Friday, April 6, 2012

Stopping to Smell the Daffodils: March 31 - April 6

In My Life This Week
A sense of accomplishment and ease! With the ducks arrival, our days have been FILLED with getting to know them and easing them into a comfortable, happy co-existence with the hens. Now, the hens and ducks aren't EXACTLY buddies after a week, but they tolerate each other and go about their "business". We've now established a new routine of taking care of the animals that is quick, efficient and thorough! Phew!


Cook'n in the Kitchen!
Did you miss my post on our tea time with poetry? Click here to see some WONDERFUL recipes for refreshing tea sandwiches, sweet cake and gingerbread scones!

Oh, and we did have a Bento picnic lunch at the farm on Wednesday before hitting the trails.

Broccoli, Green Pepper and Celery Sticks, Ketchup, Oatmeal
Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pears, and Homemade Corn
Dog Muffins

Homeschool Happenings
We learned that April is National Poetry Month and read, copied and memorized poems, demonstrated pronouns (like this, these, that, and those), worked on vocab words grisly and grizzly, built CVC words using Boggle Jr., diagrammed sentences, corrected punctuation and capitalization, combined sentences, found adjectives and adverbs, and sounded out double-vowel words.


Balsam Fir Practicing CVC Words

We solved Math subtraction facts, used calculators for comparison shopping, puzzled through more Crypto Mind Benders: Famous Quotations, counted ACTUAL coins, keeping the money if it was corrected counted, worked through partial dividends, averaged figures, practiced numerical order, and implied ratios.

We explored carbon dioxide reactions by combining baking soda and vinegar to launch a rocket, drew diagrams of severe storms and how they form (like hurricanes and tornadoes), learned about weather forecasting, compared nonliving things and living things, and created a poster of the digestive system.

Digestive System Posters from Scholastic
Baking Soda/Vinegar Rocket Ready to Go
No Action Shots, But a Splat! LOL

Did you know that our Sugar Maple was diagnosed with asthma in December? Oh, my what a scary experience! (I think I have a few gray hairs from that weekend!) So, this week we learned about asthma and supporting our girl.


We read some wonderful Easter books, Petook: An Easter Story, a sweet story about a rooster, hen and their chick, and The Easter Egg, a beautifully illustrated book about a rabbit hoping to make the most beautiful Easter egg, and continued on with our read aloud, The Phantom Tollbooth, a witty word-play story about a boy named Milo and his adventures in Dictionopolis. (Never read The Phantom Tollbooth? You should!) We watched "Into the Woods", a play of fairy tales, humor and LOTS of catchy songs, and "Rango" and  on Netflix.



We grudgingly STARTED organizing and cleaning up the playroom after Hurricane Kid hit, finished raking the winter debris off the yard and swept the dirt off the tarred driveway.

We traipsed through the woods, playing in imaginary lands, rode bikes up and down the dirt road, stopping to put on loose tire chains, shot baskets in the hoop, flipped over-end in the hammock, rescued a boot from the mud mire by the brook with shovels, milked a cow, and had oh-so-bumpy rides on the neighbor's ATV.

Helpful Homeschool Hint
Have you seen The Grammar Revolution? It's this neat website that teaches DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES, parts of speech and other PROPER GRAMMAR concepts. And we ALL just LOVE diagramming sentences, right? ((wink)) Favorite NEW resource this week!


Extra! Extra!
❀ Friend Time With the Neighbor Boys ❀ Sugar Maple's SPRING Birthday Party and Friend Sleepover ❀ Cub Scouts ❀ Boy Scouts ❀ Clarinet/Band ❀ Movie Night at the Library ❀ Cows on the Farm ❀ Oak Hill Trail ❀

Sunny Daffodils
Balsam Fir 
Sugar Maple

Hmm...Ponderings
Are these new colored reading strips going to HELP Balsam Fir with his visual tracking? or are they going to be a BIG distraction? Only time will tell!


A Photo, Video, Link, or Quote to Share

Link'n Up!
Favorite Resource This WeekFun Stuff FridaysThe Homeschool Mother's JournalNo Time For Flash CardsPinterest Monday From Musings From A Stay At Home MomHip Homeschool Hop Buttonlearning laboratory at mama smiles
abc buttonChestnut Grove Academy3Boys&aDog DEALS!

13 comments:

  1. I love the variety to your weeks! Thanks for sharing your resources!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fun, fun!!

    The digestive system fascinates and horrifies Mackenzie. Kayleigh is just fascinated. lol

    ReplyDelete
  3. sounds like a busy educational week :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. You ducks are so pretty, I ddnt nor know about the natural coating a hen puts on her eggs after she lays them (thanks for respose on my blog) I guess if we had chickens I might know that. (still hoping to get those soon. The phantom Tollbooth is a great read Falcon read it 2 summers back during a summer book club at the library. I would have never picked it up otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Loved reading your post!! XOXO

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a great week! Great pictures snd great book list! My ds loves Jr. Boggle too :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Lots going on in your week! I like the digestive system posters...very cool! My girls love playing with baking soda and vinegar :)
    Thanks for linking with Favorite Resources. The Grammar Revolution site looks like a good one.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AWWWWWWWWW what CUTE pics!!!!!! :) always love your posts

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh my goodness I totally forgot about our boogle game! I am going to break that out for Tristan! I guess I will let him take tomorrow off... but Monday I am so going to get that out and use it! Thanks for the reminder/idea!

    ReplyDelete
  10. The ducks must be so much fun to have around. Great photos!.How did you like the rocket? I have had my eye on that for awhile.I am going to check out your homeschool hint as well. Your books sound like good reads too. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's asthma diagnosis! That can be very scary.

    Sounds like you had a great, educational week! Thanks for linking up to Learning Laboratory at Mama Smiles =)

    ReplyDelete
  12. Looks like a great week! I'm going to check out the Grammar Revolution.
    Janet
    http://homeschoolblogger.com/wdworkman/

    ReplyDelete
  13. Great week, we had a rocket like that, was tons of fun!! Thanks for sharing at BTT!!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts in the comment box. We love hearing from our visitors!