Homeschool Weeks 9 and 10 [fireflies and mosquitoes]

The last two weeks we’ve continued to study insects.  We were going to move on to crickets, but I wanted to have some live ones for part of our study.  I haven’t made it to the bait store yet—hopefully this weekend I’ll get there so we can end our insect unit with crickets.

We’ve been reading some fun books in addition to the ones we read the last two weeks.

We went outside one evening and caught fireflies.  I’ve never done this and it was really fun!  We put them in a mason jar and brought them inside, went into a dark room and watched them flash.  It was so neat!  Hanna was the best at catching them and getting them into the jar.  She is soooo good at doing anything with critters.  If you look closely you can see the little firefly light in her hand below. 
Joe made a couple really cute firefly crafts.  This one is out of construction paper, but for the light on the tail I had him use some of his Crayola Glow Explosion paper so it would really glow.  We made one more with a small mag lite flash light. He LOVES this one!  He cut the wings out of craft foam.  I attached everything though because I wanted to use E6000 glue (like I used *here*, which he couldn’t use) so it would hold up and the pieces wouldn’t fall off.

He made a lapbook with a little bit about fireflies, crickets and mosquitoes.  This was the first lapbook he actually cut out the pieces for and glued together almost all by himself.  I was surprised too that he actually enjoyed doing it.  Joe enjoys lapbooks, so I’m thinking we may try to do more of them now that he is ready to make them on his own.  We still have a bit to complete on the actual work in the lapbook as we read more about crickets and mosquitoes this upcoming week.  I copied the front cover from one of our library books on my printer. Here are the inside and back cover. The mosquito survival guide pictured above is a great mini book to complete as a sort of quiz after reading a book about mosquitoes.
We went outside and saw some real mosquito larvae because we are yucky and had standing water that needed to be dumped out that was a disgusting breeding ground.  But it did make for some great Science:-).  Don’t worry Mom, I dumped the water out immediately following this video, and Mom, this video is just for you:-)!

Joe and I continued with Progressive Phonics and he is enjoying it.  All of a sudden he is liking writing again—glad the displeasure with it did not last long.  Abeka Math is such a good fit for him.  We finished up reading our books on Thomas Jefferson in History and are moving on to someone new.
Still not much school stuff with Jack.  Mostly play.  I am on the lookout for some new things for him though and hope to have something figured out by September.  (We’ll break in August.)  Jack did have fun with his Color Wonder fingerpaints.

He also enjoyed building with his lego duplos.  Jack doesn’t usually try to build “something”, he just builds.  He actually set out of his own desire and imagination to build a train.  He was so proud and he did a GREAT job!  He built with his blocks alot this week.  Joe enjoyed building alongside him.

Jack’s favorite thing by far right now involves anything to do with construction vehicles.  He talks about them all day, looks for them any time we’re out and about, asks to read books about them all day—he LOVES them!  I got him some little rocks from Dollar Tree and he has a blast playing with them with his various trucks, trains and cars.

Hanna had a good two weeks with all of her school work too.  She moved right along with daily math, grammar, wordly wise, science and history lessons.  She’s been studying Shakespeare and then Vikings in history.  We’re still doing lots of diagramming in ELA.  She really enjoys her math.  She had no complaints with Life of Fred, but she likes Teaching Textbooks even more.  The fact that she enjoys it and that it’s totally hands-off for me is wonderful!  She wanted to do something in black and white for art.  She came up with this painting of a cat.  She did a good job!  It’s hanging in her room.  I hope to frame it along with several more of the kids’ pictures next month.

We went to our children’s museum to see the butterfly exhibit.  It’s fun to visit and went perfectly with our insect study.  We looked for and found lots of pretty butterflies with the scavenger hunt sheets they had, plus saw caterpillars, caterpillar eggs, a chrysalis and a butterfly just hatched drying it’s wings.

  After the exhibit we explored the museum.  We all had a good time.  The kids love this museum, we all do actually.
Jack and Joe’s fave spot was the fire truck for sure this time.  We spent alot of time here in the truck, crawling through the tunnel to escape “smoke”, and…  sliding down the fireman’s pole.   Jesse hung out having his naptime bottle while the kids above played. Next up was the farm.  Jesse enjoyed eating a little more while Daddy, Jack, Hanna and Joe played more.   Next up was Timbuktu.  Jamie and Jack put on a show for us.
Hanna and Joe went on a bike ride.  Joe was revving the bike and really acting like he knew what he was doing.  He was serious too, it was so funny.I think that actually wraps up our last two weeks of school fun.  Wow, this is a long entry!  We have had lots of fun.  Just moving along and trying to enjoy all that we learn and do in the process.