Funschooling Update: Journaling to Space, and Beyond!

Our week has been filled to the brim with new activities and creations that encourage learning. The Crunchy Kiddos have spent many hours exploring both with a parent and on their own. I am loving this new found love of learning in our home. I hope that you enjoy this glimpse into our world as we share with you what we are learning.

Here is what we have been up to this week:

Popper got a new (to him) pocket microscope at our local homeschool consignment shop. He has spent hours making slides and documenting them in his journal. He had so many that I had to make him an extra page for his journal!

Brother Bear had a little extra help from Daddy T this week on his 'school' work. He is working through Dyslexia Games Series A because he wants to be like Popper! He is actually doing a really great job!
He typically learns better online. I am in the process of getting him a new program to work on. I'll let you know how it works for him!

Sister is my coloring queen! She also enjoys playing on NickJr.com. There are plenty of fun and educational things to keep her busy. This is very helpful when I am trying to help Brother Bear and Popper with projects!

After lunch the littles take a nap. This is when Popper and I try to focus on reading and anything else that takes a little more one-on-one time. He has been reading about stars, galaxies, and space. He is mesmerized by the pictures of the beautiful galaxies in his books and tries to recreate them in his journal.

He picked out "How to Eat Fried Worms" as a enjoyment read for this week. After about 3 pages of taking turns reading, we realized that it was just too difficult for him. We turned to the most amazing app I have ever seen! It is called Epic. It is a reading app with books for all age level kiddos. We found a book on his reading level called "100-Pound Problem."  It is a cute story about a boy going fishing when he encounters a weight problem with his boat. It not only has challenged Popper with reading some new words, but also has built in math problems (he doesn't even realize). It ended up being a perfect book for him this week. He uses the journal pages to draw pictures to retell the story to me. It has helped with his reading comprehension.

As you may have noticed, Popper's journal use to be in a 3-ring-binder. I have a PDF copy of our journal from The Thinking Tree. I made copies, 3-hole-punched them, and put it in a three ring binder. This past week someone on one of my homeschool groups posted a picture of their journals spiral bound. I had never thought of doing it this way! Let me just tell you how thankful I am for this discovery! It has made school so much easier! Popper now carries his journal around and can use it wherever he wants. It has given him freedom to be comfortable while learning.


We have also had some creative fun this week. We made hand print penguins on an iceberg, played Play-Doh, and made new creations with Legos and Imaginarium blocks. This week has been full and exciting. Learning has been fun.  I can't wait to see what next week holds!