E is for Elephant

Another letter craft for Noah's alphabet craft book.

Ee is for elephant.

Charlotte Starting a New Lapbook on Knights

Charlotte started a new lapbook today called, 'Knights'.

Our first piece.....

The inside:

It's done by Homeschooling in the Woods.

It will compliment SOTW II quite nicely.

Alphabet Apple Trees

Noah is enjoying this book a lot.

C is for Cat

Another painting and scissor craft for the Letter C and Noah's alphabet craft book.

The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Another interactive notebook science day....

Rollerskating

Signed the girlies up for rollerskating this term.

Heaps of fun.... and now of course they want their own roller skates....

Another Picture of Australia

Another attempt at Australia, this time with Floral emblems.

Preschool Activities Today

Here are some of the activities that Noah did today:

A simple activity of matching up what is missing from the main picture.  Visual discrimination.

And we also worked on Touch Points.

And he did a little bookwork.

And a few jigsaw puzzles.

A New Book all the Way from America

Today I had some happy mail.....

a new book all the way from America.

{ A History of England by Arnold - Forster }

It's on the AO reading list as an option / substitute if you don't want to do Churchill.

Up until this point I've been slowly printing out a pdf copy, but it would be a huge project to do that if I had to continue to the very end, so on that account, I am super excited to have it in a book - hard cover too.

When Bb is for Butterfly

When Bb is for butterfly....

Done by Noah.

A Montessori Pack for the Letter Aa

Today I wanted to share my Montessori Pack for the Letter Aa.

I don't know if I'll make any more, but we'll see.

In the mean time I thought that it might be of some use to you if you are:

teaching the letter Aa,
or numbers to 12,
or doing an apple theme,
or ant theme.

It comes with an anchor chart.

Some 3 part cards in color.

 

The same 3 part cards in black and white to save your ink.

Some mini books for the children to practice writing.

Some counting cards.

 

Cards with no numbers, so you could match them up to the set before.

 

And there's an apple set too. 

It's 30 pages.

Enjoy!

Letter A Craft

Noah LOVES his painting and cutting so I also offered him this to do as well.

Pinterest is an awesome place to pick up ideas and links to free printables.

Noah Making a Craft for the Letter A.

Today Noah started his alphabet craft series.  He did amazing.  He painted and cut with the scissors with diligence, focus, and care.

{ 3y8m }

How it looks in his book.

I can't wait for him to start adding more.

When You Discover What is Actually Taught in Rod and Staff Math 3

Today I looked in the back of the Grade 3 Rod and Staff Math book that Charlotte { 6 } is doing to see what she's learning this year.

I was pretty surprised at how much they were covering.

Addition

Borrowing

Carrying

Counting

Division

Fractions

Measures

Mixed Computation

Money

Multiplication

Numbers

Place Value

Reading Problems

Subtraction

Telling Time

Wow, that's a lot really.... and she's half way through the book already.

Craft Time on Holidays

One of the ways to keep the children busy during holiday time is to let them do crafts.  Freestyle.  Just give them stuff and let them make their own things.

Today they are happy to craft punch and add glitter and what not's to their creations.

Trying Out the Figures from Caesar's Augustus World

My only regret is that they didn't have their date on or close by each picture.  Never the less, they still lent themselves to the timeline schedule without too much difficulty per se.

Hannah just preferred to cut and paste directly.

We guessed where they should fit because I wasn't feeling well enough to do the extra leg work to get the accuracy.  I hope we weren't too far out.

And Phebe's page.  She used textas to outline the picture before cutting and pasting.

I'm not sure if we'll do more or not later on, maybe, we'll see.

Working on Charlotte's Medieval Timeline

Since we were taking a week off school I thought, now is the time, that I'd inject a small side detour for 10 mins so that this particular activity, which is normally overlooked and forgotten, could be started.  

I found the figures through Ambleside Online.

The Rocks of Honey

Hannah has also finished Watership Down, and enjoyed it immensely, as the same for the other two girls.  So, I needed to find a new read for that space on the schedule.  Here's what I choose for Hannah.

The Rocks of Honey

Sorry guys, but we did dispense with the dust jacket, it was in the way...

Written by Patricia Wrightson and printed in 1960.  She is a distinguished writer for children.   Her books have won many prestigious awards all over the world.

I love the sketch work in it.

This is an Australian book.

It's about an Aboriginal legend, and a hidden stone axe which is believed to be cursed.  Basically it's a treasure hunt.  Barney and his Aboriginal friend with a third child are determined to find the axe.  But of course, there are a string of accidents along the way, which leads them to conclude that the legend is much more than they originally thought, but is it??

Descriptions of the local landscape do not escape the book and there is even a "shivering authentic encounter account of a close encounter of a local spider".

The Golden One

Since we're doing AO for Phebe at the moment, and she polished off Watership Down in a jiffy, I moved her into a new book.

The Golden One

by Katherine O'Brien

Inside at the first chapter. 

"If you like adventure stories, you'll like this one."

The story is based in New Zealand, a close geographical country to Australia.

"Three twelve year olds on holiday near Wellington find a treasure that has been lost for several generations - the Golden One of legend.  But that is only the beginning of their adventures, as thieves try to get hold of it.  And the antique shop owner's assistant is really nasty, the villian - he's a really good baddie."

At present Phebe is about to start chapter 3.

Science this Week for Charlotte

This weeks Science for Charlotte...

It's an Interactive Notebook page.

The lesson plan DOES include instructions for completing a left hand page as well, but I feel that just doing the interactive page is enough at the moment.

Combining Bible and Copywork

The thought here is that I decided that we should combine Bible and Copywork in the one lesson.

Basically, I've taken a photocopy master with a picture and a story with which Charlotte reads the story out loud to me and narrates a sentence or so between each paragraph.  I write it down, and then at the end she can copy it out into her book.  She uses the picture on the left hand side to trace, thus producing these examples. 

She is really enjoying this activity, so we'll continue daily until she tires and then I'll probably make it a weekly thing and move her into the Golden Children's Bible on the other days.

Adding Ambleside for Charlotte

This week I started Charlotte with Ambleside Readings for Year One.

I scheduled out a full 12 weeks to give it a fair go.

I also printed out a few books that were on the Year 1 list..

Charlotte is LOVING this book.  It is perfect for her!

This particular History of the Church is Catholic... but I'm not Catholic, but I thought that I would try it out since I would like the children to have some Church History.  I am hoping that it will still lend itself to quite a bit of usefulness.