Guest Tuesday

When did these kids get so technologically-advanced?

Our homeschool day started with a bike ride to the neighborhood park. Quite the experience at an evos park. http://www.gerberleisure.com/EXPAGES/EVOS.asp

This is our newest city attraction, and built right in our area! This park claims to give kids mental and physical challenges during their "play". However, during our bike ride there, the kiddos did succeed in the high-tech satisfaction of pumping their arms at diesel drivers and obtaining a honk or two!

After their engaging play, we skip-counted and enjoyed snack at the picnic table in the morning shade. Counting by 4s was the number choice today, as Guest Pupil was hoping to work on her multiplication facts of 4.

We pulled out the Old Skool Math games just to throw off our Guest! We began with homemade flashcards for our Guest to fine-tune her Multiplication. Student loved to help her practice and then switch and work on her place value flashcards. After all of the giggle-filled learning, we moved along to the FIRST MULTIPLIER. This handy tool pictured above in the first picture, was used by Guest Pupil's father in his days of learning. Afterall, it's all in the family, with homeschool!

They loved the colors, use of both hands and the noises of the sliding parts...all things missed out on with computers. And the other moving-part Math game? Well, SKILL BALL, straight outta the 50s. It is metal and requires one to crouch onto the floor to roll the ball in three turns and add up the end score. They love learning away from the table/desk! Anything to get their bodies moving and grooving for learning!

Back at the table, we continued with History from Genesis ch. 11. Searching the maps and globe, we located the area where The Tower of Babble was in The Mesopotamia. Guest was fascinated to have free reign of the globe and find all that she could with no time limit, like at school.

Next, the kiddos looked up their key words and took their best guess at defining them prior to reading the dictionary version. This is fun for everyone, and always makes a good read on the blog!

Guest Pupil:

Envy: an ivy type

Ziggurat: a rat type

Babylon: babbles

Student:

Envy: poisonous

Ziggurat: unkind

Babylon: a city

Finishing up with reading and Space facts, we enjoyed having our Guest before she starts school this week. Summer School is drawing to an end.

Star Death

Student and Guest Pupil turned these clippings of color into a Star Death tile project. Sizing fluid with paintbrushes, scissors with Toddler around, add in a blow-dryer to speed the process, and this is what you get!

Guest Student describes her Star Death tile project as follows:

And Student describes her Star Death tile project as follows:

Fine Arts Friday

It just turned out that way! We had some plans of homeschool for our Guest Pupil today. And, as any Teacher has experienced, plans are best on paper...

With a revised list of to-dos, the students checked off each:

Music

Science

Art

And lunch was last!

Beginning with Music, we returned to Toddler's favorite activity of Rhythm Sticks. It was especially entertaining with Guest Pupil, as she is going to be a fourth-grader, and 1st grade was fun for her to return to today. And so with their rhythm sticks, AKA: kitchen utensils, they tapped on eachother and moved as the record instructed. Of course it is always fun to weird-out a non family-member by pulling out the phonograph!

Today's Death of a Star lesson from our Space unit lead us to Art, where Guest Pupil and Student created these hanging collages each including an element from our Death lesson. They suggested we have a funeral for their dead stars, but all good things must come to an end, and time was gone before we knew it!

Student: It was fun!