End of Year Classroom Redo/Organizing

Another year comes to an end in the classroom. It's always the time I use to go through things, get rid of old work, worksheets, clean the walls, and folders out, and rearrange for the new year. Here is a glimpse of what we're doing right now in the RVRS Homeschool Classroom.

Happy New Year! Here's to the end of tenth grade and onto eleventh grade!

Classroom Update-Summer 2016

This summer in the Red Snail classroom has been crazy fun! We studied like mad for our state test to pass to seventh grade. I can't believe that seventh grade is already upon us, but I love how we've grown over the years with our homeschooling, and love even more how much Skylar has grown into such a great young man. Here's what we've been up to this summer, so far.

1. We learned about the waves and why the ocean is blue. We learned that the moon controls the tide and the ocean is blue because of light waves. We made a wave jar with water, vegetable oil, and food coloring and watched how waves are formed.

We created a wave jar with oil, water, and a bit of blue food coloring. The oil won't mix with the water and blue food coloring makes the waves really come alive in the jar.

2. We studied about the planets and made our own visual planet board to aid in our learning.

We made flaps on the visual to put specific information about each planet under the flaps.

3. We did some Kiwi Crates

First one was the Arcade Kiwi Crate

Second one was the Coral Reef Kiwi Crate

We made a floating squid and some jellyfish. We also learned about how important the coral reefs are to the ocean environment.

5. We got a new stamp for our book donations to the Free Little Libraries. We are excited to sit and stamp then donate them to others that can enjoy them. We are loving he little red snail at the top of the stamp. Special thanks to Rubber Stamps.net for working with us and creating such a great stamp that represents out classroom completely!

Before stamping...

After stamping and ready to donate.

This Free Little Library was near Eddyville, Oregon, and they gained a few extra books from the classroom. 

6. Getting ready for the class year.

The day before out class was about to start, we got up early to organize everything we needed for class in the morning. It was about 8:00 a.m. and the sun was greeting us through the classroom window.

My awesome seventh grader. I can't believe it!

First day of class was a slow start for us, but once we got going we were good to go!

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The first day of class we took it easy and did some catching up on last year's assignments that got pushed aside.

One of the assignments was learning about bugs

One of the other assignments we talked about was the history of Japan. We also got out folders for the year organized and prepared for the coming year of seventh grade!

Seventh grade, here we come!

Our class daily schedule is as follows:

Class starts at 8:35 a.m.

Lunch is taken at 12:35 p.m.

Class ends at 4:35 p.m.

The sign above our classroom door. This year is going to be a great year!

Classroom update-Spring 2016

We've been on a steady pace here in the Red Snail Classroom since our school started. We've been doing Kiwi Crates and Tinker Crates for fun. We've also been hitting the hard subjects, too. Math has been a bit of a struggle here and there for Skylar, but he is slowly getting the hang of it. We've been going over reading and writing comprehension like crazy and gearing up for our end of the year state test.

Kiwi Crates are a load of educational fun. If you haven't tried one of these, I highly recommend them. The one pictured above is forest learning. You can snag one of these crates here and get 30% off your first month's subscription.

We learned about stars, constellations with the December Tinker Crate, and shadow and light with Kiwi Crate.

Map making and treasure hunting.

How to antique paper:  

1.  Pot of coffee.

2.  Copy paper.

3.  Lighter (optional).

Place your copy paper in a deep, flat dish and pour the hot, ready-made coffee in top of the paper.  Make sure every piece is fully submerged.  Allow to sit in the coffee overnight, or longer, depending on the shade you want.  Allow to dry completely on paper towels and as an optional added flair to the paper, burn the edges slightly with a lighter (Be very careful you don't burn too far into the paper). Now, use a pencil, or calligraphy pen to write messages, or draw a map.  

We made 3D hand prints.  You can find the instructions for this here.

We learned the parts of a seed and even planted some yellow squash seeds in a baggie with water to watch them grow over the winter.  Not sure what we will do with them once they sprout, but it will be fun to watch them grow.

We touched on basic algebra and learned about positive and negative numbers.  

We learned how to set a table properly with pretend food.

The lesson touched on more than just setting the table, it was also about how important certain foods were in order stay healthy.  I used the Thanksgiving meal as an example of foods that have the recommended daily allowance for nutrients.  

We did some cooking!

How to make Simple Cinnamon Rolls:

1.  Can of ready-made biscuits.

2.  1 stick melted butter.

3.  Cinnamon.

4.  Sugar.

Mix cinnamon and sugar in melted butter and dip each biscuit into liquid.  Place sideways in a baking dish and pour remaining liquid over the top of biscuits.  Bake 12 minutes.  Serve hot.

We also did a little gardening.

Our first attempt was a bit tricky because the sun wasn't coming out.  We had to start over, but once we changed up windows, the sun hit the seeds every day.  More on this soon.

We also gave some color to our Red Snails for the new classroom setup.

We did some science experiments. These experiments were a nice break up from math problems and reading comprehension pages. Skylar was glad of the break.

We soaked an egg in vinegar for two days and watched as the shell was dissolved. It gave Skylar a chance to work with theory and hypothesis information and gather facts over guessing.

With a few of the Kiwi Crates we were able to incorporate some science and theory into our daily assignment with science class.

With the January Kiwi Crate (Ice Lab) we learned about ice and how ice can be transformed. 

Epsom salts with water and painted on paper dried to an "ice-like" snowflake design.

We really enjoyed this experiment.

The next experiment was the effect of salt on ice. The same way salt melts the ice on your driveway, it was an experiment with the same effects. 

As the salt made tunnels in the ice, the food coloring was placed in the tunnels to watch the effect even better.

Effects of ice with food coloring make a design similar to the ocean.

The boxes that the kits come in are super cute!  Skylar loves the winter theme.

The February box was themed, "Race Day." Having a boy, this one was right up his alley!

Building race cars and getting to learn about thrust and movement was a lot of fun for him. Even those these kits are geared around younger children, just the principle of learning about basic things is a great addition to our classroom.

We've also had our hands in a lot of OOBLECK. 

Super fun!

More later! Have a great weekend!