Weekend Fun Lesson - Woolly Bear Caterpillars

"MOMMY!  I FOUND ONE, I REALLY FOUND ONE!"

We found him, er, um "her" (it was a girl, according to my daughter, and she named her Zala) crossing the sidewalk at our house!  I told my Kindergartner about how there is an old wives tale that says that the wider the brown stripe, the milder the coming winter; a short brown stripe would predict a harsh winter!  Zala, the Woolly Bear Caterpillar, seemed to predict a normal winter with a brown stripe that was not too wide, and not too short.

Kindergarten at Home - Day 28 - Tin Can Telephone (or, Paper Cup Phone!)

Telephone Etiquette.  The assignment for today was to practice talking on the telephone using basic telephone etiquette, and to practice reciting your phone number.  I decided to take it a step further, and made cup-and-string phones after we practiced with real phones (they played with my vintage rotary-style telephone and my modern Bluetooth handset that is a replica of a vintage phone.  I rarely us it - I bought it because I was nostalgic for the way I used to talk on the phone.  It's not hands-free... kinda defeating the purpose of the Bluetooth technology, but hey, it's fun!)

To make the homemade cup phones, we used Kite String and two disposable cups.  First, poke a hole through the center of the bottoms of each cup; then, connect them by feeding each end of the string through each cup (tie a knot at the end after feeding it through the hole in the cup); stand apart, keeping the string taught; then, one person can talk into their cup while the other person listens in their cup!  The sound will follow along the string!
First, we tried a short string, then tried a longer string.  We also tried turning a corner with the string, which does work, but not well.  I'm sure we could play around with it and look it up to see what the best method for keeping the sound on the string while turning a corner would be, but the kids just wanted to play, so I'll save that science lesson for another day after some research.

 Language Arts: Zig-Zagging Zany Zz's, Zealously [while in the] Zone!

Art: What can fit in my pocket?  I had her try to think of different objects that could fit into the pocket she sewed the other day, then to draw them, cut them out, then put the paper version of the object into her pocket.  She decided she should trace each item so that they would be the accurate size.  Later, we played a game where you had to guess what object she was describing that is in her pocket.

Technology Studies: Typing letters on the keyboard - practicing finding and typing N-Z.  Daddy got to help with this one after he got home from work.  [We've been doing school outside this week, so, as you can see, we haven't updated our Days of the Week board behind the computer!]

Kindergarten at Home - Day 24 - Food Groups + Sense of Smell

Lesson 1 - Science: Healthy Eating Habits - The Food Groups.  Meat & Protein, Vegetables, Fruit, Dairy, Grain, Oils (includes nuts, cooking oils and fish).  I separated each food group onto it's own dish/container so it would be easier to see and remember for the kiddos.  We ate Dino Chicken Nuggets (meat/protein), mixed veggies (vegetables), Watermelon (fruit), Milk (dairy), Multi-Grain crackers (grains), and organic nut bar (oils).

Lesson 2 - Math: Cone and Cylinder.  After some workbook exercises, we looked at some objects we had around the house that were a cone-shape (the witch's hat, and the cone on the ice cream cone toy), and a cylinder shape (Pam cooking spray can and a pillar candle).

Lesson 3 - Activities: Testing Sense of Smell.  I blindfolded my little Kindergartner and made her do a blind smell-test to see if she could guess what each item was.  We tried a few more than pictured, but the ones she got right away were: Salsa, Cinnamon, Broccoli, and she guessed Syrup first for the Honey, but got it on the second guess.  We reviewed the five senses, and showed her how if you were blind, you could use other senses to provide clues about your surroundings.

Lesson 4 - Social Studies: I am Unique.  Mommy: "What makes you unique?"  Daughter: "I can roll dough with both my hands at the same time!"  Mommy: "Show me!"  Mommy: "What else makes you unique?" Daughter: "How I twirl when I dance!"

Lesson 5 - Language Arts: Willfully Write Wonderful Ww's When Working With Wabbling Wands

Kindergarten at Home - Days 20 & 21 - Jumping Rope + Making a Story & a Poem

Our Monday school day was spent at the beach, learning about the tide pools, light houses, and 19th-century life and games.  So, the organized lessons could wait for the next day.  I combined both days' lessons into one...
Active Activity: Jumping Rope.  It takes some coordination, and the right size of rope - I think our rope is a bit too big for her to make work on her own, so we turned it into a group effort.  Oma held one side of the rope, and I held the other...  Ready... Jump!  The first few tries, she LEAPED as high and far as she could!  It was pretty cute.  We had to remind her to try to only hop straight upwards, and that she doesn't have to jump very high... 

Social Studies - Friendship.  We watched a video about what friendship means, and how you should (and shouldn't) treat your friends.  We reminisced about our fun weekend we had with our friends and how much fun we can have when everyone gets along.

Social Studies - Privileges and Responsibilities.  We talked about the difference between a Privilege and a Responsibility,  and how if you are responsible, you can be granted more privileges!  Time for Chore Jars - they decorated their own, and are always excited to earn coins.  My daughter wants to save her money to buy a saddle for her miniature horse.  My son wants to save coins so he can buy his own tools. ;)

Language Arts -  Letters S & T
Stealthily Sketch Scripted Ss's Steadily Scribbling Snake-Shapes
Time To Try To Transcribe Tasteful Tt's, Tactfully Tuning Type Technique

Language Arts - Writing a Story.  First, we practiced making full sentences again by thinking about what each part of our body does... like, Head: "My head moves back and forth so I can see what is next to me."  Then, we continued with other parts of the body until she understood what a sentence is.  Then, it was time to write her own story.  I asked her what subject she wanted to write about, and her answer was, "horses".  To practice brainstorming ideas, I helped her create a Web with the main subject in the center bubble and supporting ideas and adjectives in bubbles connecting to it.  She thought of the words and I wrote them for her.  Then, I told her to tell me a story about horses and I would write it down for her, and she can create the illustration.  She busted out a story quickly, about a horse named Colors who meets a new friend, Fast Runner.

Language Arts - Making a Poem.  First, we practiced making two sentences that have ending words that rhyme.  She didn't have a problem coming up with rhyming words, but I did help the rhyming words make their way to the end of the sentence, rather than the middle.  Then, we tried to condense and fit the sentences to match the same beat, so it would have a poetic rhythm.  We'll have to work a little more on this one because my daughter has an active imagination, and the sentences seem to increase rather than condense, because she wants to add more detail.

Math - Shapes: Flipping and Sliding.  Then, working with smaller shapes to make larger, or different shapes, like with Tanagram puzzles.

Art - Sewing Cards.  I cut out a crown shape from one of her coloring books and used a hole puncher to punch circles all the way around the paper.  I let her use a shoelace from one of her old shoes to "sew" in and out all the way around the picture.  Pretty simple for her, because she took interest in sewing by hand with a real needle a while back, so she is well-practiced in this sort of activity, but at least I got the dishes loaded while she was occupied!  

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

Decided to make our way down from Lincoln City to Newport today instead of going home!

When we woke up, there was a Mommy and Baby deer in the back yard of the beach house!  The kids said it was like they were at the zoo.

Found an awesome play structure in Lincoln City!

Stopped for some Whale Watching at Depoe Bay - the visitor center said they saw some Grey Whales the day before and to keep our eye out for spouts, but we didn't see any.  As you can see, the wind there was a hair-raising experience!

The World's Smallest Harbor!  Awwwwe, so cute.

The Yaquina Head Lighthouse was built in 1872.  At the Visitor Center, they have good, old-fashioned, 19th century games for the kids to try their hand at.  Above is the Game of Graces.  Below is the Ball and Cup game, and the Hoops game.

Then, we learned about the difficult (by our standards) 19th-century life lead by the lighthouse keeper.

Race ya to the Lighthouse!

You have to be 42" to climb the stairs to the top of the lighthouse, and my son was 40", so we didn't get to go up, but they were able to look up through the spiral staircase pretty much straight to the top!

Time for Tide Pools!  We timed it just right and were there as the ocean was approaching low tide, so we got to spy some sea creatures: Anemone, Sea Stars, Mussels, Barnacle, Sea grasses and Seaweeds of many colors.

It was SOOOO windy there, that it ratted and permed my hair!  I don't wear hair products at all, but the wind was still wild enough to make my hair stay stuck-out even after we got into the car!  It's a Natural Perm!  We decided to take a picture pretending that we were scared of a ghost, and that is why my hair got stuck like that (below)