No Snow Day for Homeschoolers!
We have more snow in our area again today and all the local towns had no school today. My boys and I used to get so excited for a snow day!
We loved staying home from school together, donning our snow gear and playing in the snow. We'd watch movies, drink hot cocoa and watch the whole world turn white.
As homeschoolers we rarely choose to take a snow day anymore.
We certainly could take the day off and enjoy playing in the snow; there is no one stopping us from doing just that. But we find that we prefer to work our school day around playing in the snow and get our work done anyway.
That way we can take time off from school when the weather is nice and the sun is shining!
As much as my boys and I enjoy a good snow day there is no way that we could spend ALL day outside. We figure we can get some work done inside and still count it as a homeschooling day.
We'd much rather save up our days off for those early spring days when it's finally warm and the sun is calling-- and we can spend ALL day outside.
Today, Ian was finished with his math in a flash. The page just asked him to measure pictures to the nearest inch (how easy!) and since he's become quite proficient in using a tape measure he breezed right through.
He picked a page in his spelling book and I noticed he was working on lesson 2. I asked him if he was done with lesson one, knowing he hadn't filled in all the pages, and he assured me he thought he knew them. I quizzed him quickly and he did knew to spell each word. He then took off to read in his room.
Evan settled at the table and we went through his schoolwork. We started with math and he picked a page in his Star Wars math book that dealt with place value again. We quickly moved onto reading and sight words.
He asked to play Sight Word Bingo. He told me we needed to play with the second side since those words are harder and he should be learning harder words by now. OK! He won the game- by one word!
We moved onto his 1st grade Star Wars Reading book. We hadn't worked in this book at all so I helped him on the first page. We had to read the words in the word bank and then read the sentences and fill a word from the word bank into each blank space. He did really well with it! We then reread Puppy Mudge Wants to Play.
Alec read an entire book about Hercules while he was upstairs getting dressed. He's started reading books about Greek Gods and Ancient Greece again in preparation for his geography/ history fair report.
I asked Alec to do some math work this morning too. I gave him a choice between his workbook or a coloring sheet. He really likes coloring pages in math and I had bought this book a few months back. We picked a page, photocopied it, and he got right to work. He was subtracting three digit numbers.
Ian had made plans to have a friend over. I had offered to meet him at the top of our road since his mom didn't want to drive down our road and I was afraid to drive up our hill. We all dressed in our winter gear and piled into the car. We drove to the bottom of the hill and just as we were about to walk up his mom called and told us to watch for him; he came sledding down our road to where we were waiting.
Only on a private road can you have that kind of winter fun!
We drove home and all played outside for an hour sledding down the hill and walking back up. They tried tandem sledding, standing on their sleds, and each took turns trying out the different kinds of sleds. Alec and Evan were frustrated with all the snow getting in their eyes so they decided to try sunglasses and swim goggles to keep the snow out. We ended up sledding right up until lunchtime.
I offered to cook lunches today but Alec just decided to make his own. He pulled out the package of Ramen noodles and followed the directions to make his own lunch.
We geared up and headed back outside.
The other boys had made a jump. We all sledded together for another hour. Then the boys made a double jump.
They all tried tandem jumping.
Evan urged me to record them all sledding so they could watch it together later. I recorded only two slides down since. A few times the sleds left with only one or two riders, another time they clipped my feet out from underneath me. We had lots of fun and kept figuring out how to make it better for all the riders. We traded out sleds for others, talked about why some went sideways, why some people (even if they started out in the back) reached the bottom of the hill before others.
It was great!
They came in and set up Mario Kart battles. They had snacks and the older two boys asked me to download some truck pictures for them to color. Alec and Evan asked to watch a few episodes of Wild Kratts on YouTube. We talked about vacation ideas again and Ian's friend had a lot of suggestions. We compared all the places we've traveled to and what kinds of things we've done.
Alec pulled out our colored sand and made some sand art with some empty bottles.
When he was done we watched a few YouTube videos on sand art as well. We really enjoyed this one where an entire beach scene was created with colored sand. This one that created an entire landscape inside a jar and this one and that one both used a light table to make many animals and nature scenes using light and shadow.
We loved staying home from school together, donning our snow gear and playing in the snow. We'd watch movies, drink hot cocoa and watch the whole world turn white.
As homeschoolers we rarely choose to take a snow day anymore.
We certainly could take the day off and enjoy playing in the snow; there is no one stopping us from doing just that. But we find that we prefer to work our school day around playing in the snow and get our work done anyway.
That way we can take time off from school when the weather is nice and the sun is shining!
As much as my boys and I enjoy a good snow day there is no way that we could spend ALL day outside. We figure we can get some work done inside and still count it as a homeschooling day.
We'd much rather save up our days off for those early spring days when it's finally warm and the sun is calling-- and we can spend ALL day outside.
Today, Ian was finished with his math in a flash. The page just asked him to measure pictures to the nearest inch (how easy!) and since he's become quite proficient in using a tape measure he breezed right through.
He picked a page in his spelling book and I noticed he was working on lesson 2. I asked him if he was done with lesson one, knowing he hadn't filled in all the pages, and he assured me he thought he knew them. I quizzed him quickly and he did knew to spell each word. He then took off to read in his room.
Evan settled at the table and we went through his schoolwork. We started with math and he picked a page in his Star Wars math book that dealt with place value again. We quickly moved onto reading and sight words.
He asked to play Sight Word Bingo. He told me we needed to play with the second side since those words are harder and he should be learning harder words by now. OK! He won the game- by one word!
Alec read an entire book about Hercules while he was upstairs getting dressed. He's started reading books about Greek Gods and Ancient Greece again in preparation for his geography/ history fair report.
I asked Alec to do some math work this morning too. I gave him a choice between his workbook or a coloring sheet. He really likes coloring pages in math and I had bought this book a few months back. We picked a page, photocopied it, and he got right to work. He was subtracting three digit numbers.
Ian had made plans to have a friend over. I had offered to meet him at the top of our road since his mom didn't want to drive down our road and I was afraid to drive up our hill. We all dressed in our winter gear and piled into the car. We drove to the bottom of the hill and just as we were about to walk up his mom called and told us to watch for him; he came sledding down our road to where we were waiting.
Only on a private road can you have that kind of winter fun!
We drove home and all played outside for an hour sledding down the hill and walking back up. They tried tandem sledding, standing on their sleds, and each took turns trying out the different kinds of sleds. Alec and Evan were frustrated with all the snow getting in their eyes so they decided to try sunglasses and swim goggles to keep the snow out. We ended up sledding right up until lunchtime.
I offered to cook lunches today but Alec just decided to make his own. He pulled out the package of Ramen noodles and followed the directions to make his own lunch.
We geared up and headed back outside.
The other boys had made a jump. We all sledded together for another hour. Then the boys made a double jump.
They all tried tandem jumping.
Evan urged me to record them all sledding so they could watch it together later. I recorded only two slides down since. A few times the sleds left with only one or two riders, another time they clipped my feet out from underneath me. We had lots of fun and kept figuring out how to make it better for all the riders. We traded out sleds for others, talked about why some went sideways, why some people (even if they started out in the back) reached the bottom of the hill before others.
It was great!
Alec pulled out our colored sand and made some sand art with some empty bottles.
When he was done we watched a few YouTube videos on sand art as well. We really enjoyed this one where an entire beach scene was created with colored sand. This one that created an entire landscape inside a jar and this one and that one both used a light table to make many animals and nature scenes using light and shadow.
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It was a perfect school day with lots of snow play! Who needs a snow day?
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