The Connett Connection

I have spent the last several weeks collecting pine cones to use with my kids for a few projects this winter. The first project we did was this turkey pine cone art project.  It was more difficult than I initially anticipated.  The feathers kept falling off the turkey, even after we glued them in.  Perhaps they would stick better with hot glue, but I am not comfortable with my 5 year old using a hot glue gun! We made a pine cone Christmas tree as well.  We painted the pine cone green and glued different colored pom poms to the inside of the cone. We made these cute pine cone owls as well!  Simply stuff the pine cone with cotton and glue eyes and a beak!  This makes a perfect craft for a winter animal or owl unit! We also painted with our pine cones.  We dipped our pine cones in paint and rolled them around our paper! We made rainbow pine cones to decorate our counter!  My daughter loved making the pine cone all different ...

We did a mini lesson on acorns.  I never thought it would be so hard to find acorns for us to use!  No one in our neighborhood has an oak tree.. I mean really?  Two hundred houses and no oak tree!  We finally found some at our chick-fil-a, at a home we stopped at for a yard sale and in the yard of a friend! I made these acorn measurement task cards to introduce my daughter to weight and how to use her new beam balance! We first worked with the cards that had us figure out which objects weight more, a set number of acorns or a set number of other objects.  I made sure that each card had objects we could easily find around our home, like pennies, buttons, blocks, marbles, etc.  We next figured out which of the objects weighed less. We then used task cards that had us figure out how many acorns would equal the weight of the given object(s).  The above picture shows that 3 acorns weighed the same as the one block we placed in the balance! ...

So the last two weeks have been very unconventional in our home school journey.  For week 14, we were out of town at my grandmother's house.  I told my daughter I would only take a few days of school since we were already 8 days behind, but that I would not make her have school lessons everyday since we were technically on vacation. I love the way my daughter will sometimes do her writing in artistic ways.  She loves to be cutesy and loves art, so I do not correct her when she does things like the above writing.  She did what I asked in a way that was fun for her.  The fact that she thought to make her letters this way was impressive to me as I've never modeled letters looking like this nor have I ever seen her make them this way before.  Everyday we do school work, I have her write the date as the first thing we do.  We talk about the days of the week, month of the year and the number of the day during this time as well! We did another guid...

Another week has ended!  A new one is about to begin!  We had a lot of fun this week, especially with our big project and a new writing plan! We are finishing up a study on the grasslands !  Just a few more days left and then it is one to studying the forest! We had fun using these clip cards to figure out what type of grassland each of these animals lived in. Part of testing her knowledge of the grasslands was doing this writing paper .  I ask her to draw a grassland and then two animals that live in the grassland. Our big project this week was making this grasslands box .  We did a small portion of the project each day this week and on Friday we added our animals and the kids got to play with it.  My 2 year old was so excited to add animals to the box.  He came running over with his favorite animal, his shark.  He got a lesson on why sharks do not belong in the grasslands! Someone posted this idea for writing rubrics on Fac...

Thanksgiving is almost here and we have been working on some pretty neat Thanksgiving crafts the last few days! We did a whole lesson on corn.  I wrote a detailed post about it HERE . Above are two corn crafts what we made from a corn template pattern .  The first we used q-tips to make the corn kernels and the second we used tissue paper. We also made this turkey center piece using a toilet paper roll and a turkey template .  We decorated each feather a different color and with different materials! We also made this turkey out of a pine cone.  It was a bit trickier than I had thought it would be.  We had trouble with the feathers sticking inside.  I think, despite the trouble, it did turn out pretty cute! I was also surprised that many continue a pumpkin theme into November.  I have always ended pumpkin themes with the end of Halloween.  If you are looking for pumpkin activities, please check out THIS POST for things to do ...

Another week done and another one to begin!  We had, overall, a good week.  We actually had school time all five days this week and finished all the word we had planned to do!  We started our new phonics book, Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.  So far, my daughter knows and is able to do the lessons, so that is a nice change.  I am seeing she knows a little more than she was letting on! We finished up our Halloween activities early this week.  We carved our pumpkin on Monday.  My son chose the design and my daughter wanted to help make the pumpkin.  She loved sorting the seeds, but did not like touching the "slimy stuff." Our very last Halloween craft this year were these mummies!  One was made with masking tape as the wrapping and the other was made by cutting paper strips and gluing them to the mummy! We had some great weather this week, so we spent a lot of time outside! We finished a series of lessons on e...