Chasing Cheerios
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Congrats to Our Winner!
Congrats to the winner of the matching apron and bonnet! I hope your little girl loves them! Thanks to Cheri for offering this fun giveaway! Don't forget that Cheri is offering a 10% discount to readers of Chasing Cheerios through August 15th! Just put in chasingcheerios as your coupon when you check out.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Cursive Handwriting
O(6) requested that I teach her to write in cursive this school year. I ordered this cursive writing book (primer) from Queen Homeschool. O did NOT enjoy her first cursive lesson.
She liked writing on the wipe-off board a little better.
I'm going to try a few more fun techniques for her to practice her handwriting, so hopefully she'll enjoy it!
A few weeks in, and I've decided to put cursive handwriting on hold and wait until we have our school room to do more "schooly" things like this.
She liked writing on the wipe-off board a little better.
I'm going to try a few more fun techniques for her to practice her handwriting, so hopefully she'll enjoy it!
A few weeks in, and I've decided to put cursive handwriting on hold and wait until we have our school room to do more "schooly" things like this.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Warm Wood Art
We were inspired by this post at The Artful Parent to color on warm wood! O(6) still talks about the time that we colored on hot rocks (about 4 years ago) and wants to do that project again. Since this seems a little safer for little fingers, I decided to try this instead.
I warmed some leftover wood pieces (that I found at my mom's house) in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. I gave each girl a piece of wood along with a box of crayons. It was fun to color on the wood since the crayons just glided onto the warm surface.
O drew a rainbow and a landscape (her 2 favorite things to draw) while E(2)'s drawing was more abstract. E was not happy with her drawing because she wanted hers to look just like her sister's!
I warmed some leftover wood pieces (that I found at my mom's house) in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. I gave each girl a piece of wood along with a box of crayons. It was fun to color on the wood since the crayons just glided onto the warm surface.
O drew a rainbow and a landscape (her 2 favorite things to draw) while E(2)'s drawing was more abstract. E was not happy with her drawing because she wanted hers to look just like her sister's!
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Random Homeschool Moments
O(6) woke up before E one morning and had a great time playing with the Handwriting without Tears letter forms while I made breakfast. This is her monkey.
She was practicing her handwriting while discreetly wiggling her two front teeth.
We had fun playing with the sight words power tower.
O reviewed simple addition with her math wrap-ups.
We've played and built structures on the light table. We reviewed colors and shapes with E as we played.
E loves these blocks.
O(6) reads leveled readers from Reading A to Z on the ipad. We like how we can enlarge the words that she is reading.
We all really enjoyed studying the Vikings.
We made slime!
We learned that it will stretch if you pull it apart slowly or let it hang, but it rips if you pull it apart quickly. They thought it was absolutely hilarious when I pretended to sneeze the slime out of my nose :)
We had fun making spin art!
We learned that pumice floats.
O likes working with the Rightstart abacus.
O loves to carry baskets on her head while pretending that she is an African lady.
She was practicing her handwriting while discreetly wiggling her two front teeth.
We had fun playing with the sight words power tower.
O reviewed simple addition with her math wrap-ups.
We've played and built structures on the light table. We reviewed colors and shapes with E as we played.
E loves these blocks.
O(6) reads leveled readers from Reading A to Z on the ipad. We like how we can enlarge the words that she is reading.
We all really enjoyed studying the Vikings.
We made slime!
We learned that it will stretch if you pull it apart slowly or let it hang, but it rips if you pull it apart quickly. They thought it was absolutely hilarious when I pretended to sneeze the slime out of my nose :)
We had fun making spin art!
We learned that pumice floats.
O likes working with the Rightstart abacus.
O loves to carry baskets on her head while pretending that she is an African lady.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Lakeside Homeschool Update
We've been "officially" but still unofficially (I haven't done the paperwork yet) homeschooling for about 5 weeks now. Overall, it's going well. The first week was an eye opening experience...I realized that it wasn't going to be as easy as I'd hoped!
It's a challenge to keep E(2) busy while O(6) is having a lesson or working on something that E can't participate in. If I'm working with O, E wants to be on my lap. That sometimes works, but often it doesn't. She's gotten pretty good about going inside (we have school on our deck) and choosing "work" from her shelf. She then brings her work out and works beside us. Luckily, she is able to be involved in most of O's lessons (History, Science, Music, Art, Spanish, etc).
The girls play SO well together, and they ALWAYS have a plan to play (I've never heard them say they were bored or ask me for ideas of what to do or play), so it is sometimes difficult to pull them away from their play in order to do school work. After the first week I realized that I really didn't want to interfere with their play any more than I absolutely had to, so most of our formal lessons have been put on hold. We spend the vast majority of our time reading aloud (as we always have) and engaging in pretend play. Only now, I try to incorporate our themes from school into some of the pretend play.
For instance, we are studying Ancient Egypt this month, and O(6) received lots of Ancient Egypt Playmobil figures for her birthday. So, we read about Egypt, and then we play with the Sphinx, Egyptian soldiers, and camels...SO much fun! We've also been studying cave people and cave paintings, so we've played with the figures from the prehistoric toob, and we turned out treehouse into a cave complete with cave paintings.
I was so excited one day when Elliott asked O what she'd learned in school that day, and she looked at me with a confused look and said "We didn't have school today did we?" We had had "school" for 2 to 3 hours that day, but she was having so much fun that she didn't realize it!
We do Language Lessons for Little Ones each day (usually 2 or 3 lessons at a time). O does well, but doesn't enjoy this too much. Although, she is starting to enjoy it more within the last few days. She also reads several leveled readers from Reading A to Z each day. She is starting to enjoy this more, too. She does not like to read very much, so I don't want to push her too much and make her hate it. Thankfully, she has started realizing that she can read well and fairly easily if she will just focus and do it rather than fussing and pouting about not wanting to do it :)
We have been doing one lesson of Rightstart Math per day. This is a fun and quick math program. O likes it, but it's hard to tear her away from her play to actually do it. She LOVED math when she attended Montessori Preschool, so I think that math will be MUCH more fun for all of us when we have a school room and we can have everything set up and arranged just right.
I have lots to post about our homeschool days, and I hope to find the time to do so soon!
It's a challenge to keep E(2) busy while O(6) is having a lesson or working on something that E can't participate in. If I'm working with O, E wants to be on my lap. That sometimes works, but often it doesn't. She's gotten pretty good about going inside (we have school on our deck) and choosing "work" from her shelf. She then brings her work out and works beside us. Luckily, she is able to be involved in most of O's lessons (History, Science, Music, Art, Spanish, etc).
The girls play SO well together, and they ALWAYS have a plan to play (I've never heard them say they were bored or ask me for ideas of what to do or play), so it is sometimes difficult to pull them away from their play in order to do school work. After the first week I realized that I really didn't want to interfere with their play any more than I absolutely had to, so most of our formal lessons have been put on hold. We spend the vast majority of our time reading aloud (as we always have) and engaging in pretend play. Only now, I try to incorporate our themes from school into some of the pretend play.
For instance, we are studying Ancient Egypt this month, and O(6) received lots of Ancient Egypt Playmobil figures for her birthday. So, we read about Egypt, and then we play with the Sphinx, Egyptian soldiers, and camels...SO much fun! We've also been studying cave people and cave paintings, so we've played with the figures from the prehistoric toob, and we turned out treehouse into a cave complete with cave paintings.
I was so excited one day when Elliott asked O what she'd learned in school that day, and she looked at me with a confused look and said "We didn't have school today did we?" We had had "school" for 2 to 3 hours that day, but she was having so much fun that she didn't realize it!
We do Language Lessons for Little Ones each day (usually 2 or 3 lessons at a time). O does well, but doesn't enjoy this too much. Although, she is starting to enjoy it more within the last few days. She also reads several leveled readers from Reading A to Z each day. She is starting to enjoy this more, too. She does not like to read very much, so I don't want to push her too much and make her hate it. Thankfully, she has started realizing that she can read well and fairly easily if she will just focus and do it rather than fussing and pouting about not wanting to do it :)
We have been doing one lesson of Rightstart Math per day. This is a fun and quick math program. O likes it, but it's hard to tear her away from her play to actually do it. She LOVED math when she attended Montessori Preschool, so I think that math will be MUCH more fun for all of us when we have a school room and we can have everything set up and arranged just right.
I have lots to post about our homeschool days, and I hope to find the time to do so soon!
Burgess Bird Book for Children
We have recently started reading the Burgess Bird Book for Children, and we are loving it so far. While I read the first chapter, the girls colored or painted a picture of Jenny Wren.
I printed bird cards from That Resource Site, and we have enjoyed playing Memory with them. 
After studying birds for a while, O(6) was inspired to perform a bird puppet show! 
We also enjoyed watching this egret. He was in our front yard, and we were able to get pretty close to him before he flew away. 
Here is a link to the Burgess Bird Book. We have the free kindle version on our ipad. After reading one chapter each morning, we look up the birds on the ipad and see pictures and paintings of the birds that we've read about, but the most exciting part is listening to their songs and chirps.
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Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Studying The Vikings
The girls and I started studying the Vikings in February through reading Leif the Lucky.
In addition to Leif the Lucky, we have read several other books on Vikings that we enjoyed. Here are the links to a few of them...
O and I had fun playing a Viking game included in the treasure chest.
The girls also enjoyed coloring pics of Viking longships while I read to them about Vikings.
Both girls LOVED this book, and we read it very frequently (until we had to return it to the library). I loved listening to my 2 year old tell me all about the Vikings based on what she learned from this book!
In addition to reading Leif the Lucky, O(5) and I started a lapbook. All of the components of the lapbook came from Dynamic 2 Moms...here is the link. This is a WONDERFUL resource, and it was a fantastic 1st lapbook for us to make! Once Elliott was diagnosed with his brain tumor in February, we put all of this on hold. We finally picked it back up and finished the lapbook about a month ago! O was SO proud!
In addition to Leif the Lucky, we have read several other books on Vikings that we enjoyed. Here are the links to a few of them...
In addition to reading lots of books and making a lapbook, we had LOTS of fun exploring a Vikings Treasure Chest that I bought off ebay.
O and I had fun playing a Viking game included in the treasure chest.
The girls also enjoyed coloring pics of Viking longships while I read to them about Vikings.
Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Chasing Cheerios.
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