The dictionary app- Vocabulary, here we come!

We are on an never ending quest to improve our vocabulary. I remember being a kid, stuck at a desk, copying definitions, roots, and sentences to learn my five vocabulary words of the week. While it was effective, it was not enjoyable. I don't have this memory because I cherished the experience. Rather, it is indelibly burned on my brain, kind of like a scar lasts forever. I know, enough drama, Mama!

Right now, we are expanding our vocabulary by reading. We are currently enjoying "Farmer Boy" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Periodically, I'll pause on a word and ask the boys if they have the definition. Usually, the answer is no. We then take a look at the sentence. Can we guess the meaning by sentence clues? This strategy is sometimes effective.

Usually, I bust out my super smart phone, and we check out the Merriam Webster app. This is such a great resource!

My kids' favorite feature is the Voice Search. Nothing is cooler than yelling a word at my phone. It's true. What I love is that as I type in the word, if I'm not using voice search, the app auto-detects what I am trying to spell. Then I choose from the drop down list. It's also great at defining adverbs like "easily" and "quickly." Not that you don't know those words. But in a traditional dictionary, you have to try to find the root word first.

As someone who has suddenly found herself reading aloud A LOT, I love that there is an option to hear the word pronounced. For instance, I came across the the word "haymow" in our book. While I was fairly certain I had the right pronunciation, I gave it a try with my app. I was right. I think it's important to let the boys see me look up words too.

This week we studied Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride." While it's historically inaccurate, it was a great way to do some vocabulary building. I had the boys highlight words they didn't know the meaning of, and then they got to use the Merriam Webster app to find the definitions of the word that fit in the context of the poem. Highlighters= fun in our house.

This post is linked up with learning ALL The time!!

How much writing does a ninja really do?

Today, the boys wrapped up what we've learned so far about the Revolutionary War by writing newspaper articles about an event we've previously studied. Jerimiah chose the Boston Tea Party, and Anthony wrote about the Boston Massacre.

Can I just tell you, it was excruciating to get those boys to write. You would think I'd covered them in sugar and tied them to an ant hill. Once we got the initial draft, which was difficult, no revision was acceptable to them. Not a single one. I mean, they made them...but it was like I asked them to rewrite Moby Dick or something.

Clearly, writing is not our favorite thing. I LOVE to write (you may have noticed), so I'm perplexed by this. We are going to start incorporating more writing into our everyday lessons. Ideally, this will eventually cut down the resistance to this. We'll see how that goes.

Writing is an essential skill. I discussed this with the boys, but of course they aren't too worried about using writing in their careers. They want to be ninjas. Honestly, how much writing does a ninja really do?

Looking for a few good followers

Hey y'all. This is an embarrassing post. Why? Because, basically I'm begging.

I'm begging you to like me. To follow me.

Don't worry, it's not a lifetime commitment. But could you please follow me? Pretty please? With sugar on top?

 I never thought it would come to this. But it has. You, the reader, complete me. Well, in the blogging sense.

Won't you be, please won't you be, oh won't you be....my follower?

 I feel like a cult leader. But only half as charismatic.

Math and the Great Outdoors

We took advantage of everyone's good health (finally!) yesterday to get outside and enjoy God's beautiful work. We are just starting to have the true feel of fall in our area. And I know when I think of Fall, I think math! Well, maybe not right away, but I did think of Fall and Math together.

In math, the Anthony is working on addition/subtraction and measuring, and Jerimiah is working on geometry/angles. I decided to do a review for them and reinforce graphing and fractions.

First, we went to a beautiful local park. Our mission was to collect data on the trees on our short walk. We counted how many were red, yellow, orange, green, and brown.

The data was then formed into a bar graph. We decided that we wanted to make our bar graph horizontal. This was a great way to review horizontal and vertical.

  Anthony handled the vertical axis by labeling our colors.

 Jerimiah then measured the horizontal axis. He looked at the data, and determined a common factor among most of the numbers. All numbers but one were divisible by three, so we divided our horizontal axis into sections by three. It worked out that each inch equaled one unit.

 Anthony measured to find 6 inches for the number of red trees.

 Then we glued each bar to the correct point on the graph.

 Jerimiah worked on measuring and cutting the yellow bar.

 Dad was hard at work. At the time, I thought he was playing on Facebook. Turns out, he was researching how to make rope. You know, just in case there really was a blackout, like on Revolution. (The TV show.) Good info. I love that man.

 After the graph was completed, we had Jerimiah work on some fractions.

Our completed projects. The kids liked this, but of course they really liked playing at the playground.

How are you working on Math?

More Revolutionary learning

We continued this week with the study of the Revolutionary War and continued learning about birds. You can read about how we studied birds in the previous post. The kids really enjoyed that!

My goal for the kids is to understand what caused the Revolutionary War. I also want them to see both sides of the conflict. Anthony is a true Patriot. He feels that America is always right. Jerimiah, being a bit older, is more levelheaded. He sees that the treatment of the Colonies wasn't right, but that some of the actions of the Sons of Liberty were not right either.

The Stamp Act of 1765 is a great resource to explain the different taxes and limitations placed on the Colonies by King George III. From this book, the boys created note cards that defined each of the Acts and Proclamations that led to the Revolutionary War.

Eventually, we will be using these note cards to create a timeline of the Revolution. The kids enjoyed this activity, and I enjoyed that they enjoyed it. :)

We also reviewed the Boston Massacre. We watched the video at Mr. Nussbaum's web site. I love this site! I use it all the time. We talked about how the behavior on each side was responsible for the tragedy.

Next week we will start working on simple machines in Science, and we will study the Boston Tea Party in Social Studies.

How was your week?

Resource of the Week- All About Birds

This week, I'm joining up with learning All the time!! to bring you my favorite resource of the week.

We studied birds this week, and we made use of All About Birds. This is an amazing website. We listened to bird calls, looked at different birds, and checked to see if we could find these birds in our area. The boys really enjoyed it! Their favorite part was listening to the bird calls.

The site is maintained by CornellLab of Ornithology, so I felt confident that we were using an accurate, credible site.  Check this one out!

Making butter and the Revolutionary War

I thought I might break some of the giant, week-long learning posts into shorter ones. I hope this format is easier to read, and I know it will be easier to write!

Yesterday, we learned about birds by visiting Mr. Nussbaum's site Bird Anatomy. We also visited Learning Games for Kids and watched several videos there. My favorite part though, was learning about birds from DK Eyewitness Books BIRD. I love, love, love this series of books. Every one we have read has given us tons of information in bite-sized, easy to follow pieces.

Today, we start our study of the Revolutionary War. We kicked off with making butter. I realize, butter is not synonymous with Revolutionary War, but it was an activity that was done during that time. Plus, we've read about it in the Little House series. I also thought it would be fun, and since I'm the boss, I won! (It's good to be the boss.)

 Mom, you're seriously taking pictures of this? Seriously? And yes, that is a pickle jar. 

 I'm pretending you aren't taking my picture.

 Butter making MACHINE! :)

 I'll smile, Mom, I'll smile. I know you want people to think we have fun at school. 

 The finished product

 Another shot of the finished product.  I was really proud.

 The taste test. Jerimiah was pretending to be in a commercial. I love that kid.

For some reason, I always have a hard time getting shots of Anthony that are in-focus. Must be because he never sits still!

We are also checking out Social Studies for Kids and more Mr. Nussbaum. We are studying the "Acts" and the Boston Massacre today. We will also learn about Crispus Attucks from this book. It's the bilingual edition, which is fun to look at, though the Spanish is meaningless for now. 

What's going on in your classroom?

Linked up with It's a Wrap.