Rabbit Trails and Slime Mold

It wouldn't be homeschooling if we didn't head down a few rabbit trails!  This week we are continuing our cell and DNA studies, and after reading a bit about diatoms and spirogyra, we wanted to check out a few more members of the fascinating Protist family.

We began by reading this book by Rona Arato.  It's a good introduction to Protists with lots of great photos and cool info about this odd group of organisms.  The kids like this series of nonfiction because it's written for a young reader but, as Dude says, "They don't talk to you like you're a baby."

I have to admit, we got a serious case of the giggles when we got to this page!  We have four dogs and have seen our share of, uh, slime mold, over the years!

Then it was time to get out the microscope and look at some protists.  Super took these amazing microscope photos.

Amoeba, reaching with their pseudopodia...

 ...Paramecia, dyed with such festive colors...

...and delicate, confetti-like Diatoms.

We learned that malaria and African sleeping sickness are caused by protozoa (which are in the Protist family) and that when you use chalk, you are writing with the crushed silica shells of ancient diatoms.  We read about the dinoflagellates that cause red tides, and about how important Protists are in the food chain.

Finally, we watched this very thought-provoking video:

Hope you're having a great week learning with your family!

Our Week in Pictures

Also known as the lazy mom's guide to homeschool blogging...

 What we're reading.

 

Vocabulary Bingo.   

 A few more things for our Time Capsule.

Measurements, and three things that represent you.

  Nature, knowledge, and creativity.

 And pugs in the sun.

A reference I made for the kids using bookmarks from abcteach.

 Practicing multiples...

...and playing integer games.

 

 Korean food!

 

 Cereal and sign language.

No matter how busy we are...

 

...there's always time to be a smart-aleck!

Hope you had a great week, too!

Super-Awesome Classroom

Welcome to the Super-Awesome Classroom of the Super-Awesome School of Super-Awesomeness!*

Our classroom has changed a lot over the years.  Not surprising, since my kids have changed a lot over the years, too!

These tables used to be lined up so the kids could do most of their work together.  This year, they each requested their own workspace, so I put them corner-to-corner.  You can just make out the empty clothesline on the far wall, waiting to display this year's art and other creations!

 We try to keep the tabletops pretty simple.  A placemat works as a pad to write on.  Most of their supplies are kept elsewhere so they have plenty of space to work. 

 

Here is Super's tabletop.  She has a placemat, a new box of 64 crayons (yay!) and a few German flashcards.  Apparently she decided to tape a reminder about the order of operations here, too. (Dude keeps a multiplication chart on his table.)

 

A dollar store napkin holder keeps reference cards handy: shape properties, poetry response prompts, flashcards for making plural nouns, etc.

 

Super's table is closest to the heater because she is always cold in the winter!

The table in the middle holds each kids' filebox, nature journals, the hole punch, and their giant history binders (looking kind of empty after we cleaned last year's stuff out!)

 

Other everyday supplies are kept in this area.  The blue drawers hold lapbooking supplies, markers and colored pencils, rulers and tape measures, empty folders, new composition books, etc.  The white bookshelf has reference books, a couple of workbox-type activities that I put together, the microscope, and our "brain breaks."  

(Those are the little activities we do when we need to refocus or just take a quick break.) 

 

This was quite a find!  A local bookstore was going out of business (very sad) and I asked if they had any shelves to sell.  This awesome rotating bookshelf shows off the beautiful covers of our art books!

This messy bookshelf holds all kinds of things: a few art supplies, some of my teaching materials, the kids' binders, and other random stuff.  Past projects of every kind are displayed on top.  You can see my disorganized pile of posters and maps in the corner, plus a comfy reading chair covered in a beloved blanket.

This is the extent of my planning "system."  I use a Word document to plan our days, normally about a month in advance.  This year, to my complete surprise, I'm actually prepared through November!  Everything I need for those plans (worksheets, manipulatives, books, whatever)  goes into these files.  On the left: math up to 11/16.  On the right: everything else up to 11/16.

This shelf is right next to my desk and it holds a few math games and whatever books we are using at the moment.  As we finish a science or history unit, these books will get put away or returned to the library, and new books will reside here.

 

Culling a ton of books over the summer allowed us to add this great reading nook.  As you can see, Gomez really enjoys hanging out here.  He doesn't read (as far as I know) but he enjoys cuddling with readers! 

I'm not posting a picture of my desk because it's so clean and organized, it would only make you feel bad.  In other words, it's a total pigsty at the moment!  And every moment.

We love our classroom, but like most homeschoolers, we can learn anywhere we want!  As long as the weather is warm, we'll be spending plenty of time here as well.

Can't wait to see all the other amazing learning spaces on the blog hop!  Have a fantastic year learning with your families!

 

*This is what you get when you let a 1st and 3rd grader name their school.

Our Goals for 2012-13

This is going to be an unusual school year for us.  Or, should I say, even more unusual?

;-)

We will be adding a toddler to our family sometime after the first of the year.  We'll definitely take a month or more off to bond with him and give the entire family some time to adjust--only, we don't know when he'll arrive, how he will react to us, or what his medical needs will be.  Try planning around that!

The next two care packages, ready to go!

And this is a testing year for both of my kids.  We don't normally do much test prep, but I do want to give the kids a fighting chance to do well. 

So...I decided to "frontload" our academic year a bit.  We are starting earlier (August 14) and taking on a bit more daily work than we did last year.  Once Little Guy arrives and we are feeling up to it, the big kids can go back to their more relaxed schedule, and they'll have a little more freedom to follow the rabbit-trails that they invariably find!

Knowing me, I have over-thought and over-prepared, but here is the plan for our academic year:

Math

As usual, math is our most eclectic subject.  I hate to think of how much money I have spent over the years on various curricula that just didn't work for us...I finally got wise and invented my own, using ideas from The Mailbox, Teacher Filebox, abcteach, BrainPop, Teachers pay Teachers, Family Math, and Challenge Math.

Card games and other math games, many from TpT.

We play a lot of math games.  In fact, many games reinforce math skills, even if they aren't officially "educational."  In addition to S'Math, Mythmatical Battles, math facts bingo, and other games, my kids like Monopoly, Minotaurus, Domination, Uno, and Othello.  We used to avoid worksheets like the plague but as the kids are getting older, the concepts are getting more complex, and those practice sheets seem to be the only way to really make them stick.

We still do lots of hands-on math, though.  For skills reinforcement, I really like The Mailbox and teacher-created games from TpT.  For practical, real-life activities, I get lots of ideas from Math Wise, Hands-On Math, and a fun book called Math in the Garden.

After Little Guy arrives, the kids will switch to Teaching Textbooks, one of my favorite ready-made curricula.  If only it had been around when I was a kid (along with personal computers, CD Roms, and legal homeschooling!) ANYWAY...we used it a couple of years ago and my kids were able to do the lessons almost independently, so I'm hoping that will be true for 7th and 5th as well.

Never underestimate the power of Angry Birds stickers to transform ordinary flash cards!

Science

We are beginning the year with a (homemade) unit study on cells and DNA.  Then we're going to use Ellen McHenry's The Elements: Ingredients of the Universe.  Chemistry is not my strongest subject, so I am very grateful for Ellen McHenry, as well as Gonick & Criddle's Cartoon Guide to Chemistry.

Better learning through chemistry...

If we still have time before the end of the year, we'll jump into Discover the Oceans: The World's Largest Ecosystem.  Honestly, my kids are such science sponges, I almost don't have to plan anything "official" but I do enjoy doing science with them!

Letters, Language, and Literacy

We're using Grammar Voyage this year, with some supplemental games and practice sheets from Teachers pay Teachers and The Mailbox.  I like A Sentence A Day for punctuation and spelling practice.  We also discuss punctuation and parts of speech as we read together.

 

The LL&L shelf: grammar activities from The Mailbox, grammar books by Ruth Heller, Mad Libs, articles I saved for text studies, and books for reader response activities.

  I prepared our literature units about a month ago (so proud that I was organized enough to get it done early!)  Our spelling and vocabulary words come from our literature units.  The kiddos will continue studying German this year (their choice) but we're hoping to learn some basic Korean as well, since their little brother is coming from South Korea.

Lots of great reading ahead!

History

We use Joy Hakim's A History of US, along with great living books on whatever topic we're studying.  We read together, discuss the events, add dates and illustrations to our timelines, and do as many hands-on projects as possible.

  

Some of our resources from last year...we'll do quick review before moving on. 

I found a decent used textbook to use for our state history, but I'm only using it as a basic outline (and to educate myself, since I didn't grow up here.)  The best way to do state history, in my opinion, is to get out and visit as many museums and historical sites as possible! 

We've already started our history studies for this year, at the kids' request!

All the Other Stuff

We do Atelier art and occasionally I sign the kids up for an art class at our rec center.  This year I'm hoping to add some informal artist studies to the mix.  Something easy, like just reading a library book and then making something in the artist's style.

Super continues to enjoy guitar lessons.  Dude tried piano and wasn't crazy about it, and we are between drum teachers at the moment but I'm hoping to get him back into music soon.  Their P.E. consists of hiking, swimming, karate, going to the climbing wall, and walking our rambunctious dogs!   Neither of them enjoys team sports, which is OK with me, but Dude has mentioned wanting to try track and field at some point. 

Two more resources that I really love!

I used the word "goals" instead of "curriculum" in the title of this post because in most cases we cobble together many different resources to invent our own curriculum.  We use a bit of every homeschooling style, too.  That's the beauty of the learning lifestyle: you can customize every day to fit the child, the season, and the circumstances.

 

We're looking forward to a great school year!  Good luck to all of you, and have lots of fun learning with your kids!

Advice for a Young Utahraptor

If you happen to be a young Utahraptor living in the Early Cretaceous period, you'll need lots of important skills to make it through each exciting day.

For example, this Astrodon may look like a yummy lunch, but you'll need to use cunning and teamwork to down one of these ten-ton dinos. 

 And if an Acrocanthosaurus moves in on your hard-earned meal, it's best to just move on.  I know, I know. Utahraptors are tough, but trust me.  You are not tough enough to take on this megasized predator!

 

 Don't worry...there will be other feasts, like this iguanodon.  Just watch out for the thumb spikes!


In addition to hunting skills, you will need to be flexible.  Occasionally you are going to face something unexpected, like a flood.  Your best change of survival?  Learn a new skill on the spot!

 

We are loving Raptor Red by Robert T. Bakker!*  Told from the point of view of a female Utahraptor, this fascinating novel is definitely our favorite family read-aloud this year.  We have cried for Raptor Red's lost mate, rooted for her when her survival was on the line, and laughed when her curiosity got the best of her.  All while learning about the amazing creatures of the Early Cretaceous.**

  

One more word of advice, Raptor Red.  If you happen to meet one of these armor-covered guys...don't even bother.  He's not worth the broken teeth!

 

*If you've seen Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, you might recall the character Dr. Robert Burke, who met his unfortunate end in the jaws of a T. Rex.  That character was (somewhat loosely) based on Dr. Bakker!   

**The best part of all: Super got to meet Dr. Bakker today! He was very friendly, but instead of just talking about his own book, he asked her what else she liked to read.  They ended up discussing the Warriors series (and, because he never talks down to a kid, Dostoevsky!)  Thanks, Dr. Bob!

Behold the Awesomeness!

The literature units for 2012 -2013 are DONE!

And they are all organized in these nifty little hanging bags!*

(Trumpet fanfare...)

Inside each bag: the novel, a vocabulary list, vocabulary activities, and a literature unit with author information, discussion questions, and enrichment activites.  The units are mostly from Teachers Pay Teachers or Currclick.  (BTW, If you are planning to read The Island of the Blue Dolphins, there is a fantastic novel study available on TPT, and it's FREE!)

We're using The Arrow for The Midwife's Apprentice, and some good, basic vocabulary sheets from TPT.   (Just search "vocabulary graphic organizer" and you can choose from a ton of different formats, some free and some a dollar or so.  This is probably obvious to you, but for some reason I never figured it out until I was putting together this year's units!) 

I'm a firm believer in getting familiar with new vocabulary before reading the book, so I made various puzzles and activities using the tools on ABCTeach.  You can make crosswords, word finds, word shapes, and lots more.

Next year our spelling words and our vocabulary words will be the same.  We'll also use them to study prefixes, suffixes, and root words.  And many of our writing activities will come from literature studies.  (I tell my kids all the time: if you want to be a writer, first be a reader!)

 We're starting the year with The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.  After that, I'll let the kids take turns choosing the next book.  We certainly won't get through all of these, but I made more than we need so there would be plenty to choose from.  The choices: A Single Shard, The Egypt Game, The Breadwinner, The Door in the Wall, Dominic, The Magician's Elephant, Seedfolk, Harris and Me, The Island of Blue Dolphins, Pictures of Hollis Woods, The Indian in the Cupboard, Danny the Champion of the World, The Midwife's Apprentice, and Esperanza Rising.

That should keep my little readers busy for quite a while!  And anything we don't use this year is ready for the next!

*In case you're curious about the organizer above, it's called a Clip-A-Zip and I can't remember where I got mine.  I just looked it up on Amazon and there is no way I would have paid 45 bucks for it!  Are you kidding me?  Really Good Stuff offers a similar organizer; however you have to buy the bags separately.  You homeschooler types are so creative--I'm confident you could find a clever way to make a similar system if you wanted one!