Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Walmart Shenanigans

One does not simply resist boy-sized fluffy teddies.
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One cannot simply walk past human sized animal-head throw pillows without pretending it is one's actual head.
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One does not simply see balls of mozarella and not assume that it is supposed to be attached to one's forehead.
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Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Grade 2 Week 14

a.k.a Thanksgiving Week
Hurray for Books!
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One of the things you like to do when we have these "Alphabet" books is to make a game out of guessing what word each letter will be.  The Thanksgiving one was quite easy for you.
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Also, you  never liked Scooby Doo because you thought that it was super spooky.  Eventually I told you that in their adventures and mysteries, the spooks would usually turn out to be a person in disguise, but you still wouldn't watch the cartoons.  Then, I got you some Scooby comics and junior novels, and now you love the stories, and even watched a Lego Scooby Doo on Amazon!
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We made a bunch of themed crafts.  In fact, you kept asking to do crafts..over and over..
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I tried to channel all that Craftomaniacal energy into Social Studies.  We did a bunch of crafts that had to do with the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and the Wompanoag.
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We got the crafts out of a book, and they were remarkable.
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There was even a sliding Mayflower that sailed across the Atlantic.
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We built 2 villages - one for the Pilgrims and one for the Wompanoag.  And they both came with little people!
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You helped with all the coloring and cutting, and I helped with all the more intricate folding.
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You had fun trying to decide where to place each piece.
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:)

Monday, December 12, 2016

Fall Leaf Art

I might as well go ahead and post this from my phone since it is still "fresh".

I have so many backlogged This Week In School Posts that it will be winter, and then spring before I get to some of them.

Anyhow, we don't have trees that get beautiful fall colors in our yard - all we have are skinny-leafed mesquite trees - and so we collected them from various places - namely Walter's house, different parks and at Church.

I had different chores to complete etc and didn't want you to just be watching TV, so I set up a little station with the leaves, a box of sharpies and just the most minimal of instructions and these are what you came up with.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for a Very Important Announcement

Out of nowhere...

Jaxon: "The Toot of Destiny."

Mommy: "What now?"

Jaxon: "The Toot of Destiny.  That is what just happened."

Mommy: "er, okay then. :p"

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

L.O.V.E.

We were at the playground with Cindy a few days ago when she insisted I climb up and take a picture.

Good eye, Cindy!

Sunday, December 4, 2016

Your First Domino Set

Uncle Lin brought you a Domino set at lunch last week.
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He then proceeded to show you how to build a tricky building that had a sort of capstone in the architecture so that if done right, it would stand with very little support.
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You worked hard at imitating and then perfecting the technique :)

Grade 2 Week 13

How many times have I said, "Hurray for the Library and Books"?
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I mean, just  look at all these interesting covers and diverse topics!
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This week, as part of the science of vertebrates, and birds in particular, we played Bird Bingo aka Bird Scavenger Hunt.
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You love being outdoors.. and to have an adventure spotting things on the list at the same time? Well, that just made your day.
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There were some things we couldn't check off, like pine cones, as we didn't have any on the plantation.  Also, we had to leave some for later - like the walking bird thingy - for when we spot our resident road runners.

Another experiment we did was on how plants carried water up through their stems.
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As we were nearing Thanksgiving, ( and also because it was Native American Heritage Month ) we did a bunch of crafty stuff from this really wonderful book.
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They had a bunch of really great projects, which I made copies of, and then we cut and paste together.
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We continued our Language Arts lessons, and one website that we use for all kinds of things, is Brainpop ( and Jr. ).
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We tried some poetry-writing and you did soo well!
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Grade 2 Week 12

Hurray for Libraries and BOOKS!
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Teaching homeschool without any/much experience is made sooo much easier when you have an eager, happy, sweet sweet child as your student.
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The day we went to return our books at the library coincided with a public holiday and so we had to do the Side Alley Book Drop thingy. Hurray for mini adventures!
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We learned about vertebrates and invertebrates, and illustrated how much stronger an animal would be if it had bones and a spine to support its weight.
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Then, you drew a very cute penguin and we glued Q-tip bones/spinal cord/ribs on it!
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You actually wrote that on your own.
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I have been having a bit of a cough and so you have been reading the bedtime stories. :)
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Oh, and for your journal entry, you wrote about a storm we had, where it thundered really loudly.
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More addition for math...
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a random pic of a random breakfast...
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and some playground time!
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