Satori Smiles

I have been working non-stop getting our school year scheduled, preparing for a visit from Gramy and Grampy, and organizing my 20-year class reunion. So we aren’t getting to all our lessons except for reading/phonics/handwriting. To keep Satori intellectually stimulated while I’m organizing, she’s been on BrainPop and playing with jigsaw puzzles!

In fact, she quickly ran through our selection at home, so these came in the mail last week. The Geopuzzles just rock, Latin America GeoPuzzle completes our set. They were easy enough for Satori to do at age 4, yet still fun for David and I.

Try as I might, I couldn’t stay away from the puzzles. When times are very stressful, taking the time to do a puzzle forces me to stop and breathe and take my mind off things. So I helped out with one…

And when David came home, he joined in on this 300 piece Dinosaur puzzle. It’s beautiful!

Because we all had a blast, we picked up this one specifically made for families to do together. This line of puzzles by Ravensburger is called their Family Fun puzzles.

They have three different size pieces – huge ones for PreK-K children, regular-sized ones for K-3 children (or so) and tiny pieces for older children/adults!

Our local toy store had one Family Fun Puzzle in stock for $19.99, but we used a $5 coupon. Amazon has them at $15.99 though, and their Ocean Marvels puzzle (380 pc) is an additional 25% off. We’ll be doing this together soon, maybe with Grandma and Grandpa who are visiting this week!

My previous post I mentioned some great sources for art prints. Just this past week my Art Page-A-Day Calendar 2011 arrived and looks fantastic. Of course we’ll have to stare at the front cover for a few more months, but we’ve all looked through it and are excited about the daily images it will bring next year. This is the same publisher that makes the Brain Quest and What to Expect products by the wayl.

It comes in a plastic case with dimensions 7.4 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches. Here’s what it looks like on our window ledge for size reference.

Here’s the first photo. It isn’t all famous paintings, there is also sculptures, pottery, textiles and more. That’s fine with us, already we’ve seen some Ancient Egyptian art that we can appreciate. The images are in a square format though, so if the original image isn’t square, it may cut off some of the painting. They do show a thumbnail of the whole image in the upper corner if this occurs.

A handful of pages…

Once my 2011 calendar arrived, I loved it so much I jumped online to purchase previous years. Unfortunately, they were not the $10.87 I paid, they averaged anyway from $45 on up into the hundreds! I did manage to snag a used but unopened 2009 calendar for just $19.95. Once that was gone, I was shocked to see remaining ones go up to $999.98!

That is why I think these calendars are a great investment. After the year is up, keep them and use them for art appreciation projects. Use them for art games, flashcards, etc… Or, keep it for a few years and sell for a profit! Here’s the current listing for Art Page-A-Day calendars so you can see what they’re currently going for.

The Smart Lab You Explore It Human Body has been a cool homeschool investment. It comes with a body model that you can explore with the included plastic tweezers and forceps. Lots of fun squishy organs, skeleton and muscle examples, and a clear “skin”. There are already very thorough Amazon reviews, so I won’t go in that much detail, just wanted to share a few photos.

You then place the organs and parts on the Organizer sheet.

As you’re doing all this, you’re following a pizza slice going through the human body and hitting all the major systems. Step by step they guide you where the pizza is and which systems are processing it.

It was really a great educational toy!

And then it helps you reassemble your body. Here he is with his organs back in the body.

David and I are sharing this new toy. So far our favorite apps are: Scrabble, Rush Hour, Plants vs. Zombies, iBird Pro and Kindle. Once I get more used to the iPad, I’ll list all of our favorite educational apps!

Unfortunately, we did give up our iPhones. (I think we’ll be lazy and sell them on a service that makes it super easy to send it in for cash.) We’re not phone users and I never really used mine as a phone, only for email, so I’m not going to miss it too much.

The entire family played Plants vs. Zombies tonight! We kicked zombie butt.

We’ve taken a step back in our handwriting progress, but it should help out in the long run. This year I’ve noticed that Satori doesn’t have extremely neat handwriting, especially at a point where I thought she’d be improving. This became apparent to me after having local girls her age over, who demonstrated very neat and in control handwriting. Then I saw in one of the photos I took that Satori’s grip was all wonky.

I then discovered that I myself had an incorrect grip! Actually I have two different grips, both not good. I’m not too worried about myself, as I mostly use the keyboard now and the little handwriting I do is still neat and legible. But this is an opportunity to correct Satori’s grip. She is really working hard at it now. We used all of Handwriting Without Tears tips on using a correct grip. It got a little frustrating trying to get everything right. Poor girl might get turned off of writing at this stage if I push too hard though.

A few months ago I believed that pencil grips were unnecessary, but we need some kind of help! So I found these colorful pencil grips and got a bag of 6 – The Pencil Grip Crossover Grip Ergonomic Writing Aid. They have little flaps so your thumb and index finger stay in the right place. There’s a comfy spot for your middle finger to rest, and together, it all promotes a proper tripod grip. It is ergonomically correct for both right- or left-handed people.

Both Satori and I are using them. For me, my fingers just fall right into perfect place. My thumb won’t cross over anymore. For Satori, all I have to remind her is to keep her middle finger tucked under, as she used to keep it up on top. We’ve been using them for just over a week now, and they are fun and feel good! Time will tell if Satori can get this new grip ingrained in her head and use a correct tripod grip from now on.

We’re also working on tilting our paper up on the right side while writing. Here she is doing some copywork for Writing With Ease, a program we are growing to love.

Last week we put up a World Map Shower Curtain. I only regret that we hadn’t done this sooner! You can find this shower curtain at Target for just $14.99 or online on Amazon (ships from Target). Here’s our view while sitting on the toilet, it is such a great tool to catch up on some geography when you’re sitting captive.

It’s very easy to read and it doubles as a huge write-on/wipe-off map of the world! We can use our dry erase markers to highlight sections of the world we are studying, and they wipe off super easily. Here’s a closeup of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent area we are reading about this spring.

People looking for an inexpensive map might like to mount this on a few large poster board pieces and have the perfect dry erase map.

Right now we’ll be using it as a shower curtain in the bathroom next to our Learning Loft.

If you are studying Ancient Egypt, I highly recommend the National Geographic Classic Science Archaeology: Pyramid kit by Thames and Kosmos. It ties all of Satori’s interests together: archaeology, hieroglyphs, mummies, and of course pyramids.

It comes well-protected in a perfectly designed box and you’ll find your pyramid and treasures within, archaeologist tools (hammer, chisel, brush, peg), protective goggles, full-color manual, and a 3D paper cross section model. Satori fondly remembers her “paleontologist days” when studying prehistory, so she was so excited to begin excavating!

*READ THE DIRECTIONS* first, or you might miss out on some of the clever surprises! (You may not wish to read further if you want your own kit to be a surprise.)

Click on the image above to get the full detail and you’ll notice hieroglyphs on a certain level of each side of the pyramid. Satori quickly wrote down a translation, she needed no manual, she already had them memorized! These hieroglyphs of course had a few vowels and other letters that used the same translation, so once Satori wrote down the letters, Mama still had to help translate. But overall, this was a very cool puzzle. Satori was so happy that she basically solved it herself. Each side gave a message to tell you if this side was the entrance. Our first side said “TRY AGAIN”.

(There are more pictures, but I don’t want to spoil this kit for the people who want it to be a surprise!) Click “continue reading…” link below.

continue reading…

Family night tonight! On the agenda – Tacos for dinner, reading a few science books aloud, then doing a fun science activity, and finally family games! This post covers the “fun science activity”.

To tie in with this week’s science lesson which introduced electricity, we pulled out Snap Circuits Jr. With this kit and a pair of AA batteries, you can build over 100 projects (101 to be exact). You may notice by the picture that this was designed for ages 8 to 108, but don’t let that stop you if your child is a few years younger. In our case, we know our 5 year old girl would benefit from this cool learning kit with the assistance of Mom and Dad. She understands the basics of electricity, that it is produced in power plants, travels to our homes via wires, and through switches, we complete the circuit for the flow of electricity to give energy to power appliances and such.

Be sure to read the instructions first, so you don’t inadvertently create a “short circuit” and damage your kit! I handed this project over to Daddy. The instructions though, are above her reading level, so Daddy would read and call out the little items needed – L1, #2 snap wire, etc… Here Satori is impatiently waiting, I overhead her grumbling a flippant comment.

Our first project was “Electric Light & Switch”. This consisted of 4 main items – power source (battery holder), lamp socket, slide switch and a few blue snap wires to connect. Once it’s complete, and the switch is turned on, the light goes on! It also finally piqued her curiosity.

The instruction manual tells you in what order and where on the grid to snap each item, so Satori was soon snapping away. Satori got a kick out of the next one, which converts the electricity to mechanical power and powers a little fan! We did one more – Sound Activated Switch. Snap Away Satori!

This one is powered by sound, so Satori would clap to play the song!

We only did these 3 activities tonight, and the next few lessons we’ll have Satori try to figure them out herself by looking at the pictures (with adult guidance of course). We’ll be working on all 101 over the next few years, and eventually upgrade to more advanced kits!