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...

Homeschool Highlights

Happy Friday!

This week we worked a lot on our life size human body models. We still have to add our bones and muscles and faces but here's what we did this week.

J2 is really getting into the book, Microbe Hunters!

I'm enjoying the tidbits he shares with me that he gets excited about. Unplanned narraration is the best!
The last few weeks I have been dictating a passage to J2 from something he has read over the past week. Usually, it is something that stands out to me while I am reading it too. I am trying to keep up with some of his reading assignments so we can talk together about them. He no longer has his older brother to bounce things off of. This week I dictated a passage from Seven Men Who Rule the World from the Grave. Great Book! Once he's finished, I hand him the book to make his own corrections. I sometimes have him find the definitions of words he may not know or synonyms of others.

Also this week, J1 took all the ugly brass 80's hardware off of my kitchen cupboards! So glad to see it go!!

I've already picked out the new hardware!

Hopefully these little babies will make a big impact!
Have a great week!

I'm Back!

Wow! It's been way too long that I have been away from my blog!
We have had two family weddings (one in Florida), the holidays, and lots of family fun keeping us busy. What an amazing time we have been having! This week things are back in full swing with homeschooling. I was trying to decide what to share first on my first post back. So much has happened!!
While passing the long hours driving to Florida, I read a lot of blog posts! One that inspired me was, A Box of Goodies from Kelly over at Homeschool Co-op. Kelly shows what she sends off to a family in NY in their nature box. What a cool idea!
I was thinking about it while my kids were catching lizards and finding cool things within the first few days of our vacation. Then I thought, "Hey! We are already cross country ourselves and can make our own nature box to take home to NY." So we collected nature treasures that really cried Florida to us! Well, December Florida. :-)
Here's what we brought home.....

It's such a wonderful way to remember our vacation too!! Hope you all had an amazing Christmas and New Years!

Homeschool Highlights

This fall we have been participating in our homeschool co-op classes. They are on Mondays from 12:30-4:15. J2 has been enjoying his photography and graphic design classes. B takes cake decorating, theater skills, and an art class that I teach. J3 was taking chess but stopped because it was not a good fit for him. He also takes a Lego class. The session runs nine weeks and this coming Monday is our last class. My class is putting on an art show and B's class is putting on a play. I will include some photos next week.

During the week, we started our lifesize body models.

B worked on finishing her art portfolio for my art class.

J2 worked on Blender for awhile. It's a computer animation program he downloaded for free. I'm counting it towards his Art survey course I created.

He's also been studying for his permit. Hopefully he will be taking his test soon.

The rest of our week can be filled in with the usual. Math, Language Arts, and yadda, yadda, yadda! :-)
Tonight we are hosting a homeschool highschool get together so I'm off to make sure all our games are ready!

Enjoy you weekend!!