CurrClick Specials and a Contest!

Great news! I have been asked to be a CurrClick BlogCast Member! This is an emerging program where bloggers volunteer to have contests on their blogs with the help of CurrClick. In exchange, CurrClick will send readers my way from their Facebook and Twitter sites. It sounded kind of fun and low key. I just need to be willing to host a contest now and then. As part of this effort, I have become an affiliate of CurrClick. You may have noticed the new buttons in my sidebar. I use them all the time for purchasing things as I need them and I figured this would be an easy affiliate to have since I love the site so much. So, hey if you ever buy something through CurrClick or sign up for a Live Class which we've done for fun before, please feel free to click through Blog, She Wrote when you do. Thanks!

And now for the first contest! I will draw four winners for this first contest. One for each of the products listed below.

• Leave a comment to enter.
• Become a follower for a second entry.

You can sign up through Friday, November 5th and winners will be announced on Sunday, November 7th. Please make sure your name and email are left with your entries. This contest will be at the top of my blog until Friday.

In the meantime, if you are looking for a discount on purchases please read further below! I have a small review coming out soon on all the Westvon Products we've been using. Take advantage of that 30% discount!


Math Mammoth Addition 1 by Math Mammoth  


Little House in the Big Woods by Faith Writes   

Pockets of Time for The Littles by Fortunately For You Books 

 
Picture and Writing: Younger Ages by Gentle Shepherd
  

Discounts for Blog, She Wrote readers:

20% off any product by Faith Writes using the code    ccblogfw.

30% off any product by Westvon Publishing using the code ccblogwestvon.

50% off Pockets of Time for Charlotte's Web by Fortunately For You Books. Discounted price will show up when you add the item to your cart.

To use the special discount codes:

During the checkout process, select your payment method and enter the code into the section titled "Enter Coupon/Gift Certificate Code". Please note that the codes are case sensitive and are valid until February 1, 2011.

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

It's hard to believe I'm teaching my very last kindergartner this year! We have plenty of Five in a Row to enjoy together and this one is one of my favorites. J5 and I endeavored to make the apple pie from the recipe at the back of the book. I'll admit I added a few things- from previous experience this is not the best recipe ever.

First, he had to help peel, core, and slice the apples. This is always a treat for the kids...me not so much.

Pouring sugar...

We used the salt we evaporated from salt water and the cinnamon bark Dan brought home from his trip to Saudi Arabia last winter.

R10 gets the salt from the bowl- remember our salt experiment?

We grated the cinnamon with this tool and we added fresh nutmeg as well- the freshest possible ingredients!

Pressing the dough- not a homemade crust. I plan to conquer that this year. Really.

We loaded the pie shell full of apples. Yum!

Crimping the edges of the pie

Ready for the oven! He even made the venting slits.

We had lots of left over apples and we made a second pie...I still have more apples to process. I have enough left to make more sliced ones for use through out the year and to make apple sauce with our mill and some apple butter.

The finished pie...the only thing that would make it more amazing is a homemade crust. Oh, do you see the pan underneath the pie? This is made to catch pie drippings. Here's a shout out to Charlene, our former neighbor and friend who introduced us to this little tool. It doesn't have a solid bottom. There's a big hole in the center!

J5 also put together a really nice notebook to go with his unit. I'll post those next I think. Now we are doing a unit on pumpkins. J5 is so on fire to learn how to read and do his school. It's a really special time for us. I hope you enjoyed our apple pie making! Now that my kids are older, I am really starting to enjoy cooking and baking with them. Have you tried doing home ec in your homeschool?

Corners- Math Practice

Have you ever played Corners? This is a card game made by the RightStart Math folks. I don't use their curriculum, but the math card games have been a lot of fun. I am thankful to a FIAR friend for sending her cards my way. I was able to purchase the book that shows you how to play lots of games and it even comes with a DVD. I even attempted to make my own set of these cards including Corners...it worked but my cards were enormous!

The idea is to lay down cards so that the colors match and the sums are multiples of 5. You can play to the Corners as well which means matching more than one side. I was able to play to three sides at least three times which meant I crushed E12! E12 is a game winner so this was a lot of fun for me!

The direction book is pretty easy to understand and comes with a DVD. If you have an older version with no DVD, the directions can be found on YouTube. We use this game to practice addition facts and it's great for keeping score as well. Corners is a game that adults can enjoy to so I encourage you to get these sets.

Trail Guide News

Some of you may know that we've been using the Trail Guides to US and World Geography for a while now. This year I decided to just work our way through the US Guide. The kids work on daily drills and will have mapping exercises or other geography quests on some days. We've always done geography as part of our unit studies, but the older kids especially like the daily geography work.

There are a lot of really good suggestions for projects in the trail guide that can be used for any geography focus. At the end there is a unit study on Lewis and Clark. I'm about to start a read aloud of The Captain's Dog based on this study.

Here R10 is working on a "signature map" where you write some state fact or name as the perimeter of the state. It was pretty cool when the kids were finished. Can you guess which state that is?

US Trail Guide

There are notebooking pages sold to go with this and the world study. I have the world study at two different levels, but I don't have any of the three (primary, intermediate, secondary) for the US. A must have is the Uncle Josh's Outline Maps. I prefer the CD which has extra maps. I just write out the assignments and occasionally I type them. I write out the mapping assignments on the back of the map they are to do. The kids have a small 1/2" binder with dividers where they keep all of their work.

A Glimpse of Adventure: The Adventure Journal

I8 has been studying Cowboy Charlies for a few weeks now. Intended to be a two week unit study, we have been going longer just so he can immerse himself in adventure for as long as he like to be there. As part of his study, he's been keeping an Adventure Log. The Adventure Log is a just a way for him to summarize all the events and people he's been reading about. It was his idea so I thought I'd let him keep it the way he likes.

Basically, he records the date and the weather for the day and then writes about something he's been reading about- usually a partial account of something in a book he's read about a person from long ago. He's been reading stacks of books about Kit Carson, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone, etc.

This one is about Daniel Boone. He likes to add a picture.

I have been helping to correct the biggest mistakes, but for the most part this has not been a grammar assignment.

I8 is a 3rd grade leftie. He really hates writing in a spiral notebook because the binding gets in his way. So, I thought we'd try the composition book and that seems to work really well. I'm not sure it does much for his handwriting to use wide rule instead of 3rd grade handwriting paper. Anyone have an opinion?

I've been giving him some mapping assignments based on the story Cowboy Charlie. He's been labeling places that Cowboy Charlie traveled and how he got there. I just put the assignment on the back of the map. So clever.

 He's been really enjoying the adventure study and it goes right along with one of his co-op classes this semester- Pioneer Living. He's learned to start fires, cook over a fire, and make hunting bags, etc. We are going to attempt a coon skin cap and we have a few other things in mind before we leave this adventure behind. I'll try to list out the things we've been working on in another post.

Bird Visitors

While having lunch last week, we noticed a new visitor to our backyard tree. Upon investigation, we learned it was a female red-bellied woodpecker! On the tree with her was a white-breasted nuthatch. Using my stealth photography skills (and a quiet back door), I stepped outside to see if I could get a picture of her.

Do you see the nuthatch- under the branch?

The tree of choice in the backyard...

Another look at the nuthatch- nice beak

Hard to see what you are snapping a shot of when you can't look through a view finder...oh that my Digital Rebel was still functioning...

Well here is an image of a red-bellied woodpecker for your enjoyment. Imagine our delight when we realized we'd seen the Mama Bird!

Salt Experiment Follow Up

As promised, here are the still photos J5 took with our Intel QX3 digital microscope. He really enjoys using it and I finally managed to upload them to our network server so I could load them onto my blog easily. Mission accomplished!

Salt crystal magnified 20x

Salt Crystal 60x

Salt Crystal 200x

J5's explanation of how we got the salt. Remember in the story of making an apple pie and seeing the world, the little girl takes a jar full of seawater on her way to Jamaica to get sugar cane. Then when she gets home she evaporates the water to get the salt for her apple pie.

In the end, he drew pictures of what he saw under the lowest magnification (10x) and he dictated to me what he had done and I wrote it down. He is young enough that often he will dictate to me and I'll write it all or I will write a few sentences in pencil and he will trace my yellow marker words. Dictation works really well when you know that a child who is 5 can tell you an awful lot more than he can write.

For those of you wondering about our digital microscope...the current version is the Intel QX5. It has pretty much the same features with perhaps a slightly better bulb. It may also play nicer with Windows 7, etc. However, we acquired our QX3 secondhand because the family selling it upgraded to Vista and it would no longer work. Dan used his computer super powers to make it happen and we have been enjoying it since. True confessions though: We currently have the QX3 working with our XP machine. Shhh! The digital microscope is not a traditional light microscope, but it's a valuable tool. Hmmm...perhaps it is time to do a little post on microscopes in the homeschool? Stay tuned...

Outdoor Hour Challenge #5: Seasonal Tree Observations

Last year when I reset our routine, I had left Fridays to work on nature study- or at least to pull together any studies we had done up to that point during the week. So, it's convenient that Barb posts her new study each Friday. Also, I have really enjoyed having it all together to look ahead by buying the bundle. This week we took a look at some autumn leaves. Here in our area of NY, we are just past the peak of foliage viewing and pretty soon it will look like November- especially with all the wind and rain we've had. We've had a really good year with those crisp nights and clear days. Very lovely indeed.

J5's leaf sketches- well one sketch and one rubbing

R10 working on her leaf rubbing

I8 did a really nice job!

We looked at other characteristics of leaves like margin. These criteria are listed in the challenge and were really useful in adding details to our comparison in our handy Venn diagram. We compared a sugar maple leaf to a beech tree leaf.

In addition to the drawings/rubbings on the journal page, we watched a video on drawing leaves that Barb put together and we made our own watercolor pencil sketches. The video was well worth our time, so check it out! This is I8 working on his watercolor leaves.

As promised, a look at E12's sketching this week

These are my leaf sketches.

This is just after I had used the water on them- they are still wet!

J5's watercolor pencil sketches- he insisted on the pumpkins.

R10's watercolor leaves- aren't they nice?

We decided some leaf pressing was in order as well. One of my favorite fall books is Why Do Leaves Change Color by Betsy Maestro- A Let's Read and Find out Science book. Such great leaf drawings in there with labels and some ideas for doing leaf crafts at the end.

I'd like to say that we had a fun time collecting the leaves ahead of time, but we've had such horrible weather recently that I collected them myself- while I was a crazy person taking my two mile morning walk in the rain!

The result were these lovely window decorations. We just put the leaves between wax paper and used a low iron on them. Should I feel badly that I only take out the iron to do crafting? Don't ask Dan this question!!

We compared lots of maples leaves and we had a beech leaf.

This one is above J5's bed...the window is a clear indication of the stink weather we've been having.

Lots of maples...sugar maples

I really like this one...three different maple leaves and a beech. The tree outside is a tulip poplar tree and it gets its leaves very late in the spring (so late you think the tree is dead kind of late) and it hangs on to its leaves long into the fall. But the birds love those trees out front and R10's view here allows her to keep track of the many birds who visit. She LOVES that. Her bed goes right under this window so she has a terrific window seat on her world.

This was a great way to finish out our school week! We got the chance to learn about some new leaf words and to make some fun sketches and watercolors. My kids are really into the watercolor pencils  now. I have to admit they are really fun to use. We've enjoyed doing our nature study each Friday. This time I think the bonus is that we now have a window decoration in all the upstairs windows for the fall season.