America Week

While I'm still going to try to follow my schedules I've planned, I'm not going to post them. The reality is that I've been pretty sick and not able to follow them as much as I would like.
 So now for America Week. Here's what we did on Monday and Tuesday. First we read about why we celebrate the 4th of July. We read the Declaration on Independence (I bought a poster of it) and talked about how it was written in 1776. I found this website called Liberty's Kids. Melodie loved watching the "Now & Then" episodes.
 We also learned about fireworks by watching 3, 2, 1 Firework. I was surprised at how interested Melodie was in this. She loved going to the firework stand to pick out our fireworks for this year.
 We did our weekly alphabet, of course.

 And that's it for the beginning of the week!

The Rest of Bird Week

Wednesday
 Melodie loved watching all the bird songs on youtube.  Then we read this book:

This is the second Just Ask book we've read and we really enjoy them. After reading about why birds sing, we listened to bird sounds on the Canadian Museum of Nature website. It's actually a matching game. Mel enjoyed it so we did all four habitats.
 For the craft we were going to make bottle cap birds. I even saved bottle caps, but I couldn't find small bottle caps. They were all the same size, which would have made pretty silly looking birds. So Melodie cut out circles instead.

With the extra feathers she made a random picture.
 She played to games on the computer and liked both of them. Shapes: Starfall and letter matching: abcya.com. The letter matching was too easy for her, so she chose some other games to try on that website too.
Thursday
  We made two kinds of bird feeders. One kind was out of toilet paper rolls and one was out of bagels.

 I haven't been feeling well all week. She's in her swim suit because this was after her swimming lessons, but before going to a friends' house (they have a pool) that were going to watch her while I went to the doctor. On Friday we didn't get a chance to do anything (I was so bummed because the fun food was so cute!) because after swimming lessons I had to go back to the doctor (auntie watched her) and then she had tap. After that she wanted to stay with her auntie the rest of the night. Well, maybe we can do the fun food another time just for fun.

Birds Week

Just a preview of next week (the last week in June).

A possible field trip would be to the Magnolia Bird Farm. Has anyone been there?

I'm not sold on Dumbo as my movie...but it has a magic feather. My other option was Chicken Little (which Mel loves). I guess we'll see how I feel on Wednesday.

Monday
(eggs)

(gospel lesson)
prepare Elijah fed  by the Ravens FHE together
Reading and Computer: Chicken Stacker at Between the Lions
Writing: ABCs on birds
Math: worksheets from Dollar Tree workbooks
Craft: paint bird house (this is a bird house she made at Home Depot a while ago)
Science: watch video of chick hatching

Tuesday
(feathers)

(movie) Dumbo
Reading: What makes birds different from other animals? from Kidzone
Writing: Label types of feathers and parts of a feather (worksheets from ASU Life Sciences)
Math & Computer: 2D and 3D Shapes from Starfall (not bird themed)
Craft: feather painting (instead of using a paintbrush, use a feather)

Wednesday

(Flightless Birds)

(music)
Listen to these songs on youtube: Feed the Birds, Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Carnival of the Animals (Finale) Fantasia 2000, and Tiki Room

Reading: "Why Do Birds Sing?" from the library
Writing: Upper case and lower case matching from abcya.com (not bird themed)
Math: worksheets
Craft: bottlecap birdies (Meet the Dubiens)
Science & computer: Listen to different bird songs online (Canadian Museum of Nature)

Thursday

(Birds that Fly)

Reading & Writing: Write a bird word (for example: fly) then look for it when reading a book. Different word for each book.

Math: worksheets
Craft: Make bird feeders Here's a few ideas: The Crafty Classroom, No Time for Flashcards, Under the Table and Dreaming, Working Mother in Zion, The Moffat Girls

Science & Computer: How do birds fly (Canadian Museum of Nature) and Airborne Experiment on Wonderville
Sorting Board: Birds that Fly/Flightless

Friday

(Fun Foods)

Breakfast: scrambled eggs and peacock fruit (Canadian Family)

Lunch: Bird's Nest Egg Salad (Taste of Home) and grape bird's nests (The Adventures of Bear)

Dinner: Chicken (ha, ha!) and Chocolate Bird's Nests for dessert (Mama Jenn)

Reading: library books

Writing: worksheets from All Kids Network - Missing vowels and Word Scramble
Math & Computer: Weight at PBS Kids

Some fun extras if we have time:
Create a bird computer game
Sesame Street Pigeon Trouble computer game
For older kids I like this website (KidWings). I thought it might be too old for Mel.
Some of the worksheets from All Kids Network are for younger kids.
This Count the Chicken game is good for younger kids.

Oceans Day 1

 Our first day of summer homeschool! I set up the night before.

Melodie woke me up this morning. She was VERY excited. After breakfast, we got started right away. She didn't even want to wait to brush her hair. She did, however, get dressed. I had to keep from laughing at the orange shirt with pink, green and white plaid shorts.
 We started with our introduction to the theme of the week: oceans. We talked about how their were four and went over the names using the National Geographic Our World book and our beach ball globe.

Then she put up window clings. First, the money and clocks ones that will stay up for the summer. Then the ocean animal clings.

She did one of her math worksheets while I took a shower.

After my shower and her first math worksheet (see original Oceans Week post for details on worksheets). We read The Underwater Alphabet Book and then she wrote one upper case and lower case letter on a dolphin. We put these on the wall.

In the afternoon she went to her first day of swimming lessons, we had lunch and then went on a field trip to the beach.

After the beach (and a shower) she wanted to do more summer homeschool. She did two more math worksheets. Then we drew our globe.

We didn't do a great job, but we still had fun. Then she reviewed the ocean names on the Sheppard Software Website. This is when the names really stuck in her memory. After she memorized the names and locations, we labeled our globe. It was a little confusing because some of our continents weren't in the correct place, but we managed.

She wanted to do even more things, but since we went to the beach (unplanned) I decided to move Jonah and the Whale to another day (we don't have FHE on Mondays anyway).
 Besides swimming, we did plenty of non-homeschool things. But it was cute how she always wanted to do more. I hope it lasts!

Oceans Week

There's a few things I got for every week (or tried to).
First, I tried to get those bulletin board cutouts for each week (at the Dollar Tree). These are going to be used the first day of the week. Mel will write one capital and one lower case letter on each one. I thought this would make practicing her letters a little more fun, plus it will decorate our school area for the week.
Second, I bought a foam board at the Dollar Tree. This is going to be our sorting board. I also have been collecting old magazines to use for the sorting board.
Third, I am getting books from the library for each theme (not all at once!). We also participate in the summer reading program at our library, so even if it doesn't say it in the schedule, we will be reading these books every day. In the schedule I only included them if they were part on an activity or specific to the day. I did already get some America once because those are more difficult to find around 4th of July.
Fourth, I bought window clings (again at Dollar Tree) for some of the weeks. I also found cute clock and money ones. I love window clings!
Fifth, workbooks at Dollar Tree. It's a lot cheaper and easier than printing out a bunch of pages. There's some really cute Disney ones.
Each week there's a movie that goes with the theme. Most of the movies are Disney (which I already own).

I have signed Melodie up for swimming and dance classes for the summer. Also, one of the neighboring cities has a park program ($20/3hours/3days) with a weekly theme. Some of the themes fit with mine, so I signed her up for those. If we don't have time for everything scheduled, the first thing to go will be the crafts because she will be doing crafts at the parks. The second thing will be the computer time. I included computer time because it's important to learn computer skills and Mel enjoys it. I also want her to realize there's more than just Disney Junior on the computer. Since it's just me and Mel, we have a lot of time together throughout the day to do this stuff. That's why there's so much here. And because of that, Mel and I might do some of this on Saturdays and Sundays too.

Also, each day has it's own thing to include. Mondays will include a gospel lesson, Tuesdays a movie, Wednesdays will include music, Thursdays we will work on sight words, and Friday will be for fun foods. It doesn't mean we won't do these on other days, or that they will always be included, it was just a way for me to organize my thoughts. The same with the little mini themes (sea animals, salt water, etc...). Just a way to focus.

Here's my schedule for the first week of Summer Homeschool (starting June 18th). Our theme is "Oceans". I did spring for a couple of things for this week. I bought this National Geographic book. I first checked it out at the library, but I loved it so much (and wanted it for the week the theme is "world") that I bought it. I also bought an inflatable globe. I've wanted a real one, but I'm not sure where we'd put it, and the inflatable one was cheaper.

If anyone wants to join us for a field trip, let me know. Monday or Saturday works best for us this week. I was thinking of going to the beach or tide pools.

Monday

(The Seven Oceans)

(gospel lesson)
prepare Jonah and the Whale FHE together
craft: paper bag whale (I'm sure there's an example you could find online. I got the idea from this craft book that I love)
Reading and Writing:I found three ABC Ocean books at the library. We will read these and Mel will write her ABC's on cutouts.
Math: worksheets from education.com You can find some for every level. We are using these:
Number Jumble, Addition Color by Number, Sea Life Subtraction Problem Solving
Computer time: Sheppard Software site Learn the names and locations of the oceans
Craft: We were going to do a paper mache globe, but I found a ball at The Dollar Tree that was blue and white. It was perfect for the ocean part of a globe, so I didn't really want to cover the whole thing. Instead we are going to draw the continents on the ball (label later during the world theme) and label the oceans.

Tuesday

(sea animals)

(movie)

Finding Nemo

Writing: Trace the names of the real animals in Finding Nemo

 

I made these worksheets. Melodie can write letters without tracing, but I put them on there so I would know the real names. Plus, she still confuses b and d. This will be good practice.

Reading: Read about the real animals in Finding Nemo as well as read library books

Math: I found the Number Ocean Sort game here. However, I wanted it Nemo themed and I didn't want to pay. If you want to do number recognition only, just leave out the math problems.

You cut them out and play the game. It goes up to the number ten.

Craft: Draw sea creatures (I have a book from the library, but there are some online). Clay sea turtle (I bought a kit for less than $1 at JoAnn's).

Sorting Board: sea mammals/fish (two days for this)

Wednesday

(sea animals)

(music)

Listen to Finding Nemo: Ocean Favorites (I got it from the library)

Listen to a humpback whale song Ocean Link

Sing Along Song Monterey Bay Aquarium

Reading and Writing: Write an ocean word (for example: fish) then look for it when reading a book. Different word for each book.

Math: worksheets (again from education.com) Telling Time, Undersea Number Adventure

Computer: Play Wild Kratts Ocean Game

Craft: Dolphin sand craft (I bought a kit at Michael's for less than $1) and jellyfish crafts

There's one from No Time For Flashcards that uses cupcake liners, but I'll be using coffee filters that I have left over from a previous craft. 

There's another one that is on pinterest that doesn't have a link.

To me it looks like string, paper bowls and streamers.

Thursday

(salt water and waves)

Reading and Writing: Sight Words Memory Game. Write sight words twice on cards and we'll play memory with them.

Math and Computer: Estimation computer game Shark Numbers

Craft and Science Experiment: Salt Water Picture from Funology.

Friday

(salt water and waves)

(Fun foods)

Breakfast: crab croissant Pink 'N Punchy lunches uses cold cuts, but I'm going to turn it into a breakfast sandwich with egg, cheese and bacon.

Lunch: fish sticks and jello fish bowl Martha Stewart uses unflavored gelatin in a fish bowl. I'm going to make individual servings in plastic cups and use whatever blue jello there is in a box. If anyone would like to join us for lunch, let me know.

Dinner: Octopus and Seaweed I'm not sure how this will taste, but it looks fun! The Taste of Home recipe uses beef ramen noodles. I think I'll just use spaghetti with a brown butter sauce.

Reading: What is a wave? (book I got at the library)

Writing: Same activity as Wednesday

Math: worksheets From a Disney workbook I bought at Dollar Tree

Craft: Sticker ocean scene. I have a lot of stickers and scrapbooking paper, so we're going to use some of them for this.

Computer: The Monterey Bay Aquarium website has a lot of games and activities. I like the Deep Sea Memory Game.

Science Experiment: Salt Water Egg Experiment. Find it at Experiment-Resources

Lakeshore has a free craft every Saturday. The one on the 23rd fits with our theme, so we'll be going.  

If we have more time to do stuff:

Watch DisneyNature Oceans (DVRd it on TV)

Shark Knowledge computer game

Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium Puzzles on the computer

Funbrain Sea Dive computer game

If you have younger kids, there's some homeschool bloggers that have put together some really cute printables out there. Here's the three I liked the best:

The Oceans from 2 Teaching Mommies

Under the Girly Sea from 1+1+1=1

Deep Blue Sea from Homeschool Share

Summer Homeschool Adventure

 I might go into this in more detail later, but here's a brief description of why I made the choice I did for my daughter's education (my husband was willing to support any choice, but left the research and the ulitmate choice up to me). We chose public school. I actually never really considered homeschool until I met Sherry Jones. She was the first person I met who did it in a way that made sense to me. And I adore her kids. When the time came to make a choice for my daughter's education, I found out two of my good friends (with kids my daughter's age) were going to homeschool their children (they have since moved, so good thing I didn't base my decision on that!). So I really started looking into it. Let me just say that there are pros and cons to both public school and homeschool (private school was not an option for us unless I didn't want to be a stay at home mom anymore, which wasn't going to happen). When I found out the school I was suppose to send my daughter to school to was terrible, I put in for a transfer to a different school in the same district. I knew that if the transfer wasn't approved I would homeschool. But if it was, then a choice would need to be made. It was and I made a choice after a lot of research.
 Basically, the pros of public school were better than the pros of homeschool. Here's what I love about my daughter going to public school:
*My daughter is an only child. Socialization was important. I know people say this can happen in other ways, and believe me we've tried other ways that for various reasons weren't very successful. School has been great for this.
*We live in Southern California and diversity is the name of the game. I want her to meet other people who don't look the way she does, believe the same things she does, or live the way she does.
*She could be "a light unto the world" at school.
*Money. With all the research I did online, people claimed it didn't cost THAT much when they children were little, but just ink and paper alone would be a crazy amount of money (ink is expensive, and I noticed most people didn't include that in their "cost").
*Melodie wanted to go to school.
 The one homeschool benefit that almost won me over is the flexibility. But, I'm not really that big on daily flexibility anyway. My daughter has been on a schedule her whole life. It wouldn't stop with homeschool. The thought of going on vacation whenever we wanted was a little appealing, but public school didn't stop us from our road trip!
 I would just like to mention that after all my research there's a couple of things a lot of the online homeschool community would post that really bothered me (I might expand on my thoughts on these later). I saw these comments so often on different sites that I had to remind myself that not all parents that homeschool feel this way.
1) If you don't homeschool then you don't care about your child's education, or at least not as much as those that homeschool do.
2) Your child will see, hear and be exposed to the most terrible of things in public school.
3) Children are too young "to be a light unto the world", so even though we are told to do that in the Bible, it doesn't apply to them.
4) All public schools are terrible, after all, the public education system is terrible.
5) You're not in control of what your child is taught.
6) If the school schedule says "Math 30 min., Reading, 30 min., Writing 30 min." then children are sitting at a desk that whole time.
  So public school is the choice we've made for now, and we loved this year!  I am VERY involved at school and with Melodie's education. I love her teachers, the education she's receiving and how she's receiving it.
 Since I am not opposed to homeschool, but public school is out for the summer, I came up with an idea to do summer homeschool for Melodie. Each week Melodie and I are going to do math, reading, writing, science, art and activities centered around a mini theme. Her teachers have been so helpful (just like they were when I was planning educational stuff for our road trip). I'm super excited about this summer.
 The point of this whole post is to invite anyone who wants to to join my for my Summer Homeschool Adventure. Here are the themes I'm doing:

June 18-22 Oceans

June 25-29 Birds

July 2-6 America

July 9-13 Safari

July 16-20 Food Groups

July 23-27 Solar System

July 30-Aug 3 Continents and Olympics

Aug 6-Aug 10 Royalty

Aug 13-17 Dance and Music

Aug 20-24 Back 2 School

Join us for as much or as little as you'd like. I'll try to post links, worksheets and crafts on here at the beginning of the week, but if you'd like advance notice on any of these things, or to know about any "field trips", send me your email!