Weekend Fun Trip: Everything's Beachy [Day Two]

It's fun to have friends!

My daughter noticed this sign and wanted to know what it meant, so I reminded her about our lesson about Natural Disasters and what a Tsunami is.  Although it would be very rare to see a Tsunami, you still need to know what it is and what to do if it were to happen.

Before we could get settled in, the boys were already running from the waves and throwing rocks!

The girls got busy building a trench and liked watching the water fill it!

The three of us moms got to take a shopping/art/coffee break while the dads played with the kids on the beach: Daddy Day Care!

Later that evening, we took another beach walk and found a neat sandstone cliff with eroded cave holes.  Check out the upper left corner of the picture - somebody's shadow looks like Nosfaratu sneaking up on us!! 

Watching the sunset cliffside (they weren't sitting up that high - it's only about a 3-ft drop - the photo angle created the illusion of height)

Stomping Sea Foam at Sunset!

Before bed, the kids did some kinder-art together: coloring and painting.

Weekend Fun Trip: Everything's Beachy [Day One]

We took a three-family trip to the coast, where my kindergartner learned how to really fly a kite!

The three of us Mommas walked with all the kiddos from the beach house, down to the shore so we can catch the sunset.  I'm sure it was a spectacle to see us coming down the road!

We found a great spot to rest and watch the ocean swallow the sun!  We tried to tell them not to look directly at the sun until it was a became mere sliver above the ocean.

Good Night, Mr. Sun - see you tomorrow!

A few adjectives the five kids used to describe the sunset sky were: "Amazing," "Beautiful," "Pretty," "Rainbow colors!" "Magical".

It was the Harvest Moon this weekend, and it was HUGE!  It was much bigger before I snapped the picture, before the sun went down.

Kindergarten at Home - Day 19 - Homecoming Game!

Tonight was my daughter and son's first live football game!  My kids' half sister is a senior in high school and was on the Homecoming Court, so we went to her school to watch the game and see if she won Homecoming Queen!  Her best friend ended up taking home the crown (that's okay that my step-daughter didn't win because she already owns pretty much every other title in the school, including Student Body President!  She is a great kid... er, um, young lady!).  Each Homecoming Princess had a giant candy bar to open and the girl who had the golden ticket hidden inside was the one chosen by the student body to be queen - the kids thought that was so fun to watch.

Lesson 1 - Math: Trapezoid and Polygon.  Learned them on the hammock outside!

Lesson 2 - Science: Healthy Habits.  Brushing your teeth, taking a bath, washing your hands, and eating healthy foods!

Lesson 3 - Language Arts: Making sentences. 
Also, to Responsibly Reproduce Rr's, Readily Reducing Recorded Rewrites.
A portfolio assignment from her teacher was to have my kindergartner come up with two sentences: one about a healthy habit she already does, and the second is about why it is a good thing to do.  My daughter chose healthy food because it helps you grow and gives you energy.  I wrote her sentences first, then she practiced copying below it.  Then, we practiced reading and memorizing ending sounds with the slider tool.

Lesson 4 - Social Studies: Share and Be Polite.
Would you like some? Please, and Thank You!  We watched a video about how to share and be polite, and then they practiced outside on the deck with their granola bars (my kiddos are already pretty polite, but sibling sharing? Forget about it!  Well, they share and get along 85% of the time, but for the other 15%, Momma wants Calgon to take her away!)

Kindergarten at Home - Day 18 - The Senses + Games from Around the World

Lesson 1 - Language Arts: The Senses and writing.  Also, to Quickly Quantify Qualified Qq's, Quaintly Quaking Quasi Quills
The Senses.  For this lesson, we got to do outside!  We learned about, and memorized the 5 senses: Touch, See, Hear, Smell and Taste.  We thought about how the senses can help us in everyday life, and also how the senses can help us be creative in writing and in art.  First, I wrote each on a piece of paper, and had her try to sound out each word (See and Smell were easy for her to read, but the others had groupings she hasn't mastered, like "ou", "ea", and the silent "e" in taste threw her off).  Then, we walked around the yard to find an example of each sense that my little Kindergartner wanted me to take a picture of...

See - she wanted to show in the picture that she saw TONS of apples on the apple tree (they are Gravenstein apples, and they are deeeee-lish from that tree - we have another tree of the same age in another area of our property and it's just not as good).

Touch - she pretented she was blind, then she touched the first thing she bumped into (it was premeditated; she directed me to come over to where the mini ATV is first, before she pretended she was blind).

Taste - She found some nice, ripe tomatoes to eat!  We planted all sorts this year: Cherry, Pear, Heirloom (pictured), Roma, Hothouse, and a few obscure varieties that I can't remember their names.

Smell - Our Autumn Crocus are up and in full bloom!  I don't think they have very much of a smell, so she was doing it all for show. : )

Hear - I know from the picture, you wouldn't guess "hear", but the rings make a clanking sound with the chains when you swing on them.  Imagine the classic clanking of chains, and squeaking of pulleys in the schoolyard playground; that is what she was hearing.

Lesson 2 - Social Studies: How Kids Play.  The original lesson was to think about different ways you can play.  I decided to throw in a little spin on the lesson: to study different ways children play around the world.  First, we looked at pictures of kids from around the world playing Soccer (or, 'Football' in most countries) and how the game is the same, only the scenery changes.  The image shown below is of kids playing Football/Soccer outside at night in Rio because it was very hot that day, so they chose to play at night to beat the heat.  Then, we looked at different games kids play around the world.  We chose one from each continent except for Australia (we just ran out of time)

South America - Brazil: they play a game called, Cinco Marias.  (above) It is similar to our game of Jacks. While a stone is thrown up into the air, you must try to pick up stones that are on the ground before the thrown stone lands.  Try to pick up all five stones at once before the stone hits the ground.

Europe - France:  Escargot (which is snail in French) is similar to hop scotch, only you travel in a spiral and you must stay on only one foot the entire time (above).  You start at the outer part of the Escargot, and hop to the center, then back out again (I let them take a rest in the center spot).  If you make it back on one foot, you get to throw a stone onto one of the squares.  Only you may step on this square and everyone else playing must try to hop over it. Repeat.

Asia - Malaysia: Ram, Ram, Rip is popular among kids (above). One person puts out their palm, and the other person puts their first two fingers on the other person's palm.  Both say "Ram, Ram, Rip" at the same time, and the person on top tries to remove their fingers before the person on bottom grabs them.

North America - United States: this isn't a recognized game, but it's the game my kids and the neighbor girl sometimes play for fun!  The person on the ground gets to spin the two on the swing, then they take turns being the spinner!  There are tons of games they play that requires more thought, but this is what they played together today.

Lesson 3 - Math: Rectangle and Oval.  I asked my daughter what she could think of around the house that is an oval shape.  The first thing she thought of were the eggs our chickens lay.  We currently have three sizes of eggs: Large (sometimes extra-large), Medium (sometimes small), and extra small.  That is because we have mature chickens, newly laying chickens (young chickens usually lay small/medium eggs until after their first molt), and Bantie chickens (miniature chickens lay miniature eggs!).

Lesson 4 - Kindergarten Activities & Games: "Describe It".  We cut out pictures of every day things from magazines (like a chair, snowman, pumpkin, guitar, etc.) and put them in a bag.  One person pulls out a picture and tries to describe it, without naming it, and the others playing must try to guess what they are describing.  At first, I played with the kids, but as they "got it", I stepped back, then slipped quietly upstairs to do the dishes uninterrupted! 

Lesson 5 - Art: Making a Frog.  I waited until Daddy was home for this activity because I remembered that he knows how to make an oragami frog that you can jump when you push down quickly on it's rear end.  He also showed how to make a Lily Pad for the frogs.  My daughter remembered that frogs start out as a tadpole, so she also drew and cut out a cute tadpole shape to swim on her desk while the frogs jumped on the lily pad.

Kindergarten at Home - Day 17 - Mustache Cookies + Learning Numbers with Games

Lesson 1 - Language Arts - Rhyming + The Gingerbread Man story.
Both the kids had fun doing workbook exercises (pretty easy, mostly for fun) to reinforce rhyming.  Then, I read the story, The Gingerbread Man, and had the kids answer questions about the story: who is the main character; what was the sequence of events; which animal did the Gingerbread man meet first, etc.  My daughter colored pictures of Gingerbread people while I read.

Then, it was time to Positively Practice Penciling Pp's, Preserving Proper Penmanship

Lesson 2 - Math: Greater Than, Less Than.  We did workbooks, and then a game (see Lesson 3) to help her remember the concepts of "greater than", and "less than".

Lesson 3 - Active Activities & Games: Greater Than, Less Than.  We went outside and made up our own game incorporating both our new Math concepts and the Gingerbread Man story!  I drew chalk squares outside on the driveway with numbers randomly written in each one.  I had the kids each start on a number square, then, I asked them to jump to a number that is Greater Than he number they are standing on, then at the next number, I'd ask them to jump to a number that is Less Than. When they jumped, they had to say "Jump, jump, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" 

Lesson 4 - Kindergarten Activities - Making Gingerbread Sugar Cookies (and other shapes).  To tie in with the Gingerbread Man story, we were going to make Gingerbread people cookies, but then I remembered that the kids don't care for the flavor of Gingerbread, so we switched to Sugar Cookies (otherwise they'd all end up in the scraps we feed to the chickens).  The kids had fun practicing measuring ingredients and taking turns mixing and rolling the dough.  We also made cookie mustaches!  Those are always a hit!  Which style are you feeling today: Handlebar, Biker, or maybe a Walrus?