Lest you think I'm some kind of Supermom with a clean, organized home, clean, organized children and a "perfect" home school life - you should know that to buy the peace and quiet necessary to even write this blog post I'm letting the younger boys binge watch Phineas and Ferb. Sometimes I make them watch something a little more - educational. Wild Kratts being the favorite, or more recently Mythbusters Junior (science!). My older boys were Mythbusters fans - it definitely appeals to every boy's desire to blow things up.
Basically I had to bribe the six year-old with morning television viewing in order to break his habit of getting in bed with me every morning. Early in the morning. Some could argue the middle of the night. Let's just say that being woken up each night, sometimes multiple times, to the sound of my bedroom door slamming open, followed by a not-so-small child climbing into bed with me and pulling on my hair was making me rather grumpy in the mornings. He's always had this weird playing-with-mommy's hair obsession - sometimes it's adorable, most of the time it's just painful since no matter how many times I try to explain it, he just does not seem to get that my hair is attached to my head. Also it's impossible to sleep while someone is pulling on your hair.
The television habit has continued, but I did make a Video Games Only on the Weekends Rule.
It's all about balance.
Of course they quickly found the Educational Games Loophole. Considering the nine year-old can successfully map the entire United States (thank you Stack the States) and the six year-old was following along with some kind of song and dance (Khan Academy Kids) I'm okay with it.
At least it isn't Minecraft.
Other learning this week included more about early explorers, pirates and privateers, and the lost colony of Roanoke for our history timeline. In science, we continued learning about the grasslands habitat and animals who live there - specifically the Cheetah and Lion. We also did a simple demonstration of why cats' eyes appear to glow in the dark.
Our Fine Arts this week continued the study of various Art Elements through Native American Art - this week we talked about "form" and made clay pots. Next week we'll paint them. We read stories about Bach and listened to more of his music - the boys decided they prefer his organ music.
I thought I'd start sharing a list of resources we use each week, in case it helps anyone out there. A lot of what I've used over the years has come from the reading lists and suggestions of others. And if I actually keep up with this blog, I can step back in time and see what we used, potentially saving me a lot of time and energy.
Our Catholic Schoolhouse Tour Guide is the main resource we use each week. I'm also using the Art Book this year since we aren't doing art with our co-op. The Catholic Schoolhouse blog is another good resource for ideas each week and because we belong to a local chapter (though we aren't currently meeting) I have access to other ideas and printables through that.
Book List: (this is mainly for the nine and six year-old - the teens have American Literature selections and Saint biographies for their reading)
- Bach the Boy from Thuringia
- Waiting is Not Easy (Self-Control Virtue)
- Amazing Animals: Lions
- Bach (Mike Venezia)
- What is a Mammal
- Becoming Bach
- DK Animal Encyclopedia
- What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?
- The Circus Ship
- Welcome Home Bear
- How Fast is a Cheetah?
- A Mammal is an Animal
- I See a Kookaburra
- The Magic Schoolbus Explores the World of Animals
- Under Drake's Flag
- Sassafras Science Zoology
- Kateri Tekakwitha: Mohawk Maiden
Video:
- PBS Education World Explorers
- PBS Nature: Super Cats (Amazon Prime)
- Brain Pop (relevant videos)
- Kids Animated History (Amazon Prime)
- Catholic Brain (we're doing the Adventure Catechism series)
- Classicforkids.com or Amazon music for music listening (Bach)
We've also been using some How to Draw Animals books and supercoloring.com for a wide variety of free animal printables to color. The nine year-old loves to draw and the six year-old prefers to color - it's a great way to keep them listening while I read.
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| Watching videos about the explorers for this week and mapping their travels |
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| Hurley Bear |
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