Archive for February, 2014
Spring Sudoku
Some of you may be seeing the signs of spring so here are some FREE sudoku puzzles from Activity Village to get you in the mood. The puzzles come in easy, medium and difficult. As for us, our schoolwork today is P.E.! More cold weather is coming this weekend so we are off out to cut wood in order to stay warm.
Another adVENTURE of FREE, fun learning 
Wishing you a blessed day,
Liz
A message from Caleb :)
I couldn’t resist sharing this pic with you and adding a little something 🙂 And no, I did not take this picture.The boys were playing with the camera! I always have to delete loads of pics but this one stayed!
Take care,
Liz
Hairy Hezekiah
This week we started reading Rudyard Kipling’s book – Just So Stories which is available to download FREE on Gutenberg complete with pictures 🙂 As we read a story each day I try and incorporate other books to go along with the animal/subject/topic that day. When we got to the story “How the Camel got his Hump” I came across this great book by Dick King-Smith called Hairy Hezekiah.
We LOVE Dick King-Smith stories in this house but had never read this one. It was wonderful. In fact we were so gripped by it that we read it straight through. That may not mean much to you but for Hannah to sit that still for that long is quite an accomplishment! You can read my full review on this book here. As an aside, we went to Longleat many years ago in 2002 when Michelle and Michael were younger. Maybe we met Hezekiah and didn’t even realize?! LOL!
Maybe you have never heard of Dick King-Smith? He is a British author and wrote Babe, the book about the pig that was made into the very famous movie several years ago. At the time of writing this post, Hairy Hezekiah is available for Kindle and also in hardback and paperback, as cheap as 1c so not expensive.
I recommend this book for 7 years and up as you have to be old enough to understand and appreciate some of the humor. Daniel and I were giggling through out! Caleb (4) was not interested at all.
Happy reading,
Liz
JUMP at HOME Math Curriculum
Changing curriculum in the middle of a school year can be hard at times BUT if the one you are using is not working for your child then changing is the best thing you can do! This happened to us recently. The Math Curriculum we were using, Mathematical Reasoning by the Critical Thinking Company, is excellent and I have extolled its virtues many times. HOWEVER, it was not working for Daniel and Hannah simply because there was not enough repetition of Math facts. It changed approx. every two pages, always coming back, but they were just not grasping the facts they were learning so it was time to search for a new one. The other problem for Daniel was the fact that it was VERY wordy and because he still does not have good reading skills it got very frustrating for both me and him!
After some research, we came upon JUMP (Junior Undiscovered Math Prodigy) at HOME by John Mighton, a Canadian Math curriculum. Both Richard and I have been thrilled with the books. I was concerned that they were too simple at the beginning but Richard, being wise, suggested we start at the beginnings anyways and boy, are we glad we did! It showed up some gaps and also gave the children confidence on how to work with these different books. It is VERY repetitive giving pages and pages on the same facts, with the problems gradually getting harder. The instructions are illustrated as well as simply written. Mental math is heavily emphasised which is a skill many folks lack today and many of the math curriculums do not teach it. Let’s face it, you are not always going to have a calculator on you so it is important to know how to do sums in your head!
The price for the books are very reasonable which is an extra bonus. There are NO answers in the books but at this level you really do not need them. If you do need them, you can find them online.
We are pleased we made the decision to switch halfway through the year 🙂 You can read more reviews on Amazon (link above) or on Timberdoodle, a fabulous, “think outside the box” homeschooling website that we often use.
Liz
The Wheels on the Bus Lapbook
What young child does not like the song “The Wheels on the Bus?” Now you can encourage learning by helping them with this lapbook. Suitable for kids PreK to K.
This lapbook requires two file folders, glued together plus colored paper and a printer to print out the projects.
You can purchase it for $6 from In the Hands of a Child at the date of publishing this (Feb 15th, 2014). It comes complete with a 7 day lesson plan. I like to complete most lapbook in a week (5 days) so I adjusted ours to fit into that schedule. Caleb really enjoyed this.
Happy learning,
Liz
Parrotfish “Poop”
As I told you earlier, we have been studying oceans and coral reefs this week and learning a lot of different facts. Did you know that the parrotfish bites off chunks of coral when eating algae? It cannot use that coral so it comes out the other end as sand which ends up on the tropical beaches around the world?
How much sand does each parrotfish produce each year? Approximately 1,100 lbs
Homeschool Share has a lovely FREE Coral Reed Animal Study and Lapbook that we have incorporated into our study this week.
Another adVENTURE of FREE, fun learning
Happy learning!
Liz
Undersea Adventure Math Worksheets
We are studying Coral Reefs in our homeschool this week. As part of the learning I am giving Daniel and Hannah one each of these great FREE Undersea Number Adventure worksheets to do.
Labelled as suitable for first-graders I think they can be used for slightly older kids as it never hurts to revise a few basic skills and numbering order is a definite needed math skill.
Another adVENTURE of FREE, fun learning
Take care,
Liz
FREE Ask Mr. Bear Lapbook for Preschoolers
The story of Ask Mr. Bear is a classic by Marjorie Flack. Danny is searching for the perfect present for his mother. First he sees Mrs. Hen who offers him a nice fresh egg but Danny’s mother already has an egg so together they skip along until they meet Goose. She offers Danny feathers for a pillow but Danny’s mother already has a pillow. The story goes on as they meet various animals (goat – cheese, sheep – wool, cow – cream) but none of them can offer Danny anything that his mother does not already have so Cow tells him to go see Mr. Bear over the hill. All the animals are too scared to go with him so he has to go alone. Mr. Bear suggests giving her a bear hug 🙂
Homeschool Share has a really good FREE Ask Mr. Bear Lapbook which Caleb recently completed.
I added to this Lapbook extra G Printables from Homeschool Share and it still all fitted in one file folder.
Not liking to teach without knowing what I am doing I created a 4 day lesson plan which is FREE to download.
Hope you enjoy this as much as we did 🙂
Another adVENTURE of FREE, fun learning
Liz
FREE Pyramid Puzzles (Math)
Ooh! Activity Village recently sent me these FREE Pyramid Puzzles. Example shown is the medium one. Links will open up in new windows for you & then you will be able to download the PDF’s. The puzzles are available in:
Have fun!
Another adVENTURE of FREE, fun learning
Liz
Australian Animal Worksheets. Marsupials and more!
We recently did a study on Marsupials, concentrating mostly on Koalas but also incorporating details on the many other marsupials. For our Lapbook/Workbook I started with a Lapbooking Unit “A Pouch for Katie” from In the Hands of a Child. We used three prong folders for the study as we added so much more to it than would fit in a Lapbook!
I am not the kind of teacher who can just “wing” a lesson when doing a Lapbook/unit study. I have to know what I am going to be teaching each day. The joys of ITHOAC Lapbooks is that most of them come with a daily Lesson Plan. However the one provided was for a 6 day study and I have found that a 5 day study works better for us as we can complete it in a week. With that in mind I adapted the Lesson Plan provided with the Lapbook in order to complete it in 5 days. This did not include the Marsupial worksheets (top picture) which I created at a much later date, weeks after having prepared the Lapbook materials. I just divided those worksheets up to do some each day. These are FREE to download in the Science Downloads on our website.
Please note that although Caleb (4) did the Koala Lapbook I did NOT expect him to do the Marsupial worksheets – way too complicated. In fact I found a couple extra K things for him to do at Homeschool Share.
Activity Village has a FREE fun Count the Koalas page.
Last but not least, listed as suitable for First Graders I think these fabulous, colorful Australian Animal worksheets could be adapted for multiple ages 🙂 You can find them FREE at Education.com
You can find some good YouTube videos online featuring some of these amazing creatures.
Hope you enjoy this study as much as we did 🙂
Liz
Recent Comments