Califoregon Living

Bible
We are reading about the life of Abraham and Sarah.

History/Geography
We read about William Tyndale in England.  Mr. Tyndale is responsible for getting the Bible (only printed in Latin) to be translated into English so the common man can read it.  This was considered treason and he was burned at the stake for it.

Read Aloud
-Continue reading ‘The Boxcar Children’
-Poems from ‘The Llama who had no Pajama’
-Mother Good Rhymes
-My niece, KK, is spending the summer days with us.  I have enrolled her in a Summer Reading competition at the local library.  She needs to read 20 minutes a day to get 1000 minutes completed by the end of summer.  To help with the reading, she is reading "Little House in the Big Woods" to us.

Language Arts
The boys read from "I Can Read It".  They have read the "stories": "A Cat on a Hat" and "A Flat Hat & Rat"

-I took words from these lessons and introduced the concepts of ‘definition’ to them.  They orally defined words that I gave them.

-I had the kids write words in rice…

-I read fill in the blank questions, and the boys had to provide, and write, the answer.
‘R’s Bat…

 While the boys work on ‘Explode the Code’ worksheets, I pulled up a grade 4 spelling list for my niece and had her write the words and re-write the ones she got wrong.

Science
We did this great experiment and I tried to get it on video, but the experiment never cooperated when I wanted it to.  We took a long neck bottle and placed it in the freezer. After it was thoroughly cold, we placed the bottle in a large pot and placed a quarter on the lip of the bottle.  We poured warm water around the bottle.  The quarter would slightly "jump"! This is because the air inside the bottle warmed up and expanded causing the quarter to dislodge.

Extra Fun Stuff
The boys are having an awesome time playing with their cousin, riding bikes, playing with friends,  all the fun outings we take, and mini vacations.  We also continue to go through the sign language DVDs and really enjoy that.

Today, our group visited the Snoqualmie Fire Station.  They were very accommodating with young children, and the kids had a fabulous time!

This is the stained glass window in the lobby of the station…(our state (county?) require 1% tax dollars to go to public art.  I like this one.)

There are two levels to the station.  On the lower level, the lobby, meeting rooms, administrative offices, and the workout room…

Awww, we wanted to slide down the fire pole!!  Nope.  Washington state does not allow fire poles, so the stairs will have to do…

Upstairs, we sat in a big, open room, where firefigther West gave a talk on fire safety…

The kitchen off the main room.  Note that there are three refrigerators.  This is because there are three shifts and food turns up missing, so each shift has their own fridge.  The kids loved the little firetruck above the cabinets that have little firemen M&M’s in them.

One of the five private bedrooms in the station.  No more dorm style sleeping.  Washington state requires private rooms and private bathrooms for their firefighters.

Showing us the North Bend maps…

Cool!  On to the rigs!!!

Jaws of Life…

Touring the cab of the truck…

The ambulance…

The gear room…

Firefighter Dillon suited up for us.  He explained each item before putting it on and also explained in detail how his looks and voice would change once he was in full gear.  He told them that if they saw him in their room like this that they do not need to be afraid because he would be there to help.  He then encouraged them to come up and touch his gear and get a good look up close.  Pretty soon, the kids were having fun bopping him on the head!

Group shots!

They handed out helmets and an activity bag for the kids.  As we left, they ran the siren for us.

The building for drills…

A picnic lunch and play at the park followed.  It was a fun morning!  Thanks for organizing this, Kathy!

Our homeschool co-op changed the structure of our group time.  We have take our group time back into the home, and are pairing up families, and rotate each week.  This is me and Linda…

Here are some pictures of our group walking from Rattlesnake Lake to the Watershed Education Center.

Enjoying the waterfall on the way…

The creek at the Watershed Center…

Playing a drum outside the Center.  They have a bunch of drums that are struck by choreographed water spouts.  It’s beautiful to hear.

‘AA’ learning about how much water is in his body.

‘AJ’ priming the pump to see how many times he has to pump for his body’s fill.

Larena and ‘J’

‘A’ and ‘M’ listening to Native Americans telling stories of when they lived in this area…

It’s not a trip to the Watershed Education Center without sending the ping pong balls (representing a water drop) through the tubes, as ‘O’ is showing us…

Ha!  I love this shot!!

Too cute ‘T’!

Watching a video…

Trying to pick up the amount of water that has to be carried from a well to a rural village every day…the equivalent of a five minute shower…

Enjoying the lake on the way back…

We have decided to homeschool through summer.  We have begun Sonlight’s Core C this week.  We are taking it slow and spreading one day out over 2-3 days for now. My niece, K, (and occasionally, P)  is spending most of the week days with me over the summer. Here are some highlights of what we are learning right now:

Bible
Reading about Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah

Scripture Memorization
I bought all four kids a journal to record scripture to memorize.  The journal is also for writing down thoughts, prayers, worries, really anything.  Our first scripture to memorize is:
Romans 3:23 "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"

I find such comfort in this scripture.  We are not perfect and we don’t have to pretend we are.  We all sin, we all do things that fall short of God’s perfect glory.  In knowing that, and owning that, it is easier to be able to establish a relationship with God; to be able to go to Him and ask forgiveness, something He promises to grant.

History/Geography
We are reading about Martin Luther, the man who stood up to the established church in the 1500’s, and brought to light all the practices and law that was inconsistent with the Bible.

If you ask the boys about Martin Luther, they will probably say he was a guy who tripped on a tree root and sliced his leg open with his unsheathed sword.  And, oh yeah, he almost was struck by lightning once, too.

We have marked on our map where Martin Luther lived (in Germany).

Read Aloud
We are reading ‘The Boxcar Children".  What a delightful story.  I typically have my niece read it to the boys.  Today, she was not here, so I read a chapter.  There was such a cliffhanger at the end of th chapter, ‘A’ begged me to read another chapter.  I admit, I wanted to find out how it turned out as well…

We are also reading from a poetry book and a Mother Goose book.  (yes, I am giving mother Goose another chance…)

P.E.
My niece, P, is helping me create a summer P.E. program.  She actually created an Excel document to record the lesson plan, and improvements.  I am pretty impressed.

Language Arts
We are using a book called, "I Can Read It!".  It’s a little stretch for ‘R’, and a little too easy for ‘A’, but it’s working OK for us.  I was not getting anywhere with ‘R’ on the Bob Books and this is working much better for him.  Here is an activity where the boys pick a word and then have to make that word out of letter flashcards.  I had the boys "teach" each other today:
This program also has them write quite a bit, even though it is not a handwriting program (something I will be adding later…)

Science
We are having so much fun with Science!  We have learned a ton in just the few days we have done it.  Let’s hope some of it sticks!
Here are the boys showing off their worksheets about the water cycle, and the colors of the rainbow:

We also tried to create a rainbow with a glass of water, but was not successful.  I ended up buying a prism later in the week.

There is a Science DVD that explains some of the experiments we will be doing over the year.  They boys love it and insist on watching all of the experiments over and over.  It messes up our Scientific Method of creating our own hypothesis, but…whatever…

Here’s an experiment we did today.  We have created a scientific journal for recording our hypothesis, eperiment, and conclusion.  The boys narrate to me the process and I record it, then the boys draw a picture on the journal of what we did.

In this experiment, we are learning about how air expands when it is warm.  We took a ping pong ball and dented it…

Placed it in a glass of very warm water and covered it with a plate, thus submerging the ball…

In about 15 second, we removed the ball and discovered that ball had returned to its original form…

The warm water heated up the air inside the ping pong ball.  The air expanded and pushed the dent out!

Nutrition
DH asked if he could teach the kids every Friday on nutrition.  Today, he taught about the food pyramid.  Here are the boys coloring in their pyramid.  Then, they played the My Pyramid Blast Off Game. (An interactive computer game where kids can reach Planet Power by fueling their rocket with food and physical activity. “Fuel” tanks for each food group help students keep track of how their choices fit into MyPyramid.)

Sign Language
One of my best buddies (living in Alaska), just loaned me four of the ‘Signing Times’ DVDs.  We are currently watching and learning signs from "Nice to Meet You."  The boys love this and want to watch this everyday.  Thanks Dakari!  I love you!!