Look at me I am doing craft :-o

Full credit for this packing peanut Igloo lesson goes to Zakka Life: crafts, recipes, and life.Full instructions for the lesson are here

The Kids had an absolute ball creating these. I had scheduled the lesson with a very small box of peanuts on hand hoping I could scab some before hand. But no one offered me any. As luck would have it, I ordered two yes just 2 books that were delivered in a huge box this morning the the vacant space packed full of packing peanuts. Woohoooo I said and the kids looked at what I had and shook their heads with confusion. Haha I told them just you wait and see.

Here are our results:

 Miss I may have had a little help with her ;) and her helper may have just had a little too much fun building it haha.

Mr I decided he wanted to create furniture and wants to play with his, so his Igloo has no roof. I may try and create a removable one to surprise him.

Term 2 is almost over

Well we have reached week 8 of  9 of term two. Our 5th week of homeschooling. Can I just say WOW, I cannot believe we have made it this far. I wish things were falling into place a little easier but we will get there.

Last week was a shocker of a week. We tried to unenrol Mr I from school based on advise from the Board of Studies that he does not need to be formally enrolled anywhere till he turns 6. The NSW departement of Education specifically our local office had other ideas. The school reported us for truancy we were threatened and told to return him to school the next day. After a very stressful day of phone calls, learning thrown out the window and missing our library visit. I had everything sorted and Mr I is officially unerolled from school. We have till he is 6 to become registered homeschoolers. In a slight panic this only leaves us 4 weeks to be registered and 2 of those are school holidays. Praying that everything will come together.

On Friday as we drove home from school having picked up his books and made it all final I was hit with such doubt I almost cried. Have I really done the right thing pulling him out of school, can I really do this. The doubt it sure hard to overcome. What I need to remember is he is learning, he is happy and no longer stressed and anxious, and I had big doubts about school too. It is one or the other and surely I should pick him being happy.

Started to take more notes on our weekly schedule, making a point to note things he has achieved and things he needs more work on.This should help us better cover the need to keep reports of progress and achievement.

Our plan for this week.

Arctic Hares and Igloos. I have created another animal comprehension to add to his animal folder he is making. Made an arctic hare column graph. We also have a colour by sight word igloo and will make an Igloo with packing peanuts.

Need to focus on reading this week, we were a little slack with it last week. I think we might work on learning to read "I wish that I had duck feet" by Dr Seuss..

Winner of a lesson

Thought we would get some COGS lessons done today. We looked at how different toys move and charted it.

Then we pulled out his special Disney Cars and picked out 6 to investigate. We weighed them, then set up a ramp with two different starting points. Let each car go and then measured how far each travelled from the bottom of the ramp. Wrote each answer in our chart. We were suppose to compare how weight makes a difference to the distance travelled, but there was no pattern created and at 5 I thought discussing the lack of pattern a little advanced.

Then together we entered the data into excel and Mr I created some charts from the data. He had so much fun he ran off collected the rest of his cars and has spent the last half hour sending cars down the ramp and measuring the distance they travelled, and recording his results. Totally love homeschooling.

Here are the charts he created.

We could tick off a whole heap of KLA requirements with this little bit of fun. Science, Maths, English, Technology. Total winner :)

Week 4

Wow I cannot believe we are heading into our 4th week of homeschooling. I seriously thought he would be asking about school and friends by now but he is not. He is determined to homeschool. Which is fantastic gives me leverage to make him work. You chose this my boy so please lets pick some work to do, generally works.

We have been doing so well so far. He is regaining his will to learn and his brain is starting to really retain information again. I have realised now that school switched his brain off. But it is coming back, the amount of questions he asks each day about all sorts of things is almost annoying. However it is wonderful to be feeding his thirst for knowledge once again.

His handwriting is taking leaps and bounds ahead. We need to work on not mixing up capital and lowercase letters as he writes, but he can use one or the other for all letters. He does mix up 'b' and 'd' though.

His Maths is bounding ahead, he is starting to be able to complete simple subtraction in his head. Addition he is gaining the concept of. Can count to 100 and recognise all numbers to 100. Can count by 10 and 5. Can read clocks on the hour with ease. It is wonderfully seeing him learn and grow and how proud he is.

Reading ability has levelled after the massive progress he made in the first 2 weeks, but still making some small progress.

His love and understanding of nature is returning and is loving learning about the different ways animals live and the different life spans they have.

Dance, music and art he has little interest in but is enjoying the lessons particularly when he has no idea it is a lesson.

Our animal study this week is on goannas. I eagerly agreed to this topic thinking being an australian animal there would be loads of worksheets and things around since it would be taught in school. NO I was wrong it appears it must not be taught very much. As such I came up with very little. I have made a comprehension sheet scouring the internet. Again I promise to share once I know how.

I did come across this Wiradjuri animal study unit used in schools. It looks pretty good I think I will use some this week and a little more next week.

Planning this week has been interesting, trying to still keep our Wednesday day off leaves me with a 3 day week. But I think I have it in.

Have made what I think to be an awesome spelling worksheet for Mr I. Getting him to look at some of his spelling mistakes such as him mixing up 'd' and 'b' and misusing 'c' and 'k'.

We will write another letter to Grandma, he loved that the other week.

Now I must go finish planning the birthing for Mr N, turning 4 tomorrow.

Third week of homeschooling

Well now it all becomes real. We started off committed to only 2 weeks, but Mr I wants to continue and at this stage forever. So time to make the permanent plans for schooling. I think I will call in sick with the school for the next week to give us a little more time. I would like to get his maths book though.

So this week I think we will fall a little more into a routine, hopefully no one gets sick again this week. We were certainly thrown in the deep end during our trial with many sicknesses and injuries.

The topic of this week is Fireflies

 Thanks http://static.ddmcdn.com/gif/firefly.jpg

I have pulled resources from these places:
Lapbook lessons
and this booklet from Teach With Me which is a 54 page booklet containing:

• Diagramming a firefly
• Firefly facts
• 2 firefly poems
• Firefly bookmark
• Life cycle of a firefly science wheel art extension
• Firefly word fan book
• Life cycle of a firefly fan book
• Certificate of praise
• the -ight family of words ABC skill sheet.
• -ight family silly story poem
• 13 word wall -ight family word flashcards + an Itty Bitty Book cover to make the cards into an Itty Bitty Booklet
• Letter home to parents about the -ight family
• Our Firefly Class Book writing extension (2 different writing prompts.)
• Graphing extension
• Several art activities including a jar and a wax paper wing project
• 123 Count Fireflies With Me math booklet
• 18 word-wall word flashcards + an Itty Bitty Book cover for this and
• a certificate of praise for this booklet
• 2 firefly math skill sheets
• directions

I have also created a Firefly comprehension sheet to use with our animal fact sheet. Again if I ever work out how to add files here I will share it.

We will continue with our typical daily plan of starting the day with sight words, Maths book and some fun morning worksheets like dot to dots and spot the difference.

As part of english this week I am going to introduce crosswords and I will get him to help me write a shopping list for the weekends big shop.

My Weeks timetable