Reading Fun Time with The Magic Tree House

I'm sure I am like other moms who would rather see her children read a good book instead of sitting in front of a T.V all day. Since  Minnie(me) and Super Boy are at a great age to instil this, I try my hardest to make reading more fun. I do this by finding books that really get their attention and also apply some fun activities to go with the story.

I may be a little behind, but the kids and I have discovered The Magic Tree House books by Mary Pope Osborne. They are great books about a brother and sister who find a magic tree house and go on these wonderful adventures together. I thought this would be great because the kids can see themselves going on these adventures themselves.  Anything to boost their imaginations right?

The books are only about 10 chapters, which I love because we read about 2 chapters a day. The kids take turns by each reading a page and then after the chapter, we do a little review about what they just read. We do this out loud so that I can help them if needed and the other child knows what is going on in the story as well.

Last week we finished the first book called "Dinosaurs Before Dark." The kids loved it! Super Boy really enjoyed it because he loves dinosaurs!

 After we finished each chapter, the kids had to answer questions about what they just read. They had a Magic Tree House folder where they kept all the activities that we did that went along with the book.  After we finished the book, they also had to complete a lap book. This required some research from some dinosaur books we have. It was great to see them work together and also help each other if there was a hard question.

Since they are still a little young for book reports, I had them do a bag report.  They had some questions they had to answer about the story, draw some pictures of things that happened in the story, and then collect items that reminded them of the story. Since they read about dinosaurs, they put in some dinosaur toys in their bags. They also put in some plastic eggs because the characters in the story came across a dinosaur nest. They also put some sticks in their bags to remind them of the tree house. They put some other neat things in there too!

For our special snack, we made Duck-Bill dinosaurs nests.  They're so easy to make! 

First you melt some peanut butter.

When it's all melted and creamy, you add some pretzels sticks. Stir to make sure that the pretzels sticks are all well coated.

They take clumps and put it on parchment paper to cool. 

When cooled, add candy eggs or jelly beans to look like dino eggs.  Then enjoy!  They were a hit with the kids!

 

Today we just began reading book #2 A Knight At Dawn.  We'll be finished with it on Friday and then we're looking forward to reading more from this fun series!

Next Year Preps!

Well, the kids and I are counting the days down till the last day of school. ( 6 more days!!!!)   It's been a great year, but this Mama needs a break! 

As another school year is coming to an end, I am beginning to prep for next year. It's true, I never stop!

There are a couple of things that we will be adding for the next school year. For beginners, we have joined a co-op.  We're really looking forward to beginning this new adventure and making new, life long friends.  We're kind of ahead of the game because we already know a couple families there.  I have been looking into co-ops and this one seems to fit what we needed! I am praying that all goes well!  I will be posting more about the classes and how it's going, but that will be AFTER summer!

I am also jumping on the work box bandwagon.  I thought they were more for larger families, which they might be, but I thought with all the changes coming up, this would help us to stay on track and even be a little more organized! Nothing wrong with that right?  I made up some cute work box things for the kids to help them stay on top of their work.  Minnie(me) will be using American Girl tabs to help her and Super Boy will be using Transformer tabs. I thought they would enjoy it better if they incorporated something that they both loved! For the subjects, I used some cute clip art to help the kids know which subject was coming up.  Hopefully this works!  Right now I am in the prepping stages and going to be doing a lot of thinking this through before applying it.  On paper it sounds like it will work perfectly!

Our schedule has been busy this year and I know it will only get busy, especially with our new adventure in the co-op world.  The kids have been doing swimming lessons every week (instead of our older version of when my schedule is free).  Having a place and time always set up has really helped!  The kids have also joined a homeschool Martial Arts class.  They meet twice a week and are LOVING it!  The teachers are amazing and the kids in their class are the sweetest bunch of kids!  This will be something they're in for awhile!

So as I count the days down, I know that my summer will still be full of getting this ready for yet another great year of homeschooling!

Another Year That We're Buggin' Out

If you have been reading this blog for awhile, you already know that every March we do a study with insects.  The first year we did this we decided to call it "Bug Madness" instead of March Madness. (even though there is a difference between bugs and insects.)

So once again we did our insect study and it was fun!  Since we do this every year, I add more and more for the kids to do so that they don't get bored if it.  There are some insects we continue to learn more about like the kids favorites: butterflies, ants, lady bugs and dragonflies.  But I add a couple more each year to make it more interesting.

The first day of our insect study always begins with an insect hunt.  The kids have to get their bug insect finding kits and be ready to find those little critters.  Some tend to be harder than others. (I like to hide some on their chairs or in a drawer so they get a surprise when getting their work out.) 

Minnie(me) and Super Boy are ready!

There are a few rules when they are looking insects. They HAVE to use their insect tweezers and nets. They then have to put the insect into their insect cage so that later they can observe them once all the insects are found.

Because they are getting older I am trying to get them prepared for when they have to do research on their own and do book reports.  So this year I made an insect booklet that they needed to work on everyday. We studied about two insects a week. With each insect, there was a section of the book that they needed to work on.  The first day they learned about an insect, they had to look at some insect books to find the correct answer. This was something I had them work on together to enforce those teamwork skills!

On the second day of a certain insect, the kids had to label the parts and then also learn about the life cycle. We had a lot of hands on things to help us with that. Our insects that we found were great at looking up close. (and great for not having real critters in the house!)

After we learned about the insect, labeled the parts and did the life cycle, there were other activities we had to do. Maybe a fun activity like learning about symmetry.  (this went great with math!)  The kids had to finish the other half of a butterfly that was on one of their worksheets.  We also did a craft for every insect we learned about. I would also try to make snack time fun by coming up with cute snack ideas. When we learned about ants, I took some peanut butter and spread it on a rod pretzels. Then I put some raisins on it and called it "ants on a log!"  The kids got a kick out of that!

Last year I was too late in getting caterpillars during our insect study, so this year I made sure I got some in plenty of time.  When our little friends arrived, the kids had to make note of their size and any changed they saw each morning.  It was so much fun to see how big they would get only after a day!  We also worked on the parts of a butterfly and it's life cycle. I think it was even more neat to watch it happen before our eyes!

After all the butterflies were out, we kept them for about a week or so.  We had a cold front come our way and I wanted to make sure the weather was perfect for them.  Another reason I HAD to get them out into nature was because some were going to have babies soon!!! 

When the weather was warmer, we took them to a local nature park and let them free. We thought it would be best for them to be set free there since they had a butterfly garden already planted and we weren't going to have ours ready until late spring/ early summer.  It was sad seeing them fly away and the kids were really missing them, but I told them it was part of nature and now they could be free to experience God's world. 

What Time Is It?

The kids have been learning to tell time for some time now, especially Minnie (me), but I am always on the lookout for games and visuals that can help them learn it easier.  I have a couple of print outs that the kids work on and some games we do, but I wanted a little something more.  So here it is!  I am now using these adorable number print outs (:00- :55) that I have around our clock in the classroom.  It just makes it so much easier when telling time.  This is really helping Super Boy since he really only just started learning telling time this year.

I thought it was a cute idea and I thought I would share it with you!

Some other print outs that have been using are the following that I found on Pinterest:

This is just a cute game that we play and it makes it fun to see who has that time and then to see what time the next card will say. Click on this link to get your own. I have.......


Another one is a bingo game for telling time.  Time Bingo

There really are a lot of cute games out there!  I love them because when the kids are having fun, they are actually learning more!

Well, it's TIME for me to go!   ;)

Virtual Field Trips

Another plus about homeschooling is that I am able to go to every one of my children's field trips.  I know that may sound a little silly, but I love being able to see them  learn about the world we live in while being in the world! (actually seeing it in person, not just in a book)

There are days, mostly rainy ones, when I want to be outdoors on one of these field trips or maybe we are learning about something that is not in our state and we're just unable to see it for ourselves.  So, I thought virtual field trips would be something fun to do.

Here some links that hopefully you can use on one of these days too!  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!!

Smithsonian National Museum of National History

Plimoth Plantation

Statue of Liberty

Virtual Jamestown

Mount Vernon

 Lincoln Memorial

NASA Space Shuttle  

Ellis Island


I hope you and your children enjoy your trip(s)!

Making 10 With Moses

As you can already tell, I love when I find something fun and cute for the kids to do that is something that we learned about.  Take for instants, late last year (a couple months ago) the kids were reviewing Bible lessons and we were talking about Moses. Then in Math, Super Boy was learning what numbers to add together to make the number 10.

I started looking online and came to the cutest file folder game.  This is why it's both funny and cute.  It's called "Make 10 with Moses."  Like the 10 commandments!  Ha!  So I made sure I printed this and made it for Super Boy to play right away.  He loved it!  There were stone tablets that had numbers and he had to make them boht add up to make 10. Cute!

I also came across some other really cute file folder games that combined some of the kids Bible lessons and another subject.  I can't wait to use them this year!

Would you like them for your kiddies?  Just go to www.filefolderfun.com and there you will find a bunhc of cute file folder games to play!

I hope you and your little ones enjoy them as much as we do!!

 

 

I'm Not MIA

No I have not fallen off the face of the planet.  From October till now, I have been nonstop with holidays, a move and life!

Check back soon!!!  More posts from my adventures coming soon!