iPad.  She really loved those.

We also took a fun field trip to the local children’s museum.  Here’s some of her favorite parts.

Click the Tot School button at the top of the page to see what other tots have been up to.