Gold Rush Part 2

Making history come alive!  We arrived in California for the Gold Rush!  Before we can start panning, we need appropriate attire. They raided the dress up bucket for what they thought best for them to wear.   Then they needed supplies,  So they set up a "store."  They decided to make pick axes out of a horseshoe stake and a stick. 

  I put out some gold beads in 2 different places in the yard.

They had to decide where they wanted to stake their claims.

Then they picked up as many gold nuggets they could find.

Now it's time to pan for gold in our "river."

Gold Rush Unit Part 1

We are spending some time digging into the gold rush part of American history.  We started off by reading this book.

We are pretending to go out west to California to find gold.  So we made a list of things we need to bring.

But we have no covered wagon to put all of our things in, so we made one.

Here's how we did it.  We cut off the top of our shoebox and wrapped it in brown craft paper.  Using a compass, we drew circles to use as wheels and drew spokes on them with a brown crayon.  Then we cut them out.

We colored wood slats on the sides of our wagons.

Then we attached the wheels using brass fasteners.

  

We cut strips of cardboard and bent them to put the cover on our wagon.  We hot glued the strips of cardboard to the sides arching the top.

Then we hot glued the fabric to the sides.

Math

This year, we are using Horizons Math and it works really well for us.  The pages are colorful and engage my kids quite well.  I put the pages in page protectors and the kids use dry erase markers to complete their pages.  This way, I can reuse the pages and I don't have finished pages  to find a place for.

I like to use objects to reinforce learning instead of just the worksheets.  Here, my kindergartner is using dominoes to help learn addition.

 Math counters can be purchased in all kinds of different shapes and themes.  We have a set of counting bears that we like to use, but we also like to use beans.  Beans are a small, inexpensive object that can be used to practice math concepts.  Here my kindergartner is using beans to practice graphing.

 And my second grader is using beans and an egg carton to practice multiplication.

This is just an extra fun activity that my kindergartner enjoyed - using craft sticks to make shapes.

Sub Zero Field Trip

We took a field trip to Sub Zero and got to see some neat liquid nitrogen experiments and eat some yummy ice cream.

More Tot School Pictures

Here are some more things that I like to rotate for my youngest.  Every week, I rotate toys/games for her so she doesn't get bored with just one thing to do.  I love these boxes to keep everything contained.

Playing with felt shapes.

Practicing pouring water.

Using tweezers to color sort beads.

Using tweezers to color sort pom poms.

Our fall sensory bin.

School on the porch

When the weather is nice, we like to sit outside on our porch to do our school work.  

I wish I had time to write.....

When I was in high school and college, I loved to write.  After having kids and staying home to teach them, I really don't have time anymore.  So my little blog here is heavy on the pictures.  Maybe one day I will sit down and write again but for now, I'm enjoying keeping these school memories here. I  hope my kids will look back one day and remember good memories or our school times together.

Peacocks

We read a book about Peacocks and then drew the peacock from Art for Kids Hub.  It was a hard drawing - definitely grade 2 and up.  

Art Class

I found this wonderful free resource online for art lessons.  It is seriously fantastic!  I highly recommend checking out Art for Kids Hub. You can look through the lessons or you can search the site for something to draw.  This site has a collection of videos with step by step instructions for drawing and coloring or painting.  We've done the skunk, cat, and koala so far.  I have pictures of the skunk and koala.  This is my kid's favorite class!

Bible Class

This year for Bible class, we decided to try Grapevine Studies and we are liking it so far.  The curriculum is very easy to follow with no teacher prep before hand.  The only complaint my oldest has is that there is review of the lesson at the end and she said she doesn't need to review.  LOL.  I really like this curriculum because it gets the kids involved in learning.  I have my oldest look up and read the Scriptures from the Bible, then I draw the scene on  the white board and they copy the image onto their corresponding page.