It’s almost a new school year around here! We school year-round, but most new stuff happens in the fall, especially with the classes I’m teaching now. So before we start things back up, we’re doing some review.
The Engineer is doing better with reading, but practice practice practice is key! Plus the Princess is a brand new Kindergartener this year and needs to start doing more school stuff.
Enter: CVC/CVCC/CCVC practice with letter tiles
The kids and I worked on a craft for our abandoned art project today, so I thought I would share it. It’s simple and beautiful! Even little kids can do this one if you help cut out the feathers and tie the ribbons. Mother’s Day/Father’s Day is coming up too. ::wink wink::
Boy did this project take over my life! Here are the very basic, scattered instructions on how to make a DIY puppet theatre.
Whew! I finally got enough of this finished to finally post it. I’ll add more as we find things, but it’s fairly well-rounded for now.
The Engineer has been fascinated with carnivorous plants. He wanted to learn more and more about them, and the resources we could find were very limited. So, as I always end up doing: I made our own.
Oof! This worked – but didn’t work. I’m not on a good streak of science experiments here!
We tried to grow sugar crystals on skewers – rock candy. The crystals grew just fine – but not on the skewer. The sides, the base, the top. Never the skewer. Not sure why, but we’ll try again next time!
Every so often we do a refresher of the solar system. The Engineer knows the names of the planets, of course, and he’s working on various moons (unprompted, by the way!) I get Callisto and Io mixed up, but he’s pretty good about it.
It’s spring. That time of the year when nature invades our house and yard. Most of it’s pretty cool – after all, having a duck nest next to your front steps is just amazingly educational.
But this…. this is not cool.
I was putting the dishes up and had a mad, crazy idea. 3 minutes later, voila! Science experiment!
It didn’t quite go the way I thought it would, but hey, that’s science. We’ll try again later.
1/2″ salamander nymph
Meet our newest pets, mommy responsibility, school project: salamanders.
We went hunting for frog spawn. We found gobs of jelly with dots in the creek, and brought home one blob to hatch and raise.
Around here, Easter is like Christmas – it’s a month-long deal (or more!) of egg hunts. And sneaky homeschooling momma that I am, I came up with a great educational idea for this.
We went to the Dollar Tree store a few months back looking for cheap Valentine’s critters for the Princess’ Valentine cards. We found them – and found a lot of other school stuff.
Surprisingly, Dollar Tree carries a great selection of teaching supplies and random educational stuff. It’s like a treasure hunt – we find different things every time we go: from plastic test tubes with stands, to magnifying sheets. From double stick tape to this: a pre-printed 3D shape.
I saw this idea on Facebook or Pinterest somewhere and decided to try it – the Dollar store version! I’m realistic – this is a plastic bag filled with goop that I’m giving my kids – I know it won’t last long. Cheap is great.
Tips, Tricks, & Ideas From Homeschooling2e 