Homeschool Voice Level Chart

Hello everyone!  I know I've been a little AWOL, here lately.  We just always seem to have too much going on.  

Can you relate?  I'm sure most of you can.

 

We've started our homeschool year and are loving it so far.  

I'm wanting to share more homeschool type posts with you as we go through our homeschool year.  So, hopefully some of you will benefit from these.  Please comment below and let me know if you are a homeschool family.

I'll still be posting about essential oils because we truly love the essential oil life.  There will be more of these posts coming soon, also.

This is something that we just started today and it should help bring great improvement to our homeschool days and every day in between.  

Are you having trouble keeping the voice levels down in your home? 

We ARE! 

I have a 4 year old who just screams pretty much everything he says. 

I think it's the "baby of 5" syndrome. 

He is desperate to be heard! 

Well, thanks to my sister, Lora Joy Adzima (A Speech Therapist for Knox County Schools) we now have a really handy voice level chart to help teach my son the right level of voice to use! 

I just printed and laminated it this morning. He responded well. 

 We talked about the colors, numbers and the pictures to help give him a feel for what each level is about and then we practiced the level in our voices to show him the level his voice should be at for each different scenario in our home.  

Also, this will help me when I'm working with Hannah or Caleb and I can remind him by saying "Judah, look at your voice level chart....where are you?"  "Where should you be?"

We also printed and laminated one to keep in the van.

Can you feel the excitement in this mama's heart to get these changes incorporated into our home?!!  My ears are singing instead of ringing...and, "It makes me wanna shout!"  

Um...well, I'll have to keep my voice level down because that's for outside use.  So, excuse me for a moment while I run outside and shout (oops...can't run in the house either, so I'll just walk quickly)

hehehe! 

This mama's sanity might soon return ;) !
 
Ok, ok....I hear all that giggling and laughing.  I know this will not fix my sanity problem, but every little bit helps, right? And one can always HOPE!!

 If you need this chart, please comment below and I'll be happy to email you the pdf file.

Thanks for stopping by,
Dawn

Getting Ready for Judah.....

We are having some teaching times to get Hannah and Caleb ready for Judah. I am teaching them how to hold him where they support his head, how to put a diaper on, and how to swaddle him in a receiving blanket. The main thing I'm trying to teach through these is how to handle him gently and watch to support his head at all times.








It's been funny (well, sort-of) to watch Caleb forget and pick the doll up by the head with his finger inside the eye socket--hehehe! Hopefully, after doing this for the next six weeks, he'll understand about supporting Judah's head and how gentle he needs to be with him.

Surface Tension Experiment--Swirled Milk

One drop of each color of food coloring and dish soap.


We added another drop of each color and a little more dish soap.

Science Experiments for Science Club--Getting a Reaction

GREEN SLIME

Hannah is pouring the Borax solution into the water, glue, food coloring solution

Instant Slime!

Looks kinda gross, huh? But it feels really cool!

Here it is stored away in a baggie

SLOPPY SLIME
It feels really cool. It's slimy and then it's hard. When you squeeze it the slime turns to a solid, but as soon as you let go it's a liquid again.




ROCKET COLA
Diet Cola


Orange Cola


Twist Up


The diet coke was by far the most volatile of the 3. It rocketed out of the bottle to about 31" with only one mento.

The Orange only rocketed about 3" with 2 mentos.

The Twist Up only rocketed about 1 1/2" with 3 mentos.

What fun! We will have to try this again when Daddy and Dakota are home to see it!!

Homemade Lava Lamp

Yesterday, Hannah started her second semester of Science Club online with Mrs. Loretta Rhodes on currclick.com.

They talked about matter and its 3 states: gas, liquid & solid. At the end of class they made homemade lava lamps. Here is Hannah's:

Giving Class

Hannah and several friends took a "Season of Giving" Class through Lessons Worth Learning on Currclick.com in December. It was an awesome class with Mrs. Loretta putting the emphasis back on giving at Chrismastime! The project we did for the class was to make and send cards to the terminally ill children and their families at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital.

From back left to right: Erin, Seth, Sabrina
Middle: Micah & Joann
Front: Ashley, Hannah, Becca

Victorian Christmas Class

We made some really pretty Victorian boxes for Hannah's online class. The girls (Ashley & Becca Jolin took the class with us) had a lot of fun making these:

Hannah Is Learning To Knit

She's making a scarf!

Hannah Wrote a Short Story for her Online Class

Hannah is taking an online class on CurrClick.com. Her class is taught by Loretta Rhodes of Lessons Worth Learning. She's taking a Summer book club class. Their assignment for this week was to write a historical fiction short story from an era in American history. Hannah chose the Pioneer days. Daddy really talked Hannah through the writing of her story and helped her to get her thoughts down on paper in a way people could understand what she was thinking when she wrote it (he taught her about having assumptions when you think the reader already knows something, like that it's a fall time of year, without telling them. He taught her how to add that into the story). Here's Hannah's story:

Maggie and Her Pioneer Life

Maggie Jonise woke up early one morning. She threw back the beautiful new quilt on her bed climbed out and the floor was cold. The nights and mornings were chilly on these fall days. Her mother had finished her new quilt just in time after working on it all summer. Maggie put on her dress, stockings and shoes and scurried downstairs. When she got downstairs she found her mother and father sitting at the kitchen table sipping their coffee. They greeted her “good morning.” Maggie asked where her brothers, Jonathan and Jimmy were. Thinking they might be out working already harvesting the wheat.

Dad told her the boys were out in the barn fixing a gate because one of the horses had made a mess of it. The black horse with a white star on its forehead had damaged the fence and gate. He must have been spooked badly by something. The boys thought he‘d been frightened by the slamming of the door to their house.

Maggie went out to the barn to see if she could help and they said that she could brush the horses. Suddenly they noticed a cold wind blowing into the barn and Jonathan went out to see if a storm was blowing. He saw a tornado picking up the clouds in the sky over the fields by their house. He rushed back and told Maggie and her brother to hurry to the house. They flew to the house in a hurry like a bird would do in a storm, trying to get home. Jimmy let the door slam behind them as he and Maggie flew inside. Their parents asked what all the commotion was about. Maggie told them a tornado was just outside the house and Jonathan was out in the barn tying up the horses. Dad tells Mom to take Jimmy and Maggie to the tornado shelter and he would go find Jonathan.

As Dad ran out the door to the barn he saw the tornado tearing down the wheat as it crossed their fields. Jonathan was running toward him and they both ran for the house and the tornado shelter.

The storm blew by quickly and they barely heard a sound since their storm shelter was so sturdy and strong. When they came out they saw a big hole in the roof of their house and their wheat crops were nowhere in sight.

Dad tried to encourage the family that everything would be ok. He said that he could fix the hole in the roof and they could plant again in the spring. He said they could survive the winter by walking the fields and picking up the pieces the tornado did not swirl away.

As the sun peeked through the clouds, Maggie’s family stood in a circle and prayed prayers of thankfulness that they are all ok and hope for them to get through the winter that was to come.



Mrs. Loretta liked Hannah's story. We are proud of Hannah and think she did a GREAT job! Yay, Hannah!!

Homeschool Co-op Achievement Night

We had our Achievement Night for the Co-op on Tuesday evening. The children all did an excellent job.

David took the pics, since I had to be with the kids and on stage at one point. It was dark in the Sanctuary and the pics are a little dark.

This is the 50 State Class that I taught. We had several kids that did not make it for achievement night. However, they did a fantastic job singing all of the 50 states and their capitals by Animaniacs. Hannah is in the front row on the right hand side in a blue shirt and denim skirt.

This is the Hands-On-Music class. They are using Boomwhackers. Hannah loved this class and they did a great job!

Each Boomwhacker makes a note from the C-Scale when it is whacked on something!!

Hannah Making a Kite with Her Poppie

Hannah is taking an online class on Wednesday called "Go Fly A Kite" with Mrs. Loretta Rhodes at Currclick.com. Their assignment before class time is to make or buy a kite and go fly it. So, we purchased a kite-making kit and Poppie and Hannah put the kite together and Hannah colored it. Poppie explained to Hannah how a kite will fly and why you need the certain parts of the kite. They have a "date" tomorrow to fly the kite.

yThe finished product!

Pray for some good kite-flying weather!!

Dr. Seuss

If you have kids, you gotta love Dr. Seuss! His books are fabulous! Hannah is taking an online class tomorrow that celebrates his birthday and will be a great, fun time of learning!

As a project for the class, she and I sewed this Dr. Seuss hat! Well, I guess it's the Cat in the Hat's, Hat!


She's gotta friend that wants to attend the class with her! :0)

Covered Wagon

These are pics of Hannah's project for her Pioneer Christmas Class that is online today at 11:00 a.m. Daddy and Hannah worked on this covered wagon last Friday night. They enjoyed making this together.

Turkeys in Disguise

Caleb's.....

My name is Orkel the turkey

and I'm as scared as can be,

I'm wearing a disguise
so you won't eat me!

What am I?

Hannah's...

My name is Snowy the turkey
and I'm as scared as can be,
I'm wearing a disguise
so you won't eat me!

What am I?

Teepees

We've been studying the North American Indians and the girls made some teepees. They had a great time making these. Especially the part about going outside to find sticks!

Hannah's

Mackenzie's

They did a great job!

Jesus--the Light of the World!

We've been studying this in Bible this week. Our Scripture Memory verse is:

"I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

John 8:12

Yes, we made 2. Caleb needed his own. We are lighting these at suppertime each night this week.

Sailing Ships

We've been learning about Christopher Columbus in history. Yesterday we made 3 ships out of aluminum foil, straws, and paper. Whoda thunkit? They will actually float. Daddy and Nanny Boo Boo came up with the ship design.

The Nina and the Pinta

The Santa Maria

I just got Caleb out of the tub in this picture and it was like a Tsunami for the poor ships, because he was mad to have to get out of the tub (he was fully clothed).

The Nina and the Pinta banding together to survive Caleb! Columbus and his men thought they had it bad trying to survive the weather! :0)