Lions, Tigers, and Bears...Oh MY!

I wonder how many blog posts with the same title are going up today around our part of Texas...Yesterday was Homeschool Day at the Ft Worth Zoo. I took J and T, and while the live animal show, animal exhibits, and various lessons around the zoo were wonderful, I think the best part about the trip (learning-wise) was the map-reading practice.

This guy LOVES reading maps...and J even got in on the fun. They were constantly both wanting to see where we were on the map, where we had just been, and where we were going next. They got pretty good at telling me which way we should head for the next animal exhibit. It was a really fun part of our zoo visit (both for them, and for their mom ;) to watch them grow, learn, and develop these skills.)

We had a few things planned for the day, in order to declare it part of our homeschool week :)

I made each of the boys folders with pages for Day 5 (fish and birds) and Day 6 (land animals and man) of creation, as well as sections for each letter of the alphabet...to categorize the animals according to the starting sound of each. We didn't actually do it AT the zoo, because I wanted them to just run around and enjoy the day (plus, that would have made our 4 hour trip twice as long!) Today, we printed out the photographs I took of the animals and glued them to the correct pages accordingly. J also has a number journal* in the works, where he draws things he sees on the correct number page, so he worked on that for a post-zoo activity as well. (a group of 4 elephants drawn on "Page 4," etc.)
*This idea was taken from the book, Emily's First 100 Days of School

Flamingos for the F page
(Please excuse the really weird neon coloring?!)

Penguins for P

Kangaroos, K :)

Macaw, M

Birds, B and Day 5
This is my favorite part of the Ft Worth Zoo. There are more birds than one could even begin to count, and you can buy popsicle sticks covered in birdseed. J was SO excited that he even got to carry one on his stick. He was so careful...I think he was afraid he was going to drop the bird :)

T apparently had a very yummy stick. These 3 birds couldn't get enough seed from his stick, and they even started pecking at each other....T thought it was hilarious.

Turtle for the T page

Lazy bears, B

Another turtle. This one cracks me up.

The mighty eagle, E

I can't remember what kind of bird this is, so we put him on the B page for bird.
*Please note the turkey in the window, though :)

Gorilla, G

Elephants, E

White Bengal Tiger, one of my favorite animals

Duck for our D page

The tiger, one of T's favorite animals (helps that it starts with T :) )

The lazy lion, I think it moved once. T declared him dead on arrival.

the cute Meerkat, M

and one more for our M page, Monkeys!

Calendar Time

Calendar Time from Anna Frye on Vimeo.

This week, the letter N

Lessons from the story of Noah's Ark

We made rainbow crayons (We've done this before, but they just never turn out that well...I'm wondering if I should use a different mold or something.)


Our Noah's Ark lapbook:
side note...I only posted this on YouTube, because the video clip was too large for my free Vimeo account. Don't expect many YouTube videos from me!!


Lessons from the Newspaper
We talked about what a newspaper was, what you can/should find in a newspaper, and we looked at the pictures of the teams coming to town for the Super Bowl!! (Their favorite part :) )

We also searched the newspaper for different letters and numbers, checked this week's weather, and looked at the colorful pictures in the comics!

Lessons from Franklin's Neighborhood
**We LOVE Franklin books!!*
J and T drew their favorite things in our neighborhood (journal activity)

Math lessons
We decorated our wall alphabet letter N with nickel stickers.
We stole THIS idea from an ingenious mother and learned about how 5 pennies=1 nickel AND 5 nickels=1 quarter ;) (See, home schooling even at bedtime!!)
We also ran with the money theme, since we started it last week for M week. We made a money lapbook! (2 lapbooks in one week...watch out! haha)

Science lessons
We read books about the different types of noses animals have. We talked about smelling, sniffing, sneezing, and "snotting!" ha (quite appropriate for our last 2 weeks of nasty cold bugs) We also read one of my all-time favorite books, "Stand back," Said the Elephant, "I'm Going to Sneeze!"

Celebrating 100 Days of School!!!!

School today

Painting whatever he wants on a capital L

Playing Starfall

Number mats (He is FINALLY remembering his numbers! It finally clicked!!!)

Taking a break to play with little brother :)

Pick a card, write the capital and lower case letter

Our school drawers

This is how we do school nowadays:

We have 10 drawers (aka school drawers/workboxes) labeled with the numbers 1-10 on little circle disks with velcro attaching them to the drawers. J (and T if he is joining us) gets to pick any of the drawers, in the order of his choosing. He takes the number off of the drawer and places it in the basket on top, and we do that activity together. The catch is that we have to get through all 10 of the drawers before I will fill them with new activities and manipulatives. I LOVE doing it this way, and J seems to really be having a better attitude about everything. He has a say in what we do next, so it helps him to have a willing and teachable heart.

I fill the drawers with as many different things as I can think of. We have a set of shelves in our mud room full of different manipulatives and activities and arts/craft supplies, a file drawer full of worksheets, and sometimes I even throw in something from the kitchen (like when we sorted and ate jelly beans for the letter J.)

Here are some of the drawers from this week that didn't directly correlate with the letter K (I mean, I can only take so much of the letter activities...it just gets old!!)

In the drawer: a piece of chalk and a washcloth (our eraser)
J wrote 1-10 on the chalkboard

In the drawer: magnetic letters
J picked out vowels and put them on the chalk board
In the drawer: a notebook and a marker
J traced Genesis 1:1

In the drawer (from the Letter I): Inchworm counting cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler J counted the number of inchworms on each card and found the corresponding number

In the drawer: Inchworm clip cards also from Confessions of a Homeschooler
J placed the correct number of mini clothes pins on each card

and I and J and tag-along K????

Yikes!! Sometimes, I forget I have this blog, so it gets neglected!

We really did learn about the letters I and J.
I have two children whose names begin with J, after all...they were very excited about that week!
(or it might have been because they got to sort and eat jelly beans.)
Anyway, no promises about getting up pictures or a post about those letters. We are on to the letter K this week!!

K is for kite!

Step 1: Cut kite shapes out of different color construction paper, punch a hole and tie on a coordinating colored yarn.

Step 2: Lace coordinating colored beads to the correct kite.



Step 3: Count the beads on each kite and label accordingly!


I truly cannot remember where I read the idea for this activity. If you are reading this blog, and this idea was yours, send me the link, and I'll give you credit!!!! :)
More K fun to come!!