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homeschool recap: moon week


This week we studied the moon. We actually had a moon study last summer and I was worried that it for would feel repetitive for Zoey, but she loved it! And Des got a lot more out of it this time around. For Zoey we did a larger focus on the science behind the moon, and for Des we read a lot of Moon-themed books together and did fun moon printables to help him work on his letter sounds and practice his pencil grip. 


Starting from the top and going in a clockwise direction, here are the resources for some of the books and printables we used this week. I also will be linking to supplies we use throughout the post. They aren't affiliate links or anything, just info for you :)



Math for Des (age 4): I scrambled up some of his number flashcards and had him put them back in numerical order. He loved this activity and asked to do it 3 times in a row! After, I started making different numbers like 21, 17, 35, etc, and I would have him identify the number and then point to it on our hundred chart.


Math for Zoey (age 6): Zoey does math every day and we usually have a formal lesson in her Saxon math book, and then she will work on 2 worksheets that correspond with that lesson. Sometimes she likes to use manipulatives, like counting bears, to help her with new addition or subtraction problems she hasn't done before. She also likes to use these Montessori math manipulatives as seen above.


Zoey has started doing book reports for each book she reads. I have her draw and paint the cover of the book (or something that summarizes the book) and then have her right a few sentences about it below, along with her star rating. Since I also have a reading goal this year and she likes when I sit and paint with her, I will also be doing little book reports in my own sketchbook. This week Zoey read the entirety of The Princess in Black in 20 minutes! She amazes me with her speed! She really enjoyed this book and is excited to dive into the series.


Des used upper and lower case Mm stamps to fill the shape of the upper case M. He then painted a moon. He is always proud of his creations and asks if he can immediately put it on the fridge. Needless to say, we need more magnets, and more fridge space.


The top picture of this post the finished product of this process art, but this is the night sky stage. We took inspiration from Eric Carle's book Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me. We first painted our pages with blue acrylic. We also used a little water to give the acrylic texture like Eric has in his art. We then made moons on a separate piece of paper by making glue circles to create moon craters. When they were dry we painted them with gray and black watercolors. We loved the end result!


Des doesn't love painting because it makes him nervous that he will get messy, but he can handle a little bit of watercolor, so working on this dot-to-dot moon printable from Natural Beach Living was perfect for him! It also helped him work on his grip control.


We got a few learning games for Christmas and have been enjoying playing them as a family. This one is Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel and it's hilarious and fun! It's easy for preschoolers and fun for older kids and parents, too. I'm super pleased with it!


Zoey has been breezing through her Language Arts workbook from The Good and the Beautiful and learning so much! I also have been learning a ton from it. I don't know if I was never taught in school some of the grammar rules and tricks or they just were things we had to memorize with no rhyme or reason. I talked with Ted about it and he also thinks we were just taught to memorize things and not learn the meaning behind them. Knowing the meaning of the rules makes it a lot more easy to understand, that's for sure! This week we focused on different tenses, specifically ones ending in ED and ING. She practiced finding base words and converting them to different tenses. 


Des hates practicing his handwriting, which makes me extra proud of him every time he completes a worksheet! He loves how excited I react and loves the high fives, so major positive reinforcement is happening over here. I remember many meltdowns from Zoey around ages 3-4 when practicing handwriting until one day it clicked and everything got better. I think one of the struggles with homeschooling is being a good parent, and also separating yourself as a teacher and letting them know what you expect. Sometimes I think, "This would be so much easier if someone else had to deal with this!" But then when that lightbulb moment happens, it's so fulfilling to witness that you had a major hand in their learning and success. (Printable from 3 Dinosaurs)


History this week focused on Abraham and his travels, and on Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent. Sometimes I don't know how I feel about mixing learning about history with scriptural studies, but I am giving the history curriculum from The Good and the Beautiful a good year to see if how I feel about it and if I should move on. I do like how thorough it is and engaging, so I guess if anything feels too biased or doesn't feel right then I can leave it out. As a religious family that might sound weird but I just feel like religion and studies can be separated a bit. That being said, Zoey really was amazed that we busted out a Bible for our history lesson and couldn't believe that it coincided with the time table we were working with. So, I guess I should follow her lead and if she is loving it, I should love it, too! She worked on map work, and mix-and-matching the cities on the map with the points in the story we were learning about. 


Each week Zoey gets a new set of words to work on. She will do copy work with them, and write full sentences with them and then on Friday she has a spelling test. If she masters all of the words we move on to a new list! She did great today!


While Zoey had her spelling test, I gave Desmond the task of sorting all of the crayons into color families. He loved this and it kept him busy! 


This printable was supposed to be for scissor practice, but I felt like it would be perfect for some pre-writing practice for Desmond. You can get the moon printable here.


Something we learned about the moon is that the best way to study it is over time. We will be tracking the moon each night and recording it in our moon journals. I made a radial graph to document mine and I'm pretty excited to see how it will turn out! I've been loving having a school sketchbook for all of our projects. In a lot of ways it feels like visual journaling, which is very fun.


Another game we got for Christmas was Bird Bingo! This is a beautifully made game with very sturdy board pieces and amazingly informative info on nearly 50 different birds! I didn't know how Desmond would like the game but even he was very engaged with it! I can't say enough good things and I look forward to getting more games by this game maker!

Well, that's it for this week! I hope this post was informative and helpful for anyone looking for a bit more guidance in your homeschool journey! I swear, every passing year I become more confident and figure out what works best for our family. I remember being so overwhelmed when I first started out, worrying I would mess up my kid (still worry about this sometimes!) but with time comes more confidence and assurance you know just what to do.
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