Corpse

Until we get the hang of a schedule, I fear lessons may just occur when we can get to them. Buckle down, woman. Get a hold of your kids. I hear you. I know what you just said to yourself. Here are my excuses:

1. This is the kids' last year to be home. I plan to put fun first.
1.a. I realize that I set the precedent for all future "things" now. Making fun a
numero uno priority might be an atrocity in your mind. My house, my rules.

2. My workouts are a priority to me. Couple that with the fact that the kids feel the gym is a treat, and we have morning workouts when we should be doing lessons.

3. Apparently, my children are not...ahem....conditioned.....errr...to giving me their undivided attention longer than about 40 minutes (thus, school, to learn how to do that...voila! imagine that).

4. I have the upmost respect for you folks who teach and manage a household. When DO you do lesson plans?

That said, Ben and Alya took great joy in completing their personal info in the front of their new workbooks. Thanks Gramma and Grampa. These books are FANTASTIC!!! They include a melange of worksheets for letters, numbers, mazes, games, math, activities, etc. Basically, it is PreK in a book. I have other materials, but these workbooks are the creme de la creme!





So funny, that tongue hanging out of that mouth!

Our curriculum today was as follows:

First, we worked on our letter A(a) with tracing and independent writing worksheets.





Second, we did a maze worksheet.

Third we did a germ experiment. Let me preface the pictures with some info. Our topic this week is the human body. Pros: There is a lot of information to cover and I have experience with the topic. Con: There is a lot of information to cover.

I am a firm believer in using every experience every day as a learning opportunity. Now, I don't mean that I freakishly hover over my children and ask them to read every sign we see or define every event we encounter (there are parents out there who do this and I HATE YOU...just in case you were wondering....your kids hate you too). What I DO mean is that we talked about nutrition and digestion at each meal today (so far) and will continue to do so all week. When I see an opportunity to discuss the body, I'll do it. I won't yell at my children in the produce section of Kroger to translate squash to Spanish so that the lone soul in the bakery might hear and think I am fabulous and my kids are geniuses. You know those parents. It has happened to you. Boo crazy parents. Boo. Lighten up. (Yeah that's coming from me.)

I never said this blog was going to be light.

Germs.

Soooo, as I was saying, one of our physical projects was to consider transmission of germs (the kids get a secondary lesson in cleanliness, two birds, one stone).

For this project you will need:

glitter glue
a colorful cup (a different color than your glitter)
a colorful napkin (ditto)

I asked the children to wash their hands and dry them. We'd had a brief discussion about germs beforehand. I asked if they had a lot of germs on their hands, and they said, "No." We squeezed glitter glue into our hands and rubbed it in. We pretended the glitter was germs and we held our cups, etc., and watched how easily the germs were transferred to everything.








Clean up!

Fourth, the children had asked to talk about the brain, so I incorporated that today too.

I had them close their eyes and I ran a pipe cleaner through their hands. I had them guess what they were touching. You could use almost anything for this. I also had them balance on one foot. From these two quick experiments, we had a discussion about the brain and how it gets messages.

I like to use books during our lessons and have acquired several that I use regularly (those little children's dictionaries they sell in Marshalls rock)! I have a plethora of books including the old Snoopy encyclopedias. I simply mark the sections of the materials I want to cover and have it available.

Finally, the kids drew pictures of their "bodies". Alya's is pretty straight forward. I think the absence of a core in its entirety (thus existing with no organs such as the heart, lungs, kidneys, etc.) is amazing.



Ben, interestingly, was wearing his "father's slippers" and had an odd object growing from his head (which is an art interest [things growing out of heads] he shares with his father). Also, he had a lollipop in his hand and the big X means "NO LOLLIPOPS". So Ben not only drew his body but he tried to make a social statement as well.



Ben said our brains are dead. That would make us all corpses. I think he has a very distorted perception of reality.

I'm always open to project ideas and fun ways to learn. Feel free to comment!