Highschool Health Course

I'm finally finding some time to tell you about the health course I created for J2. He completed Sonlights Human Anatomy course in middle school and Biology in eighth grade. This year he is working on Biology 2 which is all human anatomy. So I really had to pray about what I wanted to accomplish for this 1/2 credit requirement he needed. Everything seemed kind of redundant to say the least.
After some prayer, I put together a cover sheet for him to work through. I think I reprinted this 10 times!! I kept changing things!

Here is the main book list;

Body By God by Ben Lerner (portions) He has already started this book and we think some portions are more applicapable to him that others so we are skipping around.

Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Brett and Alex Harris

His older brother read this as well and it really impacted him.

Build Powerful Nerve Force: It Controls Your Life-Keep it Healthy by Patricia Braggs
This is my all time favorite health book! I'm hoping he loves it too.
It covers everything you would want a Christian boy or girl to know about health to take with them into adulthood. That's just my two cents though! :-)There is actually a whole series of these but this one sums it all up to me.

I then created time sheets for each book he would be reading.

I got a lot of my templates from the book, Senior High: A Home Designed Form+U=LA. All I can say about this book is....AWESOME! It has really taken a lot of the fear of high school away for me. I bought it when J1 was in tenth grade.
I'm also going to have him fill out a book review sheet from the Form+U=LA for each book he completes.

Now let's talk about driving practice. Very important! I included driving practice and the five hour course as assignments to complete. He's already taken the five hour course, so we crossed off five hours on his main time sheet.
I also made him a time sheet for driving practice.

What else is important for health and happiness now and as an adult? Wisdom! Wisdom! Wisdom! As the head of his household I want him to know that wisdom is the principal thing. So, I included a mini wisdom study. I found both sheets in the FORM+U+LA. You could use these sheets for any study though.

I also compliled some articles for him to read. Topics include; teen nutrition, the anti-inflammatory food pyramid, and what the Bible says about healing and health. Any articles you find that you think would be important for your student (of course from people you respect) could go into this section.

He also had to choose an important vitamin and food to research from the World's Healthiest Foods webstite. (Great site by the way!) He choose Vitamin D and Blackstrap Molasses.

He will also be researching some healthy snacks to create and then have the young critics in the family taste test them. :-)

And that's about it! I may add a thing here or there such as a CPR class. The great thing about creating your own class is that you can taylor everything to fit your student and his/her needs. If something you are doing is not working in the class you created just replace it with a better option.

Homeschool Highlights

This was a week filled with a lot of science and health activities.

We decided to try our hand at a couple of activities I had found and posted onto Pinterest. We made models of both the spine and human blood.

To make the spine all you need is a pool noodle and some thick ponytail holders.
I cut the pool noodle into about 2" pieces with a bread knife to make our vertebrae (24).

Then use a length of rope or cord to string on alternate noodle pieces (vertebrae) and pony tail holders (disks).

Then tie off the end. That's it!!! Easy peasy lemon squeezy!! Don't you love projects like that?!!

You can find the link to where I found this idea here.

For the blood, here are our suplies.....

BTW...the bags are filled with cheerios with red food coloring added to them.
We filled up our jar with water and added the yellow food coloring. I guess this is how blood looks like without the red blood cells added.

Next add your "red blood cells".

Then add your white blood cells (mini marshmellows and your platelets (purple pom poms) and Viola!! You have human blood! EEEEEWWWWW!

You can find a link to where I found this idea here.
I spent a good portion of the week creating a high school health course for J2. A half credit of health is required to graduate where we live. Since J2 is already taking Advanced Biology (which is all human anatomy)and we can't count any of that towards his health credit I had to really think about what J2 needs in this course. I sat down and asked myself the question, "What do I want J2 to learn before he graduates high school next year that he will take with him for the rest of his life?"

So I created, "Living in Divine Health" for him.

I'll share all the details with you in a later post. Hopefully mid week.

Hope you enjoyed your week!!

Homeschool Highlights

After making a Valentine Pinterest board and becoming inspired, we decided to do a couple of simple crafts.

First thing we tried was Picasso's Rose Period Hearts from The Painted Paper. The simplicity of this project really leaves a lot of room to focus on creativity! Love that! I even tried a few!

And our Valentine pretzel buttons from g*rated did not last long!!!

I am loving having "visual files" I can pull up at any time. I am a visual learner so Pinterest is perfect for me!

We started a lot of new books this week.

B and J3 are reading Squanto and are really enjoying it. I don't have to beg them to read their assigned chapters. :-)

J3 wrote his first report on his favorite subject......reptiles!! We worked on every step together and he got through it with minor frustration. He seemed very happy with the way it turned out. I let his do the whole thing on Microsoft Word to make it easier. He does not mind writing if we take out the "handwriting" component of it.

My high schooler J2 started the book, The Choosen and The Diary of a Young Girl this week. He wrapped up WW1 by filling out a "War Report". This is a form I got right out of the book, Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+La by Barbara Edtl Shelton.

Oh! I almost forgot! We had one day in which we got dumped on with a tremendous amount of snow! We have had a pretty green winter this year, which is almost unheard of around where we lived. My oldest commented that maybe all the snow we were supposed to get was saved up for this one day. Anyhoo, B and J3 had to take time out of their regularly scheduled school day (hahaha) to enjoy it.

It's wonderful that home schooling allow us to take advantage of these opportunities because as quick as it came is as quick as it went. We now have green grass again. (You won't hear me complaining about it though!)

Have a great week!!!

Homeschool Highlights

I didn't have time to post our highlights last week due to a pinched nerve in my neck. Starting to finally feel like myself again. Yaaaay!
I have just a few highlights to share from the last couple weeks.

We are wrapping up our lessons on Southwest Indians and we made an Adobe village diorama along with a map of where all the different Native American groups lived.

All of these projects came from the Scolastic book, Southwest Indians - Easy Make and Learn Projects.

We also tried our hand at stenciling some colonial boxes to display at our colonial celebration. B really enjoyed this project.

We also recieved this book that we had oredered from Amazon...

We were so excited to get started that of course we tried the first couple of lessons on getting to know your brush. We are definately going to enjoy this book!

J2 finished reading, All Quiet on the Western Front and The Grapes of Wrath this week. I ordered both movies on Netflix. So far we have watched, All Quiet on the Western Front together. Two words....not good. The movie was so bad that it was hard to focus on anything that was going on. On a positive note, J2 was having to narrarate to J1 and I everything that was going on or how it really happeded in the book. Mission Accomplished!! (by accident) Got to love when that happens! :-)

Have a great week!

Homeschool Highlights

Another week is complete! This week went so much better for us.... thankfully!

This week in Early American history we did an archeological dig.

Along with digging up four layers of "artifacts" you record your findings in a journal.

Here are some of their findings...

We also made pop up cards of the early settlers houses.

Both projects are from Homeschool in the Woods. They are getting excited to display all their projects at out Colonial Celebration (with Dad).

J2 studied for his Advanced Biology test with a buddy :-) Ha! Ha!

Hope you can see him in this pic. He kind of blends in with the couch. Our lizard Bolt! He was great company until he left J2 with a little present on his shoulder!

J2 also worked on his cubist art project that we found over at A Faithful Attempt.
I love the way its turning out. I will be using this project for an homeschool art class I will be teaching this spring. Love that I will have his project to show as an example.

Today, we had our first day of bowling with our group. We have done it every winter for the past 6 years now. It was nice to have some fun with friends to start our week.

Have a wonderful week!!

Homeschool Highlights

This week was a challenging one. No one's head was in the game including mine. We did manage to squeeze in some learning though.

In science, J1 is studying advanced biology and now that we have our slides from Home Training Tools, he decided to have a lab day. He had to view slides of human skin, lung, and the stomach and then draw them under different magnifications.

Since the youngers are doing Sonlights Human Anatomy this year, J1 let them in on the action.

B and J3 also labled and assembled Mr. Bones.

In Early American History, I had found a project where you have the kids draw the character from history you are studying on a piece of poster board. I first cut out the face and armholes to fit them and they colored around that. We did Christopher Columbus. They then planned a talk to give to the family in the voice of Christpher Columbus. They did all their own research and choose one prop to hold that Christopher would have used. J3 carried a telescope and B carried a map of the routes he took. J2 helped them practice before the big presentation and J1 video taped the whole thing for us. They did amazing! We were even able to ask them questions about their characters when they were done. It's great when an idea turns out well!

A new edition to our homeschool schedule is copywork from the Rules of Civility. We are using Homeschool in the Woods Colonial Times program. Each week you print off a handwritting page with one rule and a scripture that backs it up. Love the concept!
This weeks rule was #5...If you cough, sneeze, sigh, or yawn, do it not loud but privately; and speak not in your yawning, but put your handkerchief or hand before your face and turn aside.
Col 3:12....Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering;

I hope to regroup this weekend and get back in the grove next week. Have a great homeschool week!

Mother Culture

This time of year we are all about the school day, especially since the holidays have taken us off track a bit. Although I am happy to be getting our school work done, I can easily get burned out after a couple of weeks. I've been thinking about reinstating some "Mother Culture" back into my life.
I like how Karen Andreola descibes "Mother Culture". On her blog, Karen says;

Charlotte believed that this countenance of contentment, of serenity, can come about even during stressful times when a mother learns to occasionally do for herself what she does for her children - go out to play. Charlotte tells us we would have happier households if we mothers "would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or a half a day, out in the fields, or with a favorite book, or in a picture gallery. . ." For a mother to allow herself a bit of leisure to rest and refresh herself by exploring her own interests, to find a little time for herself, especially when so many others depend on her, is a what Karen calls, Mother Culture ®.

I really need to remember to go out and play!! In the summer it's easy for me to find things to do. Winter on the other hand, not so much.

Her blog also says...

When a busy homeschooling mother takes part in Mother Culture she safeguards her enthusiasm, so she will be better able to cope with her responsibilities. To partake in Mother Culture is to feed herself with the Word of God, with ideas from books, nature, art, music, etc., thus taking care to keep growing spiritually and mentally. If there such is a thing as the joy of childhood, there is also such a thing as the joy of motherhood, and Karen admonishes mothers to recognize and live within such a blessing.

Love that!

Soooooo, this week here is what I have been up to.

Grabbed me a new skein of yarn in "oatmeal" to crochet a scarf.

Here's what I'm reading.

Listen to this from, Boys Should be Boys....

"Nature was impotant to Tyler, as it is for all boys, because boyhood is meant to be lived between a boy's imagination and his feet. He needs to move his feet in order to keep up with his sense of wonder. That is why boys are so physical, so rough. Life is a continual experiment to see what can happen if...."

So true! so true! But I would venture to say nature is just as important to girls too. I am such a nature girl!!

Here's what I'm listening to.

I can't tell you how much this CD relaxes me. I listen to it on my Spotify.
I hope this post inspires you to add in some "Mother Culture" to your week as well.

I leave you with this...