Learning through art...

The boys are doing a lot of art based projects to learn with.  Here are just a few from the past week.

This is Sam's Science lesson.  Other than learning about animals we are working on learning health/body science.  Inspired by an idea I saw on pinterest he drew out the digestive track and how a certain type of food would effect the body when it went through.  He has an obsession with New Zealand so he choose the kiwi as his food.  All the white spots are flaps that tell how it will effect that part of the body.

They even had art projects this week.  This is the scribble art lesson from the 52 art lab book that I got from the library.  Gabe's is on the top it is his favorite animal, the orangutan.  Sam's is on the bottom.  I was really impressed with the pops of color he put in, very unlike him to let go like that.  His is the Scottish terrier.

A final project that I had them do was to make a tourism poster for the New Zealand study.  Sam's is on the top and Gabe's is on the bottom.  I thought that they were both good but needed a little more so I am going to have them do it again soon.

A new start.....

I have been so busy and burning out quickly with everything going on in life I knew that something had to change.  I started looking back at the older entries and realized how much fun we use to have.  They activities were creative and playful.  It was time to get back to that.  I needed to get back to blogging because I would only want to post fun things so school will have to be fun.  Right?  It has to be right, makes sense to me.  We started back to school today so time to start testing that theory.

It started out kind of slow.  Each boy worked on learning about animal habitats.  Sam was assigned to design habitats for three different animals.  He needed to make sure that it had everything that the animal would need to survive.  For Gabe I found an adorable set on Teachers pay Teachers called Habitat for Sale.  It had some really great worksheets plus an adorable memory game.

I played the memory game with Gabe.  He was so excited to have gotten the first match against me.  Unfortunately his luck did not last and I beat him pretty bad at the game.  Look at how cute those cards were though.

I got time in with Gabe reading today.  Favorite thing of mine is snuggling with him while he reads.  I also wanted to make sure and share Sam's drawings with you. 

The Giraffe habitat

The Alligator habitat

The Green Tree Frog Habitat

So Check back to see what else we are doing.  The boys are looking forward to the rest of the fun we have scheduled.  Here is to a better School year then we have had in a long time.

Science with Dad

Rob is a very hands on father.  With his schedule though it is diffuclt to be there for all of it, when he is though he makes sure it counts.  Recently the kids got a treat that dad helped them with some school work.  He helped Sam with some science lessons on water pressure.

The first part was to fill a container with water and put one hole in it to see how far the pressure made the water come out.

The second part was to take another container and put three holes in it to see if the pressure would make a difference on any of the holes.

They were checking the distance here. (a yard stick was laying on the ground so they could see the difference in lengths)

Well Gabe could not stay away any longer.  He wanted in on his brothers science (LOVES water).

Well dad made sure he was included.  Gabe loved this by the way he kept saying "again again" 

So that is what happens when all three of my guys get together and do some science.

Things have been so crazy around here that unfortunetly I have not been getting to the blog. We have been having so much fun though that I have a bunch of pictures to show everyone. We had a day of kitchen science and the kids absolutly loved it. Look at the concentration on Sam's face. That is just so cute.
Gabe decided to rub some of the ingedients on his hand and it started fizzing up (I know that is kind of hard to tell but that is what the picture is.) He thought that was the coolest thing. Oh and you love the washer/dryer in my living room. To funny. Our closet that it is in needs to be fixed so we have it sitting there for now. I have tried to make it less of an eye sore by letting the kids put their magnets on it. The side is covered with paintings from Gabe. Very pretty. LOL
The Other day I was just not up for school and neither were the kids, So I cancelled it. We had a stay in your pajamas all day and play day. They loved it. We played games, watched shows, and read books. It was a really nice day, so peaceful, lots of laughing. I love this next picture because the kids tried teaming up against me on the game of Sequence for Kids. They wanted to beat me so bad it was funny. It was split on how many times we won with Gabe winning all. He traded teams each round. LOL
While I made lunch that day the played dominios setting up tracks to knock down. It is always so nice to see how they play together.
They even took some time to get some studying in together.
This is something that we did yesterday. I found a recipe for Kool-aid playdough here. I made some up for the boys and they had a blast with it. It kept them busy for a while so I was able to get some work done.

Gabe spent some time working on cutting. As you can see from the picture he still needs to work on it more, but we are getting there. He is at least making an attempt to hold the scissors correctly when we tell him. I try to make it fun for him by getting the project for him to cut from here then he has a toy to play with when he is done.

Sam has spent a lot of time researching about Australia. He also has wanted to learn about the Human body So he has been spending lots of time studying that to.
In his Geography lessons this week there was a lesson on how to make your own compass. He even showed his brother how to do it. It was a lot of fun.

Well This past week has been kind of emotional for Sam on animals. We were told by my grandmother that she had to put here dog Sparkie to sleep. Sam was very close to that dog so he took it very hard. Then this weekend we found this bird out side our apartment. We think that it had a broken leg because it was not moving away. Dh tried to catch it so that we could take it to a shelter to heal but when he went to grab it, the bird flew to the ground. Sam and his dad spent a while trying to catch it but unfortunetly in the end it got away. Sam of course is very worried about the poor bird. He is just so sweet sometimes.

Suddenly Gabe has gotten an obsession with my bed. Wether he plays in it or makes it he wants to be there. The top picture was when he insisted making my bed alone. I said ok and left to do something else. I heard someone help. When I went back in this is the scene I found. He said the blanket attacked him. Silly boy. Yesterday I started to clean out the Game closet and that is when he thought it would be the perfect time to play on the bed. After all what a better way to hide stuffed animals, right.
He did do some cleaning of his own this week. He gave his bath toys a bath of their own. He loves doing this.
Well that is it for now. I will try to be back this weekend to get caught up on the rest. I have to do my book list still. The boys made boomerangs today and I wanted to share pictures of that. Also I got tagged so I need to do that. So much to do so little time. Hope everyone has a great day.

I tried to get this posted yesterday for the Unplug your kids project. I was just not being allowed to post photos though. It was very frustrating. Finally this morning I was allowed to post so here it goes. I even threw in some of our science pictures from yesterday to. The theme this week was shiny. Either something that makes your kids shine or something that is shiny. We choose the thing that is shiny.
First up is Gabe. He took one of his toy dinosaurs and wrapped it in tin foil to make a sculpture. Sam said that it ended up looking like a piece of steak. Gabe was happy with it since it was not his original choice, he wanted to wrap Sam in tin foil. Silly Boy. LOL
Sam has been having a really good time with these projects. Since it is themed he has been asking if he can teach it. So I always let him and it is really neat to see what he comes up with. He starts with helping his brother and making sure that his project gets done (so sweet). Then he works on his. This week he made an alien mask. It was great. Make sure to check out the other projects over here and join in for next weeks theme...wood.
Well the human body has been of huge discussion latley in our home so we started a unit on it. This is a picture of an experiment that we did yesterday. We got it from this book. It was so easy and so fun. The experiment is to show the kids how much air is in their lungs. First you take a 2 liter bottle and fill it overflowing with water and cover it. Then you take a big bowl and fill it half way with water. Turn the bottle over in the water. and uncover it while the top is under water. Stick in a straw. Have the child blow into it. It pushes out the water to show how much air is in their lungs. You can expand on it by having different sized people do it to show how the difference in the size of lungs.
It was so much fun that everyone got in on it. Even Daddy did it with them. (I did to but thankfully no pictures of it) Have a great day and I will try to post more pictures tommorow.

We have been so busy over the past weekend that I am only now getting a chance to post about it. Wow, to start off ...Friday. On friday we had to have the exterminator in to fog the place. Since he was fogging we were not allowed to be in here for three hours. Also all of the work to prepare for it. We had to empty out all of our cupboards and cover the dishes. Thankfully Dh took the morning off and helped. So we went to the local mall to spend the three hours. We took our little flat buddy Ashlyn along with us. She had a great time playing on the playground with the kids. Here she was planning with Gabe what they should play on.

The playground is made up of giant types of foods, so she was trying to hide on the Pancakes from us. silly girl we found her. LoL . Then she decided to climb on the Pineapple rings. I love this place, it is gym and health class all in one.

We also went to the bookstore while we were there. I found these great flip books. They were World Atlas and Human Anatomy. In the picture above Sam was teaching Gabe from it. They were working on Human Anatomy. That has to be one of my favorite homeschool moments. It was so sweet.

Well I did get everything put back on Friday in the kitchen so I had to do that on Saturday. Well since I had all of the dishes out of the cupboard I decided to laminate them to help keep some of the dirt away. They needed it so bad. It looks a ton better to. Well while I was busy doing that Gabe decided to keep himself busy and play in the bathroom sink. I normally have no problem with this but he decided to put his whole head under the water.
Well in one of their rare moments they had a chance to play with daddy. Daddy was pretending that he could not stay awake and they as docotors had to figure out why. The expression on dh's face is that Sam just got him a good one on the head with the hammer. hehehehe show him for sleeping on them.
Little Gabe loves doing the Abe roller, unfortunetly he is not big enough for it. I could not resist this picture. i end up going and pulling on it for him and he loves rolling up with it.
I did a really fun and easy science project with the boys the other night. It was called waterproof. First you have a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap. Pour water on top for the kids to see that it is waterproof, of course explain why to them. Then you do the same thing with a handkerchif, show them that it is not water proof. The final step is to make the handkerchif waterproof. You let the kids color it in with a crayon. The wax fills in all of the wholes so no water gets in. It actually works to. very cool.
I hope to get the book list up in the next day or two. See you all then.

Silly Science, Puzzles, and a Book Post.......
Well yesterday I turned around to see the little guy holding his baseball bat with a big grin on his face. So of course I asked him what he planned on doing with that. He smiled back and said "My own science." So I decided to see where this was going. Evidently it was an experiement for sound.

The harder he hit the louder it was. Then that produced an even louder giggle. He was having so much fun that he decided that his brother should have some fun with it. Oh and he did! LOL!!
This morning we started out working on National Puzzle Day. For Sam I gave him this book to work on, he loved it. It is a huge math problem for him to figure out.

As soon as Gabe found out it was puzzle day he was asking for his beloved puzzle bin to be opened. He was having a great morning doing his puzzles.
Now time for the book post. I do have several on here that are for upcoming lessons so we have not read them yet, but we will soon. I am having a bit of a hard time now remembering if I have posted some of these books in the past or not. So I am sorry if I end up getting some cross post on this. I am pretty sure that they are all ok for now though. So here is list #22.....

360.) The Bus Ride That Changed History by Pamela Duncan Edwards

361.) Hey! I'm Reading! by Betty Miles

362.) Ella, Of Course! by Sarah Weeks

363.) Saint Valentine by Ann Tompert

364.) Starry Messenger by Peter Sis

365.) Curious George Goes to a Chocolate Factory by Margret And H.A. Rey's

366.) Alphabet City by Stephen Johnson

367.) The Ballad Of Valentine by Allison Jackson

368.) There's An Alligator Under My Bed by Mercer Mayer

369.) Nova's Ark by David Kirk

370.) I'm Pangoo the Penguin by Satomi Ichikawa

371.) Boom Chicka Rock by John Archambault

372.) No Biting, Louise by Margie Palatini

373.) Historical Jokes by Pam Rosenberg

374.) A Picture book of John Hancock by David Adler

375.) Stay in Bed, Davy by Brigitte Weninger

376.) Never Ride your Elephant to School by Doug Johnson

377.) Atomic Ace and the Robot Rampage by Jeff Weigel

378.) Chicken Chuck by Bill Martin Jr

379.) The John Hancock Club by Louise Borden

380.) Hello Robots by Bob Staake

381.) The Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires

382.) Chicka Chicka 1-2-3 by Bill Martin Jr

383.) So you want to be President? by Judith St. George

384.) Bear Feels Sick by Karma Wilson

I have to say that the Gingerbread Cowboy was probably my favorite on the list. It was very cute hearing Gabe say "you cant catch me I am the Gingerbread Man!" Gabes favorite on the list was Atomic Ace. He really has been into robots latley. Sam loves all of the presidental-historical books on the list. He says that they are all so good he can not decide.

I will try to post more tomorrow. Have a good day.