As in past years, Kappa Kappa Gamma at Baylor puts on an Easter egg hunt for the children of Baylor Faculty and Staff, held at Founders Mall, which is one of the more beautiful spots on campus. We love taking the kids to campus in the midst of Spring and enjoying a fun activity together with lots of other kids. Last year, it was pouring rain and was last minute moved inside to a room that was way too small, so I personally was super thankful the weather this year was beautiful!
Livvy has no concept of the Easter bunny, but is intrigued by mascot costumes, so she had to go give this bunny a hug, which was cute.
LittleBear poised and ready to hunt!
The hunt begins!!!!!
LadyBear was very careful to put her eggs into her basket when she found them.
LadyBear found two and LittleBear found five, then gave two to LadyBear, which I thought was sweet.
This past week, we departed from our Five In A Row curriculum and decided to spend the week learning about something of LittleBear's choosing. He chose Basketball! So we hit up our local libraries for all the books we could find on basketball. Needless to say, we had a very happy LittleBear this week.
The biggest hit of a book this week was "Dino-Basketball," which I have to admit was very cleverly written. We also learned about how basketball started as a sport, how it's played, and what the rules are. We learned about Michael Jordan and what character qualities he had that helped him become a great basketball player and, of course, we played a lot of basketball, in addition to our usual bookwork (Math, Handwriting and Language Arts).
He shoots!
He scores!! And the crowd (AKA Mommy & LadyBear) go wild!!!
LadyBear had fun being a cheerleader...
This week, we're going back to Five In A Row with one of my favorites! Happy reading!
Go Along books we used for Basketball (* indicate the ones we especially liked):
*Dino-Basketball by Lisa Wheeler
*My Basketball Book by Gail Gibbons
*Let's Talk Basketball by Amanda Miller
*Basketball (A New True Book) by Bert Rosenthal
*On the Team Basketball by James Wyatt
*Cool Basketball Facts by Abby Czeskleba
*J is for Jump Shot: A Basketball Alphabet by Mike Ulmer
*Jump Ball: You Can Play Basketball by Nick Fauchald
*Basketball Rules, Tips, Strategy and Safety by Fred Ramen
*Basketball (Eyewitness Books) by John Hareas
*Hoop Genius by John Coy
*Dream Big by Deloris Jordan
*Salt in His Shoes by Deloris Jordan with Roslyn M. Jordan
Basketball Belles by Sue Macy
Basketball Skills: How to Play Like A Pro by Tom Robinson
Little Basketball by Brad Herzog
The Everything Kids Basketball Book by Bob Schaller
Dickie V's ABCs and 1-2-3s by Dick Vitale (*LadyBear LOVED this one because it had a button you could push and it would talk, but it was not my favorite and wasn't totally about basketball)
This week we met another book we had never read before in Harold and the Purple Crayon. Needless to say, I think LadyBear has a new favorite and LittleBear really enjoyed it too (as did Orbit, but that sort of goes without saying at this point). It's about a little boy who imagines adventures he draws with a big purple crayon.
It was a fun week of reading and learning about colors. A lot of people choose to talk about the moon this unit, but we're planning on another book soon that is more "moon-centric," so I am personally leaving our moon lessons for that week instead.
For Bible/Character building, we continued to talk about being content. That's a hard one to learn and we had plenty of opportunities for it to come up this week in all of us!
LittleBear working away on his math, which he told his piano teacher this week is his favorite subject...
For Math, we did start Math-U-See Alpha and did a mixture of sheets each day from lessons 1-3, which were review of the previous level we just finished. For Language Arts, each day we did Explode the Code Book 3 lesson 2 and for Handwriting, we continued each day with the Memoria Press Copybook 1.
Four thumbs up for apple pie!!
I guess we sort of skipped Social Studies this week (oops, oh well). We did decide to have a pie picnic like Harold in the book, only we didn't include nine kinds of pie...just a freshly baked apple pie. Both kids (& Mom) heartily approved. And since it was raining outside, we had our picnic at the dining room table :)
LadyBear pouring over the color wheel talking about what colors mixed with what other colors to make new colors...
For Science, we talked about blending colors to get other colors and we did an experiment to see what would happen when we mixed red and blue. We set up three jars of water with one jar having red water, one jar having blue water and the jar in the middle with clear water. I put paper towels connecting the red and clear jars and the blue and clear jars. We talked about what we thought might happen with the water...
Forming our hypotheses...
Let the experiment begin!
Several hours later, the kids and I were delighted to find the middle jar was a pleasant shade of purple.
hooray it worked!
For Art, we got out our purple crayons and markers and drew our own stories like Harold. LadyBear was far more into it than LittleBear was.
LadyBear working on her purple story...
LittleBear also worked on a color-by-number picture that he thought was fun and turned out to be a rainbow with a sun.
We were blessed to see our own rainbow outside our window (hooray for when homeschool and the outside world work together)! We were all pretty pumped about that.
We love rainbows!
We also played lots of "I spy" and "Can you find this color?"
It was another fun week!! Definitely check this book out, if you haven't already. I know Harold has lots of other adventures, but our library was out of those books, so we'll have to save those for another time. In the meantime, here's what we did read:
Resources and printable sheets I used for Harold and the Purple Crayon can be found at:
Go Along books we used for Harold and the Purple Crayon (* indicate the ones we especially liked): *I Am An Artist by Pat Lowery Collins * Dog Loves Drawing by Louise Yates *Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch *Mooncake by Frank Asch (LadyBear LOVES this one) *The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane DeRolf *Sight A True Book by Patricia J. Murphy *By the Light of the Moon by Sheridan Cain * The Moon by Christine Taylor-Butler *A World of Colors by Marie Houblon *The Day the Crayons Quit
Draw Me A Star by Eric Carle (I liked this book except there is a rather anatomically correct picture of a naked man & woman (Eric Carle style) toward the beginning which I felt was unnecessary)
Story disk time!!
This story didn't happen in any particular place, so I let LittleBear choose where he wanted to put the story disk. He chose Idaho...
This week we moved on to Five In A Row Volume 2!! We probably won't do all of Volume 2, so I decided to do the books out of order and start with one of my personal favorites :)
The Story of Ferdinand is about a little bull who (unlike his friends) likes to sit quietly under an old cork tree and smell the flowers around him instead of running around trying to be a fierce bull that gets picked for the bullfights in Madrid. This story is especially dear to my heart because I have long seen LittleBear as my little Ferdinand (he's more the type to sit quietly and smell the flowers than be rough and tumble). I was reminded this week of this tweet from last year...*melt* Anyway, I love my little Ferdinand and this book and had fun going over it with the kids this week. LadyBear wasn't in the mood for sitting down much at the beginning of this week, so it ended up being mostly LittleBear, Orbit and I, but then something happened in the middle and she fell in love with the book so much that now I read it A LOT to her.
For Bible/Character Building, we talked about Contentment and what that means (and how we are ALL-Mommy included- still learning how to be content). We also talked about ways that we can be content and I challenged myself and LittleBear to try to be content when we find ourselves wanting more. We also took some time to think of things we are thankful for, which helped us realize how much we already have. In addition, we read stories each day out of A Child's Book of Character Building Book 1, which both kids really enjoy. We also talked about how God made everyone unique and we are made that way for a purpose.
LittleBear and LadyBear coloring their Spanish flags...
For Math, we finished the last lesson out of Math-U-See Primer and will be moving on to Alpha as soon as the student packet gets here (c'mon UPS!). In the meantime, I've been filling in with pages from Life of Fred Apples. For Language Arts, we started Explode the Code Book 3 (lesson 1) and for Handwriting, we started the Memoria Press Copy Book 1.
LadyBear playing with the corks while LittleBear did math...
For Social Studies, we talked about Spain and where it is. We talked about things Spain is known for and tried to learn a few words in Spanish. We greeted Daddy every day with a hearty "Hola Padre!" and also had a blast trying to learn to dance Flamenco :) LadyBear definitely wanted to join in on this part and even came out with her twirly skirt on!
Dancing Bear Cubs!!!!
For Science, we talked about cows and their roles on this earth. We also learned about cork trees and how corks are made. We also enjoyed another riveting episode of "Sink or Float!" with a bag of corks I found at Hobby Lobby (love their 40% off coupons!). We also talked about our sense of smell and the importance of flowers, which was great since we are about to start our spring garden!
For Art, I introduced Pablo Picasso and we talked about this progression of drawings of a bull that I found that he did. We also watched a short video of him painting the outline of a bull on glass.
LadyBear working on a paper doll page while LittleBear did his handwriting...
For fun, we plan on trying to make Churros tomorrow...we'll see how that goes :)
It was a great week!!! If you haven't read this book, it's a favorite!!!
Resources and printable sheets I used for The Story of Ferdinand can be found at:
Go Along books we used for The Story of Ferdinand (* indicate the ones we especially liked):
*Look What Came From Spain by Kevin Davis
*Spain (A True Book) by Martin Hintz
*Cows by Jen Green
*Roberto and the Bull by Syd Hoff
*First Spanish Picture Dictionary by DK Publishing
*Exploring Flowers by Kristin Sterling
*The Reason For A Flower by Ruth Heller
*World of Plants Flowers by John Farndon
*Butterflies in the Garden by Carol Lerner
First Thousand Words in Spanish by Heather Amery & Stephen Cartwright
Exploring the Sicent of Nature Flowers by Jane Burton & Kim Taylor
This week we read another new-to-us book that was Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening." I personally really liked the illustrations and enjoyed the poem, but it was not LittleBear's or LadyBear's favorite book.
We tried writing a poem this week, which involved an andorable drawing of an elephant, but didn't really work as a poem.
Our attempt at writing a poem...
It also looked like we might get a snow day, but it ended up being more of an ice day and not really good for playing in.
I apologize for the sparseness of this post and the few pictures. My computer has decided it doesn't want to connect to my camera and upload what I've taken. It was that kind of week! Next week, we go to Five In A Row: Volume 2 and read one of my favorites! And I promise...more pictures.
Resources and printables I usedfor Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Eveningcan be found at:
