Monday, September 25, 2006

Aaaaah, it's finally FALL!!

It's amazing what having no humidity in the air will do to the temperature! It's 80 degrees, I think, but we've got the windows open and the attic fan on because the breeze feels SO GOOD!

The Kids and I redecorated the schoolroom today. I had gotten a set of leaves and acorns pumpkins and other fall-ish items last week and we stuck them up all over the walls today. I also
have a set of fall window clings on the window, so it really gives the room a feeling of autumn. I've been keeping a list of the books that Bear reads by writing them on little pieces of paper shaped like tulips, but I transferred them all over to paper shaped like fall leaves to go with the "theme". It all looks really great.

I've had a couple of good ideas lately, regarding school. One is what we call The Papa Folder. Each thing that we do in school, be it a worksheet or a journal entry or reading lesson, gets put into a special folder. That way, at the end of the day when Ched gets home from work, Bear can just take the folder to him and show him all the things that she's done. She gets to share with him and he gets an idea of what we're working on. It's cute to watch her show off her work.
Another idea just goes hand in hand with my lesson plan that I've been putting together this week, and that is that I remove all the worksheets that we're going to be doing and divide them up into folders marked with the day. That way I'm not shuffling through a bunch of books, trying to find the right page. If we don't do both sides of the page, it gets put back into the book until we need it. I try really hard to put the date at the top of each page to help keep track better.

School today wasn't anything extremely exciting. We've begun our "study" of the human body (we actually started that last week with a lesson on life cycles), so today she made a little booklet of different things that she could do at different ages, along with pictures, and we filled out a little worksheet on how tall she is and how much she weighs and things like that.
We did a lesson on time and clocks, which was super easy for her, but I was glad that I did the lesson anyway. I noticed that she had a little trouble with where to put the minutes and hours on the digital clock, soI used the idea of "place value" to reinforce where the numbers go and she really seemed to grasp the concept. She did an addition facts page that I made (some 0's and 1's, but mostly 2's) and I was very proud of how quickly she got it done.

Her journal prompt was "This Weekend" and she wrote about our backyard campout that we had on Saturday night. We had planned to go camping in a town about 4 hours away, but it was supposed to be raining, so we camped in the backyard which was a lot of fun. I had planned to
make s'mores over the grill, but our neighbors have our propane tank, so we made them over the gas stove (tee hee). The funny thing was The Kids both said "These are too messy!" and didn't finish theirs - weirdos! Then we went out and played a game of Chutes and Ladders in the tent before bed. The weather was PERFECT and beautiful and cool and I loved it! We're going "for real" camping this weekend, so that was a great practice run!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Lisa!

Thanks for popping by our blog! We're really enjoying Horizons so far, thanks for asking! I love your idea for a "papa folder"..great idea! Looks like your backyard campout was a success. We're headed out this upcoming weekend for a real life camping trip as well. I hope you guys have nice weather for yours..enjoy your weekend!

~Jenn~

Anonymous said...

I love your redecorating idea for the school room. We seriously need to do that! I'm not good at decorating, but you inspire me. lol
Your "papa folder" idea is too sweet! I bet your dh just loves that!
Sounds like ya'll had a great time with your backyard camp out. Have fun with your "for real" camp out next weekend. I'm jealous. lol

Sherri said...

How fun! We have done that twice with our kids...camped in the backyard. We haven't taken the tent anywhere yet, but really enjoy camping out back. Jeff builds a fire for our food and usually falls asleep before we do...haha. There are two little rooms in the tent, so we just get in the front part with our games and laugh and have a good time. It's great. We were discussing do it again the other day. Maybe now would be a good time with the cool front coming through!

Mama Teaching 3 said...

I love the papa folder. My kids love to show daddy everything when he gets home. He is always surprised with what they learn! :) I will also be decorating the schoolroom with fall stuff. I was like WHY NOT? Fall is my fav time of year!