Nothing like taking a 'pop quiz' while soaking up the sun on the trampoline.  And yes, I know the board has some spelling mistakes, what kind of teacher am I? lol.  Momentary lapse.

 We call this the math train.  Each card has a math equation on it, addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, sometimes more than one.  The answers are on the back.  Every few cards I placed a tiny candy.  If he got to that card he got the candy, quite motivational.  When he gets the hang of it and picks up his speed a bit we'll do a timed run, if he beats the clock, he gets some sort of treat at the end. 

 Quality reading time with the little guy.

 This is the math program he uses.  So far he's really liking it.  I think mostly because he earns credits with which he can buy items from the virtual shop. 

 He's got his eyes set on this little hamster. 

Picture of the Day

10 minute writing assignment using our Picture of the Day from National Geographic March 2007.  It might not look like a lot but with struggles in processing ideas and getting them out in a timely manner this was pretty fantastic.  I've seen far less with far more time allowed.  We'll work on expanding it during the week.

Also, today we did Math Whizz for about an hour.  By the end it was getting a little painful so we shut it down, but he did really well.  Working a lot with time.

And as usual the bike gang logged a ton of miles, or should I say kilometers as well as some running around tonight too.

We'll finish the night with some audio reading, How To Train Your Dragon.  We'll skip Percy Jackson tonight and just let him lie in bed and listen to a story. 

Spider Web Art Project

We began this project last week and finished it off over the weekend.  He began by drawing a picture, anything he wanted.  Then he used the hot glue gun to trace it.  After that he used a glue stick to cover the back of regular household foil then placed that over top of his picture. 

 

 Using a dry cloth he gently rubbed over the surface to mold it to the picture/dried glue.

 Then using a soft rag he rubbed shoe polish over it.  He had to be careful not to wipe too much or the polish would wipe off again.

 We used a fair bit, and it was stinky.  I'm not sure if we used the right kind of polish, we just used dollar store polish.  Enough to show the picture beneath.

 After finishing that, we left it for a few minutes then wiped off some excess, leaving just enough to stick in the grooves.  And the first picture you saw in this post was the completed project. 

 For a few hours we had it hanging in the hallway but it was just way to stinky so we had to move it to the outside of the door.  The smell is probably gone enough now to bring it back in but it's a perfect little spot for it, we see it all day long while going in and out.

The Diversity of Life

 Since we're covering insects right now it only seems fitting that we start with the Diversity of Life Unit in Science.  Covering the concept of what the difference is between living and non-living things. 

 The first stages of an art project he's working on.  First step:  draw a picture, not too much detail.  Step Two:  trace the lines with glue.  You can use regular Elmers glue but we decided on hot glue so that it would sit higher and dry faster.  More steps to come. 

He also drew a fantastic dragonfly today which we'll use for something else also. 

He's been riding his bike lots today again and is now out running around the neighbourhood with the boys.  Once he gets home we'll do some Math Whizz and Lumosity.  So far he's enjoying it - the Math Whizz.  His goal is to earn 1000 credits to buy a pet dragon. 

And as with every night he's been reading Percy Jackson for about 30 minutes. 

Today felt really loose.  Didn't really do a lot, at least not yet.  But since he's eager to go online to do math I'm certain he won't mind doing a bit more tonight.  A little bit here, a little bit there. 

Great Finds

 Our day started with a walk and some spelling review.  It's funny how well he does verbally yet, his writing assignments seem to tell a different story.  He said it looks better the way he spells it, hmmm....
Our walk took us on a trip to the library which has resulted in another huge pile of DVD's that we probably won't be able to get through and a stack of books on insects.  I thought we'd go to get some visual inspiration for an art project and it just didn't evolve that way. 

 We watched this DVD which turned out to be great.  Very learning centred, including a multiple choice quiz at the end which Mckenzie nailed.  I wasn't sure he was taking it all in since his note taking was sketchy, but it seems that he did.  Still, I think there was just so many great things to go over again so I took notes myself and will make up a little lesson plan on it myself. 

 On the way home from the library we decided to collect foliage from as many different trees as possible.  I think there are a few missing from the photo and it was also hard to narrow down what foliage to collect as there is just so much.  We tried to stick to trees or large bushes.  Not sure what we'll do with them so for now they're just being pressed in our insect books.

 Some backyard friends.  These little guys made eating outside this Summer next to impossible.  But the pattern on their bodies is pretty cool.  And this spider has quite fancy markings.

 Riding his bike, this kid has been a riding machine lately.  He and a couple other kids on the block who are being home schooled having been tearing up the neighbourhood.  So nice that he'll have friends to ride with even when the days are shorter because they'll be able to take time during the day. 

Our Classroom

I think both Mckenzie and I are thoroughly enjoying having a wide open classroom.  That's not to say that we do everything outside but it sure is nice to be able to incorporate the outdoors into our learning.  As you know we've been charting spiders and webs - well, here are some of our new 'friends' and their homes.  It was tough getting photos of the webs in the afternoon light but we managed.  Once again I'm having troubles with the photos, but this time it's not letting me enlarge them.  Try clicking on the image and see if it enlarges it.  The webs are truly beautiful and incredible works of art. 

This particular section of trees are especially well loved by the spiders.  It's a virtual gold mine of webs. 

A Few Things We've Been Up To Lately

We began our adventure a couple of weeks ago mostly with some simple math review.  Getting back into the rhythm of things.  Math is one of those areas that seem to be plagued by simple mistakes.  As we know, there is no room for simple mistakes in math.  So brushing up on some basics is a definite must for us. 

You'll have to forgive the sideways photos, it's refusing to co-operate and turn for me.  But you can see that our math review consisted of basic addition, subtraction, times tables 1 - 12, as well as a few fractions.  The Gingersnap math lesson was particularly tasty and fun.  He scores an A+ on that one.

 After our meeting with our teacher at the home learning school we were encouraged to pick a subject from which we could gravitate our studies around.  It could be anything.  Of course Mckenzie picked insects.  His pick, not mine, that's for sure.  But September and October are great months to focus on insects, particularly spiders.  So in spite of my extreme dislike of spiders it became our goal to chart them on our way to and from K's school.  We made note of how many empty webs we saw as well as spiders in their webs, either in full sun or shade.  We charted the results for both morning and afternoon when the temperatures were quite different.  Today we made a graph to show the results.  We will continue to use his research to make a fraction chart as well as he made a neighbourhood map and we'll use colour dots to represent every spider we see and where we see it.  (update: we marked spiders in webs and empty webs since the sun was not so much of a factor today.  The end tally was 50 spiders and 34 empty webs, down quite a bit from last week)

 Another interest Mckenzie has is skeletons.  So we scooped up this DVD from the public library and worked it into a project.  Well, not so much of a project as it was just noting things he did and did not know before watching the show.  As expected, the printing and spelling are still areas of struggle but that just means there is room for improvement.

 We will be using Picture of the Day as one of our writing tools.  You take any photo, this one happens to be from an old National Geographic and write about it.  His goal set before him was to write his thoughts and inferences about the past present and future surrounding this photo.  We used old school brainstorming methods to come up with the main themes.  He then told me his story aloud while I scribed it on the computer. 

 

Another great resource we picked up from the library is this audio book, How To Train Your Dragon.  It's great for down time when we don't want to have screen time but it's still nice to listen to a story.  I personally love the Scottish accents used. 

And this is the book Mckenzie is currently reading.  He's watched the movie before and enjoyed it so we got the book and it's just one more book he is thoroughly enjoying.  He's watched the 2nd movie as well and the second book is waiting on the shelf to be read. 

As well as these things, we're continuing with Lumosity, and online brain game program. It takes roughly 15-30 minutes a day.  It's simple yet good training for his brain to work in ways it doesn't necessarily come by naturally.  He loves seeing how his accuracy, skill level, achievements etc... are charted. 

He's also out on his bike doing tours around the neighbourhood in between work as well.  As the rains threaten, we want to make sure we get him out there as much as possible.  So nice to do 'work' outside rather than always sitting at a table looking through a window.

And he's also been enjoying a new TV series called Brain Games (?) on the National Geographic channel.  It's about how the brain and our senses play tricks on us and a whole gamete of interesting facts.  Quite entertaining.

For the most part I think that covers what we've been up to - at least the gist of it, for today.