MFW ECC Week 6 - Canada

This week in Exploring Countries and Cultures we travelled to Canada.  Here are Liana and Liam complete with airline tickets and passports.

They get so excited when we pull out the passports and print off their airline tickets.  I love it that such simple things still bring joy!

We did a lot of reading and discussing this week, so not many things to photograph!  They continued to add to their geography glossary.  This week was learning about canyons, particularly the Grand Canyon.

We also watched several short documentaries on the Inuit of Canada and made some minit. books.

For art this week they finished painting their Mexican Sun Faces from last week.

Other things we did that have no photos include, reading about William and Catherine Booth, the founders of the Salvation Army, learning about the Garifuna from Window on the World and studying food chains and food webs.

To finish, here is Liana doing her Latin homework in her Indian Costume, sitting outside, just because she can!  One of the joys of homeschooling.

Preschool - Rainbows

This week Samuel has been learning all about rainbows! We read the book, "What makes a Rainbow?" and then had lots of fun making our own rainbows.

First we used the dot markers to fill in the rainbow.  I was actually impressed that Samuel only dotted in the rainbow.  Normally he just covers the whole page!

We made some ranibow pictures using PVA glue, salt and food colouring.  They turned out really great and Samuel had so much fun making them.  I think he would have kept going all day.  He made about 5 or 6 pictrues and it kept him occupied for over half and hour.

We practiced cutting using a rainbow cutting fun sheet.













We also did some colour sorting and glued the shapes on to make another rainbow.

Later in the week we read the Eric Carle book "The Mixed Up Chameleon" and then mad our own mixed up chameleon.

MFW ECC Week 6 - Mexico

We had a quiet week this week as we all got over being sick and tried to get back into the swing of school after the holidays.

We started using My Father's World curriculum part way through last term and are loving it. We are currently up to week 6 and finishing off our study of Mexico. Here are a few snapshots of what we did.

 We added our paper doll and flag to our map.

 

 For art we made Mexican Sun Faces.

 

 We finished our study of Mexico by making our own Tortillas.

 

 Of course, it wouldn't have been complete without having fajitas for dinner with our tortillas!
   

In science we have been learning about the desert. We learned about how cold blooded animals like tortoises stay cool in the desert and compared the temperature in the shade and in the sun.

 

 Then we compared the time it took for ice melt in the shade, in the sun and buried underground. The kids were amazed at how long it took the buried ice to melt!

 

 Next week we begin our study of Canada.

Back to School

Samuel is 24.5 mths

It has been a looong 4 months, with me being bedridden and in hospital for the first 2 months and not feeling so great for the last two. Needless to say, there has not been much happening in the way of Totschool (or any school for that matter!)

I am now 24 weeks and feeling almost human again so we are getting back into the swing of things as the new school year starts.

Our theme for February for the big kids is the Ocean, so I made Samuel's sensory box to match.

There was lots of feeding of sea creatures happening this week, complete with sounds effects!

We tried to do some mathcing of glass seashells, but Samuel ha no idea and was more interested in trying to put them between his toes! He did however enjoy pushing them around in his dump truck for the rest of the week. We might try again next week.

The big kids were making sea urchins out of playdough and toothpicks and Samuel wanted to join in. He spent ages carefully poking toothpicks in and was so proud when he finished. He carried around for the next 30 mins or so. We needed to go to the shops and he insisited on bringing it, so held on to it for the car ride and the entire time we were shopping. Not so sure it is the safest toy for a 2 year old but he loves it and has played with it multiple times this week.

A week of ocean study wouldn't be complete without a trip to the beach. The weather has been sooooo hot this week but we found a nice mild day and took Nanna and Grandad to the beach for the morning.

We also made the most of a few cooler days and spent heaps of time outside playing with all the bubble supplies left over from Samuels' Birhtday Party the other week. All three kids had a blast and spent a good hour outside playing with the bubbles.

So nothing too structured this week. We are getting back into things slowly and will add a bit more structure next week.

To see what others are doing for Tot School this week head on over to 1+1+1=1.