Week Eight

   To start our 8th week of homeschool, we joined some friends at the park for yoga and play. We had a rough morning before that but luckily, getting out helped a lot and we were able to come home and jump into some focused learning time.

Today’s letter was O, so we read Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. Devin really wants to go owling now, so we’ll have to see what we can do:)

We drew owls in our main lesson books…the eye is the letter O.

Then we talked about the different sounds the letter O can make. We listed some in our book. Devin was good at coming up with these and really grasped the concept. We’ve worked with long and short A, E and I sounds and he didn’t understand as concretely with those letters but something clicked with the O sounds. Now that he understands that so well, I’ll probably do some quick reviews of the other long and short vowel sounds over the next couple weeks.

A little later, I read a book about wind that was just perfect since it had the simple wind vane instructions that the curriculum suggests right in the back. It was also age appropriate, which to me means not too technical but scientifically sound and attention grabbing:)

We made a wind vane and a weather chart for this week. There was no wind at all this afternoon, so we weren’t able to chart wind direction but we did try!

Fiona pretty much screamed in my face and made this expression all day today…

She took a picture of me with our wind vane…

I explained the four directions and we observed the sun setting in the West. I showed Devin how to find the other directions based off of that by pointing East with his other arm and telling him that his nose is pointing North and his back is facing South. We marked the directions with stones on the ground. I had him turn his body each way and look down at his feet to check which way he was pointed.

Finally, I had him count out forty stones and group them in a few different ways. Then, he practiced writing the numbers thirty through forty and drew forty little circles in his main lesson book.

Week Seven

I replaced this week’s Oak Meadow fairytale with the same story the curriculum’s version was based off of. This book is fabulous. Both kids were absolutely enthralled and actually laughed out loud several times!

We drew the letter M to look like the glass mountain from the story. Devin is enthusiastic when I show him simple techniques during drawing times! I think he’s doing a great job. Notice his rainbow, river and rays of sunshine:)

Next, we formed M shapes from dough and decorated them with counting gems.

I asked Devin to fit thirty gems on his M and then had him print the numbers one through twenty in his main lesson book.

Later, I read Animal Homes. It’s a lift the flap book and was really well put together and cute, yet informative.

We read this outside and watched for animals for a while. We saw a hawk very close up, right in our yard and we know we have several bunnies right in the area we were sitting. We talked about animal habitats and I asked Devin to think about where a hawk gets water, gets food and lives. We also discussed where bunnies do all of these things. I explained that we would draw three scenes after we went to the library and park.

When we got home later, we worked on those drawings.

I shared a book called Animals and Their Hiding Places before bed. This one was also getting actual laughs! Awesome photography and really nice, age appropriate info that isn’t boring.

Week Six

We finished up our 6th week today and I have to say, I’m very proud. Im so pleased with the Oak Meadow curriculum. I modify it a lot and leave out a lot but I see Devin learning so much.

We started the day by drawing a picture of a seagull, the bird he chose to learn more about. I asked him to write a fact he learned and of course he chose the most gruesome piece of information we obtained…”Gulls sometimes eat other gulls.”

Next, I had him practice this week’s letters, K and L. I changed things up and offered him a lined writing notebook today. He wrote so neat!

Then I shared a story about a red knot bird’s migration journey. It was really eye opening to see just how far some birds fly and why!

There was even a moment that involved a meeting with some seagulls. We had listened to their call patterns yesterday, so we knew this meant they were protecting their territory!

Finally, I was told the longest story yet! I praised him for including such a well defined beginning, middle and end:) I love these stories he comes up with!

Fiona is really benefitting from watching us have dedicated learning and drawing time. She’s now drawing people, animals and suns!

Later in the day, we had a great hike with some good buddies!

Week Six

We had a great homeschool day. We started by reading Stone Soup from my childhood fairytale book.

Today’s letter to learn was L, so we drew an L in the shape of a ladle from the story into our main lesson books.

Next, we worked on the second chapter of King Maximo and the Number Knights. We memorized the short poem that represents the number 2 and drew the coat of arms into our main lesson books.

Earier this week, Devin purchased this set of meditation balls from his school’s yard sale. How perfect! And there are TWO. We were amazed at how beautifully they represented our lesson today:)

He copied the poem down and did a great job.

Later, I shared a few books about birds. Martha is a wonderful story that Devin loves and has heard before. The other books give general information about common birds.

I asked him to choose one bird that interests him the most so we could do some further research and listen to calls online. He chose the Gull. We watched several videos and read about Gulls. He thinks their calls are very funny. I think they’re pretty aggressive and they don’t seem very intelligent;)

The last thing we did today was stitch some little kittens. The kids have been listening to me read the poem about the three little kittens who lost their mittens this week, so we made some props. I plan to have them perform a little skit for their dad tomorrow.

Week Three

Today, we entered our fish drawings with the letter F into our main lesson books. I’m finding that I’m sharing a few too many fairytale type stories with Devin at this time, so I skipped trying to make up for the not so great story that went along with this drawing and just invited him to draw it with me instead.

I can tell he’s losing interest when I read the fairytales lately, so I will be working on presenting them in different ways from now on.

Devin was delighted that his fish resembled Squidward from Sponge Bob:)

We worked on our next chapter of form drawing, practicing on the chalkboard first. The angle of the lines was tricky at first but he got the hang of it for his main lesson book.

I’m pretty impressed with Fiona’s attempt at Rays Of Sunlight!

Lastly, we went on a leaf hunt for leaves that we could make rubbings with in our nature journals.

Devin was a little annoyed when I told him we would be working with leaves again today. I explained that his lessons were based on nature and the season we’re in right now brings us so many leaves! I told him that the materials we work with will vary through the year but we need to use what we have at our fingertips right now.

He was more than happy with the results of the project once he got into it:)

Week Three

We had a park visit with our homeschool friends today. I brought along one of my planned projects for the week and let the kids try it out. They enjoyed hammering leaves on paper in an attempt to create a print but were slightly unsuccessful in the long run:) The pigment wasn’t transferring as well as I had hoped it would. Of course the children don’t mind this sort of “fail”

Devin had his first art class in the late afternoon and produced a very impressive painting! Even though this doesn’t have anything to do with Oak Meadow, I’m going to post his Monday art here as the class goes on.

Later, we worked on categorizing our nature objects that we found yesterday. Devin came up with several categories. His favorite was “things that spin”.