Finishing Up the 2015/2016 Homeschool Year Plus Some Great Summer Deals

This is our last full week of lessons.  We will be doing Math over the Summer, plus my son has to finish Biology.  We will be doing two to three days a week, of about 2 hours of work.  Caitlin will be doing Writing along with her Math.  She is currently writing a book on Wattpad, but does not want that included in her school work, so that will be free time work.  DJ is also at a stand still on his second book, so that is also on hold until he figures it out.  Wattpad has helped encourage Caitlin and her creative writing.  Assigned writing assignments are still a hassle, but she is getting a hold of it.  So, over the next few days, I need to come up with final exams for each child, and each subject.  Biology, no final needed, he holds an average of 100, and Caitlin is finishing up her Science testing, and should be done soon. I, believe it or not, have next year's curriculums almost completely chosen.  I will be sharing those in the coming weeks.  I also have to start working on our portfolios, for  our yearly evaluations in August.   There are two websites I want to share with you, to use over the Summer months.

Nanowrimo is doing a Summer writing contest.  DJ did their Fall contest, and loved it.  However he is not interested in doing it over the Summer, much to my sadness.  It is completely free, and an awesome way to get your kids writing. He will be doing it again in the Fall.  Click this link to check it out. 

Second, I got an email, yesterday from Homeschool Buyers Co-op with their list of free for Summer class offerings.  There are several awesome options here.  I took advantage of Mathhelp.com and Emusic.  If DJ likes the Math format, and setup, then I will buy their Geometry course for next year.  Otherwise I will stick with Saxon Geometry, which I have not yet purchased.  Be sure to read all the directions when you sign up for any of the classes.  They are not complicated, but there are steps that must be followed.  You do have to be a member of the website, which is also free to get the deals.  Click this link, to visit and check out all the offerings. 

That is it for now.  Be back in a few days with more awesome stuff that I find.

Crystal Growing Kit, A Sponge Marine Biology Lab and Draw What You See

On Fridays I try to keep school somewhat light and fun. We usually do our labs, and experiments on Friday. A week ago, or so, we were at The Dollar Tree. They had these crystal growing kits, and Caitlin wanted to get one to do. So, I bought one for each kid. They were easy to set up, the kids read and followed the directions with no assistance from me. We checked them today, and they are already starting to form crystals. I will take another picture in a few days to show the progress. The picture shown below was taken yesterday right after they set them up.

DJ had a sponge lab for his Marine Biology. He had to answer the questions in his book, and then we looked at the sponge under the microscope and draw what he sees.

Caitlin found a small lizard being eaten by ants, over the Summer. It was dead, of course, so we saved it to look at under the microscope. We did that yesterday as well. There was not much left to the skeletal remains, but it was still cool to look at.

DJ had a persuasive writing assignment. He was a realtor and he had to convince buyers to buy a haunted house. Perfect for Halloween. You can read it on his blog. It is pretty funny. Caitlin actually had two writing assignments. She had a descriptive writing assignment on how her and a friend would feel walking through a haunted house. She also had to make a Math short story for a prepared answer given to her. This was actually the harder of the two, since she is used to having a word problem, and she has to find the answer. It is a great way to get her thinking in a different direction. I think I will be doing those with both kids on Friday, each week.

We had a great week, hope you all did too. I have put my Etsy store on vacation, and opened an Ebay store. In all my organizing and cleaning, I discovered I have way too much inventory and I need to start selling stuff. Ebay affords me the luxury of auction listings, plus my fixed price store items along with other specialty options that Etsy just does not offer. Check out my Ebay store, and auctions, if you like. I do not have everything listed there yet, it is a timely process.

Ancient Greek Architecture and Art

Caitlin has been learning about Ancient Greek Architecture and Art, this week, for History class. Today, she painted some Greek architecture in a painting called Sunrise Over the Sea.  We got the lesson through Lesson Pathways, but Crayola.com had the art instructions.  You can see her painting came out pretty good.  Youtube has a documentary on the Greeks, and I think I will have both kids watch it, when Caitlin finishes learning about the Greeks.  DJ is studying the Middle Ages, but he will appreciate the video too.  I will share it later, when we get closer to it.  I am trying to keep up with school, before Christmas break, so we can take off our full three weeks I planned to take off.  We will be doing two different hiking trips and Busch Gardens over the Christmas break.  Plus we are having a Polar Express pajama Christmas Party.  DJ will be making his homemade hot chocolate, and I am making the popcorn.  I am still thinking about decorations, and of course we are watching the movie, The Polar Express.  The next two weeks are crazy busy, but I will try to post the fun things we do, not the mundane textbook work.  DJ has to finish his formal letter, for Language Arts, writing a Legend for History class, and a book report.  All this week, probably tomorrow, lol.  The book he started to read online, A Separate Peace, went away, so now I have to wait for the library to tell me they have it.  I am stopping over there tomorrow to jog their memory.  He will be far behind if I don't get it soon.

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Thanksgiving Turkey Fun Art Project

Today for History, we had some creative Turkey fun projects. I found on a free writing prompt website, the idea to write about convincing people not to eat turkey for Thanksgiving. I added to the project by having both kids draw a turkey in disguise. Caitlin drew a skirt and top on hers with shoes, and DJ made his all black with some funny sayings as film critics on the feathers. His will be posted to his blog, when he has completed and uploaded the writing portion of his assignment. Caitlin is still working on her writing assignment which was to write a Thanksgiving Day story, with a menu to go with it. You can use this turkey coloring page template, to start your turkey disguise. The original idea for this came from a Pinterest board, but when I tried to print her project, it would not print or open.  Both kids got everything they needed to get done today, so tomorrow we are doing Run Club, rained again today, and then off to my mom's for Caitlin to sew her fair project.  So no textbook stuff, but still learning. 

Çastle Sketch, Bones and A Freebie

I forgot to share the Homeschool Freebie yesterday.  It was a good one too.  Hopefully they will repeat it.  If  you sign up at their website you can get notified of the freebie of the day.   Today's freebie is also a good one.  3 ebooks on learning to draw.  I took the nature one, and the one with the owl on the cover.  Because we paint, and my son prefers to draw, these are perfect for us.  Hop over to homeschool freebie of the day, and grab yours. 

Yesterday, DJ finished is castle sketch.  He took the virtual tour of Raglan Castle, then had to draw a sketch of it.  Today, he will continue learning about Knights, and how to become a Knight.  There is a whole, long, drawn out process you know.  Because he is older, I have to find more complicated projects for him to do, for each lesson.  He is not into Arts and Crafts anymore, at least not the ones his sister likes.  He will probably be doing a blog post on the process of becoming a knight, so watch for that to go up.

Caitlin has been studying different functions of the body, for Science.  Yesterday, she put together a boney skeleton, that is missing a foot, as you can see in the picture.  She asked if it was ok if it was a one footed skeleton?  LOL, I guess it doesn't much matter. You can find lots of free skeleton pages with a simple Bing search.  Today she is finishing up the Circulatory system, and visiting the Ocean on The Magic School Bus.  If you have Netflix, you can watch it right on there.  I love Netflix.  We use it all the time in our Homeschool Adventures.

Happy Easter To All My Readers

I hope everyone has a blessed, and wonderful Easter holiday. Tomorrow we start back to lessons, and review of Science, History to begin within the next couple weeks. We have already been reviewing spelling, and vocabulary. If anyone noticed I forgot to tell you about the log experiment, it will be posted tomorrow. It is simple, and your kids will think it is cool. Because we are beginning to complete our lessons for the year, DJ is picking up reading every day, rather than twice a week. Caitlin is on her very last book, in her set, and will begin re reading from the start of the year.

Lesson Plans For 04/05/10:

DJ:
Cursive Writing
Sign Language: Occupations 1-17
Reading: Chapters 8-11 of Black Beauty with summary
Writing: Fishy Monday the Maroon Clown Fish
Math: Fractions, decimals, and money
Vocabulary
Language Arts: Following directions, homophones, root words
Art: Spring Bunny craft

Caitlin:
Reading: Where is Zot
Art: Spring Bunny craft
Sign Language: Occupations
Printing Practice
Math: Number count and match
Telling time, and counting objects worksheet
Nursery Rhymes
Phonics: See, say, read, and write
Site Words
Flash Cards

Comments and Graphics - Layouts - Photobucket

Through the Eyes of DJ

The next week, or so, I will be giving info, and tips for getting your 4th grader to enjoy writing. As some of you know, I have let my son DJ start his own blog, Through the Eyes of DJ. He asked me if he could have one, and at first I said no. He insisted it would be a good way for him to learn about writing. After I thought about it for a while, I could see some benefits to it. I told him he could have one, if he agreed to make it centered around his schooling. He has to do two writing assignments, designated by me, a week. The other days he can write about things he wants to. His goals for the fourth grade are to stay on topic, expand the topic idea, use end punctuation, and his best spelling. He learned very quickly that the system will tell him when something is spelled wrong, and look up the correct spelling. Towards the end of fourth grade, I will be introducing paragraphing, and basic outlining to his writing. Commas, and quotation marks, will come sometime during the year. Some of you have already visited his blog, followed, and even left him some comments. You will see me critique his writing, once the school year begins. I am not an expert writer, so if any of you can add constructive criticism to his writings, please feel free to do so. He does not not know typing rules yet, so you will notice the spacing errors, just bare with that, it will come in due time. He doesn't get a letter grade, for writing, he gets either needs improvement, satisfactory, or excellent.

If I see he is doing well, I will start to let him post his own Science projects, that he has done. I will see how it goes. You can watch his progress, and see him grow. I actually am so proud of him for thinking of it, and think others should try it with their homeschooled, and public school children. If you use blogspot it is free, and the possibilities are endless for them to write about.

Now lets talk about the steps in the writing process. The five steps are prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing. To me a lot of these are very similar in their process, and goal, but I will go over them starting tomorrow with step one prewriting.