Locks of Love

I almost forgot!! Last week Zoe went from this...

to this!

She had been asking me for three weeks to get her hair cut so that she could donate it (click if you want to view a little video). We have a friend who had Lukemia when she was young - she is 13 now, and cancer free - and was the inspiration for doing this. Needless to say, we are very proud of her!

A's, Apple Pie and Seeing the World

We had a great time this week! (maybe it was to make up for my lack of planning last week...) Regardless, whatever the reason, I'm excited to share with you some of the things we did together for our homeschooling this go around.

Cameron became an "A" expert this week! We had fun "A" picking (matching up which ones are big "A's" and which are little "a's."

She learned how to write an "A" as well, but I didn't take pictures of that. One day I might be more organized (I keep dreaming it will happen, but I don't think that actually makes it happen). Here's some stuff we did with our book this week.

"How to Make an Apple Pie and see the world"
by Marjorie Priceman (c) 1994

This book opened up our world to several activities as well as made us laugh each time we read it! The main character opens up her recipe book to make an apple pie and goes to the market to buy her ingredients only to find that the market owner has closed up shop and "gone fishing." So, rather than give up hope, she decides to get the freshest ingredients possible from... around the world.

1. Italy for semolina wheat (for flour), 2. France for a chicken (which lay the finest eggs),
3. Sri Lanka for bark off the native kurundu tree (cinnamon), 4. England for a cow
(milk to churn into butter), 5. Jamaica for sugar cane (picking up some salt water
on the way) and 6. Vermont for the apples!

So, we got to learn a lot of geography, work on some vocabulary, do a little math, go on a field trip and, of course, make some apple pie! One of our favorite parts of the week was making an apple pie together and inviting our neighborhood friends over to share it with us. We read the story to everyone while enjoying the pie.

Some of the neighborhood kids. They liked the story too!

Well, we didn't travel the world for our ingredients, but it was delicious for our very first homemade apple pie!

Burning

Well, I know this a homeschool blog, but I just need to get something off my chest. In this case, literally off my chest, such as...

Heart burn! Let's talk about heart burn. Have you ever had heart burn? Constantly? Well, if you've answered yes to both questions, you know exactly how I'm feeling now. Sleeping, or should I say going in and out of sleep, sitting up is for horses. It really doesn't seem to matter what I eat, either. I can drink a nice cool glass of water and get indigestion! I don't know about you, but I think that's just wrong. I've tried chewing a Pepcid AC tablet before eating, I've tried eating Tums while experiencing heart burn, but nothing seems to be helping and it's only getting worse. I'm hoping to talk to my midwife this week and see if I can get something stronger. Something that will work!

See this lovely diagram of what is happening in my stomach? Well, the main reason for this is actually because I went from this:

Source: The Growing Uterus Charts,
© 1989, 2006 Childbirth Connection

To this: (notice my internal organs and the fact that he still has quite a bit of room in there)

Source: The Growing Uterus Charts
© 1989, 2006 Childbirth Connection

And in about 10 more weeks, I will be at this: (it's amazing my internal organs still work)

Source: The Growing Uterus Charts
© 1985, 2006 Childbirth Connection

I must say, it's quite amazing how a woman's body adjusts to a child growing inside. It's just that my esophagus doesn't seem to like it so much. But, if it's anything like my previous pregnancies, the heart burn will go right away after delivering our beautiful baby boy. Then, I won't sleep for a different reason...

To Fly

There is so much to homeschooling that I can't even begin to write down the things that we learn together (mainly because it's hard to live life and catalogue everything)! I've also been deficient on the picture taking this week, so you'll just have to read this time.

Our book this week was, "The Glorious Flight" by Alice and Martin Provensen (c) 1983. This story is about an historical character by the name of Louis Bleriot, from Cambrai, France who was the first to fly across the English Channel in a plane of his own invention back in 1909. He overcame many obstacles to achieve this goal!

We talked about France again, and learned about the English Channel and where England is. We talked about how airplanes were very new and in the works at the time and how they didn't have jets and helicopters like we do today. We did some copy work of some of the descriptive writing from the book. Zoe is really getting good at tracing her letters! Zoe can now identify Onomatopoeia with no problem ("BOOM!"). We observed how some of the illustrations in the book looked a little strange, and talked about drawing things from different perspectives. Matthew did school with them today, and had a great time! They learned about Roman Numerals today, made paper airplanes and went to the park to learn Spanish with Nana and play on the playground. Wow, daddy has so much energy! I'm thankful for the times that he gets to spend with them.

Meanwhile, as I'm typing this, our little boy in utero is letting me know that he will be excited to enter into the world with our family (he moves a lot). The girls continue to be excited about the arrival of their baby brother, and Zoe has started a little tradition where every night she kisses my belly and says, "Good night baby brother." Then, Cameron follows suit and does the same. It's so adorable! I'm going to have to record it sometime so you can see what I'm talking about.

Well, you remember how I said I didn't have any pictures? I lied. Matthew told me he took a few today of our girl's cute faces. Then I took a few more. So, if you've stuck with it this far, here is your reward! :)

Our book

Tired...

Well, this is the first week that is turning out to be a bit of a flop. Usually, we may have one day each week that doesn't quite go as expected, but this week, it has been about every day! I believe I may have officially met my third trimester. That is definitely affecting my energy level and ability to engage with the children. Don't I look tired?

Excellent picture of me

We are reading this great book, and there is so much cool stuff to do (which we have done some of it), but since I have not been sleeping well recently, that's the story. I can only hope that my children's brains won't suffer from it! :)

"Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel" by Virginia Lee Burton (c) 1939

Zoe has really liked this story, which I am glad about! I was thinking she might turn her nose up to it since it looks "boyish." I have been surprised by her excitement to read it every day. That has made me happy, even though I'm tired. Here's some of the things we've done thus far...

So, this is not my finest week. There are bound to be some, right?

It happens to have been written the same

year as "Madeline"

Cameron's corner (notice, she did her

own rendition of a tree on art day)

Examples of different ways to draw trees

Zoe - Tree 1

Example 2

Zoe - Tree 2

Example 3

Zoe - Tree 3

The Rag Coat

"The Rag Coat" by Lauren Mills (c)1991

So last week, we read this great book called, "The Rag Coat," by Lauren Mills. Though the story had a lot more abstract stuff going on (dealing with some internal struggles and feelings), we had a lot of fun discussing those things and learning about the setting and such. Below are some things that we did...

Takes place in the Appalachian Region

Made a paper quilting square out of triangles
Pattern is known as Josephs Coat of Many Colors

Zoe also thought our patio tiles looked
a lot like the patches of our character's
rag coat, so I made an outline and
she made her own patchwork coat!

One of the really fun things we did was make what's called a geo-board. It's just a board that you can make different geometrical shapes on for learning. It also has other fun uses, such as making mazes, pictures with rubber bands, shooting things...

One of the other things we went over came from a question that arose from the book. The dad in the book works in the coal mines and ends up getting miner's cough. So, aside from our theological talks about life and death, we also did a little science and talked about our lungs, what they do for us and what miner's cough is...

We've added more organs!

On a side note, I've been "concerned" about Cameron as she still seems to not be interested in her alphabet letters and such. Now, I was assured by many, that she is fine (only 3) and will learn them, but I did take the initiative last week to start her on some letter recognition. I'm glad to say, she was pointing out the letter "A" to me all week (she would earn a sticker every time she showed me one), and seems to be a little upset that we are moving on to "B" this week! :)

The letter "A"

Backlog

Trying to catch you up is the most difficult, so this post will be mostly pictures (but that's probably what you want to see anyhow). I will give a brief explanation of what we are doing together, though, so the pictures make sense.

Having a Kindergartener and and Pre-kindergartener, you would think it wouldn't be very difficult to come up with something for both of them... but you would be wrong! Zoe and Cameron are like night and day, so I had to get a lot of help from some NEACH members on what might be the best route to go for school this year. I did receive plenty of good advice, and the things that stuck are as follows:

1. Enjoy my kids - they're only young once! This is the best time to go out together on little trips, explore nature and find anything and everything we can do, not excluding PLAYING! :)
2. Try a curriculum called Five in a Row - written by Jane Claire Lambert, this is a great start to school for my little ones! The principle is to read a book (there is a booklist provided) five days in a row. Each day, after you read the book through, you cover a different subject as related to the book (Social Studies, Literature, Art, Math and Science). Lambert does give recommendations for each subject, but the sky's the limit (you will see in the pictures)!
3. Enjoy my kids - I know I said this already, but it was emphasized to me, so I thought I'd mention it again.

So, with that said (though, there's probably more I could say) on with the pictures!

"Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans (c) 1939

In an old house in Paris, covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines...

Some Geography...

Locate France on our map

Eiffel Tower

Some Vocabulary...

Country flag

Finding the appendix

"What comes out of the large intestine?"
Cameron says, "Heeheehee..."

Some Applied Math...

Symmetry (Zoe's natural bent)

versus

Asymmetry (Cameron's natural bent)

And, yes, they did build these themselves without any prompting from me!

We talked about the art and science, so no pictures for that. It's definitely hard to keep photographic records everyday!

"The Story About Ping" by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Weise (c) 1933
Once upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping... Their home was a boat with two wise eyes on the Yangtze River.

Social Studies (Geography and Culture)...

Locate China and the Yangtze River on the map

Country flag made from tissue paper and cut-out stars

We talked about the chinese culture a bit by looking through the pictures and noticing things that were different. We went out for sushi that week for lunch as well as made a chinese dish at home!

Literature...

We talked about what makes a story a classic and then made a timeline (100+ years) to start talking about history.

Classic stories

Family birthdays

Our wall timeline from 1900 thru 2011

Art...

Using colored pencils, we made reflections and learned about blending more than one color together for a more interesting illustration

Math...

Ping lived with his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins.
For counting. It seemed like a good idea at the time... sheesh!

Science...
Matthew and my dad brought them out to observe ducks and how they eat. I'm not sure if they got any pictures or not!

"Lentil" by Robert McCloskey (c) 1940
A fictional story about a young boy who lives in a small town in Ohio

Social Studies...

Locate Ohio on the map

Ohio state flag

Literature...

Elements of a good story

Zoe wrote her own story!

Art...

Learning about charcoal

Math and Science (day with dad)... 

Did more body parts and learned about fractions