This year, unlike the years past, I decided to homeschool Skylar out of our home. It was something that I have honestly wanted to do since he started Kindergarten I just never got around to planning the whole year out and taking the time to see what it would entail. Well, with our recent "almost" move, I thought the fourth grade year would be a good time to start.
Here in Oregon, like most states, they make it so easy to get the homeschooling under way with your kids. There are so many parents now days that homeschool their kids that it's seems so common to hear that people are homeschool parents. We decided to give this year a try and see how it goes, but so far we are having a blast with it!
We converted the far end of our dinning room into a small classroom and given the amount of space, we really leaned on the fact that the dinning room was longer than it was wider. With rectangle pieces of furniture, along with our table, we really brought it together.
Unfortunately, this house is quite old and have some "character" to the walls and the floor, so we took everything out of the dinning room and started over with a clean slate.
So overall, we went from the room before this picture, to the small classroom above. Everything fit into place perfectly, and yet our dinning room is still a dinning room in the end. There was even enough space for a medium-sized dry-erase board behind the desk.
Skylar has even given our little classroom a name: Rain Valley Classroom and our mascot is the Red Snail. It seems to suit us just fine!
The phrase we learned to remember the planets:
My -Mars
Very-Venus
Earthy- Earth
Mother- Mercury
Just- Jupiter
Showed- Saturn
Us-Uranus
Nature- Neptune
We have used it to learn about the solar system......
The Continents.......
The moon......
Zebras and Spelling Words.....
Cursive writing.....
Math....
Lots and lots of math.......
And even the earth.
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Recently we learned about liquids and solids through an experiment with mint-flavored Mentos and Diet Coke. The experiment requires that about six-seven Mentos be dropped into a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke and the Mentos have the soda bubbles attach to them and end up fizzing so much it shoots the Coke out like a geyser.
They positioned the Mentos over the opening.
Then ran away as the Coke was coming to the top.
Skylar was afraid he was going to get sprayed.
And an extra bonus, Skylar got to taste the mixture afterward. He said it tasted "minty." The experiment was a success and we spent the rest of the class day talking about why, how, and recorded our data.
On October 17, 2013 we took part in the Great Quake Tsunami Drill for 2013. This drill was to help educate us on the proper procedures to take during an earthquake. Given that it was raining and cold outside here in the Valley, I allowed Skylar to practice his tucking and safety under his desk instead of the doorway. You can read the full story of our practice for global earthquake preparedness here, and find out how you can get be part of the Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drill next time.
We work on art projects too! It's been a great little classroom and we keep roughly about the same hours as the public school.
Our little classroom has evolved into a great place to learn and with the rest of the year still ahead of us, I see it becoming a great learning room too!
You can visit our "under construction" blog for our classroom here!
And while you're there, check out the classroom shirts we have up for grabs currently. All money raised from shirt sales will go directly to supplies for our classroom.
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GO RED SNAILS!
Eco-Tip: When using one side of a sheet of paper, flip the paper over when finished and attach to a clipboard. Use this clipboard to write down notes or other messages, instead of using a fresh sheet of paper once again. For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me: Go Green.
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