Estimating

We have a new weekly family activity in our house. This is our 4th week of playing a family game of “Let’s Guess”IMG_2178Each Sunday I present the family with a new object in a new container for us to estimate. Each person writes his/her guess and then each Sunday evening during our family time, we count them all together and see who wins. The winner gets a big star by their name and high fives all around! It’s a fun and simple way to bond together while also learning some great math skills.

So far we have estimated:

  • counting bear {in honor of our bear themed week}
  • beans {pictured above}
  • colored craft sticks
  • jelly beans

I can guess too, because I just grab to fill the container, I don’t pre-count. My inspiration for doing this with my family came from here!

Winter Wonders is Complete!

If you missed my first post about Download n Go, you can read it here

Pac Man finally completed his Winter Wonders Download n Go unit!  It took us a lot longer than it should have, I actually think they all will. I am glad I didn’t order the full year all at once!  It has taken me even longer to write this update post (he actually finished WW a few weeks ago, I am just now getting around to sharing)

My thoughts after completing an entire unit…

  • Pac Man loved it!  He loved the layout, the various activities, and the things we learned about.  I was right in thinking that this type of thing would be perfect for him, it was!
  • Other than preparing the notebook ahead of time (which was a bit time consuming), there was little for me to do as we worked through it.  Getting the links opened up on the computer each morning was the biggest thing.
  • Speaking of links…we enjoyed the many You Tube videos, however…watch out for the ads that display on the sidebars before you launch the site in front of your child.  Most of the ads are harmless, but I did get one that popped up that bothered me.  Thankfully Pac Man wasn’t sitting with me (I open all of the links for the day in tabs before school so we can just click on the tabs as we work through the book).
  • Some days were more in depth than others, we ended up not doing 1 day at a time, just working through on our own timeline.  I still liked it divided into the 5 days though, it helped me see where we were in the study.
  • We did most, but not all, of the pages and lapbooking items included.  You could easily skip the entire lapbooking portion of this and still have fun and learn a ton.
  • Overall Pac Man reviewed many things and learned many new things.  We loved learning about the Iditarod, different animals, and the history of hot chocolate!  There were many learning opportunities presented that I would have never thought of on my own.  I loved how diverse it was, so did Pac.
  • My final thoughts at this point…definitely glad I ordered these.  They do take much more time than I realized, but that’s ok-we’ll just spread out the activities more.  I am really excited to learn new things right along with him!!!

We did not enjoy the Valentine’s unit as much-it was too much about LOVE for his taste ;-) . His favorite was making thumbprint hearts…as many as his age 7 1/2.  He thought it was hilarious that he made half of a heart ;-) .IMG_0532

We are currently working on the Amelia Earhart unit and both loving it!  it is very in depth so far and the first day of activities took us a whole week to complete!  Today we learned how an airplane flies and I learned something new right along with him, I Love that about homeschooling-I am so much smarter than I ever was before!

All About Spelling ~ Level 2!

We began Level 2-finally! We LOVE All About Spelling!!! IMG_9664We are doing this in addition to the spelling words he has in his Calvert program, I personally didn’t feel like Calvert’s spelling program was enough. Thankfully we found AAS and we both absolutely love it and it is working! Even I am learning spelling rules I never knew were actual rules!

We completed Lesson 1 and already can see that this level will be filled with much more for Pac Man! As his teacher I am thrilled…he isn’t so thrilled with more writing but still loves the program!

If you are looking for a great program I highly recommend it (and yes I do get an affiliate fee if you order through my link-but you know I would never recommend something unless we really love it!).

Lapbooks ~ Dinosaurs

IMG_5495_thumb18 copyIMG_5491_thumb22 copyPac Man completed his dinosaur Lapbook recently, he did it along side of Krash’s Dino Tot Pack. It was fun to teach him, and learn alongside of him! We used these 2 books; What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?, and God Created the Dinosaurs of the World (Sticker and Coloring Book) as our guides for learning.

The entire lapbook was from Homeschool Share and I am ever so thankful for the awesome templates and information provided there for free! We didn’t use all of the templates they provided and did a bit of a modified lapbook. We learned SO much though, it was wonderful!

Up For a Challenge? ~ Bridge Builder

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When I saw Up For a Challenge I just knew I had to join in, for Pac Man’s sake. He is a challenge kind of guy, and I was right-he loved the idea!
The first challenge was Bridge Builder, you can see other solutions here.

Now, I must say, I am not a challenge type of gal, so I barely even understood the directions. But, we eventually figured it all out. Although, at first I thought he was a genius, completing the task with 100 out of 100 points in under the time limit.

Here’s the 1st bridge he built, which was eventually disqualified after I re-read the rules-duh-it couldn’t touch the floor between the white circles. Like I said-I am no engineer.

He handled it well though (knowing he was getting attitude points), and got right back to work on the bridge with the correct directions…
He did manage to create a bridge…
But, it did not hold any weight, here is his expression when it collapsed!!

Thankfully Daddy had just walked in the door and was all about bridge building. He worked on it with Pac, and they failed a few times ;) , then Daddy kept working (yup by himself)…not about to be beat by other homeschooling kids (who I told him DID create bridges that help weight). Daddy created his own bridge that held all 10 pennies…YAY Daddy-you get lots of points!

It was fun, next we’re gonna give the Boat Race a try!

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