Lentil

This week's Five in a Row title was Lentil by Robert McCloskey. Since one of the characters in the book was Colonel Carter, we took the opportunity to talk a little bit about Veteran's Day. Some of the activities we did to go along with the book were:

1) Baking cookies for a US soldier currently serving in Iraq.

2) Writing a "Happy Veteran's Day" note to a friend of ours who is serving in the Army and has been deployed to Iraq twice.

3) Introduction to the Pledge of Allegiance.

4) Experimenting with the lip puckering power of a lemon.

5) We talked about musical instruments, counting quarter, half and whole notes, and practiced clapping in time to music. The new quarter starts next week, and we will start learning the piano, so these music activities were the perfect lead-in for that.

New Phonics Activity

G loves to write, but isn't so excited about phonics so yesterday it came to me to try having him write the words we're working on reading on his white board. It worked wonderfully. We did it until he was bored with it and we got an extra 15-20 minutes of phonics in. I'm hoping this will help solidify the concept we are currently working on, the silent e.

What is wrong with me that I didn't think of this before? I wonder how long it will last.

Happy Halloween

G had a blast wearing his costume all day long. In the morning, we went to story time at the library, then after lunch it was off to a homeschool group Halloween party, and of course there was the church carnival and a bit of trick-or-treating in the evening. A very full but very fun day!

Creativity Strikes Again

Last night G noticed that Daddy's watch was broken. The band had come off and all that was left was the face. Daddy had been carrying it around in his pocket so he could still tell the time even though he couldn't wear the watch. G decided he would fix daddy's watch. Using a paper cup, some scissors and some tape, G fashioned a new band for the watch. What a resourceful boy!

Halloween/Pumpkin Theme

This week we have been having fun with our Halloween/Pumpkin theme. We've been reading Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell, and doing some of the go-along activities we found at homeschoolshare.com . We've also been reading From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer to learn more about the pumpkin life cycle.

Yesterday we did my favorite pumpkin activity and baked pumpkin pies!!!

Jack-O-Lantern Craft

Yesterday we made this paper strip Jack-O-Lantern using construction paper cut into strips, 2 brads, black construction paper to make the face, and glue. I got the idea from Art Projects for Kids.

My Little Pumpkin

We went to the pumpkin patch on Sunday and got a miniature pumpkin for today's project. We measured its height and circumference, we described the pumpkin, and G guessed how many seeds would be inside (20). Then we cut the pumpkin open and counted the seeds to see how many there actually were (299). Then G drew a picture of his pumpkin with the seeds inside.