Tons of homeschool info, tips, and links. Homeschooling in Florida, plus lots of other great info. Join me on our Homeschool journey. I have been adding to this blog for almost our whole time as homeschoolers, eight years. There is an abundance of info at your fingertips.
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.
Today we got in an extra day of painting class. Even though my mom was not here to teach it, she will be here Wednesday, I spoke to her over the weekend. We discussed a few things, and she thought if the kids could practice more than every other week, it might go better. Since DJ has blending down pretty good, he needed to start working on very specific strokes. Since the only two I am comfortable with are the scrunchy, and one leaf design we decided to concentrate on those. My mom also suggested all three of us draw out what we wanted to draw first, so we had a visual of what we wanted it to look like. So, I found a cute snowman in one of my counted cross stitch books and each of us drew two snowmen, trying to make them exact. They weren't exact LOL. Since I can not draw I was very disappointed, but after I painted him he looked much better. So we drew, then we practiced the strokes on dry paper with just the brush. Then, I made them choose the color blends they wanted to use first, and we all used the same. Only one color blend at a time, then wash and dry brush, and move to the next. This worked very well for all of us. DJ swears he does not have the hand dexterity to follow the strokes, but he improves every time. Caitlin is still having an issue following specific directions, but she is only 7 after all. DJ's snowman looks like it is blowing in the wind. He decided to pose with all three paintings below. Caitlin said no, she wanted to play outside. Can't blame her there, it was gorgeous today. We will save the other drawing for Wed when my mom is here, to paint the snowmen onto bottles.
DJ did a blog post book report on A Christmas Carol. Any of you who have reluctant writers, or do not like book reports, blogging forces them to do a better job as others could read it. It has been so much help for DJ. He also read one chapter in Darien's Rise, house chores, and of course Art and painting class. Tomorrow we are squeezing in a playdate at the park, before the holiday, and bookwork in the morning before we go.
DJ has expressed an interest in drawing portraits, faces, and human images. So I will be adding a whole bunch of tutorials on learning to draw, for him to use, and you as well. Happy drawing!
Every Friday we do Art Class. I mix it up, and really don't follow anything real formal. Since I am not an art teacher, and don't have a clue how to teach it, I use various resources to help my children learn to draw. Caitlin drew Minnie Mouse today. While we have an instruction book similar to the one below, you can also use the video below. My kids are especially fond of the videos because they can actually watch the hand movements of the artist. The books show step by step but they don't find them as easy. For DJ today, he drew a picture of Enkidu from his Story of the World Ancient Times lesson. He also wrote a fairy tale with Gilgamesh and Enkidu for his writing assignment today. You can view it by visiting his blog, Through the Eyes of DJ.
A math test for both children, and spelling test for DJ, along with reading lessons round out the day of lessons for today. Both will get computer time if time permits.
Today DJ is finishing up reading about Leonardo DaVinci. As you know drew a lot of portraits, so DJ has picked a picture and will be drawing a portrait, and Caitlin is giving it a shot too. Plus they are drawing a cradle board from the Draw Write Now Native Americans book. A cradle board was kind of like a back pack for babies that Native Americans used to carry baby around and keep it safe. We have no school Monday for report cards, and half a day Tuesday.
Lesson Plans For 10/15/10:
DJ: Art: As above Math Test Spelling Test Cursive Writing Writing: Blog post on bicycle safety Proofreading: Worksheet Reading: The Story of Mount Rushmore with book report
Caitlin: Art: As above Printing Practice Reading: Pig Jigs, Rub a Dub Club Short Vowels: Worksheet Finding words in pictures: Worksheet Listening Skills: I read a Native American book to her
Today for art class we are learning about Rosa Bonheur. Rosa Bonheur was an expert animal artist. She spent countless hours learning her trade, and her works are remarkable. She died in 1899. The short video below shows some of her works, and some of her history.
Science class this Tuesday, is about rocks. So tomorrow for Art class, Dj and Caitlin will be learning to draw rocks, using the short tutorial below.
I have blogged about our attempts to grow a garden, for a Science project. I am proud to say, that this year we got an A. We have been enjoying big fat tomatoes for some time now. I must say though, we bought tomato plants this year, rather than from seeds. It was easier, and worked much better. We have peppers, and cukes coming on right now, as I write this. Container planting, has been the miracle for the cukes. I have one pepper plant in the ground, in the other in a Topsy Turvy, that I purchased as an experiment. At first the Topsy Turvy appeared to be quite useless, but now is growing at a speed much faster than the one in the ground. I may buy another to put in tomatoes. My lettuce, and onions, while still growing, I think will not produce any veggies. I think I waited too long, and will have to try them again, come winter. Not bad, don't you think?
Yesterday, my husband had to take the kids, and the car back to the dealership to sign more paper work. Since I worked the night before, I was going to sleep. He told me he had found a cool park in Gainesville, he was going to take the kids to. Come to find out it was a park, with a huge swimming pool. In this huge swimming pool, was a huge two story water slide. Of course my kids wanted to go down it. Thank goodness the lifeguards have a test kids must take before they are allowed to do this. Caitlin was unable, but DJ had to be able to swim 50 yards, half a football field, without stopping or touching the ropes. My husband said he thought he was going to fizzle out at the end, but he did it, and he got to go down the slide. He said the first time it was kind of scarey because the steps were very steep, but after the first try it was ok. He said he had to get out of the way fast, because they do not make people wait to come down, until you are out of the way. That was probably the only negative thing I could say about this park. If you are going to implement safety rules, why not go all the way? At any rate, they had a great day, and then got to swim in our pool too.
Lesson Plans for 06/01/09:
Math: Graphs, multiplying two digits, division Reading: Read pages 221-261 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone Art: Learn to draw rocks Music: I can play piano
Tomorrow for Science class is the day my son has been waiting for. We are going to build a volcano, or I hope we are. He got the kit for Christmas, and I finally got it into the lesson plan. I have added this short video to watch some great volcanos erupting.
Art class today is learning to draw flowers. Watch the tutorial, and soon you will be drawing flowers too.
Lesson Plans for 5/19/09:
Science: Build a volcano Math: Graphs, fact families Writing: Write a letter to Aimee and John Henry Language Arts: Make a match, adverbs PE: 30 minutes Spelling: Lesson 32- write each spelling word two times each Vocabulary: Lesson 32- look up the definition for each vocabulary word.
Tomorrow for art class, we will be drawing Batman. My son loves superfriends, and I try to keep his artwork targeted at his interests. This one is kind of tough, so it will be interesting to see how he does. My younger child does more simple artwork. I purchase a large craft box, from Walmart, for them to make gifts, such as bookmarks, picture frames, and other crafts. It cost less than 5 dollars, and has over 100 projects. It will save me on computer ink. We are really enjoying the new Monday lesson set up. We do reading, arts and crafts, music, and math. It gives my son more time to read, the harder books, he has chosen to read. I hope everyone is having a marvelous Sunday. We are off the the flea market, and a small zoo they are having there today. I have never been, so I will let you know how it is.
