Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Weekly Wrap- Up - Space

So we have finished our first week of our Space study and have had lots of fun.  We began the week by designing and building our own rocket ships out of cardboard boxes.






Our outside climbing frame also transformed into a rocket ship on many occasions throughout the week!



And of course, a rocket ship wouldn't be complete without a map of the galaxy for our little astronaut.  Big sister kindly offered to help with the details.





Nathanael was, once again, right into all of the shelves and eager to try out everything he could get his hands on.  Here are a few action shots from his week.




As usual, anything that involves drawing or painting is a big hit with this boy.  He decided that the numbers on our dice needed to be a bit darker so he coloured over all the dots and traced all the numbers!!!








Scooping, pouring, pouring and scooping.....lots of practice this week.





Lots of work on those fine motor skills.



And the hands down favourite activity of the week.......our solar system photo cards.  I lost count of the number of times we had to look at these cards, match them, up say their names and put them order.  I don't think he really has much clue what they are, but he loves them anyway!


Samuel spent most of our school time playing with his rocket ship and space map  or reading our many space books.  He only did a few of the activities I had planned as he had his own plan!!



He enjoyed matching the space objects to their pictures but quickly lost interest and decided it was more fun to actually play with the astronaut and rocket ship.




He loves playdough and this week was no exception.  We had some very sparkly solar systems happening.


Lots of playtime!!




And he did do some book work one day just to be like big brother.



Liam and Liana began using Apologia Science's Discovering creation through Astronomy.  We are absolutely loving this curriculum.  It is very Charlotte Mason style with lots of reading and narrating and not much bookwork or fill in the blanks type work, which is awesome for Liam.  Every lesson has a hands on activity and the best part is every lesson is continually pointing back to the awesomeness of our creator and we don't have to sort through all the millions of years garbage!!

Our first project was to make a representation of the solar system using balloons.  We decided to go one step further and paper mache them so we can keep them hanging up.  It takes a long time to paper mache 11 balloons.  11 because we had the sun, 8 planets and Pluto, (because Pluto will always be a planet to me), and Earth's moon.Next week we will try and paint them.








Linking up at the Tot School Gathering Place at 1+1+1=1
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Thursday, August 7, 2014

Whats on the Shelf? August - Space

August is space month over here.  The littlies will be learning all about Space and the planets, while the big kids begin a study on Astronomy using Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy.  So lots of stars and planets around for a while.

Here is a little look at what is on our workshelves for Sam and Nathanael this month.  We have lots of other "spacey" activities planned to go along with these.



Firstly, our space sensory box.  complete with glow in the dark planets and stars, bouncy planets, astronauts and a state of the art toilet roll rocket!



I sewed up some felt planets to match to our 3 part cards.  Mars and the sun have gone missing somewhere!



Rocket lacing card.  We also have a moon, a sun, Saturn and an asteroid to swap out over the weeks.



Space themed stickers to get those fine motor skills working.



More 3 part card matching, this time with our space toob toys.



More pouring practice for my pouring obsessed 2 year old.  



Counting asteroids clip cards.



Spooning "planets" into the little bucket.



Spelling space words with scrabble tiles.  Some cards are all upper case, some are lower case so we can work on letter recognition.



Balancing planets on golf tees in playdough.



Capital/lower case match space jigsaws.



Finding the planets in the rice with a slotted spoon.



Transferring pom-pom asteroids with the tongs.



Beading practice



Name practice for Samuel



Glittery galaxy playdough with lots of glass planets to decorate with.

And that is what is on the shelves this month!






















Sunday, August 3, 2014

Weekly Wrap-Up - Dinosaurs

Last week was the end of our month on dinosaurs.  Here is a quick look at what the little ones got up to.



Samuel was not interested in doing many of the activities this week, which is fine by me.  He spent most of his time playing with the salt dough fossils or making playdough creations.



One of his many underwater dinosaurs!!!


Nathanael, on the other hand was right into the shelves and repeated many of the activities from the previous week.  Here are a few of his favourites.


Spooning beans into divided trays.


Dot painting dinosaurs


Transferring water with the Turkey Baster.



Matching our toy dinosaurs to their pictures.



To finish off our unit we became archaeologists and tried our hand at excavating some fossils.  The three big kids did this while Nathanael was napping.  I am so glad we did it then, it was hard work and very messy, but it kept them occupied for a good 30mins!!!







This week we have begun our new theme for the month of August - Space.   Stay tuned for a sneak peek at our plans!!!