Muffin Tin Monday - Circus

The theme for today is the Circus. After having a migraine all weekend, I was not very creative with the theme. We had foods you would find at the circus and can I just say, this has to be the most unhealthy meal he has had in a long time!
We had an Concession Stand with a list of the foods and the cost. Since we are working on counting money, I had coins for him to use to "pay" for his meal.
There was:
Hot Dog
Peanuts
Popcorn
Funnel cake(cinnamon roll with powdered sugar)
Cotton Candy(found it at Hollywood video)
Lemonade

Easy Experiments - Polymers

Here are two quick and easy experiments we did this week. The experiments are about polymers and how they are in everything we use. They can expand or contract depending what you use. They are part of the Magic School Bus Science Experiments kits we are using for science this year.


Experiment #1
You will need:
sandwich bag
water
Freshly sharpened pencil

Fill the bag with water and poke the pencil through both sides of the bag. Did the water leak? Did the polymers in the plastic bad expand and fill around the pencil? As a side note, you can see the pencil through the water looks bent, due to the light refracting in the water.













Experiment #2
You will need:
styrofoam peanuts
Acetone
Glass or metal bowl

This experiment shows how the polymers are already expanded to make the styrofoam and when put in acetone the polymers shrink and make the styrofoam break down. It soaked for about 2 minutes in the photo, you can also see what is left of my manicure:)

Weekly Review - Week 8

This week we got away from my lessons plans a good bit, but I do not mind. He was still interested Egypt and mummies so instead of moving on to Chapter 6 in Story of the World, we stopped and learned more about what interested him. He also started asking about constellations and the stars so we took time to learn about the constellations. We tried several times to get out the telescope and do some star gazing but the weather has not cooperated with us this week; hopefully this weekend will work better.

This is one of the reasons I love homeschooling, we are able to stop and take all the time we would like, to learn about whatever topic is of interest. Having the time to slow down and let him he ask questions and study what is of interest to him is great. It helps instill the love of learning that will go with him all his life.

He is getting better and faster with his math facts. He is making good progress on telling time and we continue to work on counting money. On the math worksheet you will notice dots beside some of the problems, if he does not know the answer he put dots beside the numbers so he can count them and work the problem himself.


We read Mummies and Pyramids the Magic Tree House Research Guide. These books are great; they go along well with the books. They are written on the same level as the Magic Tree House books so he can read them himself. I bought 3 of them but I will be looking for more to purchase. They are a great addition to his reading list. We are on number 13 in the Magic Tree House set.


He has learned how to count to 20 in Korean for TaeKwonDo. He is doing excellent with French through livemocha.com. He had his first test and did great. He is already asking when we can start Spanish, I think he wants to learn a little bit of all languages.


If the weather holds, we will be taking a few days off from school next week, to enjoy the outdoors. One of the reason we start school so early is for us to be able to take the nice cooler days and enjoy them. He can so little in the summer due to the heat, school in the summer works great for us.

Muffin Tin Monday - People/Faces

Today is muffin tin Monday. To learn more about muffin tin Monday head on over to http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/ for more information.

Today's theme was people and faces. I did people and places. We are studying Egypt in school right now. We are studying about the pyramids, mummies and treasure hunters. So, I had to work that into the theme this week.

We had
1. Mummy - marshmallow wrapped in a fruit roll up
2. Pyramid - made out of cheese squares
3. Pharaoh - drawn on a tortilla with food color markers (well my attempt anyways)
4. Oasis - blueberry yogurt with graham cracker sand around it
5. Treasure - banana muffin with a few chocolate chips and sprinkles on the inside
6. Treasure Hunter - Lego Indiana Jones on the cheese pyramid

Weekly Review- Week 7

We had a good week this week. I worked at adding more fun activities into our school work. We have been doing a lot of reading plus worksheets and it was getting a bit tiresome for him.

As I have mentioned before, he is completely in love with Jack and Annie from Magic Tree House books. He wants to read a book everyday. We are now on book 11 in the series. He has shown an interest in learning more about Morgan la Fey and Merlin so I have bought a book called, "King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table" by Puffin Classics. It is the retelling of Le Morte D'arthur. Having read Le Morte D'arthur I look forward to reading this with him. I also purchased a few of the Magic Tree House research guides, that go along with the books. I just got them in and they look really neat. They are written on the same level as the Magic Tree House books. They are more in depth with information and illustrations to go along with the books.

This week we used our new globe to find Egypt, the Nile River, Red Sea, Black Sea and the state we live in. We made a sword out of cardboard and tin foil. We did math and graphing using M&M's.


We are doing more Magic School Bus experiments this weekend. I need to go buy a few supplies first. I am going to try to find more fun craft projects for us to do next week. I know we are going to make bookmarks for his chapter books. I think we will also make hieroglyphics using concrete stepping stones mix I have.

I can say we now have a good routine going and I feel like we are making good progress in all his subjects. The curriculum we are using is to the right of the blog. I am happy with all the books I picked this year except, First Language Lessons, it so repetitive and he just does not do repetitive things. We are still using it I am going to speed it up and see if that works better for us.

Favorite Fun Educational Dvds

I wanted to make a list for some LittleBit's favorite educational dvds. I rented all of these from Netflix. Some were so well liked, I purchased them such as the Popular Mechanics for Kids dvd set, he loves these so much I bought the whole set.

1. Popular Mechanics for Kids dvd set
PMK - Lightning and other forces of Nature
PMK - Radical Rockets and Other Cool Cruising Machines
PMK - Rip Roaring Rollercoasters and All Access to Fun
PMK - X-Treme Sports & Other Action Adventures
PMK - Gators & Dragons and Other Wild Beasts
PMK - Slither and Slime and Other Yucky Things
PMK - Super Sea Creatures and Awesome Ocean Adventures
PMK - Firefighters and Other Life Saving Heroes
This are his favorite videos, we have had them for over a year and they are still watched often.

2. Vrrrooommm!: Dairy Farming for Kids
3. Vrrrooommm!: Citrus Farming for Kids
4. Vrrrooommm!: Farming for Kids
5. Vrrrooommm!: Apple Farming for Kids
6. Way Cool Science: Space Trekkers
7. Way Cool Science: Stormchasers
8. Magic School Bus
9. Sid the Science Kid (can be seen on PBS also)
10. LeapFrog Letter Factory set ( good for the younger kids)
11. All About Trucks
12. Real Wheels dvd set (great set for those who love vehicles)


There are tons more educational dvds out there for kids, I just wanted to list a few of our favorites.

Muffin Tin Monday

There was no theme for this week. I called this week a snack of champions. LittleBit has 2 TaeKwonDo classes this afternoon and it will be a late supper tonight so, he needed a big snack to get him through the afternoon.

He had:
grapes
yogurt
Penaut Butter & crackers
popcorn
Laughing cow cheese wedge
Kool-aid - a big treat, we don't have it very often.