A Stormy Day Lesson

Today was rather difficult to get outside like I had planned.  It seemed like every time we went to put our shoes on to go out to play the sky opened up or there was a loud clap of thunder.  Thankfully I had planned on discussing storms as part of the science lesson today, so the outdoors was a wonderful exhibit.

We started the day by completing Day 3 in the work books.  There was no cursive writing today, so A was a happy kid.  Instead we discussed different types of sentences.  K's page was rather simple because it was the letter "C", since he is already reading basic books, letters are "easy peasy."  The boys really enjoyed writing a fiction paragraph yesterday, so I continued the theme.  The topic was a story starring their Lego people that they colored in yesterday.  True to form, they both came up with some real cool stories.

As I stated earlier, storms were the topic for today.  I wanted to really cover Hurricanes with the kids. We live in a hurricane prone area, and neither one of the boys has actually been through anything larger than a Category 1, so the thought of a hurricane can be rather scary.  We started out by watching Bill Nye the Science Guy-"Storms".  I found the video on YouTube and it is the complete episode without commercials.  Then we went to our local new station website and watched a video on how we can prepare for a hurricane.  We went over the hurricane prep list and discussed why each of the items was needed and how much we as a family would need to acquire.  You can find the list at the Bay News 9 website.

A is also in charge of tracking the storms each day on his very own hurricane tracking map.  I printed it out from the NOAA website, the numbers are rather small and hard to read.  Normally the local stores have maps and "hurricane season guides" out in the stores, but I haven't seen any so far.  Honestly, it scares me that so many people in the area are completely unprepared because it has been 10 years since we have had a hurricane, and the community has become rather comfortable.  So far there is nothing in the Gulf or the Atlantic, but that has a habit of swiftly changing at a moment's notice.

A's tracking map- There is one in the Pacific!

Getting Silly!

Yesterday was about goals, but I didn't want them to think that the whole summer was going to be serious!  Today I went with a more creative feel.  The boys started out with their workbooks first today, I think they just really wanted to get them out of the way.  A got a bit frustrated because the books are teaching him cursive writing (something that is NOT taught in the schools here, but I feel is an important skill to learn).  After the grumblings of having to "learn a new way to write", it was time to crack open the writing journals.  Today's topic was super silly and encouraged the boys to write a fictional paragraph.  Each boy had to start off their journal entry with "Today the dog took the car for a joyride..." Both boys came up with very imaginative responses and even wrote more than the few sentences that I requested!

Then we moved on the electronics.  Now, before anyone freaks out, I was (technically still am) a substitute teacher for the boys' school district.  I know which sites the school has the children use during their computer lab times (ask your child's teacher for ideas, 9 times out of 10 the sites are completely FREE).  One of them is ABCYA.com  if you have never checked it out, I highly recommend it.  It has site word bingo, math games, reading games, and even grammar based games and all of them are arranged by the child's grade level.  I am having the boys play the games for the level that they are entering, so that way the games are a bit more challenging.

After lunch (and a call to maintenance for a backed up AC), we decided to finish up with some Art.  When I was substituting for an art class, I was inspired by this one teacher's fantastic idea of coloring Lego people.  The classes that participated in this activity loved it, so I figured that my boys might as well.  I scoured the internet to find the coloring sheets, and found them!  You can download your very own PDF for this project at The Happily Uprooted Blog.

The boys' Lego people

Even Mom got in on the coloring fun!