Friday, April 5th

It was another rainy morning in our neck of the woods, which of course meant one thing for Connor: NO SOCCER AGAIN!!! I know, I know, it is such a tough life!

BUT, alas...we still had a great day!

 Our Experiment:

1. If we put food color in the water, and then boil the water, will the steam that is created be the same color as the water?

HYPOTHESIS: The steam WILL BE the same color.

(Connor writing down our hypothesis)

(Connor & Amelia color their water. Connor chose blue. Amelia chose yellow. Connor said Amelia's looked like pee.) :)

Results: The steam DID NOT turn the color of the water :(

When I asked Connor what happens next, he said, "We have to go back and RESEARCH it!"

So the experiment didn't work, but Connor is getting a good handle on the scientific method.

(Matching Spanish numbers Memory Game)

Thursday, April 4th

Today we continued with the scientific method. My sister mentioned to me how important this concept is and how students in my brother-in-law's college classes have difficulty with it. So even though Connor is so extremely young to be practicing it, I figure I can simplify it enough so that he can get it. So we started with some notes on the scientific method:

Then I took Connor and Amelia through an example of how the scientific method works. We did this by practicing mixing colors: blue and red.

1. What happens when we mix the colors blue and red together?


2. Research: What do we already know about mixing these colors together? What if we did some research and some people said it made green, but more people said it made purple?

3. HYPOTHESIS: Mixing the colors blue and red together will make purple.

4. Experiment

5. Data/results and make a conclusion: Mixing blue and red together DOES make purple!

6. Report: Our HYPOTHESIS was correct! Red and blue mixed together DOES make purple!


Then we tried a real experiment:

1. How can we make the color pink?

2. Research: What do we already know about our colors?

3. Hypothesis: We can make pink when we mix red and white together. (Because red is kind of like pink according to Connor ;) )

4. Experiment:

 5. Results: Mixing red and white together DOES make pink!

6. Conclusion: Our hypothesis was correct!

Science has been so much fun!

Since our experiment took a while, we skipped Spanish and moved onto snack :)

Yes that is HOMEMADE pita bread- pocket and all!!! Jason made if for us and it was so good! That's a little side of banana next to it.

It was rainy outside so we weren't able to play soccer- Connor was so mad! We worked on the Pledge of Allegiance some more for social studies and read lots of books together.

Short Day

Today was a "short" day because it's Wednesday and we attend story time at the library. Connor is technically too old now, but I had him write in his narration journal about the story Ms. Michelle read to the kids. Here is Amelia dancing along with the music:

We continued with our discussion in science about the states of matter. Today we focused on liquid and I showed Connor how water and sunlight make rainbows. Check out our video below:

After our experiment we worked on using the scientific method to predict what would happen if we filled a glass jar with water and put it on the windowsill where the sun can shine on it. We placed a piece of computer paper on the ground. Connor has predicted that a rainbow will appear on the paper. We'll have to see if he's right :) (we have to wait until the sun moves to that window).

We made up a song to go along with the Spanish numbers 1-15 and Amelia is singing it too. Connor is so amazed that I "know" Spanish. I keep telling him I learned it in high school. We'll see just how much I remember ;)

So far it has been so awesome to hear Connor ask, "Is it time for homeschool yet?" and to see his eyes light up as we mix colors and he realizes that blue and red are making purple. I'm really grateful for these few moments. It really puts life into perspective.

Today was another good day for the most part. Amelia wasn't really interested in participating, but I did get her to work on shapes. She knows what a hexagon is now. I kind of wish she could figure out what a triangle was :)

I've had a few questions about how I set up the day so here is a quick run-down:

9:00-9:10 Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, and calendar updates

9:10-9:30 Math

9:30-9:50 Science

9:50-10:10 Spanish

10:10-10:20- Snack

10:20-10:40 Recess

10:40-11:00 Reading

11:00-11:20- Social Studies

11:20-11:40 Scripture Study

11:40-12:00 Art or Music (I make lunch while they play)

12:00-12:30 Lunch & Clean up

12:30- ? Nature Walk & Observation

So as you can see it's a pretty packed day but we move quickly from one subject to another. Part of this is from my own experience teaching and part of it comes from the homeschooling theory I'm following (Charlotte Mason- check it out on ambleside.com). This theory focuses on mostly play for kids of Connor's age. I will obviously need to tweak our schedule when I get a copy of the curriculum standards from Connor's old teacher and see what he has left to accomplish for the kindergarten standards.

But on to today...

We had a lot of fun in science again today. We played with solids (we made our own PlayDoh). The kids really loved it. We incorporated a bit of art as we discussed the primary colors (red, blue and yellow) and used those to mix and create new colors. (See pictures)

For social studies I am having Connor learn the Pledge of Allegiance. Did you know the pledge has been updated 4 times since it was created by Francis Bellamy in 1892? Did you know Bellamy was a Christian Socialist? Check out more info on the pledge here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance

(On a side note, Bellamy's brother, Edward, wrote a book called "Looking Backward" about a utopian society that I used for a unit during my internship. It's really boring so don't read it, but I thought it was a cool connection.)

We also had our first play date today with our coop group. There were only a few moms there, but Connor made new friends and had a ton of fun. We'll be going on our first field trip next week to Mixon Fruit Farm in Bradenton. I know you'll all be looking forward to reading about that!

The Adventure Begins...

Day 1:

Today went really well. We started the day off with a prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and updating our calendar. We don't have all of the materials yet, (Connor's math book, a social studies curriculum, etc.) but we made do.

The highlight of the day for me was teaching Connor about the states of matter. This concept was WAY over his head, (I realized as I began to teach :) ) BUT we had a fun time talking about particles and how they move and how they form a solid, liquid, or gas. For our experiment we made "glop" out of cornstarch and water and talked about what state of matter it was in. We boiled water and talked about steam.

After we cleaned up we were able to become particles. We were solids (hugged), liquids (danced), and gasses (bounced off each other). It was a lot of fun!