P is for pumpkin

This past week we studied pumpkins!!We tried doing "lap books" this week and the boys enjoyed seeing the progress of their creations during the week as the lap book took shape.  It's just a file folder folded differently... filled with different activities. 

Our lapbook contained "My Big Pumpkin Book," "From Pumpkin to Pie" sequencing book, "how a pumpkin grows" sequencing activity, 5 Little Pumpkins book (which we illustrated using thumbprint pumpkins,) My first Letter P book, Letter P tracing page, and "What spices are in a pumpkin pie?"  (I can't remember where I got this one.)

Here they are working on their lap books.


This is the "color blending" activity where they mixed red and yellow paint to find out that it made orange!

There was a cute little poem that went in their lapbooks with the color mash "creation."  (Can't remember where I got this one either.)

We explored spices found in pumpkin pie.  Here the boys smelled each spice and then created a wheel for their folder.


And here are the finished products:



Sorry, forgot to flip this one.  (They decorated them with stickers too.)

I had 3 math-type folders this week that bounced back and forth between the boys each day.  They love being able to choose what they're going to "play."


Our math work folders included:

"Find the missing pumpkin" which has missing numbers.  I laminated the sheets and then the kids use dry erase crayons to write in the missing numbers. Number puzzles (matching pumpkin numbers with number of seeds.) There are 3 games from the packet below (the pumpkin number puzzle, clip cards.  (JJ loves both!!) and the pumpkin vine measure.)



This one includes "How many seeds are in the pumpkin," pumpkin size sorting (both from the packet below,) and the Scarecrow counts the pumpkins.

We used these printables throughout the week. These were awesome. Click on the picture to get to an awesome blog with great stuff.



Most of our language arts this week was based around pumpkins and the letter P too.  We also introduced the words "will" and "for" as sight words.  We used this cute book to find the missing letters in the alphabet.  It is similiar to the missing numbers book, but this one has missing letters.

We also finished reading "The Boxcar Children!!"
Here, the boys expressed what they were going to be for Halloween.

(It appears neither of them will actually BE what they wrote.)

I had the boys use water colors to do some of their worksheets because they get so tired of coloring with crayons.

I've found some great phonics worksheets at schoolsparks.com. 

A favorite for everyone was our morning studying "Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater."  We read the poem and then did this craft project.  Here are the boys reciting the poem and showing their finished projects.


I also used this pumpkin sticker chart to give stickers to the boys when they had "great behavior." 

Each sticker is worth $.05 the next Monday morning.  We will be visiting a store and they will be able to pick out a treat.  They only earned $.40 each... so they'll be learning that they might have to combine their funds to purchase ANYTHING with their money.

For science we did an "observation" activity (from the packet above) exploring a pumpkin using our 5 senses.  They boys enjoyed this one a lot.

JJ is actually "listening" to the pumpkin to see if it makes noise. They explored texture, smell, sound, and more and then marked their findings on a worksheet.

On another day we actually cut into the pumpkins to see what was inside.




The boys labeled the parts of the pumpkin on a worksheet (from the packet above.)  We then proceeded to roast the pumpkin seeds, AND make pumpkin cookies and pumpkin pie. 





And completely unrelated to pumpkins, we studied graphs this week in math so we used our "weather charts" from last week and made a graph of our findings.



I found these cute placemats at Target for $1 for a pack of 4. The kids colored them and used them one night during dinner.




Besides all the worksheets they did, they also did a crayon texture rubbing.

We'll have to try this one again because it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

This girl LOVES to color!!! She sits and colors for a majority of our time during homeschool. Excuse the "bed head."


We also enjoyed these stuffed peppers for dinner one night.  SS was convinced they were real pumpkins. 


It was really fun having the pumpkin theme all week.  For me, themes make school work so much more fun!  I have lots of fun things planed for next week!!

T is for train - week 2 homeschooling

We have some days that are very good... others that completely leave me frazzled and questioning why I'm doing this.  I have seen progress with the boys... so it's worth the effort.

Some things we did this week:
For our religious study we read from the Old Testament Reader about Abaham & Isaac, ad Jacob & Esau. 

To change things up one day we watched one of The Living Scriptures videos on youtube.  All 3 kids actually sat together in 1 chair and watched the whole thing with no problems. 

(FHE ended up being the lesson the missionaries gave when they came over for dinner.)

I've also sensed some self-esteem issues so we read:

We've been focusing on thinking we CAN instead of CAN'T.  It's funny because I don't think the boys took much away from the story, but I keep telling my self, "I can do hard things."  Maybe it was just for me.

Since T is for TRAIN we did a few "train" activities:

...cutting and glueing shapes to make a train. Template from here.  Then making tracks out of the letter T.

The boys love their computer time each day so I found some educational games involving trains here:
http://www.learningplanet.com/act/abcorder.asp
http://www.tvokids.com/games/choochoochoices

I had ambitions of us sorting trains in the playroom by color... but the boys' behavior did not warrant such a "fun" activity that day.

Speaking of behavior, I used stickers as a bribe for good behavior.  For every workbox they boys' completed doing their "best" with good behavior, they earned a sticker to put on their paper.  After 2 days they looked like this:


During the week we talked about weather. Each day we notated on a chart what the weather was. We also had some computer weather time:
http://pbskids.org/sid/print/print8.html
http://pbskids.org/sid/videoplayer.html
More with our weather charts next week.

We also talked about the water cycle a bit which meant freezing juice and making popsicles. The boys liked the activity!

Every day we focused on the letter T with different activities. Here are a few:

Letter T bodies


Lots and lots of printable activities.

We looked up the letter T in the First Dictionary and learned about things starting with the letter T.



In math we worked on sorting. Here are some activities we did:

Mrs. McNosh hangs up her Wash sorting game.


Apple sorting game.

We also sorted manipulatives in various ways using our Scholastic workbook as a guide. Instead of having them circle things on a worksheet, we did the activities in real life.

We made monster bags one day

The idea came from Oriental Trading Company. I found a story about monster listening from this blog. We reviewed the story and then made the bags.

We also read a chapter a day from


We've been identifying ABC's and putting them in order. We're also working on sight words. This week's new words were "a" and "am." Here is a video of the boys working together(!) on this activity.


We also use little sight word books that I've found online so the kids can "read" all by themselves. Here's JJ "reading" this book:




As an update from last week... look what's growing!  (Seriously, I'm shocked that these grew.)


And finally, we can't forget our precious princess VV.  Here she is working on some fine motor skills.  She LOVED this.  I found the little tongs on clearance at the PX.

First Week of Homeschool

Last week was our first week of homeschool.  We began by talking about Christopher Columbus... since it was Columbus Day.  The kids made a bunch of "Columbus" crafts throughout the week.

Columbus puppet & watercolor/handprint ship

Sail boat pattern blocks

Columbus hat

We also made a stand-up character and read a little emergent reader book.

Both boys worked on learning to tie shoes.  SS is getting to be quite the pro!

SS also read a few sight word books to VV (who was more interested in taking a picture right back at me.)  The sight word books focused on "big" and "little."  We also used this book to learn the word "I."

SS really enjoys the pattern blocks so I found him a pumpkin pattern.

For art/science we painted little clay pots that I found at Target for $1.  They are shaped like jungle animals.  The set came with a seed bag to put inside the the animals will grow "hair."  Unfortunately, we haven't been very good at watering them, so no sprouts yet.

One of the scripture stories we discussed was the tower of Babel.  The boys built towers as tall as they could while I read to them from the Old Testament Reader.

We've been talking about autumn and the leaves changing colors for a few weeks.  On Friday we went to a nearby forest and collected colorful leaves (and rocks, pinecones, and whatever else they picked up.)

We talked about the letter "F" this week as well.  We used printables that I found from here, and here along with a handwriting book I picked up at the PX. 

We've practiced animal flash cards, played computer games on www.starfall.com and http://www.kidsastronomy.com/fun/make-a-planet.htm, did a pumpkin file folder game from here:

did math worksheets and activities relating to "over, above, below, next to, behind, in front, left and right.  I have a darling video of them (that won't upload!) doing an acitivity where I tweaked an idea found here and made it a little more interactive for the boys.

Almost every day we read from these books:






and we've been reading a chapter a day from:


So far I think homeschooling is really helping SS.  JJ misses preschool but is having fun at home.  He's doing the same things as SS- so basically doing kindergarten.  It's funny to see how they each excell at totally different things.