History in the making

Aaron got up at 4:30 am to watch the Royal Wedding of William and Kate with Camryn. They talked me into letting her stay home from school today to watch the wedding on television so early this morning. He is such a good Daddy! As he said it is living history. We after-school homeschool Cam to make up for the deficiencies of our local public school (she was going to a church based school until December when it became to hard to transport her back and forth). I remember staying home to Watch Dianna and Charles' Wedding as a teen. Every girl loves a fairy tale wedding story. I remember watching William grow up. History isn't just the past. It is the here and now as well.

What did we do all day?

Today we started with a hundreds board for number review. That turned into a sorting game since I got out the bin of place markers most of which the kids hadn't seen. Little man started a color sort with the egg tray I keep in the bin all by himself. I was surprised and then pleased at how many he put on the right color no prompting from the peanut gallery either. Pitty-pat and Tippy-toe then abandoned the hundreds chart for the sorting game so I gave them each a Candyland card and told them to find only the color on their card.

Then I took Pitty-pat aside and gave her number cards I found on Mathwire that are like the hundred board-but I only gave her the 5's and asked her to count by fives to 100. I am surprised at the tears but then she caught on and now can count in her head to 100 by 5's.

Then all three little one made crosses from tissue paper and contact paper. I showed them how pretty they were when held up to the light. Little man held on to his all day long. He like placing the tissues on the "sticky".

I also got out the Resurrection basket and talked about each item and how we would be learning about the real meaning of Easter the next two weeks. Pitty-pat was amazed to learn Jesus was "real". Of course then she demanded to see where Israel was on the map and astounded to see me point to it. I could see the wheels turn as she realized it was "REALLY REAL". I think today was a success.I was going to study Scotland next but I think we should study Israel for our next country instead. I don't want to do too much right now at the holidays but I might be able to find the flag and a map for our continent box at least.

Presidents Day

Cherry Pie-place the cherries on the pie using red pom poms for the cherries

 The Bells are a great hit for music this week. We had several bells from a collection of my daughter's and thought Little-man would really like to play these.

 We are lap booking about Abe Lincoln. I got the most of the sheets from Homeschoolshare. But  we also did a search for more coloring sheets and an easy reader book.

I got this Penny bingo marker sheet from Jolanthe appropriate since Lincoln is on the penny. I am using it for a math game using pennies for markers and  roll dice first one to to cover the card wins.

Johny Appleseed Day

Today we had apples for lunch and put Johny Appleseed on our time line. Pitty-pat did a worksheet from enchantedlearning.com Today September 26th is his birthday. We did the map activity to go along with the worksheet. The kids got to use an apple cutter for the first time. The picture is Pitty-pat trying to cut an apple. Sorry it is so blurry i used my phone for a quick picture.
Pitty-pat is also reviewing place value and did a thousands place worksheet for her math today.A+ to Trent who worked with her on counting by tens Friday night.he got the white board out and taught her so very patiently. Patience is hard when Pitty-pat plays dumb and mute and Trent is dyslexic. His difficulties in school make him very patient with her. Not many 19 year old stepbrothers would spent time on a Friday night to teach their 7 year old stepsister math.Thank You Trent.

Bread success

The sourdough loaf from the bread machine looks so good and smells wonderful. I found the recipe at allrecipes.com I used my left over whey from our cheese making to feed my starter and in place of the milk and water in the recipe. I have frozen the rest of the whey for more bread making. I just hate to waste anything. The cheese we made yesterday tastes rather bland so we will have to herb it up or use it for baking. Not quite a spread for crackers unless we make a cheese ball again. But we really just made it to go along with Pitty-pat's Little House in the Big Woods pioneer unit study. I plan to put the facts I learned about cheese on the time line I am putting together for our history study. I just don't know how I want to show the timeline. One poster isn't enough space and a wall is too much room to dedicate to this project. I just want to show the time from the pilgrims (last years history lessons)to the pioneers for now with a few things far before and after as we learn them this year

Thanksgiving break

We are following Cam's school schedule for holiday breaks. So we are suppost to be off all week. But we are doing a lapbook on the mayflower anyway and visiting National Geographics cool mayflower interactive website for kids.

Pilgrims

We are reading Sara Morton's Day and Samuel Eaton's Day both by Kate Waters. We also read Mayflower 1620 by National Geographic. The intereating thing about that book is it lists by ancestors. I didn't know he came over on the mayflower just that the daughter was the first marriage in Waterford Mass.

King David

History lesson as part of our wolves, sheep and shepherd theme we read the story of David the shepherd boy from a bible story book we have. We made cottonball sheep.