Royalty lives here

...as if you needed a proclamation to tell you that!  But more on that later.

We started off the day writing in Zoe's journal.  On the off chance you need a translation, it reads, "Flower help princess fairy."  We took some time today to look back and talk about how far she has come in 2 months with her writing.  She could really see the progress.

While Zoe was writing, Lucy was sorting by color...

...and by shape.  This stuff is so easy for her, and she knows her letters and sounds pretty well but isn't ready concentration-wise to do lots of in depth work.  I'm working to find ways to challenge her (and to channel her power for good!)

Our math concept right now is ordinal numbers.  I pulled out an OLD teaching resource called story mats.  They listen to a story and then move their markers accordingly.  They enjoyed it - it reinforced concepts like shapes, directions, listening carefully etc. as well as ordinal numbers.

Our reading today was a special surprise!  Nonnie and Papaw picked up some leaves from Radnor Lake and sent them to us!  We loved observing them.  Thanks Nonnie and Papaw!

Zoe read the letter from Nonnie like a champ!  I just picked up a set of nonfiction easy readers and we had one about leaves so we read that as well.  She did a great job and was very proud of herself.

Then, we learned about the Edo people of Nigeria.  We read about ancient Benin and how the royalty and warriors made metal plaques to tell others about themselves.  Then, we went to the Smithsonian collection of Edo Plaques.  We loved looking at the details - what an amazing resource!  We even noticed the nail holes at the top so they could be hung on the wall.

Since we are royalty in our own minds here at the Smithey Science Academy, we made some plaques of our own using plaster of paris and some meaningful objects: jewels, rocks and shells generously donated from Zoe's collection, and our favorite animals (zebra and giraffe, of course, with a random cat thrown in for good measure).  We added plenty of glitter, and it worked like a charm!  We love our plaques and think they tell whoever sees them all about us!

After rest time, we observed a physics and measuring lesson while we watched some folks put up our Christmas lights.  We are helping a friend promote her new business, so our lights went up way early this year.  We enjoyed them tonight but will keep them off until Thanksgiving.  It just seems wrong to have a rainbow pumpkin and rainbow Christmas lights out at the same time...unless you are 3 or 5.

G is for Gallery

This gallery is an ongoing project in Zoe's room.  It's an extension of the field journal.  Everything is held up by scotch tape, and the pencil is kept there apparently as a handy tool to point to the different objects.  The first is a "Vanderbilt."  Still can't figure that one out.  Also pictured are sun, rainbow with clouds, and a few other important works whose subject I can't quite remember... please don't tell the artist.  This is so quirky and so unlike the Zoe of 6 months ago.  I love it.

We started the morning off with a puzzle that proved pretty challenging.  Zoe cut apart the circles and tried to recreate the triangle image.  It surprised me that it wasn't easy for her, so I think I'll look around for more of this type of activity.

Lucy ordered the gumballs (g is also for gumball) in order from biggest to smallest.  

And when she is bigger and her hair is long like Zoe's, she will eat gum.

Zoe worked on filling in the blanks in different number sequences.  

She is learning to use the 100's chart as a reference.

Then we headed out to dance class in the cold, rainy, fall weather 

(it's actually nice to talk about fall and have the weather match what I'm saying!)

After dance class, my nice friend Tina, who works part time in schools testing kids gave Zoe a standardized test.  After talking about school with me, she thought it would be a useful tool for me to have.  She generously offered to do it and I can't wait to hear what she has to say. It doesn't stem from a concern as much as wanting to understand better how she processes things and approaches tasks.  Plus, I like the idea of getting a baseline test.  I'm just a school nerd like that.  Thanks a million, Tina!  She and Zoe holed up in the school room and had a great time for an hour and a half.

Since we didn't have any read aloud time earlier in the day, we read The Jolly Pocket Postman after bath.  Some of the text was over their heads but they loved visiting each fairy tale and reading the letter clues in the envelopes throughout the book.  Their favorite was the note from Glenda with a glittery map of Oz. It looks like it's out of print on Amazon - what a shame!

Spooky Science

One of the downsides of having a PhD in Science Ed as a mother/teacher is how carefully science activities are chosen.  We don't do many whiz bang magic tricks in our science class.  For example, even though everyone loves making a baking soda volcano, they aren't very good models for how volcanoes actually work.  But today, we made an exception and did some cool science stuff just for the (gasp) fun of it!

But first, a picture in our Halloween shirts...

and in our beautiful fairy aprons Grannie made for all of us.

Then, everyone made some instant "snow" and grew a princess that expanded in water.  

While that was going on, I took one girl at a time and made a soapy, pink, glittery volcano!  

Ava, Zoe, and Avery observe the volcano

Zoe, as the most senior student enrolled in the academy, had to wait until last to do her volcano.  The wait was worth it!

Then, we brought out the slime!  Everyone but Avery was a big fan.  We decided there was something therapeutic about it.  It kept them busy for a long time.

After everyone was de-slimed, we had an orange lunch!

and some cuddles with our youngest student, Charlie.

After everyone left, Lucy broke out the fall bin again.  

This was probably our most fun Fun Friday to date.  What a great group of girls and moms we have!

5 Little Pumpkins and a whole lot more

Today we enjoyed a calm day at home (though formal tiara attire was clearly called for).

We looked on our US map and talked about the upcoming drive from Dallas to Nashville.  

We will meet Nonnie and Papaw in Little Rock, which is halfway.  

We read a fun Halloween book where two little witches add friends to their trick-or-treating group. We used bears as our trick-or-treaters and wrote number sentences for each page.  Our favorite was 10-8=2.  This was when the monster came out and everyone but the two brave witches ran away.

Today, we tried something very new: sensory bins.  I have seen different versions but read about them at Counting Coconuts.  Most fall stuff is very cheap now that it is almost Halloween, so I decided to try a fall bin and see what we thought. I dyed rice, added real and pretend pumpkins, pumpkin seeds, real acorns and pinecones (thanks, Abby, for bringing them all the way from Missouri!!!), orange beads, silk leaves, and anything else I found in the dollar bin (which was 30% off).

There was lots of balancing of irregular objects.

Some pattern making

Lots of sifting through the rice in search of all of a particular type of thing

Several animated versions of "5 Little Pumpkins" 

(pictured, of course, is "rolled out of sight"...the best part by far.)

 Lucy and I played with the bin for almost an hour.  We had so much fun doing all kinds of things.  She used the big beads as money so we each took turns as a store owner selling pumpkins and pinecones.  She balanced pumpkins on my head, talked about how real and silk leaves were the same and different, and just had fun.  I don't know if it will be as magical the second time, but we will see!  

Zoe finished her Water Poster - showing what happens to water as a solid, liquid, and gas.  

Lots of glitter added just the right touch.

Halloween Fun

Where we live, Halloween is a full 2 week experience.  By Halloween night, everyones costumes are worn out from party after party, and we are in full swing around here!

Some things are universal, whether it's homeschool or public school.  The day you get to wear costumes to dance class, don't count on much school going on beforehand!  We actually spread puzzles all over the room and just played for about an hour.

Here is Lucy and her wonderful dance teacher for 2 years running - Ms. Crystal

Lucy in the playoffs for hot potato champ.  Observant readers may notice that Olivia the pig sitting against the wall is wearing Zoe's Annie dress from 2 years ago.

Zoe the fancy hippie doing a Halloween tap number

Today was party day at Spanish Schoolhouse. Here is Zoe and her class.

We did a candy hunt for them - it was a big hit.

Zoe ran out of room on top of her cupcake

Lucy pitching ghosts in a bucket

 I love this picture.  Lucy and Michelle are great friends - she is the absolute perfect teacher for Lucy and we were so glad to have her again this year.

While I was on the phone, Zoe handed me this note "sore=sorry."  I was impressed as a mom and a teacher and relieved that it was only a broken clip - I got a little nervous when I saw it!

Field Journal

I have no idea where she got this name, but Zoe is obsessed with her field journal.  It's the best thing to happen to our school.  She saw a little spiral notebook in Staples and said, "PLEASE can I have this field journal?"  I put it, some tape, pencils, crayons, colored pencils, and scissors in a box and told her she could do whatever she wanted with it.  She has been so busy.  I have seen more effort go into her drawing and writing than in anything she's ever done.  She will copy whole pages of a Fancy Nancy book, write a list to do before our Halloween party, or write a note for her sister.

A whole new world is emerging, and it's so cool to see.  Everything is something to record, write down, scribble, or draw.  I went back and read parts of a book I loved from grad school called The Art of Teaching Writing.  The author talks about giving their early writing purpose and rather than praise it, ask them what they want to do with it.  Since then, she has written birthday cards, letters, to do lists for her dad, lists of bedtime chores, and more.   It's one of the benefits of homeschooling - working and feeling frustrated and then seeing change - or at least progress -  come almost overnight.

Pretty Pumpkins

Today we took a break from our usual Science Fridays with friends.  We are all crazy busy, so we just hung out at home and had a good homeschool day.

Zoe and I are working hard on numbers.  It's tough.  I found these stickers and she plopped in front of the numbers chart and put them in order.  We spent a long time talking about 7, 17, 70, and 71.  It wore us both out!

I got these Usborne Sticker Atlases on clearance this summer.  We put some of the Africa stickers on and talked about the different mountains, buildings, and people we saw.  It's a great book but a little over our heads at this point.

I decided to try the condensation experiment since we were on a roll this week.  We added water to jars and wiped the outside down to make sure it was dry...

Then we added ice and waited until water appeared on the sides of the jar!

We examined the tiny water drops and talked about where they came from.  Tough concept.  Zoe made the connection that it was because of the cold, but it's pretty abstract.

Really, this was the goal of the whole thing.  

We did learn the word condensation and that the water came from the air.

Just to be sure it wasn't leaking through the jar, we set a jar of pasta sauce out of the fridge 

and saw that it, too, had water on the outside!

Groan.  Two crafty days this week!  We have to bring decorated pumpkins to school on Monday.  Our first year, I thought it was a pain so we didn't do it and Zoe was the only kid with no pumpkin!  Zoe found a picture like this when we did our fall collage and wanted to try it.  We got $1 bunches from WalMart.  It was really easy and we love how it looks.

Lucy wanted a rainbow sparkle pumpkin.  Seriously, how nice am I?  

Needless to say, there are no pictures of this process.

By the time we were done, our shirts from yesterday were all dry!  We were very impressed!