Frogs!!

We decided to start the frog study off with a bang. It was a beautiful day to head to the neighbor's pond and attempt at collecting tadpoles and frogs to observe this week as we study the letter F, the number 6, and a cute little song about tadpoles that eventually learn to hop. Within 5 minutes, the children had 2 small terrariums filled with big, fat tadpoles and 3 teeny frogs. Good fun.
Today we worked together and made our favorite homemade play dough in the colors of green and brown. Elijah took the cake with his replica of the frog life cycle. When he saw the picture, he admitted that he forgot to add the last frog. Still a superb job.
It has been so wonderful to have God provide so much of what we have needed in order to have great mini unit studies each week.
Ribbit for now.

Eyes in a mirror

To wrap up our study of the eyes this week the kids all drew their own eyes by looking in a mirror. Dante drew crazy, shifty eyes...surprise. Elijah drew beautiful blue eyes. Isabella drew green eyes and Justus got frustrated and didn't participate. I have been feeling rather artsy the past few weeks, so I sketched an eye that I found on the computer. Next week we start a great week learning about frogs. For now I say that I am so glad it is Friday and have no major planning to do this weekend.

EYES!!

This week we start a week long study of our eyes. We are focusing on the letter E, the shape of an oval, and the number 5. We are learning the song Head and Shoulders, Knees, and toes. The children had a blast being blind folded for a fun game of pin the eyes on the head. Even Cheyanne said, "I do it, too. Take my picture, mommy."

The letter D

Little hands time this week will include learning the letter d, the number 4, the vocabulary work "duckling", and the color dandelion. We read "Make Way for Ducklings" yesterday which is a fabulous book, where Mr. and Mrs. Mallard do manage to find a fine home for their ducklings in the pond in Central Park. The children swam around the living room (pond) while big brother ripped up and threw little pieces of bread to them. If we have time this week, we will squeeze in a few more fun activities and art projects. They all enjoyed abstract painting with chicken feathers. Messy, but fun.

3 Ships!

We read a very interesting section on Columbus' ships and the boys made model ships from water bottles, meat trays, clay, and skewers. Dante had carved his ship from Balsam wood last year and wanted me to include a picture of it.

Meow!

We will be studying Cats, the letter C, the number 3, and the shape of a diamond for our Little Hands time this week. Today we started off by introducing a few things that cats like to do. We all decided that they sure do like to play with yarn. The children took balls of yarn and chased them around the living room. I betcha couldn't guess who had the most fun...again!



We have also introduced our Art time as Sketch Thursday. Each week the children are sketching a piece of art with the theme assigned at www.harmonyartmom.blogspot.com. We submit their drawings and they are included in a weekly slide show along with other children's submissions. Here is a link to this past weeks show where the boys' work is featured. http://www.flickr.com/photos/handbookofnaturestudy/sets/72157624750430664/ They are loving seeing their pictures pop up each week. This week we are making sure to put our names nice and big so that they are easy to spot.

Ships Ahoy!

We started following the Beautiful Feet Early American History reading list last year. We just finished learning about Vikings and Leif the Lucky. We are moving on and studying Christopher Columbus. I found a super little unit study on www.justmommies.com that I pulled some hands on activities from. We will be using "Columbus" by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire as our core book. Please stayed tuned for photos of our completed projects.

For Little Hands time this week, I will be introducing the JUNGLE, the letter B, the number 1, and the color green. We have a few fun projects to do, too. Twizzlers make yummy jungle vines, which is our vocabulary word this week.

MOO!

After a very busy summer of packing up a family of 8 and moving about 30 miles south, we are back in full swing. The children just seem to really thrive once we start with a routine that involves brain stimulation.
I have starting using a free online program called Letter of the week with the littler children and they are ALL really enjoying. We have been studying cows, the letter A, the number 1, and squares this week. We have read some wonderful books, including The Cow Who Wouldn't Come Down and Blossom Comes Home. There have been multiple crafts and hands on activities that we have enjoyed. Letter of the week is a super resource for those with younger children, trying to add a bit of structure, but still have fun. They offer a great list of recommended resources to go along with each theme and links to add lots of extras if you have the time. You can check it out at www.letteroftheweek.com
When I mentioned that all of the children were enjoying the program, I did mean all. That would be my 12 year old hiding behind his invention of a cow he named "Da Bull." Yesterday the children made shapes and letters out of cookie dough. We baked them and they watched a movie from the book called Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that Type.