Anatomy Science Demonstrations

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March 5, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

We did a lot of science this past week or so. A LOT OF SCIENCE.

We weren’t very diligent about completing the experiments in our anatomy science book, so we knocked out several recently.

Here is Elizabeth laughing about how gross it felt sticking her fingers into Jello.

The finished Jello human cell. We then threw it in the sink as it looked so unappetizing. The Skittles “bled” meaning their colors clouded into the Jello. Elizabeth was pretty disgusted.

Elizabeth’s “Alton Brown pose” before dissecting a chicken wing.

The “not so Alton Brown pose”…

We also did music (piano and voice), Latin, math…studied Mongolia, Georgia (the state), history…but alas, no pictures of those. She’s had a much better attitude this week and has been much more helpful with chores and her siblings and completing her school work more diligently.

We’re preparing notebooks for every subject to complete the transfer into Notebooking with our Ambleside curriculum. We’ve used Notebooking loosely, but I really want to rev it up and get her more independent as she heads toward high school. I can’t believe that my baby will be in 6th grade this fall…

Since Daddy is deployed, they offer Parents Days Out once a month. I dropped off the littles and we had ourselves a Mama-Daughter date to the thrift store and lunch at McGrath’s. That was sheer seafood awesomeness.

Elizabeth now has a palate expander to prepare for braces next month. I don’t laugh at her lisps ALL the time…

Our Science Curriculum:

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Painting Snow

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March 4, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 7 Comments

We’ve all been rather under the weather around here last week, so we didn’t do a whole lot of preschool.

Painting Snow Art Time

Here are the girls painting snow.

We used liquid watercolors.

That was a big hit! They loved that!

They had lots of fun playing with colors in the snow.

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Morning Basket

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February 27, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

My daughter and I came up with this idea to organize all our morning circle time things in one place.

A BIBLE BASKET

A convenient morning basket for kids (and moms) for quiet time.

This was great when my kids were very young, and we still incorporate lots of this now that my kids are teens and tweens.

I still love beginning our day with morning circle time.

We all come together as a family on the living room sofas after breakfast for read alouds, prayer, Bible study, scripture reading, missionary stories, music, and more.

What’s in our morning basket?

Bible Study

My daughter and I have read the Bible in 90 Days. On their website, they have reading schedules for kids.

We’ve done SOAP journals. (S.O.A.P. stands for Scripture, Observation, Application and Prayer.)

She did a reading plan through Hands On Bible .

I am NOT a morning person, so we often “do” Bible in the afternoon or evening if we have a busy day.

We did Leading Little Ones to God one year.

Glow in the Dark Fish is a nice book for families.

We’ve read through The Dig.

We’ve completed The Talk series about biblical sex ed.

We often read a proverb and psalm every day (there are 31 of those guys, so that works out nicely most months…)

I need to find something short (Sure, I’d love to meditate and pray for hours on end, but let’s be honest… Who has time for that?) and powerful to do for my own devotional time. I’ve been reading and praying and journaling before bedtime. Mamas have to fit it in when we can. It’s sometimes so hard, especially when dad is deployed and I’m exhausted from doing it all.

Great Kids Bibles:

Scripture Memory

Learning and memorizing scripture is so important for our future faith.

The girls loved My ABC Bible Verses and these printable cards.

We also loved Songs for Saplings and printables.

SEEDS Family Worship were also good for a while with these printables.

We have a Charlotte Mason Bible Scripture memorization box. The kids read the cards to us at dinner each night. Each prays for a missionary from missionary prayer cards.

Prayer

I love short and sweet prayer books for moms and kids.

I still love The Power of a Praying Mom and Praying Circles Around Your Children.

We had the whole set of Baby’s First Prayers. (also Nativity and Bible)

We also have a prayer cube.

My daughter made this darling little prayer wheel in AWANA last week and we will incorporate that into our Bible time.

Missionary Stories

We love reading and learning about missionaries. We love historical reading and learning about heroes of the faith.

We loved Hero Tales.

We now read through Christian Heroes missionary stories along with our chronological history reading.

Character study

I think I’m going to start stepping it up with some character traits study. While we often address character as it comes up in our Bible reading and homeschool studies, sometimes, it’s good to have a theme each week too and see how we can incorporate that into our relationships.

Homeschool Share has some great lapbooks.

These are some awesome character cards to use in all sorts of ways.

Education Cubes really engages the kids!

Music, Art, and Poetry

We often include a hymn, classical composer, or a folk song.

We love incorporating our picture study into morning circle time.

We love to read poetry that coincides with our chronological history. We also read poetry and listen to classical music with tea time.

Our circle time and basket is ever evolving as we grow and update. It’s a great resources for all ages – kids and parents!

How do you incorporate Bible study with little ones?

Resources:

Card File Box
Tabbed and Regular Index Cards
My Princess Bible by Andy Holmes
Little Boys Bible Storybook for Mothers and Sons by Carolyn Larsen
Hands-On Bible
Sword Fighting by Karyn Henley
The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos
The Golden Children’s Bible
Teaching the Trinity

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Elementary Anatomy

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February 21, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Here is Big Sister reading to Little Sisters. They love this anatomy book!

Here is the little clay girl with toothpick skeleton they made from lesson 2.

They also made some layered human body paper dolls from a Scholastic workbook Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body (Grades 2-4)
and are working on a cell model mobile. We’re focusing on healthy eating this week with a Food Pyramid bulletin board and food file folder games from File Folder Fun. (oh, the alliteration!)

Our Science Curriculum:

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Preschool Presidents’ Day Log Cabin

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February 18, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Tori and Katie made little log cabins out of pretzels.

I found the printable at TeacherFileBox.com. We’re looking for some paper people to print to add to their pictures…

Here are the cabins so far…I layered a half sheet of blue construction paper on green for a landscape. We glued teeny tiny pom poms for flowers, cotton balls for clouds, and used dot paint for the sun, but that didn’t turn out so pretty so we’re going to add some other paint to make it more yellow later.

We worked on sorting animals. Here is our new bulletin board to go along with Expedition Earth.

I found a great lapbook at File Folder Fun. They struggled with this concept, so we’re going to work on it lots.

Expedition Earth Animal Geography Curriculum

They pulled out the felts playsets and played with that for quite a while. I buy them up at thrift stores and consignment shops.

We also finished up the letter Z. They worked on anatomy science with Big Sister Lizzie and loved it. I got a mini bulletin board set of the Food Pyramid and I made a board of some of it and a lapbook with the food sorting. We’re going to work on healthy eating habits this week.

We enjoyed watching snow and birds. We went to the Wild Birds and bought 3 new feeders and 3 bags of birdseed and we’ve laughed at these guys fluttering around. Not sure what they are cuz I’m from the East and these western and mountain birds are sure different! I think it’s a type of phoebe or junco…I need to buy a new bird ID book! We also have lots of sparrows and chickadees. They haven’t discovered the other feeders yet..

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Preschool Valentine Trays

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February 12, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Our Valentine Preschool Trays

Here is our letter tray with little trinkets to identify the initial letter: M or N, that we worked on the last couple weeks…

Here is a fine motor transfer activity. They snuck and ate a few candy hearts in the transfer process.

This one was little heart boxes with candy hearts inside and they could eat them with the chopsticks.

Here is our rainbow rice and pasta in bins with heart spoons and scoops. I need to make lots more I am told.

Here are the little dears loving on each other and looking cuter than usual. :)

We did work on the Letter Z this week from Raising Rock Stars Preschool and Confessions of a Homeschooler along with Valentine’s activities from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler, along with Homeschool Share and Christian Preschool Printables.

They were little troopers as we took many of our more portable activities with us to two dental appointments for Elizabeth (she’s getting braces soon!). They worked diligently in the waiting rooms and were little angels. We did phonics and crafts from our a Beka curriculum too. We got lots of lovey books from the library (and are reading them and will maybe do a lapbook or two from Homeschool Share). They love playing on the iPods and get so excited with their games. We made Valentines for Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma, friends at church, and for a Valentine’s party on Monday afternoon. We’ll decorate our table and have a lovely meal later on, with candles and all!

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Schedule and Chore Charts

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February 12, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 5 Comments

A great schedule and chore chart system we used for a while this year.

I found this idea on Currclick. I think it will work better than any other chore system we’ve used. I must remember to remind the girls to utilize it.

I have acquired the cards from various sources…Homeschool Creations, Homeschool Share, Heart of Wisdom…I plan to combine school and chore activities on one page to save space. We really don’t need more than 16 squares each day between the 3 girls. They usually help each other with the chores. That can be good and can also cause problems when all 3 are in 1 bathroom trying to clean the toilet, for instance. :)~

I got the pocket chart and clock schedule at Target’s dollar spot over the summer. I cut the clock chart into strips and Voilà! I’ve just been lazy not getting to doing this until now.

Here is a close-up of Elizabeth’s chart. I made the titles on Publisher and I thought putting what they did today rather than “Lizzie’s Chores” would be more motivational. I put the cards on the white grid and they move their cards to the colored grid as they are completed. They love the color coding with their favorite colors. :)

They get $1 per week allowance, but they’re not good at remembering to ask for that and I forget to get cash for them. They each tithe 10¢ and give 10¢ to missions each week though.

Some recommend to put some little treats in a bin and if they complete their charts, they can pick one…daily? weekly? I’ve never been one to dangle the carrot, but they’re not doing so well lately, especially the 10 year old, and the littles follow suit! I’m too tired to do all the chores all the time!

Note: We no longer use nor condone chore charts, rewards, punishments. This system helped our kids learn to remember to do necessary tasks when they were very little.

How do you help young kids learn time management?

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Preschool Letter N

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February 4, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Our Chinese New Year indoor “picnic” since it’s 26 degrees out.

We worked on Letter N for Nests this week. Yes, I realize there is no rhyme nor reason to the order I am doing our letters.

I started out with Raising Rock Stars and got sidetracked somewhere along the way. I’m trying to work the themes with the appropriate weeks and holidays, I guess.

I’m saving K for Kites for March, for instance.

I had a hard time getting any good pictures because I was either interacting with the girls, mediating arguments between the girls, or dealing with the baby.

Alex is almost ready for Tiny Tot School! He turned 10 months old on the 1st of February and he’s wanting some action now.

We enjoyed lots of music this week. We listen to Christian music and hymns. We love world music like Putamayo Kids.

We really love our new geography songs that go along with our curriculum.

We also have been getting some fun CDs from the library, such as Beethoven’s Wig. It is hilarious!

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A Charlotte Mason Education

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January 30, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

An Atmosphere, A Discipline, A Life…

A Charlotte Mason Education

I’m loving notebooking instead of worksheets. The kids can be so creative!

Bible Study

I believe in a good foundation and being open to questions and conversation about God and the Bible.

Here is Elizabeth writing her daily Bible journal.

I got this devotional for her. We have the Hands On Bible, but she uses her KJV. She’s been doing well with the readings and answering the question each day.

She just recently completed the kids’ version of The Bible in 90 Days. I introduced her to the SOAP journal method from Mom’s Toolbox. She loved that. She has a desk, but she always writes with her notebook in her lap.

Good Habits

Big sister is a mother’s helper.

Elizabeth spends much of her time with her siblings, helping with preschool and watching the baby.

She does well teaching them and often makes it more fun than I would do!

Here are Victoria and Alexander playing with the alphabet on our magnet chalkboard. Elizabeth is there mostly making sure that Alex doesn’t eat all the letters. He is Babyzilla. :)

I want all my kids to love each other and get along well and we instill good habits and love through free time and play. Good relationships are important.

We often have tea time to wind down in the afternoons.

Exercise

So, we went bowling one day…Victoria won! We are continuing ice skating lessons. The girls are all getting much better! I want the kids to be active and healthy.

Natural History

We went on a nature walk and were excited to see winter plants and birdies. We have never lived anywhere to experience winter before! It was nice that the temperatures have been in the 40s so we could get outside and look around.

Geography

We’re all loving geography…We’re studying Russia this week and working our way through the US states. We learn with books, maps, drawing and coloring.

History

We roughly use Ambleside Online for Elizabeth’s curriculum. She is in Year 4. She loves to read and loves history, so it’s a good fit. We love the reading lists for living books in history. It helps it come alive for us and I learn so much too!

Music

Liz takes piano lessons and we learn about composers, hymns, and folk music along with our history timeline.

Art

We love art and learn about artists and create our own crafts and projects.

Language

We’re learning Latin, and I introduce some vocabulary weekly in Spanish, French, and German. I feel it’s super important to learn languages.

Literature

I love poetry, Shakespeare, the classics. I have a degree in English, so I love to read and instill a love for reading in my kids. We can never have too many books!

We started off using The Well-Trained Mind and have felt more comfortable with the eclectic approach lately. I have much of Liz’s reading material on our new iPad and that’s working out very well that it’s so portable and we’re not worrying about carrying lots of books when we’re out and about. We have some really cool educational apps too!

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Homeschool Space in Utah

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January 22, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 6 Comments

We moved to Utah from Hawaii.

It’s a BIG change.

Here is our workbox wall.

On the left, our calendar/circle time “corner.”

Here is our desk wall and calendar. The clock is set to “Daddy Time” in Afghanistan.

Here is the rest of our school space that we finally cleaned up and organized.

We are so blessed to have a finished basement in our rental house to use almost exclusively for learning space. When we move, I have no idea what we’re going to do because I doubt we’ll have anything like the space we have here and we’ll have to downsize! We came from a small 3 BR 1-level house where we “did school” at the kitchen table or on the living room sofa to this great 6 BR 2-story with a basement. God made it all possible. :)

That corner wasn’t really working out, so here are our updated circle time boards on a pocket chart rack. They are two foam boards hooked together. (I am working on changing it up for the week so there’s blanks.) A word wall is in the red pocket chart on the back.

Our reading nook.

Our weekly preschool manipulatives are in the cubes (from Target).

I use the shelves (yard sale finds) to store pencil boxes, AWANA cards, felts, a Beka cards, big puzzles, our book of centuries, and nature journals. The tops of the shelves have our pencil sharpener, a basket of magnet letters, a portable DVD player, paper towels, Kleenexes, etc. The rainbow cart (had this forever) on the right holds magnets, push pins, do-a-dot pens, geoboards, cork boards, play doh…On top of the rainbow cart are our Education Cubes and tot trays.

Here is the same wall from another angle. I found this very sturdy table at a yard sale for $15 and the 4 chairs at another yard sale (on the same day) for $20. That was a good day!

I put our daily tools in little metal buckets on a lazy susan on the table. The bulletin board above the computer station shows off my 2 preschool daughters’ Bible crafts. To the left of that bulletin board, I have created pictorial timelines for my daughters with pictures of each of their birthdays to show their growth. They love it! Underneath those, a little blue pocket chart holds a weekly Bible verse.

The bookcase holds all my teaching materials and extra books that I want to keep nice. The bottom two shelves have some manipulatives like dry erase books and magnet dolls. The colored plastic drawers hold lots of Melissa & Doug and Lauri puzzles. On top of that is our bin of circle time stuff.

There is another set of folding doors to the right of these, but it’s still messy. I store board games in here. We have labeled plastic bins with all of our school and craft supplies like construction paper, paints, stamps, beads and baubles, pipe cleaners, feathers, etc.

We also are so blessed to have a separate play room for toy storage and another room that is supposed to be my personal sewing and craft room (right now it’s seeming to be storage!)…

We also have our TV and sofa behind the reading nook. It’s nice to have a not-so-central location so it’s not on very often. We use it more for the Wii anyway.

Our school room in the basement…

Maybe should’ve taken the picture before school time?

(Although, it looks better than most days! Notice I’m not showing you the play dough tables and accessories all over the kitchen floor! Nor the glue dollops and collages that are stuck to my plastic floor pad under my computer desk…)

We do workboxes, sorta. Love my cube unit for activities the 3 littles share. The girls are about to outgrow those little pink and purple desks! The bookshelf mostly holds Elizabeth’s books. A plastic crate holds board books. Bean bags and pillows are on the floor.

There’s another bookshelf in Tori’s room that holds the picture books and early readers.

Elizabeth has an entire setup in the room that should be a formal dining room. We turned it into her music studio and desk area. She has her keyboard, workboxes, a storage shelf, desk, and computer station.

This setup is working for us this year!

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