Weekly Wrap Up - The one where we learned croquet

The kids are all coming off of being sick for weeks.  Just when I think we're past it someone gets worse for a day or two, or another child develops a new symptom.   Because of that our school week for the past few weeks has been pretty sparse.

Monday was a tough day with attitudes.  To try and break the cycle we walked to speech therapy, about a mile from us.  Or, I walked and Green Bubbles rode his bike.  I'm thankful for having my mother in law with us because I was able to leave the two littles behind with her.  Our IEP meeting is next week through our charter school.  We've been having issues with our speech therapy and being transferred to a new therapist every 2-3 weeks since we started at our new location.  Part of me feels bad that Green Bubble's latest speech therapist is being thrown into the meeting after only having him for a few weeks but I'm hoping it will work to our advantage when I ask for extended services through the summer.  He hasn't made much progress due to all the changes, and our sub-par therapist we had at the beginning of the year.  There's no reason he has to be in therapy for this long and show so little progress.

Thankfully, the rest of the week wasn't nearly as bad.  We even managed to make it out to nature study on Wednesday without Little Miss who got worse that morning.  The boys had fun and it was nice to get outside.

 I think the highlight of the week was Green Bubbles and Little Miss discovering the croquet set in the garage.  My mother in law picked it up at a garage sale last summer for a great price but it's been sitting ever since.  The kids loved hitting the balls around and through the hoops and it's given me inspiration for our next read aloud book, Alice in Wonderland.

I'm going to try and have some Dr. Seuss type activities next week for Dr. Seuss's birthday!  And possibly another freebie as we are making a Mr. Popper's Penguins lapbook currently.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend!

Linking up to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers 

Math Options

There's always a slump at this time of year when people start to look at what's working and what isn't.  I decided to do some research for different math options just to see what else was out there.  We are happy with our math right now but, Green Bubbles is only in Kinder right now so if we do end up making a switch I want to do it soon rather than in the thick of things.  Once you pick a math curriculum, you really should stay with it.  Jumping from program to program can cause confusion to kids since each one teaches math a little differently.

Hopefully, a break down of some of the different options that are out there will be helpful for someone besides just myself. 

Singapore Math - This is what we are using right now.  It uses a 3 step process for teaching math.  Concepts are introduced in a concrete setting, through games and manipulative that the teacher's manual tells you.  After the concept is introduced, the textbook and workbook offer a pictorial representation and finally an abstract problem.  For example, when introducing addition to my child (2+2), before I even open a book I give him two blue cubes and two red cubes and have them add them by counting a physical object he can see and touch.  After he understands that concept we move to the textbook that shows a picture of 2 apples and 2 oranges that has has to count.  Finally the textbook will show 2+2.  I love the concept of how to teach math and I can tell they are really teaching great strategies that can easily translate into mental math, but most of the time I am skipping the concrete introduction due to my lack of preparation.  I could easily solve this by planning ahead, like I should, but I haven't done it yet.

Saxon Math - Singapore is a mastery approach.  This means they work on one concept a chapter, and then leave them behind for the next section.  Saxon takes a very different approach.

ncremental Concepts are taught in small, approachable progressions

Distributed Increments are spread throughout the year, building in complexity, so that by the end of the year students have reached deep understanding and fluency

Cumulative Practice and assessments include concepts from the most recent lessons as well as from earlier in the year, ensuring students retain all concepts and can make connections between them

- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/education-curriculum/math/saxon-math/why-saxon-math#sthash.eb5uEDcw.dpuf

 "Incremental Concepts are taught in small, approachable progressions.  Distributed Increments are spread throughout the year, building in complexity...  Cumulative Practice and assessments include concepts from the most recent lessons as well as from earlier in the year..."  If you didn't understand that, they basically take a small part of a lesson and spread it out over the entire year, building upon concepts.  The work also includes all previous lessons and is constantly reviewing.  I think this is a great option for kids who may need extra or continuous review, but I'm not really sure that's what Green Bubbles needs. 


Math-U-See - Like Singapore, Math-U-See is mastery based.  The lessons are short and on DVD so the students can watch the lesson and move on to the workbook without much assistance.  The books are orgnaized by topic rather than grade level.  There's not a 1st grade workbook.  They start with Alpha which focuses on single number addition and subtraction.  The Beta book focuses on multi-number addition and subtration.

Right Start Math - Right Start focuses on visual strategies.  The big tool they use is a two sided abacus which helps see place values.  They de-emphasizes counting and worksheets and use math games to master concepts and facts.  They also don't have grade level books.  Instead of a 1st grade book there is a Level A book.  This helps kids work at their own pace and level rather than being stuck to a certain grade level. 

Beast Academy - I've heard this from a few friends now and I'm intrigued.  It's for grades 2+ so we are not at this level yet but if you have older kids it might be fun to look at.  There are 4 books per year that are written as a comic book style, each with a matching practice book for concepts learned.

I know there are many other math programs out there but these are the most common that I hear of.  Life of Fred is also on my list to check out but from what I hear, it's not enough as a full curriculum.  If you have any other suggestions, or want to add anything to what I wrote, please feel free to leave a comment.

  

Incremental Concepts are taught in small, approachable progressions

Distributed Increments are spread throughout the year, building in complexity, so that by the end of the year students have reached deep understanding and fluency

Cumulative Practice and assessments include concepts from the most recent lessons as well as from earlier in the year, ensuring students retain all concepts and can make connections between them

- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/education-curriculum/math/saxon-math/why-saxon-math#sthash.eb5uEDcw.dpuf

Incremental Concepts are taught in small, approachable progressions

Distributed Increments are spread throughout the year, building in complexity, so that by the end of the year students have reached deep understanding and fluency

Cumulative Practice and assessments include concepts from the most recent lessons as well as from earlier in the year, ensuring students retain all concepts and can make connections between them

- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/education-curriculum/math/saxon-math/why-saxon-math#sthash.eb5uEDcw.dpuf

Incremental Concepts are taught in small, approachable progressions

Distributed Increments are spread throughout the year, building in complexity, so that by the end of the year students have reached deep understanding and fluency

Cumulative Practice and assessments include concepts from the most recent lessons as well as from earlier in the year, ensuring students retain all concepts and can make connections between them

- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/education-curriculum/math/saxon-math/why-saxon-math#sthash.eb5uEDcw.dpuf

Incremental Concepts are taught in small, approachable progressions

Distributed Increments are spread throughout the year, building in complexity, so that by the end of the year students have reached deep understanding and fluency

Cumulative Practice and assessments include concepts from the most recent lessons as well as from earlier in the year, ensuring students retain all concepts and can make connections between them

- See more at: http://www.hmhco.com/shop/education-curriculum/math/saxon-math/why-saxon-math#sthash.eb5uEDcw.dpuf

Sanitago Oaks - Nature Study

 Last week we went to Santiago Oaks Regional Park in Orange.  I've blogged this park a few times now because it is one of my favorites.  We used to live close to here when Green Bubbles was smaller than Little Miss and this was a weekly trip for us.  Due to our years long drought, the water has just about dried up completely.  But we've had a few smaller rain storms the last few months so there was actually some water again.  My kids favorite part is going over the stepping stones.

 It also made everything so green!  It's always nice to see the color since most of the year this park is very brown.

 And of course, I found a mushroom!  Little Miss's language skills are exploding.  I was so proud when she described the mushroom like a bagel with cream cheese.

 There were wild flowers everywhere as well.  White, yellow, purple.  I'm not sure what t hey are but they were pretty and added to all the color we saw.

 We even spotted a couple lizards basking in the sun on fallen logs.

And at the end of our day the kids all drew in their nature journals.  Green Bubbles drew an oak tree that was near by and Little Miss drew a make believe rainbow waterfall.

Free ABC Valentine's File Folder Game

 Ready for a freebie?  I've started doing some type of 'activity' with Green Bubbles to help reinforce language arts concepts we've been working on.  Mostly letter identifcation and letter sounds.  We have a few file folder games but I wanted something themed for Valentine's Day that focused on the specific skills I wanted to review that we could include Little Miss in as well.

This file folder game is totally free!  If you download it please leave me a comment letting me know how you liked it.  Giving me comments makes me more likely to make things to post!  

The game board has 26 circles, each with a lower case letter.  Included in the download are also a game directions front pocket, file label for the game, and our game 'pieces'.  I included 26 hearts with capital letters on them.  The children take turns picking a letter out of a bag, or from face down on the table.  Depending on the skill level, I had Little Miss tell me the name of the letter and Green Bubbles has to tell me the sound of that letter.  Unless it's a letter I know we're having problems with.  Then I let him tell me the name or sound and I give him the part he is missing.  If they are not able to answer the question, the letter goes back into the bag. 

If they do get the letter correct, they get to put their heart on the lower case letter.  I included 26 blank hearts in the download.  I cut them out for the kids and gave half (13) to each child to let them color the hearts anyway they wanted.  I told Green Bubbles to make his hearts look the same so he colored half blue and half yellow.  Little Miss only colored 4 of her hearts, all in pink and red of course!  The first player to get all 13 of their hearts placed on the board wins. 

Of course, you can admit the rules as much as you need to in order to fit your child and who is playing.  You can make it 3 players and divide the hearts to be colored into 3's.  You can make it one player and have your child just place all the hearts themselves.  The great thing about file folder games is the way you can adapt them to fit what you need.

 For instance, Green Bubbles is still very hesitant on his letter sounds.  A lot of them he knows, but he isn't sure about.  Other times I want him to work to find out the letter name he keeps forgetting.  Everytime he wasn't sure of an answer, I sent him to our All About Reading letter chart.  I had him find the letter and look at the picture to find the beginning sound of that word.  (For example, p has a pig behind it.  He said pig out loud a few times and then proudly proclaimed /p/!)   Or I have him sing the ABC song while looking at the chart, stopping at the letter he isn't sure of. 

So, what you really want. All you need is a file folder, scissors, glue, and my download! Here's my Valentine's Day ABC Letter Sound File Folder Game.  Don't forget to leave me a comment if you download it!

Oak Canyon Nature Center

Oak Canyon Nature Center in Anaheim Hills is a beautiful place to go on a sunny day.  The area is abundantly shaded with oak trees and has a short trail following along a steam with many fun bridges to cross over.

The kids got to see the wood ducks that make this their home.  We've seen them no matter the season, swimming up and down the little creeks and walking along the fallen leaves.  Some of the kids disturbed them this time and they flew up into the trees for safety.  It was funny to hear the startled gasps when the flock took to the wing in a burst of flapping wings and splashing water followed quickly by their laughter. 

We've been in a multi-year drought in California now so water is scarce.  Many of the parks that normally have water have dried up completely unless it's man-made.  We were lucky enough to have a rain storm this past weekend however, so there was some moisture, if not water, hanging around.  With the thick overhang of oak trees trapping a lot of that moisture in, we were able to find mushrooms!

I know that doesn't sound very exciting, but I always get a kick at of how varied mushrooms can look.  I don't really know much about them however so on a quest to discover the name of the one before, I found some great information.

Mushroom Appreciation has a great list to look for when identifying mushrooms.  He suggests 8 things beginners should look for.  Gills (spore producing components), stalk description, spore color, bruising when touched, habitat, time of year, cap description, and smell/taste.  The last one I wouldn't recommended, especially with children involved. 

Armed with that information however, I discovered what the mushroom below is called Russula californiensis.  I'm sure because it's only found in California!   The link above says they like pine and oak trees, which fits our find perfectly.

Now, I didn't do any research for the other types of mushrooms we found on our trip, including one the kids described as a roasted marshmallow, but here are all the pictures I took of them.  Altogether, I think we found 8 different types of mushrooms.

 

 

Red Wood Hike at Carbon Canyon

Many people have no idea there are California Coastal Redwoods right here in Orange County.  It's actually a very short hike to get to a small grove planted right by Carbon Canyon Dam.  They were planted in 1975 so the trees aren't as large as the Redwoods you typically hear about in Northern California, they were still awesome to see!

Carbon Canyon Regional Park is located in Yorba Linda.  Parking does cost $3 weekdays and $5 on the weekend but, like so many of our regional parks here in Orange County, it is worth it!  I always recommend getting an OC Parks parking pass to enjoy going to our wonderful parks whenever the mood strikes without having to worry about money for parking. 

To get to the trail for the Redwoods, turn left at the main entrance and just keep going until it dead ends at a parking lot.  You'll be able to see the trail head from there.

Here is Megatron sitting in the grass at the parking lot while I was packing my lot up.  You're never to young to get out and and really explore nature.  Crawling through the grass, crumpling dead leaves between your fingers, and maybe taking a small taste just to make sure it isn't something wonderful to eat are great learning experiences for very young children.  I can speak from experience that my children, even the babies, are always much happier and better behaved at home when we've had some type of outdoor play.

There's a great climbing tree near the parking lot too.  The kids all dumped their backpacks on a branch and were all over the branches.  Even Little Miss was able to climb parts of this tree.

The path to the Redwoods is about a mile but an easy hike for the kids.  There wasn't a lot of shade on the trail so I recommend doing this hike on cooler or overcast days.  Even in January it can get hot.  The day we went hiking was in the 80's and the hike back had some hot and tired kids.

We did see some really cool insects though.  It's great timing since Green Bubbles is studying insects for science this week. (Edited to add.. Thanks to Allexpects.com we were able to identify this bug as a bark beetle, the Plicate beetle. ( Noserus plicatus) It is a common California beetle.)

By the time we made it to the Redwoods it was a welcome relief.  The shade was awesome and the kids loved playing under the trees.  They climbed a fallen tree, collected pine cones, and ran around a lot.

Even the birds were hopping around on the fallen leaves and branches.

Green Bubbles found a broken branch which was a great learning oppunity.  We were able to discuss the colors the wood, and hence the name of the trees!

A great follow up for the Redwood trees is Redwood EdVentures website.  They have games, activities, facts, videos, and even lesson plans for teachers and links to many other helpful websites not just about Redwoods, but ecology in general. 

Weekly Wrap Up - The one with the awesome fieldtrip

It's been awhile since I've posted a weekly wrap up.  We've done a lot of fun and interesting things over the last few weeks but I somehow always forget until Sunday to post the wrap up!

Monday was a normal day for us of running all around.  We got all our school work done in the morning, had lunch, and packed the kids up for our musical theater class with the Tom Thumb Players and then speech for Green Bubbles.  Only one more week of class and then it's time for the play!  Little Miss and Green Bubbles love the class.  They were assigned their roles last week and they both are playing the part of food.  Green Bubbles is bread dough and Little Miss is an onion.  Can't wait to see the final product!

I'm always thankful for days we are home all day long without any errands.  On Tuesday, I took the kids on a walk through the neighborhood stopping occasionally to dig for worms for a science experiment we are doing.  We also stopped by our local polling place and I made all three of them wait with me while I voted. I had my Mother-in-law take the bigs to swim lessons and I took advantage by trying to clean the house.  Megatron had other ideas so I didn't get my entire list done, but it made me feel better to make some progress.

I kept our Wednesday trip a secret from the kids until Tuesday night.  Little Miss has been begging to go back to Sea World ever since we went on our last field trip there.  A friend organized a trip again so we jumped on it.  The educational field trips only last until 1:30pm but that's plenty of time for our family because by then Megatron and Little Miss are ready for naps.  We spent the entire day with some new friends of ours and had so much fun.

The kids were able to see penguins, turtles, sharks, bulga whales, orcas, some walruses, and of course, a lot of fish.  Holiday decorcations were alrady going up as well so I made the kids pose infront of some of them for pictures.  We even got to talk to one of the trainers of the orcas about his job, how he got to be where he is and what other animal training he has done before.  I also was very interested to learn that Sea World San Diego uses the ocean water in Mission Bay for its tanks.  They filter it in, and then after a few hours put it back out into the bay.  The trainer, Conor, told us they put the water back out 80% cleaner.

Unfortunately,  Green Bubbles was starting to feel sick by lunch time.  He actually napped a little in the car on the drive home.  I can't remember the last time he did that.  By the evening he had a slight fever and was vomiting.  Thankfully it was short lived and by Thursday night he was feeling much better!


Since he was sick we did end up finishing our read aloud book, The Witches by Roald Dahl.  We followed it up with the movie they made in 1990 and Green Bubbles told me all the parts that were different between the movie and the book.  The book had him bouncing up and down in excitement.  The movie left him wandering away about halfway through.  Although he did say he enjoyed the ending in the movie much more than the book.

Today we're going to hit park day.  And then it's time for me to get everything together for Little Miss' birthday party tomorrow!  We're going with a My Little Pony theme, but I'm keeping it simple.  No party games, prizes, contests.  Just kids playing on the playground at the local park.  It should be a lot of fun.

Homeschool Day at the Page Museum

 I will start this by saying I really don't like driving into Los Angeles.  I always seem to end up driving through neighborhoods with bars on the windows, peeling paint on the houses, chain link fences, and the most horrible street traffic that makes me thankful I got us there without some type of car accident.  There's only a few things I'm willing to make the drive to L.A. for and they all have to do with museums.

Today was the first Homeschool Day of the school year at the Page Musuem at the La Brea Tar Pits.  It has been years since I've been to the La Brea Tar Pits.  In fact, it was probably a field trip that I went on with my school back in the day and certainly not as an adult.  Last year the homeschool days for the Page Museum were the same day at the Natural History Museum and we always ended up picking the History Museum to go to so my littles have never got to experience the wonderful aroma of the tar pits.

We had so much fun though.  I even managed to get a rare group photo of all three.  Poor Megatron gets left out of a lot of photos still because I'm usually babywearing him when I'm taking photos.  The second part of our trip I did in fact bust out the Ergo and he was able to nap and both the olders got to rock our double stroller.  Green Bubbles loves getting the chance to ride on the back of the stroller and he rarely gets a chance to do so anymore.

The kids really enjoyed wandering the page museum.  We talked about the different types of animals that lived back then.  Green Bubbles loved the short faced bear the best and everytime Little Miss saw a Saber-toothed cat she screamed out lion and was proud to tell everyone that her learning take away from our trip was that they lived a long time ago.

We got to see so many completed skeletons of animals they found in the tar pits.  There are actually a lot more carnivores then herbivores in the collection.  Once a herbivore got stuck in the tar pit, it would cry out for help.  I imagine it sounded very much like a dinner bell to those hungry, oblivious carnivores who didn't see their demise coming. 

They had a cool touch thing for the kids to play with.  Long metal poles were put into a bucket of the tar and you were able to pull them up to see how easy it was for the animals to become trapped.  Green Bubbles worked and worked until he got his up all the way.  He put a lot of force into it!

There had a great little atrium in the middle of the museum which was great for the kids to get some wiggles out as well.  They were able to climb some rocks, view the waterfall, and marvel at the large Koi fish swimming around. 

We managed to go on the tour as well.  Tickets were free, but limited, so unfortunately our friends weren't  able to join us for this part.  Our tour guide took us to the observation pit and explained to us much of the how the animals got stuck, how they were found and excavated, and why the scientists care about what they find in the pits.  Interesting fact:  Scientists actually call the black stuff asphalt. Tar is a man-made material but due to simplicity they call it tar because that's the name most people are familiar with. 

It was interesting to see how the bones look while still in the ground before they are dug out, separated, cleaned up and polished.  I like to think Green Bubbles and Little Miss might have gotten something out of it as well.

We even got to see what a tar pit would have looked like when left alone and why so many animals fell into the sticky trap (although not as many as you would expect!  Only one animal grouping every decade or so).  The leaves cover the tar pit making it very difficult to see.

My favorite part was getting to see the volunteers working on cleaning and sorting the fossils int he museum.  I was so interested in the process I didn't get any pictures of it!  But they accept volunteer workers from 18 years old and up.  There were all ages from young adults to seniors working in the area when we were there.  They were all very friendly and waved to the kids and some held up the fossils they were working on to show it off a little better .

If you ever get a chance to go to the Page Museum, for Homeschool Day or not, you won't regret it.

Fire Prevention Week 2014

Did you do anything for Fire Prevention week last week?  Every year in the United States, the week contained Oct 9th is Fire Prevention Week.  That fell on  10/5 to 10/11 this year.   I know it was last week but I thought I would share some of the things we did and it might help you for next year!

We started the week off with a Home Deport Kids Workshop where the kids got to build an ambulance.

We spent the week talking about what happens in case of a fire.  We talked about the smoke alarms in the house, different ways to get out of the house in case of a fire, and stop, drop and roll.  We practiced saying our address and talked about calling 911 in case of an emergency.

The highlight of our week was going to the Orange County Fire Authority Open House. (My phone's battery died during this trip so I had my husband take photos for me.  He, of course, hasn't downloaded them yet so all the photos I have are from the beginning of our trip.)

 Every year the fire authority opens up it's doors and allows visitors to tour their facility, ride on the firetrucks, try on the uniform, and so much more. 

We got to meet a rescue dog,  see inside of the mobile fire command center, and practice CPR on a baby and child sized doll.

 They even led a tour inside of the actual 911 call center and explained how everything worked, including what happens when they have to take it all on the go during wildfires like the one near us recently in Silverado Canyon.  In fact, a lot of the tour talked about that exact fire, even showing us the maps they used to track it.

 I think the kids favorite was the pretend city area.  They had an obstacle course set up with a kiddy pool to jump into and 'fire' to crawl under.

If your local and haven't been to the Fire Authority Open House before, I highly recommend it!