Place Value Apartments

Last night I made this big posterboard creation to help cement the idea of place value for the Explorer. He's been doing this type of math for some time now but still often needs prompting to begin the addition or subtraction in the ones place.


It should be pretty self explanatory how I made the apartments, but if you have any questions, just post them in the comments and I can explain further.


Because it is so large, I'll have to post it in three sections.


First we have the Billions house:

Next, the Million house:

Now the Thousand House:

And finally, the Hundreds House:

I'm having problems with Blogger, so I'm going to put some photos of the work we did in a separate post.

more letter friends

Here we have l, th, and qu.

l is the Explorer's letter. Easy.

th is tricky. See, what happened was this boy stole Terrible the sword (see him holding it) and Mr. h's hat. He's so proud of himself that he's teasing the knight and Mr. h and saying, "Thhhh!" (A battle did ensue between the knight and th interuppting our party planning.)

and the queen, qu. Obviously she has a long ponytail, but she also usually carries around an upside down umbrella. We aren't sure why.

d is a dog curled up asleep with his long tail sticking straight up

v is a vet

and n is a guy with a big nose who likes to look up

.

Word Family Town part 1

First of all, I got the idea from my wonderful friend who did a similar project with her children. Here and here are their villages. So we began ours this week. We kept it small, more of a village really. The picture is self explanatory. To populate our town, we had a select group of letters. Each one had its own character and personality.

c is a cat.

g is a girl with a curl

s is a ssssnake

How I use my iPod in our homeschool

Have I blogged about this yet?

I don't know and I only have a bit of time so I am just going to blog here (no time to search and see if I'm repeating myself).

My first thing I use in our homeschool is this app. It's called Notebooks.

When I think of something to do for a certain "subject" I put it in a notebook file under that subject. By now I have a collection of little snippets of ideas for many subjects.

When it comes time to plan for the week I write out a document on my laptop with a list of what I want to do for the week. I then email it to myself, copy the email, and paste it on a notebook page.

It comes out looking sort of like this:


01-04-10 to 01-08-09
Circle Time
Opening Song: 'Tis a Gift to be Simple
Opening verse:“January brings the snow, makes the feet and fingers glow”
Father Abraham
Memory Work:
the Explorer:
Outside the Door
(by Annette Wynne)
Outside the door the bare tree stands
And catches snowflakes in its hands,
And holds them well and holds them high,
Until a puffing wind comes by.
The Artist:
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
(by Robert Frost)
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
There are Seven Days in a Week
Days of the Month Song
100 Things You Should Know about Knights and Castles
The Story of Painting
Poetry for Winter poem of the day:
Composer: Sergei Prokofiev
Listen to week one classics for kids
Listen to Peter and the Wolf
Tell the story of Peter and the Wolf
A: Read Global Highlights Europe worksheet and answer questions
L: Peter and the Wolf Sequencing Story Strips (Put these in a book leaving room to illustrate.)
Draw cover for Peter and the Wolf book
Artist: Degas
UCBA pgs 26-27
Piece: Dancer on the Stage
Science:
Weather Changes Worksheet
Weather Lab #1 Thermometer Explorations
Weather Lab #2 Make a Rain Gauge
History:
Read UILEWH pgs 202-203
Read SOTW2 chapter 4
L: Narration drawing
A: Narration writing
Complete Map
A: Use one or more of the Codes of Justinian as copywork
Foreign Languages:
Spanish introductions (Maite style)
Nature Walk
Draw / Write for Nature Journals
Look up one plant / animal we see
Physical Education
Biking
Football (soccer)
Literature
Mary Poppins
The Artist:
Language Arts:
write a journal entry about Christmas vacation
write a personal letter
grammar worksheets
Maths:
Math Mystery on Monday
Practice problems
MM Fractions
Multiplication Mazes
the Explorer:
Sensory:
WH Questions using Aesop's Fables (he chooses the fable) OOSCHF 174
Slimy Shapes OOSCHF 28
Rubbing SSIT 10
Rowboat OOSCHF 69
Wheelbarrow Walk OOSCHF 72
Language Arts:
Practice letters during Slimy Shapes activity
Wh Questions
Word Family Town (-at and -an)
starfall.com
Peter and the Wolf sequencing
write a personal letter
draw a picture of what he did over Christmas break
FLL
Maths:
Addition practice
introduce subtraction
Math story about addition and subtraction
Make addition and subtraction math gnomes
the Tiny Goddess:
Make Weather Wheel
SSGMR 190 Circle and Square
SSGMR 74 My New House
Work on Ballet moves from her book
find some Ballet to watch on youtube
Miss Mousie:
SSGMR 74 My New House
SSGMR 84 Drop Small Objects in a Bottle


Obviously I use abbreviations for the books (which I can fill in later if there is interest). I don't expect to get all this done, and often have other things that wind up happening in the day. Anything that happens in the day including page numbers or names of poems, I write on the back of the page. Then I make a document on my laptop where I cut and paste what happened that day and add what else happened and email it to myself where I cut and paste into the Notebooks app. So basically I have a list of waht we did each day on my laptop and on my ipod. At the end of the year, I can, if I want to, print it all otu. I doubt I'll do that, though.

I list things for the little girls, but I don't usually do them all. I just have a few ideas for them in case they need an activity.

Now I'm being called for. I can elaborate if there are questions.

Composer and Artist study

This is something I've tried to work into our "school" for a while and haven't been able to do for some reason.

But, now, well we are doing alright in that department. Basically my plan is this: We study one artist for 4 or 5 weeks looking at one piece a week. We are using a book called Discovering Great Artists to do one or two projects for each artist. Every morning during circle time (more on that later) we look at the piece of the week and each of us tells one thing we notice about it.

For the composer studies, we are using a fabulous website called Classics for Kids. We study each composer for 4 or 5 weeks. We listen to one show from the site a week and have one piece a week that we listen to.

It's quick, it's painless, it's easy.

And did you know that Bach had 20 children? Most of them were musicians also. That blows my mind for some reason.

in my mind now...

Today I take my driving test. I am very nervous. I plan on passing and that will go a long way towards making things Better around here. But, I'm trying not to put too much into whether I pass or not and to remain zen about it all.

The tiny Goddess turns three in two days. How can that be? She is all about attention and touch these days. As in tight tight hugs and kisses that often involve teeth. Ouch. We are having a party for her on Saturday. Now British birthday parties and American ones seem a little different (though honestly parties are different in California versus Indiana as well). Seems like here, there is often some sort of hired entertainment, which is very fun and sweet but not so much my style. Also here the gifts aren't opened at the party and sometimes the cake isn't eaten there either. At our party we are having gluten free, vegan cupcakes which the kids will decorate themselves and we will open presents at the party.

My neighbor is coming over on Friday afternoon to help me bake a zillion cupcakes. If I have extra, I can freeze them.

I've been also enjoying this blog. It's my homepage now as I explore it more. I'm thinking of doing a 101 things in 1001 days list like her. I just like her attitude and how honest she is. I also find a lot of inspiration there. Sorry it's not much of a review. I don't feel up to writing a lot right now, but it is worth checking out. I also like this idea. I think I will give it some more thought as well.

But first things first, on to the driving exam.