Week Four -- Senses and Symphonies

 This week we focused on the 5 senses. Our experiment consisted of some serious science-ing with a grahamfuls cracker. 

Sadly, our grahamful didn't offer up anything good for the 'hearing' section of our paper, though Little Bug was convinced if you listened extra hard you could hear it whispering ;)

The poor kiddo is probably sick to death of doing

a daily handwriting sheet. When he counted out how many more letter sheets we have until we finish the alphabet he was ecstatic. I'm waiting until next week to burst his bubble and inform him that we'll be moving on to handwriting sheets with several sentences.

 

 I'm going to have to stop letting him help me pick out his journal prompts too, as I'm seeing he just chooses whichever one is shortest. Devious lil child. He gets that from his dad.

Our character development for the week was on finding purpose and our verse was Proverbs 19:21. Little Bug made a picture of something God had made him good at.

We started our music lessons with Mrs. Heather this week! Focusing on our Term 1 composer, Haydn, Cole learned about the Surprise Symphony and the terms to describe the volume in music, piano through forte. I don't think anyone was surprised that Cole excels at not only identifying, but also demonstrating the forte level.









While I plan to get him back out to the shore to view and sketch the ocean now that it's cloudy and stormy more frequently, we kicked it in the kitchen and made a jello aquarium with fish as part of our nature study that you can read more about here.









We made some great strides in our reading and spelling lessons with Mrs. R. Now when he reads he sounds out the words he doesn't know so well. And his spelling is getting great. So great that I have to make sure I put my laptop away when I leave the room or otherwise he'll go to my friends' pages to work on spelling out some of his favorite words on their wall, in a message, and even commenting on their status. Words such as pooooooop. (Oh I wish I were kidding.)

We ended the week by cashing in our behavior stars for a trip to the bowling alley.   

The Jello Aquarium That Looked Super Cool and Tasted Pretty Bad

So I figured we could just use some blue Hawaiian Punch to get the right color of Ocean Water. 

We made it according to the jello instructions . . .

and it looked to be just right.

















I waited a few minutes too long to slip in the Swedish Fish and ended up crumbling some of the top layer of jello.

Y'all, Blue Hawaiian fruit punch might be a tasty lil drink. But as a jello it was disgusting. A mix of elmer's glue (not that I've ever eaten paste . . .) and those really stout striped mints you used to find in your Grandma's candy dish. Luckily, Little Bug was just after the Swedish Fish anyway and was perfectly content to toss the rest out.

             

Week Three -- Fishing for Nouns and Singing About Snails

If there were any doubt that Schoolhouse Rock could stand the test of time, this noun song proved it (at least it did in our household). We've viewed it at least ten times and he's still asking to watch it again. (This, and song about interjections because a boy gets a shot in the rump and Little Bug found it vastly amusing.)

So with the noun introduction out of the way, we moved on to some real work. Liiiiike going jellyfishing with spongebob for nouns. Each jellyfish had a word. If it was a noun, it went in our "net".

Okay. Then we really did do some work throughout the rest of the week with nouns. 

We started our section on subtraction in math.

 Little Bug also started his reading and spelling lessons with Mrs. R. The lessons are fast-paced, but stretch that short attention he has which is great.

We built our own ocean model based off this tutorial to learn about ocean zones. There's more about that project here.  

 And for our character development this week, we followed this lesson from meaningful mama on patience. He especially liked the snail song.

And of course we made sure we had plenty of time to play.

                        

The Ocean Zones

While walking the shore line is fun, we needed to acquainted with the critters that live a bit further out than we could explore. So we started off by reading some from Ocean Habitats (both of us getting a little case of the wiggins when they showed pictures of the weird looking fish that live in the deeper waters.)

 

For each zone, we cut a strip of cardstock and added stickers of the animals that live there.

 Then we glued the strips in order on the back of an empty, clear container. 

Then all we needed was some "ocean water" and a good shake.

Week Two -- Telling Time, The Number Line, and Things That Rhyme

This kid is a whiz with the digital clock. Don't ever tell him "Just a minute!" because exactly 60 seconds later you'll be reminded of your promise. The analog clock on the other hand is a bit trickier.
We started off making our own paper clock to use as we talked about the hour hand and minute hand. Then we played the computer game Stop the Clock (which he LOVED) for a bit, focusing only on hours and half hours. Finally, we added some sticker numbers (only at 15, 30, 45, and o'clock for now) to a cheap wall clock so he can practice throughout the day.

Poetry might be his least favorite thing each day. Some poems are super short. Some are quite long.While I gently prod him into thinking about what the poem is dealing with, we also somehow ended up talking about stanzas, rhythm, and rhyming words. He might not be a fan of poetry, but he adores music. So like a good momma, I pulled out the iTouch and played his favorite Blue October song Jump Rope and we tapped our feet to the rhythm and clapped for everyone word that rhymed. Then we listened to it four more times in a row because life is far too boring without the occasional impromptu dance party. (No there are no pictures of this.)

You know what's hard? Teaching your kids why it's important to be obedient without beating them down in the process. And since a lot of it boils down to trust,  I pulled a sorority hazing 101 and blindfolded my kiddo in hopes that if he let me lead him around the house without running him into walls, he'd see that mom and dad would never lead ask or tell him to do something not in his best interest. There was a much bigger and more eloquently worded discussion than this little summary, I swear ;)

Our artist for the Term is John Singleton Copley. I had Cole reproduce a painting of his choice and, naturally, he chose Young Lady with a Bird and Dog because there was a dog and the dog somewhat resembled a dalmatian (only in colors lol) In his recreation he decided to add himself and his own dog ;)

We had some fun with our Legos, Plants vs. Zombies, and our Months of the Year cards.

  We used our trains and one of the train sheds with our math lesson as we learned about the number line.

We made some awesome sea glass candy that you can read more about here.

And we started a new book--a classic that he's absolutely loving! 

He traded in his five star stickers for good behavior on a happy meal and an ice cream sundae ;)

The Good Deeds Book

 

Because he needs many reminders of how to behave, we want to praise him plenty for when he does. Each time we catch him being good, friendly, or responsible, we jot it down and every night before a bedtime story we read it to him. It's just a simple Moleskin Cahier notebook with some scrapbook paper and the old standby Sharpie.

Sea Glass Candy

Disclaimer: there is nothing (not a single itsy bitsy tiny bit) healthy in this post. High fructose corn syrup? Artificial flavorings and dyes? Sugar? Yup. This has 'em all. You've been warned ;)

First, we read this and looked at the pretty pictures. (C'mon. I had to add something educational into this or it'd just be me and the kid making a sugary treat in the kitchen. Once again. Something we do far too often.) It only took a minute and then we were on to our project.

Ingredients? Check.

Adorable Sous-Chef? Check.

Bring all the gooey ingredients to a boil. (I finally had an excuse to buy a candy thermometer.)

Remember to check the temperature frequently or the mixture will burn.

And while it might look like real brown sea glass (even though you dyed it blue) it will taste disgusting.

Then you're forced to go back to the store to buy more sugar and do it all over again.

Never fear. You can take that frustration out on your sheet of candy when you get to use your mallet to shatter it into chunks :)  (Ignore my gross looking pan. I didn't want to use a good one if the candy somehow decided it didn't want to separate.)

All your toil will be worth it in the end because you'll have some yummy candy that looks like the real deal.

Which forces you to explain to the little one why it's imperative not to mix the candy and our real sea glass up. Dental work is no joking matter in this house.

We used the recipe found here.

Tide Pools At Low Tide

"What is that smell?!" was the first thing out of Little Bug's mouth when the small pine forest opened up to the very same stretch of shore we'd visited only days before. 

It took a little nudging to get him to edge out further to the actual tide pools. 

But in true child fashion, a few slimy, muddy discoveries and he forgot all about the smell.

Skeleton Shrimp darted around the small pools.

We found a few cone shells--something that we don't run across that often here.

These round green sponges? were everywhere.

Dad spotted two crabs crawling around this rock.