Language Lessons #2

A few of the recent language related activities I remembered to photograph:

 Contraction Surgery (idea from Fun in First Grade)

I got out some of their doctor-play toys, printed off the contraction cards and surgery notes sheets, gave them a couple of boxes of cheap band-aids, and let them go. Sissy is checking on one of her patients, Mrs. Could Not.

They had to perform surgery on their patients like Mr. Have Not and Mr. Has Not. They could cut or fold the paper to eliminate the "o" from not.

 Then, they had to use tape and band-aids to put the words back together as contractions.

 Every doctor has to keep records, so they recorded the results from their surgeries.

 They got really into this for over an hour, giving their patients shots and medicine, etc.

Tornado is carefully extracting the o with tongs to be taken to the "medical waste" dump, which was their pile of trash they created.

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other activities:

We've always enjoyed Brian Cleary's parts of speech books (and he has so many other fun books!), but I came across his website, which offers lots of online activities, lesson plans, and printables. My oldest son loves mad libs, so he enjoys the Crazy Cat Tales on adjectives, nouns, and verbs.

We went through our Awesome Adjectives Unit from Teachers Pay Teachers. In this particular activity, they had to use 4 adjectives to describe themselves plus draw self-portraits. These were their word choices:

Tornado - fast, loving, strong, smart, and funny. I like that Tornado described himself as fast and strong, two words I wouldn't have picked for him. I'm glad he thinks this about himself.

Sissy - sweet, graceful (I helped her with that word because she said "likes ballet.", outdoorsy, and hungry (That one made me laugh - but it's true! She is always hungry.)

Dash - fast, strong, shy, and athletic. When I suggested "stubborn" or even "strong-willed," he would NOT write those down. He didn't want anyone to see that written about him.

While learning about adjectives, we also did this activity. I would say the names of crayons in our big crayon box (which I like buying for the kids because it makes me think of my great aunt Mert's house, the only place we ever got the big box). Without seeing the crayon, they had to guess which color the name went to, for example: periwinkle=blue, so I wrote it under "blue."

They each chose their own favorite crayon name and used it for this activity. Tornado chose "Macaroni and Cheese" and wrote "Fall leaves are macaroni and cheese."

Sissy's picture for "Orchid" above says,  "The color of orchid is shining in my eyes."

Dash wrote: The silky pine trees are forest green.

This activity (which I can no longer find the link to at Sunny Days in Second Grade) required the kids to use crayons to create their own new paint color. We first looked at paint colors and paint names on paint company websites.

Tornado named his paint, of course, Crazy Tornado. He wrote: This color reminds you of "a garden after a terrible rain storm." And: This paint is just perfect for "a boys' room because it is all the colors boys like."

Dash created DurWorm. The color reminded him of "digging in the dirt and finding worms in the nice, light dirt," and is perfect for "painting soil on a wall mural."

Linkin' up HERE!

Weekly Wrap-Up/Homeschool Mother's Journal

In Our Homeschool This Week:

one of our Tea Times this week: 

mango coconut milk So Delicious, fresh mango, water, 

and My Father's World lesson

oranges, Cashew Crunch, Hawaiian tea mixed with agave nectar, 

and Pedro's Journal

lots of reading aloud

The Academy at Thousand Oaks temporarily moved to the tire shop yesterday for 2 1/2 hours. That amount of time in a waiting room probably doesn't sound fun with 4 kids, but we were able to get a lot of schoolwork finished.

Grammar Lessons

Tornado has started his Easy Grammar curriculum. 

We started with the nouns section so that 

Brother and Sister could join in.

We made this chart.

We used a lot of ideas from Amy at Step into Second Grade. For the boys, we used people, places, things, and ideas - but for Sis, we kept it with the first three.

I folded pieces of art paper and cut it into foldable sections. They cut out pictures from magazines.

I used some of her printables, too.

The boys each took a magazine and highlighted all of the nouns in a story.

Tornado began work on his 

My Parts of Speech Dictionary.

Other language lessons: 

The boys have been working on thank 

you cards for their birthday gifts.

More science projects this week, 

which I'll post about tomorrow.

more about Sissy in kindergarten this week

what we did in My Father's World this week

What They're Playing This Week:

The boys like playing with the sensory tubs as much as Sissy. The boys brought some Super Heroes and Lego guys into the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom sand tub. There must have been a hurricane because I heard Tornado say, "We can make the people run for their liiiives!"

The tub parlayed into filling my table vase with 

water, rocks, and Playmobil people, etc.

That led to playing Lego and Playmobil on the highchair. I really see that if I start something for them, the kids are so much better at playing. Had I never prepared and set out the sensory tub, they never would have gotten out their other toys and would have complained, "There's nothing to do." They need inspiration and nudging, for sure.

In Our Lives This Week:
I have been blogging more regularly. I have been forcing my brain to not zap out, like it usually does after I put the kids to bed. I haven't even watched television much lately. I think I watched one show all week. Anyway, I think that blogging is a very motivating influence for me. It's good for me to see everything we accomplished all laid out in this format. It helps me break down and meet my goals. It gives me something to do because boredom and restlessness are two of my worst enemies. I like spending time doing something that my kids will appreciate one day. And who doesn't need as many motivating influences as possible?

Oh, wait, I did watch two shows - one was House Hunters International (the "a young family downsizes to help others in Peru" episode). I was excited to have my closest reality t.v. connection so far. That's my friend Matt (and Ryan was friends with Nicole) from college. He is a marriage counselor, and Nicole is a physical therapist. They are using their careers and gifts to help missionaries (dealing with marriage issues or adjustment issues, etc.) and orphans (loving and rehabilitating those who are in need). You can read more about them here, and if you ever want to support someone's ministry, they would be a good choice.  If you didn't catch it, watch a rerun and find out more about them on this video.

One of My Favorite Moments This Week:

I got to hang out with my sister Tracy not one but two nights this week. We ate great food and even watched a movie last night, as well.

What We Cooked This Week:

Beet Cookies, recipe from Weelicious

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I'm linking up to:
We Don't Need No Education's Language Linky.

And also: