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 understanding 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!
Thank you all for stopping by my blog! And a BIG thank you for all of the “funnies” you have been sharing with me. To start our homeschooling weeks off with some giggles on Mondays has been simply awesome!
Our homeschooling winter break has officially started! Though practicing skills with last minute shopping, crafting, baking, parties, and parts in a Christmas play, the learning doesn’t stop.
Since studies won’t be mandatory, our thoughts can be focused on Christmas, fun, and playing Santa, (We decided when our oldest was young not to encourage a “belief” in Santa, but to encourage idea and play of Santa. We each draw a name and are responsible for filling that family members stocking, wrapping a gift or two and eating the cookies left out.)
Without lessons, my kids will no doubt be asking for extra computer time. I found these fun “Santa” sites for the kids to play on.
Join Raymond the Reindeer for a tour of the North Pole, short stories, and interactive games http://www.northpole.com/
A wonderful selection of Christmas themed games http://www.primarygames.com/holidays/christmas/games.php
The “Naughty or Nice ” rating from this site may not be accurate because this is what Santa said about me, “Nicer than nice. A real champ! I was really proud of all the hard work that went towards changing those “naughty” habits of last year. Treated friends nicely and was exceptionally honest (which happens to be one of my favorite traits!) It’s amazing what a good old fashioned “I’m sorry!” can do for a rating. Keep up the good work!” http://www.claus.com/naughtyornice/index.php
Claus.com has many other activities including an updated North Pole weather forecast, attend “Elf School” and earn your diploma, and more activities http://www.claus.com/village.php
Christmas Jokes for Kids https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/christmas-jokes
Again this week, I’m sharing some sites that I am adding to our homeschool’s Christmas themed studies link list.
The FREE YouVersion Bible App for kids is now available. E downloaded it for the younger boys, but she and I had the most fun with it. And the app includes the birth of Jesus! https://www.bible.com/kids
This site has fun interatives for all subjects K-5 (and they have a “holiday” category complete with Christmas themed math games) http://interactivesites.weebly.com/
Our weather has turned much cooler this week but that has not kept us indoors. Our beautiful maple tree is loosing it’s yellow leaves and has created an opportunity for work, nature observation, and play.
Our garden science project from this past spring is still amazing. Even though we have had a few frosts, and nearly everything we had planted is finished, the peppers and onions are still producing! And weeds are coming up like crazy. We are hoping to get the remnants of the tomato vines chopped up into mulch this coming up week.
Our lessons this week focused on the establishment of the Plymouth Colony, this day in history and science, and adding Montana, Washington, and Oklahoma more states to our board. (We add a state every time it’s statehood anniversary comes up on the special days calendar.)
After a week of word games and random drawing, we started on a new mural for our chalkboard wall. It should be finished next week.
Our homeschooling support group held a Pre-Thanksgiving cooking class. E and I taught cornbread cranberry stuffing and acorn treats. The kids also learned to make rolls (regular and gluten free), butter, green bean casserole, deviled eggs, and turkey carving. Kitchen skills and safety with a little science and history thrown in made for a great school day! The class was followed by our monthly family night with more friends and more food!
This week we began our Thanksgiving unit studies with a couple of Pre-Thanksgiving activities. Below are some of the links we followed as we both reviewed and learned about the early American Settlements of Roanoke and Jamestown.
For the school days from now until Thanksgiving we we will be notebooking, crafting, cooking, reviewing, and researching who, what, when, where, and why – everything associated with the Plymouth Colony. We will keep journaling pages and bulletin boards of what we discover.
Below are the links we’ll be using for resources as we travel back in time to visit early America over the next few weeks.
Plimoth Plantation “Just for Kids” Activities – Coloring, Talk Like a Pilgrim, Virtual Field Trip, History Detective, and more! https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids
This week was very little studying and a lot of tomatoes. Our keyhole garden science project is producing tomatoes. We are picking about 15-20 ripe ones a day! For just six plants, I’m impressed. I remember last year we couldn’t get anything to grow.
We shared a few of them, but kept the rest.
Gallons of chili mix for the deep freezer! The tomatoes and 3 kinds of peppers are from our garden experiment. Spices added and smelled great, considering it’s like 100 degrees out side and no one is wanting chili. All we’ll have to do is add the meat and and beans when we’re ready to cook chili.
We will share more later when it’s time for church and homeschool group chili suppers.
No more summer schooling for us. We are taking the rest of July off. The kids can just have some downtime and fun. I’m going to be having fun too, but downtime isn’t going to be happening. I’ll be organizing my resource links, and making lists, finding back to school bargains, and changing some organization strategies , and wearing out my printer, and running out of ink, and…
Our library’s summer reading program started this week. The reading challenge this year is read twelve books and when completed the kids get a book bag/back pack! This is a big deal for us. We have been getting new library bags this way for many summers. Z is confident that he’ll be first to complete the challenge in our house. The kids names will be entered in a drawings for e-readers and such, too.
I took Z and J to the library the library to get their challenge forms, check out some books and to see the first of five wonderful weekly children’s programs, Animal Tales! This is an “edZOOcational” live animal show. Today, we got a close up look at some very unusual creatures, Paraguayan Screaming Hairy Armadillo, Harris Hawk, Woma Python, and Egyptian Fruit Bat.
Z was called on to assist with the African Spurred Tortoise from by enticing it with a tomato to come out of his shell and crawl.
Z got to pet the Woma Python!J’s favorite place away from home is the library, and one of his least favorite places to be is anywhere where he has to sit still, be in a group, pay attention to someone, or listen to spontaneous sounds like laughing, clapping, or animals. I tried to be hopeful but prepared for a meltdown. I have learned that I can expect the unexpected with J. I had help come with us. A23 (the girl who adopted our family and who I love like a daughter) had a day off and agreed to come with us. She would have stayed with Z had it been necessary for me to leave with J. I explained to J that whether or not he got to bring home DVD’s and Wii games depended on how he acted during the animal show.
J did not sit with the children, but laid in the floor in front of A and me in the adult section. I thought he was “zoning out”, but then I caught him looking at the animals each time the handler introduced a new one. I was proud of him. I know it’s not normal behavior to go to a program and lay in the floor, but he was calm and quiet which is a BIG improvement. I didn’t notice any looks of disgust or sympathy from the other moms or librarians and I heard no comments about him either. Very unusual, but very nice. J was happy when the animal show was over and he was able to pick out some DVDs to bring home.
This past school year I added some character development studies to our homeschooling lessons. These studies have proved to be a great opportunity for our family. Homelife Ministries has wonderful family character quality guides. E and B found much to notebook and journal about and as a family, we found much to discuss, memorize, and put into practice. J, Z, and I made several lapbooks of the same studies from Homeschool Share. The Homeschool Helper Online has some good ideas for character studies, too. (Links are at the end)
I was able to include the subjects of Bible, History, Science, Music and Language Arts into each study making for simplified days with lots of time to pursue elective interests. These charactier development lessons were a welcome break in between topics in our usual history studies. We completed six such studies this past year. We will be adding more next school year.
“Pay attention! ” “Watch what you’re doing.” “Listen.” These are things parents say to their children on a regular basis. I know I say these often during our homeschooling days, whether it is during math, cooking, art, or whatever. If I would listen, I would hear the Father saying those same words to me just as often. Attentiveness seems to be an across the board kind of character trait that both my children and myself need to further develop. Attentiveness was good place to start with our new studies. Though all of our character development lessons were good, this one was my favorite. This one is also the most reviewed one.
This is J’s and Z’s attentiveness lapbook. I covered the back with clear contact paper so they can do the wordsearch puzzle with washable markers again and again.
Below are the free resources I used for this and our other character development studies. These are the links I’ll be going to again as we continue our lessons when our homeschooling starts back full time in the fall.
Hymns, Scriptures, application, examples, and science connections for copywork, notebooking, journaling, and discussion from http://www.characterjournal.com/ (scroll down a little bit then select the character quality from the list on the right sidebar)
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 understanding 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!
Still Learning Something New 