{finding joy in the journey...}: Nov 19-21 Recap

I worked hard to plan a fun couple of days of school this week for the kids (both "big" and "little") since it was Thanksgiving week. It's easy to get stuck in the rut of "math lesson, reading lesson, etc = school day done" and not get enough hands on time in! It has been fun watching my friend, Chelsie, begin her homeschooling journey, and she has re-inspired me to plan hands on fun, especially for my bigger kids (it's easier for me to plan preschool fun - I'm a preschool teacher in my heart).

Chelsie is a fan of STEM activities and when she shared some one day I became aware of how much Xavier loved them. All that to say, I'm trying harder!

CORE

We kept the big kids' reading workbooks in the cabinet this week and traded that time in for free reading instead. I scheduled 30 minutes on Monday, 45 minutes on Tuesday, and 60 minutes on Wednesday. The kids did read one chapter per day of Justin Morgan Had a Horse on Monday and Tuesday. We also finished listening to the Thorton Burgess book Buster Bear last week and this week we switched to his book Reddy Fox. We are really enjoying the Burgess books and often listen to them at breakfast or lunch using the free Librivox app.

Formal spelling and writing lessons were put off this week.

Instead of math lessons on the computer, Natalee and Xavier each chose 5 Thanksgiving foods and we had my Facebook friends vote on which was their favorite. They had to read and tally the votes and then organize their information into a bar graph!

Because they got so many votes, they had to decide how to mark their bar graph integers to get all the votes in.

Xavier's was counted by 2's.

Natalee's was counted by 3's so she could get up to 76 votes for noodles!

We had gotten a little off track in history so we used this week to catch up. Our reading focused on George Washington becoming our first president, the Cherokee Native Americans, and we continued our historical fiction book on Lewis and Clark.

I was very excited to find a set of five Thanksgiving STEM activities for science.

Using the inspiration from this post, the kids did Mini Mayflower, Protect-a-Pilgrim, and Pumpkin Picker on Monday and Corn Cultivator and Transport a Turkey on Tuesday.

Mini Mayflower - This challenge gave them trouble and that surprised me! They made their first vessel quite large with very heavy sails and added oars and rafts. All that weight sank it and even after several revisions they never could get her to float. They started again with a much simpler design and had success.

Protect-a-Pilgrim - They each made separate structures, Xavier's of popsicle sticks, foil, and coffee filter

and Natalee's of a paper plate and tinfoil.

Pumpkin Picker - Xavier designed a more complex device and had to make a couple of revisions to get it to work the way he desired.

Natalee made a simple tong type device.

Her's worked because she used glue and it had dried just enough to make it sticky but not enough to hold the sticks still. She and I discussed what would happen to her device after the glue was set and she didn't have a hinge arm anymore.

Corn Cultivator - the kids were less imaginative with this design but did show how their devices worked.

NON-CORE

Natalee and Xavier had art class on Monday and worked on decorating their thankful pages in their art journals. Both girls also had ballet. Natalee did not have piano lessons this week.

I planned quite a bit of art (for me!) into our short week. On Monday we made turkeys using coffee filters for the feathers (colored with washable markers and sprayed with water to blend).

On Tuesday I did a color wheel activity with the younger ones, so I planned one for the older two with a lesson in complimentary colors. They had to draw out their own wheels and also had to mix their secondary colors, because I only gave them the primary colors.

I also let the older two do the same finger painting activity that I set up for the younger ones - because we all need to finger paint now and again, right?

Natalee's projects...she wasn't into posed pictures.

Wednesday's inspiration was a fit together sponge painting activity...

Each child interpreted this differently, and I tried to keep my mind loose and let them. Some projects are about a specific outcome (i.e. color wheel) and some projects, like this one, are about the experience.

And hand turkeys....read below to see how these came about.
Xavier's...

Natalee's...

PRESCHOOL

I tried to do some "outside the norm" activities for the younger kiddos - and then on Tuesday afternoon Mia asked me if we were going to make hand turkeys. Ha. Apparently some things never get boring.

On Monday we started with Cup Turkeys. Each kiddo got a cup turkey, a dice, and a bowl of pony beads. They had to roll their dice, count how many, and add that many beads to the pipe cleaner feathers on their cup turkey. They loved this and it held their attention longer than I thought it would!

They got to do coffee filter turkeys also, so next they colored and sprayed their coffee filters.

Mia rounded out her Monday by getting in on the STEM action and sat at the little table taping popsicles together for a LONG time Monday morning. She created a raft/boat and was very pleased with herself.

AJ was with us on Tuesday so I held most of the activities until then.

The kids started with Cup Turkeys again while I set up for another activity.

Color sorting turkeys were next. I gave each child a turkey body and four feathers (green, yellow, red, blue). We assembled their turkeys and then I gave them a sheet of dot stickers and they sorted the color of dots onto the correct feather.

{googly eyes for every project!}

Then it was time to get out the paint. Working with the youngers one at a time, they painted a color wheel. We laid down our red, yellow, and blue first and then I helped them mix their paints to make orange, purple, and green!

After these dried, I cut them out, gave them 2 different colors of feathers and we patterned them. A head, more googly eyes, and legs...Voila!

I kept thinking the little ones would get weary of my activities and want to go play, but alas, they kept asking for more!

I pre-drew little turkey bodies and lightly outlined in pencil where feathers should be. We got out the sparkly paint and the plan was to use one finger to dot feathers on (grin).

"Gigi's house is for messes!"

The kids decided we needed brown to finger paint the turkey!

After they dried it was time for more googly eyes (he, he, he) to finish up this little cutie.

On Wednesday these guys joined the big kids for the fit together sponge painting project. While painting, they also practiced their manners, colors, and patience, as they had to request the colors they wanted by saying, "please pass the ...... plate."

Somehow sponge painting turned into hand painting (he, he, he) and instead of getting upset I painted their little fingers and made hand turkeys (Mia was thrilled).