MythBusters

How convenient is it that we've been using the MythBusters Science Fair Books to pick what we're doing for our monthly science days with our group and that the museum is hosting the MythBusters exhibit?  It was awesome!  My boys have loved the show MythBusters forever.  I'm fairly certain we've seen every episode, possibly a million times.  At the exhibit we were able to see many pieces from the shows and even get some hands on experimenting and myth busting as well. 

 It was a very well organized exhibit and I absolutely love how hands on it is.  If you're in the area I'd suggest you check it out, and if your not in the area watch for it to come to your museum.  It's super cool!

 I think the boys were most enthralled by the machine arrow shooter.  They currently have a love for all things archery.   We had such a great time learning and extending our understanding from our science studies to this exhibit.

Water Rockets, a Kindergarten Science Curriculum Day

Kindergarten is a fun year to homeschool.  We have some study time each day so that CJ continues working on reading and math.  Then we do awesome play dates with our homeschooling group to explore other areas of the world.  About 2x a month we host science days. CJ picks through the MythBusters Science Fair books and picks an experiment that he'd like to try.  Our science Tuesday for yesterday was Water Rockets. 

 We were lucky enough to have a friend who called her army of people to gather corks for us.  We ended up with almost a dozen corks, enough for each child to have their own rocket.  The idea behind water rockets is that there is a baking soda/vinegar reaction inside a water bottle and it shoots the cork out the top.  They can be a little tricky to find, particularly if you're shooting them into a fall garden, so we added streamers to the corks (use a push-pin at the top).

 Then we headed outside for instructions.  I love that top picture of all the boys listening to how to make a satchel of baking soda.  To do this at home: fill a disposable water bottle (16-20oz) with 1 inch of vinegar.  Add enough water so that it's about 1/2 full. Make a satchel of baking soda with 1 square of toilet paper and 1.5tsp baking soda inside it.  Shove the satchel inside the water bottle and put the cork in the bottle.  Hold the bottle, aiming it away from others.  The pressure inside the bottle will build and build until the cork comes shooting out!

 My boys were a little uncertain to be participants.  Everyone else wanted a turn and they held back.  After a bit of convincing they finally decided to do it.  EMan (3yrs) then kept saying, "Momma, I wanna make it 'splode again!"  It was a fantastic day to do a little science experiment with friends!  The next science play date is in 2 weeks.  We don't know what the concept will be, but it's sure to be fun!

http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2013/11/show-share-saturday-link-11/

Drama Through the Rec Center

Every quarter the city mails a Recreation Guide.  I scoured it looking for activities that I thought may help us achieve our homeschooling goals.  CJ has struggled with shutting down physically and mentally when faced with an unfamiliar situation.  I thought that the local drama class may help him.  We toured the library where it was to take place a week before class started.  I find it's always helpful to go "explore" a new place before being required to go there for an activity.  The theme for the drama class was "Dr. Seuss".  Every day they would read a new story and act it out.  At the end the parents would return and they'd put on their dramatic telling of the book they'd just practiced.  It turned out great and was an interesting experience to see CJ tap into some facial expressions and character traits. 

Into September 2013

We've made it into September of our first "official" homeschool year.  I feel like things are going swimmingly.  It is quite often that CJ wakes up early and we're able to get our lessons done for the day before EMan even wakes up.  We've been continuing our work on our TouchMath book which has now shifted into simple addition up to 5.  CJ has really taken to it and is mastering it quite a bit faster than I had previously expected.  CJ has still been struggling with numbers to 100 which TouchMath introduces in their first unit but doesn't take the idea to mastery.  We've opened up our MathUSee Primer to start working on the basic understanding of place value of numbers to 100.  It's slow work, but eventually we'll get there.  The boys are enjoying more laundry responsibilities these days and are loving our reading time together. 

Playing in the Mud

It is so lovely to find a nice patch of mud to explore.  I often find the perfectly taken care of park to be a rather boring place to play as it puts constraints on our children's actions.  I wish we could stumble upon mud puddles more often.  How about you?  

Memorization and Math-U-See

One of the things I picked up from all my homeschooling philosophy books was the idea of memorization.  After thinking about it for a while I decided that the first set of passages I should have CJ master are the Articles of Faith.  We belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and the Articles of Faith are 13 passages that outline our beliefs.  Today CJ passed off his first memorization: "We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost."  I was impressed that EMan (just days from being 3 years old) has also memorized it right along with his brother. 

 On Mondays we have more time to work on specific lessons together since we don't generally have anything scheduled that we need to get to.  Today was the first day that we were able to work in our Math-U-See Primer book.  A good friend of ours got it for CJ for his birthday and through our conversations realized that it couldn't wait until January of 2014 so she gave it to him early.  He cruised through the first 3 lessons all about recognizing the sets and numerals 0-9.  Math-U-See has a DVD portion (generally just a few minutes long) that you watch at the beginning of each lesson.  Then there is a workbook that you practice activities in.  They also sell special Math-U-See blocks.  We don't own any of the blocks but do have a huge tub of unifix cubes that may become our math blocks stand in.

Library Visits and a Start of Narration

We stopped at the library yesterday to start getting acquainted with what was there.  CJ was very excited to pull different books off the shelf and look through them.  He asked me to read a number of different passages in nonfiction text that was interesting to him.  One of the reasons that we stopped there was because CJ will be having a community drama class there every week and I know from experience that if I expose him to a new surrounding before he has to participate in anything he does much better.  Plus, making a visit to the library every week seems like the right thing to do as a homeschooling family. 

One of the lessons that we'll be working on all school year is narration.  It's the idea of reading a text once and being able to retell the story in your own words with some quotes from the text and oodles of details.  CJ really struggles with this so we're working on short stories first.  I hope that this will also help him be able to tell us about his day with more detail.  Today we narrated Pete the Cat and CJ was so funny in his narration.  He even sang a bit of the song from the book to me.  Narration comes from the Charlotte Mason approach to education.  I tend to read many different ideas and books throughout the summer, pick and choose what I like from each of them, and try to apply them throughout the school year.  The chance of me reading another philosophy book until next summer is really slim to none, how about you?