Anatomy of a Parade Float

Take one drink box

Tie to a skateboard

Decorate

Priceless!

Spring Piano Recital 2009

This Land is Your Land



The Shark

Goodwill Finds

It's the end of the traditional school year and both public & home schools are cleaning closets. Don't forget to check out you local Goodwill and other thrift shops for great school materials. Here is a pile I found last week for 69 cents a piece!!!

Classic Literature

Something I hope G will be motivated to read alone.

Basals

Foundations

Art Enrichment

Great workbooks for the future.

Art History- Alexander Calder

Our final Artist this session was Alexander Calder.
I read the kids the beautiful book, Sandy's Circus.
Then we looked at a gallery of his work... it was very inspiring
and needed no instruction or motivation from me.

I scattered the table with telephone wire, pipe cleaners, and foam shapes and they went at it. We ended up with several snakes and spiders but also some rabbits, designs, and mobiles.

Art History- Art Show

I displayed the childrens' art work at the End of the Year program.
They were so proud of it! And I was proud of them.

Parade of States

During this 12 weeks of Co-op, the children had the chance to participate in an independent project, a state parade float. The kids chose a state, studied it at home, and created a float to represent what they learned about the state. The children paraded their floats through the audience at our end of the year program after a rousing performance of 50 Nifty United States. It was fun to see what they used as bases... skateboards, wagons, mini tractors, cars.California

Pennsylvania

New York

Missouri (Pre-K asked his Mom for the stuff she wraps the food in...
that would make a great arch, he said.

Michigan

Kansas

Indiana

Florida

Arizona

Alaska

Tennessee

Texas

The Grand Old Flag

On May 18th, Our Co-op held an end of the year production "The Grand Old Flag". It was amazing if I do say so myself. The children spent the last 12 weeks learning about Symbols of America, Good Citizenship, Drama and American Art History. In choir they explored rhythm and inspirational songs and standards. It was so beautiful and professional.

Getting ready for "Here Comes the Band"

The Story of Betsy Ross

This is good stuff

Betsy shows General Washington the Flag

Singing their hearts out!!

G is Francis Scott Key, and he wrote the National Anthem.
He was watching a battle in the Harbor of Baltimore...

The Star Spangled BannerThe after-party is the best!

Where to Start?

I have several posts floating around in my head.... which one to start with?

Paperback Swap & Curriculum

Do you Swap? I love Paperback Swap. If you don't here is how easy it is.

1. Post 10 books (hard or soft cover, audio) you don't want any more.
2. Accept 2 credits to spend for your effort.
3. Mail any books requested from you as cheap as possible (I think my most expensive has been $2.50)
4. Order books you want- 1 credit books, 2 credits audio books

I have gotten only one book that was in questionable condition most have been like new. We have explored series that our library doesn't carry, Andrew Lost, Franny K Stein. I have also gotten a huge amount of curriculum. It is a great way to check a company out then if it's not for you, repost it. You can also start a wish list for things you want or may use in the future. I have all of the Story of the World materials wish listed.

Here are the great Homeschool resources I have swapped for:
AVKO Sequential Spelling 1 (on it's way)
Wordly Wise A
Explode the Code 3
Developing Critical Thinking Through Science 1
A Peoples History of the United States
Prima Latina Teachers Manual & Cd
What Your ___ Needs to Know (K, 1, 2, 4, 5,6)
Minimus Pupil Book
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
Thinker Doodles-Clues & Choose
Thinker Doodles- half & half animals
Dr. Dooriddles
Coloring Book of Ancient Egypt
Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt
Daily Word Problems gr1
Singapore Math 1A
Strong Start in Language k-3

If you don't Swap you might consider it... If you do, check out my stuff through the button in my side bar and tell me your list name so I can check out yours!

Disney Source Material

I just re-read a post over at Chez Smiffy on the original books that Disney movies are based on. Add some to your summer reading baskets... we are!

Convention & a Peek at 2nd Grade

(Vender Hall, Midwest Homeschooling Convention, Cincinnati OH,
at least what I could fit in my lens)

A couple weeks ago, I spend 3 fabulous days at the Midwest Homeschooling Convention. I was energized and motivated. I was able to narrow down, with difficulty, the speaker list to fulfilling talks; Susan Wise Bauer (Don't miss her if you get the chance!), Dr. Jay Wile, Jim Weiss, and Homeschool CPA just to name a few. I spent several hours in the Vender Hall researching my lists of curriculum try to figure out what would fit G best. Here are some of the items I came home with...

Summer: The Magic Kingdom by Vacation Education is a Unit Study of The Magic Kingdom written by a homeschool family. As we are going to Disney this fall, I thought this would be fun to do.

Language Arts: I have tried to keep out as many worksheets as possible in our homeschool. We do most things orally except for math and handwriting. But do you know what I recently found out? G likes them!! Maybe they are just novel right now. So for now that is the direction we will go. We have finished our Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading and I was trying to decide how to reinforce those lesson. I received an Explode the Code off of Paperback Swap and it is fitting the bill. Right now it is so easy that G doesn't have to think too hard about it. He really enjoys them. So I bought the rest of the set. I hope to use 3 next year and 3 in third grade. G is also enjoying Draw Write Now, the first of which I bought at a used curriculum sale for $1. The other book we are using now is Queen's Language Lessons for the Very Young. G asks to do more of it each day so I snatched up the next book when I saw it at convention. This is a Charlotte Mason style Language Arts text which covers picture study, poetry, copywork, and grammer. Because we already do copywork with DWN I skip the copywork lesson in LLVY. Also, I am not a fan of the lines they provide for writing. If I did do the copywork, I would have him write it on separate paper.

Social Studies: We are sticking with Story of the World- the Middle Ages. We really enjoyed and learned alot this year. I also picked up the Who in the World? Biographies and 4 Jim Weiss Cds (King Arthur & His Knights, Masters of the Renaissance, The Queen's Pirate: Elizabeth 1 and Sir Francis Drake, Shakespeare for Children). I am really excited about The World of Columbus and Sons. This is an anthology of stories of history that happened at the same time Columbus lived. This is what I love about Chronological history.... while A was happening in the world so was B & C.... facinating. I also ordered some literature to add the Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare I bought last year.... Leif the Lucky and Beowulf.

Science: We will continue the Well Trained Mind's Science schedule so 2nd grade is Earth Science. I have tons of resources in the basement because this is one of the topics I taught in public school. I did pick up Professor Noggin games for Space and Earth. These are trivia games I recently read about. Each card has 3 easy and 3 hard level questions so parents or older siblings can play fairly with younger kids. You roll a die to choose whether to ask question 1, 2 or 3. If you answer your question correctly you keep the card... the one with the most cards wins.

Math: We will continue with Math U See- Gamma. I am so pleased with this program... I am not sure about the new fancy covers. I like to fold back my teacher's manual ready for the next chapter each week... the new ones are hardback. The new fonts and double sided pages are nice though. I also splurged on a completer set and the wooden storage boxes. I thought having at least 10 of every block would be helpful for multiplication.

I am getting really excited to start planning! This is our last "formal" week of school... our 180 days will be done. We will continue MUS Beta through the summer but ETC and LL will drop or be done only occasionally. I hope with the Library's summer reading program coming up that he will start reading on his own. I know he has the skills but doesn't have to desire yet. This is one thing I don't push... it will come.

What are you all up to? Any ideas for next year?