Our 2011/12 school year is coming to an end. We spent this past week visiting a Theme Park, playing outside and cleaning out the school room. Next week will be Heavens last day of preschool and then we will begin our summer fun so be sure to check back =)
Enjoying nice weather
Spring Clean Out
Finished 
This post is linked to Preschool Corner, Tot School, TGIF and HHH
We are nearing the end of the 2011/12 school year, only 3 weeks left! This week we took it easy and just enjoyed the nice weather, doing Science experiments and planting in the garden (will update soon)..
Place an egg in white vinegar
We then compared the eggs
Celery Sticks In Colored Water
Made Snow For Fun (since we didn’t get any in MI this year)
Worked on Time4Learning (my most fav site for kids ever!) Heaven LOVES doing school work with her big brother
For the little ones birthdays Grandma helped out our PE class (GREAT gift!!!)
Chasing Butterflies
and a sneak peak of what’s to come in our garden post
Are you close to finishing up the school year?
This post is linked to Preschool Corner,TGIF, Sunday Showcase, Science Sunday, Tot School and HHH
Since JJ lives with us now, we are the ones responsible for his HW (so is he). A few months back, a letter came home, that we had to sign. It stated that as a family we would make sure JJ has a Science Fair Project turned in on a certain day. Being as competitive as I am, I told him I would only help, if it was something really cool (who wants to spend all their time doing something that’s been done?). After looking at tons of ideas, I came across one that involved Lego’s. I know how much JJ loves building things so we went with
Purpose- To see if we could design a city layout that could withstand an Earthquake. We wanted to see what works, what didn’t and why.
Hypothesis- JJ’s guess was as the building height increased, building stability would decrease.
Materials-
Building Structures
Shake Table
4X8 sheet of 1/2in. MDF or any other wood available this was leftover from a previous project
1X2 stock
wood glue
wood screws
circular saw
cordless drill
measuring tape
4ft straight edge
1 coffee can plastic lid
marbles “enough to fill the area of your lids”
green, brown, grey paint
Directions
Structures
1 Layout cutting board and take the long thin pieces of balsa wood.
2 Be sure you have enough to make four equal sides for a four sided building.
3 Measure and cut pieces to size needed.
4 Using hot glue or wood glue “Hot glue dries faster” begin gluing and pressing the sides together to form a box with a hollow middle.
5 Allow glue to dry
6 Measure and cut a piece to become to top of the box “building” and glue in place
7 After all buildings have been built begin painting the buildings
8. Once all skyscrapers are complete build different size/shape Lego buildings
9. Measure ALL of the buildings and document them
Shake table directions
1 Measure and cut out your base of the table using the MDF, we came up with 36in. X 26in.
2 Measure and cut the 1X2 stock to make 4 – 36in. side rails and 4 – 22in. End rails
3 glue the longer side of one side rail and stack another side rail ontop.
4 glue the edge of you base table where the glued side rails will set and screw together the side rail to the base table
5 repeat steps 3 and 4 for the other side and then again for the end rails
6 measure and cut a 30in. X 20in piece of MDF “this will be piece where your buildings will sit and act as the top layer of the Earth’s crust
7 clean off all wood and prepare surface for paint
8 layout all of the buildings to get an idea of how you want to layout the city
9 paint the shake table use grey for streets green for grass brown for your side rails
10 glue the plastic lid to center on the top of the MDF base table
11 fill the lid with marbles
12 lay the smaller piece of MDF on top of the marbles, test and make sure that it will move back and forth
13 layout your city with the buildings
Experiment
Trial 1 Back & Fourth Shaking (20 seconds) “P” Waves
Record your data, set back up and set your stop watch for another 20 seconds
Trial 2 Side to Side Shaking (20 seconds) “S” waves
Record, Set Up, Timer
Trial 3 Gentle Rolling (20 seconds) Surface waves
This post is linked to TGIF, Sunday Showcase, Science Sunday and HHH
With MI weather still being up and down, we haven’t had the chance to build our pen yet. During this time we have started some of the growing process in the house. It started when Heaven brought me a bean from her workbox and told me it was a “magic bean” and wanted it to grow. We read the story and did the project last year so this year I did things a little different . I got the idea from Pinterest as I always do..
Day 2
Day 3
Keeping track of the growth with worksheets from 1+1+1=1 Pinterest
After we had started our bean growing, I figured we might as well get some other projects we found a try.
Milk Jug For Watering Flowers was also a great Earth Day project
Homemade Weed Killer and Wasp Killer
After all was made we took them outside and gave them a try. This is a before pic and next month will be an update.
Next I really wanted to try my hands at worm composting, I’m not sure why but I am really interested in it. With that said my overly compulsive self went back to Pinterest and found some cool ideas for Worm Farms and Worm Composting. Since I’m new at this I want to start out small and work my way up. The kids and I gathered our food scraps, special soil from another plant project and went out to find some worms.
We dug around for a bit and couldn’t find any so I am going to go out and buy some. This will also be an update next month.
Once it started to get sunny we planted our seed packets of watermelon and cucumbers
Special Soil
The wait process
Well next month I will have a ton of things to update on and new projects that we will be starting around Mothers Day, when it warms up.
To learn more about the HSV Garden Challenge check out their site
This post is linked to HSV, Preschool Corner, TGIF, Sunday Showcase, Science Sunday, Tot School and HHH
We finished our weekly letter units last month so for the past couple weeks, we have got the chance to do some cool themes. This week we focused on the body and 5 senses. Of course I took to Pinterest for awesome ideas and was happy to find this FREE lesson.
Some of the things inside the unit packet
5 Senses
HER SUPER SENSE WOULD BE TOUCH
We talked about how dogs have good noses and played hide n seek with a treat for Ben-e
She was excited when he found it..
Health
The Body
My Mom just happened to give the kids these cool toys from Burger King and it went perfect!
The human body we have is called- Edu Science Human Body Model with Squishy Parts
and can purchased at your local Toys R Us
This post is linked to Preschool Corner,TGIF, Sunday Showcase, Science Sunday, Tot School and HHH
The 1st thing we did to get the ball rolling on this lesson was, our Time4Learning Lesson on Space. After we took to Pinterest and here are the finished activities =)
Heaven age 3 making her Constellations
Stencil Painting
Learning the planets
For our planet mobile
Round 2
Other things we did…
Alphie
Planet Book
This post is linked to Preschool Corner, Sunday Showcase, Tot School, Science Sunday and HHH
Since Heaven is 3 (soon to be 4) I thought it was the perfect time to teach her how to work the laptop and mouse. I started off with a site I had a random email for and for the most part she liked it. She would play for maybe 6 minutes at the most if “I” asked her if she wanted to play.
I remembered a site I had seen around the web called Time4Learning and decided to go check it out. Heaven was starting to get really good with controlling the mouse, so I was thrilled when I discovered they let Bloggers do REVIEWS for it. That’s AWESOME to me because Heaven is still young so I don’t want to buy something, that will only have her attention for a few minutes or days.
I contacted Time4Learning and in a timely fashion I was emailed back. Heaven and I immediately sat down to try it…..
SHE LOVES IT!!! She can play it by herself for up to a half hour (2 lessons) and even comes and ASK me if she can play it. That is big because my daughter is always go,go,go.
I also used it for my step son who attends a Charter School but due to the amount of HW he gets, we really didn’t get a chance to use it. He did find the game section and played it often after HW =)
I KNOW THE ECONOMY IS NOT THE GREATEST and at times homeschooling can be pricey, so I would NEVER recommend something that was not worth it. THIS IS WORTH IT! I have a 3 yr old that can tell you all about CONSTELLATIONS!! We have only been using the program a month and she has picked up so much. AWESOME program and I give HUGE props to the Creators of it.
Links to check out..
http://www.Time4Learning.com – Online interactive curriculum for home use, PreK-8th Grade.
http://www.Time4Writing.com – Online writing tutorials for high, middle, and elementary school students.
http://www.Time4Learning.net – A forum to chat with parents online about kids, education, parenting and more…
http://www.Time4Learning.com – Online interactive curriculum for home use, PreK-8th Grade.
http://www.Time4Writing.com – Online writing tutorials for high, middle, and elementary school students.
http://www.Time4Learning.net – A forum to chat with parents online about kids, education, parenting and more…
Disclaimer- The opinions here, are mine and only mine. They come from the heart and are 100% honest. For writing the review I was given a 1 month trial to test out.
This post is linked to Tot School and HHH
For once I have a holiday post up BEFORE the holiday..(proud moment for me). Anyhow, we had a pretty laxed week b/c Grandma was in town. Our activities were fun, easy and more about play this week. (Not like that isn’t every week ..lol)
Printables from 1+1+1=1 or Homeschool Creations (and if it isn’t them I am SO SORRY..I’m usually so good with this)
Decorating Eggs and Door Hangers(Dollar Tree)
Coloring in our books…
That we got from the EASTER BUNNY
Other activities we did-
Plastic eggs workboxes
Opened Easter Baskets From Grandma
This post is linked to Tot School, HHH, Preschool Corner and Sunday Showcase
O how I excited I am! For those who dont know, the HSV host a Garden Challenge each year. Rules are pretty simple– grow whatever you like,blog about progress and link up each month. They have AWESOME Sponsors as well. Last year Heavens garden was one of the winners and this year , we are trying just as hard for that spot
After we won, we were sent a great gift card but my favorite part was, it was in a card that said “Best of luck this homeschool year” and that card hangs on the wall of our homeschool. To me it was a symbol that someone out there cares (even at the times I feel I’m alone in the homeschooling world)
Last year we had to pick our corn early due to the giant raccoons around here. This year I want to be prepared so I will be building a pen I found on Pinterest. My MIL was kind enough to get the kids tool bags and tools for Easter, in them came cucumbers and watermelon. I might start them in the house while the pen is being constructed but I know now not to plant out in the open where critters can eat my food (-_-)
(Excuse the mess on my desk)
The next link up is “Thursday April 26th sponsored by Apologia. Link up & share your progress! Did you “break ground” or still growing starter plants? Are the kids excited, do you see any buds, or are you fighting army worms?”
So make a post, link up today (or through the week) and get ready for a challenge =)
Clouds
Cloud Dough (picture below w/ directions)
Scholastic Rainbows and Tot School Printables
Rain
Critters and Animals
Trip To Petting Farm
Trip To Grandpa’s Shop In Detroit
Finding Snails On The Building from The Salt Mines
This post is linked to HHH, Preschool Corner, Sunday Showcase, Tot School and Science Sunday
