Homeschooling: CC - Cycle 2 - Week 3

This week is not over and we have not completed everything listed here, but I thought I would post anyway. 

History

Week 3: We learned about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and the Crusades. Blaine did some coloring pages while I read and we made a sword and shield with cardboard, paper, and foil. 

Geography

Week 3: Western European countries - I made another puzzle (printable here). Blaine really seems to like these. I will probably do one every week. 

English

Week 3: Cut and paste activity

Art

Week 3: Upside down drawing activities. If you read this post, you will know that Blaine LOVED THIS drawing activity. He was so excited when he flipped the paper over and saw what he had drawn.

Math

Week 3: I have to be honest.  Blaine has a very difficult time with numbers.  We do our memory melodies and these cut and paste skip counting activities very quickly because I am still working very diligently with him trying to get him to do basic counting. He is showing some improvements, but math has always been a frustrating challenge. I'm open to suggestions.

Science

Week 3: Parts of the food chain. I googled some more random clip art and came up with this cut and paste activity. We took an unexpected trip to the aquarium and insectarium this week and seized the opportunity to learn hands-on about some consumers and decomposers.  Also, we talked again about week 2's topic of consumer types: herbivore, carnivores and omnivores.  We had fun guessing what each animal was by what we observed in their habitats. Our timing was perfect for a few exhibits, seeing the animals being fed.  Blaine will also play a food chain game that I found, available here. 

Seeming underground, in a dark room of the insectarium, I took the one and only picture of our downtown adventures. Here's Blaine on a huge worm... a decomposer!

Latin

Week 3: We are still learning verb conjugation endings - imperfect tense. Nothing fun to show. I did do a cut and paste activity and later we combined our Latin with handwriting exercises. Here are printables for both.  Our tutor came up with a cute pictorial available on C3 that Blaine enjoys and has been very helpful.

That's it! 

A Very Merry Unbirthday!

I. Love. Birthdays! I have decided we will start celebrating half birthdays in the Becker household! I know this will be a new fun tradition our family will look forward to. Since this is a new thing, we are starting with 2.5 year old Vivienne (Becker bomb #2). 

We started our day with a healthy breakfast of..... half donuts! Is there a better way other than with a breakfast full of sugar when you have a 2.5 and (almost) 4 year old?! I think not.

We continued the half bday celebration with lunch of half grilled cheese and half a banana! And a silly face!

Vivienne received an Amazon.com gift card for her birthday and it has just been sitting on my desk ever since. So that made me think... to go along with cake, any gift cards the kids get will be spent on their half birthdays.  They get SO MANY toys for their birthdays, this should help spread them out and give the kids something new that they are into later in the year. I guess normally it would include walking around the toy store, but since it was an Amazon card, I placed an order for FIVE My Little Pony figures (her current fav).

Our kids are 18 months apart - Blaine's birthday is in August and Vivienne's birthday is in February. Blaine's half birthday is in February and Vivienne's is in August. That means (at least) twice a year, we get to eat cake TWICE in one month! 

We had a half pink vanilla half bday cake with vanilla frosting. YUM!  I made a cute cake topper to go on the cake and Vivi blew out half a candle. 

If this post has inspired you to start having a few extra celebrations in your household, my professional opinion is you start with.... cake! You can purchase and download the printable here for the pink chevron topper. Also available in blue/white chevron and grey/white chevron.  Just cut out, string up, attach with tape or hot glue to some paper straws or bamboo skewers!


Do you celebrate half birthdays? What traditions do you include?

Becker Bombs Away

Hey everyone! Here I am. New site. New name. New blogging purpose.  Hoping to share our crazy life here so stay tuned.