Keeping them Interested

I struggle sometimes in keeping the children interested in their school work. School goes much better if we get it done first thing in the morning. If I wait until after lunch to do the bulk of the work ....forget it...their brains are already playing hide-n-seek. LOL ;-) I will say that blocks and puzzles are a lifesaver for the preschool age. :-) Here is a picture of Little E last week. He played with his blocks the entire time the older two did their school lessons.

Yes his eyes are glowing. I seem to have more trouble with his eyes then I do with anyone else. Oh well....Sort of freaks me outside sometimes though. :-) Anyway, another great thing about these blocks is it sometimes gives motivation to the older children. If they know they can build with blocks when the school work is done...sometimes it gets them to stay on track and get things done.

I don't have a ton of pictures from school lately but I do have one of the lab day on Saturday. Beloved and the children did an experiment with a balloon rocket. Can you see it? It's the green blob on the left of the picture. Speaking of lab day...I have to get caught up on all the experiments we were/are supposed to do. I have fallen way behind on that, but Beloved has a half day off from work tomorrow so that would probably be the best time. :-)

Lab Day

Today was a "lab day" for school. Except...we don't have a lab, but we had fun anyway. :-) We talked about volcanoes today: the different shapes, lava, how they can change the landscape, etc. This was our first experiment of the day.

What did we do with dirt, Styrofoam cups, and toothpaste? We were showing the impact lava can have on changing the landscape. We put a hole in the bottom of the empty cup, placed the opening of the tube of toothpaste in the bottom, and filled the cup with dirt.

When you squeeze the tube, the toothpaste displaces the dirt. Can you see it in the picture? I even made sure the toothpaste was red ...like lava. ;-) If you click on the pic to enlarge it...you can see the toothpaste a little better.

Then the children made their own volcanoes out of play dough. We then did the typical baking soda and vinegar to make the volcanoes erupt. :-) They had so much fun with this.

After we did our projects for volcanoes we went on to what I said we would do a long time ago. The next project for the Instant Challenges. We didn't follow it exactly again, but the children had fun. All three worked on it together. They used styrofoam cups, chenille sticks, tape, marshmallows, foil, and straws. Here is their boat that they made with these objects.

Believe it or not....it floats! The children did a great job. I am so proud of them. At first they complained because they didn't know how. They kept asking for help, but I told them to just think about it and they finally did it. See?!

School is back in session

Yes, we had a long break since Baby K was born but Pilgrim Pathway is officially back in session. :-) We have a LOT of review to do though, but that is okay. It is to be expected when the children have had a month off, but we are on our way once again. I have a feeling that the math with have to be repeated the most for Sweet E and the phonics for Big T. The children are excited to have started school again, but it has been hard for me to get back into the "groove." It will just take a little time, but I know we are back on track.

Another Project

I forgot to post about the latest project. On Saturday Beloved disappeared out to the garage. What was he working on?

Do you remember how I said Big T loves the video series called The Revolution (that we borrowed from the library)? He loves to play "British" at least that is what he calls it...but he is starting to call it "Revolution" now too. Anyway, this is what Beloved was up to.

He made rifles for all three children so they could pretend they are a part of the Continental Army (or the British if they are the "bad guys"). They have had so much fun with them. I actually heard Big T and Little E talk about the civil war today as they played outside. Anything that gets them interested in history....right? ;-)

Little E can be such a ham sometimes and it makes it hard to get a decent picture. But I do find this one funny.

Plus it wasn't a very good hair day to try and get a picture taken.

More Bridge Building

You may have noticed a button in my side bar for Instant Challenges. (Go check out the challenges!) I am so glad I stumbled across this blog. With everything going on (having a newborn around again is so much FUN!) we don't get the challenges done on time with everyone else, but we do them anyway. So I just wanted to share some pictures with you on Big T giving the first challenge, Bridge Building, a try. Here are the supplies. They don't look like much but you would be surprised what you can do with them. There had to be 2 squares (8 " I think) 6 inches apart. I decided to do this on the wood floor so if the bridge fell we wouldn't have to worry about loosing any of the supplies off of the table. Anyway, you also needed some cards, scissors and the nails were for when the bridge was complete.

First I told Big T what he had to do and we gave him 2 minutes to think about how he was going to build his bridge.

Then he had 5 minutes to build his bridge.

After the five minutes was up he was supposed to have 2 minutes to place the nails onto the bridge to see how many it would hold. His first attempt did not result in a finished bridge so he decided to let Papa have a try at it and then he would try again after.

Beloved's bridge held 6 nails and when he put the 7th on it gave way. :-(

So Big T gave it a try once again and he was able to get all 10 nails onto his bridge without it collapsing. He was so proud that he beat his Papa! LOL

The next challenge was a boat race, but I haven't had the time to do that with them yet. Maybe we can do it tonight. :-) I am also hoping and praying that we can get school started back up again. Since Baby K was almost a week late we have had over a month off of school and we need to get back to it. (But that is why we started the first of August...so we could take this time off to spend with our precious little bundle.) Oh...and hopefully soon I will have picture of our attempt at the boat race. :-)

New Interests

Don't have much to report this week. School has been put on hold this last week as I get last minute things done in preparation of our newest blessing. But I have discovered a new interest Big T has. Have you ever seen the Building Big Series on PBS? We found the videos and book at the library. Ever since the first video about tunnels Big T has been fascinated by them. Last night Beloved found found a game online where you construct a bridge that has to stay together (obviously) and hold the weight of different things walking across it. I think Beloved and Big T played it for almost an hour and he has already asked about playing it today. Here is a picture of them playing it last night. Who knows...maybe we have a future architect on our hands with an interest in history. :-)

Hope you all are having a great week and your children are having fun learning new things. :-) Blessings to everyone. :-D

Computer is back

and I am so happy!