Summer Bingo

Now that we are done with school for the summer, I was trying to come up with an idea of ways to keep Logan doing school and busy, without him feeling like he is doing school. I have seen this posted on a few different blogs, Ginger Snaps is one of them, and decided I would give it a try. I was hesitant at first, but I gave Logan his first Bingo card on Monday and he only has 2 squares left to complete and it's only Thursday.

I have our boards laid out similar to Ginger Snaps with different categories; outside play, phonics games, math games, regular board games, reading and art. You can link to her site to see some great suggestions. I threw in some squares that Logan had to do something with Lain, for example 'play Uno with Lain' is one of his squares along with 'read a book to Lain.' Some other examples I have for Logan are; paint outside, draw a picture, ride your bike for 20 mins, build something out of Legos with only 24pcs, read in a secret place, play iSpy outside.

1. Morning chores must be complete. Logan's are that he has to be dressed and put dirty clothes in the laundry, eat breakfast and brush his teeth.

2. Tell mom or dad which square you are working on.

3. Receive 1 ticket for each Bingo.

4. Complete the entire board by Saturday and receive $3.00

For the prizes:

1 ticket = a popsicle
2 tickets = 30 mins of video games or TV.
4 tickets = watching a movie

I have been amazed at the way this is working. Since I also work from home sometimes it is hard for me to disappear for an hour to get some work done but both boys have been playing together so nicely while they are working towards completing their squares that I have gotten more done this week than I have all month!

Here is Logan working on 'do your 10's math facts in chalk outside.'



And here is a picture of his current board.



It was very simple to make. I just opened a Word document and created a 5 x 5 table and filled them in. I already had the star stickers but you can find stickers everywhere and if you don't have stickers just use a marker and star the square.

Letter B craft

So these crafts are so adorable that I just have to post them! I chose to do the letters in order this year for Lain so this week we did "B" and made a bee out of it.

Intro to Geography

Maps, globes, continents, oceans oh my! Kicking off our first week, we are doing a little intro. We started off coloring/labeling a world map. Logan really is not too big into coloring but he really enjoyed this.



The finished map!



Throughout the week we also did a balloon globe and popped it to show the distortion of what happens when you take a globe and try to flatten it into a map.





We also did a paper mache globe. I had never done a paper mache before so this was a bit of a learning experience for me. I have a problem wanting everything to be perfect but not having any extra time, I couldn't re-do this. Even still the boys had a riot doing it and it did turn out okay.

The assembly...


Painting the continents...

Geography

After hours and hours and searching for just the right geography curriculum, I think I have finally figure out what I am going to be using...thanks to a little help from my good friend, Shelby.

I started off wanting to use Galloping the Globe but was left wanting a little more. I then fell in love with Jolanthe's geography curriculum over at Homeschool Creations and even printed EVERYTHING out and put it in a binder and all. I was struggling with how to tie in the science for this year and I really wanted to somehow incorporate the animals around the country's we were going to study. When I came across Erika's new geography program Expedition Earth, I thought I found everything I was looking for. But then I had 3 great programs all with a little of something I wanted from each. Shelby and I were talking all about what we wanted and didn't want and she is awesome and created her own and it's amazing! We will be doing Oceania first and I can not wait until the others are finished.

Letter A craft

Part of the letter of the week activities will be doing a craft out of the actual letter. I will admit that doing arts and crafts is not my thing but I'm trying to change that this year. After seeing how much fun Lain had making this, I am looking forward to doing next weeks letter B!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

We are doing a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom theme for our letter of the week lessons for Lain this year and I'm so excited about it! For our tree, I cut out construction paper and taped it together and hung it on one of our walls. Each week I will cut the letter out but he will hang the letter on the tree himself.




I got the idea from Erika She has a link to download the ABC letters that I am using. We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and I also have the video and Leap Frog Letter Factory that we are going to switch back and forth if he is too distracted to sit at the table while I'm finishing Phonics with Logan.

Calendar Time and Notebook

This year I'm using a different approach to calendar time. Logan has the days of the week and the months of the year down but needs a little work on next week, next Monday, last week, last month. I am also including Lain in our calendar time this year.

We are using a combination of Mama Jenn's notebook and 1+1+1=1's calendar board with a few tweaks here and there. Logan will be doing the notebook as well as helping Lain with the board. Mama Jenn has detailed explanations on how to make the boards and she even has video of her and her boys doing it so you can see exactly how it works. Her songs are a HUGE hit especially the Adam's Family song. 1+1+1=1 has links to the notebook pages for downloading.



I really am happy with the way our board turned out. I love the color of the day and the shape of the day for Lain. As an extra activity, I have him run around our school room and point to all the things that are the color and the shape. He yells out "BLUE!" or TRIANGLE!" I love how excited he is. I try and have him do this throughout the rest of the day like if we are driving down the road I ask him if he can find the color and shape. It's really fun for him.

We still will be using our calendar I got last year to put up each day and talk about yesterday and tomorrow.



So far the calendar board is a great start to our school day.