catching up

Since I want to get all of these little frayed ends cut before starting a day of sewing and crafting tomorrow, here's a catch up on all the little things we've been doing these past weeks that I've neglected to mention (and wanted to at least touch upon!)...

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We were doing Ferdinand a while ago in 5-in-a-row, and I loved this idea: I had K dictate an e-mail to her grandmothers, explaining what we needed - heights at each age for J and I growing up.
In the book, Ferdinand is standing next to a tree stump showing lines for his ages. We had a lot of fun getting out the lists for little G and K (through last year, since their birthdays are coming up soon here) and K helped measure and mark for their ages, then she had fun reading the return e-mails from the grandmas with our ages and heights. As J is 6'9" and I'm 5'8", it's a fun chart to examine! For example, both girls were taller than I was at age 1, K was shorter than I was at age 4 by 1.5", but beat me by 0.5" at age 5. J and I were the same height at age 3 and 4, but by age 6.5, he had both K and I beat by 3".... (and probably thereafter, too!) It's a fun chart, and it will be fun to see where the girls are in a month, too!

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We do artists periodically - we had a lot of fun with this Van Gogh lesson.
It's very easy - we looked at "starry night" and talked about what makes the picture give the feeling that it does, of looking in the sky over a town. K cut paper buildings out to glue to dark paper, then we picked yellow and red (and mixed them for some orange) to make the stars and moon in the sky. I keep the laptop near with the "original" painting up for K, she likes to look at it while she paints. I thought her "starry night" was quite nice.

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Lastly, I found an awesome new website. It's spellingcity.com, and I found it through Pioneer Woman homeschooling. Check it out! True to my eclectic/unschooling mantra, I'm just jumping around with a few of the beginner/1st grade lists. What I'm finding out? Um, what any unschooling mom knows - of course you need to know how to spell (or you don't, then you become an engineer), but spelling really can come right along with reading: K breezed right through the beginner lists, without having any spelling background at all.

This would be a neat resource to do and have the student go through the lists themselves, but I have her spell the word for me orally, since she has trouble typing and remembering how to spell the word at the same time. There are also fun spelling games, and I love that you can make your own list and it will say your word for you and make your own words a part of the game.

I'm sure this will be the only spelling curriculum we use! Go Internet!!

(I have an awful inkling that I wouldn't be homeschooling if there wasn't an internet!)
(or at least I would probably be buying whole curriculums *shudder*! ;)