First Day of School

Yesterday was our first official day of school with our new curriculum. Technically we school year round, but our curriculum changeover is in August. We are using Winter Promise for History. Noodle is also using Sonlight Language Arts K.

One thing I love about these literature based curriculums are the format of the assignment sheets/lesson plans. It makes my planning so much easier because all I have to do is tweak by adding and deleting things I want to cover.

This one is from Week 1 of Winter Promise Quest for the Middle Ages and as you can see I added my own notes. SIMPLE!

Here is a page from Winter Promise Animals and Their Worlds. Again I have changed things to suit what I want to accomplish. I love the convenience of ready made plans.

This is the page from Sonlight's Language Arts K.

One of the things I added to WP's Animals and Their Worlds was a mural project. Our first 6 weeks will be all about animals living in the African Savannah. I found a great link on http://www.guesthollow.com/ for Jan Brett's Mural idea.

http://www.janbrett.com/mural_hhl/honey_honey_lion_mural.htm

This is the beginnings of our mural. We "got it going" because I didn't want to stare at a blank page. From here on out we will be adding one plant or animal daily.

Newest Additions to our Home & School

Snakes. Can I tell you first that I do not like snakes at all? I like pets that have fur and that like to cuddle with you on the couch. Bear insists that snakes are cuddly (as evidenced by the way the snakes wrap around his neck and just "hang out").

This is the first snake that "showed up." By showed up, I mean my DH got the boys the snake while I was out of town. They then sent me a picture to my phone to notify me, after the fact. It is a California King Snake. He is a rather cranky snake and has bitten Bear twice and SuperDuper once.

So, Thursday evening DH and Bear went to the pet store and bought a Ball Python. I know, I know, the name "Python" conjures up horrifying images of the family dog being eaten, but this is not that kind of python. This particular python will only be about 5 feet and yes, she will be rather fat. However, completely harmless to everyone except the rats that are dropped in her habitat.

This is Miss Python's new home.


And this is Miss Python with Bear.

Sigh. I am outnumbered and I am really trying to see this from an educational perspective. In fact Bear will be doing this shcool year's Science Fair project on, you guessed it, Pythons.

Our School Room

I know I am not the only one out there who likes to "peek in" to other homeschoolers school rooms. So, for those of you that are like me, here is a peek in to Winecup Christian Academy.

This is our bulletin board. It actually isn't in the school room , it is in the family room right next to the kitchen and back door because the wall was the perfect space for it.



This is our Calendar and it is right above where Noodle sits to do his work. The goal is to change it everyday.



This really brightens up our room. Noodle and I often sit on this carpet while we play games.

This is the bay window side of the room. I dont' like having the book shelf in front of a window, but I am limited on space. The basket on the floor next to the book shelf is our "library basket" and ideally the library books are kept there.

This is a close up of that shelf. We have lots of books from the Sonlight reading lists on the top shelf. The middle shelf are the baskets where I am keeping math manipulatives and our folder math games. The bottom shelf are random fun books that we look at or read regularly or plan to do so.

This is a shelf where I keep Core Instrustor Guide Masters as well as other reference binders. In the plastic drawers I keep glue sticks, push pins, markers, pens, pencils, dry erase markers, erasers for the white board and a variety of paper choices. The little baskets have clothes pins and music cd's. I use the clothes pins to hang posters nad or notes.

Here it is from a distance next to the white board. To the left of the white board I have a folder attached to the wall that has our money magnets in it. I will be adding to our leaning magnet collection and they will also be stored there.

This is the Teacher's Desk.



This is Noodle and Bear's work table. Bear is on the left, Noodle on the right.

Bear's book shelf for the upcoming year. Not everything is in yet. I am waiting for our last orders from Winter Promise, Amazon and Home Science Tools. I know it won't all fit on one shelf which means I will need to do some more "rearraning."

The whole book shelf. The second one down is all my homeschool catalogs. The third shelf down is Noodle's shelf so far, but he also has things coming. The bottom two are misc books and several floor puzzles that Noodle loves to put together. I have another shelf just like this one in our closet under the stairs. It is full of reference books, all our beautiful Apologia elementary books, literature unit studies etc.

This is where we keep a few of the smaller games, flash cards and some art supplies. We have two closets and an armoire stuffed with games. For art supplies we have a cabinet I keep in my master bedroom.

That completes the tour!

Teaching With Games

Games are fun aren't they? Kids will always say yes to that question, but sometimes if you ask the question, "Is school fun?" the answer won't always be yes.

Noodle LOVES to play games. When I realized it wasn't a phase I decided to capitalize on it. We play games everyday and he is learning new things. I feel so sneaky!

I recently purchased a book from Teacher Created Resources http://www.teachercreatedresources.com/ called Math Games. It is for Pre-K to K.

There is a variety of games. They start with simple counting and number matching and then move on to money recognition and sequence counting. The first one we played was Picnic Party. I just tore them out of the book and glued them to file folders. All the game pieces are in a zip loc baggie that I stapled to the back of the file folder. I am storing them in a basket on our "Math Manipulatives" shelf.

Other games we enjoy are Memory Matching games. Although my son is 5.5 and seems to be too old for memory matching, these aren't just any matching games. He has learned the names of a dozen Dinosaurs from playing this game over and over. He knows them on sight too. We will soon be studying Animals and Their Worlds from Winter Promise, which will include learning all about the habitats. One of the games we have is matching animals to the right habitat! Yeah for these games! They are called Trackin' Animals from the Wild Goose Company, but I believe you can get them through Carson-Dellosa. The one on the bottom left is from a different company http://www.aristoplay.com/ and it is called Quick Pix and it is an Animal Classification game.

Noodle is still learning to read so another game we have been playing recently is a Sight Words Bingo Game from Learning Resources. http://www.learningresources.com/ It requires rolling dice which Noodle loves to do.

Borderline Games make wonderful Geography Games. I didn't take a picture, but Noodle's favorite one is called Hop Off and it is a U.S. Geography game. Basically it is a huge vinyl mat (think Twister) of the U.S. and each state is labeled. There is a set of cards, playing card size and each card has a state on it. I show him the card and then he "hops" or jumps or leaps to the correct state. He is not only learning the names of states, but where they are as well as initial learning about North, South, East and West. He has no idea the educational value. He just thinks it is fun to hop around!

I am not a big fan of video games, but my boys definitely are. So, I have allowed "video games" to be part of our education process. Learning Leap Frog has a hand held video gaming device called "Leapster." We have had ours for about 2 years. We have just a handful of games, but Noodle still loves them. I will be adding to our collection this year, but he is still mastering these. They are great.

Lastly, there is a game called "The Art Game" and I found it at a homeschool used book sale for $5 !!!! WOW! I felt guilty for getting it so cheap. It is practically brand new and it will be well suited for my goals of learning the artists and art genres this year.

I hope I have "convinced" you that games can be a great addition to your Homeschool. I'd love to hear about the games you include in your lessons. There is no such thing as too many games!