Out of the corner of my eye

Today, we skipped ahead to Papa Piccolo. It is a delightful story about a cat that adopts some stray kittens. I decided on starting the week the science lesson and we talked about peripheral vision. I don't think Hannah got it because she kept looking at my finger instead of my nose :)
It's a busy month. I'm not sure how often I'll be posting about class because we are also having guests galore and I'm working on a novel for National Novel Writing Month, but I am definitely planning on doing classwork

Good Evening, Japan

I believe that Hannah really liked A Pair of Red Clogs, she sat through the entire book without having to be reigned back  in once.  I decided to start with science this week, as we have a wedding coming up and I thought it would be neat to record the predictions of the weather for the big day and see what they actually turned out to be.  We are using two online websites for the predictions, taking down the high and the precipitation predictions.  I'm hoping that later today we can create a colorful chart to go with it.
It also turned out that we did our social studies lesson today.  We placed Japan on a world map, but then to make it even better, a dear friend of mine, currently in Korea visited Japan last weekend.  He was on instant messenger so we were able to quiz him about Japan!  He told us that the people are extremely friendly, they where the same shoes that we do, the weather is like California, people were fishing there, and that the food was amazing!  Now how is that for a lesson!!

Sweater Weather

Tomorrow is the first day of fall!  YEAH!  Our science lesson today included some sweaters from the closet.  We are reading The Rag Coat this week.  I must admit, I cried!  But to help show the differences between the different natural fabrics, we took a trip to the closet.  We touched wool, cotton, linen, and mixtures.  Luckily, there was one cotton sweater in the bunch so when Hannah labeled it as wool by look alone, we were able to talk about the the feel of them and really see how cotton and wool feel different in the same context.
It is amazing to me how we can take  plants and turn them into clothing!  I think I'll try to find some movies on Netflix that have the cotton gin or cotton industry on them for this week.
UPDATE: I did find something on Netflix Instant Viewing it was Eco Trip Season 1 Cotton T-Shirt episode.  In the episode, the host goes to a cotton farm, and helps harvest some of the cotton and the journey to a T shirt.  Hannah isn't in a place to watch the entire episode, as it goes on to talk about the chemical pesticides.

Mixing Things Up

The science lesson for today is mixtures!  So we mixed up some pudding and for lunch I think we'll mix up some soup maybe with noodles like Giovanni had in The Clown of God . We also souped up the science lesson by talking about how rainbows are formed.  The simplified version of sun plus rain equals rainbow.  I might throw in the story of Noah later today to round out the whole rainbow mixture theme.
We have Midweek Mania starting tonight.  I hope that Hannah really enjoys herself.  She really moved straight out of the nursery and into the fast lane!
I purchased Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons awhile back and it was packed away during our move.  I found it again the other day and we started it two days ago.  Hannah HATES it, but I'm making her do it anyway.  She does love drawing her letters on Joel's Ipod Touch Whiteboard (free app), so that's how I get her involved. 
I don't think I expected as much of the "I don't want to do school" as I have been getting the last couple of days.  It's our third week, and I imagined that she would be over that at this point, but instead I have to be the mom and tell her we're doing it anyway.

Don't Get Sick

The science lesson today was about "healthy habits."  I wasn't feeling it, so instead we identified the seasons in the various drawings in Madeline.  We talked about winter, spring, summer, and fall.  We guessed that Madeline must have got sick either in spring or summer. 
Overall, I would say that the lesson plans forMadeline were a little lacking!  But then again, I may know a little too much about Paris to be satisfied. 
I would let you know what we are studying next week, but I don't know yet.  My plan was to run by the library today, but it's closed this weekend for a festival downtown.  We'll have to go by the library on Monday, which will have to be in the evening as we are a one car family. 
It's an exciting week coming up though!  Sunday School starts tomorrow and for the first time in Hannah's life she will be able to have her very own class.  She has visited at other churches, but this is the first time at her own church.  We also start Community Bible Study this week AND Wednesday night programming starts up again.  I think it will be a wonderful week!

Where does my food go?

Vocabulary was on our agenda today.  The words in Madeline are appendix, solemn, and disaster.  We had a little body geographyin order to find Hannah's appendix and talked about the digestive system along the way.  And the other two vocabulary words gave a perfect oppurtunity for context guessing of a meaning.  And given the context and illustrations, Hannah guessed correctly the meaning of the words!
I had a magazine about France out on the table this morning and as we talked about what is for breakfast in France, she started to flip through it.  She noticed the statue of liberty, which was gifted to us from the French.  In the end, we had not only vocabulary lessons, but history and geography and health lessons as well!
After the lesson, Hannah wanted to dance, and Michael W. Smith's A New Hallelujah was in the player.  We got to rock out to some Jesus songs! 

Sink or Float

I hear this question all the time from Hannah at the pool. She always wants to know if she is going to sink or float when she jumps into the deep end. She wears a little float that reminds me of the barrel the boat boy wears in The Story about Ping. For science today, we did "sink or float" in the kitchen sink.
I asked Hannah to gather up all sorts of things she would like to find out if they sink or float. She brought her piggy bank, a bracelet, a wood figure, some plastic toys, a wallet, a pencil and a pen. Here's the amazing part...The piggy bank didn't have its stopper in, so it sank, but when we put the stopper in, it floated, which let me talk to her about the air in things. The pencil didn't float because of the eraser end, so we snapped it off and saw that it could then float and the other end sank. We even pulled out some bottles with tops so that we could sink them.
We've been singing the Jars of Clay song "40 days" I'm reminded that when I'm down, He can lift me up.