Yesterday (or was it Sunday?), we started our first day of *official* First Grade home school. Sunday, I submitted our online Declaration of Intent. I’ve had some apprehension about the start of school, being so torn between not wanting to do “school at home” and feeling pressured to stick to some standard objectives. Allow me…
Category: Home School
He’s Got the Wipe Stuff
The *most amazing thing happened yesterday. I heard Isaac yelling from the bathroom. I assumed it was the usual, “I’m ready for a wiiiiiipe!” I took a giant breath and poked my head in the door. Isaac proudly beamed, “I just wiped myself!!” Wow! He had been steadfastly refusing to try for all time. I…
Sun Fire
While eating breakfast, the morning sun rays made me think of getting out our “window” blocks and some white paper. I showed the boys the cool colors and patterns that appeared on the paper when the sun shone through the blocks, but they were only briefly interested. Isaac used them to make a garage for…
Dragon Eggs
Yesterday, I decided to assemble a little balloon activity and I filled three balloons up with water, some food color and some glitter and popped them in the deep freezer. I may have seen something like this on Pinterest. I am so addicted to Pinterest, and all its great ideas. Only after I put them…
The Sticky Sickly
We managed to make the week interesting, even though we were stuck in the house feeling ill. Poor little Elijah spent a week feeling crummy, and spent a lot of time with Diego and was very generous with his germs. Even still, he wanted to be like his big brother and get his hair painted after…
If Only it was Rembrandt Brand
The other day, Elijah did this: It was one of those things that I can’t imagine when he managed to do it, and I hardly could feel mad about, so I took it as a hint and set him up with this: And made cleanup feel like play too… …and a little…
Carschooling
Whew! It’s been a busy day today – in a good way! It’s a day that gives me hope for next year’s “official” home school endeavors. We’ve read books – even educational ones about “heroes” like Sacajawea and Nelson Mandela. We’ve done Math and Spanish games on the computer, and I was pleased to see unexpected…
Doodlestruction
A clever friend told me about a drawing activity I could do with the boys. The idea is to give each one a paper and marking device. One person is the leader and draws, giving instructions to the others on what to draw. No one can look at anyone else’s drawing. At the end, everyone…
Bendy Bones
In a previous post, we started a chicken bone and vinegar experiment. The boys hypothesized that the bone would get soft if the vinegar dissolved the Calcium in the bone. The picture is a little gross, but here is the result after 3 days: The…
Bricks and Bones
Today, we started the day with a chicken bone experiment. It was so enthralling (not) that I failed to take pictures, but I’ll describe it. I prepared for the experiment yesterday by suffering through some delish barbecue wings during my I-give-up-it’s-a-pizza-night meal. We examined the clean bones and discussed the roles of their components: Calcium,…
S.A.H.M. Hill 