(And All My) Work Be Praise

I've been wanting to share what we're using for Levi's schooling this year, but didn't want to do it until I'd publicly outed him as being profoundly gifted . Naturally, his schoolwork doesn't look like a lot of seven-year-olds', and that's okay. He did, however, ask me yesterday, for the first time ever, what grade he was in, "if I'm in a grade at all," and I wasn't quite sure what to say. For now, we're sticking with, "we homeschool, and I'm seven." I'm hoping that'll be enough for a while. Anyway, on to the good stuff. I love  researching and picking out curriculum (even more than implementing it, sometimes!). I always thought I'd be the kind of parent who doesn't pay too much extra attention to learning styles; I figure some things, you just have to soldier through and learn and it doesn't really matter how. But then I ended up with this crazy asynchronous firstborn, and a second-born who is p...

As I mentioned in Part 1 , ever since we read Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! , Owen has been collecting seeds to make a seed poster of his own. (Yes, this is supposed to be Levi's science, but Owen has been more interested in seeds from the beginning.) We've kept them in a little jar on the counter for two weeks, and last weekend I finally found a moment to get them situated in their poster-making. I offered very little guidance, excepting a small spelling correction on "pomegranate" and encouragement to use more glue. (Owen is very stingy with his glue.) Sometimes, they work so well together! I never thought about bananas having seeds. Kudos to Daddy for these tiny seeds. We lost the orange seed, but there IS a cantaloupe seed --  you just can't see it well in this picture. Also, my bean plant is still growing! It has been sitting in the same place on the counter for a while now, so we got to have a good discussion about why all the leaves are ...

My little bean seed got big enough to re-plant in a pot with soil! We also got a few more books on plants: Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell A Seed in Need by Sam Godwin What are Seeds? by Molly Aloian How do plants help us? by Bobbie Kalman They're all pretty generic, but Levi really likes A Seed in Need . :)  Also this week, Levi and Owen watched a video on photosynthesis, found here . Who knows, we might have actually learned something about botany this spring after all!

As I've mentioned previously, we're following the Well-Trained Mind suggestion for first grade science: twenty weeks on the animal kingdom, ten weeks on the human body, and ten weeks on botany. The first few units were fun and engaging, even for me. But botany? Botany is NOT my thing. The garden in my front yard? Planted by the people who lived her previously, weeded by my husband and my mother-in-law. The two plants inside my house? Both gifts, both watered by my husband. I can't tell you the names of flowers and I don't really care that I can't. It's just not interesting to me at all. (The world takes all types, right?) Still, something had to be done, and here's what it's looked so far: Book about Plants Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.  This is a really cute book, and thanks to the book's suggestion, we're saving seeds from different foods we eat to make a seed poster. From Seed to Plant by Gail Gibbons.  We always lo...

Did you that there are science experiment kits to go along with the Magic School Bus books? I spotted them on accident once while browsing Rainbow Resource , looking for something cheap-ish to meet the minimum shipping requirements. At $16, this wasn't as cheap as I had in mind, but Levi loves the books so  much, and we were planning to do ten weeks on the human body this winter already, and I couldn't resist! I give it four stars out of five. The giant human body poster (with stickers!) is a huge hit in our house. (It's too big for a decent picture, but you can see a lot of it in the background from Toby's first birthday pictures .) The kit includes most of the materials you'll need for all of the experiments (minus basic things like tape and scissors, and a few bigger things like an empty two-liter bottle). It lost a star because the materials aren't clearly labeled, and a few times I've grabbed the wrong size tube, for example, and then been frustrated...

Due to the lethal combination of seasonal busy-ness and house-wide cruddy coughing, we didn't actually read any books about alligators, fiction or non-fiction. If I'd had my wits about me, we would have at least pulled The House on East 88th Street off the shelf to re-visit our beloved Lyle the Crocodile, but 'twas not to be this week. Still, our little craft was too cute not to share! ( Idea found here .) Two handprints: one with only three fingers painted, opened in a V to be the mouth, and another with all four painted and close together as the body. Peel-and-stick foam cut into triangles for the spiky skin, and of course the ever-present googly eyes! Peeling stickers: great fine motor development. I decided our alligators needed a riverbank scene, and the watercolors were already out, so I took a turn with the paintbrush. :) Top right: Levi's scattered spikes. Bottom left: Owen's meticulous straight line of spikes. Aren't pe...

As I sat down to write this post, I thought to myself, "gosh, another childhood favorite. I wonder why I'm using so many of my own books this year." And then it hit me: getting to the library with all of the children, without ruining any naps, requires a mid-size miracle. So it is that we pulled another fun one off the shelf this week: The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash  by Trinka Hakes Noble. Craft:  snakes, of course! ( Idea here .) Paper bag, paint, foam cut into triangles, glue, and the ever-present googly eyes. Silas wanted in on the painting action this time. These boys are serious about their gluing. (Never mind the weird lighting. It was not the middle of the night, honest.) Snakes! Science:  I got several library books on snakes -- hold up. Didn't I say above that we never get to the library? It's mostly true. But my favorite local library branch is open on Sundays, so once a month or so I sneak off by myself in the middle of ...

This week we re-visited an old favorite, Caps for Sale . I had corresponding activities tucked away from both ABC Jesus Loves Me and Before Five in a Row . Levi's monkey drawing . Are you familiar with this book? A peddler stacks caps on his head and walks around town trying to sell his wares; Silas loves to fill in his call: "Caps! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a cap!" One day nobody is buying, so he walks into the country and takes a long nap under a tree. When he wakes up, all of his caps are gone: monkeys in the tree above have stolen them all! There follows a delightful "monkey see, monkey do" sequence, which Silas especially loves to mimic. In the end, the peddler is so angry he takes off his remaining cap and throws it to the ground. All of the monkeys follow suit, and he gets his caps back. The whole story is just perfect for acting out, from wearing hats to good posture (to keep hats from falling off) to shaking fingers at the monkeys. Pi...

The third (and final, though there are more books) week of of our " If You Give a . . . " series! This one was not my favorite, as the story seemed a little more outlandish than the others, but they're all cute enough. Also, if you care about such things, this is the first one (that we've read) that featured a girl as the main character. Also, I should confess publicly that I did NOT take the opportunity to discuss cause and effect, as I said I would in last week's post. The best of intentions . . .  Food : piggie pancakes, of course! Many thanks to my husband for making pancakes (not just this week, but every Tuesday morning!). Owen, of course, remembered that last  time we made piggie pancakes, the eyes were banana, so after this picture was taken, I added some banana-coin eyes. He does love routines, that one. Crafts : I found this pancake craft here . I cut four simple circles out of brown construction paper and had the boys glue them to paper pla...