Log Cabin Village

Last Saturday we visited Log Cabin Village.  Caden had never been before and it had been a while since I went.  When we arrived, he was excited to get to play in the woods. There were lots of big trees around and the perfect place for an active boy to run around and see how life used to be. He enjoyed trying various machines, like the spinning wheel and an old coffee grinder.  He had a blast!

He finally saw a scarecrow in real life, so exciting!

Spinning wheel

They had a little spinning wheel perfect for kids to try

Old cupboard filled with different kinds of food that the families would grow

Chicken Coop - one of his favorite activities was getting the eggs from under the hens

Water pump



Teepee

Working in the garden

Grinding grains

Grinding coffee

Seeing the oldest school house in our city



Seeing an old wood lathe

We talked about how lots of people used to only cook outside

Learning about watermills and grains

Stopping to rest and take a picture

Old spice house

Making a candle

This was a fun activity

Hanging the candle to dry

We saw some friends right before we were leaving

Leaf Activities

We started our study of leaves last week and finished up today. Caden loved all of the fun things we did these past two weeks. I decided to do a separate post about some of the leaf activities we did this week.  We ended up doing 10 different leaf activities.

 

1. Leaf Shading. We collected a variety of leaves and my son shaded over them and made his first leaf book.  Then we dried the leaves for a project we did later in the week.  We put the leaves between paper towels and under a few heavy books for about 4 days.

 

 

 

2. Leaf Magnet. We made a leaf magnet. He cut a leaf out, I wrote "I will live and grow in Jesus," and we laminated it and added a magnet to the back.

3. Paint around the leaves. We collected more leaves. This time my son painted around the leaves.

4. Math leaf activities: counting & grouping. We took the dry leaves from the other day and he counted them, sorted them from smallest to biggest, and by color.

 

5. Leaf Book. Then he glued the dried leaves onto some paper and made another leaf book. He loves making books.  I didn't know this until this week.

 

6. Leaf People. He picked out some more leaves and painted leaf people.  He actually made a leaf family of our family.  Dad, son, me, and his future baby sister.

7. Leaf Sticker Craft. I bought a little tree/leaf project from Target for $2. He enjoyed decorating the tree with Fall colored leaves, apples, and acorns.

8. Toilet Paper Tree and Pom Poms. I took an empty toilet paper roll and cut out a trunk and some branches.  My son glued the tree together then added pom poms for the leaves.  This was a very cheap project.

 

 

9. Tree Lunch. To finish our study of leaves I made him a colorful lunch.  I cut his sandwich using a critter sandwich cutter.  Made a tree with veggie chips and for the fruit I cut up some peaches and grapes.  He LOVED it!  

He really liked one of the critters trying to climb the tree

10. Leaf and God. This leaf biblical application came from My Father's World Kindergarten. We talked about one of our plants that had all green leaves.  I explained that most of the leaves were very happy living there.  They had water, food, and sunlight.  However, one of the leaves was not happy and wanted to be on their own.  So that leaf left the rest of them.  We pulled the leaf off. This leaf thinks he'll be better off without the rest of the leaves on the plant. 

 

Then I said to pretend that we are leaves and the plant is God.  If you're God's child, you are like a leaf and are growing well on the plant, God gives you all you need.  However, some people don't want to obey God and they want to live without God.  They are like the leaf by itself.  Let's see what happens to this leaf that goes off on it's own. 

 

We watched the leaf and not too many days passed before the leaf withered and died.

 

My son picked a leaf

The leaf looked fine at first

 

Sadly, without the rest of the plant, the leaf withered and died

Week 5 of Pre-K

Besides being completely exhausted, I'm really enjoying homeschooling.  We've made it past a month and Caden is learning so much and everyday is excited about school.  We've had another busy week.  It's kind of strange calling this Pre-K, when we're technically using a kindergarten curriculum.  However, the pace seems to be about right.  Although I'm starting to see where his learning style and preferences are.  He loves reading but not necessarily all of the books from Sonlight.  Mainly because some of those books don't have as many pictures.  However, he LOVES doing My Father's World-K and wants to do that first everyday.  Certain books we read from Sonlight, include the Bible and talking about our Bible story which this week has actually gone along with what Caden's learning about in Sunday school.  Collin and I are teaching his class at church so it's neat we're able to tie it all together.  Certain books he loves the stories from. I guess it's mainly just one book he's not very fond of.  Therefore, I'm letting him substitute with other books or stories if he wants, while still reading most of the books on the list.  Like I said, it's really just one book he's lost interest in.

Memory Verse: Tell your neighbor the truth because we belong to each other. (NLT) Ephesians 4:25
Character Trait: Honesty - I speak truthful words and act truthfully.

Major themes: We finished our study of the moon and started our study of leaves.

Monday:  We finished our study of the moon and made a moon cake. Caden loves cooking and this was a really fun activity.  He wanted to read all morning, mainly wanted to read to me one of his favorite books, If you Give a Mouse a Cookie.  He drew 4 things that started with the letter M.  One of his pictures was a monster.  Then he drew a monster and a boy.  He's been waking up scared of monsters lately and said they are in his room.  It was interesting to see him draw something he's afraid of and talk about it.  We also made a mobile with the moon, stars, and sun to remind us that God created these things on Day 4. 

Adding the milk after seeing the volcano explode!

Such a good helper!

Our lovely moon cake

 

He drew 1 mat, a mouse, the moon, and a monster

Our sun, moon, and stars mobile

He's gotten very good and tying knots

Reading to me one of his favorite books

 

Drawing the monster and boy

The little boy is on the left and the big monster is on the right
 

Tuesday: We ate moon cake and had a pretty relaxing day.  He did a few pages in Developing an Early Learner, we played a game involving shapes, and he built the letter M along with a few things that start with M with his cuisenaire rods.

Cresent Moon

Wednesday: Today we started our study of leaves and did letter L activities.  We went outside and talked about how the leaves are connected to the branches and the roots and this is how they live and grow.  Just like as Christians, we are connected to God.  However, sometimes people want to do their own thing so they break away from the plant or God.  We took a leaf off of one of our plants and we're watching what happens to it while it's no longer connected to the others.  We also ended our raisin experiment.  Caden ended up eating all the raisins and compared them to the raisins from the store.  He said our sun dried raisins were so much better!

Coloring different pictures that begin with L

He sometimes looks up at me and smiles, so sweet!

His coloring is improving

Cutting the pictures for a game

He found a leaf

We're going to see what happens to this leaf

The top raisins are the ones we made, the bottom from the store
They are pretty close in size

Caden spent time outside making mud pies

He said he was making food for the birds

Thursday: This morning Caden woke up early, around 6:30am.  We ate breakfast around 7 something and then went outside to find some leaves for today's activity.  He found 8 leaves.  We came inside and he looked at them and counted them.  Then he shaded over them.  He was supposed to trace them but that was kind of hard to do, so I had him shade over them with a crayon.  Then I wrote the names of the trees and plants that the leaves came from and he helped me staple it into a book.  When Collin got home tonight his leaf book was one of the first things he showed him.  I think this was his first "real" book he's made.  He did some handwriting practice and then we went to our science co-op group at church.  This week Ms. Jennifer taught about nature.  The kids did a nature walk and collected different items they found interesting.  Caden mostly collected rocks and of course his bag got pretty heavy.  They also all got the same leaf from one of the trees and he got to shade over that leaf as well, just like he did at home.  It's so neat how so many things that happen in our daily lives are going along with our school work at home.  Then we ate lunch with Collin, my dad, and grandmother.  Then we road with my dad to take my grandmother and uncle to the airport and got to stop by Krispy Kreme donuts in honor of pirates day.  Caden had his first Krispy Kreme donut.  Man they were good!  I think we each ate around 3!  Way too much sugar and calories but none of us had any control!  Hot donuts from Krispy Kreme are the best!  Then we came home, finished a little more school work from this morning and made dinner with Collin when he got home.

Counting and looking at all of his leaves



Shading the leaves for his leaf book

Showing me his leaf book

He did a great job!

Handwriting practice

Nature walk and study with our co-op group

Finding some interesting things

Nature walk

Talking about this tree in our church's garden

Continuing the nature walk

Looking at this weed and collecting flowers from it

These are pretty flowers

Looking at what they got in their bags

Caden and his great-grandmother

First Krispy Kreme donut, yum!

Caden and his granddad

He LOVED this donut!

Watching how the donuts are made

Granddad is teaching Caden all about the donut making process

Finishing up our last bit of school work this afternoon



Friday: I love Fridays.  They are usually more laid back and we try and always have a play date planned.  This morning Caden was eager to get his school work done so he could watch "The Magic School Bus," a new favorite show.  We needed to leave the house by 10:30am and typically I don't let him watch any television in the morning, unless it's educational and goes along with what we're studying.  However, it was raining and he did such a great job with his work that I made an exception and this show is educational, so it turned out fine.  We worked on math skills, cutting, pasting, coloring, and patterns as well as sound discrimination.  Friday we don't have as much reading so sometimes we save it until bedtime.  He also made a leaf magnet to go with our study of leaves.  We ate lunch with a three of my friends from Mom's Club and the kids got to play.  We ate at Chick-Fil-A because that's one of the easiest place to take your children and it's raining so an indoor playground was a must.  We also went to the library and saw Curious George.  Caden was so excited!!  He also commented on how big George was! 

 

He hurt one of his right fingers so he did a lot of his work left-handed today

He still colors well with both hands,
even though I'm encouraging him to pick one

He picked up the patterns really quickly.

Cutting with his left hand



Matching the letters to the correct beginning letter of the picture

I think this is one of his favorite weekly activities

He did this really fast today and got all of them right!

Leaf magnet

 

Caden's face when he first saw George coming around the corner!

Big George takes a seat!

Collin came after work to join us

Talking with George

I don't want to smile!