Astronomy Unit Study

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

March 12, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

We added some Montessori materials for our science studies

Morning message pages introducing our astronomy unit:

The UMOCA had a FREE kids’ craft making astronomy mobiles.

Well, don’t ya know we hightailed it over there! Fun, fun fun! Free, free, FREE!

5 Little Astronauts. He named each little astronaut after our family members. So sweet!

The girls enjoyed learning about and labeling the moon phases.

Kate loved our Montessori moon cards:

Fun astronomy matching game

Comet kabobs snack

There are stars in my apples!

Mnemonic the girls wrote to remember the names of the planets. Yes, I know Pluto is not a planet anymore, but it was fun and we needed to include the word “pigs” somewhere!

So cute how they laid all out on the foyer floor to do their word searches!

Working on alphabetizing the planets in these adorable workbooks from Target’s dollar spot (a long time ago)

Found a fun popup book at a discount bin.

Elizabeth did astronomy in 1st-2nd grade with Apologia Exploring Creation With Astronomy, so this will be review for her. Tori and Katie are so excited! I even have some fun little things to include Alex.

Astronomy Unit Study

Poetry

Here are some poems that we plan to work on this month. We love poetry! I will have the moon poem on our calendar board and the gravity poem in a Montessori poetry basket. I also have some other poems in the works.

Calendar

Week 1: Intro, Sun and stars
Week 2-3: planets
Week 4: comets, asteroids, and other heavenly bodies
Week 5-6: Earth and moon

We start off our morning each day with these: Calendar Connections.

Texts

Stargazer’s Guide to the Night Sky and Apologia Astronomy

Arts and Crafts

make a solar system mobile
moon sand sensory bin
moon painting
stencils and stamps
watercolor planets

View this post on Instagram
Time lapse phases of the #moon with @Oreo! #homeschool #science @apologiaworld #oreo
A post shared by Jennifer Lambert (@jenalambert) on Sep 29, 2015 at 9:58am PDT

Games

Astronauts to Earth
Space Dominoes
Space Memory
Pretend play with Space Module Astronaut Dome Tent

Notebooking

copywork
word searches
mazes
fun space printables

I have some biography studies, mostly for Elizabeth. She also wants to do some mythology comparisons with constellations.

Montessori

3 part cards
Nomenclature cards
poetry

Books

Field Trips

We went to UMOCA (fun crafts!) and the Planetarium. We went star-gazing while camping on Antelope Island.

Watching a lot of Doctor Who counts too, right?

Check out my astronomy board:
Follow Jennifer’s board Astronomy on Pinterest.

Pin3

3 Shares

You might also like:

Our Curriculum for 2011-2012

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

February 6, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

The solution I discovered a few years ago to homeschool burnout midyear is to begin transitioning into our next “grade level” of school. We educate year-round, so we don’t follow the traditional school calendar and we don’t completely take summers off. I began this non-traditional schedule with Elizabeth when we first began homeschooling since she finished her curriculum about March. Then, I panicked, what were we to do until August?!

Our Curriculum for 2011-2012

Elizabeth is 11.

She’s mostly in 6th grade.

One of the freedoms and blessings of home educating is that we don’t have to maintain that grade level standard. We do have to report to our local schools a grade level on the form, so I go with whatever math level we’re currently using. Elizabeth reads on a high school level, and has vast interests in languages, history, and art.

She does like science, but we’ve not pushed her because I wasn’t ready to move on to Apologia General this year. One reason is that I wasn’t ready to put Elizabeth in with the high schoolers at our homeschool co-op. I am kinda worried about how she would do socially with 13-18 year olds.

In reviewing our proposed scope and sequence and upcoming schedule for 7th grade, the workload is going to increase exponentially. I hope Elizabeth can rise to the challenge. She has done better this past month or so; I hope that means she is maturing. First semester had some rough patches.

After intense research and polling the members of our homeschool co-op about math curricula…it seems our best bet (since we’ve used Singapore from grades 1-6) is to go through Saxon 8/7 and then dive into Video Text algebra.

So, next month, we’ll continue with

Tapestry of Grace
First Form Latin
Ambleside Online
First Start French
Write Shop Storybuilders
Artistic Pursuits Book One: The Elements of Art And Composition
Bible journaling and copywork

Elizabeth takes P.E. and drama at co-op and a cooking class through our community learning program.

We need to get out and do more nature activities, but I’m just not a winter girl.

We’ll be finishing up Singapore math 6B and Apologia Swimming Creatures. I plan to wait until this fall to start the new math and science. Co-op will probably offer an experiment course.

Track should be starting up soon! Elizabeth and Victoria can hardly wait!

The girls are doing Kindergarten work.

They’re not fluent readers yet and we need some work with handwriting. I find that I’m getting frustrated with them because they’re not where I want them to be. Some days, they really get the concepts we’re doing…and other days I want to pull my hair out.

They’re finishing up the program at Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten and You Can Read.

I started First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 1 (Second Edition) (First Language Lessons) with them last week and they love it.

My son likes to sit with us and be nearby. We give him fun Montessori toys and keep him busy and watch him play.

We’re reading The rainbow book of American history : Illustrated by James Daugherty.

I plan to supplement U.S. history with a download from a while ago called Read-draw-remember American History Activities.

We will continue to use Tapestry of Grace, Ambleside Online, and Artistic Pursuits, Book One: An Introduction to the Visual Arts.

Here are the co-op classes we’ve done: Swimming Creatures experiment course, a StArt class that’s really popular, a PE class, and a geography class with Window on the World: When We Pray God Works.

We’ve done a few lessons from Draw Write Now, Book 1: On the Farm-Kids and Critters-Storybook Characters (Draw-Write-Now). I will introduce some real copywork next week.

I’m thinking about doing Apologia Land Animals for science in the fall. I kinda want to see if co-op offers a science course for this age group next fall.

I still like Singapore math for grades 1-6, but my husband has never really cared for it, so we may change. They still have a K math workbook to complete and lots of fun hands-on activities. We’ll continue to do some Montessori works. The girls have been great about going out to play even when it’s cold. Good for them and gives me a break!

Pin1

1 Shares

You might also like:

A Snapshot of our Day

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

August 25, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Here’s a day in our homeschool life.

We have a toddler, 2 preschoolers, and 1 finishing elementary.

A Day in Our Life | Our Homeschool Schedule

We’ve pushed our schedule back some…I really just am not a morning person! No 6 AM wake-up calls for me, please!

We get up around 0730 and have breakfast.

The kids get cereal and juice and I guzzle a pot of coffee. Then, together on the sofa, we do Bible and calendar time. We do history and literature reading together as much as their itty bitty attention spans can manage.

Then, we get dressed. Some days, that’s about 10 AM.

So, don’t visit me before noon, y’all. I ain’t like them storybook Southern belles who roll outta bed fully coiffed and already in impeccable makeup. NoSiree. It takes lots of work to look this good and I seldom feel up to it if I don’t really have anywhere to go. Ponytail and glasses and clean clothes will suffice at home, thank you. I know you FlyLady followers out there probably need oxygen right about now to get through the rest of this post.

We do laundry and dishes. I used to have a chore plan with a zone for each day, but I’m not sure what happened. We just clean when we need to lately. Most areas need daily cleaning. That works for now.

I try to get the girls started on their workboxes and computer work. I try to occupy the Bubba during this time. Lately, I’ve had all the kids go outside to play before it gets too hot. Then, they do school work when he naps. They’re much more amenable if they get their outside time. I’m much more amenable if I get some quiet time too.

We eat leftovers for lunch, or snacky things like deli meat, fruit, and veggies. Usually around noonish.

I need to get back into the habit of listening to our composer of the month or an audio book, or at the very least, some jammin’ praise and worship music.

I try to keep the Bubba up as long as I can.

On a good day, he naps about 2.

If he goes down earlier, we don’t get much done in the afternoon. While he naps, Elizabeth gets all her school work finished – Latin, math, reading, writing…all that good stuff. Sometimes, Tori and Katie do more school-related activities, other times, they watch a DVD or play computer games. It really depends on the day and how organized mommy-teacher is that week. And sometimes, they complete their entire week’s worth of activities in two days. Then what?!

Snack time and playtime commence when the Bubba awakes. I prep for dinner and we try to clean up before Daddy gets home. Some days, that happens, and others, well, it doesn’t. Luckily, Daddy doesn’t care too much. But I do. I detest dishes marching across my countertops and partying on the stovetop. Right now, I think they’re doing West Coast Swing in there. I don’t even want to look. On good afternoons, I get to lie around and read while the lil boogers play cuz everything is mostly done. Not this week. Nope. And Daddy has been rolling in after 6:30 PM since he returned from his deployment. With all that extra time, the boogers could be cleaning up, but they’re making more messes. Rather counterproductive. So rude.

Soccer started this week, so our dinner plans are unpredictable. Last night, we ate at 8:30 PM. Tori has practices Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6 PM and Elizabeth has practice on Mondays at 7 PM. Katie has an hour in there somewhere, but no one has felt the need to inform us yet. Commence insanity and slow cooker meals which look like pet food. We will have AWANA beginning next Wednesday at 7 PM. Dinner isn’t that important, right? Don’t studies show that you’ll get fat(ter) if you eat after 6 PM? And don’t most cultures eat larger lunches and smaller dinners anyway? And they’re healthier. That awful S.A.D. diet. sigh

I could do so much more if I didn’t have to eat or sleep.

Pin1

1 Shares

You might also like:

Quiet Time with Kids

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

June 8, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

The only quiet I get is when those four little rascals are sleeping. Which means, I get to go to bed around midnight and/or wake up before dawn. If I do both, I am rather a tad bit grumpy. So, lately, I have been greeting my pillow around midnight. And I dread leaving it all alone in the morning.

I don’t get a lot of quiet time to myself with four kids.

I know many things will change when my deployed husband returns home next month. (Many things will have to change when he returns…)

So, I am not a morning person. At all. When I can get the little darlings tucked away in their beds before 9 PM, I am happy to finish some chores and settle down to read. By then, I struggle to read what I should read. I often have to discipline myself to read the Bible instead of the latest Kindle freebie. I try to read a Psalm and/or Proverb every evening before getting too comfy and reading something else. I’m also reading a couple books with online book clubs.

Here is my great, almost brand-new La-Z-Boy recliner I found used on KSL classifieds for only $60! I also found the neatest little table at the thrift store that has a built-in book rack on the bottom.

Voilà! My quiet time/reading nook. Yes, my Rubeus kitty loves his new chair! Didn’t you know he rules this house?!

And here is the battle station. Look how neat and tidy!

I love the smell of organization in the morning.

So, in the mornings, after I’ve been so rudely awakened (occasionally at the unspeakable time of 0530) by a crying baby boy…I say a quick good morning prayer, stumble into his room, try to smile and kiss him and love on him while I change his diaper…stumble downstairs and give him his banana and cereal and cup of milk.

I make coffee (the nectar of the gods). I make it to the desk and check my Facebook and emails and delete 7/8 (a very accurate statistic) of them that are about deals and sales to stores I rarely frequent. (I really should unsubscribe – Who can afford it and who braves actual shopping with 4 kids?)

Then, I read my SOAP verse for the day and pray.

By that time, if I’m lucky (usually I’m interrupted), the boy is done with his breakfast and my coffee is brewed. I wipe him up and let him go wreak havoc on a tidy house…and he doesn’t like his morning naps anymore (what am I to do?)!

I try to settle back in with my cuppa and reading, but that doesn’t always happen. Usually, by that time, my youngest daughter comes bounding down the stairs (can you tell she’s a morning person?) and demands a drink and TV.

I usually go get my eldest daughter up to help me at that point.

On good days, I actually make a hot breakfast and we sit together and read devotions, memory verses, missionary cards, character study, etc.

Then we cheerfully do chores together, like dishes and laundry. I start dinner in the Crockpot or with a marinade.

Then we waltz off to do our read-alouds and family school work.

The lil girls do their Funnix and seat work without complaining usually. Elizabeth is Miss Helper and completes ALL her reading and notebooking in record time.

We all together prepare a lovely nutritious lunch, usually from leftovers.

Lately, the kids have been watching TV with cereal and no milk, much too late into the morning. The basement is still without carpet and all our stuff is in the garage from a sudden flood. Except the TV. The humongous projection TV is jammed into the little living room off the kitchen and it reminds me constantly why I banished it to the basement when we moved here.

I hope and pray to have more discipline to turn the TV off more and focus on finishing our school lessons in the next few weeks before deployment is over.

Many afternoons, I encourage the kids to play in the back yard or quietly in their rooms if the weather is bad.

Some days, I long for bedtime for the kids so I can be by myself for a little while.

How to Have Quiet Time with Kids

There’s a learning curve to having quiet time with kids. I have to model it before I can expect it.

Model quiet time with quiet activities, quiet voices, soft music for short times
Quiet busy bags, activities, or books for young children nearby in a safe space
Designate naptime or rest time mid-afternoon in bedrooms for a half hour or hour for everyone to recharge
Downtime in afternoon with poetry, audiobooks, tea, and/or art
Wind-down time in evening with prayers, stories, snuggles, aromatherapy, soft music

Pin30

30 Shares

You might also like:

Heart Anatomy Craft

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

May 27, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Making a model of the heart with marshmallows, colored icing, and graham crackers…sounds so heart healthy, eh?

Doing Lesson 9 of Apologia Anatomy for science.

Of course, Lil Sisters had to get on it…there was icing to lick!

Spreading on the icing…(so serious)

The finished product…more pink than red and the blue is too light…oh well…

Our Science Curriculum:

Pin1

1 Shares

You might also like:

Outdoor Challenge

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

April 2, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

We’re accepting an outdoor challenge for April.

30 days with time spent outside every day, no matter the weather.

Thank the Lord for a beautiful spring day! We ate our lunch on the warm and sunny deck.

We played on the playground lots. Almost all day!

We played with our new sand the rest of the day!

For some reason, the girls found it entertaining to outline my stepping stones with rocks from the garden…Alex didn’t really want to help put them back.

I cut the grass for the first time since winter. I edged around the deck. I planted two forsythias. I finished up the yard chores, like chopping all the dead pampas grass. Fun stuff like that.

0 Shares

You might also like:

Homeschool PE Obstacle Course

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

March 15, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Now that the weather’s nice and the evenings are LOOOONGER, we’re trying to spend time outside every day.

I found this really cool track agility obstacle course set and it’s a big hit! The girls set it up and ran relays and had soccer drills. It was awesome to watch.

Katie had a timer and was calling out directions. My little drill sergeant! When I called them for dinner, I heard three “awwww”‘s. :) Super.

It was so funny to watch the girls try to jump through the hoops. They didn’t quite make it.

How do you make sure your kids get enough exercise?

We aren’t participating in community sports or other lessons right now, so that means we have to compensate at home or nearby.

If you do participate in sports or dance and the like, how do you manage with the travel and expense?

0 Shares

You might also like:

Anatomy Science Demonstrations

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

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:

Pin1

1 Shares

You might also like:

Homeschool Space in Utah

This blog may contain affiliate links: disclosure.
Please see my suggested resources.

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!

You might also like:

0 Shares

You might also like: