Category Archives: Homeschooling

Homeschooling

1st day of school~ 2011

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Last week was our first week of school for the year. We are doing Kindergarten and Pre-school.

Here is a peek into our day.

A lot of our school involves reading.

There is some great historical fiction for young children you just have to be willing to search for it!

After reading about Galileo’s experiment, we decided to try it for ourselves.

First you drop a rock and a flat piece of paper then you crumple the piece of paper up into a ball and drop them both again.

The crumpled paper falls faster then the flat paper.

In case you are wondering. Yes, my boys did hate dropping things.

Worst experiment ever for boys.

You can tell by looking at their faces how bored they were…

My husband had the day off so he did math with the boys.

We are using RightStart curriculum for math and the boys seem to really enjoy it.

I like how hands on it is.

I should have had Nick take pictures while I was reading to the boys but I did not think about it until later.

I seem to do that a lot…

My days are changing with this new challenge but I am really enjoying sharing my love of learning with my two little men.

Great ideas after the fact count, right?

Homeschooling

Lava is hot.

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I might have mentioned before that I homeschool my boys.

They are 3 and 4 so it is not hardcore yet but I like to have a topic of study for each month to make it easier on me.

This month is Volcano’s.

Something I have come to realize about teaching a 3 and 4 year old is my expectations of what they will remember were set WAY too high.

If they remember that a volcano shoots something out of it, then I am doing good.

If they remember that lava is hot, then I deserve a gold medal.

And so forth, and so on.

We were reading the Magic School bus book on volcanoes and when I saw a recipe for making a volcano and I thought “sure, why not?”.

So I asked my boys if they wanted to make a volcano and of course being typical boys they said, no.

Yeah, right.

So I got to work figuring out what we had lying around to make a volcano.

I could have gone to the walmart but I am cheap and lazy…

And hey, we needed it NOW!

So this is what we had.

Old vanilla bottles(I think they are cute so I never get rid of them)

Vinegar

Red food coloring

Baking Soda

Playdough(they recommend modeling clay but I did not have any)

Dishwashing Soap

Patience is not a virtue my 3yr old possess yet.

Baking soda first.

Dish washing soap and red dye next.

Then some playdough for the outside.

My son and I had to have a little talk about the word dye vs. die.

When I told him it was dye on his hands he started crying saying he did not want to die…

I probably should have been helping more and taking pictures less.

I was yelling(while taking the picture), TAKE IT OUT!

A little tip.

Use a nice washable tablecloth(like the one I had in the closet) so as not to stain the tile table.

I asked my youngest what he was doing with his hands.

He said, “the people are dieing and need to go in the ambulance”.

Maybe a little too much PBS.

I am hearing this the whole time, “help, help, it’s getting me”.

Boys…

We of course had to do it again.

And again.

More people in need of an ambulance.

I was really surprised that my oldest was not playing in it also.

When I asked him why, he said he did not want to be burned.

I quickly told him it was not real lava…

My poor son thought I was trying to burn him.

No, I do not let my children play with molten lava.