big long post - no pics - 3 day wrap up

Over the past few days we have been quite busy (8/13-8/15)! The kids saw the dentist Monday, Cory had some work done and was sedated so we didn't do much that day.  Mara and I got in a lot of reading time.  Since then we have been working on:

English:

• letter recognition & alphabet order
• letter sounds
• writing
• synonyms for big, small, a lot
• rhyming words
• tracing letters (Mara)
• How to spell your name (Mara)

Math:

• telling time (digital clock)
• adding (1-10)
• subtracting (1-10)
• counting by 5's
• money value (1 chore = $1, how many chores do you need to do do get a $7 toy)
• value of coins penny-quarter
• shape recognition - basic for Mara, advanced for Cory (cylinder, pyramid, cone, etc)
• counting to 15 (Mara), 25 (Cory)

Science:

• buoyancy (sink or float)
• gravity (bouncing different size balls from same height)
• centrifugal force (rolling a tire with water in it)
• inertia (in the car)
• dinos, crocs, woolly mammoths
• Levers (at the playground)
• Pulleys (on a farm set toy & flagpole) 

Geography:

• where we live
• distance between Memphis TN and Huntsville AL
• where the closest beach is

Chores for both kids this week:

• taking your dishes to the sink
• picking up toys when done playing
• putting dirty clothes in basket & taking to laundry room
• sorting dirty laundry into piles by color
• vacuuming your bedroom (Cory)

Chemistry in Kindergarten, yes please!

I know you are thinking, no way, seriously?! You are teaching your kid chemistry? Why yes I am, and today we made a volcano. Excuse the quality of our volcano, I ran out of flour and had to half the dough recipe so you can still see the coke bottle. Oh well, it still worked.

Before adding vinegar

After the vinegar

Again, not the greatest but the kids were thrilled.  Here's the science behind how this works:

1. The lava is the result of a chemical reaction between the baking soda and vinegar.
2. In this reaction, carbon dioxide gas is produced, which is also present in real volcanoes.
3. As the carbon dioxide gas is produced, pressure builds up inside the plastic bottle, until the gas bubbles (thanks to the detergent) out of the 'volcano'.

In reading about volcanoes, we also fit in a bit of geography, and talked of the place where there are volcanoes.

We also ready some cool books about Woolly Mammoths and watched Ice Age. Cory asked where mammoths lived, so we looked in the book and pulled up a map...and we talked about Siberia.

Then we talked about the weather in Siberia and how it differs from the weather here in Memphis, TN.  We also managed to talk about how many days are in a month and how many months till his birthday (in Dec). This convo was brought up by his asking for a toy for his b-day; guess what, its a mammoth!

See Tremor here!  And in discussing Tremor, we again had the discussion of the value of a dollar, how many dollars Tremor costs and Cory could do to earn the money for Tremor if he wanted to buy him before his birthday. 

That led to a wonderful talk on responsibilities and respect and chores and I just love how this works!!!!!

Library Day 8/7/12

Tuesday, we took a family trip to the library. Cory immediately went to the information desk and asked where the dinosaur books were. He was amazed at all the choices, but here's what he decided on:

Just in the Dinosaur Wars book, we covered:

• Metric conversion chart, height/length comparisons (how many Daddy's it takes to match dinosaurs), weight comparisons (dinosaurs weight in tons = x amount of Daddy's truck). They really enjoyed doing this and got a huge kick out of dinosaurs equaling 10 or more of Daddy's truck. relating to that really helped them understand the size

• definitions- 
• herbivore-  Noun:   An animal that feeds on plants.
• carnivore-
  

  An animal that feeds on flesh. A mammal of the order Carnivora.

• prey- 

  Noun:	An animal hunted and killed by another for food.
  Verb:	Hunt and kill for food: "small birds that prey on insects".

• predator- 

  Noun:

  An animal that naturally preys on others.

• fossil- 

  Noun:

  The remains or impression of a prehistoric organism preserved in petrified form or as a mold or cast in rock: "sites rich in fossils".

• serrated- 

  Adjective:

  Having or denoting a jagged edge; sawlike: "a knife with a serrated edge".

• geography- Spinosaurus lived in Africa, Giganotosaurus lived in South America

Cory isn't the only one that got books, I racked up too. Can you tell I'm a little worried about teaching him to read? LOL

Earlier in the day, we had a special lesson and guest. Our Diabetes Educator came by and got Cory all hooked up to his insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor. We listened as she explained all the details and taught Cory the importance of wearing it and not getting it wet.  He's pretty proud, can you tell?

Throughout the day we discussed various topics including:

• ancestors of crocodiles
• how to fold shirts
• volume and capacity of containers (more on this another day)
• origins of the word dinosaur - Greek (Cory is really interested in the Greek language, thinks the words sound funny)
• importance of eating healthy foods and brushing our teeth
• weather
• writing worksheets
• what you can buy for $1/saving money/allowance for chores

Mara's letters worksheet

We were also lucky enough to be able to go to McDonald's play room while Daddy went to a class at church. That was a very fun filled 90 minutes of running and climbing goodness!

Old pic of Mara, but same McD's

All of these subjects have blended into today (Wednesday) also, which is fine by me, this is stuff they enjoy.  Later today they will be spending the afternoon and night with Grandma, so no updates from me till probably Friday  :)

first day of kindergarten 8/6/12

With today being the first day of school for public schools, we decided to start today to.  We spent the morning at Shelby Farms Park. First, we stopped by the lake and fed the ducks

We took the opportunity to hang out in the shade and ask the kids a few questions and laugh at the ducks and geese who realized they were missing out on a yummy treat. We were quite sad though that we didn't see any turtles this time but also thankful we didn't see any snakes either.  There is a beautiful lily pond on the other side of the road that we hope to visit when it gets a bit cooler. the kids are hoping to find frogs there.

Topics covered:

• habitats - water habitats & what animals live there
• anatomy of a duck - why do ducks have webbed feet? What purposes do their feathers serve?
• food chain - what ducks eat & who eats the ducks

Then we moved on to the playground where Mara took to the slides and had a snack. Mance took Cory over to the swings where they had talks of pulleys, levers and gravity. After that they headed over to the rope course where I'm told Cory climbed the whole entire course!  Lessons learned there were in agility, gravity, balance and hand/foot-eye coordination. I wish I would have been there to take pics. Oh well, there will be a next time!

As it crept closer to 11am, it got really hot, so we left to go to lunch. On the way out we spotted these guys, which prompted another good discussion.

Topics covered included:

• habitats - American plains
• endangered species - American Bison
• food chain/prey and predators - what bison eat and what eats bison
• weather - why bison have fur, temps ranges for our climate zone (zone 7)
• measurements (feet and inches) - how bison and dogs compare in size

On the way to the restaurant we also passed a solar farm. next time we will have to slow down so I can take pics. Here's a recent article about it.  This also prompted great discussion.

• How the sun makes energy
• energy conservation - if we conserve energy, we have more $ for other things
• costs or electricity - the more we use, the more $ it costs. 

Also covered: parts of speech, handwriting

Definitions of the Day:

Habitat:

Noun:

The natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism. A particular type of environment regarded as a home for organisms.

Endangered Species:  a species whose numbers are so small that the species is at risk of extinction.

Extinction:  

Noun:

The state or process of a species, family, or larger group being or becoming extinct. The state or process of ceasing or causing something to cease to exist.

Conservation:

Noun:

The action of conserving something, in particular. Preservation, protection, or restoration of the natural environment, natural ecosystems, vegetation, and wildlife.

Solar:

Adjective:

Of, relating to, or determined by the sun: "solar radiation". Relating to or denoting energy derived from the sun's rays: "solar heating".

Agility:  the gracefulness of a person or animal that is quick and nimble.

Gravity:

Noun:

The force that attracts a body toward the center of the earth, or toward any other physical body having mass. For most purposes Newton's... The degree of intensity of this, measured by acceleration. All in all it was a great morning, too hot to be at the park, but we all had a great time.  Now they are down for rest time. Maybe we can get some more handwriting done this afternoon; Cory has decided he wants to be penpals with a friend that lives in Nashville.  :) First Day of School Pics: Cory, K, 5.5yo Mara, K4, 3.5yo

10 day round up

I realize I am not so great with the updates, so this might be a long post.  Over the past 10 days we have had much fun playing outside (soccer, basketball, races, teeball) , we have been on family walks to the park, we have had lots of magnet play, twister, painting and coloring and some handwriting thrown in.

I realize these aren't the most recent but i don't always remember to get out the camera.  My bad.

We had the opportunity to have a lesson on storms (9/25 i think) and got some really awesome pics of the clouds.  We also discussed the water cycle and how oceans have salt water and lakes & rivers are fresh water.  This led to a discussion of Cory's favorite...killer whales.  Again we discussed how they are mammals even though they live in the ocean like fish.  He never gets sick of whales.

He has spent a lot of time on the computer playing learning games on Big Green Rabbit, phonics and math games on Starfall (which I am considering paying for a membership $35/year) and watching science docs (lots of dinosaurs) and leapfrog cartoons on Netflix and youtube.

Another thing we really enjoy is grocery store math.  We cover how much money we have compared to how much an item costs and how much of an item we need for the week.  He really has fun with this and you can see on his face that he is trying really hard to work it out.  I love that he thinks we need 200 popsicles to make it to next week, if he had his way, he would be right.

October 1st we had the pleasure of participating in a 5K for the juvenile diabetes research foundation, while we did not finish we had a great time and raised quite a bit of money.  Cory also had his picture and story featured on a sign posted on the walk route.  He is my hero!

Other than that, not much has been going on, we have been playing games, dress up and learning how to interact in a positive way with our siblings (read as not fighting).

I will update this with more pictures as soon as my computer stops being fickle.  Until next week, take chances, make mistakes, and see that learning is all around you!!

updates week ending 9/24/11

Lots of fun and discovering going on!!  We have been having a blast playing with magnets, taking measurements, and learning to play board games by the rules.  We have also really enjoyed tons of animal and science docs on NatGeo, the Science Channel, Discovery Channel & Netflix.  Lots of Mythbusters with daddy and picked up 13  issues of Zoobooks at Goodwill.  Cory also figured out that he doesn't want to eat animals after sneaking in a peek of Food Inc while I was watching it.  I thought this was a very grown up decision, his reason being he doesn't want to hurt animals.  Too bad he asked for a hamburger for dinner.  We will revisit this when he gets a bit older!

We got a bunch of new games too, including Twister and Dora the Explorer Candyland.  Besides the hula hoops this is their favorite game.

Back to the magnets...they use these for everything!  It's a set of little colored stick magnets with ball bearings and I swear they are more creative than I will ever be.  They make shapes, letters, patterns and used them to measure how long they are.  So cute to watch them learn and explore together!!

Cory has expanded his writing vocab to include his name, mom, dad, Mara, lion 7 cow.  He wasn't much interested in trying much more at the time so I let it go and beamed with pride that he asked me to show him to write what he did!  Baby steps....

Another cool thing about this week, family walks when daddy gets off work.  When he gets home we leash up the dog and go for a walk; sometimes around the block, sometimes to the park. Either way, much fun to be had!!

Have a good week y'all!!!!

lessons you wouldnt learn in PS

1.  When you are mad at mommy and throw down a glass bowl
      a.  it shatters into 3 zillion pieces
      b.  it makes mommy even more angry

2.  Running immediately to your room screaming "I didn't mean to" and "I'm sorry"  works because mommy realizes you knew you made a mistake.

I gave him 5 minutes by himself then went to his room. Conversation once in room...
"Cory, do you understand what you did was wrong?" 
"Yes ma'am."
"Cory is that what we do when we are angry?  What do we do?"
"No, we use our words not our hands."
"Do you understand that broken glass can hurt you?"
"Yes ma'am."
Do you understand that the money I was going to use to buy you a new toy this weekend will now be spent on new bowls for the kitchen?"
"but mommy.....yes ma'am."
(insert lots of hugs here)


I am a very proud mama. I only once raised my voice (when kids were trying to come in to help clean up glass) and steered clear of time outs or physical punishments. 

Mommy's lesson learned today: using logic and empathy with a 4 year old works!