Math, Math, and More Math

A few people love math, but most really dislike it, and some even have a hard time with it. My children are no different. For my son DJ, we do at least three math papers every day. We cover new, harder material, and then review of material we have already learned. I find this works best to keep the information fresh, and in his mind. Last year we started division, and I was nervous, as to how to teach it. I found this nifty video below, if you need some ideas on how to teach division. For me, we started with flash cards first. We did the flash cards every day, for two months, before we even tried doing it on paper. I think that really helped because he already had the concept down. For this upcoming year, the hardest part of our math curriculum has been finding lessons on Roman Numerals. After doing a lot of searching I found a few, they will be listed below. I wanted to share with everyone, if you look to the left hand column of my blog, that I am collecting 100 dollars to give to the local food pantry, for needy families at Thanksgiving. Not only will you be entered to win the lovely ring pictured, but you will get your blog link posted on the Kindness Hall of Fame, for six months after the contest ends. Now if you do your math, you will see that is an awesome deal, for only a 5 dollar donation. I have collected 8 dollars so far from my good blogging friends Betchai, and Rochelle, you can see their site links at the top of this blog. That means I need 92 dollars more to meet my goal of 100 dollars. Ha see math is not so hard LOL. Come on and join, you won't be sorry. Here are some of my favorite sites for free math worksheets. I use these to supplement our work book, or for when we complete the workbook. They are great, and free.

http://www.tlsbooks.com/fourthgradeworksheets.htm
http://www.kidzone.ws/grade4.htm
http://www.worksheetlibrary.com/gradelevel/grade4/math/
http://www.lessonsnips.com/lesson/romannumeral

The last link Lesson Snips, is the newest one I found, while looking for Roman Numeral lessons. It is an awesome site. If you need lesson plans, check it out, you will not be disappointed.

Homeschool Calendar For 2009/2010

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This is our homeschool calendar for the upcoming 2009/2010 school year. If you want to copy, and use this, please feel free to do so. I post it for record keeping purposes.

Sept 8, 2009: First Day of school
Sept 30, 2009: Early release day
Oct 12, 2009: No school Columbus Day obsv
Oct 16, 2009: End of first grading period
Oct 19, 2009: No school
Oct 20, 2009: Early release day
Nov 2, 2009: No school
Nov 3, 2009: Fire Drill week, and hurricane preparedness
Nov 10, 2009: Early release day
Nov 11, 2009: No school, Veterans Day
Nov 25-27, 2009: No school, Thanksgiving break
Dec 18, 2009: End of second grading period
Dec 24- Jan 7, 2010: No school Christmas Break
Jan 11-15, 2010: Fire drill week, stranger danger
Jan 18, 2010: No School MLK obsv
Jan 21, 2010: Early release day
Feb 15, 2010: No school, Presidents Day obsv
Feb 22-26, 2010: Fire Drill week, bike safety
Mar 5, 2010: End of third grading period
Mar 8, 2010: No school
Mar 19, 2010: No school
Mar 30, 2010: No school
Apr 1-2, 2010: Early release day
Apr 5-9, 2010: No school, Spring Break
May 12, 2010: Early release day
May 24, 2010: No school, Memorial Day obsv
June 6-8, 2010: Early release days
June 9, 2010: Last day of school

Tips For Learning Vocabulary

Yesterday I posted some tips for teaching spelling, here are some of the methods we use to learn vocabulary words.

Each week I pick 10 words from our spelling list. These are the vocabulary words for the week. As with spelling every day we go over the meaning of each vocabulary word. These are the other activities we do every day, for Vocabulary.

Monday- using a standard Websters Dictionary, look up the meaning for each word, and write it on your paper.

Tuesday- Use each vocabulary word in a complete sentence. Use each word only one time each.

Wednesday- Think of either a synonym, or an antonym for each vocabulary word. I generally alternate this from week, to week.

Thursday- Write each vocabulary word, and the meaning two times each.

Friday- Test to see how much was retained.

One other thing that I find to be very helpful is, if DJ finds a word during his readings that he does not know, I have him look it up in the dictionary rather than just telling him what it means.

I hope everyone is having a marvelous Tuesday.

Tips To Help Teach Spelling, Birthday Wishes

Today is my moms birthday, so Happy Birthday Mom. Today is also National Bird Watching Day, which is fitting because my Mom loves birds. My children love to watch the birds too. We always make sure they have food, and they try to look up what kind of birds they are. This time of year we get tons of birds, so there is plenty of watching to do.

Here are some great Spelling Activities, to help your child learn to spell. I have been using various ones of these, for 2 years.

1- Write each word, and circle the vowel. I use this one, it not only helps with spelling, but grammar as well

2- Write each word, and circle the consonants, same as above

3- Make flash cards for studying your words. I have not used this one, as my son picks up spelling very easily. I will see for my daughter

4- Write the words and a synonym, for each word. This is great for both spelling, and grammar.

5- Write the words, and an antonym, for each word. Same as above

6- Draw a picture and hide the words in the picture. I have not tried this one.

7- Write a story using most of your words. This is great for spelling, and writing skills.

8- Make a spelling rainbow. I have not tried this one.

9- Write spelling definitions. From each spelling list, I pick 10 words to be the weekly vocabulary words. He looks them up in his dictionary. I will post tips for teaching vocabulary tomorrow.

10- Write your words, and write if they are a noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, adverb, or compound word. I have not tried this one yet, but probably will for fourth grade.

11- Make a cartoon using the spelling words. I have not tried this one.

I hope this can be helpful to anyone, who needs to help teach their child to spell.

Turkey Leftover Ideas

I will be sharing some interesting, and favorite recipes over the next weeks. Not just for Turkey Day, but for Christmas as well. This is my favorite time of the year, and I love to share tips, tricks, ideas etc.

My first recipe, I found in a Womans Day magazine, I had recently purchased. It is a great way to use up leftovers from Thanksgiving Dinner. It is a super sandwich, and here are the details. You will need Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, lettuce, reduced fat mayo and thick toasted bread. I personally would leave off the cranberry sauce, as I dont like it, and would use regular mayo. Then you just put all the ingredients on the bread, and enjoy the tastiest leftover turkey sandwich ever.

Today we are doing a Themed Unit Study on Thanksgiving, then no school until next Monday. Happy Tuesday, everyone.

Frugal Tip Save Money On Pictures

I have been called cheap, at times in my life. I prefer frugal, but cheap is probably closer to the truth. My children are 8 and 4, and for the past 8 years we have been visiting Walmart, Pennies, or other photo studios for Holiday pictures. This on average has cost, anywhere from 150 dollars to a whopping 300 dollars. Ouch that would really hurt my budget, this year. So I decided to take my own pictures. I think I did a good job, for someone who is not a photographer. We then use Snapfish photo service, to make prints, 8x10 photos, and 7x5 photos to send to family and friends this holiday season. We did this for our yearly digital photo printing, and it cost a whole 45 dollars. I would say that is a substantial savings. I am sure there are other online photo services, we just happen to use Snapfish. If you have a digital camera, give it a try, and save yourself some money, this Holiday season.





I will be making the pumpkin shaped cake today. The recipe is in my archives, and I will let you know how it comes out.

DJ's Report Card for the 1st Quarter:

Language Arts: 94
Reading: Excellent
Reading Comp: 96
Writing: Satisfactory, and Improving
Math: 90
Science: 97
Health: 100
Social Studies: 89
Spanish: Satisfactory
Art: Excellent

Lesson Plans for 10/23/08:

Health: Soaperman, keeping clean and healthy
Writing: Write a list of safety rules for Trick or Treating
Language Arts: Phonics review, guide words
Reading: Read chapter 8 of Mummies in the Morning
Spanish: Parts of the body
PE: 30 minutes
Vocabulary: Lesson 8- write each definition 2 times each
Spelling: Lesson 8- Put your spelling words in alphabetical order
Math: Division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction

Lesson Plan For 9/15/08, After School Program

Tomorrow, DJ starts going to the after school program, at a local kids center. I chose this option, due to difficulty finding Homeschool groups, that were diverse, and suitable to my needs. I have started a yahoo group, for anyone who lives in Gilchrist County. So if anyone from, my area stumbles across this blog, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gilchristcountyfriends/ to join. Me, and my children, are the only members so far. I dont anticipate anyone joining anytime soon, as it is such a rural area, but I will be advertising it. Caitlin can not go, at this time. They offer a free preschool program, but it is 8 hrs a day, 5 days a week, and that I definately do not want. So she will stay with the free preschool at the local library, one day a week, for an hours. She is enjoying that, and it is perfect for her for now. Our field trip, to the ocean, planned for 9/26/08, may be moved up to the 19th, or postponed, until gas prices become reasonable again.

Lesson Plan for 9/15/08

Spelling List Lesson 3: little, its, under, rock, dead, past, them, collar, dug, does, gobble, bottom, level, felt, next Write each spelling words 2 times each. One time printing, and one time in cursive.

Vocabulary List Lesson 3: Look up the definition for each word: little, under, rock, past, collar, gobble, bottom, level, felt, next

Read Chapter 8 of Dinosaurs Before Dark

Writing: Imagine you have super powers

Spanish: Parts of the body

Math: Multiplication, addding and subtracting 3 numbers

Language Arts: Phonics review, commas, pronouns