Week 4

Despite the chaotic week, I finally feel like we are getting a good rhyme. This week we're grateful to substitute Grandma and Teacher Dad who helped out. 

Even if we don't continue to mention these subjects every week, they still happen.

Math- Khan Academy.  X-tra Math is going to be used to review basics, and the kids enjoy playing on Prodigy.

Language Arts-  

• Spelling- Spelling Training
• Grammar- Khan Academy, Madlibs, and a teacher taught curriculum
• Vocab- word wall based of Dictionary dot com grade vocabulary list
• Reading Comprehension- Khan Academy
• Night Zookeeper- Which encourages writing, vocabulary, and spelling through games
• Daily 15 mins of creative writing
• Daily 20 mins of reading
• Daily story time where they are read to. Currently the Fable Haven and Little House series.

Highlights of the Week:

J- My highlight of the week was eating delicious bread and mini golf.

A- I liked doing school for my animals.

Stuffed Animal School

Social Studies by J- Pennsylvania has a big city called Philadelphia, where the Liberty Bell is, but its state capital is Harrisburg. Delaware was the very first state. It got it's name from the Delaware River. Its state capital is Dover near the middle of Delaware. George Washington crossed the Delaware River. I learned about John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. They both died on the same day- July 4th, 1826. 

Science/Exploring Technology- Things that Fly!  We set off air rockets and made mini helicopters.

It was J's turn to try making up a recipe. She also based hers off of Eskimo Cookies

Chocolate Snowballs

Snowman from the chocolate snowballs

They also tried Nutella on Saltines.

Next time we'll need to try healthier recipes

PE-Favorite PE activities was J went mini golfing with Dad and A climbed the walls. 😄 

Stay Curious- Why do cats climb trees?

To get a better view of their surroundings, to find prey, to escape predators, or, in the case of these two, to play!

You can learn a lot by observing

Week 3

MTH- all subjects were taught. 

Week 3

* Why we do quotes and positive affirmations- Every morning my sixth grade teacher would help us memorize a quote and review positive affirmations. My lifelong love for good quotes began in that classroom. I consider my 6th grade teacher to be one of the greatest educators of all time and teaching my children positive affirmations and uplifting quotes is my way of honoring the gifts Mrs. Danes gave to me.

 Positive affirmations and quotes

When I pay attention, I can find things around me that bring joy.

There are many exciting experiences awaiting me.

I can find humor in the day-to-day.

I can be myself. 

Purposefully bring joy into your life. 

Lynnette Sheppard

Week 2 Highlights

J- My highlight was reading lots of books while cuddling with cats. And switching over to Khan Academy.

A- Making bread and a new recipe.

Math- Redbird wasn't working for us, so we switched over to Khan Academy.

LA-  Night Zookeeper and lots of creative writing going on. They have some fun stories. We also started spelling this week.

Science

    Experiment One- Cooking. Here is the recipe my 7 year old created.

In case you need a translation:

Eskos- 

(we made Eskimo cookies just the day before)

Ingredients

Butter- One

Brown sugar- lots

Sugar- lots

Marshmallows- Lots and lots

Later he added Rice Krispies to the recipe

bowls-2

Directions

Get out ingredients

Melt the butter

Put the butter in the bowl

Put the brown sugar in the bowl

Put the sugar in the bowl

Put the marshmallows in the bowl

Stir it

Melt it

Put the rice krispies in it

Then stir it again

Then roll it and put it another bowl.

*Eskos can melt!

They actually turned out pretty good.

 

Experiment Two-  Growing Crystals

This year we are focusing heavily on the Scientific Method. We reviewed the steps and set up the experiment. 

Which grows more defined egg shell crystals, Epson Salt or Alum? They hypothesized the Epson Salt would since the crystals started out bigger.

After 24 hour we pulled  them out to observe. First the kids noticed they egg shells were dyed. 

Our Epson salt ones did not grow crystals. We hypothesized it was either because our started solution was not concentrated enough or the starter crystals dissolved. Ours Alum ones only grew a little, and they guessed it may because we didn't give the glue that we stuck the starter crystals on with enough time to dry. The kids observed the Epson Salt crystals that did grown were more defined and bigger, but not as many.

 

Art/OT- Clay may be our youngest sons new favorite thing.

A whale and a cat

A cat

A tree

Inspired by Newspaper Rock

A dragon!

We decided to adopt "The Dragon" as our official school mascot.  

It also helps that this guy is Dragon. 😉

Social Studies-We learned Massachusetts is called the Bay State with 19 bays! Also, unlike a lot of men during the colonial period, George Washington never wore a wig.

PE- The trampoline is the greatest. 😉

The extras- Even if not mentioned, every week my kids are doing something with Exploring Technology (similar to STEAM classes) and learning about topics personally chosen by them (currently Greek Mythology and the Ocean). We also work on other areas considers "less academic" to help us become well rounded individuals. Refer to our schedule for other items taught. 

Week 2

Leaning can happen anytime anywhere. School was at Grandma's house this week. 

Highlights:

J-  My highlight was watching Magic School Bus and swimming.

A- My highlight of the week was baking cookies and swimming.

Other highlights/lessons of the week- 

Math- Baking cookies with Grandma, graphs, and addition families

LA- Night Zookeeper, proper nouns, mad libs, "hangman" which we did "grow a flower"

Reading- Book club- Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

Science- We found a birds nest!

Social Studies- Creating maps and exploring Grandma's "neighborhood" though a picture scavenger hunt. They took all the pictures. They were asked to find shells, something that doesn't belong, flowers, a bug, an animal, something red, a tractor, and something fun.

Shells

Doesn't belong

Flowers

Animal

Something red

Tractor

Something fun

PE- walks, swimming, lifting weights with Grandma and dancing crazy to music

Exploring Tech- "A" has been testing out some designs for a simple toy and J has been creating a board game. We're looking forward to sharing their final products.

Lastly,

Stay Curious- What cat eye color is the most common?

  Answer: Green, blue, and yellow

We happened to be on a farm with lots of cats so we gathered data and complied it into graphs. 

Totals were: 

Green- 6

Blue- 1

Yellow/Gold- 1

Week 1

 Develop a lifelong love of learning through curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.  

We laughed our way through this first week as we tried to get our rhythm. We had some hiccups but all subjects were met for MTH.

Highlight of the week for each student:

J- Swimming! Also Madlibs.  Her favorite: "The Rocking Chair dragons of Walmart run into the wings of hungry predators hoping to be swallowed."

A-Swimming and Night Zookeeper. And Blokus.

Math- Cooking and a math placement test

LA- Madlibs, Nighzookeeper, and Redbird

Social Studies-The presidents of Mount Rushmore

Science- Why does a marshmallow get bigger when microwaved? Because moisture in the marshmallow evaporates and the warmer gases expand outward.

Camp-sized marshmallow blown up

PE and Science- Swimming and hiking

Saw a horney toad

The kids found moss and hypothesized tardigrade probably live on it.

Exploring Technology- Kiwi Crates and Crunch Labs

BONUS: Stay Curious (Questions the kids asked)

Why to Ring Tail Lemus have ringed tails?  

It helps the group stay together when traveling. There are 13 rings on every lemur and their tails are longer than their bodies.

We also learned lemurs have two tongues! One for cleaning their tooth comb. Most lemurs spend most of their time in trees, but the ring tail lemurs travels on the ground. They also sit in a seated yoga position when sunbathing. They rarely drink water.    

Is there an animal that never drinks water?

 Yes! The kangaroo rat! It eats mainly seeds.

School Schedule

Develop a lifelong love of learning through curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.  

Daily Schedule

Come Follow Me

Quote/Affirmations

Calendar

Read

Movement

Madlibs

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Critical thinking- Conundrums/Escape rooms, etc	Science Experiment	Social Studies-US	Science Experiment	Wild Kratts
OT	Grammar	OT/Goals	Debate/ Grammar	Social Skills
Personal Goals	Tactile Spelling	Spelling Training	Spelling Training	Life Skills
Game Creation	Math	Math	Math	Games
Cooking	Night zookeeper	Night zookeeper	Night zookeeper
Journal/writing	Creative Writing	Creative Writing	Creative Writing
Social Studies	Music/Art	Legos	Craft club-Art
	Greek Mythology	Story time for siblings	Oceans and planet earth

Schedule is subject to change as flexibly is one the the greatest things about homeschool. The things in bold, above the table, will be completed daily M-TH. I believe children should be in charge of their own education and our schedule reflects that. There is no set time frame to complete each subject as we don't want to rush learning. However, the goal is to be finished before lunch time.   

Welcome to School 2022-2023

Update on how this blog (and school year) is going to work. We are doing school through My Tech High this year. Technically we are enrolled in a charter school (read classroom funding. Yay!) and a teacher monitors our progress though weekly logs. Some of the things you read on here will be reporting to them. For example, you might see- All subjects were taught. This is reporting to them so they know our kids are receiving an actual education and were not just playing Minecraft all day. :) We will continue to do weekly quotes and positive affirmations as well as 6 core weekly subjects.  

Our core subjects will be:

Math-Online through Redbird Math, which emphasis STEM and has real world application projects. The kids will work at their own pace.  Redbird did not have the instructional videos I thought it did, so we will be doing Khan Academy. We also have Singapore Math as a back up, which I have taught in the past, if they need additional support  Singapore Math worked best for us.

Language Arts- This will also be through Redbird or Khan Academy, with Night Zookeeper as our creative writing program. There they can share their work with other students and receive additional feedback from a mentor that's not Mom. We will also be doing spelling through Spelling Training and using supplement materials such as MadLibs for parts of speech and tactile manipulatives to solidify spelling. Creative writing will be a heavy focus this year.

Science- This year there will be a heavy focus on the scientific method. We will be using the Smithsonian Makerlab books to conduct experiments as well as using the scientific method to answer questions the kids have been curious about. We will briefly touch on Common Core science appropriate for grade level.

Social Studies- US History and US geography. We will be using maps, an atlas, websites, google earth, and more to learn geography. History will be taught by a former history teacher (aka Dad). His goal is to help them think like a historian by looking at primary resources and through the lens of cultural customs of the past.

Technology- My Tech High has an emphasis on technology (hence the name) and with funding we're so excited to be able to do Kiwi Crates and Crunch Labs. We will also be doing typing and exploring the technology that allows us to explore the wonders of our world and beyond.

Physical Education/Health- We will be learning to play a variety of new games (and enjoying old ones) both indoor and outdoor, learning more about how to take care of our bodies and enjoying physical movement through outdoor recreation.

Art/Music-While technically not an official My Tech High class, we will incorporate music and art into our other core subjects.

We will also continue to pull from other educational sources such as freeschool, homeschool pop, TGTB, and other resources to help our kids have a well rounded education.

Our school year theme this year is:

 Developing a lifelong love of learning through curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.  

If we accomplish nothing else this year but that, our year will have been a success. 

Welcome to 2022-2023