Art lessons

For Art this year we have been working on ARTisitc Pursuits. We do not do it all the time and if I have another book to go along with it I will add that. For example in that program they often will show work from a famous artist and if I had more info on that Artist we will add that. 

they are working with Oil pastels here fall of 2013

Here we read the book Sky Color, and also another book that showed good examples of the art of blending colors and using bright colors when painting. We are not in a rush to do this program, we do it once a week or so. I have enjoyed it, and we will continue with is next year as it fits in. 

 here they are using water color crayons - spring of 2014

Adventure Reading Kick Off!

For Drawing into the Heart of Reading - this month we did Adventure reading. So to kick this off we had a fun school day of adventure. This was eye opening to me. We really did all the same things we normally do we just started off "heading out" on this train of adventure. And fallowing our "map" which I made ahead of time

the boys LOVED it! I thought they would see right though it, and complain but they didn't they imagined right along with me and it was a lot of fun. After taking off on our train we head over the "mountains of math" and did our math work, then we went on the "reading rail road" and did reading lessons (for Ryan) and the older ones started their DIHR assignment. Next we journeyed through the "land of Language" and did our LA assignments. Last we dove deep into the "cleaning waters" and cleaned up the house. We had breaks, and snacks and lunch etc. The boys made up creative names for these things.

At the end of it all we talked about and cover the questions in the DIHR teachers guide and they got there treasure. Fun pencils and new books! We also talked about loving to learn in the real treasure in life because then your possibilities are endless!

Dallin did not want to be in the Pic so Aaron is holding his book and Ethan is holding the two older boys books. These are fun stories full of adventure, the younger boys LOVE the snowman books.

At the end of the 6 weeks or so that is takes us to finish a section of DIHR they do a book project. This was Ethan's he likes to do this, he makes the charters and seen from card stock and then you use a hole punch to make little circles then snap on Lego's to hole it up. Yes I too got this idea from Pinterest.

Then he Narrated his favorite parts of the story, and went over the character development things we covered this month.

Flubber Fun!

My kids picked up the flubber book at the Library, they loved it, and thought it was sooo funny. I have not read it but I am sure it is pure twaddle. But I am ok with a little funny humor just to be enjoyed. I ended up finding the old movie at the Library and the kids watched that and laughed the whole time

 So I thought it would be a fun thing to make Flubber. They LOVED it. I used WAY to much green though it turned there hands green! but I was trying to make it dark like the movie. Dallin was sad it did not bounce like the movie but he still really enjoyed it.

 I don't remember the recipe but I found it on Pinterest, I also looked up a video on the science behind it and we watched that and talked about it as well. Here is the link to it FLUBBER!

 We keep this in a air tight container and the kids pull it out and play with it every now and then, it will dry out eventually but lasts a while.

Love my super silly boys

Pretzel Time!

While the older boys are at Homeschool PE once a week I try to make that My special time with Dallin. Today we made soft pretzels. They were really good. I found the recipe on pinterest. We did a letter for each person in the family, and then just made whatever shapes he wanted. I also made a yummy cheese sauce. I will have both recipes on my food blog, at some point. Feel free to check and see if I have gotten around to it. I tried to find the pretzel recipe but I could not right now sorry. 

 When the boys got home from PE they were excited to try the special snack Dallin made for them. He loves being with me in the kitchen, and then rolling out the dough to make fun shapes and letter. He is such a chatter bug, and it so fun to listen too. I love this sweet boy!

Another day we build lego creations using some duplo lego idea cards we found on Pinterest and of course we had to make a zoo train! my Dallin loves Trains! we did not fallow the cards exactly but they were fun ideas to fallow. I can not find the link now but Pinterest has a bunch. I just love playing with him, he is so fun to chat with. 

Preschool Indoor Activities

I really struggle with balancing by younger boys and my older boys. I WANT to spend time with them all but that is not always easy to do, and near impossible for me at times. So I strive for balance. Some things I plan I do with them, and some they do while I am working with the older two. These are a few ideas I got from pinterest. 

 They LOVE these. I made shapes for them out of making take as a Target but it did not work out so well, they just like shooting them. They play with these often LINK HERE 

 PomPom Soccer LINK
Ryan said this was way to easy, Dallin liked it better it was more challenging for him. The also Loved building the fans to watch the game from Legos (more pictures bellow)

 I kind of was on a making tape kick trying different active type things inside since it had been cold at the time. This was a fun Balancing activity- did not last long but the liked it.

 More pics of the Pompom soccer this was on the floor for a few days, the really enjoyed it.

Math Activities K-4th grade

I try to do math in a "fun Activity" way once a week just to make things more fun. Here are some things we have done. 

Copy work- I know we hear about copy work being good for spelling in the CM world but it is really good for math too. We have this book that you spin the wheel and it shows the answers to the multiplication tables. Ethan was doing copy work with this book. (fall 2013) 

I made 4 boxed on piece of paper then I wrote a problem on it, and he used his blocks to build it out, and did dot paints to write the answer. Just a fun way to practice this addition problems. (12/2013)

This is another fun game that we like to do. I found this board on Pinterest - it is a plain board and I printed it off, colored it and laminated it. Then I can write what ever problems on it I want. We roll a dice, answer the problem. If you get it right, you get to roll again to see how many Lego's you get to "build a tower" or you can just play where you get "that many that you rolled" 

 We used Lego figures for our games pieced. All the boys love this game. you can do addition, subtraction or multiplication etc. Here is where I got the game board Game Board HERE!

 This was in March 2014

White board + Nerf gun = fun math facts practice. You can do this many ways but we did it where he would shoot two numbers then a -/+ dice to decided if he has to add them or subtract them. He just played until he was done, but he got lots of practice in, and really liked it. (fall 2013) 

Play dough always makes math more fun! 

 Ryan likes to take his math sheet and just do the problems in play bough I feel like this slows him down to really understand and memorize the problems not just rush to get the sheet done.

Non- Fiction Study Day -

I love the Drawing into the Heart of Reading program. We do this off and on too. This time we learned about non-fiction and for our kick off day we talked about what it covered in the teacher book, and for the activity they looked through out set one One Small Square books, they each got some note cards

 on the cards they wrote a question, and then fallowed it up with, is this true or false? I helped the younger ones with the writing. Then they each took turns drawing cards and then making a guess. They used the books to look up the answer and read the facts. It was a lot of fun.