Skeletal System (Human Body Project)

Bones! Bones! Bones!!  We are learning about our Skeletal System.  I for one have been eager to start this unit with the kiddos.  I got most of the ideas from this blog. I loved the simplicity of it and the fact that it was really hands on.

Today, I introduced the boys to their skeletons.  We started the day learning about what bones do in our bodies. They hold us up, they protect our organs etc.  The first bone we learned about was the Skull.  I asked the boys if they knew where their skulls were...they pointed...I asked them what a skull's purpose was. They were a little stumped. I told them that the skull protects our Brains!  Austin colored the Brain I had printed out and placed it on our Mr. Bonehead life sized skeleton. 

I did an activity with them to demonstrate how the skull protects the Brain. I brought out some eggs. The eggs represent our skulls (with brains inside). I told them that the skull is much harder than an egg shell.

I asked what would happen if our eggs fell from a very high place... They were pretty delighted because I think they realized what was going to happen next.
Our little eggs took a dove from a mountain onto the ground. Here's the video and their reaction. I told them the yolk represented our brains and showed them how the skull held everything inside. Without a skull, our brains would be everywhere.

Our next project was to talk about what would happen if we didn't have bones in our bodies.  I asked them to show me what it would look like if we didn't have bones in our arms, legs and so on. This got them up and moving.

We looked up x-rays of the human skeleton on google images. Make sure your safe search is on before you start....whew.

We cut up a bunch of straws and made a human skeleton complete with Skull, clavicle, arm bones, leg bones, ribs and pelvis.

After we explored all the bones for today, I asked Austin to label Mr. Bonehead.  I think he did a fantastic job or remembering all the bones!

Come back soon to see our projects and pictures in our own Human Body Project!

Enjoy

Human Body Project

For the next few weeks, we are going to be learning about the Human Body. We are going to learn what's on the inside and how it functions.  I will be covering the Skeletal System, Muscular, digestive, respiratory and circulatory system. I have some fun activities planned that I got from the Home Teacher's website. She had some really great ideas there.  In the pictures you will see a human skeleton. I got that from here.  I hope you will stick around and learn about the human body with us!

Enjoy

Growing a Lima Bean

This week in Science we are learning all about plants.  We are starting with seeds. 

Plants need air, water, light and food to grow. Plants make their own food from air and light and need the water to grow.

I started with soaking some dried lima beans (right out of the bag from the grocery store) overnight.  This morning a few were already losing their seed coat. We talked about what a seed coat was and what it's function was.  The next thing we noticed was that the embryo was coming out of  one of the beans.They made guesses on what it was and why it was coming out.  There's a video about how seeds grow here.

I made a "greenhouse" template out of construction paper for them to decorate to house our seed in the baggie. I had seen this all over Pinterest.  We watched a cute video about Sid the Seed on YouTube, which you can find here.  The kiddos loved this video and they had TONS of questions.  Sid doesn't want to go out into the world, so he lives down deep in a hole with his two friends, a caterpillar and a spider. Each friend ends up leaving the hole (caterpillar turns into a butterfly and the spider makes a balloon to fly away) leaving Sid all alone. He feels sad so he decides he is going to explore the world too! He fills up his cup and drinks and drinks and drinks tons of water until he starts changing. He sprouts roots and starts to grow bigger and bigger until finally he becomes a tree and his friends come to live ON him. Very cute.

After we finished watching our videos it was time to start growing!!  Each boy took a napkin and placed three beans on it in a straight line giving the beans enough space to grow.  They then used a spray bottle to spray the seeds and napkin.

After they sprayed the entire napkin, they added another napkin on top of the beans, sprayed that then folded it over and placed it in their baggies. I let the boys staple their own baggies to their greenhouse and tape it in the window.

Make sure you leave the bag open on top to allow air in!  We put it in a sunny spot, but may end up moving it considering the sun doesn't seem to be hitting our window that much.

Enjoy!

Skip Counting by 2's!

Oh Skip Counting.... I use skip counting all the time in my day to day life. I always count by two's or  five's... but trying to teach it to Austin seemed like such a struggle.  We have gone over this lesson a few times and each time ended in him getting angry and just giving up. I kept trying to explain it, but it seemed impossible...until.... had a really great idea.  It's like a game for him.  I told him today we were doing skip counting by two's and he started getting angry and upset...

"Get up I said and let's play a game.  I want you to reach up high. When you reach up high say one really quiet then reach down low, clap and say really loud TWO!... then you reach up high and really quietly say three, reach down low, clap and say really loud FOUR!"

He thought it was great and Lucas even got into it.

After doing it about 4 or 5 times, he was counting by two's all by himself.

I then took him to the stairs and he skip counted all the way up and then down the stairs. He kept doing it over and over again.

The last couple of days, we have worked on our 100's chart and counting them by 2's. I gave him a bingo marker and asked him to count by two's. It has been a struggle!!  Today, he did it by counting to himself and then shouting 2, 4, 6!!  Here's our updated numbers chart with counting by 2's!!  Yeah for knowledge :)

So excited for him and when he learns something knew, it's such a great feeling for both of us!

Enjoy!

Tinkering....

My husband gave me this idea. What a wonderful idea it was... I stuck this in my arsenal for a day that is making me want to scream and run away...um, trying.

I got a tiny tool box for computer work... and an old laptop my husband donated to my cause. I basically just sat it in the living room on the floor along with the toolbox and just waited....

Lucas was the first to stumble upon this treasure and came to find me. "What IS this thing?? What do I do with it? Can I break it apart and see what's inside??!" 

-sure-

They loved this. They loved this so much. I am now searching around the house to find out what we can take apart next. This kept them busy for a good solid hour.  They destroyed it. They found every part that they could remove and removed it. They explored, they cooperated, they discussed "what would happen" and they just had fun together.

Think about "tinkering" next time you need a minute to do something... Although, I would definitely suggest NOT doing it in the living room. My vacuum hates me.

Enjoy

An incredibly slow moving morning....

....last week was...um... well it was hard.  My husband was out of town and I was trying to redo my entire lesson plan. (WHO DOES THAT??!) I was stressed out, at the end of my rope and in a constant tizz. It was not enjoyable at all.  I had been working nonstop on revamping my entire lesson plan (again, who does that??!) and I was just tired.

 By Friday, I just gave up and realized that I am not making myself or anyone else, for that matter, happy at all.  So I just said "you know what, today there is no school. We are just going to play all day" It was actually a struggle first thing... I enjoy being with my kids, but to get inside their heads and play imagination is quite hard for me. I am all about board games, reading books, playing well thought out games, but running around the house shooting guns and maiming imaginary droids is hard.   My husband is actually the "fun" parent in the house that gets down on the floor and wrestles around with them making them giggle and such... I do that occasionally, but  most of the time, with that sort of game, I am a spectator and protector when someone gets a boo boo or "DADDY'S COMING!! RUN AND HIDE!"

I woke up Friday morning determined that I wanted to have a FUN day and not worry about school. I was making my coffee when a tired little Lucas came down the stairs. I got hugs and kisses. I said "Goodness Lukie, you look TIRED. Want some coffee??!"  His little face lit up as I handed him a lidded coffee cup full of milk, about 3 tablespoons of coffee and a dash of Cinnamon Bun creamer.  Austin came down and Lucas ran to him and showed him his cup and said "I GOT COFFEE LIKE MOMMY!!"  So of course, I made some for Austin. We ended up in the bedroom, cuddled in my bed, drinking coffee and watching kids shows for about an hour.  This special kiddo coffee has actually became an everyday occurrence around here.  They get their coffee cups, sit at the table and we just talk for a little while. Good start!!!

We played "diggy bug" after breakfast.  This is my little game I play with them (instead of Kung Fu like daddy).  I pull them in close and say "I have something in my HAND! Wanna see? What could it be?" and then they get close and I open my hand and say "OH NO! IT'S A DIGGY BUG" and I tickle the crap out of them.

I decided early on that we were not going to do school Friday. I was just tired of doing school...period. I had been staring at lesson plans until late in the night for a week and I was done. Obviously, that didn't mean the learning didn't have to take place any that day! My boys love Minecraft. There are many days when Austin asks me to play Legos and we end of making a Minecraft village out of Legos.  We spent a majority of the morning pretend mining downstairs, finding resources and such... we then headed upstais because I got a fun idea to make a "village" from Duplo blocks.  I let the boys in on my idea and they were both on board.

I was in charge of farming. I drew sugar cane, wheat, pumpkins, a tree, apples and a lake.  When we needed to harvest the sugar cane, they picked up the green blocks, the wheat were the yellow, the pumpkins were the orange and so on...

In Minecraft, you collect water with buckets you make, so here's our bucket!

Here's our mine. Austin was in charge of mining. Everytime we needed stones or anything he would use his pick axe (a gold club) to mine for us and would put the resources in our "chest"

Here's our chest. We have sand, gold, obsidian, stone, grass (lol) and a sword Lucas made.

This is our crafting table Lucas made for us.  Lucas was in charge of cooking. He would take "wheat" and make bread...or he would take sugar cane blocks, put them together and then change them into white blocks for sugar. He would then take the sugar and orange blocks (pumpkin) to make pumpkin pie for us.

Her's our food chest. We have bread, sugar cane, pumpkin and wheat.

As usual, our cats Fat Face (or Dash) and Albie Girl (Albie) are always around us doing cute things for us to swoon over. Here are some cute shots of them...just because I think they are extra cute!

Fat Face rolling around... *swoon*

Sweet Albie Girl

Haha. One thing I am learning is that it's okay just to call a time out and enjoy yourself...and your kids.

Enjoy!

Mexican Shredded Pork

Mexican night made easy! This is a CROCK POT recipe... who doesn't love crock pot recipes really? How can you hate something you start first thing in the a.m., go about your crazy hectic day and when you get home, you get to throw dinner on the table like you are a rock star?  Pretty sure the answer is you can't hate that.  So try this recipe out.

Mexican Shredded Pork

2 lb pork loin
1 pkg taco seasoning mix
1 cup water

Place pork loin, taco seasoning and water in a crock pot. Cook on low 8-10 hours. Remove roast, shred. Return meat to crock pot to soak up the juices and heat through.

I served this pork shredded with some Spanish Rice and some Fiesta Grillin' beans from Bushs. I love those beans by the way. I had never bought them before, but they were good!  I cut up some veggies like tomatoes, onions, lettuce and we made burritos/soft tacos.

Greek Pasta Salad

This is definitely a great recipe and a really good way of using leftover veggies. It's heaped full of pasta goodness, veggies and OF COURSE Feta Cheese. I love Feta Cheese.

Traditionally, there are olives in this recipe, but I do not like olives, my husband does... So I left them out. I was thinking of putting a little bowl on the side for him with some chopped olives? If you love olives, add a 2.25 ounce can into the recipe. I would probably drain it first.  I had the leftovers after it was in the fridge for a while chilling and it was tasty, although the pasta had soaked in the dressing... so you may want to add more dressing the next day.

Greek Pasta Salad

16 ounce rotini pasta (I use garden blend and it's so pretty to look at)
2.25 can of olives, drained (optional)
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/4 cup diced red onion (I actually kept some on the side and put more on my salad. I love red onions)
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1-2, 1.5lb pkgs skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into cubes
Greek seasoning (sprinkled on the chicken)
Greek dressing
2 ounce crumbled feta cheese

Cook pasta according to the package instructions, drain.  Cube chicken and season with Greek seasoning liberally. Cook in pan on medium high heat until done.  Add all ingredients to a very large bowl. Stir to mix well. Cover with as much greek dressing as you like and top with feta cheese.

Home Made Playdough

You can go out and buy expensive playdough in the containers or you can mix up a batch right in your own kitchen with stuff you already have in your pantry, I guarantee it!  This is the best recipe I have found so far for playdough, and I have tried alot!  And with helpful little hands that can actually help you make it, it's a breeze and fun to make!

1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/4 cup salt
1 Tbsp veggie oil
2 tsp cream of tartar
food coloring
saucepan
cookie sheet (for cooling your dough)

Combine all the ingredients in a saucepan and mix well. Stir in the ingrdients on medium heat for about 5 minutes.  When the mixture forms into ball, it's time to remove it from the heat.  Turn the ball of goop out onto your cookie sheet and let it cool.  When the mixture is cool enough to handle, flatten it out a bit and place desired amount of food coloring in it. Fold up the sides and start kneeding it until it's the color you want.

You have to store it in an air tight container. I put mine in a plastic bag, flattened it out, sealed up the bag and stored it in a glass container.

Enjoy!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

I recently made these to take to dinner at a friend's house. I (and everyone else) was pleasantly surprised on how they turned out. I am not a baker, so mine definitely did not look like the picture, but they were very good and super easy with just a few ingredients. They don't have icing, which I liked and frankly, they don't need it. They are decadent and worth a try!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

MAKES 6 (I doubled my recipe, but this recipe below only makes 6)

1/2 cup white chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup self-rising flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup fresh or frozen raspberries (I used frozen and did not defrost them)
confectioners sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 6 cup muffin tin by greasing or adding liners.

In a small saucepan over LOW heat, melt half the white chocolate chips with the butter, stirring gently until smooth, set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl, sift the flour. Stir in the sugar and remaining white chocolate chips. In a small bowl combine the egg, milk and melted butter and chocolate mixture.  Add all at once to the flour mixture together with the raspberries. Stir until just moistened. Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cups.

Bake until the tops spring back when lightly tapped, 20-25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack 5 minutes, then turn out.  Dust with confectioners sugar.

Enjoy!

Living vs. Non Living activities

In our science lesson today, we talked about living vs non living.  It was a pretty straight forward lesson but I wanted to incorporate some activities and worksheets into it.

We started our lesson by reading straight from the text book. I asked the boys if they could name some living and non living things and we made a list on the white board.

We then watched a very short video from PBS Learning Media site which you can find here.  I just asked them what was living and non living when the pictures came up. I think you have to log in to view that video, but it's a free site and has some pretty cool things on. It may be worth getting a log in for it.

After the video, I brought out the glue and construction paper and they sorted little pictures into living and non living. To my surprise they LOVED this activity. They had so much fun pretending the "table" was living or what the "bed" would eat if it was living.  I got the activity in a free downloadable packet and we are planning to use more of the activities in the following weeks.  I got the packet here

Then we headed out front to look for living and non living things in our front yard.  I wrote down everything Austin found. (Lucas refused to put his shoes on, so he stayed on the porch).

Enjoy!!

Physical Activity Cube!

Whew.

Whew....

Today my children had some definite ants in their pants all morning.  After we did a few lessons, I decided it was time to get the wiggles (and giggles) out.  What better way than a Physical Activity Cube!?

It was actually pretty simple.  I used an old box I found in the garage from our yard sale a few weeks ago and covered it in construction paper. At first I thought it was too big, but when I told the boys what I wanted to use it for they thought it was awesome that it WAS so big.

I then sat in the living room and the boys and I thought of physical activities we could do and I wrote them on each side of the cube.

Austin must have been a torture expert in his past life....HE chose 10 squats.  It's fine if you are doing a set of 10....but when you play with this cube for about 20 minutes, your glutes HATE you for real.  I kept rolling it and the boys thought it was hilarious.  I also may have exaggerated my voice a lot and may have been overly dramatic.  Hey, it kept the laughter up and that was a lovely sound. (even if my glutes were screaming) They were giggling and so excited.  They LOVED this activity.

Other activities we thought of were:

3 laps around (we have an open kitchen and living room and it makes one big circle)
15 sit ups
5 jumping jacks
10 squats (gah!)
4 push ups
2 minutes of getting the wiggles out

We played with it for about 20 minutes (just long enough for everyone to have fun but not long enough for everyone to start getting whiny). We just took turns rolling it around the living room and doing whatever it landed on.  There are a lot of blurry pictures below. There was a ton of movement going on.  Score.

Enjoy!

Learning about the 5 senses

We just finished our first week of homeschool. I am pleased to announce, we all still have pulses. Fancy that!

We delved right in to learning about our 5 senses.  This week, I did a lapbook. If you don't know what a lapbook is...google it. It's such a compact fun way of learning. With this lapbook, I actually put together the bare bones of it this summer. I wasn't sure how to actually do them nor did I know that normally, the kids are the ones that make them.  *noted*

Anyway.  I planned a bunch of fun activities to reinforce their senses...along with supplemental stuff like watching Kids Health videos and color sheets. 

Here's how our week went. (I actually forgot to take pictures of the Sense of Touch, it was our first day after all but the activity if self explanatory)

Sense of Hearing:

I got the idea for this hearing activity here.  I ended up using mini marshmallows, small legos, rice and popcorn kernels. I put them in each egg and the boys had to shake the eggs to figure out what was inside. Once they were sure of their guess they opened them up to see if they were right.

 

 

After the Hearing activity, this little Nugget and I used the popcorn kernels (and some from the pantry) to make some popcorn on the stove.

SUCH a fun activity! Listen to it POP POP POP!

SENSE OF SMELL

What better way to use your sense of smell than painting with Spices! Before the activity, we smelled each spice and picked out our favorite. Everyone hated the way paprika smelled and everyone but my oldest liked Cinnamon. I used cinnamon, paprika, ground cloves, ginger, a bay leaf and some whole cloves. We also used glue to glue them everything down. I just added the spices to an ice cube tray and mixed with some water.

 

((insert random pictures from the week below...heehee))

 

I made busy bags for Little One while Oldest one works on his spelling, grammar etc. This one he had to use his "big boy scissors" to cut out the shapes I drew.

Using the counting blocks to help him get through an addition maze.

Gluing those shapes down with too much glitter glue

Working on writing his name.... I found this idea on Pinterest.

SENSE OF TASTE: A TASTY EXPERIMENT
All you need for this experiment is salt, sugar, vinegar and lemon juice and some qtips for dipping and tasting.  Before we started this experiment we learned about the map of the tongue and where each item was going to taste the strongest. I dipped the qtip in each item and had the boys place it on their tongues where it was going to taste the "best" or worst in most cases.

Not keen on the salt

He didn't like the salt either

Putting the vinegar on the back of his tongue

HECK NO TO VINEGAR!

...and to lemon juice.

 

CUTE CUTE CUTE handwriting!

 

***DRUM ROLL PLEASE!***

Here it is... in all it's glory! Our 5 senses lapbook!

Enjoy!!