Summer Child Led Unschooling

This is my first summer after my first year of being serious about homeschool.  I love educating myself and my children and I can't just stop because its summer!  Through the summer we are doing our best to read aloud consistently and also have my 5 year old read to me.  We are currently reading 2 chapter books, one of which is Peter Pan. SO fun to read! 

The other book I am reading (only to my 5 year old) is about a brother and sister that live in tornado country.  My husband is into watching a show called Storm Chasers, and the kids have seen parts of many episodes, AND my sister and her family just moved to Oklahoma City, so we decided to learn about tornadoes.  We picked out a bunch of tornado books at the library and I plan to do a tornado with them in a 2 liter bottle probably next week for a little nature based science.  Lucky enough, one of my friends has been in a tornado and wanted to be a storm chaser, so she told them about her experience at lunch.  So cool!

The kids and I were at a friend's house the other day and we saw them doing math with jelly beans as manipulatives.  The only way they get candy at their house is if they do some math.  The kids ran up to their Mom, while playing with friends, and said, "Mom!  Can we do some math!?"  Well that excitement convinced me; we are copying them.  Today I bought some gummy bears and some jelly beans that will only come out for math.  I would LOVE for Math to become an exciting word at my house like it is at theirs.

I love the free form of the summer and I love getting a taste of unschooling.  Yum!


P.S.  This next year my "Superman" will be starting his 1st grade curriculum, and "Spiderman" will be starting Kindergarten.  I like the organization of using a curriculum during the school year, although I'm not the most consistent person ever.  My plan for next year is to plan in a week break like every month and a half or so, so that I still feel FREE.  

R is for Rock

Well, I've been slow to update as usual.  Several weeks ago now we studied rocks.  It was SO much fun.  

Here are some of the fun things we did:

We went on a walk around pond in our backyard looking for cool rocks and talking about how they were different.  We kept our favorites for a rock collection.

We put those rocks in size and color categories the next day and compared the sizes of the different groups.

We learned the Christ is the rock of our faith, the one sure foundation.

We went to a local rock shop, Simple Elegance in Orem, Utah and learned a TON from the owner.  We got to see how rocks are cut and polished, and he gave them some polished rocks.  We also looked at crystals and talked about fossils.  Our favorite part was holding a fossilized sea turtle head!  It was awesome!   I HIGHLY recommend taking your kids here!  The owner said if the kids are 12 are older, he will let them cut a rock themselves!

We made a clay volcano, baked it, and watched it erupt (about 6 times) with baking soda and red colored vinegar.

Another super educational thing we did was buy (for $3 on amazon) The Magic School Bus, Journey to the Center of the Earth and read it.  I learned so much!  

Shortly after our rock section we went down to St George and saw great rocks on our hike.  I also took a beautiful motorcycle ride with my Dad through the gorge between Utah and Arizona and we marveled over the amazing things that happened to the earth in that area.

(Our walk was captured by my friend Wendy who is the author of bedheadmom.  To read the post click on the name of her site ;))

Our Africa

For the last several weeks we have learned about several wild animals and where they live.  We learned about elephants, kangaroos, penguins, and zebras.  I LOVE our homeschool curriculum (mfwbooks.com) and that it ties in spiritual things to remember with each animal.  For example, the elephant has a good memory and helps us remember, "I will remember what God has done for me."  

Today we colored, cut out and glued animals that live in Africa.

                           The penguins are the only region specific things we glued.  The only part of Africa they live in is South Africa....so there they are, 3 little penguin buddies, one for each boy.  Turns out none of these animals live in Madagascar (the island to the right) so we'll have to move our Chimpanzee and color a Lemur!

Happy Homeschooling!

Our First Music Lesson

So I've been super terrible updating this blog but all is well in the Gurr home. :)  We took quite the break from school for Christmas, and the birth of "Super Baby" on January, 6th.  We're back on board now.


I think the newest thing I started doing is giving my 3 and 2 year olds a coloring page for the letter of the week, as well as a page with a little story based on our theme of the week on which they circle all of the "w's" or whatever the letter may be.  Those are two ways I was not previously trying to teach them letters.


I saw a video on youtube today that pretty much convinced me I need to start signing with my 6 week old now!  Here's a link.
Every Child Born a Genius

I decided today that I want to include music lessons in our home.  It's funny I just decided that since I am a piano teacher, but I guess that's partially why.  I was thinking about my 5 year old, and that he really COULD start learning piano, but I think it would be better to just start with some music fundamentals while he is this young.  So, that's the decision. 


 My first idea for a simple music lesson is to draw the staff on their white board, tell them what it is called and what it is for and then have them dance around to music.  They will dance to the right side of the room when I point up high on the staff (because high notes are on the right side of the piano) and they will dance on the left side of the room when I point lower on the staff.  I will integrate and reinforce the "high" and "low" sides and sounds of the piano repetitively until it's a super easy question.  


That's it's for now!  Better than nothin'!  Happy homeschooling!

First Week of a New Curriculum

Well, I thought I would be quicker at posting ideas from the previously mentioned home school library book, but I received a new kindergarten curriculum in the mail and I've been a busy bee this week making it happen.  Something about Halloween with a sick kid, 9 piano students a week (with a recital coming in 2 weeks!), helping my husband with math for several sessions this week, school with the kids, and a day and a half of severe pregnant emotional instability-not be mention the washer hose busting off again this week- have kept me from updating as soon as expected.  Sigh.


So rather than update right now on more ideas from said book, I will share a few things about this new curriculum we started.  It's called "My Father's World."  We started a 100 jar, a 100 chart, and a calendar, that will teach patterns and writing #'s.  The theme of the week was the Moon, so each day of week we discussed the moon.  We talked about and colored phases of the moon: new moon, crescent moon, half moon, and full moon.  It was so fun to have my 4 year old see the moon yesterday and know it was a half moon.  We showed the relative size and distance of the earth and the moon, made a mobile with the sun, moon, earth, and stars, and made our own version of the children's book, "Goodnight Moon."  Through out the week we discussed how, like the sun, Jesus is the light of the world, and like the moon, we reflect the light Jesus gives us.  These were all spelled out ideas from the new curriculum.

So far I intend to stick to our reading lessons from "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" rather than adopt the reading included in the new curriculum.

Next week I plan on gathering some different color leaves with the children and pressing them for the covers of thankful books that we can work on through out November, and hopefully share with whomever we end up sharing Thanksgiving with.

I also had an idea about making service stars for each day in December before Christmas.  Each star would have a small act of service the children could do for someone, with or without my help.  I had that idea in the temple and am not sure if I would want to make wooden, painted stars to decorate the tree, or make paper stars to put all over the house reminding us of the Christmas star....first thing of course is coming up with 25 easy service ideas!  I thought that would also be a cute gift idea, or item to sell.

Now I feel like brainstorming on service star ideas, so that's all for now. :)

Fun Learning Ideas

I checked out a book from the library this month, The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas.  As you may guess, it has a million good ideas and I've been writing down my favorites in my little homeschooling spiral notebook.  I thought it would be lovely to share some of these ideas on here.  I think I'll list a few at various times to break it up a little.

I'll start with ideas I am already implementing.

For teaching Spanish:  Use commands and/or actions to make words more memorable.  For example, "Veo un avion!"  I see an airplane!  We know a little bit of sign language at our house, mostly from Baby Signing Times, so we are going to throw in some signs to help us remember the Spanish.  For, "I see an airplane," we put our hand to our forehead (looking into the distance) and then sign airplane.  I plan on carrying "veo" through and using it with other nouns.  I also think it will be good to use words they know signs for, so the sign can tell them the word without Mom having to tell them the word in English. :)

Make your own books.  My kids LOVE reading books that they colored and put together themselves.  A new variation on this idea that I had not thought of is to have your kids create their own easy readers.  Make a list of words they can read and help them create a story from it.  Put it together and illustrate.  Super fun.

Creative play: One creative learning activity this book gave me, we tried today.  I gave the kids little tupperware containers and measuring spoons in the bath and filled each container with food colored water.  It was super novel to the kids to end up with colorful bath water and my 3 year old enjoyed seeing what colors he got from mixing different colors together.  My one (almost two) year old seemed to absorb the colors I am trying to teach him a little better than usual in this environment.  I realized after they were already in my bath tub that I should have used the tub that is not bordered with carpet.

More ideas to come! :)

Our New School Set Up

We went to the Alpine School District Surplus store last week and got a white board and desks for school.  The kids think it's so much fun to have their very own area for THEIR school things in their desk.  Just having this set-up has made it feel more structured to me, so I will have to do my very best to preserve creativity and also to keep the kids from isolating "school time" as the only time we learn.  We've only had 3 days of this super structured school and I am already feeling the need for some outdoor unstructured play/discovery or some painting.  We might just have to have 3 days a week of the structure!

Here are some pics of "Superman" and "Spiderman" in their room with the new school things. :)