100 days of school

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We completed 100 days of school yesterday. We've never really kept track before, but Claire's Spelling and Math curriculum are 1 lesson each day curriculums so it was easy to see when we got to the 100th day. Poor Claire was sick so we just put together a 100 piece puzzle.




Later, she counted out 100 pennies and we are going to exchange them for a dollar today at the bank. This was a good lesson in multiplication too. She had just been learning about multiplying by 10 so we counted out 10 sets of 10.

Nathan made a list of 100 cars. I told him to make a list of 100 things: 100 kinds of food,
100 countries, etc. He chose cars. :)



Here are some sites with even more ideas for the 100th day of school:

http://www.siec.k12.in.us/west/proj/100th/act.htm

http://www.vickiblackwell.com/100th.html

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/hundred.shtml

Hip Homeschool Hop: Christmas Reading

The Homeschool chick is hosting the Hip Homeschool Hop today. Stop by to join in.

Today I was thinking about the Christmas books we will be reading this year.

Aside from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, which we always read on Christmas Eve, my kids will be reading a few other holiday books this year. I thought I'd share them here.

They're all great.

My son (8th grade) will be reading O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi. This will be a book club book for his bookclub. I'm going to have the kids do a couple of activities to go along with it. One is to make christmas ornaments to give to a loved one. The other is they are going to make each other a snack based on personal preferences. The couple in the book wanted to give each other something that was just what the other needed/wanted. So, the kids are going to have to take into consideration all the tastes and preferences of their friend in order to give them a snack they would most enjoy.

My daughter (2nd grade) will be reading Mooseltoe by Henry Cole. This is a really funny book! We also have Moosetache.

We are also reading Jotham's Journey. It is an advent tale designed to read one section each night of advent. So far, the kids are really enjoying it.

And I'm sure we'll pick up a few more Christmas books next time we are at the library!

What are your favorite Christmas books or stories?

Hip Homeschool Hop: School Name

The homeschool hop is hosted by The Homeschool Chick.

You may remember my past post about choosing a name for our homeschool. Well, after much consideration I decided to name it the All Saints Home Academy. I just couldn't decide on a particular saint...I like so many of them. I like other names too...like Holy Spirit or Good Shepard, but either my husband or son would always do a little frown when I said those. I don't know why. I guess they just didn't sound right to them. So, no more 3 pigs in a barn home academy! Its All Saints. I like it. I can't wait to make our ID cards!



Here is a good site for ID cards: http://www.homeschoolbuyersco-op.org/

It's Homeschool Buyers Co-Op. It is a FREE group to join and they arrange group discounts through curriculum companies and general school supplies (e.g. microscopes). You can also use their template to make your own teacher and student ID cards.

Hip Homeschool Hop: School Names

The Hip Homeschool Hop is hosted by The Homeschool Chick.

I've been trying to think of a name for our homeschool. I've wanted to do this for years, but just never could settle on anything. I want to make ID cards and include the name so I've been asking around to see what others have named their homeschools. Lots of people use Saint names. I just can't decide.

I asked the kids. Nathan wanted something like "Revelations home school ". Because he is a 12 year old boy and revelations is his favorite book of the bible!

Claire wanted to call us the Lake Arlington Lakers because we live near Lake Arlington. :)

Neither choice was what I was looking for. :)

Sunday morning we were running late for church because the kids were arguing over the bathroom. They were quite grumpy at breakfast too. Claire's bangs were crazy from the way she slept on them so I sent the others to the car and took her to comb them down with some water. We finally all got in the car and were off to church. On the way I mention the school naming thing to my husband. His response after that hectic morning? "Why don't you call it St. Jude's school of lost causes?" Ok. that gave us all a good laugh, but still didn't help me find a name!

I thought and thought about it in church. We were praying the holy spirit novena so I thought that might be good either in English or Latin. I also thought about Blessed Mother Home Academy. I told them I liked "home academy". So, on the way home from church Claire (who likes to just spout out things that don't make sense) says, "I know, you could call it 3 pigs in a barn!" Really, Claire??? Well, I had forgotton about her strange suggestion until I walked into the school room yesterday morning. Look what Nathan had written on the board...

I better name our school quick or this is going to stick!

If you homeschool do you have a name for your school?

Hip Homeschool Hop: Solar System

The Hip Homeschool Hop is hosted by The Homeschool Chick.

My entry for this week is all about the Solar System. Claire is very interested in space and wanted that as the theme for her birthday party this last weekend. She wanted to "visit" every planet. So we "visited" each planet and played a game there. I thought this would make a really fun homeschool lesson too so I'm going to share what we did.

I made sugar cookies and decorated them to look like planets and stars. I also made a sun cake. The cookies would be a fun treat to do for a homeschool project. We always like assignments that taste yummy!

We had thunderstorms that afternoon so we had to move the party indoors and tweek a few of the games. I'm going to share the original plan here because I think it's the best. I took pictures of each, but I don't like to post pictures of other people's kids on the internet without their permission so sorry there aren't pictures to go along with each.

Earth-Moon Rock Relay:
The plan was to start on Earth and then go to the moon. There we were going to collect "moon rocks". I made the moon rocks out of crumpled up newspaper wrapped in duct tape. The kids used kitchen tongs as space tools to grab a rock and put it in a bucket. We did this in 2 teams. The team to get all their moon rocks in the bucket first wins.

Pluto- Ice relay:
(this is the game we didn't get to do inside)
The plan was to do the ol' egg & spoon relay race, but instead of using eggs we were going to use ice cubes. The spoons were to be the space tools they transported the Pluto ice with.

Neptune- Rocket launch:
I bought those foam rockets from oriental trading and the kids had a rocket race with them. The one whose rocket went the furthest won. You can pick these rockets up almost anywhere, but I found some valentine ones on clearance at oriental trading so I got those and just left the Valentine decorations off. These are the ones we used: http://www.orientaltrading.com/ui/browse/processRequest.do?demandPrefix=12&sku=48/6087&mode=Searching&erec=0&D=foam+rockets&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntk=all&requestURI=processProductsCatalog&N=0&y=19&Ntt=foam+rockets&Dx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&x=10&sd=Cherub+Flinger+Flyer+Craft+Kit
You could also make your own.


Uranus- Side orbiting race
Since Uranus sometimes orbits on its side I put a small amount of water in regular balloons and blew them up. This makes them roll on their side. The kids then had to push them around an orange cone (the sun). This makes a good race for 2 teams.

Saturn-Ring toss
The kids were again in 2 teams and had to get "Saturn's ring" on the stick. Then, run back and give it to the next one on their team.

Jupiter-Asteroid belt

The kids each got a balloon (asteroid) and had to keep it up in the air (so it wouldn't hit Jupiter). As their balloons hit the ground they were "out". The last child left with a balloon that didn't hit the ground won.

Mars-Play doh martians

I gave the kids play doh and they all created their own Martians.

Earth- We ate cake. (because Earth is the only planet with cake!)

Venus-Hunt through the clouds:

I put party favors in a rubber maid container and covered them with poly fil stuffing for pillows. They had to hunt through the clouds of venus to find the favors.

Mercury-Hot planet:

Since Mercury is closest to the sun it was the "hot Planet". We used a big bouncy ball that looked like a planet and played hot potato with it.

Sun:

I made a pinata that looked like the sun. Since we were indoors they kicked it open!

Good space themed candy to fill it with would be Milky Way and Mars bars (we couldn't do these because Claire has a peanut allergy), and starbursts.

Have any good homeschooling ideas? Join the hop today and share!

Our new homeschool room- Hip Homeschool Hop

I'm joining in the Hip Homeschool Hop for the first time today. The hop is hosted by The Homeschool Chick.

I finally have one room of the house that is furnished (well, almost) and picture ready. All we need to put in the school room is a small computer cart for Claire's computer. Right now hers is sitting in my living room and we are sharing mine.

This is Nathan's area. (And my messy printer cart!)

This is Claire's area. My desk is to the right. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my big dry erase board!

The closet. I had a big walk in in the last house so I was afraid this one wouldn't be big enough, but it is. The previous owners had already added lots of extra shelves.

My desk. (Its always cluttered!)

And every schoolroom needs a cat, right? She spends most of her day on this window sill watching birds...sometimes she's quite a distraction in school. She's like that class clown kid who always disrupts the other students!

What is your favorite part of your homeschool room/area?