Castle-rific!

 It was a castle-rific school week at our house! We have been reading the first section of Usborne Book's Time Traveler, which is all about Baron Godfrey, his castle, and the lifestyle of the time. Jayne came up with a great project to keep all thoughts on castles...make the Baron's castle in Minecraft! We started on Monday by drawing out plans for our large scale project. For those of you who are not familiar with Minecraft, you mine the supplies you need and build by laying 1 block at a time. We are all able to enter the same game on our separate Kindles (or any tablet nearby) and it became a great family project. There are also block zombies, creepers, skeletons, and spiders that can get us as we try to build this massive monument, as shown on Little Guy's yellow draft paper.

 I also surprised him with Angry bird printables since we are ahead of schedule on our normal work I thought I would let him switch it up a bit. He loved them and is still talking about them even though we finished them up on Tuesday. I got them at homeschoolcreations.net!

Minecraft tour:
It is not quite finished in the photos, but you can get the idea...
In this shot you can see the view from the top of the castle. There is an inner wall and an outer wall. In the distance, between the trees, is a series of entrance gates and a ditch with "draw bridge".

Here you can see the castle. It is 4 floors and is on the other side of the inner wall that you can see the doors to here. You can also see Jayne building a tree house out of the tree to the left (not part of the original castle).

Here are my guys working hard. It took a lot of teamwork, but it was sure fun!

Freetime Unlimited

Little Guy got a Kindle for Christmas. It is going to be an essential tool for our homeschool abroad  One of my favorite parts is an app only available on the new generation of Kindles, Kindle Freetime. I love it! You can set it up to only have the books, videos, and apps you want each child to have. You can set it up for each child, so they all have the materials that are right for them. You can also set up timers. You can set it for overall screen time or you can set up time by category. We currently have ours set at unlimited for books, 1 hours for videos, and 1 hour for apps. This has been an incredible app on Little Guy's new Kindle and we are so happy to be able to have and use it.

Amazon thought this wasn't enough, so they created Freetime Unlimited. For a low monthly fee, your kiddo has access to tons of apps, videos, and books that are appropriate for ages 3-8. There is a lot to choose from and you can only find some of it by doing a search. It includes some really great educational materials in all categories. It also contains a lot of fluff, more than I would like.

Little Guy has enjoyed exploring all the content, but filled his Kindle by the second week. There is so much on there that he can't find what he is looking for and some of what he does find, and grow attached to, is more toward the 8 year old level than the 5 year old level. Our free trial subscription is nearly over and I have not been won over.

I would love it if I could personalize it. With normal Freetime I have to manually select what is available for him to use, but with Unlimited it is all there. I would like to be able to at least remove things that I don't want him to have access to or that he doesn't want. It would clean up the screen so he could find his favorite things. In the meantime, we did find a handful of content that we will be buying after we end the subscription. We also got 2 weeks of free educational content that covered all of our history, science, and read-alouds since we started school back up again.

World Travels: Guatemala

Hello!

Dinah and I enjoyed our first trip on the hot air balloon so much! It was amazing seeing the earth from so high up. We floated through the sky for a very long time, going wherever the wind blew. When we were ready to touch ground we found a perfect break in the trees. 

We couldn't believe where we landed! There were old stone buildings all around us. Lots of people were walking around looking at them. A girl named Nicole came to see our balloon and told us we were at the ruins of a Mayan village in Guatemala. She showed us around the ruins. We climbed many, many stairs and saw lots of carvings in the rocks too. The Mayans even had a ball court because they liked to play sports too!

Nicole was a tourist visiting Guatemala  She had seen many markets and had even gotten to see were they grow coffee beans, bananas and cocoa beans. She even gave us some of the bananas she got straight from the tree! She shared some fresh chocolate with us too. Our trip to the Mayan ruins was incredible, and we made a new friend too! We'll write to you again soon!

Photo of Tikal from Nicole

We are going to work this into our geography/history study of the mountains. I am going to put a banana and a bar of chocolate in his package this month. I downloaded Google Earth, so we will check out Guatemala on there. We will be reading the mountain section of the book Wild Places.

Also, we'll be watching several videos about Guatemala and the Mayan people that are available for free on Amazon Prime Instant Video.

Guatemala Episode

Lost King of the Maya and Maya Lords of the Jungle

Passport to Adventure: Guatemala's Dramatic Lake Atitlan Region

Homeschool Fun: Dinos

 We had dinosaur week! It was so much fun. No pre-k pack for us, we worked from The Mailbox's Preschool Plans Day By Day. I really like the book. Since it is geared to actual preschools, we can't do all of the activities or need to adjust them to having only 1 kid in class.

One of Jayne's faves, as usual, were the art projects. We made dinos out of foamie shapes and in the pics he made a dino puzzle into a fabulous work of art!

Homeschool Fun: Star Wars

Jayne does his Read, Build, Write sheet.

We worked with the pre-k pack from Homeschool Creations. This was pretty much Jayne's dream week since he got to do tons of Star Wars stuff. We also found lots of great crafts at Filth Wizardry.

R2D2 is not done yet, but is coming along well!



Fruit and Veggie Rainbow

Jayne is becoming a bit of a picky eater and we all have a tendency to eat too many grains. So, we made a food colors chart. The goal is to collect all the colored magnets each day by eating that color of food. It is working out splendidly!

 First step is to tear strips of colored paper for the fruit colors. We have red, orange, yellow, green, and blue/purple. Then we flipped through grocery adds to find produce that is that color and glued them onto the sheets.

 Then we broke out the contact paper. We laid the strips one at a time and smoothed them on well. We started at the bottom and worked up so that we would have a rough edge between each color.

 Here is our finished chart! We cut out sticky magnets to hold it to the fridge and magnet squares in each section to put the color shapes. The shape magnets are card stock (from scrapbooking) and put on sticky magnets. Each time we eat a color we put a magnet on the chart.

Jayne loves the new chart and is eating many more fruits and veggies now. He even suggested that we get some carrots, because they are orange you know. Above is the first meal after starting. I had to share because purple grapes and green kiwi look simply fantastic together!

Homeschool Fun: Fire Safety

Jayne cuts the puzzle

This week's focus was on national fire safety week. The printables from Homeschool Creations were a great compliment to the week. As usual he really liked the activities. He especially likes cut and puzzles, so this sheet was his favorite. I cut the edges to make it a little easier for him and then he cut out all the little squares. He was pretty proud of himself when he got it put together. There is something especially difficult about puzzles with smooth edges. I was a little concerned that it would be too easy since he is used to doing 60-100 piece puzzles, but it turned out to be just right.

Jayne "drives"

On Wednesday, Adam's day off, we did all of our fire safety practice. We practiced our exit plan by setting off the fire alarm in the house. We also did a little stop, drop, and roll practice. Last year I cut a flame shape out of some felt and used it for practice because it would actually "roll" off of him. I couldn't find it this year, so we used our imaginations. We also used Jayne's toy phone to pracitce calling 911.

The highlight of the whole week was the field trip to the fire station! Jayne loved it and made sure to clibm around in all the trucks. He brought home all kinds of doodads. He has been watching Fireman Sam on Netflix this week too. Jayne says he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up.

What kinds of fun things have you done with your kiddos for fire safety week?

Homeschool Fun: Thomas Train

watching paint dry

Jayne had so much fun doing Thomas the Train week again that he turned our 4 day school week into 3! The highlight of the whole week was making a troublesome truck. It was the craft activity in the magazine we were working in. He had so much fun and we both worked on it. Jayne did the big parts and I did the toothpicks and face. You can see from the pics that my Zyrtec box and toilet paper roll have simply transformed!



the truck is finished



Next week we are getting a taste of the All About Reading program that we are planning to use for kindergarten next year. I am really excited to see how he likes it!

Homeschool Fun: Robots

Jayne's robot

Another great week has come and gone. This week we used the preschool pack from Homeschool Creations. The weeks are starting to feel pretty similar at this point, so my post will be short. Jayne is enjoying his worksheets and is getting better at them with every passing week. This week we did a little fraction work and he seems to be picking up on it well. I filled his sensory bin with legos this week. I put in the tweezers for picking them up and the magnifying glass to look at them in a different way. He made a robot with foamie stickers for art time and moved on to his collage bin when he was done. He even finished off one of his glue sticks. He really enjoys the freedom of being able to create any time. He has a small bin of goodies that he can use any time he is doing art. It has scraps of paper, stickers I no longer need for scrapbooking, die cuts, glue and  scissors. All he has to do is ask and I leave him alone to create. He loves it and really appreciates that I stay out of his hair instead of looking over his shoulder all the time. Let me tell you though, he earned that trust over the past year by having never used his glue of scissors in a way that he shouldn't.

We got another Thomas the Train magazine in the mail yesterday so we are bumping the dino lessons for a while to do another train week. We also spent some time this morning updating his discovery cards. I found these cards in a thrift shop and they are such a nice addition to the wall space in our classroom. They are Pooh Bear nature discovery flash cards. They have info on the back about the topic on the front.

Fall discovery cards

Homeschool Fun: Camping

Putting in the "today is" card



The first week went great! We did so much fun stuff and fit in a fun birthday as well. We used the camping themed printables from Homeschool Creations this week. They were great as always. Jayne is getting better on his handwriting and we are taking more of a focus on how he makes his letters. He can trace the letter well, but he likes to follow the lines any which way. That method will not work well when he starts writing freehand. We finished up his pocket chart calendar too. The calendar has been a great too the last few weeks since we got it. We do a counting song to the date each day, he is learning about the seasons, months, and days of the week too. When school started this week, we added a word of the day to the calendar chart and ask him to go read it a few times during the day. The calendar has weather and holiday cards too. He is really enjoying all that calendar time has to offer.

The lizard is camping out

The sensory bin this week really had his creativity flowing. We did sand this week. I added some yellow beads for fireflies and some card stock pieces for him to build tents with. Jayne added a lizard. He loved making tents for his lizard and then he started experimenting with the card stock. He positioned the card stock in different ways and poured sand on it to see what would happen. When he held the card stock, the sand fell through and the card flipped up. When the card stock was in the sand at a slant the sand slid down. I am really happy at how the sensory bin concept has been working!

Jayne made the landscape with playdough

We did do one extra special thing for camping week, roast marshmallows! We did not camp out because of how bad our allergies have been, but we did get to nibble some yummy s'mores. Jayne loved it! He looked for sticks and for the first time we let him toast his own marshmallows. We stayed out past his bedtime. The dark made him nervous. Overall we had a really fun week. Next week we have the old lady that swallowed a fly that I made for him.

Jayne toasts a marshmallow with his daddy

Homeschool Fun: Dinosaurs

Jayne works on his sequencing puzzle

 Jayne always loves when we do dinosaurs. This time around we worked with the dinosaur unit from 2 Teaching Mommies. The dinosaurs they used were just adorable. He really loved all the worksheets and activities. He is still a huge fan of the number clip cards but also had a lot of fun doing the number sequencing puzzle and size sorting activities I have decided to add food Friday into our routine. On food Friday we will have a snack or meal that goes with our theme for the week. This week we had dinosaur mashed potatoes. Just use a cookie cutter and fill with potatoes, easy and fun. We even put his lunch on his dinosaur plate. Jayne really loved it and gobbled up his food really quick, a rare occurrence lately. We also sang If You're a Dinosaur and You Know it from The Mailbox's Day by Day Preschool Plans book. Jayne enjoyed being able to stomp around and be noisy. Over all, it was a great week. We will be spending part of today reorganizing the classroom. Jayne is very excited about it. I described what we are going to do and he thinks it will be very fun.

Jayne sorts sizes

Dinosaur mashed potatoes

Hot Dogs by Request

Jayne has developed a facination with hot dogs. He has even been telling us that he wants a hot dog cake for his birthday. While that is unlikely to happen, his request for a hotdog preschool pack is perfectly reasonable. The heat advisory this week has prevented me from getting started, but today is so much cooler and it is making me think that I could get it done over the weekend. I am going to be using clip art for most of the pages. I am also going to do a hand drawn hot dog colors book and a hand drawn color by number page. Right now I am looking at a possible 15 pages. That will be much longer than my first set. I am looking forward to Jayne's hot dog unit because I secretly like hot dogs as much as him...shhh, don't tell anyone!

Homeschool Fun: Popsicles

Jayne had so much fun with this lesson! Now that we are having a heat advisory, I am dreaming of repeating it. The topic was, as the title suggests, Popsicles! We got our great activity pages from the 2 Teaching Mommies blog. Jayne really loved playing with the pattern cards. He liked that the cards came with patterns to copy. He was able to take a pattern sheet and copy the pattern with his individual cards. I really like that about the 2 teaching Mommies preschool packs and it is something I am planning to add to my packs as I make them.

Jayne works on his clip cards



He has been showing off his Popsicle clip cards to everyone that stops by. He is really proud of himself that he can count them and mark the correct number. He is pretty sure that means he is big stuff now, and he would be right! Knowing your numbers is a great thing to be proud of yourself for. Instead of clips we use the little glass bead, stone things that you put in vases. Jayne likes to use the clear ones the best because they magnify the answer, as you can see in the pick.

Jayne uses his tongue for observation

By far his favorite activity was the Popsicle observation! He didn't quite understand what to do at first. He used his eyes to see what color his Popsicle was and if it was big or small, his ears to find out if it made a sound, his hands to see if it was hard or soft, and his nose to see if it smelled good. The best part of course was using his tongue to see if it was sweet, salty, or sour. We have done observations of all kinds of things since. On our vacation we observed tables and food and anything else we could thing of. Jayne has so much fun doing it. It is so easy to do and it helps him to think about the things in his world. I love it!

A Spammy Trip

Jayne with Spammy

Today we made a trip to the Spam museum in Austin, the spam capitol of the world! We had a lot of fun even though we have been there several times before. We staerted with some pics of all the statues in the entrance area. Jayne really liked posing with Spammy, as you can see.

Next we saw the 15 minute film in the mini movie theater. This is the first time that I have seen the whole thing. It is also the first time that Jayne sat still and kept quiet durring the whole film. That is most assuradly the reason I got to watch it.

Jayne talks on the radio mic

After the film, we got into the exhibit area. Jayne learned how to use an old (that is old as in a separate peice for the speaking and  one for listening) and also learned from his grandma that his great grandma used to be an operator and run the switch boards. That was a fun fact that was new to Adam and I as well. Jayne helped daddy pull a shipping box with a rope and had some fun interviewing meme (that would be me for first time readers) in the radio station booth. He shouted for me to come by saying "Meme Clayton Morgan!" Apparently he thought that everyone must have his same middle name.

Jayne labels a Spam can

Then it was off to the assembly line! Jayne did a great job packing spam into the cans. He was even able to get the Spam labels on all by himself this time. He packed, put the lids on, "cooked", and labeled his 6 cans in 3 minutes and 44 seconds. In his time the Austin plant produced 1,568 cans of Spam. He helped us with the spam game show after that. He pushed all the buttons that I needed him to, usually when I needed them pushed. We hit the gift shop after that and got a can of Spam to have for supper and Jayne got to have a tatoo. His grandma also let him make a smashed penny for his collection. If you ever want a great and cheap suvenir, do a smashed penny book and fill it up as you travel. Jayne loves his and is very proud of his small collection.

At the end of the trip we waited for the rest of our group (traveled with grandma, her friend, my little cousin and her friend). I let Jayne have a go at the camera. You can see his very first picture below. It was a great trip and everyone had a lot of fun. Plus grandma bought us all ice cream after. That was a perfect way to end a very fun trip!

Meme with Spammy, Jayne's very first picture!

Homeschool Fun: Learning and Planning

Jayne has learned a lot with Happy and Max this summer. Head of the Class is a great free resource for teaching your kids. It has curriculum up to 8th grade. I found that for preschool, the games are very repetitive. Jayne is starting to get a little more variety now though.

The game he gets the most is a game that shows a word and he has to select the picture that goes with the word. Jayne was already familiar with the sounds of the letters (thank you Leap Frog's Alphabet Factory movie) and that gave me a chance to show him how all the letter sounds work together to make the words. He does some of the words on his own now without my help! He is good with pig, dog, cow, raincoat, and a few others. I haven't noticed that he can pick them out of text yet, but getting them in the game setting is a great start. I think there is a good chance he could be reading somewhat by this time next year.

The other game I have shown here is a math game. He counts how many pictures are shown and touches the correct number. Just to clarify, our computer has a touch screen. He is very good at doing 1-5 and is most of the way there for 6-10. We are also working on the concept of 0.

I definitely recommend using head of the class. It is free, can be used to hone some skills over the summer, and is great when there just isn't time to get things set up. Just click and go.

I also wrote up a trial daily routine for us. My routine leaves too much free time for Jayne and with his less than fantastic behavior recently, I think it is time for more structure in his day. He still has 2 hours a day of free play which is when I can cook and clean. The new routine gives him a lot more face time with me too, which should give him the attention he seems to be lacking. We are going to give it a try tomorrow and see what it is like. We are on vacation next week, so we won't get into the swing of it till the following week. At least we can get a taste tomorrow and see what we like and what isn't going to work.