Tulsa Air and Space Museum

We're lucky to live in a state with very little requirements for homeschoolers.  This has allowed us to choose what we want to learn.  While we've purchased a few workbooks here and there, we don't have a formal science program or curriculum.  I either pick our subject or let the girls choose.  This week we're learning about Aviation.  We finished up our week with a trip to the Tulsa Air & Space Museum.   They've added a few cool things since the last time we visited.  We especially liked the flight simulators and the MD-80 tour.  The museum held our attention for over four hours!  Here are 246 photos to prove it!

No-Spend Challenge

Part of my job as a stay-at-home homeschooling mom is to take care of our household.  That includes spending.  Because of oil prices, Dad's overtime hours have been cut back.  Those overtime hours are what gives us the extra that allows me to stay home.  I have a part-time job, or prn in the medical field, but they sometimes don't call very often for me to come in.  My income is sporadic.  It's also my job to teach our girls to be savvy spenders.  When this 31 day challenge popped up in my Pinterest feed, I knew we had to give it a try.

Ruth Soukup at Living Well Spending Less makes it easy (and fun!) to complete 31 days of no spending.

*Ruth Soukup @ Living Well Spending Less*

 



I started the challenge today by looking ahead at the month of October.  What are our non-negotiables?  We have Halloween, of course.  A birthday.  The State Fair.  Dental appointments.  Eye appointments.  All of these are unplanned expenses and non-negotiable for us.  These are built in to our budget next month.  We'll still look for ways to get these things in while spending less.  I have a few opportunities to earn some extra income in October and that money will help us with these non-negotiables.  And we'll definitely be cutting out trips to Sonic, shopping at Amazon and our local thrift shop, non-educational field trips like bowling, and those Reese's pumpkins at Target. 

I received my information for the LWSZ challenge by email after a short sign-up process.  The challenge begins October 1!  I'm not going to bore everyone with daily or even weekly updates.  I'll post our results at the end of the challenge.  If you'd like to follow along with everyone's progress, use the hashtag #31DaysLWSZ on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

September 2015 : Horses, Woody Guthrie, and Idaho

We've fallen into a routine now.  Mondays and Wednesdays are normally spent working on Math, Reading, Khan Academy, Social Studies, Art, and Science.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are our short days with Math, Reading, Khan, Social Studies, and Journal with PE in the afternoons.

Math : We're still working on 180 Days of Math and so far we like the format.  No long lessons with tons of practice questions.  We also do real world math while we're out and about and we incorporate math into our other subjects as well.  Ashlyn had to figure out how many "hands" tall everyone was last week when we were learning about horses.

Reading : We're almost done with our reading comprehension workbooks.  I haven't decided if we'll do a formal grammar study or just learn as we go.  I have noticed the girls definitely need to practice their paragraph writing skills so their next workbooks will probably concentrate more on that.

Khan Academy : The novelty has worn off and the girls are bored with it.

Social Studies : We finished up the West Region of the US and we've started on the Midwest Region.  The girls each pick a state to learn about independently.  They have to choose a famous person from their state and find a book at the library about their state.  Then they complete reports on each.  We also pick a state as a group to study more in depth.  We learned about Lillian Disney, Sacagawea, and Gutzon Borglum from Idaho last week.  This week we're learning about Kansas.

Art : We're finishing up Michelangelo with an outdoor project this week.  We watched a video about him and read several books about his works.  Grandma sent us a photo of David from Italy.

Science : We learned about horses over the last two weeks and this week we'll start exploring aviation.  I printed a lap book about horses from CurrClick.  The girls prefer interactive stuff over worksheet after worksheet.

PE : Lauren and Kaelyn are playing fall ball and their team plays once a week.  All three girls are in gymnastics.

Journal : We're alternating between Scholastic Story Starters, Question of the Day, and Journaling questions from a workbook.

Field Trips : We try to get out of the house every week.  This month we visited the Children's Museum and the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa.  We're planning to visit the Tulsa Air and Space Museum this week.

August 2015 : California, Monarch Butterfly, Picasso

 

Our week started off a little rocky but finished ok.  It's hard to go back to school after a long break.

 

Monday :

                Math and Reading from workbooks.  We're currently using 180 Days of Math and some Reading Comprehension workbooks I ordered from Amazon.  We'll probably do something different when we finish those.

                 Khan Academy.  We just started this and so far the girls like it.  We're working through Math.

                 West Region-California.  We finished our California worksheets and projects.  The girls were supposed to make California out of legos.  They kinda put their own spin on it.  They also had to fill out a paper about a famous person from California.

                 Life Skills-Kitchen.  We baked Oatmeal Muffins together.

                Art-Picasso. 

                Science-Monarch Butterfly.

 

Tuesday :

               Math and Reading, Khan Academy, California, Journal, Life Skillz-Living Room/Laundry, Gymnastics.

 

Wednesday :

              Math and Reading, Khan Academy, California, Art, Science, Life Skillz-Bathrooms

 

Thursday :

              ZOO! and softball

 

Friday :

             Math and Reading, Khan Academy, Journal

 



 

 

 

 

Cherokee Heritage Center

Our family recently visited the Cherokee Heritage Center in Tahlequah (Park Hill), Oklahoma.  We took particular interest in this since our family is part Cherokee.  We began our visit in the gift shop and museum.  At the time of our visit, the center was hosting the Miss Cherokee exhibit of past gowns and crowns.  There is also a moving Trail of Tears exhibit in the museum.   After we finished looking around the inside of the center we joined a tour of a replica of a 1710 Cherokee village, Diligwa.  Our guide, Danny, taught us about life for Cherokees before the move west.  Once our tour was finished we completed our visit in Adams Corner Rural Village, a representation of Cherokee life after the move to Indian Territory.  For more information visit http://www.cherokeeheritage.org/.

The center was once a women's seminary and these are the original smoke stacks from the building.

 

One of the buildings in Diligwa.

 

Danny teaching us about Cherokee life.

 

 

Danny and a friend demonstrating Stick Ball.

 

 

A Cherokee woman teaching us about pottery.

 

 

Danny  in the Council House describing Cherokee spirituality and business.

To supplement our trip to the Cherokee Heritage Center, I did a quick Google search for Cherokee worksheets.


P.S. If you're in the area and like pizza, we recommend Sam & Ella's Chicken Palace.

Back to School!

We've had more than a few weeks off and we're ready to get back at it!  Our cousins were here from Florida for a week then we went on vacation to California for almost two weeks.  The girls did a few pages in their workbooks and a few worksheets about California but for the most part we took those three weeks off!  We starting again on Monday with more structure (hey, summer is over) and the addition of Khan Academy and a collective art program with other homeschoolers. We're also going to a gymnastics trial class and starting softball again!  I'm not sure about the girls, but I'm ready to get back to a routine.

Math : 180 Days of Math (2nd and 4th grade)
Reading : Reading comprehension workbooks from amazon and Mardel.  Each features a short reading passage or lesson. (2nd and 4th grade)
Khan Academy : We're still working through our mastery skills to see where we need to start.
Art : Picasso.  One of the homeschool groups I'm a part of on facebook started an artist a month program.  This month is Picasso.  We'll learn about Picasso as a person and do two projects.  I'm hoping to use these projects as entries in the Tulsa State Fair this year.
Science : Monarch Butterfly.  We went to a Monarch release a few weeks ago and we will finally use the information I picked up there.
Journal : I picked up a journal prompt book at Target a few months ago.  It has fun prompts that only take the girls a few minutes to complete.  I'm not worried too much about the end product at this time.
Life Skillz : I can't write Skillz without a Z.  Sorry, not sorry.  Everyday we'll do something together as a group to contribute to the household.
P.E. : Our girls are super active anyway so I don't feel like we need "P.E.".  The two littles are in softball and we're starting gymnastics again.  This is also a great way for them to hang out with kids their age with similar interests.

See you later this week!

Maps!

We decided that, before we embark on our journey around the world, we should probably learn some map skills!  Here's what we did...

We started off our week just looking at different types of maps.  Park maps, state maps, world maps, zoo maps, etc.

We learned about the different parts of a map and practiced map terms in our vocabulary and spelling lessons.  Our words were: map, compass, direction, legend, latitude, longitude, scale, north, south, east, west, equator, and capital.

We checked out and read books from the library about maps.

We made a compass rose out of paper scraps.

We drew our own maps.

And went geocaching at the lake and practiced coordinates.

We also started our 180 Days of Math workbooks.

And did some journaling from a journaling book I picked up at Target.

 

 

A : 4th/5th grade, L : 2nd grade, K : 2nd grade

Subjects covered this week : Language Arts, Math, Social Studies, Fine Arts, PE, Health & Safety