K roundup!

Buster finished his shark lapbook this week. He really enjoyed studying them. We took the kid's to the Oregon coast aquarium last weekend and he got to pet a small shark and a sting ray. He was also able to see some sharks swimming. Right now I'm printing out a human body lapbook for next week. http://www.homeschoolshare.com/my_body.php

Penguin Lapbook complete

We finished our penguin study this week. The kids really enjoyed it and learned a lot. Sweetpea even got into it. She can show you Antartica on a map, knows what penguins eat, and what eats them. Here is a link to my previous post that shows where I got the printables.
http://bobandabbies.blogspot.com/2009/01/penguins.html
I asked Buster what he wanted to do next and he said Sharks. I found a free lapbook for that also, so that's what we're doing next. http://www.homeschoolshare.com/sharks.php

Penguins!

On Monday we are starting a study on Penguins. I spent some time searching the web and I found a bunch of penguin printables. We will be putting together a lapbook of our studies. I also went to the library and checked out a stack of penguin books that we will be reading. On Wednesday I found a penguin show on animal planet called Growing up Penguin. The kid's and I watched it, and were excited that it was about penguins at our state zoo. We will definitely have to make a trip there soon to see them. Here are links to some of the sites I found:
http://www.siec.k12.in.us/~west/proj/penguins/main.html
http://www.swbg-animals.org/just-for-teachers/guides/index.htm
http://www.lulu.com/content/1828361
http://www.lapbooklessons.com/PenguinLapbook.html
http://www.cdli.ca/CITE/penguins.htm
We also will be watching a couple of penguin movies. I got one at the library and I borrowed the March of the penguins. I'm really excited about this study and I will post pictures when we are done.

Run, run, as fast as you can!

After great success with the kid's Thanksgiving lapbook. I decided we would do a Gingerbread man one and a Nativity one for December. The couple of weeks we have been doing all things gingerbread ;). The kid's loved the Gingerbread man story, we read several versions. This whole home schooling thing has been a big learning experience for me. After a couple of hard weeks, a lot of adjustments, and some encouragement from my wonderful husband, we have really found our groove. I have learn to relax a little with Buster, he is after all a kindergartener. Even though he can do 1st grade work doesn't mean he has the patience for it. I have decided to break are day up with shorter lessons, learning stations, and lapbooks. One other strange thing that seemed to help was tearing his worksheets out of the book. Somehow it was less overwhelming to him. The struggle is mostly over phonics. In general he enjoys math and has already completed half of the years work. Sweetpea is really taking of with her work. She wants to do everything that Buster does, so most of the time I indulge her. While he is doing math and phonics she gets her own worksheets. The last week or so she has decided she loves coloring and has become quite meticulous with it. Her attention span is really improving, and has surprised me many times. Last week at the YMCA we were making bead candy canes, and she sat and made like 4. Anyways here are some pictures of their latest lapbook, and the festival of lights. Enjoy!