Butterflies!

I think every kid should get to experience watching a caterpillar transform into a butterfly! We recently had the chance to do it at our house! We got a butterfly house and cups of caterpillars from www.insectlore.com

 

They come with all the food they need as caterpillars, so we just watched them eat and grow! After a few days they attached themselves to the top of the cup and each formed a chrysalis.

 

 

Then the only tricky part is removing the top that they are attached to and gently pinning it to the mesh sides of the butterfly garden. We then waited for a week or so while they transformed. One morning we saw that our first butterfly had emerged!

 

 

We put a small bowl in the butterfly house with flowers from our yard, sprinkled with a little sugar water.

 

 

 

After a few more days all the butterflies had emerged and it was time to let them go!

 

 

 

We took their house outside to our bushes and opened the top.

 

 

 

After a little coaxing we got them all out!

 

 

It was so neat to watch them all flying around. Such a great experience for the kids. And the neat thing is, their house can be used over and over again, we just have to order a new cup of caterpillars!

Freebie Friday - Weather



This week's freebie theme is weather! Enjoy these free weather themed resources!

Weather Vocabulary Word Search by The McGrew Crew

 

Weather Chart Printable by Jason's Online Classroom

 

 

Weather Task Cards by The Science Penguin

 

 

Weather Caterpillar by: Erin Palleschi

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

In honor of Earth Day - How have you reused something in your classroom/school room? Our snack container became our block container!

 

Easter Week Chart

This Easter we studied about the last week of Jesus' life by making an Easter Week Chart. I found one here on The Domestic Notebook and adjusted it for us. Each day we read some verses, made a craft, and listened to a song. Here's what the finished chart looked like:

 

Here's a close up of each day:

Here are the stories and crafts we made:
Palm Sunday 

• Mark 11:1-11 (Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey)
• Palm tree leaves from construction paper

Monday

• Mark 11:12-17 (Jesus clears out the temple)
• Construction paper table with pennies taped on

Tuesday

• Luke 19:47-48 (Teaching in the temple)
• Scrolls with paper and popsicle sticks

Wednesday

• Mark 11:20-26 (praying with faith, being watchful)
• Child's hands (praying)

Thursday

• Mark 14:17-26, 32-35, 43-50 (the last supper, garden of gethsemane, betrayal)
• Pictures of bread, cup, and bag of money

Friday

• Mark 15:16-39 (Jesus on the cross)
• Crosses from popsicle sticks

Saturday

• Mark 15:42-47 (laid in the tomb)
• Picture of cave, cut out circle for the stone on top

Sunday

• Luke 24:1-12 (Resurrection)
• Color picture of an angel

The kids had fun and it was a great visual reminder the whole week!

Our Daily Schedule

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that we can make our own schedule! I'm always interested in how other people set up their homeschooling schedule, and many people have wondered how we get anything done at our crazy house (most days I wonder the same thing!) It is challenging for sure with our kids being so young (ages 6, 3, 2, and 7 months) but with some strategic planning and a lot of grace, we manage!

My goal is to have 4 good school days a week. So, I make plans for 4 days, which helps me not stress out when something comes up and we don't get any school done one day. We also can use those extra days to go on field trips to the zoo, children's museum, or have a play date with another family. I also like to continue a bit of school throughout the summer. Not very intense, and not every day, but a little bit here and there keeps us in the routine, and helps make up for only having 4 days weeks throughout the year!

Here is what a typical school day looks like:

6:15 I feed the baby, eat breakfast, have some quiet time

7:00 Kids wake up, eat breakfast, clean up

8:00 TV time for the kids, I do any last minute prepping for school, then have a daily cleaning chore (another post about that later!)

9:00 Kids have a snack while I feed the baby, then we get dressed & brush teeth

9:30 Baby goes down for a nap, 2 yr old goes into her crib with toys and books for "Crib Time." This gives me a little bit of uninterrupted school time with the older two. We start with Bible time together. With my 3 yr old, sometimes she wants to do school, sometimes not. We might work on her daily notebook (basically calendar time) and sight words at this time, or she goes and plays by herself. My kindergartner works on his daily notebook, spelling words, and journal writing.

10:15 Computer time for kindergartner - he does 30 minutes of Reading Eggs or Starfall, then 30 minutes of free play (he loves Nick Jr. and ABCya). I get the 2 yr old out of her crib and play with her and 3 yr old and do some laundry.

11:15 Lunch time

12:00 Big kids clean up any toys while I feed the baby and put the 2 year old down for a nap. We make it a race to see if they can have everything picked up before I'm done feeding the baby.

12:15 3 yr. old does a reading or math lesson on the computer (Reading Eggs) while I read aloud a chapter book to my kindergartner.

12:45 We do some kind of arts and crafts project to go along with something we are learning about.

1:00 3 yr. old lays down for a nap. Kindergartner does math and science.

1:45 Game time - I play a game with my kindergartner. Many days I really am just beat by this time, but I know he loves this one on one time, since most of the time my attention is on his little sisters!

2:00 Baby takes a nap, and kindergartner has reading/rest time for 30 min. On a good day the girls will all sleep until 3, so I have some time to do work on the computer.

And that's about it for our school day!

Now let's just be real honest here: the above schedule is the goal. The day is constantly interrupted by bickering, hitting, timeouts, spankings, whining, and a hundred other things that happen with kids. Most days the 2 yr old is screaming about 20 minutes into her "crib time" and I just have to let her stay there and scream for a few minutes, otherwise we can't get anything done. Many days the baby doesn't fall asleep right away, so I'm running back and forth between the kids doing school and shoving the pacifier back in the baby's mouth. The 2 yr old sometimes wakes up from her afternoon nap before I even finish school with the others, so I have absolutely no break. Then there's always a poopy diaper that happens at the worst time. There's a glass of milk spilled on the floor, there's someone playing in the toilet....etc. So please don't see us as having it all together. :-) And the other thing is that little kids are always changing. So, in 6 months, our schedule might look completely different as the baby's needs are changing and the 2 year old (hopefully) matures a little.

So, this is just a glimpse into our day, hopefully you've enjoyed reading about it and maybe got a few ideas! I've gotta run....someone's crying.....:-)

Painting the Cross

This simple activity is one of my favorites! I did this with my kiddos after we read the Easter story from the Storybook Bible. First we cut 2 rectangles from red paper, one shorter than the other, and taped them gently (putting the tape on the back) to white paper. Thicker paper, or even a canvas would work really well for this.  

Then the kids painted all around the cross however they wanted.

 

 

We let them dry for a few hours, and then I carefully peeled the cross off, revealing a beautiful white cross underneath! 

 

 

We talked about how the first cross represents Jesus on the cross (red for blood) and how he took the punishment for our sins. When we revealed the clean white paper underneath, we talked about how we are made pure and white because of Jesus. There are so many parallels you can make, but I kept it pretty simple since my kids are very young. 

 

 

Happy Easter! He is Risen!!

Freebie Friday!

I'm starting a Freebie Friday to feature some great freebies that you might enjoy! I might not get to it every week, but I will try. Here are some great finds for Earth Day coming up on Tuesday!

There are a lot of great ideas in this "Earth Day Mini-Unit" by Rachelle Smith

 

A couple of great math games in this download by  Games 4 Learning

 

Cute ABC order activity by: More than Math by Mo

And this one is mine - cute Earth Day writing paper!

 

Comes in 2 versions, this one is for older kids, and the other version for younger kids has less lines and space to draw a picture. Prompts could be "Why I love the earth..." or "I can help the earth by..."

 

I hope you find something useful for Earth Day! Enjoy the freebies!

Wordless Wednesday - Tangrams

How do you use tangrams?? I use them to keep my 2 year old busy while the other kids and I do school. =)

Easter Egg Mosaic

I love this simple craft done with just white paper, construction paper, scissors and glue! We started with some strips of construction paper - I chose to use Eastery colors (green, blue, pink, purple, and  yellow).

 

Then we cut the strips into triangles.

 

 

I found a simple egg outline online and printed it out (you could also just draw it). Then we used glue to stick the triangles all over! That's it! This one was done by my 3 year old.

 

 

My 6 year old and I worked on this one together, so we made more of a pattern. 

 

I love how pretty these are, and they are great for a wide range of ages! 

 

 

April Giveaway Winner!!

Congratulations to Peggy Grobmyer, the winner of the $25 TpT Gift Card! It has been emailed to you! Thanks to everyone who entered, and don't forget you have another chance next month!

April Giveaway!

It's that time again! Each month this year I'm having a giveaway to thank you guys for being faithful followers! This month's winner will receive a $25 TpT gift certificate that can be used at any store on the site!

The winner will be announced on Tuesday, April 15! Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

My First Writing Journal

This month I started a "My First Writing Journal" with my son who is in kindergarten. Writing was something I always dreaded in school, so I'd love to help him learn to enjoy writing from a young age. 

We started by letting him pick out his own journal at the store, he chose one with a Camaro on it. Each day I give him a small rectangle of paper with a prompt, which is the beginning of a sentence. He glues the prompt in his notebook, writes the date, copies the prompt and finishes the sentence however he wants! Right now I am just having him do that one sentence. As he feels more comfortable, we'll increase a little more.

I also have told him that I'm not worried about punctuation or spelling, because I just want him to practice getting his ideas on the paper. This has caused a little strife because he keeps asking me how to spell EVERYTHING! I have just been saying to say the word aloud, listen to the sounds, and spell it the best he can. We are still working on his response when I say this :-)

I know we all have our opinions about inventive spelling, and honestly I'm not a strong proponent for or against. Like most things in life I feel it's about balance. If I correct every single thing he does, he will be so uptight while trying to write that it won't be fun and he will be more worried about getting it "right" than getting his thoughts on paper. But there's also a place for learning correct spellings and punctuation along the way. (We do word sort activities every week, so he is learning and practicing common spelling rules too!)

So my tips for a child's first writing journal would be:
1. Get a fun notebook.
2. Use short prompts that they can copy.
3. Pictures with the prompts can also help at first, to give them somewhere to start from.
4. Don't correct spelling and punctuation, but make their ideas the focus of journal writing.


"When children use inventive spelling, they are in fact exercising their growing knowledge of phonemes, the letters of the alphabet, and their confidence in the alphabetic principle. A child's 'iz' for the conventional 'is' can be celebrated as quite a breakthrough!
It is the kind of error that shows you that the child is thinking independently and quite analytically about the sounds of words and the logic of spelling."

Burns, Griffin, and Snow (1999)

Wordless Wednesday - At the Zoo

 

 

 

What's your kids' favorite thing to see at the zoo? Mine were fascinated with ... this caterpillar!

Easter M&M's Fun!

What kid doesn't love playing with their food?? This week we had a lot of fun doing some activities with the Easter M&M candy, also called Bunny Mix. I got a bag of the fun size packs so we could open them as we needed.

First I put several packs together in a jar for our estimation activity.

 

Don't you just love those colors!?!

They guessed how many total they thought were in the jar, and which color had the most and least.

Next, we took them all out to sort and count them. Then we were able to finish up our estimation worksheet.

 

 

 

 

We also had fun graphing, measuring, and making patterns with our M&M's! Somewhere in there the kids couldn't take it anymore, so they each got to open a fresh pack and eat some. 

 



 

 

 

The last thing we did was make paint with our M&M's! We sorted them by colors into bowls, covered them with water, waited a few minutes, and had our very own M&M paint! 

 



 

 

The colors are not very bright, they are more like watercolors, but the kids loved watching the color melt off the candy, change the water and leave the chocolate part!

 





 

 I put all these activities together in a pack for sale on TpT! Click here if you'd like to try them out!