Recommended Science Movie

I've been suffering in the science area the last few weeks.  Well let's face it . . . I'm suffering in the whole school area as of the last four weeks (health, time, holidays, stress, etc).  But that's not what this post is about.

Anyway, I was browsing Netflix last night waiting for my husband to get home from work and just couldn't find anything worth watching.  After watching the first 15 minutes of three different Christmas movies (that didn't go anywhere) I stumbled onto a gem.

What does this have to do with school??? you may ask.  Well, I'll tell you.

I stumbled across a movie called "God of Wonders".  I tentatively watched it, assuming it was going to be a distorted view of a Divine Creator.  But it pleasantly surprised me.  Not only did it have incredible information throughout it while focusing on God, but it was done so that my 5 year old could enjoy it just as much as my 10 year old, or even me for that matter (age not included).  =)  

I had my kids watch it first thing this morning.  They really enjoyed it and I didn't have to sift through the 'millions of trillions of billions of years ago' theories that I don't agree with.  (Yes, I ended in a preposition . . . sometimes it's warranted. - hehe)  So anyway, it was done very well.  The film has Christian biologists, scientists, etc. commentating throughout the film - some of the them are from "Answers in Genesis" and "The Creation Museum" just to give you an idea.

Not only did we learn how AWESOME God is, but we learned amazing facts about stars, lightning, hummingbirds, DNA, snowflakes . . . the list goes on.  I highly recommend this film.  It's a great reminder (and educator) for us adults too.

Clicking here will send you to the "God of Wonders" home page.

Otherwise, go onto Netflix and do a search for "God of Wonders".  (It's 1 hr 24 minutes long)  You won't be disappointed!

And can I just say, while we were waking up & eating breakfast, we watched it.  So by 9:00 am we were done with Science. Score! =)

Donating Our Bodies to Science

Or at least small parts of our bodies.

We heard in a sermon once that the salt that tears have in them dries and crystallizes into the form of a cross.

So we made a pact as a family: the next time somebody cried,

we were allowed to capture those tears on a slide and take a look at them.

The problem with that was, that everytime someone cried, as soon as the slide came rushing over to their cheek, they began to laugh and all tear flow stopped. LOL

So, it was very hard to capture tears.

We decided today after one of my little guys was almost done shedding tears, that we would do our best to get his tear on the slide.

It was compromised during the capture, but we were able to get a teensy bit of it on there.

We didn't wait for it to dry.

We just looked at it right away.

After his heart was broken, he was willing to donate his last tear.

Tear on slide

Wet tear

Then it was onto other things.

What does blood look like?

Reluctantly, I was willing to donate.

"This won't hurt a bit Mom."

Blood on slide

O- Blood

 "What else can we look at?"

The children chanted.

Well it just so happened that my youngest was having a psoriasis breakout.

We gently removed a piece and took a look.

Gently sliding a piece of psoriasis out of his hair

Psoriasis chunks on slide.  We weren't sure if we were going to be able to see them because of their thickness.

He had the honor of looking at it first, since it was his donation.

Psoriasis

Another shot of it (without the flash)

My oldest cheered, "I have a bit of skin that is coming off my finger.  Let's look at that!"

So we did. =)

Pretending that it hurts bad

My daughter also donated a hangnail.

What the skin looked like magnified at 400X.  It's blurry on the edges because it wasn't laying flat.

My daughter wanting to get in on the action donated her locks.

And I did too.  That way we could compare the look of curly hair with straight hair.

Don't worry, I actually didn't cut all that, just one strand.

The curly hair was flat looking.

The straight hair had more of a rounded edge.

DISCLAIMER:

No one was injured in today's science experiments.

All looks of terror were just the great acting abilities of me and my kiddos. :)

We LOVE our microscope.  So much fun!!

(Click on the pic below for link to Sonlight's Microscope website.)

1st Quarter Finished!

I honestly thought this was going to be my toughest year.

All Summer I dreaded the start of the 2012-2013 school year.

I worked all Summer on making a schedule for this year.

I admittedly changed it at least three times (probably more).

This is the year that I would teach K, 2nd, 4th & 5th.

With my oldest son having some learning disabilities,

I was extremely anxious about teaching a Kindergartner on top of it.

Not only that, I knew my 2nd grader still needed quite a bit of attention.

Anyway, blah blah blah, I thought for sure I was going to struggle something severe this year.

But I'm not.  We're not.

We just finished Day 47 and, we all still love it.

So what changed?

Well first off, my schedule.

I was trying the past 5 years to do way too much.

We weren't diving deep into subjects, because I was so concerned about checking off boxes on my schedule.

(If you use or have used Sonlight, you know exactly what I'm talking about.)

 The schedule I had finally come up with was so overwhelming I started to have a panic attack.

So the day before school started, I totally rearranged my schedule again!

And Wa-lah!  School bliss.

We combined Bible, Science, History & Geography.

We are also doing unit studies this year (my first time doing that).

Secondly, I talked to a veteran homeschooler.

She gave me some great tips and told me to Relax!

She often says that to me . . .

I just finally listened. =)

And thirdly,  I think because I'm more relaxed,

They're more relaxed.

Which makes for a great school day!

Do we still have those bad days?

Oh yeah!

But not nearly as many and they're much further apart.

So, in celebration of our 1st Quarter down the hatch,

Here are some pics of Quarter 1

2nd Grade - Practicing Handwriting Without Tears

2nd Grade - Reading The Beginner's Bible

5th Grade - Studying Maps & Globes in Geography

Kindergarten - Making a Y using Handwriting Without Tears

Kindergarten - Horizons Math

4th Grade - Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind

Everyday we do the Date & Weather.  So far in AL in the month of October there has been 10 out of 12 sunny days!

Very excited to have 33 days down the hatch!

Architecture . . .  ah-hum . . .  I mean math class.

Geography - States

They love playing with dominoes, whether it be building, adding, making chains or actually playing the game.

Some of my new LOVES this school year:

For Geography

The Maps & Globes Series

These workbooks are awesome!  My kids love them, plus they're easy to understand!

Sample from Book D

Sample from Book B

Sample from Book A

Sample from Book C

 Next is my Timeline.

I got this idea from a friend of mine.

LOVE IT!!

This way of doing it allows us to fit a lot of events in a small amount of space, plus it gives them an idea of where the event took place throughout history without flipping through the pages of a book or lining our entire schoolroom with a homemade paper timeline.

And last is the Book It! program from Pizza Hut.

My 5th grader is reading like he has never read before.

He wants that Pizza bad!!

Pizza Hut's Book It! Program was suggested to me from the same friend who gave me the timeline idea.  This program is great!  If you haven't signed up yet, I highly recommend it!!  Click here: Book It!

Elementary Math Manipulative Ideas

Everything I made was using Word or Excel, a color printer, laminating machine, white card stock paper (for its durability and non-transluscent qualities) and/or self adhesive velcro tabs.

For Place Value

I made this using Microsoft Word.

I made a chart for tens numbers, hundreds numbers and thousands numbers.

It's a great way to help with place value.

If we were doing a hundreds number,

My son would often leave the number out of the tens place if it was a zero.

For example,

If his math problem told him to write the numeric form of two hundred five,

He would write 25.

He knew it was wrong, but he couldn't figure out how to fix it.

I made these place value charts along with the hundreds, tens & ones block manipulatives as a supplementary tool.

When he did it that way, he'd get it right every time.

For Adding (or Subtracting) Single Digits

To help with the monotony of hand written drills,

I'd have the students roll two 9-sided die.

They'd call out the sum (or difference) of the die rolled.

For Adding Double Digits or Higher

Again Using Microsoft Word...

And using the same idea as with the place value chart,

I made this to help with adding.

Focusing on: starting to add in the ones place first, then the tens place, etc.

If carrying was required, I'd have them put a 1 card above the respective place value.

You can also use the manipulative blocks here if your student has trouble adding.

For Ordinal Numbers

When introducing ordinal numbers, I use the 'front side'.

That side highlights the coinciding picture with the written word and the standard form.

Once we have gone over that,

I then flip them to the backside where it is only a highlighted picture without the number word or the numeric symbol.

The student has to guess which ordinal number it is.

He then flips over the card to see if he was right.

If you do this make sure you use card stock!

Regular paper can be seen through.

 For Seasons

I made up these, Using Excel this time.

It's an aid in teaching the kids the seasons and what month they start.

Each first month of the season has a picture on it to help tell which of the seasons it is.

And all consecutive months of the same color go with that season.

After reviewing them,

We would play games using the cards to help them remember the months.

For example, I'd have the beginning of the season card and all the other cards were flipped upside down.

I'd hold up the blue card (December) and ask,

"What season is this month?"

The student (hopefully) replies Winter.

Then I'd ask,

"Name two more months in winter."

The student names them, then flips over the other blue cards to see if he's right.

For Multiplication

Made using Excel.

My kids love playing Bingo.

So to help keep multiplication facts fresh and fun,

I made this Multiplication Bingo game.

I made the charts and multiplication facts with card stock and laminated them.

When we play, I read off the multiplication fact,

and the student puts the bingo chip on the correct answer.

When only one child is playing, if they get the answer wrong, I put the multiplication fact back in the mix and they cannot put a bingo chip on their game board.

When two or more are playing,

I just help them figure out the answer so we can continue play.

For Fractions

I made this game using a template for a homemade cube.

The student rolls both 12 sided dice,

then rolls the large cube to see what to do with the numbers rolled.

Directions are on each side of the cube:

Make an Equivalent Fraction

Name the Numerator

More than Half? or Less than Half?

Name the Denominator

Draw the Fraction

Make an Improper Fraction

 For instance, if the student rolled a 4 and an 11,

And the cube rolled said, "Make an Improper Fraction",

The student would write 11/4.

Or if the cube rolled said, "Draw the Fraction"

The student would draw a shape with 11 equal parts and shade in four of them, etc.

These are just some of the ideas I have come up with to help in the area of elementary math.

If you have any questions,

Please feel free to comment.

I'd be more than happy to explain further.

1st Day of School!!

Welcome Back!!

The kids were excited to start school today.

We actually had a pretty good day,

considering it kinda had a bad start.

I spilled coffee all over my Kindergartener's brand new school books.

He was very forgiving though,

and told me it was okay.

I also had to interrupt our school to tutor another student.

Once again, the kids adapted very well.

At the end of the school day,

All 4 kids said, "Awww, we want more!"

That was encouraging.

It was one of those moments that you hear of all the other homeschool moms having,

but you never had one yourself and didn't believe they truly existed.

Don't get me wrong . . .

I know that they won't be chanting that for long,

but it still felt good!

To quote my fifth grader...

"This is the best day so far this school year!!"

He was serious too.

  HAHAHA!

I decorate the school window the night before.  The kids love waking up to see their name and new grade up on the window.

I tell them we're ready to begin and start explaining the school year to them.

My Kindergartner working on his Math paper.  He wanted to do more when he was done. Yay! He likes it!

Practicing his 1s.

My second grader working on his phonics.  He did great!

In 5th grade and working on English.  So far, so good with him.

My fourth grader working on her English.  I'm making her only do cursive this year.  She took it pretty well. :)

Garrett putting up the date and the weather.

I'm choosing our Read-A-Louds this year.  This was the book my mom used to read to me when I was my daughter's age.  So, I thought it would only be way cool to read it to my kids too!

After seeing the words in Gavin's reader, I was concerned that I would be helping him with every other word.  He did fantastic!!  I couldn't believe the words he was reading.  I'm a proud mom!! :)

After school, we had a celebratory lunch at our most favorite fast food restaurant ever!!  The line for the drive-thru wound down a side street and onto the main road.  There was a line headed the opposite direction too.  With all that traffic and with them being slammed so hard, I thought it pretty good that it only took 25 minutes to get through the line and back on the road again.  Chick-fil-A rocks!

Finally, almost, at the drive-thru order thingy.   Love Gavin's & Kaidin's expressions here!!  It was hot in the car...

We didn't eat in because the restaurant was packed.  But we were just as happy having it at home.

I promised the boys that when school started,

I would give them their Mohawks back.

More than happy to get his hair cut.

But nobody wanted one more than this kid!  He was so thrilled when I pulled out the clippers.

Two very happy Mohawk boys

Sideview . . . guess that's obvious.

And my little guy got his hair cut too!  His request was, "With no spikeys Mom!"

I guess with less hair, the brain works better . . . these boys jumped right into a game of chess (or "chest" as the second grader calls it).

My sweet girlie couldn't be left out of the haircut party!  She accidentally moved when I was cutting the back, so it's much shorter than what we were anticipating.  With some sweat and almost tears (on my end) we got it to look pretty decent.  She likes it, so I'm happy!!

Well, I'd call four kids wanting to do school again tomorrow a SUCCESS for today!

I got to enjoy those days while I have them. :)