October 1, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
This year I tried planting the three sister companions: squash, beans, and corn.
Specifically, pumpkins, scarlet runners, and sweet corn:
The corn supported the beans, the pumpkins shaded the ground, and the beans fixed nitrogen back into the soil:
Our harvest:
Would I plant it again? Nope. It was fun, and cute, but rather impractical for our season. The beans were tricky to pick while young and green (I had to step over and through the pumpkin vines, and they were rather hard to see). The corn was stunted due to my needing to start them indoors (it totally killed their tap roots. They only grew about 4 feet tall.) The pumpkins, however, were very happy!
September 30, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Our first month of school, in review:
We try to start each morning with a Gospel Message. Often our Message is from the Primary Manual, sometimes from a Gospel Art Kit picture, occasionally just a random Scripture. But it is such an important, crucial part of the day, it’s not an element I let slide:
Then we look at some of our structured learning time. Similar to a “circle time” or “calendar time” in the younger classrooms. We look at the calendar, weather, and do some quick review or mini-lessons. We spend 10-40 minutes, depending on what we do:
During the rest of the day and throughout the week, we definitely cover the basics…
Reading:
Writing:
And ‘Rithmetic:
We study Geography:
-Continents:
-Maps of local areas:
Baking is a big part of our curriculum:
-Meringues:
-Cake? (they made “original” creations)
-Fruit Crisps
Baking naturally teaches:
-Cleanup:
-and Math (fractions especially):
We do a lot of Art:
-Painting:
-Playdoh
-Which lends itself to stealth (sorta) learning:
-I LOVE the writing that comes from play. (This was from playing with cousins at church: “ARPLAN” [airplane]/”VejeThruc/WifFoodSuPlis” [veggie truck with food supplies]):
We play Music:
We play Games:
We are trying to learn Gymnastics (they are doing “eggrolls”):
We play with Robotics a LOT (awesomeness itself in incorporating heaps of important mathematical skills, especially in regards to logical and procedural thinking):
We love Science Experiment books. A really fun fallback for when I have nothing brilliant planned (what, who said that? I’m ALWAYS perfectly planned. HA!):
-the effects of heat on sugar and salt:
-…sugar especially 😉
We are studying the pioneers:
-…including how the pioneers would NOT have been whittling their wood (Don’t worry, Ettin got me a bandaid):
Sign-Language videos are saved for Movie and Game Friday (guess when the boys are allowed to watch movies and play video games!):
And we are Outside A LOT! A very important part of life and learning, don’t you think?
-We ride bikes:
-Study nature:
-And reap the benefits of hard work:
September has been wonderful, and I can’t wait to see what we learn in October!
September 28, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Since we are learning about pioneers this year with some friends, we took advantage of visiting a local pioneer home before it closed for the season:
Giant tried his hand at working the butter churn:
The boys LOVED the toys:
I loved the spinning display:
…and brought them some fluffy new wool:
We enjoyed a picnic of crackers, cheese, pickles and cake on the front lawn, and read about summertime in the big woods:
The mural beside the home:
Lovely autumn leaves on our walk home:
And two sleepy boys:
September 23, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
Our (mine and hubby’s) plans to go on a date tonight fell through. So we decided to have fun together building robots!
Guess who else thought that was a great idea?
Apparently they weren’t quite as asleep as we’d thought, and they both jumped out of bed when they heard the noise of little plastic parts being shuffled around.
So, a fun date. Just the four of us 😉 (Galoot stayed sleeping, thank goodness)
We finally shooed them to bed again around 11pm.
Building memories one sleep deprived child at a time…
September 22, 2011 - Posted by CayleenRae - 0 Comments
A garden provides lots of educational experiences.
Fine motor skills, for example, are developed at the child uses the pincer grip to repeatedly transfer cucumbers into a jar, ready for pickling:
Good boy.
