ExamLand

 

I can't find it now, but somewhere there is a board game for Charlotte Mason exams at the end of a term. It was like a trip around a pond stopping at different places/subjects to talk about. I wanted to reinvent the wheel (as usual) and really enjoyed coming up with our own that the kids could color. I also made a little country version of each of them, not because we are "country" but because it seemed a classic option, and fun. They loved coloring themselves and deciding where to go next.

Homemade Math Manipulatives-Place Value

 

 

 

For learning place value, addition, and subtraction (especially "carry the ten") we use these little 1" square cardboard chips I painted, cut, and labelled 1, 10, 100, 1000. The more I use them the easier it is for my student-at-hand to grasp a concept.

 

This is actually an extra bit of lamination I snagged, but we also use clear tinted binder dividers, or clear plastic covers with a paper inserted to make it easier to handle and dry erase markers.

 

 

 

 

Other manipulatives I store in just little plastic bags, but these I keep in a craft organizer--easier to find and clean up, and definately colorful.

 

 

I have used workboxes and bins for each student before. With just two children to keep track of, the easiest storage for me so far has been just throwing a all the math stuff in a bin. It's all in one place and fits just right.

 

Pictured above are also fraction circles and bars I easily made with foam squares from the Dollar Store.

"Of Finns & Frames" or "Dates with the Darlings"

As of today, we've instituted monthly dates with our kids and a parent. This month, I got Kingfisher & Bowery Bird.

Kingfisher and I went this morning to the Home Depot Kid's Workshop where this month's project was making a picture frame. I hadn't been to one of these in a long time and had just as much fun watching Kingfisher take his hammering and painting and stickering seriously as I did watching the parents take it just as seriously. I'm not kidding, there are always those parents who take their perfectly capable kids to a "Kid's Workshop" and yet the majority of the work ends up being done by an adult.
Of course we took our pin and balloon (kept in separate pockets), and got doughnuts afterward.

Bowery Bird and I went out this afternoon to another BYU International Cinema film. This time we saw Christmas Story. Not the Christmas Story everyone loves, and I personally loathe, but a Finnish version of St. Nick's beginning. Heavy on woodcarving and pure charity, light on commercialism and magic--it was a breath of arctic air compared to many American Christmas specials. It was Bowery Bird's first full length film with subtitles, and beyond the false start in Finnish--I don't think it even  phased her.
Afterward we exited the back door, and were lured into the science building with it's magnetic-manipulating gloves, perpetual pendulum, and giant crystals from Arkansas. I know--who could refuse?

Art Class: Ceramics 4

Repairing & Painting the Pieces

 

Guess I forgot to tell them to attach the head...The Very Vain Lady again, by 9y/o Bowery Bird

• Elmer's Glue worked slowly but surely for bits that fell off (like Frankenstein's bolt). Putting craft paint into baby food jars and no mixing allowed simplified things.
• This was a fun day that ended with a behind-the-scenes bit about clay animation, then a Shaun the Sheep episode.
• Students were told to bring pans to make moving their delicate works home easier...and some listened.

Penguin by 9y/o girl

 

Cat Piggy Bank by 7y/o Mockingbird "it turned into a leopard, mom"

 

Bust by 7y/o Mockingbird

 

Mr. Pickles by 12y/o girl

 

box with shelf by 7y/o Mockingbird

 

 

 

I am a Paleontolgist, That's What I Am

BYU Museum of Paleontology

This song by They Might Be Giants kept filtering in and out of conversation during our visit to the BYU Museum of Paleontology. I had forgotten about this little fossil of a jewel museum on campus until one rainy day when we had some time on our hands.
For not being very big space-wise (but far better than their original home under the football stadium), the collection is amazing. The museum houses mineral specimens, full size replicas, petrified plants (petrified wood seen right, against wall), and many child-friendly "touch-tables."

Ammonite touch-table

In this museum, more than any other like it, the sheer size of ancient life hits me, and I think it's because the rooms are small and displays don't leave a lot of space between you and them. Any one under 3 years old usually ends up being held most of the visit for this same reason...

This isn't a great picture, but shows a replica and the viewing window into the lab where they process the specimens collected from the field. If you look at the workers non-threateningly, one of the volunteers may come out and give you a tour. Luckily, that's just what happened to us.
I love behind-the-scene tours, especially of workshops so this was a real treat.

We saw lizard-like dinosaur bones being removed from sandstone, rare because there were 3 together in their natural arrangement and in an easily removable rock. We saw gar fish scales still shining in the stone, and vertebrate the size of a mini refrigerators lined up to be processed. Then our guide took us back to peek in the warehouse where fossilized bones dusted with a release agent were awaiting the dunk into vats of liquid silicon to become molds.

 

Life Story, by Virginia Lee Burton, is one of those books that leaves you feeling different about not only your place on the planet, but in time itself. Presented as a play, it starts with the scientific creation of our earth, takes the reader through each phase of ancient life, and eventually culminates with spreads of generation, year, day, hour, and your next few minutes.

I didn't really plan it this way, but we are studying the life cycle this week. So after seeing what happens when the life cycle stops, we went full circle and visited the pet store where they had two-month old puppies and baby tarantulas. Awwww...