Wednesday, January 21, 2009

It's a Digestive World

Yesterday I read the kids a FUNNY story a friend of mine wrote about the digestive system and a poor Turkey Sandwiches Wild Ride (click for link). They loved the story and it is packed full of great information. After we read the story together we made up our own story titled "Hamburger Helper Help Me". This is our second family story we have written and I just wanted to EXPLAIN how it works. First we make our story plan....

Characters: Beef and Noodles
Setting: In the box and In the body
Events: Cooked, Chewed, Swallowed, Esophagus, Stomach, Small Intestine, Large Intestine, Toilet
Conclusion: a trip down a whirlpool and here they go again

After we have our story plan we take turns one sentence at a time. This story began with Matthew, went on to Spencer and then Maggie. The sequence continued until the story was finished. Last time dad and I took turns with the sentences but the kids were so excited and had so many great and funny ideas that I let them go on their own. They worked so well together and even helped each other with their sentences. So here it is our digestive story.....

Hamburger Helper Help Me

One day I was just lying around peacefully on my bed in box land. When all of the sudden I got poured into a hot pan and there I met Beef. Together Noodle and Beef became one hot dish. We were just hanging out when we were thrown into a bowl. This made us pretty mad but after about ten minutes we finally cooled off. We were then eaten. Full of terror we entered the cave of no return. Beef and I were struck by teeth and broken into smaller pieces. It looked like it was going to be a straight plummet into certain death as we were pushed into the esophagus. We traveled down the esophagus into the stomach where I grabbed hold of what looked like may have been an apple once. I heard Beef yell, "Help, I'm loosing more pieces." We waited in the stomach for the door to open into the small intestine. We continued to break up into smaller pieces and some of our pieces were being left behind. We journeyed on to the large intestine. This is where we began to clump together and started to look like a monster. We headed down the pipe of certain death and plopped into water. We were going to be cooked again? No, we couldn't be we were full of bacteria. "AHHH", we're falling and we are taking a trip down a whirl pool through a pipe. Here we go again!


It was so fun and they came up with such funny ideas, I know my friends story helped get their gears turning. Working together and putting our heads together to come up with a GREAT product is so much fun.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Diary of an Afterschooling mom

So this is our 6th week and second Unit Study and things are going great. My kiddos haven't complained once about Afterschooling and actually ask when it's going to start. Of course I say "right now if you want it to", the other day we went for 2 hours and they were having so much fun they didn't even notice the time. This is our typical afternoon: Play outside for 1hr or they can do 30 minutes outside and 30 minutes inside (usually T.V. or Video games). After that we do our down stairs chores grab our homework and head upstairs. We start off with religious studies, right now we are studying from the book Who's Who In The Book of Mormon. After that we do some Unit Study activities and then it's on to homework. They also do their upstairs chores, read for 15 minutes and sometimes have time for Board Games.
I can not believe the transformation of our family. We are so much closer, Spencer said yesterday when he was doing his body drawing that he loves doing things as a family and started making up some song about families are fun together. I can say one thing for me and that is......... I sleep SO much better at night knowing that I am helping my children learn and grow.
However I am STILL looking for other resources for Math, Writing and Grammar, and History to bring into the picture. My GREAT sister in law that Homeschools just told me about Core Knowledge it is a curriculum website with MANY extras. They also have books out called What Your Third Grader Should Know (or whatever grade your child is in). I checked one out at the library today. I am anxious to look through it and look over the website more closely. At a glance I could see the book includes; Science, History, Grammar, Math, Music and other subjects within the book. Hopefully by the end of the month I will be on my way to knowing what I want to do so I can make a plan.
I LOVE AFTERSCHOOLING

Check Me Out

Our Unit Study Project
Life Size Body Drawings

We are learning about Organs and Systems Level Organization
My husband and I love listening to the kids excitement while we learn ALL about their bodies. They are also expanding their vocabulary's tremendously during this Unit Study. Just in case you were wondering I purchase my Unit Studies off of this website Homeschool Learning Network they are very inexpensive and we are loving them. I don't have a lot of time to put into searching out my own Unit Studies so this works for me.

Monday, January 12, 2009

What about the other stuff?

Well I am still trying to figure out how to work math, writing practice and world history into our Afterschooling program. I am planning on ordering The Story of The World books next week. I noticed they are pretty cheap on Ebay and they even sell the activity books too. I am excited to get that started. I am currently looking into Saxon math and I think I will use their placement tests just to see where my kids are at. My youngest son's teacher said he was struggling a bit in writing so she gave me the 6 traits paper and I think we will make Sundays a day to write. I have a creative writing game I picked up at a yard sale and some story starters I found online so I think I will go from there. Of course everything is easier said then done. One thing at a time and I will continue to post my progress in getting Afterschooling ROCKING!!
BYE FOR NOW!!!

THE HUMAN BODY

We have been working on a new unit study, The Human Body. The outline breaks it up into three categories Cellular organization, Tissue organization and Organ and System organization. We just finished Cellular organization and made our own little Cell City. It was great, we learned what analogies are and compared the different Organelle's and their cellular functions to functions needed to keep a city going. The kids drew a FANTASTIC picture of our Cell City and labeled it. It was so much fun and once again we all worked together to create something GREAT!

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

The end of our first unit study

Well it has been an AWESOME month. I am loving Afterschooling and the changes that it has brought with it. I actually look forward to after school instead of dreading the homework nagging, chore nagging and snack preparing. Now they come home we have snack and play outside for an hour and then they grab their school bags and head upstairs for Afterschooling. We are able to get in scripture study, homework, chores, reading and unit study material almost everyday. Here is our grand finally to our SNOW UNIT..............








OUR CHRISTMAS ON THE BEACH WITH SANDY THE SNOW MAN