You know, it's kind of funny. When I was in school I hated math! But now that I'm homeschooling my children and teaching them math, I actually enjoy it :) I think that remembering how much I disliked math as a child is why I try so hard to make it fun for my children. The best thing about it is that my math skills are improving as I teach my children too ;)
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We were blessed with a copy of Asia: It's People and History to review. My oldest daughter is fascinated with China, so this was a great opportunity for us to take some extra time to study, not only China, but some of China's neighbours too.
Do you have a dolphin lover in your family? We do. Princess LOVES dolphins! We did a unit study to help her learn about dolphins, but we also use her interest to help her keep learning all the time and having fun while we do it :)
Munchkin is learning how to skip count! She has started skip counting by 2's, and with some fun, hands-on games and printables, she did not take very long to get it figured out! To introduce her to skip counting we watched the DVD that came with her Math-U-See Primer curriculum and sang the Skip Counting By 2 song on Math-U-See's Skip Count cd.
This year my children are in preschool, grade one and grade three. I have found two things that help me teach multiple ages and still keep my sanity intact; unit studies and work boxes.
The Prairie Primer really does give you a lot to think about as you go through the Little House books! Sometimes I'm not even exactly sure why it suggests studying something, like when they recommend studying breathing when you are in chapter four. The only connection to breathing that I could find in chapter four was when it said, "Pa's breath hung in the air like smoke" :) But, whatever the reason, I have been wanting to teach the children about their body systems anyway, so we started here, with the respiratory system. (To see what else we learned about while reading through Little House in the Big Woods, you can see my previous post here.)
In my last post I shared with you some ways my kids want to give to others this Christmas. I also promised that I would share some ideas with you of things you and your children can make to give away for Christmas too. Here are some of the cute crafts that my kids have made that your kids might want to try making too :)
This year an over-riding theme has been coming up over and over again... At Thanksgiving I reviewed The November Planning Pack for Children, which included a list of ways to bless others... I had the opportunity to review the book, Why We Give Gifts at Christmas Time... The Christmas play our children are involved in is called We Three Spies and is about the Christmas Intelligence Kids (CIK) who give gifts in secret at Christmas time... All of this has led to some interesting and heart warming discussions and prayer with my children :) They have such big hearts and are so eager to jump at the chance to help someone! God has taught me so much through the faith and kindness of my children! My goal for Christmas this year is to really focus more on giving to others with my children! Here are 5 ways we have thought of to give to others together.
Our Munchkin is only 4 years old, but she loves numbers and doing school work. She kept asking when she could start doing "real" school, like her brother and sister. So, we started her on her kindergarten math this year!
I love field trips! Especially when we get to join other homeschoolers! Recently we met with several other homeschool families for a trip to the Morse Museum and Cultural Center. It was a lot of fun, and perfectly timed for some dot-to-dot connections with our Little House on the Prairie unit study :)
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