"D" week aka the week of Dinosaurs, Dogs and Ducks.

"D" week we read LOTS of stories dealing mostly with dinosaurs, dogs and ducks. 

This week we had a trip to the zoo as well as the Renaissance Faire.  For activities we did a Dino egg hunt and crafts.  But more on that at the end :)  First our book reviews, as always scored on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being books Fiona and I both loved.  This week I'll even put the reviews in order of favorite book(s) on top descending down to books I want to remember so I don't make the mistake of checking them out again.  I've also included links for books and video's and anything else i can think of :)


Puff the Magic Dragon - 10 - Fiona loves the copy of this book (and the included music cd) that we borrowed.  The CD has Puff and Froggy went a' Courting and instrumentals of both songs. I like this version of the story because at the end you see an adult Jackie standing off to the side as his daughter befriends Puff.  The very first time we read it Fiona exclaimed, "That's me!" and pointed at the little girl in the picture :D

ABC T-Rex - 9 - Cute rhyming book that Fiona really likes :)  The book has a sentence for each letter, and every instance the letter shows up in the sentence it has been highlighted, which I really like.  Far to often it seems only the first letter is of any importance.  Also on each page the picture includes many items that do begin with the letter of the page.

Tinkerbell's Tea Party - 8 - Fiction - a lovely bit of fluff.  Fiona loved it.

Dragolin - 8 - a story about a tiny dragon who can't make fire like the others is very sad and not accepted by them.  He meets an armadillo who tells him that he needs to believe in himself and practice very hard and he will eventually breath fire, and of course Dragolin does learn to breath fire.

Ten Terrible Dinosaurs - Rhyming count down book with a dino theme. - 8 - I was writing down this review and had giving it a 6, when Fiona sat down and read it to herself.  She was actually remembering a good deal of it :)

My Blue Boat - 7 - Fiction - a child plays with their toy boat in the bath while pretending to sail all over the world.  Cute story.

Dog number 1- Dog number 10 = 7 - Counting book that actually counts up!  Its amazing how hard it is to find a children's book/song that counts up!  It was kinda strange, and the art work wasn't that good, but I liked that they touch on adding and skip counting by 2s.

Biscuit wants to Play - 7 - Fiona loves the Biscuit books, I get really bored reading them again and again.  We were given several that I've tucked away for when she starts to read to herself, LOL. 

This Way Ruby - 6 - Fiction -This was an OK story about 6 ducklings, 5 of whom are adventurous and then there's Ruby.  Ruby doesn't like to rush around fast to get to the next thing, instead she would rather take things slow and see where she is instead of trying to find new things.  When a storm comes up suddenly the 5 get lost until Ruby catches up and shows the way home by the things she had noticed while going slow and looking around.

Creature Count - A Prehistoric Rhyme - 6 - Fiction - Fiona likes this and its OK, just a basic silly story.

Pick a Pup - 6 - Fiction - a ryhyming book that shows all kinds of dogs as a boy is trying to decide which dog to adopt from the shelter.

 The Story About Ping - 5 - Fiction - a story about a huge family of ducks who live in a house boat on the Yangtze river in China.

The Littlest Dinosaur - 5 - Fiction - typical runt of the litter feels he's to small to do anything and ends up saving the day story.

The Littlest Dinosaurs Big Adventure - 5 - Fiction - see above.

Little Quack - 5 - basic boring counting book.

Too Many Dinosaurs - 4 - Fiction - silly pointless story.

A Trip to Dinosaur Time - 4 - Fiction - very random little story.  Fiona didn't understand the time travel in the story.

Boo's Dragon - 3 - Fiction - very short chapter book.  I didn't like it, The girl lied several times, not just about her imaginary creatures which I'm OK with (e.g. I'm OK with her telling her father she see's a dragon which really is just a tree with a dragon like shape, because that's not really a lie, grrrr I hope you follow me because I'm having trouble articulating what I mean). 



OK, I'm getting really behind on these posts, so I'm not going to add much more to this one other then pictures :)  We did of course do worksheets, writing practice, math (especially graphing for some reason Fiona really likes graphing, I'm sure the fact I usually let her graph mini m+m's has Nothing to do with that.....) and pretty much anything else I can think of.  As stated above we went to the zoo this week, the zoo we went to is Lake Tobias.  This is a private zoo and a lot of fun.  They have a petting area with tons of goats just wandering around to be petted (I wish they had other animals wandering, at least some sheep or ponies or something).  As soon as we entered the gates of the zoo Fiona started to ask if she could see the guinea pigs, lol.  Its been a year (unfortunately, we tried several times to make plans, but didn't make it there all summer) since we were there last but Fiona still remembered the herd (there is no other word for a group of 100+ guinea pigs that works)  of guinea pigs!  Children aren't supposed to have that good of memory a year later! Not when we are talking about a three year old remembering something from when she was two!  Anyways, even though the guinea pigs are in the petting area the enclosure doesn't give any access to them.  Fiona begged so much that the girl at the front of the petting area got out a guinea pig for Fiona to hold :)  At Lake Tobias there is also a safari tour, where they drive you around in topless buses to see all the herd animals, which you can pet (from the bus) and feed, its a lot of fun.  So onto the  Pictures.......

 

We made "dino eggs" which had little toy dino's baked inside.  We hid a dozen around the living room and Fiona did an egg hunt.  Afterwards she had the "help" the baby dino's hatch.

Mini M+M graphing

We found an ant hill while on a walk

Fiona's "alien encounter" photo, LOL

Our "D" crafts

 Petting the alligator :P

These two fought for 10 minutes!  They had paused for a minute, but I think they were getting ready to continue when our guide said we had to go back because the zoo was closing.

 She never cared about egg maraca's until she saw that Rose plays them, now she loves them!

 Fiona and Rose :D

 Fiona and Courtney :)

The week of Colorful Children Chasing Cats and Causing Chaos

Week 3 of homeschooling for the year went by so fast!  Actually every week seems to go by fast.    This week our main themes were Colors and Clouds.  For the most part the themes are just covered by our library books for the week :)  The librarians say they love that we use the library so much, but sometimes I wonder, with me ordering 10-40 books every week and therefore making them find all my books for me!  (well most of the books come from other libraries in the system, so they just have to put them in our basket on the shelf.  Yes I said basket, we almost always get a basket full, LOL).  Each week lately we've had to decide what books to return so we have enough room in our queue to take out all the books waiting for us, and our library allows 99 items out at a time!

I tried to teach Fiona the names of clouds but she couldn't care less.  We even found fog. during cloud week, I was so excited, but Fiona? Not so much.  She would repeat the cloud type if I told her to, however if I asked what kind were in the sky the only answer I got was "clouds".  That or she would tell me the clouds were fish, or castles or whatever shape she saw.  For now I'm happy with just hearing what images she sees. I love her vivid imagination.   I was thinking she would like knowing the names because last year we learned about the moon and she still asks to go out at night to see the moon and gets excited about naming the moon crescent, gibbous or full!  (we don't worry about waxing/waning and new moon just confuses her so we don't worry about that either).

We started our first chapter book, well kind-of.  I took out the Magic tree house on CD from the library.  I played the first book in the car on our way home from the library (being as we live on a mountain its a good 30 minute drive).  And for the first time in her life Fiona sat still and silent in the car!  She listened intently to the story while looking out the window.  I wasn't even sure that she was paying attention to what was happening because she was so quite and not asking questions, LOL.  But when we turned off the CD  she got very upset and asked what happened to her book.  We next listened to the CD on the way to faire, and again, silence and listening FOR THE ENTIRE HOUR!!!  It was amazing.  After we had listened to the third book on CD  I asked Fiona what she would put in her backpack to take with her on her adventures.  The first thing she said was "Juice, for all of us in case we get thirsty, well mommy doesn't drink juice so she can have water.  And food for when we get hungry."  I thought this was pretty good planning being as the children in the story still haven't thought of either food or dink and we've finished the first five books.  Then  I asked if she would bring anything else, she said "an umbrella in case it rains, and a flashlight in case its dark."  Again the reasoning of my three year old astounds me!  It hasn't rained in a story yet, and it wasn't raining when I was asking the questions.  The only extra thing the children has ever brought was a flashlight in the second book because they left the house so early it was still dark out.  So even if Fiona was just remembering what they brought before its still pretty good being as I was asking after the third book!  When the question was repeated a third time she said "a notebook, I guess.  And Rachael and doggie and......" from her she just started listing her dolls and toys, LOL.  I told her mommy would bring her camera, and Colin told her he would bring a compass.  After we finished the fifth book I again asked what she would bring and she listed everything she had listed before (except she didn't start listing toys). and then she said "you would bring your camera and daddy would bring his i don't 'member" LOL.

This weeks books include;
(again they are rated 1 - 10 with 10 being the highest.  Also each book's title has a link to it).

Clouds by Mirion Bauer - 7 - non-fiction - Good for Fiona's level.  It only lists four types of clouds; fog,cirrus,stratus and cumulus.

The Cloud Book by Tomie Paola - 5 - non-fiction - To advanced for preschool.  It's artwork is cartoonist and has a dumb story at the end.

Clouds by Anne Rockwell - 7 - non-fiction  - I seriously disagree with the rating on the back of this book, it says for ages 3-6, and that its "simple science".  This book was good and very informative but its way to in-depth.  I might feel different in a year or two, but I think it'll be several years before we worry about cirrostratus, cirrocumulus,cumulonimbus, altrostratus, altocumulus, stratocumulus, nimbostratus as well as cirrus, cumulus, stratus and fog.  Personally I don't remember going that in depth until seventh grade science!

The Cloud Spinner - 3 - Fiction - a strange story about a boy who weaves cloth from the clouds.  The king of his land sees the cloth and demands many things made from it, the boy tells him he doesn't need these things, but doesn't ever mention that its the clouds from the sky that makes the cloth.  The boy makes many things for the king, queen and princess using all the clouds in the sky causing drought.  The princess somehow intuits that the cloths are made from clouds and brings them back to the boy, the rain comes and the king still doesn't know what happened, but can't find his grand cloths.  If the book is trying to teach not to covet things, or have more then you need then maybe the boy should have at least once told the king the cloths will mean there are no more clouds.

Split Splat - 5 - Fiction - like a Dr. Seuss book this was full of nonsense words, but Fiona liked it.  One page reads " Mucka mucka chucka wucka slish splash sploosh!"  Like I said nonsense, however it does describe three children and a dog playing in the rain and in the puddles after the rain stops pretty well.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - 7 - Fiction - I know this is a classic, we however only kinda liked it.  Fiona's favorite part was putting her fingers into the holes on each page.  It was a nice way to introduce the days of the week (though Fiona's know the days for almost a year now), and to show how caterpillars change into butterfly's.  I'm sure we will use the book again being as there is so many activities you can tie into the book.

Baby Bear See's Blue - 6 - Fiction - a little bear sees the world (for the first time?) and asks his mother what everything is, she tells him but he only registers the color.

The Carrot Seed - 6 - Fiction - a classic somehow, its a cute simple book, probably will be good for a first reader.

Apples, Apples, Apples - 8 - Fiction/Informative - a rabbit family goes apple picking, they talk about what they want to make with their apples.  The book also discusses how apple trees grow, and how apples grow on the tree.  The book also lists the parts of the apple and gives a recipe for apple sauce. (obviously I meant to have this during "A" week but when ordering from the library, even if you order stuff several weeks in advance, you don't always get your books exactly when you want them!)

White Rabbits Color book - 10 - Fiona and I love this story.  We weren't able to get it from the library for this week, but we've borrowed it several times in the past.  If you only get one book to show how colors mix, I'd pick this one!

Other then books most of everything we watched and did was the same as previous weeks.  We watched leap frog videos and signing time videos.  We made collages with pictures from magazines, did many worksheets and worked on writing the letter "C".

The new activities for "C" week included making color bags - you put blobs of two different color paint into a baggie (tape the top for added security) and give it to the child to mush together to see the new color created.  Fiona did the two bags I gave her, but didn't want to do anymore.

We also did an experiment I found on pinterest., where you take 3 clear cups, you add the same amount of water to two, and add different colors of food coloring.  Then you take a paper towel scrunch it up and put half in a colored cup and half into the empty cup.  Repeat on the other side and wait,  You will see the color climb up the paper towel and after a while (not sure how long, we left it and came back a couple hours later) you will see that the three cups are at the same level and the middle cup is a mixed color :)

We tried mixing colors in another messier fashion and it was much better received, LOL.  I just put two colors of paint on a coloring sheet and let Fiona mix them by painting :)  She still doesn't always remember what colors mix to make which colors.  So we'll just have to do this craft again several times :)

This week we also went to pioneer days at Lake Tobias (our local private zoo).  It was nice, even nicer was the fact that it was held in the parking lot before you entered the gates so we didn't have to pay for admission!  That was definitely an added bonus being as we were only able to be there for around two hours and it would have sucked to pay the $18 admission for that, especially since each child was only allowed one short pony ride at a time and Fiona's favorite part was playing on the swings and with the other kids.  After Pioneer Days we came home to company, a couple of Colin's co-workers came over to hang out, Tiffany brought her 8 year old daughter and her and Fiona got on great!  We look forwards to seeing them  most weekends!

 She really wanted the white pony.  The nice man ahead of us let us budge so she could get the white one :)

 "This doesn't look like butter....."

 This beam was there and no one was anywhere near it until we started having Fiona walk on it.  Suddenly everyone was like, "Oh, that's what its for!"  Fiona didn't finish walking across and back before there was a line of 11 other children waiting there turn. LOL.

She liked the teepee a lot!