Won't You Be My Neighbor? ( I can't help myself, Mister Rogers helped raise me:)

 Jo from  A Bit Of This and A Bit Of That had an incredible idea to bring bloggers together to share their neighborhoods. It has been an amazing way to learn about different cultures and geography. My kids have been loving looking at all of the different types of manholes, modes of transportation, street views, parks, local stores, mailboxes and much more from  a round the world. It has brought about discussions about how our different environments meet our needs. Today is Day 6 and it is my turn to give you a idea of what our neighborhood looks like in the city of ?, in the state of Michigan, in the country of United States, located on the continent of North America on planet Earth !!

                                                  

Welcome!! I happen to live in a city which is in my opinion one of the most diverse cities in America. Every place that I am sharing is no more than five minutes away from my home. It can be a homeschoolers dream place, because we can just walk out our door and there is so many resources just waiting to be discovered.                                        
                                                                              

 I happen to live in the capital city of Michigan. I am deliberately not sharing the name of our city. I want to see if you can tell where I live from the pictures. When I said Michigan, you guessed it didn't you?  There are tours daily of the Capitol building. My three kids and I can't count how many times we have visited, but every time we go we learn something new. It is just five minutes away.

                                                      A street view of our neighborhood.

 Just about every manhole looks like this. Sometimes you may see the writing Board of Water and Light on it. I sent the children on a scavenger hunt for one of those, or at least a more glorious looking manhole. No luck!!  It is funny how things become important, until joining this tour we could of cared less about a manhole. Now a contest has begun. I'll update you whenever we find a beautiful manhole :)

Looking to send a postcard? Here you look for the color blue. Just about every 5 blocks you'll find one.

 The city bus. This picture was taken at the bus station. You can find a bus stop  easier than you can a mailbox. They go as far as three different counties. The routes are really convenient for university students, and many public school students use the buses too. If you turn the corner from my street there is one right there.

This is our park that is made with 100% recyclable materials. You wonder where the kids are? The day I took this picture it was in the nineties. Not park weather, especially without a water fountain.

 Our local convenience store. It is my favorite store for many reasons. The most important reason is the ICE CREAM. Yum!!  Great deals on milk and cereal. Also it is open 24 hours, no worrying about what you forgot at the grocery store.

 Our Farmer's Market is a cool place to go. Sorry no pictures of the inside. It has a flea market atmosphere and everyone there is friendly.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

  The neighborhood church which is one of the oldest buildings standing.

 We are one minute from one fire station and five minutes from another. We live exactly thirty feet from the hospital as well.                                                                                 

The Justice Hall. Newly built and only a few have been able to enter. Hopefully soon we can be visitors of this place and see some court cases in action.  Another fun field trip my kiddos will love and learn a lot from. The Justice Hall is exactly two minutes from home.   

The Montessori school is just three minutes from our home. Every time we past this place my family gets so giddy. We know there is a lot of learning going on, just too pricey for our budget right now. The staff is so welcoming and if you get a chance to visit our hometown stop here first, they will make you feel right at home.

Does any of the pictures remind you of your neighborhood?  If you said Lansing was the capital city of Michigan you were right :) If you said Detroit, leave me a comment telling me why you thought that (automobiles maybe:). I would love to share more!!       

I was born and raised in this neighborhood. Left for college and came back. It has changed a lot since I was a little girl. In remembrance of a man who taught me how to be a good neighbor I will like to share this video link. Enjoy!  

          

                                                                             
Thank you so much for visiting!! Feel like doing some more sightseeing visit the blogs below and become an a round the world neighborhood tourist.

June 25th - jojoebi-designs - Saitama, Japan

June 26th - akatsuki ra-ra-ra - California, USA

June 27th - little red farm - Sweden

June 28th - "Je veux une 'tite soeur-fille" - Canary islands

June 29th - Knitty Lorn - East Devon, UK

June 30th - We Don't Need No Education - Michigan, U.S.A

July 1st - Jeollanam-do Salad - South Korea

July 2nd - Merita's Playground - Slovenia

July 3rd - kids, craft and chaos - Scotland, UK

July 4th - Zonnah's Addictions - Washington State, USA

July 6th - Se7en - South Africa

July 7th - Talia's Travel Web Log - New York, USA

July 8th - Monkey Magic - Japan

July 9th - The Pukeko Patch - Wellington, New Zealand

July 10th - Cami Daily - Berlin, Germany

July 11th - Crazy Cambridge mum - Cambridge, UK

July 12th - Schaeresteipapier - Switzerland

                                                                   

Blast From The Past: The Counting Rope

Next week is a Holiday Vacation Week for us. I am not sure if the kids will be working or not , it will be entirely up to them. I am going to be planning and preparing for the rest of our summer session. I am not sure if this will mean a break from blogging or not. I have been trying to transfer previous postings that involve my children from my other blog. The postings are when they were learning at home while attending school. Tomorrow I will be back to give you a wonderful tour of our neighborhood. Below you will see one of the Blast From The Past post when DJ and I worked together in learning about history and diversity. We were able to create a new material to work with that we both enjoyed using for a long time.

                                      The Counting Rope 

This activity was inspired by the book Knots on a Counting Rope by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. This is a wonderful story about a relationship with an Indian grandfather and his grandson named Boy-Strength-of-Blue-Horses who is blind. The grandson ask his grandfather to repeat his life story how he was born, and how he won his first horse race. The grandfather ties a knot everytime he tells the story. The grandfather tells the grandson that when the rope is filled you will know the story by heart and can tell it to yourself.

                                                    The cover of the book.
                                                 

                                                               
                                                                The Counting Rope

 I made a rope with five knots. I added numbered cards if the child wishes to use the rope to make a number line. The aim of this rope is to count using one to one correspondence.

Here is the five knot rope and a nine knot rope. The nine knot rope can be used to sequence the sandpaper numbers from one to nine.

This is DJ completing the nine rope extension activity. You do this blindfolded with the sandpaper numbers.

                            
What I liked about this extension activity is that DJ was able to show empathy to Boy-Strength-of -Blue- Horses. DJ said " Being blind isn't easy, he is smart to still know all that stuff'".  If you want to know what all that stuff is that DJ is talking about you have to read the book. I am linking this post to Math Monday hosted by Joyful Learner.                          

It Is Hot!!

96 degrees!! Need I say more?  The Sun was the focus of our conversation today as I suspected it would be. Before swim time I read one of their favorite books to them.

 Which got them thinking about making shadow prints. I was confused at first  about what they were talking about. Oh, Sun Prints.    

 I also reintroduced them to the Parts Of The Sun. I don't remember if Ken has ever shown any interest before yesterday about the sun but here is a blast from the past when DJ first was interested in learning more about the Sun.

They were really excited that they were able to identify the root word in photosphere, and from there they were able to understand this part of the Sun's function. Which led them to want to discover what other things can the sun give us.

                                                    Can we make tea with the Sun?

 DJ was very interested in using the solar oven so he was thinking food. "Can I make scrambled eggs will the sun"? he asked.

The answer to all of their questions were Yes and Yes!! Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the results, it was hot, we were in out of water and unfortunately my camera isn't waterproof.

Tomorrow our temps are still in the 90's. It is going to be another chill out day!!

    

        

                                                                                                                            

                                                                               

Daily Report: Missing

Today was a very sad day for DJ. When DJ woke up he found that his snake was missing. The bottom of the tank shows no sign that it could of escaped from it. It was very hard for him to concentrate on anything else. He did manage to create a Missing flyer.

 Ken completed another Geometric Cabinet Command Card. I liked how she took her time with this.

 After this work she did the Parts of the Sun three part cards. Which led her to wanting to do some sun experiments. Tomorrow it is expected to be 98 degrees, so she made a solar oven in hopes to scramble some eggs outside.        

      Doll making and Algebra is what Michelle spent time on today.

Well according to the weather report tomorrow will be backyard swimming day and a whole lot of Sun experiments.                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Daily Report: Snippets Of Our School Day

Enjoying Summer School !!

                         US Capital Cities Pin Map.

More Algebra Sorting.                    

   New materials keeps this author busy.                                                                            

                                                   Types of lines three part cards.

                                                                      Helping!!

                         Books were read inside and outside.

                                                    Volcanoes are still among us.

                                                                     Tie Dying

                        Always enjoying some fabric markers.                  

Linking this post to Montessori Monday.                               

Daily Report: Ready For Something New

Today they were ready for some new lessons!!

Michelle did  a few lessons in her Algebra text, it is a review item so more info about this at a later date.

 I incorporated a Work Plan for her by her request. Michelle has so many things she wants to accomplish, it is helping her out a great deal having a planner and the Work Plan. Freedom of choice can be overwhelming at times. She was tickled that writing a friendly letter to Grendl a character in the poem Beowulf was on her Work Plan.                                                                

 DJ was really into his math work learning about the commutative and associative property he used the beads to show the problems, he called it number play. He also did another notebooking page and worked on building a tin can robot.                                                                          
                                                                                         

  Since big sister is doing some Algebra, Ken is wanting to try some herself. This algebra sort activity was created by Ashleigh. Ashleigh has a wonderful store on Teachers Pay Teachers I have a ton of her activities on my wishlist. Ken became really absorbed by this work.