Several of you have asked where I got the plastic Jamestown figurine thingies we were using the other day.  They came from Hobby Lobby.  I found them at Christmas.  There was a tube (yep, tube) of Settlers (complete with John Smith), Indians, and one of a train.  There were several others there too but those are the ones I selected.
So get on over to Hobby Lobby and see if they have them!
Check out this interesting and strange photo I downloaded from my camera after the kids had it.
What in the world is it???

I’m thinking they are doing science experiments without me!!!

Well the truth about Fred is out!
He’s a hefty…..drum roll please…..

16.7 pounds!

And the winner is Cathy over at At Home On Basket Flat
Cathy, email me with your address and I’ll get your Wendy’s card right out!  Hey, and enjoy a frosty on me!!

Nancy, how many chickens you think that will get me??

In other news….
I’m actually posting another homeschool post!
I know, you’re floored!!
Today I had enough energy to do something other than just plain ole school work.  So history got acted out with some Christmas toys!!

We’re studying Jamestown and the first 13 colonies.  We sang them to the tune of "Happy Birthday to You".  And it worked pretty well.  We remembered about 5 of them so we’ll practice again tomorrow.

Here are a few snapshots from today…

In our history book Jamestown was originally triangular in shape so we made ours the same way.

Complete with women cooking…

and men working…

Here’s our corral.  Pioneer Woman would be proud!

Between the settlement and the woods where the Indians lived there were wild animals.  It was a very dangerous time!!  (alligators, bears and wild horses)

Here’s the general layout of the land!

Those sticks in the middle?  They’re woods!!!  The woods separated where the Indians and the Settlers lived.

Here is the Indian camp…

And here is our ship.  It’s docked out at sea.

Then we fast forwarded about 200 years or so and added the transcontinental railroad.  Notice the similarity of the locomotives from that day (ha!)

It was a great morning.
What did you guys do today??

Wow!
A post actually about homeschooling!!!
What do you know?  It is, after all, a homeschooling blog isn’t it???

Before I post the winner of Fred’s weight (aka: find a set of scales) I wanted to share a great tool with you.  One of our kids does some tutoring work at Sylvan and he’s come home asking for Versa Tiles! 
"What are Versa  Tiles, son?"
"Oh mom, they are so cool!  I LOVE them!"

Love?
Did I hear the LOVE word?
From my son?  About school?
Where is my inhaler?
Anybody have some water?

This one son does not use the words school and love in the same sentence!  EVER!!

So, I call my good friends at Sylvan and what do you know?  There’s a website.  There’s such a bugger called  Versa Tiles!
And they are cool!  Check it out here!
You can also see how they work HERE!

So here’s a quick version of how they work.

Your child has a a set of tiles and a workbook
They match the number of the question with the letter of the answer.   For example:   If the the answer to question 1 is "day" then you put the tile number one on letter E (day).

See how each answer has a letter and each question has a number?

If the answer to number 2 is letter B then the tile goes there:

This continues until all the tiles are placed on a letter.

After all the tiles have been placed the child closes the case, flips it over and opens it.  Then a pattern is revealed.


If all the colors are together and the pattern matches the one at the end of the page then the child knows he got them all right!  See the patterned blocks at the bottom left hand corner of the workbook page??  See how my pattern matches it?

If the pattern doesn’t match then the child knows he got something wrong and reworks the page.  It’sawesome, self correcting and wonderful for independent work.  They have Versa Tiles for each grade and sets for Math, Science, Kindergarten and Language Arts.  Go check out their website!

Gotta run to Spanish…..