Today we had our first meeting of the homeschool group I'm running this year. It's called the explorer's club, and meets once a week. We'll be alternating weeks between field trips and craft time, but this week was just a get to know you play day.
We had 20 kids sign up (plus their moms), with another 2 families on the waiting list. I was a little worried about what we'd do with all of them at our house, but amazingly it didn't seem crazy at all. We did have a few families out for the day, but we still had quite a few kids here.
The kids seemed to get along great, and so did the moms. I'm so excited, it's nice to be around other homeschooling families. Next week we're off for our first field trip!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday
I got Nick's All About Me book put together on Tuesday. It came out great. I'll try to get the pictures of it up in the next day or so.
We also started history today, we're studying prehistoric times this year, with an emphasis on the time of the dinosaurs so we started doing a little work on that.
We also started history today, we're studying prehistoric times this year, with an emphasis on the time of the dinosaurs so we started doing a little work on that.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Eastern Idaho State Fair
We took labor day off and headed out to the state fair! Woohoo, we had lots of fun. It's amazing how cheap the fair is in comparison to the California fairs. It cost us $5 each to get in, and Nick was free, and then we only had to pay $5 parking. You can actually park for free if you can find a spot on the road, but by the time we got there, people were parking miles away, and we knew from experience that by the time you are done walking that fair, the last thing you want to do is walk a long way back to your car. So, we parked where we always do. Anyways, it was a great day.
We wandered through the booths first, and found someone selling water filtering bottles for super cheap, so we grabbed several to add to our emergency supplies.
Then, we headed over to the animal section. We saw the biggest rabbit I have ever seen. It was a dutch giant I think they said, or a German giant, something along that line. We then watched went over to the cows, but unfortunately they had just finished milking. Still, we showed Nick the machines and explained how it works, before we headed to the sheep.
When we walked into the sheep building, there were two ladies sitting spinning wool. Nick found that quite interesting, and we discussed how they get the wool, what they do to get it ready, how they spin it, and how they dye it. Then we checked out the sheep. We missed the shearing, but we saw lots of bald sheep and some wool that had just been sheared from one of the sheep. That turned out to be a great learning adventure.
Miniature horses were sharing the building with the sheep, so we wandered and took and look at them. Surprisingly, right after the miniature horses were the huge Clydesdales and draft horses (anyone know what the difference is, they look the same to us).
That rounded up the animals. By this point Nick was getting a bit anxious to get to the rides, but we wanted to see the rest of the fair on the way. We headed out and ended up at ag-venture land. This was new this year, although they've had a few of the activities in it before. It was actually one of my favorite parts and Nick really seemed to enjoy it. Ag-venture land was made up of little activities for kids. There were hardly any lines either, it was great. Nick got to try to rope a "steer" (a hay bale with a head on it) while sitting on a "horse" (a bucket with a saddle on it). Then he played in the bean box (think sand box but with beans instead of sand). Next they had a pretend poop scoop station, but he passed that one up :) as well as a couple of other little booths, and headed straight for the corn box (same idea as the bean box, but with dried corn). He played in the corn for quite a while and hten went over to a little music station where they had found item instruments. Lots of fun!
After all of that it was off to the rides. We sprung for a wrist band for Nick so he could go on as many rides as he wanted, and he sure went on a lot. He's still pretty cautious about which ones he'll go on, but he was a bit more adventurous. Except we still can't get the boy to actually sit on a horse on the merry-go-round, instead he insists on sitting on the little "sleigh" (the stationary seats).
By the time we were done we were ready to drop. We picked up some cotton candy for Nick and tried to head home.
To see pictures of our trip to the fair, click here.
We wandered through the booths first, and found someone selling water filtering bottles for super cheap, so we grabbed several to add to our emergency supplies.
Then, we headed over to the animal section. We saw the biggest rabbit I have ever seen. It was a dutch giant I think they said, or a German giant, something along that line. We then watched went over to the cows, but unfortunately they had just finished milking. Still, we showed Nick the machines and explained how it works, before we headed to the sheep.
When we walked into the sheep building, there were two ladies sitting spinning wool. Nick found that quite interesting, and we discussed how they get the wool, what they do to get it ready, how they spin it, and how they dye it. Then we checked out the sheep. We missed the shearing, but we saw lots of bald sheep and some wool that had just been sheared from one of the sheep. That turned out to be a great learning adventure.
Miniature horses were sharing the building with the sheep, so we wandered and took and look at them. Surprisingly, right after the miniature horses were the huge Clydesdales and draft horses (anyone know what the difference is, they look the same to us).
That rounded up the animals. By this point Nick was getting a bit anxious to get to the rides, but we wanted to see the rest of the fair on the way. We headed out and ended up at ag-venture land. This was new this year, although they've had a few of the activities in it before. It was actually one of my favorite parts and Nick really seemed to enjoy it. Ag-venture land was made up of little activities for kids. There were hardly any lines either, it was great. Nick got to try to rope a "steer" (a hay bale with a head on it) while sitting on a "horse" (a bucket with a saddle on it). Then he played in the bean box (think sand box but with beans instead of sand). Next they had a pretend poop scoop station, but he passed that one up :) as well as a couple of other little booths, and headed straight for the corn box (same idea as the bean box, but with dried corn). He played in the corn for quite a while and hten went over to a little music station where they had found item instruments. Lots of fun!
After all of that it was off to the rides. We sprung for a wrist band for Nick so he could go on as many rides as he wanted, and he sure went on a lot. He's still pretty cautious about which ones he'll go on, but he was a bit more adventurous. Except we still can't get the boy to actually sit on a horse on the merry-go-round, instead he insists on sitting on the little "sleigh" (the stationary seats).
By the time we were done we were ready to drop. We picked up some cotton candy for Nick and tried to head home.
To see pictures of our trip to the fair, click here.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Gymnastics and Nature Study
Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the camera with us today, so no pictures.
We had a great day though. We started out with gymnastics. This year Nick is in the 5-6 year old class, so he had his first gym class without me being in it. That was kind of nice for me, but he seemed to be having some issues with listening. Of course this seems to be an issue everywhere the last week or so, he's kind of in his own world. We're working on it, so hopefully he'll snap out of it soon. Overall though, he did pretty good at gym, and he adores Miss Tracy, his gym teacher. Most of the kids in the class are the same ones as last year, so that makes it kind of fun too.
After gymnastics, we went to the library. Nick decided to check out a bunch of dinosaur books, which was rather ironic since I plan to start dinos with him next week.
After the library we headed over to Freeman Park. Nick and Bianca (the little girl I'm watching) playing on the playground equipment and then we walked down by the river to do our nature journals. Nick chose to draw a squirrel, and then to draw the river and it's "beach" . We'll add his drawings into his nature journal, it should be fun to watch his drawings change over the next few years.
That's about it for the week. We're off to a good start!
We had a great day though. We started out with gymnastics. This year Nick is in the 5-6 year old class, so he had his first gym class without me being in it. That was kind of nice for me, but he seemed to be having some issues with listening. Of course this seems to be an issue everywhere the last week or so, he's kind of in his own world. We're working on it, so hopefully he'll snap out of it soon. Overall though, he did pretty good at gym, and he adores Miss Tracy, his gym teacher. Most of the kids in the class are the same ones as last year, so that makes it kind of fun too.
After gymnastics, we went to the library. Nick decided to check out a bunch of dinosaur books, which was rather ironic since I plan to start dinos with him next week.
After the library we headed over to Freeman Park. Nick and Bianca (the little girl I'm watching) playing on the playground equipment and then we walked down by the river to do our nature journals. Nick chose to draw a squirrel, and then to draw the river and it's "beach" . We'll add his drawings into his nature journal, it should be fun to watch his drawings change over the next few years.
That's about it for the week. We're off to a good start!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
An Interview With Nick
Along with all of our other things today, we worked on Nick's All About Me book. He actually finished all of the parts of it, so now I just need to get it put it all together. Part of what we did for the book today was an interview with Nick. It was pretty fun to see what he answered. A few of them I had to prompt him a little more, you'll probably be able to tell which ones.
I have removed the answers for safety purposes
I have removed the answers for safety purposes
Air Takes Up Space - Wednesday
Today we did a science demonstration, one of the last of a series we've been doing on the states of matter. We've done solids, liquids, and gases so far. Today was the final gas demonstration. In this one, we filled a water bottle up with vinegar, put baking soda into a balloon and then put the balloon on the water bottle. Nick then gently lifted the balloon making the baking soda fall into the vinegar. This of course caused lots of bubbling and what not, and then it blew the balloon up. Here's a picture of Nick with his bottle and balloon.
Our first regular day - Tuesday
We're on to our normal schedule now. The schedule goes as following (each part takes about 15 minutes, except for reading which is about 20).
M-Th
Circle Time (see last post for details)
Handwriting - right now we're using the Kumon lowercase book
Math - flashcards to practice math facts, and the Shiller Math, right now we're working on book 2, the program has 3 books that cover Pre-K through 3, so I have no idea what grade that is the equivilant of.
Reading - Explode the Code Online, sometimes this is combined with reading a beginning reader book.
Science - Nebel's Building Foundation of Scientific Thinking K-2
History / Social Studies - we aren't using a formal social studies or history curriculum this year. Right now we are doing his me book which we will finish early next week. After that we will be doing a combination of learning about people in our community, and learning about dinosaurs and prehistoric critters.
I usually follow this up with a game or fun activity.
Friday
We don't do our normal homeschool on Friday. Our Friday schedule is:
Gymnastics
Library
Nature field trip and nature journal entry
Story
Little Contendors ( a book with lots of fun projects that build life skills).
Today went smoothly, Nick was ready to be done after Explode the Code, because that part of our schedule is pretty similar to what we did for preschool, but once we got going he had fun doing the other activities.
M-Th
Circle Time (see last post for details)
Handwriting - right now we're using the Kumon lowercase book
Math - flashcards to practice math facts, and the Shiller Math, right now we're working on book 2, the program has 3 books that cover Pre-K through 3, so I have no idea what grade that is the equivilant of.
Reading - Explode the Code Online, sometimes this is combined with reading a beginning reader book.
Science - Nebel's Building Foundation of Scientific Thinking K-2
History / Social Studies - we aren't using a formal social studies or history curriculum this year. Right now we are doing his me book which we will finish early next week. After that we will be doing a combination of learning about people in our community, and learning about dinosaurs and prehistoric critters.
I usually follow this up with a game or fun activity.
Friday
We don't do our normal homeschool on Friday. Our Friday schedule is:
Gymnastics
Library
Nature field trip and nature journal entry
Story
Little Contendors ( a book with lots of fun projects that build life skills).
Today went smoothly, Nick was ready to be done after Explode the Code, because that part of our schedule is pretty similar to what we did for preschool, but once we got going he had fun doing the other activities.
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