This is some of what we did this week...the captions titled "Following the child" are things that were not planned or a prepared lesson ,that the kids wanted to do and we just went with it..and it turned in to a fun learning experience...

..I am learning to do this more and more...

Cutting cucumbers for dinner

Following the child...rug ice skating with tissue boxes and cardboard!

Compairing weights with our new balance scale!

Toddler magnets

Open and close basket...zipper,screw,pop,pull,push.
I LOVE this pic of them both working!

Following the child...Mason discovered inhersha with a heavy ball and bowl.  an object in motion stays in motion, until stopped.

Following the child...while playing with yarn, james decided he wanted to glue it...so I made a heart and then he made one.

Still following that child....then he says "I want to make a lion!" so we made a lion.

notice the tounge!! such concentration!

Science fair project: Magnets!

Winter stamps

Following the child...Mason wanted to make a heart and decorate the classroom.

large wooden blue beads on pipe cleaner, they were on the "blue tray" and James brought them over to the bead tray to put them on pipe cleaners

Story of the World-Projects

This year with our Co-Op group we are doing Story of the World.  The kids do the reading/listening, coloring pages and map work at home.  On Fridays we meet to do the projects together. I want to post what we have done so far, I am sure I do not have pictures of each week, but I will try to remember what we did.

Introduction:
Mason made a History of my family book.  We copied the pages that came with the curriculum and asked grandparents and great grandparent to fill them out.
Mason also made a timeline of his 5 years of life.

Chapter 1: The Earliest People

 Cave Painting

 Making a game bag

Chapter 2: Egyptians lived on the Nile River

 Making Shepard's crook of the Pharaohs-wrapping paper tubes, paper, paint, glitter

 sorry the pic is sideways! all the shepherds crooks drying

Model of the Nile- river in the middle with foil & rocks, dirt & seeds on the "bank".  Flood the river to over flow into the "bank".  We used winter rye seeds

Chapter 3; The First Writing:

They stamped their names using Cuneiform stamps onto silver paper and made paper!

 Making homemade paper with Veronica

Chapter 4: The Old Kingdom of Egypt:

(no picture) They made pyramids out of sugar cubes with Brenda

Chapter 5: The First Sumerian Dictator:

Making a Sumerian Seal, the kids each had a piece of dough, they drew a picture in the dough that represented "them", then the seals were baked on a low temp in the oven to make them hard. A string was put thru for them to wear them.

Chapter 6: The Jewish People:

They made the comic book that came with the curriculum and these hunting weapons (that I forget the name of and will have to ask Carla-sorry)

Chapter 7: Hammurabi and the Babylonians:

 Making a Law Code Stele out of plaster of paris

 "No Parking"

"No opening the front door unless an adult says so"

Making a Ziggurat Temple, Glued boxes, then they painted them "mud color" and then COVERED them with sand!  They came out great, I wish I had a picture of one all done!

Chapter 8: The Assyrians:

(no pics) Veronica had the kids rest on the floor with their eyes closed as she told them the story of Gilgamesh.  She then had them go tot he table and draw what they were picturing in their heads.

Chapter 9: The First Cities of India

(need to gather info)

Chapter 10: The Far East Ancient China

Played a cycle of the silk worm game and listened to the story of how silk was snuck out of China.

Chapter 11: Ancient Africa:

They made paper necklaces, we looked at pictures of Africa, burned incents and fried plantain...which was so yummy!  We also had a Christmas party at Veronica's house! They made chocolate reindeer, and listed to a great story with Veronica!

Chapter 12: The Middle Kingdom of Egypt:

(need to gather info)

Chapter 13: The New Kingdom of Egypt

(No Pics) They made Hatsheput's false beard

Chapter 14: The Israelites Leave Egypt

(No Pics) They made the Ten Plagues sticker book and cooked flat bread with Carla

Chapter 15: The Phoenicians

I made purple dye with purple cabbage. I went to Micheals and bought canvas hand puppets for something to dye.  We taked about how the Phoneicians used 60,000 glands from a shell fish to make 1 gallon of dye! (showed them a gallon) They decorated thier puppets and then dyed them! They came out great!

Using the recipe that came with the curriculum, we make pita bread.

I set out things that the Phonicians traded on thier ships like, silver, blown glass, wood, olive oil, salt, and copper.  We looked at a book that showed pictures of the ships, trade routes and how life was then.

School work in February

 While setting up the new school room Mason found the multiplication board...I knew he had figured out some of the lower multiplication on his own (like 2x3). He asked if you could look at it, and before I knew it he was really into it! He spent most of one day and a bit of another figuring it out.  He mostly found patterns in the numbers to fill in the squares, but he also used the abacus to work some out.....

 He filled in the whole thing!!

I asked him to pick an animal he would like to learn about, he picked Polar Bears.  We borrowed books from the library, and used animal research cards from Montessori for Everyone (free download section).  As he reads the books and finds information he puts the card with the correct answer under the question.  For example: Q. What does the animal eat?  Plants? Animals? or Both plants and animals? He would put the card that says "animals" under that card.  This is working great, cause he does not have to write anything!  He is having an anti writing period, so this is a great way for him to still learn and find answers with out having to write it all down (for now).

 James is working on his open and close basket

In the basket: eye glass case that zippers, eye glass case that opens, jar with twist top, jar with pop top, jewelry box that opens with a hinge, a bird flashlight that opens when you push a button, glass jar with small screw top.

 Making patterns

 using plastic ice to count and sort

 Blue tray

 Boys in blue (didn't even plan it! and yes they are doing school in their PJ's-it was a blizzard outside and since they don't get snow days...they get PJ days instead!)

 transferring cotton balls

Watercolors

Helping me sort paper!

WARNING! Your photos can give away your address!

The video below is a news cast.  It is a story about how your pictures taken with some devices, like a Smart phone or camera with a GPS inside will have a longitude/latitude unscripted in the photos info.  After you watch the video and are feeling a bit invaded.....come back and read what you can do to protect your privacy and still share your pictures!
Geo-tracking your photos

OK...Here is what you can do to make sure your photos do or so not have this information attached to it and what to do if they DO!
In response to the very informative link that Lore shared regarding Geo Tagging, here are some things that you can do to protect yourselves and your family...


(this information was shared by Colleen a fellow homeschooler and Internet safety super hero!)
If you have a personal or professional blog and you do NOT want folks to be able to track where your photos are from, as you don't want some total stranger coming knocking at your front door, you need to do the following...

1. First, go to your blog, place your mouse over a photo your have taken, and click on it...

2. Then, do a right click and select the option "View Image"...

3. You should not see anything that resembles a longitude and latitude sequence.

4. If by chance you do, or if you are uncertain, then select The button at the top that says " Permissions". There is a section for "share location"... Check this to say "Block". Also, check always ask so that if someone tries to override this or re-do your defaulted settings, you will be asked before the change is made...

This keeps your home addy or any other location of where your personal photos were taken so that someone could not track where you go from place to place in a day's time. In the link, they were able to track where one of the interns had been all day based upon the random photos that she took, as the longitude and latitude were revealed by her Smart Phone...

5.Also, when you travel, try to have posts that post while you are gone and don't mention that you are on vacation on your blog...only share photos when you return from your travels...but if say your family takes the same trip every year at the same time, say for a reunion, stagger when you post about this...don't let a pattern establish...