I had listings for my lifepacs first grade NEW on eBay and this one woman bid
and won TWO of these items.
She did not communicate with me for a while, then promised to pay, never
did, then when I filed an un-paid item dispute she said, she "Decided to go with
something else"!
This AFTER I wrote to her about how, with school starting that this is a
"Time Sensitive Product".
AARRGHHHH!
She WILL be getting the unpaid item strike, if anything at
least to get the ball rolling, in case she does this again, to protect other
sellers.
I wish they sold SCRUPLES at Walmart!
Meanwhile . . .
If you are in the market for the English or math Alpha Omega Lifepacs that are NEW Complete and UNUSED and you want FREE SHIPPING.... Please click these links.
Friday, August 24, 2007, 11:33 AM CST
[Lapbooking]
The SOLAR SYSTEM!
While we spend time investigating the Oceans and other water habitats, I
wanted to share with you something I just remembered....
We built a basic introduction to the Solar System lapbook, last year for
first grade. This was our first lapbook and sold me on the concept!
When this was finished, my boys could tell you all of
the planets, in order, which ones were mostly rock, which ones were mostly
gas, what lies between the two sets of four, and that Pluto may or may not
be a planet, but if it is then there are five outer planets.
They know that the sun is simply the closest star and
that is is a ball of burning gas, as all stars are. They learned about the
Apollo moon trips and the date and Name of the first moon landing and Neil
Armstrong's name.
I was so amazed a their retention (Even now they remember it all) that it
totally sold me on this "Hands On" form of teaching science and social
studies.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 10:22 PM CST
[Lapbooking]
We have begun our "Habitats" studies for
science. Right now, we are delving into "Oceans".
Why Oceans? Mostly because
http://www.learningpage.com has sooooooooo much free things on their
site, that it just lent itself to being the Jumping-off place in the
studies. We will have to figure out something else for the other basic
biomes (Habitats) such as Forrest, Deserts and so on. If you know of a
great site with these items covered, please leave a note!
All the kids intently cutting out the sea animals to put with their Mural
of the ocean. (From: LearningPage.com)
These are the animals they colored and then cut out. (From:
LearningPage.com)
This is a stack of "Fact Files" about the animals in the ocean. (From:
LearningPage.com)
What are we doing?
LearningPage.com's Ocean Unit has a mural of 15 or more sheets. You put
them together on the will and you have a great background for your wall!
We decided to color the pictures in crayon. But we left the sky and ocean
water (Backgrounds) white. Then, we grabbed some watercolors and slathered
the pictures with blue watercolor paint. This emphasized to the kids that
everything in the ocean is covered in water and that the water appears to
change the color of things underwater. This began a discussion of light
refraction, but we were done before we got too far and they are only 7
so.... (From: LearningPage.com)
Yes! It is yours truly working with the children!. DH took this photo.
S-Baby being ever so delicate with her painting.
(From: LearningPage.com)
Me again, being handed another masterpiece and putting them down to dry.
(From: LearningPage.com)
And this is the papers drying out on the tables. It really only took
about 20 minutes for the to dry, and then we were able to hang them on the
wall! (From: LearningPage.com)
Once we got it all taped up on the wall, we were able to tape our little
ocean animals to the mural. (From:
LearningPage.com)
Everyone gets in on the act, and this has really helped up to be closer,
since all three children get to participate. (From:
LearningPage.com)
I ran over to ABCTEACH.com to grab some word-wall words. I printed these
out in color and taped them to the top and bottom of the mural to make a
type of boarder. Looks like it worked realtively well, eh? (From:
ABCTEACH.com)
I also grabbed some Surfing Bookmarks from
ABCteach as well. These are just
great, because the twins and the baby are reading so much now, that they
need the bookmarks. Having them match the them of this unit study is just
perfect! (From: ABCTEACH.com) I got
the library card holder from a teacher supply store, not online. The ocean
stickers I got from a dollar store, not online.
We are waiting for all the social things that will be starting up, next week. In the downtime, we like to hang out with each other and do some creative stuff. Goodness knows that once the school year of activities is in full swing, we will never be home again! hahaha!
Here is a few photos from this past Thursday of the kids working on a few things....
We will call it "Dough Day"
First, out came the play-dough, or a cheap dollar store facsimile thereof.....
Zack's Blue Broken Heart . . . Awe!
Connors' injured Purple Heart (With a little blood {RED} Still in it)
A sword is a COMPLETELY APPROPRIATE play-dough cutting utensil! Apparently this is an unwritten rule in the book of kid-dom!
------------------------------------
Then the dough of currency, in this house; ie: Education:
In a deal with Mom and Dad, the twins get their Playstation 2 back, when they complete an "X" number of short book reports. Now, before you think I am an evil mother, these are simply short papers with the Title, Author Name, Two character Names and two sentences of the book. That's it!
And I could have taken the whole Playstation away, to be honest. Plus they get to pick the books that they read, so they have some control. This is not a form of punishment, it is instead a program of encouragement with a reward at the end.
For every one they write, they get a reward sticker. 5 stickers gets them one thing (Usually computer) 10 gets them something else and 20 gets them Chuck E Cheese...... We tape them on the wall like a "Book Worm" wrapping around the room!
This sticker page and stickers were sold separately at a teacher supply store in town. Sorry, no link available.
If you would like to check out the FREE collection of Book reports available from Kindergarten to 6th grade, Click HERE!
The second grade level is where we are. Click HERE!
---------------------------------------
Finally, the Edible Dough!
While the twins worked on that project, Sasha helped mom make some fresh bread. She loves helping!
Although she also likes to look "Cool", don't let her fool you.... she begged to help stir the dough.... but she has to look "Cool" in case her "Peep" see any of this.... sigh . . .
She gets into beating the crap out of the bread. (AKA: Kneading)
Brother realised that sister was having all the fun and he just HAD to get in on it. "Not sure what the bread did so wrong for you to beat on it, but I am in on it!" Hahaha!
The bread is resting and rising, while the twins finish their reports.
Yea, we are such freaks that my kids even like SALAD! AAAAHHHH the horror!
