Wow!

Gracyn works on her art project for the art show.  The theme is "wow!"

Hers is of a page full of dalmations with a bassett in the center.  The title is "Bow-WOW!"

Clever?

Looting the Pirate Ship

Here are the two geniuses playing "loot the pirate ship" which is the game I referred to a couple of posts ago.  Here it is again.  Cuz, really, it's so good.  Also, this is the incredible site the game came from.  It has free downloads an is so inspiring to me.  It looks like something I'd do if I were more "together."  hehe

pics...

Finally finished our Monster Book of Monsters!  So fun!

Here are our skeletons and our special election edition of our homeschool magazine!

Back to posting

It's been way too long since I posted and there is always so much to post about.  Like the past few days, for example.  We've done so many wonderful things together.  Braeden and I have had a great time playing our new game.  You really want to make this game!  It teaches so many math concepts at once.  He also informed me that the book he was reading had "a lot of strong verbs" in it.  I love it!  He's reading Daniel Boone and Ralph S. Mouse right now.  We are reading books from various genres and also adding up all of our books to reach 100 books.  We have our own magazine publishing house right now, too.  Our magazine is called "The Hourglass" and our first publication went out a couple of weeks ago with a special election edition due out on Tuesday.  We wrote several things for it over this weekend and have it nearly ready.  We also examined an owl pellet this weekend (school happens all the time...) and made Q-tip skeletons.  It's just so fun doing things together and laughing as we learn.  

Marauder's Maps

The kids had a great time creating marauder's maps.  They chose to make the maps of our Smithindor.  Gracyn's is the first one you see with the pop-up second story.  Braeden's is next which includes the "unknown room."  It was fun to see how their minds work and to see how they drew out the space we call "home."  They both did an excellent job!  

peacock feather quill

Gracyn had the superb idea to make her loooong peacock feather into a quill for her harry potter writing assignments.  You'll have to click on the pic to make it bigger.  Very clever.

Kaegan presents his US Lapbook to his dad!

wizard, Gracyn

We got a harry potter game for the wii!!

Wheeeee!

It has been so much fun...the kids could hardly stop playing it to eat and sleep!

I also ordered some calligraphy pens to use as quills and Gracyn has been using her loooong peacock feather as a quill.  The calligraphy pens make cursive practice fun.  

We finished our comic book pages, but I can't get blogger to post it.  It turned out great.  I kept having to remind the kids that it was a Latin assignment....use some latin words!  haha!  They had fun with it.  We are also still working on our creative writing assignment of making a Monster Book of Monsters.  Gracyn wrote the chapter of the Boggart in the Closet as a play and we will soon be acting that out for you!  Lots going on!  And super fun!

Latin charms and spells

Here is a preview of the comic book we are creating with our latin charms and spells...

Outstanding

Braeden learns about the parts and functions of plants in his herbology study.  Beautiful cursive writing, too.

Breaden scored "OUTSTANDING" on his arithmancy O.W.L.

hp pics

Our Crest for the House of Smithindor.  The cheetah represents Sara who is speedy.  The wolf and snake represent Kaegan and Braeden because they are wild and free.  The platypus represents Gracyn because she is completely silly.  The winged horse represents Odell and me because we are strong and lovely

Braeden researches herbs.

Hedwig has a letter.

Gracyn's herbology study on chamomile.

Braeden draws tarragon.

Kaegan's Presidents Song

We take a break from Harry Potter for this report.

the sorting hat...

After a visit to diagon alley for measurements and purchases of wizarding supplies, we headed to the welcome feast where the sorting hat sorted us all into Smithindor House.  Gracyn and Braeden both wrote Smithindor verses for the sorting hat song.

Braeden's Smithindor verse:

The ones who are silly are always in Smithindor.

These crazy people do crazy things, 

but however loving they are, 

Their sense of humor rings.

Gracyn's goes like this:

Dwell you might in Smithindor,

where you find the clever.

They're not afraid to be themselves,

and their thoughts you cannot sever.

We learned about verse, stanza, and rhyme scheme.

more fun

There is a lot of reading going on around here.  I have many things I want to post about but I need to download more pictures.  Today began "magical writing" (writing styles) class.  We also began "charms" (latin) class.  Braeden drew a cartoon of 2 wizards, dueling and yelling latin phrases.  One yells, "aqua-sem" and has water squirting out.  The other is yelling, "inflammo!" and fire is shooting out of his.  Gracyn also thought of these:

fabulamus:  tricks someone into believing your story

viadatum:  creates a road or a way out

silvantase:  finds a way out of a forest

terrabilse:  makes the ground change

portase:  makes a gate appear where there wasn't one

Dareduce:  makes someone do what you want them to

Creative way to remember those vocab words which we haven't bothered to memorize until now.

It's fun to pretend and learn simultaneously!

Hey, wait a minute!

Here are G and B measuring and figuring *together* as we take the fun things from Harry Potter and use them to learn math concepts on Tuesday.

At one point, Braeden stopped and said, "Hey, wait a minute!  Is this just a fun way to do math?"

harry potter unit study

It's simply corking to announce our upcoming Harry Potter unit.  Our activities will include fun things for 3rd through 7th grades.  Here are some of the things my kids can expect:

magic squares

marauder's map

quidditch-additionally, they will be asked to create a version of quidditch themselves

a few of these activities

some of these

pretty much all of these

plus some ideas of my own which include but are not limited to:

arithmacy class (known to you muggles out there as arithmetic):  

• we will learn about area and perimeter of cupboards and choose which one we might best enjoy  living in
• we will create a mock diagon alley in which we go from room to room to measure for our robes and wands.  we will measure using various units of measure
  
• we will purchase our wizard supplies by converting muggle money to wizard money and the reverse
• we will solve logic "potions" problems as in the end of the sorcerer's stone

We will have a reader's theater in which we each choose our favorite dramatic reading from one of the books and present it in our dress robes with snacks served 

We will create a newspaper that tells of our favorite parts of a HP book as a report.

We will choose a chapter to re-write as a play.

We will draw our favorite characters according to the descriptions in the book.

owl study

We will create our own "apples to apples" game called, "Quaffle to Quaffle."

Latin practice of latest vocabulary words will be creating incantations using the words.

Letter Writing.

A stuffed, white owl will bring a morning message...either a journal topic or letter to be answered.

And some writing activities will be pulled from a book I like called, "Grammar for Middleschool."  It includes some practice forming sentences in the style of J.K. Rowling.

But wait, there's more!  In an effort to involve my son with autism, we will be doing some hands-on-montessori-style activities...

• We will connect train cars on the Hogwarts Express with words on them to create sentences and talk about grammar topics such as parts of speech and parts of a sentence as well as learn about conjuntions.
• We will place macaroni (gluten-free, of course) quotation marks on pre-written sentences from the stories.  Then, we will take turns reading the dialogues in play form.
• We will practice gauge reading by creating a dashboard of the flying anglia with dry erase gauges.
• We will categorize animal cards including reptiles like snakes and shoot falcon paper airplanes at the eyes of a poster of the baskilis to add points together for column addition practice.
• We will match keys (correct math answers) to their wings (equations) in a folder.
• We will perform other folders that depict the last scenes of the Sorcerer's stone..I haven't thought them all through yet....