So much time too little to do..wait reverse that!

Oh my goodness where has the time gone?

So when I decided to start a blog chronicling our home-school journey and other various adventures I thought it would be pretty simple.  I mean how long does it take to upload a few pics and write captions?

Well apparently more time than I have to spare.

Here are a few highlights from our Chicago trip.

We visited Shedd's Aquarium, Field Museum, Lego land, and the planeterium.  It was a wonderful trip!

Co-op Thursdays

A few weeks ago the CHC student counsel organized a bike day to take place during the lunch hour.  Samantha brought her tricycle, Matthew brought his roller blades, and true to form Kaitlyn didn't participate.

The kids had a blast and it was a great way to blow off some steam!

Farm day in tot school

 Playing in the corn bin.

Painting pigs with "mud"( aka wet coffee)

With her cotton ball sheep.

Before that we studied insects.

 We made bug antennas

We had a butterfly snack.  The raisins were supposed to be used to create dots on the wings but all the kids were like: "Oh Butterfly poop!"

The dirt filled, bug filled sensory box was a hit!  I think this was the most loved bin of all the different units!

One of Samantha's favorite things at co-op is music class!  Here they are playing with their egg shakers

Here is Kaitlyn in her JR. 1st Lego League class.  They build and program lego robots.  

Matthew in P.E. class.  

I am so grateful for the opportunities the children have at co-op.  Matthew loves all of his classes.  Just earlier he was singing me this rhyme her learned in his Wild Animal class about habitats.  Kaitlyn is working on a gigantic water bottle chandelier in her Recycled Art.  I love all my tots I teach and I also love lunch time chats with the other moms.

History

In history lately we have been taking a small break from studying the Egyptians and we started studying some of the other cultures and civilizations around them-the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Hebrews.  We read about how woman and children were responsible for carrying water in clay jugs on their heads some times for miles everyday.  So of course we had to try this for ourselves:

They did surprisingly well with this activity but I am very glad we have running water!

When studying ancient Mesoptamia you have to read the Epic of Gilgamesh.  Of course the real day wasn't great for my 8, 6, and 3 yr old but we checked out these 3 beautifully illustrated books from the library and the kids loved them:

  

After reading all 3 books we also listend to Jim Weiss read the SOTW version while coloring a picture of Gilgamesh and the lion.  The 2 stories were very similar but some of the details varied.  This gave us a chance to discuss why this may be and Oral tradition.  

We also read "The Winged Cat" and "Abu Ali Three tales of the Middle East" as well as our Usborne Encyclopedia.

We read "Ancient Egypt -You Choose"  that I bought at the curriculum fair last year.  I had been really excited about it but I would NOT recommend it .  The idea of choosing your own path in a book sounds fun but it is poorly written and uninteresting.  I was so dissapointed but glad I decided not to buy more of this series as I almost did.

We also often read sections/did projects from the books "Ancient Israelites and their neighbors" and "Ancient Egyptians and their Neighbors",

  

These 2 books are great!  Honestly these two books by themselves could be the backbone of an entire history curriculum insteadd of a supplement as we are using them.  They have a lot of good information and a ton of hands on projects!  I wish we had time to do more.

Science

Since both Kaitlyn and Matthew are taking science classes at co-op we haven't been doing a lot of it at home.  Kaitlyn spends a good portion of her morning reading on her own and part of that reading time is devoted to reading science materials.  Here is what she has been reading the past 2 weeks:

She has been kind of on an ocean animal's kick lately and I think it may be because of our recent trip to Shedd's Aquarium.  She loves anything she can see,feel, touch.

We also went on a field trip this week to the Audubon Center.  I love the Audubon center-they put on the best field trips!  This is the 2nd time we have been there and both programs have been wonderful!

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures. But here is what we did:

• learned about the different types of nests that birds make by examining actual bird nest types
• (did you know hummingbirds use spiderwebs in their nests so that they will expand as their baby birds grow?)
• Used the telescopes and binoculars to find and identify birds- we even saw a bald eagle!
• We played a super fun game to learn about bird survival.  They had set up 20 stations outside and each station had something that happened to your bird-ran into a glass building rub your head while you count to 20 and move back 2 spaces, find a bird feeder full of food rub your tummy 10 times and move forward 4 spaces, etc.  Kaitlyn played by herself and apprently her bird couldn't find food and died.  Matthew, Samantha and I however survived! Yeah!
• I also ended up purchasing this really neat bird guide

• 
• I already owned a bird guide but this one is organized by color and it is so much easier to find the bird I am trying to look up!

To end our bird study day we cam home and watched an episode of Wild Kratts about Raptors.  We don't usually watch cartoons to fulfill and educational need but we also had a dentist appointment to make that day and honestly I learn quite a bit from Wild Kratts!

Playing Catch Up

Wow it has been a busy few weeks!

Last week our whole family took a trip to Chicago and I just haven't been able to find the time to blog.  So I thought I would try to do a few summary posts highlighting a few activities we have done the past 3 weeks.

History:

Before we left for Chicago we had a history review day! The kids colored pictures from our history book and glued them onto note-cards with key words and phrases to use as a review of what we have learned so far this year.

For the review game the kids made ladders on the whiteboard and used their little magnets they got when they played baseball this summer.  They call them "little Matthew" and "little Kaitlyn".  I would ask a question and if they got it right they moved their piece 1 rung up the ladder. As you can see Kaitlyn won.  She placed a trophy on herself in the middle of the board.  Although this game is fun and my kids are highly motivated by competition I am not completely satisfied with it.  It hardly seems fair to put a 3rd grader against a 1st grader.  If she didn't know more than him I would be worried.  ---I guess this game will be a work in progress.

We also finished painting our canopic jars!

 Kaitlyn wanted to make sure I took a picture of Olaf painting.  He was even wearing a paint shirt!

Here is the finished product.  Kaitlyn and Matthew's are the brown ones and are supposed to baboons.  Samantha's are on the bottom.

The last thing we did before Chicago was to begin the process of mummifying a chicken.  This was the only picture I was able to get because after that my hands were covered in chicken!

His name is King Cluck and he is now chillin out in our freezer.  We will take him out periodically to see how he is doing.  Although my kids were very grossed out at the idea of cleaning a dead chicken(well except Samantha) I am very glad we did this project.  

If I had to teach Egypt all over again but was only allowed 1 project I would choose to mummify the chicken.  You don't forget an experience like that.  I hope that this is one memory they will keep with them their whole lives!

Letter 0

Letter o

Today we started learning about the letter O.

The first activity we did was to use our bingo markers to dot all the Os we found on our paper.  The 

kids did this so quickly I missed them in action..

I emptied the beans out of the sensory bin and replaced them with balls and hid the letter O pictures in them.

Matthew and Samantha matched the the O pictures to the sheet.

While the other kids did their school work Samantha put together her new Elmo puzzle.  This was her first time doing this puzzle and she did it without help!  She was super excited to not need help!

I bought this puzzle over the weekend at a yardsale.  There is a dice you roll and then you place the matching piece in your puzzle.  It came with multiple sets so I think it is supposed to be like a bingo game but she is using it like this.

In one of her drawers I put materials to make her own apple tree.  The tree trunk was build already but she used her scissors to cut the green leaves herself.  Then she glued the leaves and the apples onto the tree.  This activity did not keep her busy as long as I was hoping.  I guess I thought she would cut out more leaves. 

When you run out of activities for your 3yr old do you know what happens?  I'll tell you what happens she will go in her sisters room and find her dress-up makeup and put it on!  Oh well I guess it could have been worse!

Samantha also dot painted her Os and apparently her octopus with an orange bingo marker.  As she was doing this she exlaimed, "Mom orange starts with O!"  She was really excited that she recognized a word that started with her letter.

Samantha practiced tracing her Os with a dry erase marker and then I had her cove her Os with pom poms.  She did not want to do this at 1st because I think she thought it would be difficult but after she finished she was super excited!

Here Samantha is painting her O orange with a Q-tip.  This was our final O activity for the week.  She did this in the morning before we left for our apple field trip.  Next week we will start U and we will finish the vowels!

Is it possible to be too hands-on?

Another week in Egypt and I feel like we are just getting to the exciting parts:pyramids and mummies!

As we started into our history lesson Monday Kaitlyn asked, "Are we doing any projects today?"  And of course we were.  After reading about pyramids I asked the kids to build a lego pyramid.  Simple right?
No.  Because they both needed the large green platform and there was only 1.  So they decided to work together to build 1 large pyramid.  It sounded like a great idea to me.  They could work on their teamwork.

After 20 min of work this is as far as they got.  They decided they wanted a hollow pyramid so that you could see the mummy  On the ground next to the mummy are the canopic jars and in front of the mummy you can see the lid ready to placed ontop of the mummy.  This is where I decided to stop this project and I thought maybe we would come back to it the next day and work on it again.

Tuesday began and Kaitlyn asked again,"Are we doing any projects today?"

We were in fact. In a combined history/art lesson we were going to make our very own canopic jars.

Making your own canopic jars turns out to be very messy.

1. We had to tear lots of newspaper into small pieces.
2. We then put the newspaper in the blender with water and blended it to a pulp.
3. After it was all pulpy we had to strain the excess water out of it.
4. Then we mixed the pulp mixture with glue.
5. Now you can actually begin sculpting.

This process took awhile and it was messy and so therefore I didn't get a picture of Samantha working on her jar because she finished to quickly.  But here are the few pics I managed to take:

This last picture is Kaitlyn's jar.  She is molding it into the face of a baboon which was one of the Egyptian gods.  I know you can't tell from the picture but it actually looks quite a lot like the picture she was copying.  Next week we will paint it and hopefully the details come out more clearly.

Wednesday Kaitlyn asked again, "Are we doing any kind of special projects for history today?"

And that is when I realized we had trouble.

Somehow I had managed to set the precedent that we would do a project everyday.

But we aren't going to do a project everyday.  I would like to but time and budget only allows for so much.  Somedays I wish all we needed to study was history.  I love history.  I find it fascinating!  Unfortunately math, reading,spelling,etc are important to so we can't just read history books and do projects all day!  But we will do a project every week.  Kaitlyn was not happy with that answer.  She is a hands-on, project kind of girl but sometimes we just have to compromise.

We did however watch a documentary on Netflix created by National Geographic called, "The Secrets of the Pharaohs".  I personally learned a lot of new information watching it and we even got to watch a man actually mummify a person!

Music

We are still listening to Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint Saens.

This weeks section was the tortoise.

  The kids really enjoyed listening to the slow moving music and imaging a turtle crawling about.

Math

I cannot tell you enough how much I love Right Start Math!  I love its hands on nature.  It is so great to memorize facts through the playing of games.  Right Start also makes use of its own version of the abacus.  This is a 2-sided abacus each side with its own purpose.  Last year Matthew begged and begged to be allowed to use side 2.  I'm not sure why, he just did.

Well today he finally got to flip the abacus over and use side 2!  he was so excited.  The main difference is that when you use side two you actually turn the abacus sideways and it has headings: 1000, 100, 10, 1.  Who would have thought a kid could get so excited over an abacus!

Kaitlyn is working on fractions right now.  Here she is putting together her fraction chart:

I really like this puzzle-like chart.  It has really helped her visualize the fractions and she even enjoys putting it together!  Win-win!

Co-op Day

A favorite day as usual here are a few pictures of what the kids did this week in their classes.

You may be wondering how I get pictures of my kids in their classes since I am not actually in all of their classes with them.  Many of the teachers take pictures during their classes and upload them to our facebook group.  They don't always have time to take picures but I always appreciate it when they do!

  Kaitlyn in recyled art creating a pantyhose and  coat hanger sculpture.

  Here I am teaching my afternoon tots.  We are singing "Going on a bear hunt".  Some kids are singing, some are playing in our "bear cave".  If you can't tell we were having a bear themed day.  The book for the day was :

There were tons of fun activities in the morning class but since I teach in the afternoon I only have pictures of some of the afternoon activities.

The kids built patterns with bear counters.

They hibernated in our "bear cave".

We colored bear pictures.

We played with our bear sensory bin.

We even ate bear shaped snacks.  

Candy Science:

 

Matthew in his candy science.  Today's experiment used Sprite and Pop rocks.  I must admit I am not entirely sure what they learned.  Matthew said something about the pop rocks causing the Carbon Dioxide to be realeased from the soda into the balloon.  Someone with a chemistry background tell me if that is right.  Kaitlyn's class did the same experiment but I don't have any pics of her.

Apple picking field trip

Friday was our 1st field trip of the year-Apple picking!

Beleive it or not I have never actually taken my kids to pick apples.  I'm really not sure why.  So when the co-op sponsored this field trip I thought we should go.

Selfie on the apple wagon

Matthew and Samantha took off into the orchard filling their bags as fast as they could.  Samantha especially thought it was fun because she could actually reach the apples herself and did not need any help.

Kaitlyn on the other had painstakingly searched the trees for the largest most perfect apples.  It took her awhile to fill her bag but her apples were large and perfect.

After we rode the wagon back we were told to leave our apple bags(labeled with our names) piled on the grass while we went to enjoy all the other activities the farm had to offer.

Matthew hand feeding the cow.

Samantha and her friend riding on the tractors.

I cannot remember this guys name but he sure had a funny routine with these pigs.  All the kids were laughing!

Enjoying some yummy apple cider slushies!  I've never heard of an apple cider slushie but I thought they were pretty good.

Of course after playing and exploring the farm for 2 hours we were ready to go home.  I went into the store and bought a gallon of apple cider and some apple cider doughnuts to take home.

Upon arriving home I started unloading our van and realized that I never stopped back over by that grassy spot to grab our bag of apples! I was so upset!  Kaitlyn was planning on making caramel apples with hers, I thought we could bake an apple pie, and then of course we would have plenty to just eat and enjoy.  The apple farm was 45 min away so there was no way I was driving back to get them.  

Oh well we still had  a fun day and at least we still have apple cider and apple cider doughnuts!