Another fun Science Experiment!!

Good morning all!! Our Science subject for this week was fish. It was a fun week learning about these cold-blooded , aquatic vertebrates with gills and fins. Little V got to learn about:
- Salmon
- Seahorse
- Shark

We had visited the Shedd Aquarium many times before so we were able to look at some of the old pictures we had and hopefully soon we will be able to take advantage of the free days at Shedd Aquarium and make it a field trip day!

So now, let me share with you one cool experiment we did this week. This serves to teach them about osmosis (for older students) but also helps them to appreciate the importance of the animal's habitat. For example, Little V was able to see that a fresh water fish would have a hard time surviving in a salty water and vice-versa.

For this experiment we used:
- 2 shallow bowls
- tap water
- 6 slices of cucumber
- 1 tsp of salt

Little V wrote salt on s small tape and we adhered it to the bowl with salt water.

Once she added the cucumbers, we set the timer for 30 minutes. Once the time was up, we came back to check the cucumber slices.

Because the cucumber slices in the salt water lost water they were more flexible than the cucumber that were placed in the fresh water. Now, we switched the cucumbers and set the time for another 30 minutes.

The cucumber slices that were previously on salt water then were switched to fresh water recovered some of its firmness and the ones that were previously on fresh water and were switched to the salt water had lost some of its firmness.

This and more cool science experiments can be found at Janice VanCleave's Biology for Every Kid book. Just as a reminder in case you're wondering which curriculum we are using, here's a link to the Elemental Science website.

Here, Little V is working on the fish lapbook.

Hope you enjoyed our post, we surely had fun learning about fishes this week.

Today, is our last day of school before the Winter Break! Yay!!! We'll have 2 weeks to relax a little and have some fun! What about you? Will you have winter break?

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Parts of Speech Activities!!

Hello there!! We have been enjoying very much our homeschool activities! Little V is progressing very well and today I decided to share some of the cool stuff we have been doing for Pats of Speech. I'm using the Language Arts Grade 1 (Spectrum) as base of what she needs to learn and we are moving at her speed. I do however like to add lots of activities to make sure she gets it well.

So besides activities she gets from the book, we use our All About Reading student book and she practices coloring the parts of speech from the Fluency Sheets Sentences. There are some great activities also from Annie Moffat no prep packages.

I also created some activities myself and she used the Do-A-Dot Markers to color the different parts of speech.

I believe mastering these different parts of speech is an essential skill so I recently purchased an additional activity set of Parts of Speech from Dana Wonderland.

That's it for today! Hope you enjoyed our post about some of the cool stuff we have been doing for Parts of Speech.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Animals Units - Birds!!

Hello everyone, we spent  four weeks learning about birds! Little V first learned general characteristics of the birds: warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrate that also have wings. Then we started learning a little bit more about each of the birds the curriculum picked.
- Eagle
- Owl
- Parrot
- Penguin
- Chicken
- Duck
- Swan
- Swallow
- Hummingbird
- Flamingo
- Peacock
- Ostrich

Each week there was a cool Science experiment and for each animal there was some craft activity or research. She also had a poem about Birds Characteristics to memorize. For each bird, we also identified their diet type and habitat.

Here's a highlight of some of the great and fun activities we did during the four weeks Little V learned about birds.

We made a paper craft Swan:

We made also a funny looking Flamingo:

One of the Science experiments called naked egg from the Biology for Every Kid - 101 Easy Experiments That Really Work by Janice VanCleave.

Little V poured white vinegar into a Mason Jar with a raw egg inside and we observed it for 3 days:

Look how big it got after 3 days!!

Not only big but all the hard shell dissolved and it became very rubbery!

Hope you enjoyed our post, we had lots of fun learning about birds and wanted to share some of the fun things we did!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Our Vocabulary Curriculum!!

I decided to add the Vocabulary to our homeschool workload, so after searching and reading a few options available I chose the Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop. I must say I'm happy with it. First, I thought I could get away buying only the student workbook, but after a few lessons I realized we could get more from it if I had  the teacher's edition as well, so if you are interested I highly recommend purchasing the teacher's edition, it gives you more ideas and helps you to be better prepared for teaching.

I like the fact that the book has lots of pictures and also you can access the lessons online.

So far we are happy with it and enjoying the lessons!

What do you use for Vocabulary?

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Highlight of the last weeks!

Good morning to my readers! I'm so sorry for being absent again... life happens and things can get pretty hectic. I will be sharing today some highlights of the past weeks so you still can have an idea of what we were doing.

For additional reading practice I purchased the Reading Comprehension Packet form Annie Moffat, I really like the activities.

Little V is loving to learn to write in cursive, even though we are just practicing the letters, she's enjoying it very much. I decided to add the sand tray to the cursive practice. 

I wanted to add some shape activities, so we went back to do our Melissa & Doug Magnet Shape Board.

Little V started to learn about nouns, so here you can see her coloring the nouns from sentences from the All About Reading practice sheets, and also extra activities about nouns from the Fall Math and Literacy No Prep Pack 1st grade from Annie Moffat.

Our Science Curriculum is great, we are very pleased with it. Here is one of the fun activities we did while learning about whales.

Lastly, we had a gorgeous weather last week so Little V and I packed the school material one day and went to the park to enjoy the warm day and just to do something different! She had a little surprise, a ladybug came by and got her attention. 

Next, post I'll share more pictures of the past few weeks and hopefully we will be all caught up!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Bible Story Comprehension Sheet!

Good morning all! Fall is really here... we love to see all the leaves changing colors. Jehovah God not only gave us what we needed but gave us beauty in all of what he provided.
Here are a few pictures from our past weekend, even though the leaves aren't fully changed yet it is still a beautiful sight!

Besides providing Little V with secular education, it's also my aim to help her draw closer to Jehovah, so this year as you know we are studying the book of Bible Stories. We read 2 stories each week, and I was asking her questions right after we read each story, but I decided to make some comprehension sheets for the stories. Yes, it does take time to create these and even more preparation, but what is all that compared to the greatness of helping your child draw ever closer to God?

The comprehension sheet consists of basic questions about the story, things she will readily remember or if they were overlooked she can easily find the answer by taking a quick look at the story again.

This is the very first one I created, and she did excellent on it! ;o)

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Artist Study - Leonardo Da Vinci

Good morning all!! We had so much fun learning about this great Italian artist, architect, musician, scientist, sculptor, inventor and mathematician! Ha... and I thought being a homeschool mother, wife and a preacher of the good news was a lot! ;o)

It was interesting to learn that he wrote all his note backwards and that he used what he learned from nature and science to make his paintings look real.

Leonardo's most famous painting is the Mona Lisa, and what we thought curious about it is that no matter where you stand, the Mona Lisa is always looking right into your eyes.

He was great at using dark shadows and light colors to make what he was painting seem to com e toward you and away from the painting.

One of the fun activities Little V did was to make her own painting inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Also, a Mona Lisa puzzle:

We love studying about all the greatest artists, but we love even more when we have a chance to paint and color, do some art ourselves. Why do I say ourselves? Because I love to have a chance to color and have fun too! ;o)

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Extra Math Activities!

Good morning!! Today, I decided to share what other things we do for Math. Math U See is a great curriculum, and one of the things I love about it is the fact that the curriculum is about mastering a subject before moving on to another, but because of this she misses on working on other things that I feel she needs. Math U See does provide shapes and clock activities but I like her to work on these more often, so we work on our Shapes from Melissa & Doug.

Also, at time I purchase from Annie Moffatt some of her no prep-packages and I must say she has some really cool activities. 

We also do the clock everyday and the date in coins, so she gets some extra practice. 

These are just some ideas and some of the stuff we do. What do you use for Math? Share with us, we would love to hear from you.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Our new School Area!!

Hello there!! Nice that you came back to check out our new school area. Towards the end of Kindergarten I realized we needed a bigger school area then I started working on it. When your household has only one income you have to be very careful with the spending, after all you still need to buy all the material needed for the school.

I found a big table that Little V and I can share while doing school, this way I can keep an eye on her at all times and on how she's doing her activities. I bought this table at IKEA and the chairs as well, not expensive at all. I found the rug at Sam's club, not easy to find an 8' x 10' area rug at a decent price but somehow we managed to find it.

The shelving unit we found at craigslist. and the cushion for the reading area as you know from the prior post, I made it.

We now are using one white board just for the letter tiles and another white board for writing in general.

We have our World Map and our U.S.A map.

We also have the chart with all the animals we study for each continent. Habitat and diet chart for Science.

Also, our calendar area.

It helps me a lot having everything more organized and helps Little V as well to know where all her school stuff is.

It's really not necessary to have a designated area for school in your house, it just happened that we had an area we could use it and we could get it done. I must say we are very happy with it!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Reading Area!

Good morning to all my readers! Chicago is already given us a taste of fall and fall is my favorite season. I love the smells of fall, think of burning leaves, pumpkin pie... the leaves changing colors.... it's all too pretty!

One thing I love to do in the fall is to grab a good book and read! So, as we are already tasting the fall I'm sharing today an area in the house that I dedicated as Little V's reading area, she can use it during the school hours and also after we are done we school.

During the summer vacation, I made a cushion to fit the area we had available, she helped me to choose the colors of the fabrics. It's not a super wide area but it fits her comfortably and she loves to be snuggled, so as for now it's a favorite spot of hers for reading.

 We still have to change the outlet face plate, I do not like these old ones that are there, but eventually we will get that done. A sweet friend also gave her a lovely rocking chair that belonged to her daughters and my next sewing project (after I'm done with all the ones I have going now), will be a cushion for the rocking chair! I'll definitely share the project with all of you!

Here is a short video of Little V using her reading area:

Do you have an area designated for reading? We love reading and had an available spot in the house therefore we did it, but a comfy couch or bed will do just the same!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by! Be sure to come back and check our new school area, I'll be posting about this week!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Mammals Week 1 - Science Curriculum!

Greetings my readers! Today, I'm going to share some of the cool things we learned about Mammals. Little V had a poem about characteristics of Mammals to memorize and to recite by the end of the week.

From the Kingfisher Encyclopedia of Animals we read each day about a different animal:
- lion
- cheetah
- elephant

After reading about each animal, we discussed what we learned and what was interesting about that animal, as well as their habitat and diet. Amazing to have an opportunity to review and learn new things with your child!

I did a different craft project than what the curriculum recommended but it was fun nonetheless! I printed from first pallete a template of the folding lion, then she colored, cut it and we folded as indicated on the directions from the website.

 The same craft activity we did for the cheetah:

And the elephant:

We also added the picture of the animals that we studied this week in the habitat chart and also the animal diet chart:

Each week, we have a scientific demonstration to do and for this week, Little V got to learn why the eyes of the cats glow in the dark. We used a toilet paper tube, then one end of it we cover with blue construction paper and the other end we covered with tin foil, secured the ends with rubber bands and in a dark room we flashed the flashlight into each side and were able to see that the side with the tin foil reflected light, just like the eyes of the cats. There's a substance in their eyes that reflects light and make their eyes seem like it glows in the dark. Super cool science experiment from Elemental Science. 

I'm really pleased with my choice of science curriculum, Little V has learned a lot these past few weeks and we are so looking forward to learning more and sharing as well! How I wish I had this much fun learning when I was in school! 

What have you and your little ones been learning in science? Share with us, we would love to hear from you!

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

South Korea and Japan - Geography!

South Korea

The second Asian country we "visited" was South Korea, and we were pleased to learn so many things about this country. We practiced saying Hello in Korean, and Little V got to say it to a Korean friend. Our friend was so happy to hear hello in her own language. We always try to learn how to pronounce and spell Jehovah's name in the language of the countries we "visit" as well.

It was very interesting to learn about Seoul and some of the nice features that city has, such the underground mall, the biggest subway system and much more. We got to learn a little bit more about Eve-R 1 the female robot developed in South Korea.

* I'm sorry I did not take any pictures while Little V was doing her South Korea activities.

Japan

Our third Asian country was Japan! What a surprise it was to know that Japan is pretty much a mountainous country and that they have hundreds of volcanoes. Japan also has an average 1500 earthquakes recorded each year.

Some of the fun activities we did for Japan was:

Kokeshi doll cards: we used crayons, carstock, sharpie and washi tape. I'm a lover of handmade things and I love making greeting cards, so when I saw these cards online I knew we had to make some.

Little V loves dolls, so she got to make a Japanese paper doll that I downloaded from educents.com .

She also got to learn how to say so e colors in Japanese and colored those carps above with the directions in Japanese,

As mentioned before, we finish the week with a quiz that I developed based on the one from the Expedition Earth Curriculum, but because I want her to focus on answering the questions rather than on how to spell the words, I make each week a multiple choice quiz for her.

I'm so grateful that I get to spend time with my little one and learn tons of things with her, our journey through the Homeschooling years is getting more and more excited! What are the new things you have been learning in Geography? We would love to hear form you!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Cursive Handwriting!

There are many reason as to why our kids need to learn cursive handwriting. Not teaching Little V cursive handwriting has never crossed my mind since we started Homeschooling, and this year we had started with an Introduction to cursive handwriting. She's all excited because it's something new and the penmanship just looks better and gives it a touch of the writer's personality.

How will your child write a check or sign his or her name on important documents if they don't learn cursive writing? Will they make their signature an easier target to be copied? If you are still wondering if you should teach your child cursive writing just make a little online research and you will find tons of information about it and will be able to make your decision based in facts that are convincing to you.

As for now, I'm really just giving Little V a taste of it, each day she gets to write a different letter and she is enjoying it. We are using the cursive handwriting sheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler, but I'm looking into other programs and trying to make up my mind.

If you would like more information regarding choices of curriculum for Cursive Handwriting check cathyduffyreviews.com, so far I found one option that I really liked that was Cursive Logic and I also found a few books and this one I really liked it, Traditional Handwriting: Beginning Cursive. As I mentioned I'm still researching and will definitely keep you posted when I make a decision.

What are your ideas regarding cursive writing? Do you have a program or book that you use and would like to share? We would love to hear from you!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Learning About Habitats and Animals Behavior!

Our very first chapter of our super cool Science Curriculum was to learn about habitats and animal food. We started by learning what is a habitat.

Then, through an online research we checked how each habitat looks like. We learned also about the amount of rainfall and the average temperature for each one of them of each of the following habitats:
- desert (cold and hot)
- rain forest
- grassland

Time to make a lapbook so we can consult later if we need it:

We also got to learn about the animals food habit:
- Carnivore
- Herbivore
- Omnivore

To finish the week, she answered the quiz provided by the curriculum:

Each week ends with a quiz, and so far each week we had a science project to do, soon I'll be sharing more about our science adventures!

What have you been learning in Science? We would love to hear from you!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!


Vanessa Z. Pawlicki

Introduction to World Geography and "Visiting" China!!

How cool it's to be able to learn about Geography and have fun!?! You cannot beat that! We started the Expedition Earth by learning and locating the Oceans, Continents, Little V got to understand about the imaginary lines: Meridian of Greenwich, Equator, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Artic Pole and Antartic Pole, and best of all she has a little minibook that she can refer to it whenever she is uncertain about what is what. By learning about the Prime Meridian and the Equator she was able to identify the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, and also the Western and Eastern Hemisphere.

 Once her minibook was ready, we started working on her Passport, she signed it and we added the info needed, now she was all set to start her trip around the World!

Our first stop through the curriculum was China! She then learned important and fun facts about this amazing country. The bigger picture below shows her adding information regarding capital city of the country, main religion, population, currency and others. She also learned how to say hello in Chinese (ni-hao), and how to write and pronounce Jehovah in Chinese.

Here are some more fun activities, she got to locate the China and its capital city in the World Map... by the way I don't think map will ever stop being interesting, right!?! Then, we made some Chinese paper fan and she practiced writing the Chinese numbers  from 1 to 10.

A Chinese lantern was also made:

Finally, you get to see our biggest China project - The Great Wall of China. We used the Creatology Foam Project Brick Set from Michael's, some cardboard, moss and of course she had to add some minions characters in the fun!

We did have a Chinese dinner from one of our favorite Chinese Restaurants to end the fun week learning about China! Every Friday she has a quiz about each country and she did excellent on her first Geography quiz!

Hope you had some fun with us and let's see what's the next country we will be visiting!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Vanessa Z. Pawlicki