Don’t you like the sound of that? What kid wouldn’t like the sound of a FUN Friday? Well, it’s not going to be all fun and games, but my goal is to do a less structured day on Fridays minus the weekly tests and the math lesson…. I know, that doesn’t sound all that fun does it? Well, really the tests go pretty quick since you’re not really doing a lesson so it doesn’t seem all that long, I don’t think.
Our first Fun Friday we had to go on an outing to Walmart for Daddy’s birthday (more on that later…) which meant we didn’t quite get to do all that I planned, but I think it was a good start! Part of our fun did include making birthday cards for Daddy, but more on that later too…
We had our tests… Bible verse, Writing, and Spelling of course, but on to the fun stuff!
We started with a special Bible which meant we got to watch one of the animated Bible stories I had on the DVR.
We also had a special treat for Reading! I found this great reading website last year through another computer teacher. I loved it, and so did the kids. It’s called Tumblebooks…
It’s basically online stories, but I love the fact that it’s great even for little ones who aren’t reading yet, since it reads the story out loud for you. It has LOTS of stories available with great illustrations and has upper reading level stories available too… (unlike starfall). There are also puzzles and games available too. With the headphones, she gets to enjoy the story without disturbing anyone else too which is good. Although, watching big sister using headphones creates another problem. :)
Now… some technical instructions… The link that was shared with me is actually https://info.infosoup.org/tumblebooks.asp, but if you try to just type in www.tumblebooks.com it won’t work! It will take you to the tumblebooks screen asking you to login. Soooo, if you do enjoy the site, make you bookmark or remember the “info.infosoup” part of the web address.
Since we are studying US history this year, we are working on a 50 States Notebooking Project that I got the idea for somewhere online. Crayola has great educational learning pages… some of which are all about the 50 States.
There is a page for each state that includes the name of the state, the flag, the bird, the flower, and when it was admitted as a state. I’ve already printed all the coloring pages for all 50 states. That way we have a better chance of actually keeping up with this project.
Each Friday I hope to learn about another state using some books I have on the states as well as some web sites. She colored her page for our first state which was Delaware since I thought it would be cool to learn them in the order they were admitted to the Union. She also cut out the shape of the state I got from another site, and glued it all on colored paper and wala! We have officially begun our 50 States Notebook!
The front page has a map of the US without any labels, but when you open the flap you see the same map with state labels. We’ll probably add a title to the this page at some point. Something really original and creative like “The 50 States.” :)
We also included these pages at the end. They are front and back and will be a list of all the state characteristics such as capitals, trees, flowers, and birds. When we complete a new state page, we’ll flip to the back and fill in all the state info.
Other Fun Friday things I hope to include are Piano Lessons and Art on an ongoing basis, and then the occasional fun outing like the Library or some other fun (but cheap) place that I have yet to think of. :)
Sounds fun, right?
We all wake each day and depend on our old friend to begin our day – the coffee
maker. It grows in lots of tropical places, many of which are very poor countries with almost no industry or
development. Black and dark brown works best in case you’re not that into trying to find coffee drops.