My Father's World - Dinosaurs

Catching up on our homeschool posts... Our dinosaur unit took up most of December since we had lots of breaks for cookie making, a ballet recital, card and ornament making, and more. Some of the fun things we did include: drawing dots on a big "D", drawing a dinosaur, writing a story, reading dinosaur poems, making dinosaur finger puppets, and more. One day we ate a dinosaur smile for snack (apples, peanut butter, and marshmallows). Lucy also enjoyed making dinosaurs from play-doh.

Books we read:

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? by John Morris and Ken Ham

Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff

Four and Twenty Dinosaurs by Bernard Most

Curious George and the Dinosaur by Margret and H. A. Rey

Lucy's favorite part: "My handwriting page."

What Lucy learned about dinosaurs: "That they're big. That the sound they make, growling."

My Father's World K - Us Unit (The Five Senses)

This unit took us a while to finish because of Thanksgiving break in there and a few other days that we just didn't get to our schoolwork. I'm not in a hurry to rush through the curriculum since Lucy is only 4 1/2, but we are trying to keep going for now since we'll likely have some breaks when the baby comes in January.

Some fun things we did - played with playdough (for sense of touch), made a tambourine (for hearing sense), smelled some foods with our eyes shut (onion, lemon juice, pumpkin pie spice), and played “what’s missing?” (sight). I lined up five little people and took one away while the girls had their eyes shut. Lucy was great at knowing which one was missing, even if I mixed them up. Julia will randomly go up to a pile of little people now and grab one and say “which one is missing?” to me. They had fun talking and thinking about the different senses and when they use them. (They would say “We’re tasting this apple.” etc.)

Books We Read:

My Five Senses by Aliki

How Kids Grow by Jean Marzollo

Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault

All About Sound by David Knight

Hearing by Lillian Wright

Seeing by Lillian Wright

What’s Inside You by Susan Meredith

Usborne First Encyclopedia of Science

On The Move by Deborah Heiligman

Inside Your Outside by Tish Rabe

We're also enjoying reading Haffertee Hamster Diamond - a series of books that my mom read to me when I was little. The chapters are not too long and both girls look forward to this. The stories are all about a little stuffed hamster and his adventures in the Diamond family household. The books aren't in print, but can be found used on amazon.

Lucy’s Favorite Part:

“Doing my math page. Where you pick a number and then you draw how many. My really favorite is doing my handwriting page, I like that one.” She’s also really been proud of learning to read simple words lately.

My Father's World K - Turtle Unit

Still catching up here...

For the turtle unit, we enjoyed painting a paper plate to make into a turtle, reading books on perseverance, and making tortoise and hare puppets. I drew simple turtle and rabbit figures and Lucy colored, cut them out, and glued them on popsicle sticks. We used them while reading The Tortoise and The Hare story. For a tactile letter activity, I used pieces of an alphabet puzzle and put one under a playsilk. Lucy had to feel it and guess which letter it was. She actually did really well and had fun with the game. painting to music - We also spent time working on some Christmas gifts that we've been making (I'll post them soon!).

For our books, we had success again just raiding the library of all the books in the "turtle" section. We read:

Reptiles and Amphibians of Michigan Field Guide by Stan Tekiela

DK Watch Me Grow Turtle by Lisa Magloff (shows mating, not sure if we're ready for that)

Turtles by Anita Baskin-Salzberg and Allen Salzberg (good photos)

Turtles Life In a Shell by Sara Swan Miller

Turtles by Julie Murray (good simple info book)

All About Turtles by Jim Arnosky (good info book)

Sea Turtles by Gail Gibbons

Turtles In My Sandbox by Jennifer Keats Curtis

Turtle Crossing by Rick Chrustowski (good)

Scoot! by Cathryn Falwell (cute)

Many of my extra ideas come from things people share on the My Father's World message board. There is a section for K, and a section for each unit where people list ideas and post links to things they find helpful. If you're using My Father's World, or just want fun ideas on one of the topics, be sure to check this out.

Weeks 5 and 6 - MFW K, Moon and Leaf

For the past two weeks one or another of us has been sick with a cold so we've slowed down a bit with our schoolwork. I love that My Father's World is flexible enough to allow us to do this. We took two weeks to complete our leaf unit and will hopefully all feel well enough on Monday to start fresh with the next topic (apple).

We took a trip to an apple orchard/ pumpkin patch last week:

Lucy and Julia really enjoyed this paint bag writing activity:

We collected leaves, made leaf rubbings, identified leaves, counted and sorted leaves, measured leaves with a ruler (Lucy really enjoyed this), read tons of leaf books, and more. For our books this week, I simply raided the library of all the leaf books I could find. I think the favorites were tree identification books, both girls loved paging through those.

Books we read:

Trees of North America (identification book)

DK Eyewitness Explorers Trees - lots of info, good photos

Be a Friend to Trees by Patricia Lauber - good info book

Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro - good info book

Fall Leaves by Mary Packard

Trees, Leaves, and Bark by Diane L Burns

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro - good info book

Trees by Ernestine Giesecke

My Favorite Tree by Diane Iverson

Trees - Usborne First Nature book by Ruth Thomson - good info book

Leaves by Rena Kirkpatrick

Look What I Did With a Leaf by Morteza E Sohi

A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry

Taking Root by Allan Fowler

The Signing Time dvd "Going Outside" went along perfectly with our studies as it included signs for sun, moon, stars, grass, tree, leaf, and more.

Lucy's favorite part:

Well, she's not really going along with this anymore. Whenever I ask her what her favorite part was, all she says is that she liked all her school. She did really enjoy the paint bag writing and measuring leaves with a ruler. Several times during the week she told me that she really likes when I have new activities for her to do and enjoys doing schoolwork. The poor girl was begging to do schoolwork after having a couple days off due to sickness. I'm glad she's enjoying it!

Week 4 - MFW K, Moon

This week we learned all about the moon and the letter "M". Most of our activities came right from our My Father's World Kindergarten and we were a bit sick all week so I didn't add much else to our days. I'm really enjoying MFW, there is a great mix of hands on learning, art projects, and paperwork. I can pick and choose a bit between the activities they list (although I usually want to fit them all in and more!) and schedule our days with more or less in them as needed. Lucy really enjoys "doing school" and usually asks if we can do schoolwork on the weekends too. The work is at a great level for her, not too easy, but not too frustrating for her either. She is doing a great job at working carefully and enjoys showing off her papers to anyone who will listen to her chat about it all.

Some of the highlights this week included:

Making a big spaceship (tent) in the living room - We included an old computer keyboard for controls, brought along a snack, books, and pillows, and counted backwards from 10 to blastoff. We also made space helmets from paper bags to wear on the moon and collected moon rocks (crumpled pieces of brown paper).

We used a tennis ball and a globe to show how the moon rotates around the earth. Lucy and Julia took turns holding the globe or running around the globe with the tennis ball while spinning it.

Lucy really enjoyed illustrating her own "Goodnight Moon" book. I stapled some white paper together and she drew a picture on each page and then had me write "Goodnight tree. Goodnight flower. etc" She loved reading her book to Daddy and Grandma.

Playing with our star counting game - see this post for photos.

Books We Read:

All About the Moon by David Adler

Mooncake by Frank Asch

Oliver's Wood by Sue Hendra

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

God Made Outer Space by Heno Head, Jr (good information book)

Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik

Happy Birthday Moon by Frank Asch

What Lucy learned:

Mom: "Can you tell me something you learned about the moon?"

"I learned that it had no light on it. That it reflects light."

Mom: "Anything else?"

"Um, I liked doing all my schoolwork."

Lucy's favorite part:

"I liked making my Goodnight Moon book." She also reminded me that she liked learning about the sun and really liked dirt cake.

This coming week we are taking a trip to an apple orchard on Monday and then finishing up some moon activities that I'll share in my next weekly summary. There are a few fun things that we didn't get to do yet. We will then start learning about leaves and the letter "L" for the rest of the week.