Category Archives: Homeschool

Learning at home with a second-grader and a fifth-grader.

School days

We started homeschooling last year with the preschool curriculum from Horizons. It wasn’t a bad curriculum — in fact, Poppy really enjoyed it — but it was very structured and worksheet-driven, and I wanted to try out something a little different this year.

We started our second year of prehomeschool (homepreschool?) this week, and so far I really like the program. The general concept of “Five in a Row” is that you read the same storybook five days in a row, each day focusing on a different subject. This week, using “The Story About Ping,” we did a little bit of geography, we discussed and wrote a bit of fiction and — P’s favorite part — we did a couple of science experiments. For which she insisted on wearing safety glasses. She is her daddy’s girl.

How to waste about 20 minutes

For today’s foray into the world of arts & crafts, Poppy and I used FamilyEducation.com’s tutorial for building a wave bottle. Here’s how we did it.

FamilyEducation.com’s Wave Bottle for Toddlers
Materials

  • Clean, empty 16-ounce soda bottle with cap
  • Water
  • Food coloring
  • Glitter, sequins, or beads (optional)
  • Baby oil
  • Quick-bonding glue

    Directions

  • Fill the clean bottle with water to about one-third full.
  • Add a few drops of food coloring and glitter, sequins, or beads (optional), then fill the rest of the bottle with baby oil try to find some baby oil. Find a wee bottle of deliciousapricot-scented baby oil. Decide peanut oil should work. Fill the rest of the bottle with peanut oil.
  • Become dismayed by peanut oil’s slightly gross hue. Add more food coloring (lots).
  • Try to glue the cap securely onto the bottle by applying the glue to the inside of the bottle cap and screwing it on. Glue fingers together. Get not a single drop of glue on inside of bottle cap.
  • Your child will enjoy gently shaking the bottle to produce beautiful waves ignoring the bottle and pulling all of the socks out of her sock drawer while you try to unstick your fingers.
  • Throw your hands in the air. Wave ’em like you just don’t care (optional). Dump still-icky-colored concoction, wash out bottle, vow to buy baby oil, glitter and beads. Go fold the laundry.
  • Hungry bunnies and other activities

    Works for Me Wednesday

    I haven’t had a lot of time to browse the sites that have participated in the Ultimate Blog Party, but I’m so glad I took the time to visit The Preschool Mama. She’s a former Montessori teacher, and she has some wonderful tips and ideas on her site.

    She’s currently doing a series on money-saving tips, and today we used one of her ideas for an “educational toy that costs next to nothing.”

    Attach a picture of a rabbit to a bunch of paper bags, and write a number on each of them. Cut out pieces of orange tag or paper, to look like little carrots. Make small dots on each carrot. Ask your child to count the number of dots on the carrot, and place it in the rabbit bag with that number.

    We modified it a bit. I drew a rabbit face on one plain brown paper bag and cut a hole in the bag for the bunny’s mouth. Then I cut some “carrots” out of orange construction paper. Then I took it to Poppy’s room, where we played Feed the Hungry Bunny for about 20 minutes. Preschool Mama’s suggestion is a little more elaborate, but this simplified version took about 3 minutes to pull together, and Pi loved it.

    Go check out The Preschool Mama. Her suggestions Work for Me!