Our Monday and a book list....

Wow I am so excited. We have only just finished one day for the week. The key word there is finished. Oh we have been stuggling with that. I had a great talk with Sam about trying to get his work done and that he should try to challenge himself more. So far so good. Things worked so well that I thought that I would share some pictures with you guys. Of course I will finish off the book list for you.
Since we are studying China right now we decided to figure out how many times we would go around our building to equal the distance of the Great Wall. Any one curious. A whopping 51,295.29 times around.

Of course Gabe managed to have some other fun. I mean it is not a good day until you get to puddle jump. Then of course he discovered his reflection in the darker cars. That was a lot of fun for him.
The boys each did a File Folder Game for math. They had a great time with that. Then they used their Kapla blocks and Legos to build a Great Wall of China.
Sam got his entry done for his blog. Make sure to check it out over here.
When Daddy got home he pitched in and helped finish up thing. He worked on the dressing frames with Gabe. Then finished up on watching a Bill Nye video. A very great day.
Time for the book list portion. Just a couple but their goodies. So here you go.

The Wild Wombat by Udo Weigelt. This was such a cute story. It was alot like the telephone Game for animals. You have to read to see what all the animals were thinking this Wild Wombat was like. A huge hit with the boys.
The Matzo Ball Boy by Lisa Shulman A very cute twist on the gingerbread man story. It is a Jewish version. Really cute.
Kissing Coyotes by Marcia Vaughan If you have a story telling kid like we do, this is a story that you might want to check out. Basically the Jack Rabbit tells so many stories about what he can do. Such Tall tales that is, finally everyone gets sick of it and says prove it. Just check out what happens.

Hope that everyone enjoys these selections. Happy Reading.

Fuzzy Caterpillars

This weeks theme over at unplug your kids was Fruit. When I heard this I thought about doing this project. Then I noticed that it can take days to dry and I just did not have that kind of time. So I decided to make "Fuzzy Caterpillars". I found this in a cookbook awhile back. I just do not remember which one or I would tell you. Sorry.
The ingredients that you need are Bananas, peanut butter, coconut, and raisins.
Step one: Peel and cut the banana in half.

Step 2: Cover the banana in peanut butter. The boys found this step easier to just use their hands. Gets messy but a really yummy mess.
Step 3: Then cover the peanut butter in coconut (thats the fuzzy part)
Step 4: Add some raisins for eyes.
Gabe made his into fuzzy little race cars. At least that is what he says it is.
Sam added on extra raisins for the legs. So go eat some caterpillars. Make sure to check back next week for a new project. Until then check over here and see what everyone else is doing.

Lesson Plans....

Ok time for the new lesson plans. I hope that you are enjoying reading them. Everything is still going good. The only thing of course is that we are still a little behind on things. What can I say it is our life story. Hopefully I can keep us on better track this month. I know that it is not neccesarily a big deal to not complete everything on a day. I just do not want the boys to think that this is always acceptable.


Week of September 29th to October 5th


September 29th - Monday


Sam

Geography- Great wall of China Activity
Math- Monkey Business FFG
Life Skills - Dressing Boards
Art and Music - Build Great Wall out of Kapla Blocks
English - Blog Entry
Science - Bill Nye Video - Amphibians


Gabe

Life Skills-Dressing Boards
Sensory - Bath
Art and Music - Build Great Wall out of Kapla Blocks
Math - "Lucky Adding Machine" FFG
English - Letter Book- D page
Science - Bill Nye Video - Invertebrates


September 30th - Tuesday


Sam

Gym - Action Blocks
Life Skills - Sewing, Travel Pillow
Science - Exploring Life #1-6
Math - Build and Learn Geometry Kit
English - Grammer Worksheets
Geography - Chinese Providences (How many does the Great Wall go through, name them)

Gabe

Life Skills - Sewing / Lacing Cards
Gym - Action Blocks
Sensory - Ball Pit
Geography - Continent Cards/ Globe
English - Read and Roll dice Game
Math - Tangram animal FFG

October 1st - Wednesday

Sam

Art and Music - Decorate Front Window for Halloween
Life Skills - Laundry
History - US History Worksheets
English - Scrabble

Gabe

Life Skills - Laundry
Sensory - Bubbles
Art and Music - decorate front window for Halloween
History - Months
English - Scrabble Jr.

October 2 - Thursday

Sam

Geography- Globe Time
Gym - Wii System/sports
Life Skills - Manners
English - Speech Hockey
Math - Worksheets

Gabe

Life Skills - Manners
Gym - Wii System /sports
Sensory - Bath
Math - Worksheets
English - Writing Sheets

October 3rd - Friday

Sam

Art and Music - Unplug your Kids
Life Skills - Baking (Fortune Cookies)
History - US History Sheets
Math - Fractions ( Baking )
Science - Review Books / Videos from Library
English - Story writing (1 pg) world adventure

Gabe

Life Skills - Baking ( Fortune Cookies )
Art and Music - Unplug your Kids
Sensory - Clay
English - Story Reader
Science - Undertanding How Animals...1-5
Math - Time Telling worksheets

The Weekend
October 4th and 5th

Sam

Math- Monopoly
Life Skills - Laundry

Gabe

Math - Monopoly Jr.
Life Skills - Laundry

Field Trip - Zoo

Just a reminder note to add in. The boys are in the 3rd grade and Kindergarten, so that is what these plans are for.

Our Week

Wow this is my 400th post. I never thought that I would have this much to say. Oh ok I never thought people would tune in this long, I always knew I had enough to say. LOL. Here are some shots from the week. This week went a bit better than last week, but we still did come into the weekend a little behind. Not as much though, so that is good right.
It was such a beautiful day out the other day that I had the boys move art class outside. I supplied them with canvas and oil pastels. They were to look at our pool area and draw what they saw.
This was Gabe's Picture of the pool.
He also decided to do one of some trees. I really like this one.
Here is Sam's picture of the pool. I think that he did such a good job. He spent so much time trying to get all of the details just right. The picture below is of the pool area what do you think of his job? Pretty Good right!

They also made a dragon boat this week. The top photo is the side that Sam did. The bottom one is the side that Gabe did. See Kate we used the orange tissue paper. Thanks.

Here is Sam's puppet that he made. It turned out really cute. He is loving learning how to sew. He can not wait to learn how to use the sewing machine. He is growing up so fast.

Our final shot is of the count by 10 hockey. I took a bunch of old butter containers and cut out a section to make it sit flat. Then I wrote numbers on the inside of the container. I cut out slots on the top so that you could still read the numbers. Then we got a hockey stick. I bought that at the dollar store so the whole project only cost 1 dollar. Pretty good right. Then I would say things to Gabe what comes in between 30 and 50. He would find 40 and try to hit the ball in. By the end he could count all the way to 100 by 10s. It was really fun. Sam actually wants us to make one for him now. I am thinking parts of speech. (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) Write those on the bottom. Then show cards with words on it and he would have to hit it into the right section. What do you think?

Fact List Time.....

Ready for some more fun facts. This week we have lions and Kangaroos. The Lions.....

1.) Lions are the only truly social cat species, and usually every female in a pride of 5-37 individuals is closely related.

2.) An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away and warns off intruders or reunites scattered pride members.

3.) Although only one out of four hunting events is successful, dominant males always eat first, lionesses next, and cubs scramble for scraps and leftovers.

4.) Most lions drink water daily if available, but can go four or five days without it. Lions in arid areas seem to obtain needed moisture from the stomach contents of their prey.

5.) When males take over a pride, they usually kill the cubs. The females come into estrus and the new males sire other cubs.

6.) Tigers are lions' closest relatives. Without their coats, lion and tiger bodies are so similar that only experts can tell them apart.

7.) A male coalition rarely holds onto a pride longer than two to three years before being run off by fierce challengers.

8.) For short distances lions can reach speeds of 50 miles per hour.

9.) Longest Leap for a lion is 36 feet.

10.) Lions once ranged over vast areas on many continents. Fossil evidence shows that until about 10,000 years ago, lions lived throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and into Asia as far as southern India and the island of Sri Lanka. They also lived in North America and northern South America. Since then, however, the lion's range has been shrinking steadily.

The Kangaroos......

1.) A male kangaroo is called a buck. It is also commonly called a "boomer" or an "old man". A female kangaroo is called a doe, or a flyer. A baby kangaroo is called a joey.

2.) All kangaroos have a chambered stomach similar to cattle and sheep. They regurgitate the vegetation they have eaten, chew it as cud, and then swallow it again for final digestion.

3.) They cannot move backwards.

4.) Odd kangaroo fact: on land kangaroos can't move their hind legs independently, only together. But when they are swimming (they are good swimmers) they kick each leg independently.

5.) When kangaroos (after a joey has left the pouch) give birth again, one of their teats will continue to produce a high carbohydrate milk for the older joey. The new baby will attach itself to another teat that produces a different kind of milk with a higher fat content.

6.) It's an urban myth that the name kangaroo is the result of a misunderstanding, and developed from an Aboriginal word meaning "I don't know", or "I don't understand".

7.) There are more kangaroos in Australia than humans. This is mostly due to the clearing of bushlands for pasture and increased availability of surface water since European settlement.

8.) There are 47 varieties of kangaroo, ranging in size from the two-pound rock wallaby to the 6-foot, 300-pound red kangaroo.

9.) Kangaroos can go months without drinking, and when they do need water, will dig their own water wells to find it .

10.) There are more than 50 different kinds of kangaroos.

Ok that is it for this week. Make sure to check in next week for Llamas and Rabbits. (Dh's choice)

A Book list with a project.....

Time for a book list again. I shared this picture of Gabe because doesn't he make you want to curl up with him. I am so proud of him on his reading. When he is "reading" on his own. He actually looks at the pictures and matches up the story all on his own. We are working on his reading to with some starter level books. He is loving them. When we read together during the day on one of them, He gets so excited and runs to his daddy and tells him (jumping up and down) I just read.
We are so proud of our little reader. He is starting to go in the foot steps of his older brother and he could not be happier about it.
The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord....... If your whole town ever gets invaded by million wasps you might want to pick up this book. It was a very cute story. The boys loved it. Gabe's Favorite part was how they caught the wasp. I will give you a hint, It involves a giant sandwich. You Can Do Anything Daddy! by Michael Rex. Such a cute story for any little kid who has a hero worship of their dad (as my boys do). Just an overall cute story. Check it out.

Top Secret by Ted Dewan..... This was one of the favorites. The night brigade goes on secret missions that can get very dangerous. They will let you know the secret if you promise not ever to tell anyone. Just a little side message though, if you have a child that is about loose a tooth you might want to read it before they do.
The Very Greedy Bee by Steve Smallman. A very bright colorful book that teaches the kids a good lesson at the same time. If you have a child that is in the mine phase. A good one to check out.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Ted Dewan... Do you ever want to make a robot to help out with the cleaning so you can just work on what ever you want. Well be careful on what you wish for in this magical story.
Ok now I wanted to share a craft with everyone that I did. I had a lot of fun the other day playing Phonics Go Fish so I decided that I wanted to try something else fun. I based my new project on Chick Chicka Boom Boom. I thought that I would make a phonics style of it. I made a tree out of paper and taped it to a magnetic board. Then I took clipart and printed it on cardstock. I put magnets on the back of them so that he can move it up and down the tree. Like in the story. He loves it. A fun and easy project to do.

Happy Reading!!!

Unplug your kids Project

The theme this week for unplug your kids project was....Hard. I have to admit that the week kind of got away from me with out thinking about it. That is until this weekend when I was making supper and Gabe asked if he could build a dam. I thought great Dams are hard right, Even though he built them out of pillows.

Well Dh looked at the pillows and wanted to lay on it. He told Gabe that he was an official dam inspector and had to test it to make sure it was strong enough. He said it was a HARD job but someone had to do it. See there is that hard theme again.
Well the kids thought that being Dam inspectors was a wonderful idea and had try it out for them self.
The HARD part for me was getting them to clean up all of the pillows when they were done. LOL. Well make sure to check in again and see next weeks project. Until then check over here and see everyone else's project.

Lesson Plans....

Here are our lesson plans for the upcoming week. So far things have been good. The only issue that we have had is not finishing the days work on time. Everything does get finished by the end of the week though. Please tell me if you think that maybe there is to much here to handle for them. I am curious to hear what people think. I personally do not think that there is but I also question if I am right or not. I think that it would be helpful to hear what other people opinions are on this. Just for reference Sam is in the third grade and Gabe is in Kindergarten.

Week of September 22 - September 28

Monday, September 22

Sam
Geography- Land Form Cards
Math- Online Math (3rd grade skills/add and sub.)
Life Skills - Tong Transfer
Art and Music - Create a dragon Boat
English- blog entry (science museum)
Science - Classifying Plants #1-5

Gabe
Life Skills - Tong Transfer
Art and Music - Create a Dragon Boat
Sensory - Bath
Math - Online Math (Kindergarten Grade Skills)
English - Letter Book ( C pages)
Science - About Plants

Tuesday, September 23

Sam
Gym - Wii system, Sports Game
Life Skills - Sewing, Puppet (also some cooking. It is my birthday so he wants to make me supper. yummy)
Science - Ocean atlas pages 16 to 21
Math - Find area of Shapes
English - Homophone Cards
Geography - Worksheets

Gabe
Life Skills - Sewing, Puppets (cooking)
Gym - Wii system, sports
Sensory - Rock Bin
Geography - Continent Cards and Globe
English - Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Phonics Style)
Math - Worksheets

Wednesday, September 24

Sam
Art and Music- recreate a Henry Matisse painting
Life Skills - Laundry
History - China Trivia / China Clue
English - Dictionary Spelling (He has a note book full of words that he has had to get help to spell)

Gabe
Life Skills - Laundry
Art and Music - Recreate a Henry Matisse Painting
Sensory - Bubbles
History - Holidays
English - Bug Hunt of Sight Words

Thursday, September 25

Sam
Geography- Land Form Cards
Gym - Hullabaloo
Life Skills - Manners
English - Autumn Actions FFG
Math - Worksheets

Gabe
Life Skills - Manners
Gym - Hullabaloo
Math - Hockey (count by 10s)
Sensory - Bath
English - Paractice Writing Sheets

Friday, September 26

Sam
Art and Music - Unplug your kids project
History - Holiday Question Sheet
Life Skills - Baking (Pretzels)
Math - Fractions (Baking)
Science - Classifying plants Worksheets
English - Story Writing, 1 page Mao Zedong

Gabe
Life Skills - Baking (Pretzels)
Art and Music - Unplug your Kids
Sensory - Clay
English - Story Reading
Science - About plants
Math - Time Telling

Saturday and Sunday, September 27 and 28th

Sam
Math - Monopoly
Science - Mounts Botanical Garden
Life Skills - Laundry

Gabe
Math - Monopoly Jr
Science - Mounts Botanical Garden
Life Skills - Laundry

Optimism......

Well that is at least what my husband said about me after our schooling this week. See we started out with our new lesson plans 2 weeks ago. The first week I do not think we actually accomplished one single day and had to finish everything over the weekend. This past week though all of Monday was completed on Monday, pretty cool. Of course the other days were not completly finished so we will do catch up this weekend. I told DH though that it was ok, as long as we improve each week. Like next week finish Monday and Tuesday on time. (More days is always better though) The important thing is that the boys are happy and they are doing really well. All school work is finished by the end of the week and does not carry over. Now on to the pictures of the week. (Sorry there is a lot ;))
One day I found Gabe laying on the couch looking through a magazine. Was it the new Toy Magazine, Nope. It was this one. I guess he is really enjoying school, he was asking for everything in the magazine. LOL
The kids got a bubble mania session in this week. They have so much fun with this.
I played Phonics Go Fish with Gabe. It was an idea that I got from this book. I looked at the clip art on the computer and found images (A is for apple and alligator). Then to play the game it is just like regular go fish but instead you ask thing like do you have something that starts with the same sound as apple. It was really fun.
Our Cable company recently made over their on demand channel and added new things to it. One of the things that they added was a fitness show for kids. The boys wanted to try it oout for gym class one day. In this picture Sam is supposed to be lying on his back and raising his legs in the air to get his brothers hands. They were so funny. The coordination was not reallty there yet.
Oh my little guy, always trying for a laugh. This time he was trying to avoid the school work. He was curious if his tongue looked like a hot dog bun. Ohh sometimes I just do not know what to do with this kid. I told him he is one dangerous kid. He asked me why. I told him because he is to cute. He definetly makes life interesting. LOL

The boys did some planting with their dad this week. The planted sunflower seeds in a glass jar so that they could see the roots grow. They are working on non-living vs. living in science right now.
For our China Art this week, they worked on designing china clothing. They designed a dragon robe. (Sorry I keep forgetting to take finished pictures) Here are some of the steps though. First cut ot a Robe shape form cardstock and paint it up. Then the boys did not want to hand draw a dragon so I printed one for them to color and put on their robe. Also not shown was the step of making a design all over the back of the robe. It looks really neat when done.

Gabe had some sensory time in his rice bin this week. He loves that so much. By the end he is in the bin filling his clothes with rice.

This picture was from last week but I did want to share a finished product picture with you. It is Sam's finished fish pillow. He made it all by him self. I think that it turned out so good.
One of Gabes math lessons this week was Bean Bag Add. I made out some targets (old butter container lids), numbered them 1 thru 10. Gave him 2 bean bags to throw. The numbers that it landed on he had to add. If it only landed on one then he added it together (like 1 + 1). I even set up a spot to us his quidgets to help him add them up.

Of course we had lots of reading time around here to. One of the boys favorite activities to do. They find it so much fun.
One of the lessons this week was to practice folding. As you can see Gabe did not really care for it to much. It was a little tiring to him.

Well that was some of our week. I hope that you enjoyed it.