Some Things We Do

Here are a few things we have done recently for the organization and fun of homeschool.

We made these fun journals out of composition books. Nature journals, piano book for assignments, and B has one for his Reading Made Easy handwriting journal. We enjoyed stamping on cardstock then gluing our creations to the cover. We also enjoy filling them up.

In the nature journal we write about the things we find outside, and print pictures of the critters we identify.

The kids love to do Creative Writing. We cut photos from magazines and make up stories about what could have happened.

Reading Made Easy is the phonics/reading program I am using with B-6. It is a wonderful curriculum. It involves learning special symbols for phonics and then writing out sentences with the phonics clues. Then you get to read books and listen for the phonic of the day. He loves snuggling up with me and reading books. He also likes to draw pictures of the sentences he writes for handwriting practice.

This is the kids' first drawing lesson. It is a picture of a banana, a nectarine and a plum on the table in front of the window. They both did very well. Their teacher was really impressed. We are so thankful she has donated her time and talent to bless us.

We "rowed" the book They Were Strong and Good by Robert Lawson last week. It was a great story about family. We learned a little about our family history as we completed a family tree. We also learned about industrialization. Just a little, not too overwhelming. We talked about the Civil War, and what times were like right after the war. It is wonderful to see the innocence of my children. I love that they cannot imagine the people being afraid of the old slaves. To me, it shows how far we have come in showing that all men truly are created equal. I love that my kids see everyone as God's children. Anyway, I will stop there before I get too sappy.

Luna Moths and Butterflies

When we went to the football game Friday night, we came home with a pretty beaten up Luna Moth. Some children found it, and were showing it to us. Then M wanted to keep it, so they let her. They said that their parents wouldn't let them take it home. We saw an opportunity for an excellent science project.

We have learned a lot recently about butterflies, and moths. So, this was a special treat. We came home and read all about the Luna Moth and M and I were debating on whether or not it was a boy or a girl. I was unsure about how big the antennae needed to be to be a boy. Well M won the debate on Sunday when we found little eggs all over her bug barn. Flutterby, the Luna Moth, is now in moth heaven and in about 10 days we should have lots of little moth larvae to feed sweetgum leaves. We are eager to see if they will emerge now, or wait until Spring. I am thinking that it will be Spring, although I would love for them to emerge soon, so we could have our bug barn back!!

A few weeks ago we enjoyed a nature study on butterflies. M and B love nature and everything in it. We have several butterflies who love our zinnias, and a some that frequent a wildflower patch by the house. We took lots of pictures and video, then came inside and identified them. We had 2-3 Gulf Fritillary, and a small little bugger we are not sure about. But he gave us quite the show with his proboscis.

We think the yellow ones that likes the wildflowers are called Cloudless Sulphurs. I can't get the video to load of them though. Sorry. They moved to fast for a still photo.

We sure enjoyed learning about moths and butterflies. We hope you get a chance to learn something too.

Mailing May

We had a great time with our Five in a Row book Mailing May by Michael O. Tunnel. It is about a little girl who is mailed to her grandmother's house via the US Postal Service on a train. It is really cute.

My kids were most excited that the setting was in Idaho. We have some good friends from there, so the lights went on in immediately with this one. The kids both talked about what it was like in Idaho with our friend, and we viewed photos from the Idaho tourist website. They both learned that you can do lots of cool outdoor sports in Idaho. Also, that potatoes are grown there.

We had a wonderful visit with Nana at the university post office where she works. Not only did the kids enjoy the mail cart rides, they also learned about how Nana does some of her job. It was neat to see how it is sorted. We watched a video on the entire process of the mail and also learned more about postcards. We enjoyed a postcard exchange with all of our FIAR friends over the summer. I put those postcards to good use in a geography/mapping activity. We put the postcards in a lapbook, and identified where each one came from on the map, using our map skills. We learned about North, South, East and West. We learned about grid maps, and how to use the index of an atlas. We are continuing this throughout the month.