Float or Sink? Sonlight P4/5 Week 3...

This week the instructor's manual suggested doing a floating and sinking activity which I knew my boys would be all about. One of my main goals is to start doing a LOT more science because they are eating it up.

I found a floating and sinking worksheet so tried to find items to test that matched the pictures on the worksheet. We headed to the bathtub to test them, but first they had to come up with a prediction of whether they'd float or sink.

 Their faces were priceless because they would get so excited if something did the opposite of what they expected. I kept trying to snap a picture, but this was as close as I got.  This is Will's "wow" face:

 

We used our big foam letters and sounded out what letter "float" and "sink" start with then labeled our bins. The items on the side were great learning experiences because they learned they float on top of the water but sink if filled with water. That was a fun add-on to the lesson.

Then they had to cut apart the pictures on their worksheet and glue them under "float" or "sink". And, yes, we like to work with no shirts on- especially if they happen to get wet when you play in the tub full of water you were supposed to be using for your experiemnt :) 

We had an interesting discussion on where would be the best place to glue the pictures of the items that did both- float and sink (depending on if they had water in them).  I loved how they were really thinking!

I've been thining floating and sinking would be good to do, but I probably wouldn't have gotten around to doing floating and sinking if it hadn't been mentioned in my Sonlight teacher manual. I am such a planner though that I have to say I am adding a lot of stuff into our Sonlight studies that I don't really have to but that's what I enjoy doing. That makes it Ok, right? Of course, it also means we are getting "behind" in our Sonlight reading though- again, that's OK too. I have to keep reminding myself to just breathe and enjoy!

Weekly Wrap Up...

 We had a great week in homeschool this week. It started off great when my awesome hubby finished my Ikea inspired bookshelves! You can see the little green and red beauties behind our pictures. We were all excited.

I had this cool spy dude show up. I wonder if he noticed the twin doing bunny ears behind him???

 One of those miraculous moments where they seemed to like each other :)

 We decided to start our day with a dance break!

We start our day with our Grapevine Bible study stick figuring our way through the Old Testament. I LOVE this Bible study, and it's so cool that we can all do it together. This was Adam and Eve:

 After we finish our Bible study, the twins have activity pages they do in their notebooks while I work with the big kids on history or Bible drill.  Will is my most active child so I am always so pleasantly when he works so dilligently.

 Wesley works to but does only the exact number of pages I tell him he has to :)

 After they finished their pages, they get to go pick a learning toy (made much easier now that they are in the green bins at their height!). Will picked the people builders and built a heart for me. That's me and him in the middle- I love my boys!!!

Meanwhile, Ashton is working on taking notes from our reading minilesson.

 While Wesley built a tower, Will made a seahorse- complete with a pouch for their babies. I thought it was very creative.

 I told them all if they worked hard they could use their desks and notebooks to make a ramp for their remote control cars. It made for great motivation!

Jackson enjoyed his spider book so much.  He must get it from his father who keeps a brown recluse as a pet on his desk at work...

 I can't remember why but these two were giving me their stubborn looks:

 We played basketball to study for Bible drill- they had to answer questions to earn a shot. These two were celebrating their win.

 While I read history to them, they all get to choose a toy to play with.

 I was a little surprised my 11 year old chose blocks, heehee.

 This picture represents a miracle: WILL VOLUNTARILY PICKING UP TOYS THAT HE WASN'T EVEN PLAYING WITH!!!! It made every penny and hour spent building those bins totally worth it!

These pictures are all from one day, but overall it was a great week.

I'm SO excited to be blogging again and able to link up to the weekly wrap up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Sweet Sister Story Time....

Ashton is such a good big sis. It's such a blessing when she reads to the boys at bedtime.  I think this is one of the sweetest sights ever (even if she is reading them her favorite books like Pinkalicious).  This reminds me if our first days of homeschooling when they were only 18 months old but she had them trained to go sit down when they saw her coming with a book :)

Wordless Wednesday...Library Day

My Favorite Moments...

When I am lucky I have my camera and capture some of the everyday moments that make homeschooling such a gift.

Any morning that big brother decides to fix omelets, his specialty, for all of us kills 45 minutes but means I don't have to cook. Plus, he really is good at it and gets our days off to a yummy, protein filled start!

On the best of days we have a family quiet reading time. I love to see what and where they choose to read.

Jackson chose an army book right next to our nonfiction shelf- his favorite.

Sissy chose to read in the twins new tent at the top of their bunk bed. Another Junie B book :)

Jackson is trying Teaching Textbooks for math this year. (We really like it so far!) It reads the problems out loud. Will is usually playing nearby and will say "the answer". He's pretty confident that he is always right.  Then Jackson will type in the answer he has figured out and it says, "Great job! Exactly right!" and Will thinks his answer was right. He has no humility whatsoever and always says, "I told you so."  It is so cute and I love how Jackson humors him.  I have to say I'm VERY impressed by how much the twins learn by just being in the room playing while I teach the older kids.  Several times I will have read a history lesson aloud and ask a question only to have the big kids stare at me clueless and Wesley chime in with the answer. I'm really hoping this is all giving them a leg up on learning once they are formally in school! I'll take all the help I can get teaching!

We are gently starting some sight words. We started with like and see. I had him circle all the sees and x-out all the likes. VERY simple but VERY effective!

My ipad is indispensable when it's school time. I'm starting to work with the boys one-on-one as we go through their Singapore K and Reading Readiness workbooks.  Often, while I work on one I let the other play learning games on the ipad. Our absolute favorite is Team Umizoomi. I'm amazed at how many math skills they are learning from this game. I love watching how into it they are!

In homeschooling as in all life, the simple moments are the best!

T is for Train...

 We had been away for a week and were still trying to get back into our regular routine so I needed something quick and easy to do. I had printed off a train unit and had never gotten around to doing it. It was so long ago I can't remember where I got it!
  Another idea I'd been wanting to try was writing letters on a page and covering a certain letter with stickers. They did great finding the T's. Wesley was all about this but Will did it for a little and then was ready to move on. This is something we will do some more with some other letters.

We practiced capital and lowercase letters. They have a pretty good grasp of capitals but lowercase is hit or miss.

 Will is Mr. Train so this unit was really for him.  He did the size sorting trains, and the other activities as fast as I could put them in front of him.

3 part puzzles were perfect.

 I love the shadow matching activities.

 Wesley did so great putting the train cars in order with the numbers on them.

 We've been doing Raising Rock Stars Preschool during our morning circle time. We are going the order she suggests so started with the letter L.  My favorite part of the program is the Power Point show. I'm amazed at how it completely it holds their attention as it reviews letter, number, color, shape, and Bible verses. It's WELL worth the membership.

The Bible verse for L was to Let Your Light Shine so of course we made a light to put the Bible verse on. This is part of the RRSP program.  I'm always amazed at how much Will gets into the crafts. He did such a great job :)

 They are proudly displayed on our wall. The boys were bursting waiting for Daddy to get home to show him!

I am loving this age with my boys!

Box Day!!!!

After going back and forth and back and forth I finally decided to plunge in and buy a Sonlight core.  I love Sonlight's approach with being so heavily literature based, but the price has always been intimidating.  I finally decided I wasn't able to do it all and wanted something already planned for me.  So I splurged and got the P4/5 level.  I ordered it, and it happened to come while we were at the beach.  I knew we had to make a big deal out of opening the box and have an official "Box Day" like all Sonlighters.  Of course, we got home from the beach at about 5:00 and had to go ahead and open it!

                            Even though it was for her little brothers, Ashton was pretty excited too.

The long pieces of packing paper were a big hit to throw out of the box while Wesley had to check out the instructor's manual :)

Will loves this book, and so do I! It's the perfect introduction to lots of science concepts for their age.  I'm amazed at how much info is packed into this fun book with our favorite bears and in poetry no less!

The other science books look really good too. My boys will eat them up.

They weren't quite as excited when I told them now they get to do math workbooks like Sissy and JackJack although they have really learned  to love them since- no, really!

How cool is it that the box comes printed so you can make something out of it.  They were ready to build the castle right away, but since it was late and we'd just driven 8 hours they had to wait.

It was just like I imagined it would be when we had to start reading right away :)

I can't wait to see how our Sonlught journey continues. Nothing could be bad that comes with a box full of books, right? What's not to love?