Homeschool Journal Highlights

Monday

We kicked off the week reading The Tailor of Gloucester from
A Year of Tales curriculum. This one was a harder story for both Lynni and me to get into, so we did not read it the other days suggested in the curriculum.

For science we revisited the months of the year and talked about the weather and how the temperature can have an effect on the weather. I showed her a chart of our state and the average temperatures for each month. When we moved onto the seasons, she learned that the Earth tilts as it rotates around the sun, which is why the seasons change. When we were all done with this lesson, I taught her the four seasons in American Sign Language. She asked to draw a picture of the four seasons and wrote four different descriptions for each season in her lesson book

Lynni’s illastration of the four seasons.

We also started a geography unit this week from A Year of Tales. Geography is one of Little Miss’s favorite subject and I’m trying to add a little here and there for her until our second part of the year when it will be more frequent.

We did a fun little project called “Me on a Map” and had a discussion about where in this big universe she fits. We talked about our street name, town, state, country, continent, and planet. She also took the time to recite the order of the planets and our galaxy, which we studied two years ago.

The Year At Maple Hill Farm // A Stroll Through The Seasons // The Squirrels Busy Year // Around the Year

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Books for Monday

Tuesday

Little Miss started this sunny day by acing another math test and got 100% on her practice on Khan Academy.

We took her to her grandparents for a few hours to work on her patch work pillow case with her grandma. This project took a few days to finish.

Another little fun thing that we did was go around the house and observe all the different kinds of fabric that we have and picked out our favorites and why they were are favorites.

Books for Tuesday

The Rag Coat // Fiona’s Lace // The Patchwork Quilt

Wednesday

While Little Man napped, Little Miss and I took some mommy/daughter time and worked on a dream catcher her Nana bought her.

Wednesday

Continuing on the weather topic, I copied the chart from the curriculum to start documenting the weather we were having.

Our fun handicraft for weather was making weather peg dolls. I think next time I will order a larger set, but these were just fine to start out with. I remember years ago when I was just focused on Waldorf Education, I made these for Lynni and made them with hats! I don’t know where those cute little guys ever wound up. This was a great project and we shared many giggles while we made these together.

Books for Wednesday (Some not photographed)

Thursday

Just reading a little twaddle during her free time. We were having a slow and slightly rough morning, I had her pick out whatever she wanted to read for twenty minutes while I got breakfast going for her and her brother.

One of the things that I mangaged to get a picture of for the day was keeping track of the rain we have been getting. She’s been documenting it in her journal and adding the differences each time we check it.

I asked her what kind of weather she was interested in learning more about. She told me blizzards, so we read the books I had on blizzards and looked on the internet for some more facts. We created a snowflake with glue and glitter, but I didn’t get around to getting a picture of it before it was destroyed by little baby hands.

We met up with friends in the evening at our library to make paper circuit valentines for STEM!

Finally, Little Miss did about fifteen minutes of French on Dulingo in the evening.

Books for Thursday

Over and Under the snow // The Story of Snow // Blizzards (not shown)

Part of our language arts for the week was creating a formal thank you letter to someone. She learned the parts of creating a letter and how to address an envelope. We will be doing more handwritten letters; she loved how personal it was and putting extra special things in the envelope. This letter was to her Nana for some of the toys she bought the kids.

Friday

I didn’t catch any school related pictures this day. After school we just enjoyed a lot of free play with out spielgaben set and read some stories.

This is the final product of her patchwork pillow she and her grandma worked on! Lynni picked out some of the fabric I had in our craft area, so I didn’t have to order any more. She was so proud of it, and I am so proud of her. She had fun doing it and asked if she could start sewing more. It looks terrific in her room.

Thank you for reading about our Homeschool Journal Week Three! What are you up to this week for your homeschool?

-M


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Homeschool Journal Highlights

Monday

Character trait of the week

Little Miss acted out the Tale of Benjamin Bunny with her Nins from Grapat. This was to practice sequencing and to encourage her to be more specific with her details when telling me a story. After sequencing she went over the story again and she pointed out all of the prepositions and how they connected the sentences together.

We also took the time to dig deeper into learning about Lavender and Tobacco. What the differences are, the health risks that using tobacco brings, what lavender is used for, etc.

The curriculum mentions to draw a diagram of a bunny if we hadn’t already done so, but since we had, Little Miss asked to draw one of a squirrel.

We also took some time to do creative activities. This is a little art garden with their Grimms Rainbow and Leonardo Sticks

We didn’t get to the knitting project that was for this weeks handicraft, but we will eventually get to it.

Books for Mondays book basket

Tuesday

Using our Farm Anatomy book we went over the diagram of an onion. She drew and labeled the parts in her Leuchtturm journal she puts all her lessons in.

We dyed muslin dishcloths instead of handkerchiefs. We used beets, turmeric, and red onion skin. If you use turmeric, make sure to rinse before you wash it with other clothes or wash separate in case of bleeding.

Wednesday

Little Miss took a good forty minutes reading in her rabbit care book, where I had her write some important notes if she were a rabbit owner. (I don’t mind the incorrect spelling for these quick notes she takes.)

For her typing lesson, she wrote her own rabbit story. She needed to have story where she added quotation marks for her Language lesson we were working on this week.

We just printed out a picture that would fit the day’s theme for her to color while I read our read aloud.



Books for Wednesday

The Velveteen Rabbit // Pet care guides for kids Rabbit // How Does My Garden Grow

Thursday

We read so many pleasant gardening books today! We are planning on making a garden this spring and it was the perfect oppertunity to come up with some sort of a garden layout plan. This is what Little Miss thought our garden should look like and what we should grow. I’m really excited to start this process, not only to grow some of our own food, but to teach the kids these skills.

Lynni bug was teaching her brother colors.

Just getting some fresh air. The rain never stops us from having a good time!

Lynni Bug volunteered to help daddy make dinner! We had pancakes, scrambled eggs, and ribs from the night before. She really enjoys daddy/daughter time.

Books for Thursday

We are the Gardeners Food Chains and the Food Web in Our Backyard Secrets in the Garden The Curious Garden

Friday

We took today off for Valentines Day.

Independent time

Saturday

Little Miss and I had mommy/daughter time at a local greenhouse while Little Man and daddy were at home playing.

I taught Lynni what the symbols meant on the back of the plant tags so she will be able to help pick out plants for different parts of the yard.

We decided we would get some herbs while we were there.

They had so many baby chicks for sale! We spent a good ten minutes looking at their cuteness.

Thanks for joining us on here and reading what we’ve been up to!

-M

Homeschool Journal Highlights

Welcome to the second week of our homeschool journal!

I didn’t get around to taking pictures of all of the books that we used this week; these were the main ones.

The Busy Tree ||OWLS ||White Owl Barn Owl ||Follow the Water from Brook to Ocean || The Tree Book || Because of an Acorn ||The Barn Owl || Tell Me Tree || Trees, Leaves, and Bark || Where the river begins

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When we finish reading, I like to have Little Miss give an oral summary of the story. This time she told the story back to her grandpa and gave an alternative narration on how the story would unfold if Nutkin had been respectful, as ‘respectful’ was our character trait of the week. I love to see how she gets more descriptive each time she gives a narration. It’s also very entertaining to hear what she comes up with.

After reading I told her that she could take a break to bake with my sister, who was here for the day while my niece was in school. They both love to bake and my sister is the baker in the family and is here almost all week during school hours, so Little Miss gets quite a bit of baking lessons. They treated us with some scrumptious vanilla cupcakes and homemade Italian butter cream frosting.

The gorgeous vanilla cupcakes Miss decorated and piped.

For science, we reviewed bodies of water. We covered bodies of water last year, but it was a good refresher and another reason to make some fun salt dough! She used the salt dough to create land forms, which she placed on blue construction paper to illustrate the different bodies of water.

Tuesday

Adopt a tree day! Little Miss and I LOVE this idea. Unfortunately, we don’t have any trees in our yard. We told her that this summer, we would plant a tree or two in our yard, but until then we would find another tree to observe. We went to one of the parks in our town and she finally found one that was perfect. These were some pictures she took of her tree:

Her tree
The roots
Lichen growing on the tree
Acorn caps that were found around it
Quiet time after the park

Wednesday

We spent a lot of time outside, even though it was raining most of the day. The kids enjoyed splashing in the puddles!

Testing out new rain boots.

I was particularly excited about Wednesday’s handicraft because we got to felt acorns. Little Miss and I have seen felted acorns on Pinterest and thought they were really cute, but we never thought to make any before. You can use acorn tops you find outside or order them from Amazon.

This is the felt that I ordered for our felting projects. It’s a great starter kit that comes with a variety of colors and the tools you need to get started.

Little Miss felted acorn caps.

While Lynni bug was getting her copy-work done, I was playing with Little Man. He is at the stage where he loves to drop objects into containers. Here I just have some of our Spielgaben balls that he likes to drop in his Inbucare box

Thursday

Today we just started the morning with free reading time while I gathered everything up for our fun activities for the day. She read about 20 minutes and then we began reading all of our books about our favorite bird, the owl! Some fun facts she gathered from our readings

  • Scientists believe they have been around 65 million years.
  • The male is smaller than the female.
  • One ear is higher than the other. The higher ear hears the sounds from above and the lower ear hears noises from below.
  • They can’t move their eyes, but they can turn their necks 270 degrees.
Our owl illastrations.

Another activity I wanted to bring into this lesson was dissecting an owl pellet. Little Miss wasn’t too sure about that, but she did it. We found two mouse skulls and something else we couldn’t identify. A lot of the bones looked alike to both of us, so we didn’t finish putting the skeleton together. It was a lot of work and challenged her attention span (and mine too). I found this really affordable owl pellet for our science lesson. It includes one pellet, a dissection pick, and an owl pellet bone chart showing the skeletal structure of their prey.

Talking about owls brought up a trip we took last April, where we attended a presentation on owls. These are some pictures I found from that trip.

During free time we got out our spielgaben and Lynni made an owl with the loose pieces while RT rolled the pieces down his slide.

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She ended the school day with finishing up math on the swing.

Friday

Friday morning was started with all of us cuddled on the couch with the cozy fire going. We were reading our living book, Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter as our history for the week. Little Miss wanted to show her brother where Beatrix was from, so we pulled out our Maps book.

After our English lesson, Little Miss gave me examples of everything we covered for the week. She gave examples of helping verbs, contractions, and interjections. When all of the “formal” schooling was done, we went outside and looked around for things that were interesting to us to put them in our natural journals. We didn’t get very many pictures because we were so focused on what was around us.

A spider on our garage door and a mushroom. Pictures by Little Miss.

When it was time to come in we were ready for our tea time and baked the treat of the week: honey and peanut butter cookies! They were SO good. I tweaked the recipe just a little, because I didn’t have enough honey. I think everyone liked it less sweet. I gave Little Miss a choice of books for us to read while we drank tea, and she chose A Time to Keep.

That’s a wrap for Week Two! Make sure you check out Week One if you haven’t already!

Homeschool Journal Highlights

Welcome to week ONE of our homeschool journal where I will be sharing the highlights of our week!

Books for the week

These are most of the books that we used for this week.

This link contains Amazon affiliate links. See disclosure page.

Amelia’s Road

Farm

Farm Anatomy

Farming

From seed to plant

How a seed grows

Natural World

On the farm and the market

Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt

Monday

We started the week off by reading a brief intro on Beatrix Potter. I had never really learned much about her and honestly only had read a couple of her stories. Little Miss and I wanted to learn more about the author whose stories we would be reading for many weeks to come, so I ordered the book Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter for us to read. We reviewed where England is located and I had her guess how far she thought it was from where we live. Her guess was 150 miles (way off). I googled it and wrote it down beside her answer, and she did the math on the difference.

After our short geography lesson, we dove into the much loved tale of Peter Rabbit.

Little Miss’s drawing of Peter and Mr. McGregor’s garden.

I had her narrate the story back to me and narrate a version where Peter had listened to his mother. That’s when the character trait of the week got brought up.

Obedience

We had a discussion on the importance of being obedient to your parents, and she gave me some examples of being obedient and what the consequences could be for disobeying.

I decided to hang up our character trait each week above the kids little activity table, low enough for both of them to see it.

The first copy work of the new year was a success! How wonderful it is to not have copy work be a big battle Every. Single. Time. We made another compromise that she could pick out the fairies (from her Fairy book I mentioned here) each week. The first one she choose was the Snowdrop Fairy.

Our Science topic was learning about bunnies. She adores learning about animals. We were learning about all the breeds and the difference between all of them! Learning about the bunnies reminded her of one summer when she got to help care for some baby bunnies after the mother left them.

Small bunnies, Meat bunnies, Angora bunnies, and Make Believe bunny.

Tuesday

Today Miss 8 learned how to sew on buttons as our handicraft. She wanted to trace her designs with the cookie cutters she got for Christmas. She chose to do a unicorn and cloud design for this craft.

I got these Buttons and felt on Amazon. She loved them for the different colors and sizes for her projects. The nesting trays came from Etsy from a cute little shop WillowPineTN. RT uses them for play and they make cute little trays for crafts or activities.

For Science and Nature Studies, we learned the cycle of a plant, discussed photosynthesis, (she can pronounce it better than I can!) and went over all the different kinds of seeds there are. I had her choose how she wanted to show me the cycle of a plant, and she loved the diagram idea. Luckily, I had an extra box she could use. She picked out felt and paint and used some modeling clay. It turned out lovely and she had a lot of fun in the process of making it and explaining the process to me.

Lynni’s drawing of the plant stages. She accidentally drew them out of order.

Wednesday

Today we went to co-op and Miss 8 practiced for the puppet play she and her class are in. When we got home, we completed Math, English, Copywork, and handwriting quickly.

I had her sign her words to me this week, since she knew how to spell all of them. Instead of writing down her vocab words, I had her use them in a sentence after finding them in the dictionary. I only give her two or three vocab words a day.

sibling love

One of the books we read today was Up in the Garden, Down in the Dirt. Little Miss loved the illustrations in this book. We talked about what we want our garden to have this coming Summer and what kinds of tools we might need for it. She designed her own vegetable garden in her notebook. For her craft of the day, she wanted to make a diagram of the book we read.

What goes on under and above the dirt during the Summer.

The last book we read for today, was called Amelia’s Road. After we read it, we talked about how she thought it would end or what would happen if there were to be another book. It was a sweet little story,

Thursday

Today was a shorter day for us for school. We didn’t get to everything in A year of tales, but that’s okay. My husband and Little Miss set up her robotic crab she got as a Christmas gift. This thing is so neat, and it keeps our little guy entertained!

Robotic Crab

Instead of only using the stories from Jot It Down, she picked out some of her favorite fairy tale stories that we already owned. She chose The Twelve Dancing Princesses, which used to be one of my favorites; my mom would read it to me when I was little, and it’s one I have made sure to read to my kids. When all of school was done, I found an old movie on Youtube that my mom use to rent from the library called The Dancing Princesses Faerie Tale Theatre to watch. Youtube has a whole bunch of different fairy tale videos!

Lynni’s narration of The Twelve Dancing Princesses.
RT loves playing peek-a-boo

Friday

This whole week we reviewed proper and common nouns, all the different kinds of verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. We reinforced these with a few activities, like breaking the parts of a sentence onto individual note cards. This English curriculum has been a breath of fresh air for us and has made it her favorite subject, leaving geography in second!

Friday is a day for tea parties and yummy food that we make together, along with her other subjects and a field trip, if possible. The treat this week was tarts. This was our first time making them, and they turned out really good! I love that this curriculum incorporates recipes and tea time.

I didn’t have any tart pans so did have to order some from Amazon. These are the ones that I got.

Tart pans

I hope you enjoyed week one! I’d love to know what you and your kids are learning this week!