MFW K Lessons: Cow and 100th Day

First of all, let me say this.... we are way off on everything we do, but we are learning the ropes of homeschooling. LOL! I am tired of worrying about where I might fail, so I am over that (for now, anyway). We so do not always mark off our days and so we technically have done 100 days way before we celebrated doing such. And I really just wanted to do the 100th day activities to really drive home the Math concepts that you learn from it. It did just that, so if you ever wonder if it is a waste of time or a "copy of public school", I have to say that in my opinion is not that at all and the kids really get it when you do it right. So, for our 100th day (a few weeks back, so I am trying to jog the old memory... and thank God I wrote it down):

We sang a "100th Day of School" song.

We sang the #100 song in an old church Chorus book I have, Learning To Lean.

I considered the hymnals we have, but was not familiar enough with the songs.

We did our normal calendar time and added our 100th straw, bundled and moved our straws into the appropriate "place" to represent "place value", added the number 100 to our number chart, and counted aloud to 100.

We counted to 100 by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 100s and observed the patterns on the chart that it follows.

We counted aloud by 100s up to 1,000. Sierra was surprised how easy that was and that she could do it. She was very proud of herself.

We took 100 steps to get started on our walk around the block and found that got us 1/4 of a block.

We enjoyed 100 licks on a popsicle after a hot walk. They LOVED that one and actually counted there licking. Funny kids!

We did a 100th day of school worksheet from http://www.starfall.com/ where they fill in the missing numbers in the count to 100.

I made a $100 shopping worksheet with a photo of a $100 bill and asked them what they would do with it, if they had it to spend. I was quite impressed that Savannah wanted to buy a few things, but said she could not do all that because she had to "give some to God". For Sierra she drew a picture to represent what she would spend her money on and I wrote the words down under the picture. For Sierra she drew a picture and had to write about it on a page. I am learning adapt work for multi-age level learning (and it is making our homeschool so much better).

We were supposed to put 100 items on a page that we gathered throughout the day, but we did not (we failed this one last year, also). We did plenty of other stuff, anyway.

The girls wore clothing with 100 of something on it... and no, we did not actually count the flowers on the clothes are the number of stripes. If it looked like 100 or so that was good enought for us. And yes, that does count as teaching Math based on the principle of Estimation! ;)

WE HAD A GREAT 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL!

And now.... on to the cow studies. It just so happens that these farm animals weeks fell during the fair season here and during the cow week we had an opportunity to see a dairy demonstration at the fair. We did not go to it, though. Instead we went to the fair that night thinking they would have the dairy demonstration... not so, but we did get plenty of petting zoo time and animal observation time in. Overall, it worked out well and was a great time "studying". LOL! Fair school was awesome!

I seem to have a hard time finding the books that are suggested at our local library, but I have just started pulling together different books and changing the activities, if necessary. I was able to get "Buzz" Said the Bee, but decided to just do the activity my own way. The manual suggests writing the words sat and scat on cards and teaching them to your child. I find that when you are sitting side-by-side with your child with a book that has that much repetition it is not necessary to do any more than point the words out in the book. Sierra was able to read them without me prompting her and she just seemed to chime in and read those words for some reason. I love when things work out like that. As an activity to go with that they drew a picture of the bee sitting on the duck, on the chicken, on the pig, on the cow, on the sheep and colored it to their liking. They did dot-to-dot pages of a baby pig and a chick. They did a do-a-dot page of a cow. I made and animal sorting file folder game recently that we used to sort out the zoo, farm, or ocean animals that I found at http://www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/ . This also fell during St. Patrick's Day for us, so I used a Shamrocks Phonics file folder game that I made from http://www.filefolderfun.com/ (sort words by -an family, etc.). I have a Melissa & Doug Hide N Seek Farm Puzzle that we used, also. I actually made some extra animal and attached magnets and hid all the animals behind the little doors and had Sierra search them out. Caden had a cute little Sunday School Farm Animals page that he brought home one that that we also used that worked perfectly with the lesson and he demonstrated all the animal sounds for us and we realized he is an EXPERT at neighing like a horse! REALLY! We did make the butter, but not on the day that it was suggested. For me that just went along with the "Dairy Party" day. We made a tiny book of farm animal stickers with some words in it... nothing major. I just had some great farm stickers that I wanted them to get to use. I stapled some construction paper together and let them go at it.

What we did not do.... first we mixed the days around. We did not do the "Hey! Diddle, Diddle!" nursery rhyme activity. We did not do the dairy poster and cut up magazine pics, etc.. And I confess... I never do those things really. I think it is enough to talk about some things... or GO TO THE FAIR! LOL!! We did not have a Dairy Party, either. But....

What we did do was.... THE FAIR!!! ... read a LOT.... make our own activities to add... sang "Old McDonald Had a Fram" (ridiculously long version with all our animals from the puzzle)... and had a bit of a dairy focused food DAY.

DAIRY DAY included: For lunch we had Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Crackers with Cheese, and Yogurt with some fruit on the side. For Dinner I baked some fresh bread. We made homemade butter and homemade Whipped Cream while I was cooking dinner. During dinner we ate the bread with the butter and afterwards, we had Chocolate Ice Cream with Whipped Cream and chocolate shavings on top.

Books we read:

Going To Sleep On the Farm by Wendy Lewison (AWESOME book with the best artwork imaginable for this study!!!)

Farm Animals (for reference book... You could use about anything)

"Buzz" Said the Bee by Wendy Lewison (great one)

The Cows Are In The Corn by James Young (very simplistic & short)

The Berenstain Bears: Down On The Farm by Stan & Jan Berenstain (GREAT book.... ends with a comment about "Farming is hard fun". Great book about being a hard worker.)

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley

Buttercup the Clumsy Cow by Moffatt & Williams

Baby Calf by Hinds (references dairy cows & great for little kids)

Babe The Sheep Pig: What Pigs Love Best by Corey (I had my doubts about this one, but it was good and had a good message about friendship and forgiveness.)

King of the Stable by Melody Carlson (Fictional story of a boy that cares for the stable the night Jesus is born. Beautiful artwork. Great story, but it must be pointed out that this is fictional account.)


(SORRY I HAVE NO PICS TO SHARE... I HAVE HAD SOME CAMERA ISSUES.)