Horn Homeschool: Week 6

I'm seriously behind in posting about our homeschooling ventures!

Week 6 we moved on from our letter A themed units and progressed to B with our study on BIRDS.

First we read and talked about what makes a bird a bird (feathers, backbone, lays eggs). Then we looked at a bird's life cycle.

Next we studied nests and tried to make them ourselves. Making nests is NOT for the faint at heart! Even though we cheated and used playdough and string nest-building was seriously hard work. And I don't think any real bird would like our end product. It was a valuable exercise though. Just as real birds, Chloe and I gathered sticks only ONE at a time and then brought them back to our pseudo-nests. We were both tired out after about 20 sticks in the pile. Birds sure are hard workers!

Additionally, I read books with Chloe in the afternoons focusing in on 3 specific birds during the week (owls, geese, hummingbirds). And then we'd do some fun craft to go along with that particular bird. We also touched a bit on migration. (Did you know that hummingbirds migrate?)

And because I'm a nerd bird-themed edibles were required for our week's study. Owl pancakes and chocolate bird nests with gum drop eggs were on the week's menu. And scrambled eggs of course!

We ended the week by reading about birdwatching and using a field guide. (I highly recommend Jim Arnosky's Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing Birds as a kid-friendly primer to birding.) I had checked out a simple bird guide from the library which categorized about 30 common backyard birds. Armed with our bird guide in hand, we headed to a local nature center. There we observed birds and the kids got to use kiddie binoculars. We also did a short hike and then talked to the naturalist about the birds we saw (she even helped Chloe use the bird guide to identify chickadees).

We did some work with "ir" words and also continued with our handwriting, math and chapter book reading too. All in all a great week!

Full-blown bribery

Obviously a major goal in any kindergarten education is reading.

I've been working with Chloe on phonics for as long as I can remember! When she was 2 1/2 we used the amazing supremely awesome dvd Letter Factory to help teach and reinforce her letter sounds. During her 3rd and 4th year I added onto that with a simple Hooked on Phonics set given to me by a friend.

So, launching into kindergarten this year I thought all the magic pieces would fall into place. We'd already covered lots of ground and coming into kindergarten Chloe had already read many books on her own.

The trouble was motivation. Getting Chloe to read was like pulling teeth! Torture, sheer torture it was. It was almost as bad as potty-training. Almost. I'd painstakingly sound out words with her one letter at a time and continually help her refocus. All the while she'd squirm, whine and sometimes give up in tears.

So we took a big break from phonics this past summer. We'd play rhyming games, use a small blackboard or make up silly sentences but I stopped forcing her to read from a printed page.

To start with this year I wanted to build Chloe's confidence in reading and make reading a fun rewarding experience. Now I literally reward her and it's working beautifully!

I admit it. It's bribery plain and simple. But it's working! Who cares if my girl gets a few pieces of candy or cheap toys in the process? Even traditional schools use bribery as a motivational tool so I'm not feeling too guilty about it.

I printed up a basic reading chart and using Chloe's prime motivators of candy and girly-girl toys we went to work. For every 5 books she reads, she gets to choose a bag of candy. Every 10 books nets her a choice from the prize jar. And when she fills up the entire reading chart we'll do an extra fun family activity together (swimming at a local indoor water park).

Check OUT how many books this girl has read!

How do you use bribery to motivate your littles? Or how do you use bribery on yourself? I often treat myself with special food (usually involving cheese or chocolate) to help accomplish undesirable tasks.

Reading for the Record

Today, October 7, is the official "Read for the Record" day across America. We've participated in this a few years now through our local library's story times. And if it weren't for our enthusiastic librarians, I'd have no clue about this neat national reading effort.

I'm not sure what inherent value there is in lots of people reading for a set amount of time on a particular day. I'm fairly certain masses of readers will not rise up and plow forth furrows of literacy just because there's a nation-wide Today-show-endorsed day set aside for reading.

BUT I do like the fact that this online organization wegivebooks.org gave away thousands of free books in conjunction with this reading record day. And with a website url like "wegivebooks.org" I'm going to be keeping a watchful eye on it so I can get ME some free books whenever the opportunity arises.

Seems like a great little site though I always guffaw heartily inside when I read a stat like this one below (this blurb was taken directly from the wegivebooks website - bold emphasis in the last sentence mine).

Did You Know?

Children Without Literacy Skills Face Dire Consequences

According to the Pearson Foundation Early Childhood Education Perception Poll, ninety-five percent of Americans consider early childhood literacy an important problem, but they do not know that reading to children between the ages of 3 to 5 has long-term benefits for a child's academic achievement and life-long success.

I'm speechless. Ok, not really speechless because I have LOADS of words to spout on this matter. But I am taken aback by the wording found here.

How dumb do you think we ARE? Are you telling me folks can't figure out that reading to kids obliterates early literacy problems? Or are you telling me that American citizens are just too lazy, busy or uninvolved in their child's education that they aren't reading to their kids?

You mean watching more Dora dvds won't help my kid read? (Sorry, Dora. You're great just not allowed in my house since you creep me out with your mesmerizing eyes and hyper-excited intonation.)

So, read for the record! If you want to. Anyone else out there participating? I pledged me and C & C because barring a natural disaster we'll be reading something today. Reading together happens in our house every day of the week.

What I need to buck-up on is my own personal reading. I used to devour Dickens and Lewis like they were chunks of sharply aged cheddar but now I'm lucky if I skim a Parents mag article in the bathroom. I miss that getting-caught-up-in-a-good-story feeling.

How 'bout you? How much reading goes on in your house?

Coffee consumption poll

This coffee mug image at left says it all for me. Lately, I'm not fully awake until I've had a cup or three of java to jump-start my eyelids. (Check out more fun and unique coffee mugs here.)

Thankfully, my coffee necessity is not quite so dire lately since Solomon decided to start sleeping through the night. I'm almost afraid to post that glorious milestone lest I jinx the utter deliciousness of uninterrupted rest. But even as I type this I remember the truer-than-true baby adage, "It's just a phase." Even Solly's sleeping 9 hours straight could be a phase. So, I thank God for every night regardless of the sleep count.

I truly rely on my daily jolt of coffee to get me moving in the morning and to keep me moving through my daily afternoon slump. When Solly wasn't sleeping well I didn't even bother counting how many coffee cups I chugged. It was probably around 4-6 cups of joe a day. Yikes! Not good.

Now that Solomon's improving in the sleep department, I need to start weaning myself down to a healthier amount of coffee consumption. I'm aiming for 1-2 fully caffeinated cups in the morning and 1-2 half-caf cups in the afternoon.

Am I the only one with this bad habit? Kindly participate in the poll below and make me feel better about my caffeine addiction. :) What's your caffeine-laden beverage of choice?

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Horn Homeschool: Week 5

What kindergarten program would be complete without an apple-theme week?

Here are the highlights from our apple-y fun week:

• Beckwith Orchards. This family-owned orchard as been providing the northeast Ohio area with apples and education for more than four generations. Even though the orchard's website offered school group tours I didn't think I'd be able to wrangle up the 15 kiddo minimum and find parents willing and able to go for $4 a pop.
  
  Instead, I loaded up my crew and headed to the orchards on Friday, the last day of our week's apple studies. The timing was perfect! Several school groups were touring the place that day and the entire staff seemed in the educational mood. Beckwith's not only has walk-able orchards galore (though no picking -- that's ok we've already been apple-picking this season) it also has a cute country store and apple market on site. The country store is fabulous, stocked with lots of homemade jams and butters, dried fruit goodies, cider, and plenty of country-ish decor.
  
  I peeked into the big apple sorting/washing room. Determined to ask someone knowledgeable about the difference between apple cider and apple juice, I queried a friendly looking person inside. She beckoned us in (YES!) and promptly introduced me to Grandpa Beckwith, owner of the establishment. He was waiting for the next school group and happily answered my question and more! He gave the kids apples to snack on and started up the apple sorter/washer machine for us. He explained the process to us and I kept asking questions to keep the information flow going.
  
  After we bought our apples and cider, we headed out to the orchard to eat our picnic lunch amidst the apple trees. As we munched, another school group came outside and the tour guide stopped RIGHT in front of us! So, we got to hear about 10 minutes worth of more apple info. Woo-hoo!

• Apple party. Had the last-minute idea for an apple party on Friday afternoon. Thankfully some neighbor pals weren't busy and were able to join us! We hung an apple on a string from a tree and let the kiddos go at it without using their hands (WHY didn't I get a picture of that?!?). The kids also bobbed for apples, drank cider, and noshed on candied apples. Way fun!
  
• Apple prints. This idea is an old one but a good one! Cut one apple vertically and another horizontally. Dip in paint and have at it!
  
• Apple goodies. You KNOW we ate lots of delicious apple stuff during our apple week. We kicked off Monday with an apple-themed lunch (applesauce, apple shaped jello jigglers, peppers cut into apple shapes, apples atop peanut butter toast). During the week we had baked apples, apple pie, LOTS of applesauce, apple muffins, and candied apples. Thus far I've made six batches of applesauce. Check out this super easy crockpot recipe for spiced applesauce. We all love it (Solly included) but after this batch in the fridge, I declare an applesauce hiatus for a few weeks.
• Johnny Appleseed. We read a few books on this legendary pioneer planter, sang his song, and watched the Disney flick. I couldn't find the full-length Johnny Appleseed movie but I found a bite-sized version in the Disney American Legends dvd. EXCELLENT! Because it's an older movie, the Christian overtones are fully presented and celebrated. Two weeks later we're still singing his catchy thankfulness song and Chloe's still asking to watch the movie!
  

More Clive-isms

I should follow my Clive around with a tape-recorder these days. He's always spouting off funny quote-ables stemming from his impulsive personality and limited two-year old vocabulary.

Clive is my darling. I love him to pieces! I can't control myself sometimes and often find myself scooping him up and smothering him with smoocheroos (usually against his will).

Here are a few of his recent quote-ables to make you grin!






Setting: Sitting at the dinner table. Clive hadn't eaten much of his dinner and the rest of us were already finished.
Me: "Clive, sweetie, why haven't you eaten your dinner?"
Clive: (folding his arms on the table and setting his chin down sadly) "I sorry mommy. It's too tasty for me."
[Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or an insult?]


Setting: I was staying home with a runny-nosed Solomon from church last Sunday and was finishing up dressing Chloe & Clive.
Me: "Clive, you have a fun time in Sunday school and be a good boy, ok?"
Clive: "Ok, mommy. And don't worry, I won't let ANY girls or boys kiss me!"
[Hmm, is this a common 2 year old problem? Or maybe it's just extra hard for Clive to fend off kissers since he's so stinkin' cute!]

Spicing things up

I'm finally getting around to spicing up my plain jane blog!

Spicing up like with a teaspoon of cinnamon, not a cup of cayenne pepper. Nothing major, just a tad more color, a new header and a more professional looking layout.

I've often thought about redesigning the ole blog but never got around to it. I know scads of you use free templates but I knew I couldn't follow suit (they look great on your blogs though). Knowing my fickle tastes I'd certainly loathe looking at any busy pattern in a matter of days. Or maybe minutes. (And I despise how those templates move when you scroll down the page of a blog. Am I the only one who's noticed that? Maybe it's the amateur-web-designer in me that cringes at that. In my mind only text should move when you scroll down, not backgrounds.)

Man, blogger has seriously improved its design tools in the past few years. Besides the new templates, they have plugged in html editors almost everywhere! I vividly remember 4 years ago when I spent hours of Chloe's naptime creating a header image and then laboriously toiling in the html to get it just right. And then there was the agony of realizing that the header STILL didn't work even after all my labor. Ugh.

This recent blog revamp was quick, smooth, and painless! Thanks to a few super easy tools that is.

• Jing. I realize I say I LOVE a lot. But I really truly LOVE this screen capture program. It's free and incredibly easy to use. And the quality of screen capture images is perfecto. Jing enabled me to skip the tricky step of saving my header as a picture (formatting, size and resolution often alter when I do this). Instead I just clicked on my magic yellow Jing ball, dragged the cross-hairs across my header and grabbed a copy of it. Jing has also made uploading medical images for my online job MUCH easier.
• Picnik. I think I'm the last person in the world to discover the fun-ness of Picnik. This online photo editing site has a lovely simple interface making it un-intimidating and easy to navigate. And it's loads of fun to apply their photo effects. Besides the usual color changing tools there are myriads of other toys to play with which make pictures fuzzy, bright, pixellated, and much more. I've only just begun exploring this whimsical site.
  
• New font. For the first time ever I downloaded and installed a new font. Woo-hoo! I don't remember on where I found the font for my new header but google "free fonts" and you'll soon see there are a plethora of downloadable fonts out there. Just be sure to read the fine print so you don't owe the font creator any royalties. This site made for good font browsing and boasts of 8,000 free ones.

So, what d'ya think of the new look? And how do you update your bloggy look?

We are ready for some football!

Since this is the third official week of football season looks like I'm a tad late with this post.

Regardless, we ARE ready for some football!

Fall is great; I usually love its arrival. But this year as the summer warmth fades I sense the impending restrictions of colder weather looming. How AM I going to stay sane while housebound with my three active short people? Football is one of the redeeming factors of the season change. (Along with apples, cinnamon, soup, pumpkins, mums and cute halloween costumes that is.)

As is no surprise to you if you've read my blog for any length of time, we are a family of Green Bay Packer fans. Even though we've lived in Ohio for 5+ years now, we are still avid Packer backers. I'm guessing you have to be a native Ohioan in order to cheer for the Browns. It's most likely a contract signed at birth to guarantee the Browns have a residual fan base.

See, I even talk blog-trash about football so you know I'm a true fan.

Every season opener, we celebrate with a Packer themed dinner. We put the TV on while we devour our green and yellow chow. Usually I serve quiche (with broccoli, spinach, peppers, and cheese inside to follow the theme), green/yellow jello, and kiwi or pineapple. This year I had some leftover mashed potatoes so I also whipped up a batch of potato croquettes. Unfamiliar with potato croquettes? That's fancy schmancy talk for FRIED mashed potatoes that have been mixed with cheese and breadcrumbs. Anything fried is automatically thumbs-up in my book but fried PLUS cheese? YUMMOLA. There were no leftovers.

Even with Aaron Rodgers at the helm, the Packers have managed to win both of their first two games. After replacing the amazing and venerable Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers needs to prove himself to me. I'm choosing not to comment on dear Brett's retirement and media fiasco of late. I'm just saying he was the BEST QB to ever don the green and gold. And he's incredibly fun to watch play the game!

That said, I'm curious about you and yours. Are we the only wackos that enjoy football season so much? What team are you rooting for this season and why? What football traditions do you and your familia observe?

And if your team plays the Packers, I sincerely hope we kick your tail.

Quotable kids

I'm feeling low this morning. All three of our children woke up for various reasons during the night. Ugh. The day can only go up from here, right? :)

To perk myself and you dear readers up for this last work day, I thought I'd share a few funny kid-isms from Chloe and Clive. Enjoy!

Setting: Driving home from the farmer's market.

Chloe: "Mama, when I grow up I am definitely going to live in the country. It's very quiet out here. And I finally know what I want to be when I grow up -- a mommy!"

Me: "Chloe, I'm so glad you want to be a mommy! Being a mommy is the BEST job in the world but it's also a very hard job."

Chloe: (after thinking a moment) "It won't be hard if I don't have any kids."

Setting: 9:45 p.m. As I walk upstairs to put Solomon to bed for the night, I find Clive lying on the floor in the upstairs hallway snuggling his blanket.

Me: (surprised) "Clive, what are you doing? You're supposed to be sleeping in your bed!"

Clive: "I was praying for some food. I'm hungry, mama!"

[His prayers were answered. I promptly got him a snack and got him back to bed.]

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Giggle, giggle. I feel better already. Hope you all have a lovely Friday!

Happy birthday, my love!

Today we are celebrating my dear husband, Matt. Today he turns 36 and though he has to teach from 11 - 5 we still hope to make it a special day for him.

Of course, the ONLY way I know how to celebrate involves food. Is there any other way?

• Donuts for breakfast (Matt's fave which I never allow because I'm a pseudo-health-food nazi)
• Brown bag lunch with a payday candy bar tucked inside (Again, Matt's fave that I don't usually buy)
• Marco's pizza for dinner, veggies, applesauce and apple pie for birthday dessert
  

I LOVE cooking for my hubby and making him feel special so I asked him last week for his birthday dinner request. I was hoping he'd pick something rather easy since Thursdays he gets home near 6 and as such I have no kid-assistance during dinner prep. To my delight, and I hope not to diss my cooking, he requested take-out pizza! YAY for me! I made a frozen apple pie filling this past weekend with our excess apples (instructions here) so the pie shouldn't be too labor-intensive either.

We made cards and have a fun bag of gifts to give to Dr. Daddy in the morning. I'm hopeful that we can watch a movie together after we get the kids to bed. We'll see how much energy we both have by that time of the day! Usually we do our computer work, school work and housework like mad fools until we collapse.

I brag on my husband a lot and for good reason. He is a committed husband, the most loving and fun daddy I've ever seen, and my heart's counterpart. He's a superb listener (believe me, it takes serious skill to listen to my ramblings), a deep thinker, and a creative tinkerer. I love all the facets that make him up. He's my sweetheart and my heart is full for him.

Happy birthday, dear Matt!

Horn Homeschool: Week 4

Continuing with the "A" themes, week 4 of our homeschooling venture (can we really be through four weeks already?!?) was all about ART.

And man, was it fun!

I've decided to nix my weekly practice of listing our homeschooling activities because 1) I realize none of you really care to read all the details, 2) I do NOT want to give my inner-braggart voice by tauting all that we're doing. And believe me, my inner-braggart has a LOUD voice! and 3) It takes a LONG time to post all the nitty-gritty details. That's time that I would rather spend baking granola or taking a shower.

Instead I'll offer up a weekly highlight post showcasing our fave activities and resources.

So without further adieu let me tell you about some stellar kid art resources. I highly highly HIGHLY recommend these resources for teaching art to youngsters.


Art Resources

• Katie series by James Mayhew. I'm evolving more and more into a Charlotte Mason follower. As such I find that using books to teach unfamiliar subjects works very well for little minds. My kids swallow up new information if it's presented well in picture book form. Such is the case with the Katie books. We read both Katie Meets the Impressionists and Katie and the Mona Lisa this week. Both Chloe and Clive were hooked on these and asked for them again and again! These books don't cram facts about art down your throat. The books more gently present art work and subjects of art in a relate-able way. And they're fun reads to boot!
• Classical Baby: The Art Show dvd by HBO. This dvd was incredible. It was entertaining, enriching, and educational (like my spontaneous "e" alliteration?) on many levels. The gist of the flick is this -- a cartoon baby conducts appropriate classical music with animated paintings. So the watcher is making visual AND auditory connections. For example, an action painting by Jackson Pollock is paired with The Flight of the Bumblebee music. Paintings by Monet, Van Gogh, Cassatt, Pollock, Mondrian, and others are featured as well as various famous sculptures. The kids asked to watch this EVERY DAY last week. And I let them because they got SO much good stuff into their brains. How many 2.6 year olds do you know can identify Monet's Waterlilies or Rodan's The Thinker? My Clive can thanks to classical baby.
• The Usbourne Art Treasury. I'm learning that Usbourne=Awesome. This book is no exception. The book introduces not only famous paintings but also explains in kidspeak identifying techniques of various artists. AND the goes one step further. After each two page spread of explanation and visuals, a simple project is given to imitate the artist's technique. We only did the Van Gogh project but there were many others that looked promising.
• How Artists See series by Colleen Carroll. We read the How Artists See People book in this captivating series but there are a plethora of other titles. The book clearly compared and contrasted various paintings of children, men and women by posing simple questions to lead in observational discovery. I was genuinely surprised at the kids' attention span for this simple book. They easily made it through the entire thing (Clive not so much as Chloe) and eagerly answered the questions.
• A Book About Color: A Clear and Simple Guide for Young Artists by Mark Gonyea. Excellent book. I stumbled upon this beauty in the non-fiction stacks and it's cover tempted me to pick it up. I'm so glad I did! A simple and eye-catching read, this block-image book teaches lots of color principles using easy images and familiar references. Through this book, Chloe easily picked up several color concepts and vocabulary words (i.e. primary and secondary colors, complementary colors, saturation, and color wheel).
  

Week 4 Highlights

Outdoor painting with cardboard palettes









































Action painting (aka Jackson Pollock style)





































Painting with thick paint ala Van Gogh





















Field trip to the Cleveland Art Museum (this place ROCKS! And admission is FREE. We truly are fortunate to live near such a high-class joint. It houses several Van Goghs, Monet's classic Water Lilies, a miniature demo version of The Thinker, and a Jackson Pollock. Not to mention works by El Greco, Renoir, Mondrian, Degas, Picasso and many others. Did you know you aren't allowed to take even non-flash photos at the museum? Found that out the hard way.)





















Sculpting with clay (Spent two afternoons working with oven-bakeable clay. Chloe made several little things the first day and then the second day she crafted a crown [pictured below] and the letters of her name. I made Bob the Builder. Sculpting sure is harder than it looks!)

My present sufferings

Last night was beyond rough for me. Solomon woke up twice to eat. Prior to that, Chloe also woke up needing consolation from a nightmare (her nightmare subjects are worthy fodder for a separate post). Mere verbal comforting didn't suffice so I crawled into bed with my scared Chloe and tried to sleep.

As you can imagine, sleeping with a wiggly cuddly 5 year old in a full size bed does NOT make for good quality slumber.

Due to my severe sleep deprivation, I assumed Solly and I would skip church this morning. He promptly woke up again at 8:30 this morning jolting me abruptly from my hazy consciousness. When I realized he would be awake for the bulk of the morning, I hastened to get us ready to go. Heck, if he was going to be awake at home, why not be awake at church where a loving capable nursery worker could care for him? Where else could I get a much-needed break if even just for an hour?

I'm inexpressibly glad I went. God had a word to speak to my weary soul. As Pastor Begg talked of suffering and glory from Romans 8, my tears trickled. I've never thought my life contained suffering of any kind. I'm healthy, free, have my needs met, and have never been persecuted for my faith. Most Americans would say the same. We have it pretty stinkin' good.

But as I sat there in the pew sniffling I realized I have been suffering these past months. Suffering from sleep deprivation. Before you turn away and regard this post as incidental, consider. Sleep deprivation is a seriously difficult ordeal. Intermittent sleep taxes me not only physically but also emotionally and spiritually. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying it's hard. I know these days will pass, I know this baby stuff is full of phases, but it's still hard. It feels like suffering to me.

When I think that the purpose of this suffering is to show by contrast the beauty and lightness of the promise of heaven, then my present sufferings are a bit more bearable. And I know that Jesus is here with me in the muck and mire of everyday sleep-deprived life. It stinks and He knows it. He knows, He cares and He hears when all I can do is cry, "Help!".

I'm not trying to be over-dramatic for the sake of hyperbole here. I hope I never forget the deep and real hardness of these days. I hope I always have empathy for new sleep-deprived moms. I hope I don't ever trivialize the difficulties of the first year of babyhood with trite sayings and passing judgments.

And more importantly, in or out of sufferings I hope the God of heaven will always be my comfort.

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Romans 8:18, 23-25

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. . . . And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Lazy Saturday

Now that Matt is slaving away back in the college classroom, weekends have become our family's much-needed and anticipated together time. It is breaking Matt's heart to be away from us so much! It's especially difficult to deal since some evenings he gets home only an hour before the kids' bedtime.

I'm not whining, I realize this is normal life. But that doesn't mean I have to like it!

Today we've all been puttering around the house together working on various projects at a leisurely pace. And though I never experienced a full break from kid-dom, it felt refreshing and therapeutic to slow down a little. I even tinkered a bit with my sewing machine (I've missed you old friend!).

How'd you spend your Saturday?

Clive time

Today a dear friend of mine took Chloe home for an afternoon playdate (thank you, dear friend!).

Imagining the extra time I would have this afternoon with one less child to manage, I immediately envisioned myself doing something productive around the house. Maybe I could finally scrub the bathtub, dust away the inch-thick layers of sediment settling in our living room, or begin working on Chloe's halloween costume. Ah, the lovely fantasies and unrealistic expectations of my dreaming mind . . .

What DID end up happening was that I got to spend some super good quality time with Clive. Since he's the middle child, I don't get much alone time with him. He's a crazy fun and unbelievably adorable kiddo. I love him to pieces. But thinking of a special activity for JUST him and me gave me pause. I didn't really want to dig in the sandbox or play cars in the dirt. But I did want him to feel like the center of attention since he's always living in his older sis' shadow.

Clive got pretty sad when his big sis left so I distracted him with smoothie making. He sat on the counter and dumped frozen strawberries and yogurt into the blender eagerly. We ate our lunch on the porch so we could watch for the garbage truck. (Exciting lives we lead, eh?) After some pretend fixing of the porch railing with his tools, we made peanut butter cookies together.

Making cookies with an active 2.6 year old is certainly an interesting experience. He wanted to do EVERYTHING himself. If I wouldn't have been on my toes, we would have ended up with some extremely unique tasting peanut butter cookies (I barely saved the dough from an extra cup of sugar Clive wanted to add). Once we got the ingredients correctly measured and mixed up, Clive's job was to roll the cookie-dough balls into the sugar. And then he took it upon himself to throw the dough onto the baking sheet. Sheesh. Can't blame him though, I DID call them "balls". And my boy knows what do to with a ball!

We had loads of fun and even though no household appliances were scrubbed this afternoon, I made a lasting memory with my dear middle boy.

How do you make your second child feel special?

Horn Homeschool: Week 3

We had LOADS of fun studying airplanes last week. Especially fun because we took two field trips to see planes up close and personal. This week was enriching for me personally because I know virtually nothing about airplanes. It's gonna be hard to top airplane week!

Here's what we did:

Monday, September 6
* Reviewed long-a and "all" sounds by reading simple readers together (I read 1/2 and Chloe read 1/2)
* Handwriting page
* Annos math games
* Read two chapters in Dr. Doolittle

Tuesday, September 7
* Read several airplane books, identified parts of plane
* Made airplane models from balsa wood and popsicle sticks
* Read two biographies of the Wright brothers and also the book So you want to be an inventor?
* Airplane lunch and airplane spoons. Consisted of string cheese wrapped in salami for plane body, pepper strips for wings, carrot for tail. I taped "wings" on the kids' spoons so they could fly their yogurt into their mouths.
* Handwriting page
* Math workbook page
* Annos math games
* Taught "air" words, wrote on the blackboard and Chloe made a guessing game for me using "air" words
* Matched rhyming words from two columns on the blackboard using long-a and "all" words
* Watched "There Goes a Plane" dvd
* Finished reading Dr. Doolittle
* Sang and listened to "I'll Fly Away"

Wednesday, September 8
* Reviewed "air" words
* Reviewed vocabulary words: biography, inventor
* FIELD TRIP: Military Air Preservation Society Museum. I impulsively threw the kids in the van for this impromptu field trip. It was perfect for our little crew! This small museum was a gem! Run by retired volunteers, the place was nearly deserted and all the older gents got quite a kick out of my active kiddos. We even got a personal tour guide who patiently answered my very dumb questions. :) It was a fairly hands-on museum -- the kids especially enjoyed playing in the gondola (passenger part of a blimp) and manning the anti-aircraft gun.
* Taught "air" combination words (i.e. airplane, staircase, hairball)
* Constructed rubber band airplanes and flew them outside (These cheap little wind-up propeller plane kits were great! Chloe got LOTS of practice counting to 100 as she wound up her plane's propeller.)

Thursday, September 9
Took the day off to pick apples with friends

Friday, September 10
* Read blimp, helicopter, and hot air balloon books -- compared and contrasted these with airplanes
* Suitcase number activity. Since one of the kindergarten objectives is for students to know their number words, I labeled 10 suitcases/bags with the number words from 1-10. Then Chloe and Clive (mostly Chloe) filled the suitcases with the correct number of items. They also put the bags in numerical order. Lots of addition and subtraction was involved in this simple activity, not just counting. Often Chloe would lose track of what she had already placed in a suitcase so she'd recount and I'd ask her a few questions to help her figure out how many more or fewer things she needed to match the number label.
* Airplane/airport game. Chloe and I worked all afternoon setting up an airport. We made tickets, boarding passes, luggage tags, set up a metal detector, ticket counter and created seat assignments. I can not even begin to tell you how much learning went on during this fun activity! Chloe typed our address and phone number for the luggage tags (practice reciting information), she wrote and cut out the tickets (handwriting, spelling, writing monetary values), wrote names on each luggage tag (reviewed spelling family names, wrote proper titles such as Dr. and Mrs.), grouped and organized luggage tags, creatively used household items to construct a (non-working) metal detector. After dinner we led Matt & Clive through the airport process and ended by showing an in-flight movie on the "plane" complete with snacks.
* 9/11 history. In the process of setting up the metal detector, Chloe asked me why such devices are needed. It was the perfect opportunity for me to tell Chloe a little about 9/11.

Saturday, September 11
* Kent State Aviation Heritage Air Show