Summer craziness and busyness started this week.  E is teaching at junior color guard camp.  Z is in VBS, B’s working for camp money, J’s been promised a movie at the theater. And all of us start the local library’s summer reading program which this week includes a water/comedy/magic show.  Not to mention, we still have our tutoring/babysitting job twice a week.  With so much happening with just life, I had thought that we wouldn’t have any “school” this week.   But…

In my homeschooling journal I found a note from back in February that said to check bookmarks for “superstition” for summer school lessons for the week of 6/9 – 6/13.

I’m wowed by the resources and links I had saved up for this week.  Surely we’ll have time to learn about superstitions because this stuff is INTERESTING!  Below are the sites I had bookmarked in case you can…

The third Monday in January is a special day set aside to celebrate the life and achievements of America’s most influential civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The third Monday in January is also a school day for my family.  Below are the links for the resources we will be learning from for our MLK Day homeschooling lessons .

MLK Day background  http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/martin-luther-king-day

Interactive biography and quiz (for the younger kids)   http://www.turtlediary.com/biographies/world-leaders/martin-luther-king-jr.html

From the National Parks Service, The Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site in Georgia  http://www.nps.gov/malu/index.htm

The Scriptural and scientific response to the question, “Where Did The Races Come From?”   http://www.icr.org/article/where-did-races-come-from/  and video  http://thatsafacttv.com/2012/08/03/episode-14-origin-of-races/

American Civil Rights timeline   http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3015-civil-rights-movement-timeline

Civil Rights Printable Pack  http://www.parents.com/blogs/homeschool-den/2014/01/16/civil-rights-movement/civil-rights-movement-lessons/

Public speaking advice and tips for kids  http://www.publicspeakingforkids.org/blogs/public-speaking

MLK quotes for reading, discussion and copywork  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/martin_luther_king_jr.html

Video collection and classroom activities  https://www.teachervision.com/martin-luther-king-jr/video/73143.html

Lapbooking and notebooking printable materials  http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/martin_luther_king_jr.shtml

A Racial Equality Timeline math…

According to the special days in January list, January 8th is Joygerm Day!  I’ve caught it (once again) and plan on trying my very best to make sure my family catches this germ and continues to spread it.  It’s my understand that the joygerm is highly contagious!  You don’t even have to be in a physical setting to give it to someone else.  It can be spread through a phone, computer, or a letter.  You know, not all germs are bad, some are wonderful!

Below are some of the study links we’ll be following as our homeschooling special days lessons.  Learning together today is going to be great!

Joygerm Day background   http://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/joy-germ-day/   and  http://www.answers.com/topic/national-joygerm-day

For Bible Study and Journaling

Many “joy” Bible quotes to choose from any version of choice  (just type in “joy” in the search bar)  http://www.biblegateway.com/

Famous quotes about joy  http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/joy.html

For Science:

Happiness:  Contagious…

Our Christmas studies have been going well.  We’ve been covering Christmas themed Bible, social studies, math, foreign language, music and language arts lessons since the beginning of December.  However,  science studies have been lacking.  For our final week of learning of the semester, we’ll be focusing on science but will still be keeping our Christmas theme.

How It’s Made is a science discovery site which features short videos.  Here your family can watch how glass ornaments, artificial trees, yule logs, skis, nutcrackers and other holiday related items are made.  http://science.discovery.com/tv-shows/how-its-made/videos/holiday.htm

Made How is a “new to me” site.  While exploring there, I found helpful articles  explaining the background, materials, design, and manufacturing of  popular holiday items.  This site doesn’t have an index or search bar, so I’ve linked to each item individually below.

Candles  http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Candle.html

Bells http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Bell.html

Artificial Snow  http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Artificial-Snow.html

Fruit Cake http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Fruitcake.html

Model Trains  http://www.madehow.com/Volume-4/Model-Train.html

Glass Ornaments  http://www.madehow.com/Volume-5/Glass-Ornament.html

Greeting…

According to the special days in September calendar, the 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day!  And on our planner, it’s the last day of our pirate unit study that we have been working on a couple of days a week for the past several weeks.  It’s been a fun and interesting study.  Below are some of the resources we have been using.

For biographies, lore, sea sickness, and more  http://the-pirate-ship.com/

For learning about how much work it was to sail a full-rigged ship  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DZIvMZWzQ

Since pirates needed sewing skills for sail repairs we have added some sewing instruction to our lessons.

How to tie knots was also a valuable pirate talent, so we’ve given that a try as well. http://www.netknots.com/rope_knots/

Navigation by the night sky was another important sailor skill.  For a slide show of Polaris (the north star)  and brief facts  http://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/diglib/science/cultural_astronomy/interactives/polaris/polaris.swf

This PDF is the instructions…

Sometimes this homeschooling mamma finds herself in a dilemma over lesson plans.  For our homeschool/summer school we cover one subject per day usually chosen from my special days calendar and June 24 is both  International Fairy Day and UFO Day. 

Honestly, I’m not thrilled with either topic, but know my kids will have fun with them.  Though I try to encourage creativeness, I realize that too much fantasy or imagination is not good.  Before anyone has the opportunity for their imaginations to run away with them, we will have a Scripture based discussion of the dangers of too much imagination and how we are to think about such subjects as fairies or UFOs;

2 Corinthians 10:4-5  ^” (For the weapons…

According to my special days calendar, June 19 is Garfield’s (the cat, not the president) 35th birthday!  We will be having fun learning with our favorite cat as part of our homeschooling summer school subject of the day.

I’ll be combining math, health, science, and life skills as the kids add up the calories contained in our crock pot lasagna kitchen project, and figure how much Wii Just Dance it will take to burn those calories.

We checked these out from the library for hilarious reading.

I found these links for the kids to follow for computer lab, art, and fun.

online comics  http://www.gocomics.com/search?search_string=garfield

educational games  http://www.professorgarfield.org/pgf_home.html

how to draw for younger kids  http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/12843/1/1/how-to-draw-garfield-easy.htm

drawing for older kids  http://www.my-how-to-draw.com/how-to-draw-garfield.html

games for fun http://www.garfield.com/fungames.html

And what would a Garfield themed day be without a nap?  I’m putting that in our day’s plans, too.

betty jo

June 5 is the anniversary of the first hot air balloon flight (1783).  Last year as part of summer school calendar studies Z,  J, and I decided to learn everything we could about hot air balloons.

We made this lapbook  from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/hot_air.php  and added a few of our own ideas.

Our library had a few children’s books about hot air balloons.  These two were our favorites.

Here is a link to a cute craft idea we tried, of course we had to use batman action figures in the basket instead of the child picture  http://www.dltk-holidays.com/summer/mballoon.html

We thought this video from the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta was fascinating!

betty jo

According to my special days calendar, May 23 is World Turtle Day!  I have found some great free resource links to follow as we learn about turtles in our homeschool with a one day only mini unit study.

Lapbook from here  http://www.homeschoolshare.com/turtles.php

Much about turtles, conservation, rescue, and more here http://www.seaturtleinc.org/

More cool turtle stuff  here  http://www.conserveturtles.org/turtletides.php

Something challenging for an art project here  http://spoonful.com/printables/make-origami-turtle

Turtle jokes for Z from here http://www.gogonews.com/posts-Turtle+Jokes!-6460.html

“What kind of jokes do turtles tell? SHELL-arious ones!”

And finally a notebooking page for a journal entry about turtles from here  http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/sea_turtle_writing_paper.htm

It looks like we’ve got science, language arts, computer lab, art, and fun covered for our homeschool summer school today!

betty jo