Roger that

Near the end of this school year Agent H and I studied the Wright Brothers and the science of flight. Coincidentally the Crystal Airport was hosting a homeschoolers airshow. We've been to what feels like a gazillion airshows but when I saw that they were going to give tours of the control tower and were offering a seriously affordable ticket for an actual flight . . . I mentioned it to EH. He was all over the idea. So on a Friday afternoon after homeschool co-op, they headed out for an amazing experience.

This is a picture during flight

Agent H said he was scared at take-off but then he enjoyed it (this was his first flight).

This is one of my favorite pictures of EH. Last summer a friend invited him to go flying.

Field Trip: Police Station

What a great field trip! We toured the offices, detective's quarters, questioning room with one of those one-way mirrors, a jail cell, and a police car. Agent H has been envisioning himself a detective ever since. Shortcake got to come too and slept through the tour in her little Sleepy Wrap. That's her strapped to me in that pic there. So snuggly.

Seeing as it was St. Patrick's Day, afterwards we stopped by McDonald's for some shamrock shakes. Mmmmmm!

Multiplying Animals

Agent H and I are working on times tables. These animals helped us as we worked on multiples of four. The Lego vehicle that he is holding DID have four wheels so it was allowed. :)

We played a rousing game of Value. Okay I jest but the kids do really enjoy it (maybe it was the left-over conversation hearts that we used as playing pieces . . .hmm)

Well anyway we worked on recognizing the names for numbers and color recognition. I received this game as in incentive to subscribe to The Old Schoolhouse, it was a win-win! If you're interested, they have other decks of cards (addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc) to play with the playing boards.

Agent H and his Indian pouch

Agent H stitched up this Indian medicine pouch that came from a kit. It was a bit difficult and he needed lots of help but when it was complete he really liked it. At bedtime he was careful to find a secure place for it because he didn't want it stolen. Silly guy! As I said in my previous post, it fits a Lego guy perfectly.

Lewis & Clark

I loved this study! We had so much fun reading and studying about Lewis and Clark (at least I don't think it was JUST me). We read the great stories from our history books: A First Book in American History, Stories of Great Americans, and Journeys in Time.

We read a story book passed on to us from family: Seaman's Journal. We loved that one, it's Lewis' dog's perspective of the journey!
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Then we listened to an old-time audio story and wrapped it up with National Geographic's DVD Lewis & Clark's Great Journey West.
















Excuse me I think I have some pemmican stuck in my teeth.

Agent H & Geography

I bring you 2nd grade geography with Agent H. I taped an outline of the U.S. on the floor and Agent H taped the route of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. We had some discussion and spent time following up on some Wikipedia links Papa sent to us.

What direction does the Missouri River flow? I knew the answer but when I read it, it seemed too easy so then I started to panic. Ummm, does it flow South or North? I'm so glad the Internet is around for those "duh!" moments.

This assignment was a part of Bigger Hearts for His Glory, Heart of Dakota.

Brother-to-Brother Playtime

I finally have kids who are at the age where this works! In order to have some quiet school time with both Agent H & E we started a special playtime for LE Babe with his brothers. Every morning we meet together for circle time, then snack time, then we break up into groups. Agent H and LE head up to my room to play for about 20-30 min while Agent E and I do his preschool. Then we switch it up and Agent E and LE go to LE's room to play for about the same while Agent H and I get some time together. We are on week three of this and it's working wonderful. Admittedly the first week had a few bumps but we revised things to do snack time together before we break up and that brightened everyone's spirits. (By the way, Agent H who is in 2nd grade spends about an hour or so after lunch working-during rest time on the rest of his work)

I can't imagine why it took me so long to get on the rotating toys band wagon but now that I have, it's been awesome. I have a schedule written up so that I know who gets to play what, when during those play times. It's just a list with two activities for each group for each day of the week (I only pick one of the activities a day for each group). So . . . they should play with each activity twice a month. Then I'm thinking we switch the H&E column the following month so there is a whole new list for the big boys. Here's what it looks like.

	Agent H & LE	Agent E & LE
Monday	Bowling/Ring Toss/Air hockey game Race cars and track	Little People Duplo blocks
Tuesday	Rescue Heroes Mr. Potato Head	Play tools and benches Doctor play set
Wednesday	Plastic dinosaurs Elefun/Lucky Ducks	Wooden cars/trucks and road blanket Stickers and a large piece of paper taped to the wall
Thursday	Puzzles Bristle blocks	Balls, baskets, basket ball hoop Big trucks and fire engines

Extra activities: Puppet theater, castle marbleworks, plastic zoo animals, fort, movie, dominos, trains, play mailman, lacing/stacking toys, Leap Frog alpha and animal magnets.

I just happened to think that part of my motivation for toy rotation has come from reading the book The Well-Behaved Child. In the book the author talks about not making your kids' room into the Garden of Eden (i.e. removing most of the play factor). He thinks alone time in your room is a very good tool for getting your kids to come around. There's much more to it than that but you get the idea. So their toys have been gradually sifted from their rooms. Really, they haven't even noticed.

Our first week of Mighty Oaks

Yes I changed the name of our school again. My brother and SIL sent us this plaque last Christmas that I just love: Might Oaks From Tiny Acorns Grow. I posted it above the door to our schoolroom and love it. So Mighty Oaks Academy it is.

Our first day was pretty light. We took "first day" pictures, did a little circle time, gym, and a bit of desk work.















Sometimes you take what you can get. Can you see his mouth forming the "ooooo" in " Mooooooooom"





The boys constructed and reconstructed paths out of the alpha mat letters that LE Babe got for his birthday. Then they raced along them and jumped off the end. This literally consumed two hours of their day.








LE is at his desk playing with another of his birthday presents. Magnetic pom poms on a cookie sheet. I LOVE these. This is where I found how to make them (you really don't even need directions) and here is where you can get printables to use with them. LE just enjoyed lining them up along the edge or the cookie sheet.

















Agent E at his desk area and some active preschool time. We're using the Play-doh alpah mats from Homeschool Creations.
















Agent H at his desk area, no real dress code as you can see. Up next he's modeling our "globe". We wrote the continents and oceans on index cards and he had to tape them to the correct locations on our balloon.

That's a quick glimps at our week. Don't be deceived by the drawers at the desk stations. I am NOT doing the workbox method this year - I burned myself out on it last year. I am glad that I did it though because I learned a lot of things that I like from it and being a part of a workbox Yahoo list provided me with tons of great free schooling printables, ideas, etc.