"M week" -Moon, Marshmallows, and More

As we thought of more "M words" in the week we added just a bit to the part on the right.  "Map making men roasting marshmallows and meat in the meadow with a monkey for money."  M is definitely the easiest letter when coming up with an object that looks like and starts with the letter in question.

As always, I search for pictures online of real things or in the alphabet books that we have to give me ideas of what to put on the chalk board.  I change them a bit, but it helps a lot to look at pictures of mountains before trying to create them.

And of course, if the object I want to add into the picture is hard to put in I just do the hand holding the item.  I find this funny, but I don't know if anyone else would get my sense of humor.

 I really like doing a letter a week because I can use the same frame work for all three girls, but then focus specifically on their level of learning.  With the oldest we can talk about words and concepts and go more deeply into thinking about all the things that start with that letter.  She loves to do the chalk board and see what I come up with too.  Then with the little one I can simply talk about the alphabet and just that one letter of the week.  We talk about colors and she listens to the stories we read.  The middle child joins the youngest some and the oldest some and we still do their work-boxes and practice their reading.  It's been a great way for me to feel organized with a structure to it all in a creative way instead of just feeling like we are doing the same work books over and over.  My oldest especially likes this creative "unit" project based approach, and the middle one is a bit more ready for another workbook I think.  ;)

My girls chalk board designs.  The oldest did the one on the top, the 6 year old did the middle one and the 3 year old did the one on the bottom.  I made the "M" over her magical looking colorful clouds of chalk design so we decided that "Magic" would be a good description for her picture.

My "Jamberry" test with the chalk.  I use chalk made for paper so it's a richer colored, softer, kind that stains the wall if I'm not careful!  I wondered if it would mess up my jams, but nope! jamartist.jamberrynails.net

 We did this a few years ago "Doodle on the moon" is a free printable and the girls had lots of fun with it again.

What would "M week" be without "Marshmallow Math" time?  I didn't get a picture of the 3 year olds, but she was even doing pretty good with making shapes.  She was especially delighted with her triangle.  The 8 year old created a dodecahedron (a 20 sided figure!)

On a different day we did some Math with M&Ms and the girls voted it their favorite project.  Actually, specifically, subtraction was their favorite part of this learning time.  We used a graph, we counted, we divided, we multiplied, we subtracted, and we mostly did it in real life while I showed them what it would look like if we wrote the "problems" down using the "language" of math.  Really trying to emphasize the concrete world before teaching them how to use math formulas and the language of math in general.  I'm seeing some "clicking" moments with my oldest and don't doubt that all this will come easier to her later because we've started learning math in this way.

The 3 year old counting.

My oldest wanted to make a stocking for her cat.  So, we broke out the fabric and she did it!

And it turned out great!  I pinned it for her, but she sewed the strips and it all together so well on her own.  How many 8 year olds do you know who are doing things like this or this well?

Mac and cheese while watching a "Wild Kratts" about Monkeys or something.  ;)

One day we focused mostly on Music.  I've had this cd for a long time and never got around to putting it on.  The coloring book that came with it was all voted off the island, so we did something else.

As the girls listened to the music and the different instruments they came up with sounds and patterns that they thought the sounds would look like.  The 3 year old is "dancing" her two hands holding the pastels to create her art.  My oldest ended up creating a "music book" with a picture of herself on the cover playing a violin (because she said that's what she wants to learn to play) and each page was a different color according to what sound it was representing.  When I say she made a book I mean that she actually sewed the binding of it all on her own and everything.  It was neat to see what they all came up with.

The 6 year old's drawings of how the music sounds "look."

Friday we bought gluten free oreos and chewed them into the shapes of the phases of the moon.

The chewing was a favorite part of this, but the whole time we listened to "Moonlight Sonata" by Beethoven and watched the moon's phases.  I then played that song on the piano while the girls all danced to it.

Ta da!

They actually got a little sick of eating these so when the Daddy came home he enjoyed a little pre-dinner snack of left overs

You can see my computer in the background showing the moon video which you can find here Movie with the Moon

I found this online and printed out 3 of them to use with our cookies.

My oldest said she already knew what some of the phases of the moon were called.  How do you know that I ask?  Oh, she learned it from the Tangled tag reader book.  Well, there you go.  ;)

A book we bought this week was a favorite as well.  About a Moose who has a pretty magnificent "Moosetache"and it's about decorating and getting ready for Christmas so it seemed to fit.  I'm trying to decide when I want to decorate and am thinking I need to do a purge to make room for decorations!  It's feeling cluttery and crowded in here as always.
"Mooseltoe"

I'm almost done making our little "math gnomes" which is a fun way to introduce the four processes to children (waldorf style) so we'll have a bit more of "m week" at the beginning of next week too and I'm still reading through some of our stories that I'd gathered from the library and from what books I had already.

math gnome story 

 The girls have been enjoying the stories from this book "Tell me a Story"
And it's a good example of a compilation that you can find and just look through to get a bunch of stories that have words in the title that start with the letter of the week idea.  I went through it and sticky-noted all the ones that seemed interesting that went along with the week.  There are a few stories in this book that I probably won't read to my girls, but for the most part I like it.  The language is rich and they are quite imaginative.  I've always loved fairy tales for this reason.  They don't have to make sense always, but the great thing about them is how they are surprising and interesting.

My oldest still has a "movie making" kit that her Daddy got her, but they haven't done that together yet.  It's for a clay-mation sort of idea. 

"M week" was fun and we'll add a few more days of it onto this.

Then "N" for "nothing" week.  Yeah, you really want to know what that's all about now don't you.  ;)

Our Lovely (Long) "L week"

 The girls thought I hid the big and little L's better then usual.  Right after I do these I always point out all the objects and point and read the words to them.  It's amazing how much they get from just that and looking at the chalk board in our dinning room all week (or over two weeks in this case.)  Near the end of the time I asked them to find certain words on the board and they could!

Working on their own chalk boards with alphabet books as inspirations.

Lego Louie might be my favorite.

And the other side of the "living room" picture

It was time to change around our work area.  My oldest wasn't using her craft table anymore so I took that down and moved the other craft table back inside.  The two older girls can share the medium table and the tall table can be JUST for eating.  So happy to not have crafts all over the table when I'm trying to set up our meals three times a day!

This has nothing to do with "L week" but I saw a DIY rental type hack to redo around a fireplace with chalk board contact paper and so I thought I'd try it!  This is the "before picture"

And this is the "after" - I can easily take it down if I get tired of it or I can change the pattern I drew on there.

I got the girls some new wintery outfits today!  Paid for by my first little paycheck from being a Jamberry Independent Consultant.  jamartist.jamberrynails.net

Holding my artwork while wearing the jams that I created in Jamberry's "Nail Art Studio" so that I'd have a profile picture for my business page.  facebook.com/ArtistLynneSleiman

While I was sick this last week the Daddy took the girls to "Lego Land"!

Building together.  So sweet.

With "Emmet" from the new Lego Movie.  I highly recommend that movie!

 And today we went to the zoo and looked for animals that had names that started with "L" ... there aren't a lot of them, but we did see a few!

A Lorikeet.

It was a little freaky to have birds crawling all over us.

Ack on the head!

Got a good view of the lion (I forgot to take pictures of the Lemurs.)

Bye Lion!

A few more ideas for "L week"
How to utilize Legos in homeschooling
Lego tips and hacks
Check out this lego loom! 

We watched a show from the library about "light" and read several books that started with "L" like "Lama lama red pajama" and many others.
The book "Lady Bug Girl" - classic

"K week"

 This week, because we are preparing to fly up to visit my family, I mainly just did the chalk board and read some books from the library.  The chalk board took at least twice as long this time though for some reason.

Decided to hang the girls chalk boards on the wall too so I used pipe cleaners and twisted them all around so that I could hang them up when the girls were done with their drawing for the week.

The highest one is by my 8 year old and the one bellow that is by the 6 year old (She seems to be the most "into" it at the moment) and the scribbly one is by the 3 year old.  I asked her if I could make a "K" over her scribbles and she said yes.

Close up of the middle child's

kangaroo flying a kite with a King shaped like a "K" by the oldest

I'm trying out my desk by the piano now to open up the dining room.

And the finished chalk board... seems hard to find things that start with "K" and also making it all make sense, so I did a kindergarten class in costumes.

The king is saying "Hark ye kids, I know of a Kraken who tied himself in a knot."  My own opinion about that story is that the Kraken was trying to learn to knit.  :)

 So we talked about silent K words this week and the girls did a bunch of random crafts on their own.  I made cookies and turned it into a lesson on division and subtraction.  The subtraction was everyone's favorite part of that math lesson.

I'm really glad this chalk board is going to stay up for a long time but it took so stinking long... people aren't easy to do in chalk, but I really like how it turned out.

The 6 year old working on her visual journal.  She's painting over the crayon drawing that she did.. a portrait of her pink bunny she said.

 The other super fun thing we did this week was learning how to start our own visual journals.  My mother-in-law had taken a class on it and gave us some basics about it and we took off.  Gathering everything we could and making a mess of our books so that they will be ready for the trip (and journaling.)  I was feeling exceedingly energized and creatively renewed by doing this.  Random doodling and no pressure art of whatever I wanted in a book where "there are no mistakes.. it all goes."  Folding, tearing, punching, painting, letting the 3 year old paint or scribble with me.  It was super fun.

My 3 year old was especially impressed when I decided to pull out my old fingernail polish to paint up the pages with too.  It worked great though it made the house pretty stinky.

Here's the page I was working on in the last picture.  It's "done" except that of course I'll be journaling on it!  Maybe about something someone likes or just something about each person, but most of it is water color and just the sandals and toenails are the fingernail polish paint (with a few splatters here and there for effect) so I have lots of places I could write on it.  The part I'm holding in the middle is a mesh bag that had been holding the Kiwi I'd bought this week.  I sewed it to a page so that it could lay over one side and protect the pages from getting stuck together.  Anyway, just wanted to post this in case someone else is wanting to get their creative juices flowing. 

She painted on the fingernails of her traced hand.

We had some Kiwi this week and Kale chips (the Kale chips are a favorite of ours.)

And while I SHOULD have been doing something to get ready for the trip I suddenly was so excited about covering my exercise ball that I "Knit bombed" it!  Yep.. I'd knitted a super long rainbow colored blanket (garter stitch) a while back and it was the perfect size to wrap around the ball.  Note all the felt and junk on the floor.. ONE morning I tell you of my kids crafting and it gets like that!  And this was a lighter day.

 If anyone wants to do this too you might be able to find an afghan or something already made to sew on.  I hand sewed (with yarn and a yarn needle) the seems to make it fit right and left part of it un-sewn (though that part of it butted up nicely to itself) and then deflated the ball halfway (yes just do it right on the ball) sewed the seams on the machine and cute off the extra (you have to sew it on the machine so it doesn't unravel) then flip it right side out and stuff the ball back inside.  Pump up the ball and all you have left to do is use the yarn needle and yarn to stitch up the part you left undone.  I'd thought of putting a zipper in, but decided to use brown yarn to stitch it up so I could see it well enough to just cut the one section of yarn when I need to take it out again.

I'm just so excited about this.  It makes me smile every time I see it.  I'm wondering what old sweaters that I never wear anymore could be turned into a knit bomb somewhere else.  :)

I found this at the library for this week (among others) and it was a cute story.  Stories about Kitten's and Kings were popular choices for our "k week"

THIS show came in super handy while I was trying to go through all the kids clothes to pack and prepare our projects and so forth to take on vacation with us.  My oldest especially loves learning all the facts about different animals.  It's on Netflix instant right now, but we also found a bunch of new episodes that the girls hadn't seen on Youtube.