Graduating another one!!

Second son is graduated from high school and now I can focus on summer fun, home decor projects, his party in August, and blogging!! I'm not sure why but it was very hard for me to blog this past year. I really have no excuses but now I am feeling re-inspired to start blogging again.

My dream has finally come true! What is it you ask??? Keeping chickens! Now when I just said that you either said to yourself, "Yay!" or "Why?" Hahaha! Well, if you said, "Yay!"....stay tuned!
I can not wait to blog about them and their new coop we built!!

Here's a pic of the girls. There's seven of them.

Today, I'm getting out the summer stuff and changing the seasons around here....finally! Feels great to have summer touches around the house.

Well, back to my laundry! :-)

End of the school year wrap up and other random stuff

Helloooooooo! Well, I am finally able to write a post today. Life has been busy!!! We are wrapping up school, but honestly there has been so much to tend do around here that I feel like we are not finishing strong like I had planned.

We finished our co-op classes and had a wonderful last day!
Here's a peek at some of my classes art work. (I taught high school art this year.)



They all did such an amazing job!

B had her cake final and I must say that although I helped her plan out her design, when she walked out with her final cake, I was amazed!



We also host a monthly teen night. For the last one the kids played a lot of outdoor games and thankfully we had beautiful weather for it.



Our main project of the spring was to get our barn repainted. The problem was that until that was done we could not plant our garden! UUUGGG! Well, we finally finished it and I am waiting for the rain to stop now so I can plant!

Here's a picture of the side of our barn (before)



Needless to say, A LOT of scraping was involved!!

Here is the barn after!!





I love the way it turned out. We still have the back to do but I'm not going to tackle that until the fall.

Well, it's great to be back and have more time to blog. I've gotta go and finish cleaning out our school "closet".

Homeschool Highlights

We had a very hands on week! It was fun to complete a bunch of projects we have been wanting to do.

In Early American History we finished our colonial beds complete with a straw stuffed matress.

Now we are working on a woven blanket for our bed. I really love this project! I'm counting it for handicrafts too!
Hopefully, I can show you the finished projects next week. The kids worked on them while we were reading, The Witch of Blackbird Pond at night before bed.

We are also dying muslin using natural substances such as onion skins, coffee, and beets. Samples of these will be going into a dying book we are making.

In Human Anatomy this week we made models of DNA! It was delicious! :-)

We also made a model of the ear the kids could crawl through. We used a couple of tables for our base.

First, you enter the pinna.

Next, you crawl through the auditory canal.

Then, you finally enter the inner ear!

WARNING!!!! WARNING!!! GROSS MATERIAL COMING UP!!
J2 dissected a cow's eye ball. B could not even watch but my youngest J3 was glued!

We also complete another LEGO challenge. This week they were to build a household object. Of course my clan did all things electronic. B did a labtop, J3 an ipad with a game on the screen, and J2 built a flip phone.

Hope you had a productive week!!

Adding Spice to our Week

This week I was researching kid's Lego challenges online and I found a blog full of ideas called, Lego Quest Kids. J3 loves Lego building, and we needed a little spark in our homeschool week, so I decided to try the most recent Lego challenge for April. They come out with a new challenge at the beginning of each month. B was inspired by it and decided she wanted to do it too! They had to build something that grows and then photograph it in it's environment. The website has submissions from kids all over the world! It was a lot of fun showing my kids the other children's interpretations of the challenge. I did not show them these pictures until AFTER the challenge was complete, because I did not want it to sway their ideas. Also, I loved the photography component of this challenge. I think they had more fun taking the pictures!! They each took about 10! Here's a few pics of what they came up with..... B created a tulip!

J3 created a dandedion! The first picture cracks me up. He said, "Can you find the Lego Dandelion in the dandelion field mom?"

What do you do to add a little spice to the week???

Homeschool Highlights

Hello All! We just finished up our third quarter and are starting with our second week of the forth quarter on Monday. Over the last couple weeks J3 turned 10 years old. He had a Star Wars themed party and Darth Vader (his older brother J1) arrived to battle his guests.

What a great time everybody had!! So glad we decided to do it up for the double digits celebration! In science, we made models of neurons our of construction paper and then labled all the parts. I found this idea on Pinterest. Who would have thought how Pinterest could change the way we homeschool? This is J3's Neuron.....

....and B's....

Also in science, we studied the brain, and tried an experment called the dollar drop. I dropped a dollar bill from on it's side, so it fluttered and fell. Then, the kids took turns trying to catch it. It's hard!!

The book states, "....your nervous system needs time to size up a situation and react." They definately got the point. In highschool this week, J2 has been teaching a dissection class in our co-op every Monday. He will sometimes dissect that weeks specimen with B and J3 as practice for the upcoming class. This week they did a freshwater clam.

Also J3 was so inclined to bake us some chocolate chip cookies! Love when his inclination goes in that delicious direction!

He has entered three of his photos in an art contest that will be held at the end of the month which is exciting and today he took senior pictures for a friend that he will spend the day editing. All great things to add to his portfolio! Now that we are in the home stretch before summer, I'm really going to take the next week getting organized and scheduled. I want to finish strong! Have a great week!

Homeschool Highlights

This week we have had unseasonably nice weather for our area and our homeschool highlights greatly reflect that!

We did some early spring nature study at our arboretum. It's amazing how many changes you notice when you visit the same spot frequently throughout the seasons.....

......like the cattails! A couple years ago we had done a year long Outdoor Challenge on cattails by Handbook of Nature Study Blog. Now we can't help but see what those cattails are up to every time we visit the arboretum.

Notice the bright pink cast? B broke her wrist ice skating two weeks ago. Thankfully, she gets it off in a couple weeks before her cake decorating class starts.

Here's are some signs of spring pics I snapped at the arboretum.

Of course we had to collect specimens!

Also this week, B set up a mini driving range for the boys. I could watch them swinging through the kitchen window and it was cracking me up. I felt bad that B couldn't swing the club due to her wrist and she was retrieving all the balls for them.

For history, we have been working on a project from "Time Travelers: Colonial Life". It's taking some time to finish but it's looking good. It's a Colonial bed. We have the frame done and next week we will make the mattress' to go on top.

Well....that's it for this week. Hope you enjoy the upcoming week!!

Also linking up to the Homeschool Chick!