Doubling Up the Weekly Wrap Up a Few Days Late….

 

Family Life

These past two weeks blogging has taken a back seat.  We have been too busy living life that I have had very little time to blog about it. That’s how it goes sometimes. 

 

It snowed!  This picture was taken at the beginning of the storm.  It actually snowed more than this picture shows.   

Of course the snow and cold means it’s time to bring out the hot cocoa.  Good thing I stocked up the previous week at the grocery store.

Tommy is on our 4H Teen Council.  The group made treats to sell as a fundraiser at our pumpkin festival.  We weren’t able to attend the actual festival, he was able to help make the treats.  When I went to pick him up I saw these caramel apples and I couldn’t resist.  I became their first customer!  My other kids were all so surprised I brought them all home caramel apples.  They were so yummy!

We carved pumpkins.  This year was great!  The older kids didn’t need or want any help and Katey needed very little.  Tyler and I carved our pumpkin together.

Halloween activities were to be had all week. 

School Life

Katey’s morning book has been completed.  I finally have all the pages I want in it, as well as the order I wanted everything.  I took it to Staples and had it bound.  (I may have a slight obsession with binding things.)  I got all of the pages from Our Aussie Homeschool.  I did add in blank Handwriting Without Tears paper in the back for her to journal each day.  I had planned her to take 5-10 minutes per day on this and it has taken her on average 30 minutes each day. 

Tommy has been learning about measuring speed and how to calculate it both in a straight line (walking) and on a wheel (biking).  He has also been learning about how to calculate projectile motion.  The picture above was used to show that the closer to the center of a circle the faster it will spin.

Here he is calculating the speed of a bike tire.  We talked about how an electronic speedometer has to figure out the same formula he did. 

Tyler has been loving all his busy bag activities.  The lacing cards still prove to be a challenge for him, but he loves trying.

Emily has been learning about Indians (Native Americans) in Prairie Primer.  One night I had her make Navajo Tacos for dinner.  They were so good!

Fun School

We classified the kids’ Halloween candy, taxonomy style.  This was really fun and they each wished they hadn’t eaten candy before doing this.  This will tie right into some of our science lessons next week, which happen to be on Taxonomy Classification of plants and animals.

Another really fun thing we did was catch a spider and force it to weave a web right in front of us.  Our spider was shy about it and didn’t weave much but it was still neat.  It was really neat to see him jump from one stick to the other and to walk across the strands. This experiment came from Science Experiments in a Bag. Check out my review of those books.

I had Emily teach Katey how to play hopscotch.  This was great sister bonding time. 

Real Life

We got “Booed”.  That’s where a secret neighbor brings you treats and you do it to two other neighbors, it goes around the neighborhood.  Well in an attempt to make my cookies, I burned an entire batch.  I thought they would be fine to dip in milk.  NOPE!  They were gross.

A Collage

You know I can’t just do one.  So here are 2 collages from our Corn Maze field trip with our homeschool co-op.

Our Favorite Resource

These books by Kate Waters are great.  They go through a real life day in someone’s life.  My children enjoyed reading them and learned what life was like in Pilgrim times.  I checked these books out from our library.  They really are great books, with an accurate historical portrayal. 

This has been linked to:

 

 

Busy Bags ~ Incorporating them into your days.

 

I have spent the last month sharing with you many busy bag ideas. this post will share with you how we actually use them all.  I do not give my kids a free for all with them.  Maybe one day. 

I store them in a drawer unit which is inside of a closet.  One day my intention is to sort them by age range in the drawers. 

Yea, one day that’s what I’ll do.

Probably when the kids are older. 

That will be great since they will be to old to want to get into them anymore.  Yea, then they will stay organized. 

I switch out his activities one at a time, every few days or so, I take one out and add a new one in.  That way, I only have to teach him one new activity at a time.  He has a crate that I store all his current activities in.  When I need him to be doing something else (as in something different that what he he is currently doing), I move the crate right to him and he goes right to it. 

Here is a week’s (or whatever) worth of activities.

This one is a tot book from Carissa at 1+1+1=1

 

Many of these activities I (or one of the other kids) get him started with and he is usually content to finish up or at least work on it for a while by himself.

This system has really been working out quite well for us.

I hope you have learned many new busy bag ideas.

In case you missed my series, here it is:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Thanks so much and please take the time to follow me.

Science Experiments In a Bag ~ Reading Games, too!!!

 

I was beyond thrilled when Activity Bags asked us to review some of their books.  I already owned one of their Preschool Activity in a Bag books.  So, I already knew how great these can be.  Plus if you know me, you know my obsession with Zip-loc bags.

I was able to receive all 3 Science Experiments in a Bag books as well as Reading Games in a Bag.

Let’s begin with the science books.

The books individually cost $15.  There are also bundle deals that reduce the cost even more.  You can get all 3 science books for $39.  Science Experiments in a bag books 1 & 2 also include the coordinator instructions.

 

Each book has 25 experiments.  Each experiment is meant to be pre-assembled and then put into a bag.  What I mean by pre-assembled, is that you gather all the non perishable supplies that you need ahead of time and put them together in a plastic bag.  That way you can just grab-&-experiment. 

 

To get started with this review, I spent 1 night going over all 3 science experiment books, familiarizing myself with them, seeing what kind of experiments there were, and figuring out which supplies I would need to purchase.  Surprise at the end of the book there is a general supply list of what you will need for each experiment.  (Not a complete list, but very helpful none the less.)  Book 3 is set up a little different as it has the supplies listed out only on the experiments at a glance page. 

After go through the books, I then made two supply lists, one of which was supplies I already had around the house (paper plates, straws, toothpicks, etc.) The other list was supplies I would need to purchase (potting soil, ping pong balls, Mentos, balloons, etc.)  Putting together each bag should cost around $1 each.  In my experience, some of them were a little more, and some were much less, as I already owned many of the supplies.  I just decided to prepare all of the bags individually for my family, at first.  I could see how preparing multiple of the same experiment could reduce the cost even further.  In fact, with my leftover supplies I am going to make up science bags for some of our family friends for Christmas gifts.  I know they will love them!

Book 1 has 25 experiments all from biology, nature and general science. 

One of the experiments from book 1 is “Web Crawler” which is where you force a spider to build a web.  I had this activity ready to go in a bag, but we were visiting Grandma when we found a spider, I knew enough from reading and putting the bag together what to do.  We were able to improvise on some supplies in this instance.  We forced a spider to build a web right in front of our eyes.  It was very neat.

Book 2 is full of chemistry, human body and general science.

Here is an experiment we did using our breath to move a ping pong ball. 

Some experiments from Book 2 include:

• Sparky Sparker- Where you make your own lightning and learn about electrons.
• Finger the Culprit – Where you learn about fingerprints.
• Dancing Peanuts – Where you create a chemical reaction that makes peanuts dance. (Don’t worry here if your family has nut allergies, you can substitute raisins in.)
• Many, Many more fun ones!

Some Experiments from Book 3 include:

• Iron Mining – Where you discover how much iron is in your juice.
• Secret Message – Create your very own invisible ink.
• Jigglin Gel – Where you trap a liquid in a solid. 
• Plus tons more! 

Each science book comes with experiment logs for each experiment that include directions on how to do the experiment, observation questions, and notes etc. 

I keep track of that on the “experiments at a glance page” in the front of my binder full of the logs.

I have an X next to the ones I have pre-assembled.

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Reading Games in a Bag ($15)is full of what I consider multi level activities.  While they are said to be for beginning readers, some of them proved too difficult for my beginning reader, and some of them were just right for my older kids. 

Reading Games is just that, games!  There are 20 reading games here.  They range from Alphabet, to State Abbreviations, to Label it. These games are so simple and fun that the kids don’t even realize it’s educational. 

Here is Katey playing Silly Sentences.

Here is the sentence she made.  Sure it doesn’t make sense, but she read it and laughed. (I laughed too.)

Here are all of us playing The State Abbreviation Game.

I did give my printer a workout with printing out all of these things from all 4 of the books I received.  I realize that keeps the cost down of the books themselves.  This also allows me to only print activities that will work for us at the time.  For instance, I only printed off science experiment logs for the experiments I have completed putting together.  

 

To see what others think of this check out this post. To see a wide variety of reviews check out our crew blog.

Disclosure: As a member of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew I review products, like this, which I receive for free in order to be able to share my honest opinion.  No other compensation is provided. 

 

The Sparkle Box ~~~GIVEAWAY~~~

 

The Sparkle Box is a wonderful book that should be in everyone’s holiday library.  It truly has “the power to change Christmas”. 

It is about a small boy named Sam, who is excited about the Christmas season.   As he does good deeds for others his parents add the deed to the Sparkle Box.  On Christmas morning he gets to open the box and see all the good deeds he has done. 

 

This book really has my children interested in doing good deeds for others.  Guess what?  It comes with your very own Sparkle Box to add your good deeds to.  So your family can open them on Christmas Day!  We cannot wait to open ours.  In fact this book has inspired us to do a good deed each day for someone else. 

Will you put a Sparkle Box under your Christmas Tree? 

Buy one here $19.99

Check it out on Facebook

About the Author

 

You can win one!  Check out the Rafflecopter for how to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

“Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”