Year Three: Week Six: Here We Go!

I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets.

~Ronald Reagan

My sidekick loves Mario. As in, Super Mario. You know, Luigi, Bowser, Yoshi, the whole gang. He can do all the voices, we make up Mario Imagination stories, his room is decked out with Mario, half his wardrobe includes these guys. He's a little obsessed. However, he's adorable so it's okay. 
When talking with him about what to do for our weekly theme, I should not have been surprised that he wanted Mario (and all his friends). So, I used all my creative skills and scoured the internet for ideas and here you go. Our Mario week of homeschooling! 

Ok, this isn't Mario themed. But one special thing that him and I get to do is go on "dates". We do coffee dates, donut dates, book dates, park dates, ...the list goes on. It's a time when I remember to stop our busy day and just enjoy his company. We already do so much together but this little bit of time is relaxed and all about him. They are some of my favorite memories. 

The sidekick wanted nothing but Mario things for Christmas. That's what he told Santa and that what he told anyone who asked. So me and all my elves (love my family!) searched 3 states for all the Mario we could find. He got action figures, board games, clothes, stuffed characters, the works! He was so happy! This was a Mario Memory game. He made the voice of the characters as he matched them. It was very amusing!

Again, this isn't Mario BUT it's a great scrabble game! This side has words on the board and the other side is blank for when he's older! So fun!

This is one of his Mario imagination stories. We also tell each other stories such as this after story time, in the car, and even whisper them to each other when we are in not fun places waiting for an appointment of some kind or another. I absolutely love fueling his imagination. 

For this one we did use Rory's Story Cubes. We bought ours at a bookstore but you can also find them on Amazon. They are a great way to make him think a little harder about where the story is going to go as he tries to work in all the cubes. 

Ok, no judging my drawing skills! I can only do so much in a rush! This was all my idea though! No Pinterest for this one. I took some of his favorite characters, attempted to draw them, and had him fill in the blanks as we learned about vowels. He had to sound out each name to figure out which vowel was the correct one. It worked really well for a spur of the moment idea!

So upper east coast got some snow. A lot of snow. More snow than I've ever seen without being on a mountain. 

Another Christmas present! Yahtzee! He doesn't quite get the entire concept of the game but, that didn't stop him from beating me. 

I saw several ideas using pipes. However, none of them seemed to be what we needed. So, I made these. Even and odd numbers 1 to 20. Sidekick did great and still reviews them as we continue on.  

This. This ya'll is big. My sidekick is reading more and more! To entice him to read more we came up with this: For every 10 books he reads we will go get a special treat of his choice. A new book, frozen  yogurt, pancakes, whatever he decides. We are already on our way to 20 at this point but I am so happy with his progress!

You are now caught up! We are taking a couple of weeks off because I have to concentrate on my own schooling for a bit. However, this is not the end! We will back in full force soon!

Year Three: Week One: We Are Back At It Again!

I’m trying to do the best I can. I’m not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.

-Mark Spitz

Hello there! After a few months off, I have been able to prepare myself for another year of homeschooling my sidekick. I was going to take the year off, honestly. We had him in a part-day preschool, but for the cost vs. what they were teaching him, it was more like glorified daycare. While he loved going to school, I knew I could progress his learning more at home. So we joined a gym with a great kids program and signed him up for soccer. He still gets interactions and play time with kids his own age, I get to work out (yes, I'm still trying to be a runner), and we get to learn in the comfort of our home (and pj's), together. 

Take a peek into our new year!

We don't have a working printer at the moment. Which forces me to be a little creative with some of the activities I have planned. Case and point, drawing lines for him to work on his handwriting. He wrote the whole alphabet on his own. The hardest part was letting him do it all on his own but, I want a base reference for how he progresses throughout our school year. Now that he's written them all out, I can help him become more confident in his writing and lend a helping hand until the motions become comfortable.

He's just about to outgrow this table! Ugh! I love this table and chair set. It's perfect for him to eat, play, and have some good independent time. When we aren't using it for school, I keep colors, paper, color books and stickers so he can play whenever he wants or when we need some quiet time. :)

We are adding geography this year! I signed him up for Little Passports, where he will get a box every month and learn about a different country. We just received our first box and he's already reciting all the countries. He's also insistent on our return to Europe, which breaks my heart because I would LOVE to go back too.

Anyway! I found a great pack of cards with the 50 states and a state map for him to color as we learn about the country that we currently live in.

Week one's theme is always "All About Me" and reviewing what he knows. Again, no printer so I am without an adorable "All About Me" worksheet like those I have pinned on my Homeschooling Pinterest board. Sigh. Luckily, he doesn't really care and I am happy enough to use his journal. 

My four year-old sidekick loves numbers. Which has turned into a love for math. I do hope this love sticks around because his dad and I are not math lovers. He solved all these problems (using my fingers) on his own. Some of which, did not require finger counting... he's a little scary sometimes with the information he knows and retains.

 Traveling. While it makes our schooling hard, it is always worth it. We got time with our best friends so I repeat: always worth it. We spent one morning at a science museum where the boys got to pan for jewels and dig for fossils. They even got to keep their finds! It was a good day.

Our reason for this particular adventure was for my first half marathon! 2 hours and 21 minutes later, I sure felt like I earned this medal. I was lucky enough to have had a great friend to run with and her wonderful mother to care for my sidekick. 

Those three boys above can cause some trouble, especially stuck spending a morning in a hotel room, but Nana handled them lovingly and it was one less thing to worry about as we ran for what felt like forever. 

Traveling with him is so much fun! He is the BEST travel buddy. Seriously, I would take him anywhere. Planes, trains, automobiles, any adventure!

I found a Goldfish card pack (same day as the States card pack. It was a good shopping day.) and taught him to play during our flights. While it was hard to not cheat (as you can tell from the picture above!), learning a new game and playing together made the flight even more enjoyable. 

So, there's our first week! Well, technically our first two weeks but, c'est la vie. I still have much to share so check back soon! 

Year Two: Week Seven: Snip, Cut, Match

Absence, with all its pains, is, by this charming moment, wiped away.

~ James Thomson

How has it been almost a month? What have we been doing? What have we not been doing?? Sigh. Well, Daddy came home! Yay! A lot of our absence is because of that, and that's okay. We are all stateside now and getting ready for our next adventure. We've been busy with family and errands. It's time to get back into schooling and this is the first step! Get this done and get set up for some schooling days before Thanksgiving. 

Let's catch up on our past weeks, shall we? Have a look:

 Found these through Pinterest, here's the direct link to the website. These were fun, waaaaay back in October, just in time for Halloween. 

 Cutting practice. It had been a while but my sidekick picked it back up very well. Learning to cut can be frustrating both for the cutter and the teacher. We worked though it with only minor aggravation. :) I found a whole Cut it Out Pack from This Reading Mama but, it won't let me link it right now. Good stuff though!

 I found a new website for my schooling needs! TeachersPayTeachers.com. They have lots of freebies in lots of categories and age groups. I will be using this site for a long time.

The pig graph above is by Donna Glynn Kinderglynn and the letter tracing sheet is by Apple Bliss. There is a ton of stuff on that website. Check it out.

Sidekick chose to be Luigi for Halloween. Kid made bank in candy! It was our first real stateside Halloween (he was too little before we moved) and he loved it! He loved the running from house to house, he loved the getting of the candy, and he loved "winning" by racing little neighborhood friends to and from each house. The only downfall? He wanted to go INSIDE every house. And he did not understand why we couldn't go wandering in to stranger's houses and make ourselves comfortable. Overall though, it was a good night.

 Another holiday we celebrated was my sidekick turning FOUR! Every mom says it, and I must agree, how does time go by so fast?! My baby is turning into a little boy and, I'm sure, some time tomorrow, he'll be a man. We had a quiet family dinner, complete with ice cream and a few presents, on his actual birthday and then a party about a week later once Daddy was home. 

Instead of presents at his birthday party, we asked our guests to bring donations for our local animal shelter. Everyone was great in participating and the shelter was very happy to receive our gifts. 

I've had people ask me, "Why no gifts?". My sidekick is special. He doesn't really like or care to open presents. Also, we tend to get him plenty of toys and such throughout the year. This was so much better. It went to a good cause and we didn't offend anyone when he shunned their gift so he could continue playing with his friends.

 Downtime.

 We used our recently cut apples (that he cut himself) and worked on our math skills.

 All these pumpkin, P themed, worksheets are from here. Through Pinterest, per usual. These were great to continue our fall theme that has been present for about a month. After Thanksgiving though, it's onto Winter Wonderland and Christmas! It was easy to break these worksheets up and do a couple a day or even just one in the evening during some down time. 

There you have it! You're as caught up as I am. Now to get ready for next week and set up some travel schooling projects. Wish me luck!

See you soon!

Year Two: Week Two: Color Us Happy

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

~Marcel Proust

 Science experiment time! We talked about what would happen when we mixed the colors together and then I set him free! Afterwards, we colored in his journal about what we learned. 

Oh these Bob Books! They are amazing. My sidekick has taken to these so well and has just about mastered these first three. Proud mommy, for sure!

While I never want to explain tragedy and heartache to my little innocent boy, we did talk about September 11. On a very small scale. As in, we are celebrating our flag and our country and heroes, like Daddy, who helped save many lives and continue to protect us.

Handwriting practice. It was numbers time. We're still working on the height of his writing (haha, obviously). But he did so well!

It was another fun week! We had his cousin over for some play time and another Saturday spent watching football. You're not truly home until you experience, at least, two seasons within a week or so. Remember 2 weeks ago, we were sweating in our shorts and this week it was hoodies and beanies and lots of cuddles! We had a grand ol' time! Here's to another week of fun ahead!

Week Eight: Keeping it Easy

I came to realize that exaggerated concern about what others are doing can be foolish. It can paralyze effort, and stifle a good idea. One finds that in the history of science almost every problem has been worked out by someone else. This should not discourage anyone from pursuing his own path.

Theodore von Kármán

The Wind and Beyond, 1967

 

 

This week we tried some new things, reinvented some things we'd done before, and watched eggs. It was all very exciting!

 

Have a look:

 

 We've done this sun project, earlier this summer. So this time, same concept, just different numbers. We worked on 11-20 this time (we did 1-10 the first time). He recognized all the numbers and matched them perfectly.

 This was a fun project! (Link below) You pour glue into a plastic lid, add dots of food coloring, mix around with a toothpick, and then let them dry for days and days. The colors smush together a lot during the drying process but it was still a lot of fun!

 

 Just a simple "g" is for garden.

 

 This was an interesting one for us. The egg on the left is sitting in vinegar. The right is in water. Day two brought bubbles, by day four the shell of the vinegar egg was squishy.

 

Day five or so (the sickness had set in, so I may have lost a day). The shell of the vinegar egg broke open but the yolk stays entirely intact! So strange. The sidekick didn't really understand what was happening but Mommy and Daddy were fascinated. The sidekick just liked poking the eggs daily and was very surprised when the vinegar egg was squishy. {"Oh! Mommy! Soft!"}

 

Things we learned this week:

School doesn't have to be done at the table every day. We are still playing outside when we can and have had lots of fun crunching leaves. Science is still a very new concept for the sidekick so, I'll slowly keep introducing some new experiments along the way.

I am also really enjoying looking for new things for us to do when I have the time. It's been fun to incorporate new ideas into what I've already got planned and see it all work out. The sidekick is very flexible and will follow along with almost anything. That helps make this adventure of ours so fun!

 

Where some of our ideas came from:

Egg experiment:

http://www.mudhutmama.com/preschool-homeschool-lesson-plans-week-8-age-3/

 

Wet glue suncatchers:

http://www.housingaforest.com/painting-on-wet-glue/

 

But for the full instructions on the suncatchers look here:

http://babbledabbledo.com/?s=cosmic+suncatchers



Week One: The Start of Something New

It's all about the journey, not the outcome. -Carl Lewis


 

We hang all his artwork so he can know how proud we are of him and his accomplishments! Plus, it's good for reviewing.

 

    We did it! We finished our first week! Projects done, smiles still entact, and love all around.

This week, we worked on letters d, g, and o. We also played a matching shapes game, and found things with the number 4. Also, we went on our first nature walk.

 

Here are some pictures from our week:

"d" is for door! Ours was squeaky and made us giggle when we opened it.

Off on an adventure!

Our nature we found on our walk.

"g" is for gooey, green, glitter!

4 birds {chickens} in a nest of our own making.

"o" is for....spider? No, no! "o" is for octopus!

 

Things we learned this week:
He's not quite ready for the phonics part of letters but loves to find things that start with our letter of the day.
Mommy can't cut out birds, so we put chickens in our nest. Thanks, kid.
Our "o is for octopus" looks like a spider.

But more than anything, we had a great time learning new things this week! Can't wait to see what next week has in store!

Here's where you can find the ideas for this weeks projects:

http://www.mudhutmama.com/preschool-homeschool-lesson-plans-week-1-age-3/

Have a great week and we'll be back with more of our adventures soon!