Tot School 25 Months

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June 11, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Playing the iPad with Daddy. They both look like they’re having so much fun! Alex loves the Montessori apps I have and he’s really good at them!

Cleaning up blocks. Alex is such a sweet little helper and always willing to clean up! We made a game of it and I called out colors and shapes and he found those to put in the bag.

Sorting ping pong balls.

We played with these a long time. He asked for more colors to sort them properly.

“Why no pink? I want orange!” ha!

Muffin Tin Meal

We haven’t done this in sooo long. Alex loved it. Look at that cheesy mouthful grin!

On the phone with Grandpa to brag about his haircut.

He has refused to let me cut his hair for several months now. I’ve snipped the ends a few times with scissors, but he’s been looking scruffy because he decided he was terrified of the clippers. All of a sudden, he demanded a proper haircut, all out of the blue! I rushed up to the bathroom and got ‘er done! He was so proud, he needed to call Grandpa and tell him!

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Park Nature Walk

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June 7, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

We go to the park about twice a week while Elizabeth has her ASTYM therapy.

I finally remembered to bring my camera and do something other than go to the playground.

We looked for bugs to go with our calendar theme this month.

But first, we watched the ducks.

Baaaaaaaabeeeeee ducks!

and a goose

Bugs…um…fighting. yeah

Ladybug!

cute kids.

Another ladybug.

Really cute kids.

Damselfly on a leaf.

Damselfly on Katie. She was super thrilled. It liked her!

We love this pretty little waterfall.

We have loads of fun at the park every week!

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Top 10 Homeschool Items

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May 30, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 27 Comments

I used to feel like I had to have every educational toy, every workbook, all the curricula, every new thing I saw – to homeschool my children well.

Kids learn well when left alone, maybe just a little coaching and guidance. We’re pretty laid back these days.

There’s so much available online that we could virtually homeschool for free, anywhere, anytime. We don’t need much at all.

I have minimized to the top ten items we love and need to homeschool our four kids.

Our Top 10 Homeschool Items:

10. Art Supplies. (all that crafty stuff that makes life stressful and messy and fun and beautiful). We love colored pencils and glue sticks and the Back to School aisles still give me butterflies! I try to buy the highest quality supplies that will last and give my kids the effects they desire.

9. Library Cards. (we all have our own cards and we max those suckers out each week!) We love books. While I purchase lots, I always check the library and the Libby, by Overdrive app to borrow eBooks first.

8. Tablets. We each have an iPad Mini. Thank God for technology. Starfall taught Alex his ABCs. We all have one with color-coded cases. (They were gifts from grandparents.) We use them daily for schoolwork and fun. I gave the girls their own shared Kindle account and we download FREE eBooks all the time! We love weather and geography apps. We love Stack the States, Splash Math, and Duolingo! And yes, we watch YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, and cable TV when we have WiFi.

7. Desks/Lap Trays. My kids each have a desk from thrift stores. We had four of this little table kind of lap desk. We also have some portable fun ones from lap gear. And I even found a mini one with a cool clipboard on it! They’re also great for travel.

6. Printer. How else would I function and print all the kiddos’ notebooking pages?

5. Pencils and Sharpeners. The kids all love their Staedtler manual pencil sharpeners. I like this big electric pencil sharpener. It’s also a good idea to get good pencils, not those cutesy bargain ones.

4. Science Supplies. We love to do demonstrations and experiments. We have not regretted the expense of a good microscope and telescope.

3. Games. Just Dance and other fun active games. When it’s cold or very wet and windy, the kids love to exercise or wind down with the Wii and Switch.

2. Bookcases. We have lots of books. I have a wall of bookcases in my office. We have bookcases in the kids’ bedrooms. We have bookcases in the basement. I have a basket of our morning reading beside the sofa.

1. Dry Erase Boards. We have a pretty big board in our basement. I also like a small personal board to do small work and have fun.

We continue to purge and downsize our belongings, including our homeschool items, each year. It’s getting even more fun as the kids get older. We need less and less.

What are your must-haves for your homeschool?

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Polar Bear Temperature Experiment

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May 21, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Ever Heard of a Pizzly Bear?

We learned this week in science that the offspring of a grizzly bear and polar bear is a pizzly bear. Which means there is one somewhere. Like the wholphin in Hawaii. And there is a zedonk which is the baby of a donkey and zebra.

What this means is that animals of the same kind can mate and produce babies. Our Apologia Zoology book teaches us that Noah took 2 or 7 pairs of each kind of animal onto the Ark. Not every species of feline or canine and other genus that we know and love. Natural selection made all the species we see now from those kinds of animals on the Ark. Awesome. I love it.

Our temperature experiment this week

Did you know polar bears have black skin? Their fur is clear.

We learned that dark colors absorb more heat than light colors.

1. Two plastic bags: black and white.

2. Reading the experiment to Tori and Katie so that they understand what we’re doing.

3. Two thermometers to read temperature.

4. Placing thermometers under bags and securing bags with rocks so they don’t blow away.

5. Waiting. Do you hear the Jeopardy theme too?

6. The next morning (we wanted to see the high and low temps) we checked our bags and the black bag had a high of 47 degrees and the white bag had a high temp of 45 degrees. Celsius.

So, after looking up the temp chart on the ‘Net, that means the black bag got really hot, lol. Almost 117 degrees.

Probably not the most accurate experiment. It was supposed to be done on a sidewalk. I thought there would be a bigger temperature difference.

But the girls loved it and told Dad all about it, so it was worth it, eh?

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Fun with Felt and Music

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May 18, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

I bought some felt sets for Katie for her birthday and everyone loves them! Big Sister has started our school day with felt stories. I bought some nursery rhymes sets and kids’ stories in felt. We’ve had a Bible felt set for a while now, but it hasn’t been used much.

The girls are singing, “Here We Go ’Round the Mulberry Bush.” Aren’t the wings a nice touch?

“This is the way we wash our hands…”

Big Sister told the story of Jesus’ birth with our felts. It went with our Bible studies this week about the angel’s announcements to Zechariah and Mary and how we should trust God.

Even Bubba joined in on listening to Big Sister!

So, the felts were obviously a wise purchase and I’m glad everyone likes them.

Anyone have any great storage solutions for felts and felt boards? They’re all over the place and getting mixed up and it’s driving me crazy!

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Reader Notebook

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May 15, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 9 Comments

I love reading and writing with notebooking!

Dialectical journals are a great way to incorporate notebooking, discussion, and narration for any age student.

I had started reading notebooks with my daughter a couple years ago and it rather fizzled, but I think she was too young then. We were using Ambleside Online and it worked – for a while.

I also did notebooking with my gifted 8th grade students years ago – when I taught public school. (They’re graduating from college and beginning their own lives now – wow!)

I plan to use a reader-writer notebook with my daughter now that she is in middle school. She needs something more with her reading. We use Tapestry of Grace and she reads lots with that, but I still feel like we’re missing some great literary analysis and she needs to learn how to critique it. Before, I’ve given her so much freedom with her reading. And that was good. She loves to read. Now she will love to analyze it. Yes, she will.

She may not love it, but she’s going to start notebooking with a classic novel or reading unit each month.

I plan to include Shakespeare, poetry, and later on, in about a year or so: To Kill A Mockingbird and The Diary of Anne Frank. I plan to let her choose some books too. She has great taste in reading and I think she’ll be thrilled that she has finally reached a stage where she can finally read some mature content. I can hardly wait to read some of my favorites, that I used to teach in my classes: Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, A Separate Peace, and Orwell soon! And thankfully, our curriculum has many fine choices of living books and great classic literature too.

I have a binder set up with dividers.

5 dividers:

character analysis
narration/summary (by chapter or act or section)
vocabulary
literary analysis (mini-lessons we will do together)
reader response writing section

(I assign thinking questions based on reading and mini-lessons – these could turn into larger writing projects at the end of units.)

I plan to include notebooking pages in each section to make it fun and interesting. She already has a reading minioffice and we have reader response bookmarks. I have journal topics to assign too. I’m excited to get started on this!

We’ll have a Monday conference time to discuss expectations and schedules. We already do this with Tapestry of Grace work. I will check back in on Fridays or Saturdays to see the progress. I know it will take some hand-holding and organization and explanation in the beginning. She is very clingy with new things. After the first unit and the first month, I hope she gets the hang of it!

She chose to read Where The Red Fern Grows as her first book. Such a fun book to read! We both really enjoyed it.

The girls and I read Charlotte’s Web together and it’s delightful. Alex listened in many times too.

I am going back to my classical roots with my teaching methods.

Resources for Reading and Writing Notebooks:

Scholastic Reading Notebook
Reader’s Notebook & Writer’s Notebook – with amazing printables!
My ELA Pinterest board and Writing Pinterest board and Notebooking Pinterest board
Priscilla’s great Reader Notebook Pinterest board
Reader’s Notebook outline and plan
Guide with a video!
Busy Teachers Cafe resources
Printables from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus (One of my favorite homeschooling sites!)

It’s always more fun to add color, shapes, and stickers!

NotebookingPages.com LIFETIME Membership

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Baby Animals Unit Study

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May 12, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

For Katie’s birthday and just ‘cuz…

We went to our town’s Baby Animal Days.

It was run by our local 4-H and they were awesome. For $25 per family, we could see a handful of cows, sheep, goats, pigs, geese, ducklings, chicks, 1 mini horse, bunnies, and turkeys. The kids loved it.

My youngest daughter is rather obsessed with cows.

For her birthday today, she received a cow bank from my parents, cow Webkinz, a Sandra Boynton cow CD and book, and a little cow vacuum to suck up table crumbs. And she already has quite a cow collection. So seeing these cute little guys made her day.

Unfortunately, they were all huddled together in fear and we didn’t get to pet them, but they sure were cute!

Fun pics! The kids made animals sounds for the first one and buzzed like bees for the flower pic. Funny!

Alex loved petting the sheep…until the sheep turned around to face him and check him out and he stumbled back so fast it was hilarious!

Then we found The Tent. Baby chicks and ducklings and bunnies! That you could hold and pet! Hurry!

Liz loved on a muddy duckling for about a second. It was wet! ew! But we wanted to take one home and name it Henry, like in The Little Duck.

Baby chicks were much cleaner and softer. Cuteness!

Tori really loved the chicks.

Alex LOVED the bunny.

There were sweet gray bunnies with their mama.

We love baby animals!

Baby Animals Resources:

1+1+1=1
Kids Discover
123 Homeschool 4Me
Scholastic
Nature study notebooking
Visit a local farm
Visit a petting zoo
Learn about life cycles

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1st Track Meet

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May 10, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Tori and Liz had their first track meet this season.

It was just an inner-squad meet, but it was fun!

Tori got 2nd place in the softball throw!

Tori ran the 200m and 400m.

Liz ran the 400m and 800m.

They didn’t do as well as we’d hoped, but it gives them a base to start from.

Liz started ASTYM therapy for her legs yesterday and we hope that helps her pain.

Tori is young and has years to improve!

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Our Curriculum for 2010-2011

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May 5, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

We moved to Utah after living in Hawaii for three years.

It was a difficult transition.

We’ve recently saw doctors for pain in Elizabeth’s legs.

The pediatrician referred us to an orthopedist. That doctor said she needed surgery on her ankles and wanted us to buy some $300 custom-made braces in the meantime. wow

I asked for a second opinion. This doctor referred Elizabeth for ASTYM therapy and recommended rigid running shoes with a UCBL orthotic insert. That will probably work since she has already improved with the stretching and yoga I’ve been encouraging her to do. If these treatments fail, then she needs surgery on her ankles and legs. He said the ankle surgery would be worthless without the other one. So glad I got this second opinion!

I’m pleased that Elizabeth is finishing up First Form Latin. I have Second Form on the shelf, ready to go. She also wants to learn Greek and French! I have those, but I think it’s too much right now. She has such a talent for language.

She loves to read and we really enjoy the selections from Tapestry of Grace.

She struggles with math, but Singapore math has been a pretty good fit. It moves quickly and she sure doesn’t get bored. She hated the 6-month stint when we tried Saxon a couple years ago. We’ll begin Singapore Developmental Math this fall.

We’ll also begin Apologia General Science in the fall. I can hardly wait! The seventh grade workload is going to be much more than we’re used to – I hope we can manage!

She is a delight and quite precocious for her age.

Still plugging along with Apologia Swimming Creatures. We had to slow way down to stretch 13 lessons into 20 co-op experiment classes to make it worthwhile.

I downloaded Writeshop’s Christmas cards last month and those were a hit, so we’re going to use World of People and World of Animals for weekly writing, in addition to what TOG assignments.

Elizabeth loves the Calendar Connections cards and helps with our morning time: calendar, Bible, and prayer. She’s awesome to help with read-alouds too!

It’s getting hard to keep Elizabeth in books!

Right now, we’re working through Newbery Award Winners. She’s also reading biographies about missionaries.

We’ve been reading about the Tower of Babel and Gilgamesh and ancient Sumeria in Tapestry of Grace.

We’re doing lessons on BLOOD in Apologia anatomy. Lab officer Daddy would be so proud! She began prewriting on an essay about blood and its functions and I am impressed. I can’t wait to see the final product. I have seen such improvement lately!

She has all but finished Singapore Math 5B. I will give her a little break before beginning 6A. We have some review of fractions to get through. She doesn’t like review…or quizzes…or tests…;)

Elizabeth has decided she is now BETH and no longer LIZZIE. I can’t keep it straight!

Here is Beth getting all purty for the Mothers’ Day church tea…our theme table is Victorian. more photos to come later…

Playing with Legos…

She’s a great big sister.

Elizabeth is being mentored by two older ladies at our church. It has been wonderful for all involved. Mrs. Carol is teaching Elizabeth to sew with a sewing machine. They even plan to make a quilt this summer! Mrs. Ginger is into cake decorating and art. She even used to own an art gallery! Mrs. Ginger plays piano for our church and she plans to work with Elizabeth in her music studies. I love seeing Elizabeth have these relationships. I’m almost jealous that I can’t get in on the fun.