Autumn copywork, pressing leaves, and preserving spiderwebs

We have been very focused on the changes going on in nature right now. The nights are getting colder and the days are getting shorter quickly. It is very clearly almost fall.

Logan got his first taste of copywork today.  We copied a Waldorf poem onto watercolor paper and he wanted to be included… so I had him write the last lines on his watercolor sheet.  I think he did a fantastic job!

Here was Cyan’s copy work.  Her painting and her handwriting were just lovely.  They both are on the nature table now.  I knew it wouldn’t stay empty for long!

Today for Kindergarten science we pressed leaves! As we went on our nature walk he found fallen leaves and brought them in to press.

He loved the ones that still had green on them because they were ‘pretty’.

Then, along with the siblings, we preserved spiderwebs!  First, we went on a spiderweb hunt around the yard.  The best ones were found on the rhododendron bushes in the back of the yard.  They were still complete, even though there was no spider in them. 

Most garden spiders build a new web every night, so I didn’t feel bad about taking the three that we had found as it won’t take the spider long to build a new one.  I was careful, however, not to spray paint a web with a spider in it. 

The two we found with spiders sitting in the center of their webs we left alone, but we spent some time observing the spiders that lived there, and noting their brown and yellow markings (making them a type of ‘garden spider’).

I preserved the web by holding up some cardboard behind the empty spiderweb and spray painting (very gently and from over a foot away) the web.  I took about 20 minutes to let that dry.  Then I sprayed a sheet of cardstock with Elmer’s spray glue and waited until it was good and ‘tacky’.  Then I slid the cardstock behind the painted web, and gently pulled it forward until the web was stuck to the sheet of paper and this is what I ended up with:

We did two, and although you can see the color on the black sheet better in photos, I like the detail you can see clearly on the white sheet… which doesn’t show up in pictures as well, but is quite amazing in person!  We added these to sleeves in the kids nature notebooks after some fun up close observation and now they will have a spiders web to study at will!

It was a neat project to do after yesterday’s school project of reading about spiders and trying to make our own webs!

 

What a fun and awesome school day!

Kaya - The American Girl

For the last 9 weeks Cyan has been studying the books about Kaya with a class at our co-op.  She has read 7 chapter books and the book Welcome to Kaya’s World (above) from cover to cover and answered questions about each chapter of each book.  For a girl, who just a year ago was getting rewarded for her first chapter book I was thrilled with the accomplishment! 

For a final project (and for her week off from co-op last week) I had her do a Kaya Lapbook to add to her Co-op binder.  All of these foldouts and minibooks minus the coloring sheet on the front of the lapbook were found at Homeschool Share.

It starts out with a picture Cyan colored of Kaya and her sister playing.  Above that is a fold out booklet of Kaya’s Favorite Things.

The next page is a two page spread of different parts of Kaya’s World. 

On these pages are where Kaya’s tribe lived in America, vocabulary words in Nes Pierce language, facts about the characters from the book and life with the Nes Pierce (called the Nimiipuu, which means ‘pierced noses’ in French). 

This is the vocabulary fold out:

And facts about Kaya and her tribe:

The last page talks about the series and Cyan’s opinion of the stories.  Her favorite book, what she learned, and facts about her favorite parts were all there.  The biggest part of this page for Cyan was the PLOT booklet.  She got a quick course in what a plot was and what parts were the conflict, rising action, climax, and resolution. 

For this portion of the book Cyan chose “Changes for Kaya” as the book and we had a great time talking about the story. I had no idea she was retaining so much information from the things she had read! It was super exciting for me as a mom to see this all take place without much effort from me at all. Cyan LOVES her co-op classes and I have to say, this one has truly impressed me.  After the lapbook we placed all of Cyan’s co-op work from the chapters there.  Then we placed two more card stock pages…  because Cyan said she had to do a lapbook for Josephina and Kirsten too!

They move on to Josephina next week.

Picking up speed ~ Ff and Gg

We have started moving at a higher rate of speed because my boy is somehow picking up this stuff super duper quick!  So I added in Gg to our Ff lessons and away we go!

Box #1: The Gg and the Ff Lakeshore Letter Tubs along with the Waldorf Alphabet Book.  For this box I did something I NEVER allow the kids to do.  I dumped the tubs out together!  Yes I did!  And then I had him sort the things into their correct spots.  He did everything perfectly, except for “Fence” but when I asked him why “Fence” was in the Gg tub, he said it was a “Gate”.  So it was correct after all!  Smart boy!

Box #2: Something else new.  I added in actual workbooks!  Get Ready for the Code is the first book in the Explode the Code series that my other two older children have worked their way all the way through.  It deals with basics of hand movement, starting sounds, and word beginnings… basically a bit of what I am already doing.  And it made him very proud when Cyan said “Oh I remember those workbooks!”  lol…

Box #3: This was the project he worked on with Daddy while I was at the dentist.  The leaf cutouts that they pasted to the tree. 

The exercise is a gratitude tree!  It’s all the things he is thankful for.  At first he was saying things like “candy” and “toys” but as he went through he started to get SO cute and creative!  “Going to Gunner’s House” was one, and “Winter Snowballs” was another one.  He is getting so big!  Last year it was nothing but things like “I am grateful for food”. 

Box #4: Wipe off worksheets for the letters Ff and Gg!

Box #5: A few sheets for the Alphabet Notebook.

Box #6:  Time to get up and Move!  Yoga!!!

Box #7 was the favorite of the day. 

The Ff is for Feelings game!  I got this idea handed down from a friend and I thought it was great! 

He wanted to make the faces on the board as we talked about the times he has had those feelings and what he has been able to do about it… it was cute… and a great teaching moment too!  (I just love ‘tired’… Haha!)

Box #8 was a patterning activity from LOTW.

Box #9: Dot to Dots! 

And Box #10 was his Alphabet Notebook so we could add all his new stuff in and get to work on his Lapbook pages for Ff and Gg!

Stay tuned for tomorrows “Gg is for Garden!”

ABC Notebook for preschool

Logan’s Notebook is very much like Cyan’s although he needs a bit more guidance for early ed and he is also eager to go along with whatever I am doing.  His notebook is going through the alphabet and learning all the numbers 1 - 9 this year.  The first page is all about the letter Aa!  It has a poem and activities from Alphabet Notebook pages from Homeschool Share.

(These cards are brilliant and have made something like them for each letter we have gone through.  Identifying different fonts were a very hard thing for Alex and Cyan, so with Logan I want to make sure he has an easier time with this skill.  They fit in the little pockets on each of the lapbook pages in the notebook.)

Another handwriting activity minibook for the letter Aa.

After the cardstock portion of the notebook there are his worksheet pages for each letter.  These ones work on patterning and handwriting.  Many of these pages are the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

The letter Bb is set up pretty much the same:

These are font cards that I made myself in Word for the letter Bb.

These are more materials from Homeschool Share for his Lapbook page.

Working on writing the letter Bb.

And uppercase and lowercase Bb recognition.

After this are the pages from LOTW and other sources that I find that center around either the letter of the week or the featured words (Example: for Bb it was Banana, Bird, and Butterfly (and Bear, and Buzz Lightyear)). 

The worksheet pages get put into his notebook and at the end of the 26 weeks he will have an amazing little book that not only shows all the letters along with activities for him to do in the lapbooks, but a record of his improvement throughout the year.  :)