Decorating the Lemonade Shelter



Get your Red, White, & Blue Lemonade here!

40 Book Reading Challenge

Grade 5 Reading Challenge

 

We will be starting the Grade 5 Reading Challenge so many people were discussing on the #MELit Chat on Twitter last night. Reading has been a large part of our homeschooling, however, we have not spent time blogging about it. Beginning this year, we will be entering blog posts about the books being read.

 

I found a document from Mrs. Towey on teacherweb.com that outlined her 40 Book Reading Challenge and used this as a basis for reading this semester.

 

 

January's focus will be continuing problem solving in math, reading comprehension, parts of speech and matter. As an independent topic, she will be learning about the Iditarod.

We are still here...

Well, it has been a long time since our last post, we are still a homeschooling family. Last year was filled with lots of work. We worked through grades 3 & 4 and now are beginning grade 5. Technology has exploded and we are now learning new formats. My hope for this year is more posts and linking our learning to some of the fabulous resources out there.

We will be starting our year at the Common Ground Fair in Unity on Friday, September 20th. We will be attending Education Day. http://www.mofga.org/TheFair/GeneralInformation/SchoolGroupInfo/tabid/524/Default.aspx

My Professional Packet in a Picture

Thanks to tagxedo.com I was able to make my Professional Word Cloud. This cloud is made up from the words which make up my cover letter, resume, and letters of reference. It is exciting to see the words and how often the occur throughout my professional packet.

American Lemonade Pictures

Decorating the lemonade shelter.

Get your Red, White & Blue lemonade here! 

Rain won't dampen our spirits!

Well, Lemonade Day wasn't the success that we had hoped for. It was pouring rain on the Belfast waterfront and we didn't find out until we were setting up that it, in fact, had been postponed. So, we stayed until our best seller, the HOT strawberry-rhubarb lemonade ran out. We received many compliments on the hot lemonade.

Lemonade Day Maine

We will be participating in Lemonade Day Maine on Sunday, June 3, 2012 as a home schooling service learning project. We will be selling red, white and blue lemonade. We have concluded the Lemonade Day workbook, sampled a variety of recipes, and have completed our lemonade stand. A portion of our proceeds with benefit a local animal shelter.

Mardi Gras Celebration

The week before vacation ended on a quiet note. We wrapped up some reading assessments and math practice. During vacation, we were able to attend the Bangor Public Library's Mardi Gras Celebration.
http://www.wabi.tv/news/27843/kids-celebrate-mardi-gras-at-bangor-public-library
The mask making and parade was a lot of fun for area children. We spent the time reminiscing about our trip to New Orleans in 2010. It was a short trip, next time we hope to stay longer. Visiting the French Quarter and the mighty Mississippi River was wonderful.

This week we begin our Eve Bunting Author Study. We visited the Belfast Library and chose books to compare and contrast the topics of United States History, Contemporary Situations, Animals, Plants, American Symbols, Holidays and Family. We will be viewing these topics through literary elements. I am using a lot of resources found on the internet to supplement this unit.

Valentine Exchange

 We made heart shaped crayons for the Valentine's Day exchange. The crayons were accompanied by a baggie of candy. This was a great way to use up crayon pieces. After completing most of the crayons, we found some science experiments regarding the melt time of various crayons. I wish that I had thought of that so that we could have completed a Scientific Experiment record. We used about three different types of crayons. Oh well, maybe in the future.

Learning about plants

On Friday, we attended the Wild Plants of Maine discussion at the Camden Public Library. Sponsored by HOME http://www.homeschoolersofmaine.org/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=articles.view&id=13942
We learned about local edible plants from Tom Seymour and watched his slide show of these plants. He also discussed when during the growing season, we would find many of these plants. Tom Seymour has his own blog. It is definitely an interesting and informative read. Check it out here: http://wildplantsandwoolybears.blogspot.com/
While at the event, we signed up to participate in the HOME Home Grown Gardens activity. Information is here: http://www.homeschoolersofmaine.org/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=articles.view&id=8172
I included many links in this post so that I could give everyone accurate credit.

We have looked at our seeds and have been planning our garden. We may possibly try to sow some seeds early.

Author Study

We will begin an author study next week on Eve Bunting. The author choice came from The MAILBOX Bookbag http://www.theeducationcenter.com/tec/afc/home/go.do circa 1998. I have a lot of teacher resources and have used them repeatedly throughout the years. As it happened, I was looking through this resource while my daughter was reading Eve Bunting's Smoky Night.

Smoky Night(Paperback)

by Eve Bunting, David Diaz

This piqued her interest and now we are off to our library again, I said that it is invaluable to me as a Homeschooling Mom, to search for more Eve Bunting books.

 

Planning for her upcoming Homeschoolers Project Fair has begun. Since this will be our first time at a Project Fair, many ideas are swirling around. Thankfully the fair isn't until April, so we should have plenty of time to decide. So far she has discussed performing a dance, a play, researching animals, or maybe erupting a volcano. I guess time will tell what she will focus on...

Take Your Child to the Library

We visited our local library before dance class on "Take Your Child to the Library" Day.

Love the Library!!

Since visiting the local library is one of our favorite activities, we will be participating in the "Take Your Child to the Library" event on Saturday, February 4, 2012. http://takeyourchildtothelibrary.blogspot.com/p/events.html
Our library is invaluable as a resource for our homeschooling program. http://www.belfast.lib.me.us/ The summer reading program was a lot of fun. We began participating in the Mothers and Daughters reading group, yet the content of the reading list was not what we were looking for.
We are not sure what events may be planned for the event, yet we will be visiting before the dance class at the Belfast Dance Studio. http://www.belfastdancestudio.com/
I know, a lot of links in this post. I just wanted to include the wonderful events!!!

Learning Jazz and Tap Dancing

Dance class on Saturday was a lot of fun. The class was a blend of introductory ballet, followed by jazz and tap steps. The girls did a wonderful job. Prior to class, we went to the library to get some books about dance. Our study of dance will incorporate fiction, nonfiction and "hands-on" learning. One book we will be reading is:

Savion!: my life in tap

A fiction book that we will be enjoying is:  . Through reading and experience, we will be learning all about dance.

Yes, we're still here....

I know that we haven't posted since October of 2011, but my New Year's resolution is to be much better about it. School started yesterday. It was much better than I feared. Topics for the month of January are Geometry, US History, and Magnets and Electricity.

The major project for the end of January will connect Geometry and Magnets. Using a compass, mapping skills, and measuring to follow a trial and map the features along the way. I'm still working on the actual wording of the assessment. With the lack of snow, following a trail will be easy. However, I'm not sure what the end of January will be like. We are covered though- we can get out the snow shoes if necessary.

The Library group didn't work out. The content of the reading material did not reflect our choices. We still frequent the library, choosing materials which are more appropriate.

Dance class begins on Saturday. We will be reading about Jazz and Tap dancing. This will further our understanding of the dance class.

Well, back to planning...

Wonderopolis.org

http://wonderopolis.org/

HUGE fan of Wonderopolis. We use the daily "Wonders" and archives to supplement our homeschooling. The fun and easy to read format stimulate creative thinking and the desire to learn more. I will be adding some of the "Wonders" we have explored once I have developed the format.

Library Reading Group

The book of the month for September for those of us in our local library's Mother and Daughter Reading Group. Great choice for us, since it paralleled the initial pet-or-no-pet conversation in our own home. We ended up with Lyla the cat....however, a puppy was my daughter's first choice.
     This book was an easy and enjoyable read. It was followed by a character study, a discussion of descriptive language, and making text-to-self connections. These are skills that are practiced for second grade. The library book group helps to supplement our homeschooling curriculum.
     At the library, we met with the 5 other child members, their family members and our Children's librarian. Our discussion included story elements, characters, and feelings of the readers. We also enjoyed a snack and each member made their own "Preston" sock puppet.
   
 Next month's reading selection:

Maine Blaine House Visit

In April, we visited the Maine State House and Blaine House as part of the Coalition for Maine Women Day. It was a homeschooling field trip which included meeting Baxter, the Blaine House dog. Here is a picture of this meeting.
http://baxterblogs.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/img00464-20110427-1428.jpg

First week of Grade 2

School started for us this week. We are beginning with a review of basic skills, journal writing, and geographical features. Our library visits continue. We had a list of wonderful books to read and activities to participate in this summer. The summer reading program established in our local library focused on multicultural literature. The weekly story time was comprised of a story share, cultural inspired snacks and crafts.

We are off to a fun start to our year. Hopefully I will be better at updating this blog.

Summer Reading Activities

We are reading the Dolphin Diaries Series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_Diaries for the summer. We are attempting to create an interactive map with references to the locations mentioned in each book. I am new to this, so it might be a while before the map on this page works as well as the one I have in my mind.

So far, we have set sail with "Jody and the Dolphin Dreamer" and began our research on bottle-nosed dophins.