A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

reading

Today homeschooling

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well..our day started off with the lad waking me up.
We had breakfast, cared for the bunnies and the chicken.  .. yes we have a chicken!   It’s a hen that eats her eggs and she’s going to be lunch for us when I’m feeling up to making her lunch for us.   But that might take a good week yet.

My brain was VERY sluggish today so we didn’t do a whole lot for a fair bit.
I had a treasure hunt at the lad’s instigation.
Then we read some fascinating information out of this book called “tell me about the world”.


just love this book.  It’s starts off with a question… for instance “is it true that a cow has four stomachs”.   So I give the lad a chance to tell me what he knows.  I tell him what I think.  And then we read a blub that tells us if we are right or not.   We were both wrong on this one.  One stomach, four sections.  (go figure).

We then read a story out of “50 magical stories”.  This book is made the same folks who did the 10 minute stories.

Today’s story was about the crab that played with the sea.   the boy said “i liked some of it but not all of it mommy”.

 He read a book over at Starfall.   he had a lot of fun with the one book he read.
We took a walk over at Morrison Dam.  Just a short walk as I didn’t have the energy for a long one.  We talked about beaver dams and moss.   He did some of the exercise trail stuff with his dad.   We took some moss home to grow under the tree in the backyard.  

Oh.. I almost forgot.  We watched a video from Aurora on lights and such like.  We did some experiments with making a microscope using two magnifying glasses.  we used these to discover that Canadian money has stories/poems/etc written on them.. and  carefully examined a $20 American bill as well.  If we can find an American Penny we want to see if we can find the man in the building.

Oh.. the lad is taking an interest in learning about the rabbits.  This morning he wanted to know how I knew if a rabbit was ready to breed or not.  So I showed him a rabbit ready to breed and one who wasn’t.  I also talked with him about other signs that a rabbit uses.   Being growly, digging in her food dish, and such like.  he was quite interested.  He also wanted to know how I knew if a boy bunny wanted to make babies… and so I said okay buddy.. watch and see what happens.   “HE FELLED OFF HER MOMMY!”   yes buddy, did he make a noise?  “YES!”  good.. he wants to be a daddy then.  
He’s been learning what to watch for in the baby bunnies.. for full tummies, activity when touched, and such like.   So it’s good.  Nice to see him learning and asking questions.   The weather’s been so nice so we’ve been taking time outside to play and be archaelogists and alien hunters.  He has infinitely more energy than his mommy but we’re working at it. 🙂  In time health will be better!

we may end up making bunny bait for Easter/Hope days.

Reading, Comprehension, and Science

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We did a great deal of reading today.
We read a new book, called “bad kitty gets a bath”.  This is just a fun book.  I got it to encourage the boy child in his interest for reading. he can read the simple words of kitty, bath, cat, hate etc.  Today we finished it, and then later in they day I spotted him looking through it very carefully.

It’s just a fun read for a child.  It also has a remarkable number of good scientific facts in it as well.  Always a bonus.

We continued reading The ultimate guide to wildlife in North America.  We’ll read a page most every day.  Today we learned about the star-nosed mole.  The picture in the book didn’t show eyes on it so we looked up whether they had eyes and they do indeed! 

In the fall when we went to the creation seminar in Kitchener we had picked up this book called “the lamb” by John R. Cross. It’s the story of the bible for children – with comprehension questions. 10 easy lessons. We are up to Lesson Three in the book.  It’s a good read.
Today we went to kids Art where we did the The Craziest Art Lesson Ever!
This is what we came up with:

Start your crazy art project by drawing a picture of a
giant lizard with a shirt on its head. Make your drawing with three
crayons and a black feltpen. Then crumple your drawing paper into a ball
the size of a camera lense and stomp on it with your feet for one
hundred minutes. Now your drawing is well crushed, so unfold it quickly
and spread it out on the worktable. Tape down the edges with melted
chocolate . Mix up a big batch of paint in a ziploc using two cups of
water and a spoonful of sandwich . Spread lots of this yellow paint onto
your drawing with a wrench and let it dry for a hour . Hang your
beautiful work of art in the living room until it is discovered by
Children’s Museum . Suddenly you will be a famous artist, become a
regular guest on Knight Rider and make lots of money painting portraits
of Captain Pichard surrounded by lemmings . 

This was a hoot and immediately the lad wanted to do it again. 🙂  so here we go….

 Start your crazy art project by drawing a picture of a
giant Alligator with a pants on its head. Make your drawing with 144
crayons and a green feltpen. Then crumple your drawing paper into a ball
the size of a cd and stomp on it with your feet for 100 minutes. Now
your drawing is well crushed, so unfold it quickly and spread it out on
the worktable. Tape down the edges with mactac . Mix up a big batch of
paint in a jar using two cups of vinegar and a spoonful of aero bar .
Spread lots of this yellow paint onto your drawing with a screwdriver
and let it dry for a a million years . Hang your beautiful work of art
in the green room until it is discovered by Toronto Children’s Museum .
Suddenly you will be a famous artist, become a regular guest on Monk and
make lots of money painting portraits of Adrian Monk surrounded by
lizards .

we had fun discovering new books over at We Give Books. 
Since we’ve been reading in our world history book about knights and castles I picked up a book at mastermind toys the other day about knights!  it’s a sticker book and the lad is having fun reviewing what he’s learning while dressing the knights and telling me what is happening in the book.  today we learned abit about the crusades, I find this a sad time in history so I didn’t get into a lot of detail with this six year old.  But he did learn the basics…the British went to fight against the Arab Muslims over the city of Jerusalem.

And then we headed off to look again at the junior science kit we started yesterday at Gramma’s.  Yesterday we dug up fool’s gold and then did some tests on a variety of rocks to test hardness, and other stuff that I can’t recall at this exact moment.   Today we’ll see about making some crystals and digging a geome (I think).

Reading, knots, and more

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This day being one of continued pain, and foggy-headedness due to pain meds, and being a typical Tuesday of “I WANT TO PLAY MOMMY!” (late Monday nite returns do this to a boy child), we did computer work, reading, some play, and art.  If I get myself mentally together we will do some science/practical math later on.


Today we started off our homeschooling day with Suessville.  My lad isn’t really into some of Dr. Suess books (strongly dislikes the cat in the hat), but he likes some of it.   Some of the activity pages are definitely below where he is at, but he enjoyed problem solving with the games and going through some of the worksheets with me.

We then got inspired by these in my son’s words “remote control alien ships”. 🙂

you can read more about it here. 

That video led us to this one, were being Canadian. … watching robots play hockey is just a given.:)

Caused lots of questions to be asked which is always a good thing in our household. 🙂
on to some reading.
We continued reading about Knights and Castles in our world history book.
We read a new book, called “bad kitty gets a bath”.  This is just a fun book.  I got it to encourage the boy child in his interest for reading.  he can read the simple words of kitty, bath, cat, hate etc.  

It’s just a fun read for a child.  It also has a remarkable number of good scientific facts in it as well.  Always a bonus.
We started a new book called The ultimate guide to wildlife in North America.  We’ll read a page most every day.  Today we learned about the virginia opossum and I told the lad how one day I found one.  Thought it was dead, poked it, picked it up and what not and decided that yes indeed it was dead, came back five minutes later and it was gone, and how another time my dog trapped one under an old stump and it hissed and growled at us.   Fun to share those stories.
In the fall when we went to the creation seminar in Kitchener we had picked up this book called “the lamb” by John R. Cross. It’s the story of the bible for children. 10 easy lessons. We started that book this morning.  It’s a good read.

I had the lad learn how to do a simple overhand knot, and I showed him how to make a slip knot and then tied him up.   This helped him learn the importance of tying knots.  He will need to continue to practice though. 🙂

our plans this week

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homeschooling this week will be focusing on cleaning our house, bookwork, and stuff planned.

For instance, gymnastics and swimming are planned events.
We also will be volunteering at the Christmas bureau two days.
and hopefully on Friday visiting friends.

We are doing daily advent readings. We are using this guide.
If interested in getting, click the picture.

We’ll be doing our normal reading.

10 minute stories

He really liked today’s story. It was well written and inspired thought and brought a smile to his face. Giant birds flying! 🙂

World History

We are into Roman history now. We continue to learn about gladiators. Today he learned how gladiators usually fought to the death. his response.. “IF I were there mommy I throw down giant cages down that could catch them so they couldn’t get out and hurt each other mommy.”

Today a good day

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Today was a good day.

Didn’t exactly go homeschooling wise as I thought it might.

On Wednesday mornings I have bible study so hubby dear usually gets the lad busy with book work. but this morning hubby’s brain was fried so that didn’t go over.

Over lunch therefore, we did our normal reading.

10 minute stories

He liked today’s story. I shortened it here and there as it was quite wordy and that NEVER goes over well with the lad. But it was a good story about a firebird, a grey wolf and a boy who had to learn how to listen well.

World History

We are into Roman history now. We are learning about gladiators.

I had gotten the lad onto reflexmath before I headed out to bible study. The lad enjoys this program.

So after I got back from my stuff I got the lad busy with Studyladder. We did math, music, and something else that right now I can’t remember.

This afternoon we played a game with dad. Catopoly
We had a lot of fun playing it. So much nicer playing games with a lad who is willing to follow the rules of the game.

oh..I’m trying to work home-making skills into our week… today it was cleaning the upstairs bathroom. I set the boy at the task of cleaning the bathtub. He did a decent job for a six year old doing a job for the first time. he did an EXCELLENT job of having a bath so he could clean his toys up really really well. 🙂

Then peter rabbit videos were the thing to watch, followed by supper and children’s club at the baptist church. They are learning the fruits of the spirit there. What I know most is how much the lad enjoys attending. 🙂

Playing and Doing Homeschool

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Our Tuesday generally consist of play, homeschool, play, homeschool and so forth. I normally throw in doing dishes, laundry, and so forth.

We mix it up with some computer time, science time, art work etc. It’s usually a very enjoyable day.

Today we did two lessons in Reading Kingdom. Reading Kingdom uses a whole word approach, I tend to be more of phonetics person, but I see no harm in learning a different way. I figure a varied approach is not always a bad thing. There are good and bad points to each way of learning how to read. We are currently doing a trial period to see how it goes.

We then did two lessons from Head of the Class. This is their kindergarten page. One where I wanted him to do a simple exercise but had to look at the first letter in order to figure out what colour he had to do. For a younger child I would have read the word, but I wanted the lad to sound it out and then make his decision. He did fairly well. It’s called Colours. Then I was wanting to do something kinda artsy cause well.. he’s that type of child. So I saw this one called Stitch and Sew. I expected it to be the normal yarn/shoelace around a pattern…but it was actual needle and thread sewing. The boy was QUITE pleased with himself and showed off his art work to dad. “I did it myself daddy”. I helped for the first bit and around the tricky bits, and we didn’t do the heart as shown in the video..we did a cat. The lad was quite very pleased with himself, and I have to admit, I was quite pleased as well. We talked about the parts of a needle, the thread, I tied in the bible verse about the camel going through the eye of the needle and so forth.

Then we played for a while. ended up going for a walk instead of reading and then cleaning the kitchen. on our walk we met the dirties, They make you act like dirt until
someone uses a machine to make you human again.
Here is the lad being dirt.

The lad also wanted to do his make a pizza program as well. and then we watched the spy next door and played doctor at the same time with a bunch of sick stuffies. 🙂 Always an interesting day in the life here. 🙂

just before bed he had fun making leaf creations. He made all sorts of interesting creatures, learning to resize, rotate and just exercise his creative intelligence.

Today’s Activities

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Signed up for a trial period of Reading Kingdom. It’s a whole word based reading program. So far, the lad is bored silly with it. He doesn’t like that he has to find letters on the keyboard and it doesn’t give him enough time to do so. I’ll encourage him to keep at it, the sessions are really short so it shouldn’t be too onerous for him. I do have to admit that part of it he likes (where he has to find pictures or click on things on the computer screen), but mommy isn’t allowed to help him at all so he finds that a challenge – particularly when it comes to using the keyboard.

The program takes a multi approach to learning how to read. not only knowing how to see the word and read it, but also learning how to spell it at the same time.

I like learning to read phonetically as I think it will serve a person well in the long run, but I don’t see the harm is blending methodologies of learning to read either. Some words just don’t sound out well… and for those words you need to recognize the pattern of them in order to read them. So we’ll work with this for a month and see what we think at the end of it.

The lad also played some thinking and logic games on the computer today. One was a math game where he had to accumulate points in order to progress in the game, and the rest were thinking games. I found it interesting that sometimes he was able to figure things out sooner than I was. 🙂

Playing with Lego was a big thing today as well. It was a snow day, and a Friday so we take things easy. It was a good day and he learned a thing or two so it’s all good. 🙂