Pocket Microscopes for Nature Hikes

I recently saw a blog post about taking pocket microscopes along during nature hikes. I was skeptical about how well these would work, but curious enough to order six of them from Amazon ($2.59 each and free shipping). After using them for a week, we're crazy about them! Not only has it cultivated curiosity in my girls (ages 8, 5, and 3), but you can even take PICTURES with the microscope using your smartphone. We've observed and photographed leaves, flowers, aphids, bark, skin, hair...you get the picture.

Blood Moon {2014 Lunar Eclipse}

 Most of my favorite memories don't involve large amounts of money or even much preparation, most often it's a simple investment of time and focused attention. I'm hoping Marin feels this way about the early morning we drug her out of bed to see the lunar eclipse of 2014. And, while it was more important that the little girls sleep, than see the blood moon, they did get to enjoy our Blood Moon pancakes. I love it when homeschooling fades into family time.

Dear First Year Homeschool Mom

The journey into homeschooling was overwhelming. My first year as a homeschool mother I was so unsure of myself. I purposed to take note of what worked and what didn't so that I could share it with other mothers. At the end of my first year, I compiled the list below. They are the words of advice I would have shared with myself. Today, as we are completing our second year, these words still ring true.

- Find a homeschooling mother whose parenting practices you admire and pick her brain.
Find out what her routine is and what works for her homeschooling family. Perhaps even curriculum ideas and especially good read aloud books.

- Think only about the grade you'll be teaching and the one directly after that.
For me it was kindergarten and first grade. Anything beyond that and I was quickly overwhelmed. But it was also helpful to know what to expect we would be covering in first grade so that I didn't try to do too much in kindergarten.

- Spend as much time creating activities for younger siblings as you do on choosing curriculum for students.
Keeping my babies occupied while doing school with Marin was a learning curve, but busy bag activities were so helpful.

- Homeschooling is like any other new stage of parenting.
It's just a matter of finding the groove.

- Read "A homeschool day in the life of" blog posts on Simple Homeschool.
This helped me to find families and scenarios that were similar to my own and gain philosophies and ideas that I could try out. Finding other work-from-home mothers was invaluable.

- Attend a homeschool convention to look for others just like you.
It's good to know you're not alone.

- Schedule based on what's best for your family. Not based on pressure from others.

- Borrow books.
I purchased most of the supplemental reading books for history and looking back I could have borrowed so many of them. Borrowing lets you know what books are worth buying for your personal education library.

- Trust your gut.
You've taught them everything they know so far. It's a natural process.

- You are imperfect and there will be moments you struggle with feelings of failure.
Call on God. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.

Blessings on your journey!

Strawberry Girl

Growing up my mother read aloud to us daily. It's something I remember with fondness about my childhood. She's good at reading aloud and when I asked her to read Strawberry Girl (by Lois Lenski) to my girls, she enthusiastically said yes. During most of March they read a little here and a little there. When they finished and I asked Marin what was one thing she remembered about the story she said "The father was bad. He didn't give money to his wife and spent it all instead. We planted Strawberry plants after reading this story." She's right about the dad and about planting strawberries. That's my mom for you. She is more than willing to share the gift of reading with her granddaughters AND she looks for any opportunity to incorporate nature. She thought the girls would enjoy growing their own strawberries and showed up at the back door with six plants and invited the girls to plant them with her. Below are the plants (in May) with their beautiful pink blossoms and a hand full of the harvest. Thank you, Mom.

Kindergarten {Our Final Six Weeks}

 June 24-August 2, 2013. Our Final Six Weeks of Kindergarten.

We spent more time outside studying nature and learning about bees at the library, adding to our nature books with each new discovery.

 And constructing legos.

 Daddy built these super cool water and sand tables and so the girls had tons of fun with sensory play.

 Marin completed The Beginner's Bible and we celebrated the completion of Kindergarten with Pizza. We met her grandparents at the local CiCi's Pizza and invited them over for desert so that Marin could show them everything she had learned this year. 

But the highlight of this six weeks for Marin was her week at Camp Invention.

 Marin's "Duck Stand" invention.

  Someone was REALLY proud of her gold medal. 

Kindergarten {Our Fifth Six Weeks}

Our Fifth Six Weeks (April 29-June 7, 2013):

During our two week break the girls and I attended the Polk County Garden Club Flower Show and Tasting Tea with Granny. It’s an annual tradition that we look forward to. The girls enjoyed the flowers and eating fancy desserts.

This six weeks included a very special school day! May 15 was our 100th Day of school! We celebrated and you can read more about that here.

This six weeks was a continuation of the last six weeks having found a nice groove we settled in and moved at a comfortable, steady pace. In addition to our normal school work we also did some casual art lessons and watched the development of tad poles from Granny's garden. 

100th Day Of School

It's the hundredth day of school today (hooray!)

It's the hundredth day of school today (hooray!)

It's the hundredth day of school

It's the hundredth day of school

It's the hundredth day of school today!

(Sung to the tune of She'll be Comin Round the Mountain)

It took Marin FOREVER to realize that her breakfast was in celebration of the big day.

She kept asking me why I didn't cut her pancakes. 

We played fun games with the hundreds chart and

chose special prizes from a treasure chest after every subject.

We did it! 100 days!!!!!!

Kindergarten {Our Fourth Six Weeks}

Our Fourth Six Weeks (March 4-April 12, 2013):

During our two weeks off our family took vacation toNewMexico to enjoy snow sports. It was a 21hr one way road trip with family. The girls experienced snow shoeing for the first time and went sledding.

Bible Study: Marin read aloud daily form ZonderKidz “The Beginner’s Bible” and she completed all of the Old Testament (276 pages). She also memorized all of the books of the New Testament and earned $3 from Awanas for doing so. Having her read aloud from the bible has been effective in helping her understand the bible stories more thoroughly.

Calendar: In her Calendar note book Marin continued to make daily notations on a calendar and practiced writing the date in the correct form, April 1, 2013 and with numbers 04/01/2013. She continued to track the number of days of school numerically and with tally marks.  She updated a weather chart daily and we compared the most and least days of certain types of weather over the last four months. We talked about St. Patrick’s Day and April Fool’s Day. She pulled a prank on her Granny and Pops and had a blast thinking of lighthearted gags. We also observed Easter and completed fun activities to help reiterate the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Grab Bag: This concept worked so well we continued to use it these six weeks replacing three of the review topics with new items. These included:

·         Skip count by 10s (eliminated)

·         Skip count by 5s to 100 (eliminated because she does this when counting her tally marks)

·         Count to 100 (eliminated)

·         Learn to tell time (NEW)

·         Learn about Money (NEW)

·         Learn to Tie your Shoe  (NEW)

·         Say and write your phone number

·         Say the months of the year

·         Say and write your address

·         Say the pledge of Allegiance

·         Skip count by 2s to 100

·         Say the days of the weeks

·         Is _____________ a common noun or a proper noun?

·         What is a noun?

·         Family relations quiz. For example (Your mother’s mother is your? ________)

·         Write the letters of the alphabet (Upper and lowercase)

·         Sing the vowel song

·         Write your numbers 0-20

·         Name the five senses

Reading: Completed lessons 80 through 102 of “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.” Covering adding S to the ends of words, reviewing long-vowel words, common spellings for the long A sound, vowel pairs and common spellings for the long E sound. Our read aloud selections were “Farmer Boy” (finished from previous six weeks) as well as “The Hundred Dresses.” Marin read her first chapter book “The Box Car Children” aloud to me during reading time. She also read many easy reader selections including “The Frog and Toad Treasury.”

First Language Lessons: We completed Lessons 37 through 48 in “First Language Lessons.” We focused on identifying nouns and drilling family relations. The book covered mailing addresses, days of the week and months of the year, but this was already familiar information for Marin. She memorized “The Months” a Mother Goose Rhyme. We learned what a pronoun was and have begun a list of pronouns that we are working to memorize.

Math: We are currently working in the Math.U.See Alpha book. We completed lessons 7, 8 and 9. We spent two weeks on each lesson covering addition +2, solving for an unknown and addition +9. I feel confident that Marin understands these concepts well enough to move forward. We have flash cards for math fact memorization and Marin is confident in 64 of 100 facts. We also spent a lot of time playing Sum Swamp!

History: Finished the Travel and Transportation section of “The Usborne book of Living Long Ago.” While reading from this section of the book we spent a lot of time identifying locations on the world map and globe. We also referred to the maps when reading from scripture.

Science: Read from  ”Simple Science” and “The Berenstain Bears’ Big Book of Science and Nature” but most of our “science” this session was hands on. We visited a local honey manufacturing company to see how honey was made. We planted a flower bed in the back yard, working together as a family. And we created a Nature Notebook filled with leaves from the various trees in the yard. Marin identified each leaf and labeled it appropriately.

Music: Continued to learn the piano using “Music for Little Mozarts.” We covered identifying and locating “C” and “D” on the keyboard spending time in review of the concepts already covered.    

Kindergarten {Our Third Six Weeks}

Our Third Six Weeks

January 7– February 15, 2013:

We took three weeks off for the Christmas/New Year Holiday to celebrate the season and spend time with Family.

On Fridays the girls listened to “The 7 Habits of Happy Kids” while working on coloring pages that were associated with the theme. Themes included: Habit 1: Be Proactive. You’re in charge.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Have a Plan. Habit 3: Put Frist Things First. Work first, then play.

Habit 4: Think Win-win. Everyone Can win. Habit 5: Seek first to Understand, Then to be understood. Listen before you talk. Habit 6: Synergize. Together is Better. Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw. Balance Feels Best.

Bible Study for this six weeks included lessons from Marin’s Awana’s book and scripture memorization.

Calendar: In her Calendar note book Marin continued to make daily notations on a calendar and practiced writing the date in the correct form, January 7, 2013 and with numbers 01/07/2013. She continued to track the number of days of school numerically and with tally marks.  She updated a weather chart daily and we compared the most and least days of certain types of weather. We celebrated Valentine’s Day and made cards for friends.

Grab Bag: To continue to review facts and drills that I wanted her to remember, but didn’t want to become monotonous, I created a “grab bag” method. Selecting 16 items of importance she was asked to select four items from the Grab Bag each day for review. These included:

·         Say and write your phone number

·         Say the months of the year

·         Say and write your address

·         Count to 100

·         Say the pledge of Allegiance

·         Skip count by 2s to 100

·         Say the days of the weeks

·         Skip count by 5s to 100

·         Skip count by 10s

·         Is _____________ a common noun or a proper noun?

·         What is a noun?

·         Family relations quiz. For example (Your mother’s mother is your? ________)

·         Write the letters of the alphabet (Upper and lowercase)

·         Sing the vowel song

·         Write your numbers 0-20

·         Name the five senses

Marin responded positively to this method, and the results were wonderful in maintain a knowledge of these concepts without burn out.

Reading: Completed lessons 58 through 79 of “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.” Finished the two-consonant blends and moved to introduce three-consonant beginning blends. Covered Long Vowel and Silent E words plus the hard and soft sounds of C and G. I read the book “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingles Wilder aloud to the girls. And Marin spent 15 each day reading aloud to me from an easy reader book. She kept a list and read more than 20 books. Marin was also excited to read books to her sisters at night before bed.

First Language Lessons: We completed Lessons 25 through 36 in “First Language Lessons.” We focused on common and proper nouns. Understanding the differences and identification of the two  and introduced aunts, uncles and cousins to family relations. Marin memorized the poem “Hearts are Like Doors” and “Days of the Weeks” and performed exercises in story and picture narration.

Math: Marin completed the Math.U.See Primer book and completed the first six lessons of the Alpha book. She has a firm understanding of telling time with hours and minutes within increments of five. And a basic instruction of subtraction. The first six lessons of the Alpha book reviewed place value, counting to 20, addition plus 0 and 1 and skip counting by 10s.

History: Finished the Food and Eating section of “The Usborne book of Living Long Ago.” While reading from this section of the book we built a cauldron model.  

Science: Read from  “Usborne Starting Point Science-Volume 1” and “Usborne Inside your Body.” We died flowers with food coloring to gain a better understanding of the “waterways” inside plants. We also took a nature hike on the Lone Star Hiking trail. A portion of the Big Creek Scenic Area, a part of the Sam Houston National Forest.

Music: Continued to learn the piano using “Music for Little Mozarts” We covered quarter notes, bar lines, three black keys and quarter rests. Listed to music by Mozart and Beethoven.    

Marin's First Story Book

Children's Christmas Books

I was so excited to start a new Christmas tradition with the girls! Reading one Christmas story every night leading up to Christmas. Here is a sampling of those we read and enjoyed. 

A Firefighter's Night Before Christmas by Kimbra Cutlip
My girls love this book because it says "firefighter." They love all things firefighter, especially Daddy. Any firefighter family would enjoy the humor and holiday spin of this story.

Room for a Little One by Martin Waddell
Beautiful illustrations. Sweet captivating story of hospitality and love. Held Adalyn's (2 yrs old) attention.

The Story of Holly & Ivy by Rumer Godden
This sweet story was a tad too long for one evening, so we broke it up into two readings. Marin enjoyed this magical story about making wishes. It did NOT hold Adalyn's attention. Lovely illustrations.

The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett
A story that causes self examination. Good lesson in kindness.

The First Night by B.G. Hennessy
This simple book held Coralee's (11 month old) attention. Smooth words, paired with pleasant illustrations. 

Kindergarten {Our Second Six Weeks}

Kindergarten ReCap (Our Second Six Weeks)

October 29 – December 14, 2012

We took a week off for the Thanksgiving Holiday. This blog post covers the activities we did during our time off.

Read aloud to the girls: Thanksgiving on Thursday and a Christmas book each day of December.

Completed the second Sing Spell Read and Write kindergarten book “On Track” completing the kindergarten program which included six multi page readers and a variety of reading comprehension evaluations. As well as five “my little story books” each based on a short vowel sound. She’s reading with confidence and her penmanship has improved.

Completed lessons 46 through 57 of “The Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading.” The focus was primarily on two-consonant blends adding the letter “s” to words, sight word “of”, and hyphens. Also introduced consonant digraphs. Marin, often reads our bed time stories and is hungry to learn to read.

We completed Lessons 15 through 24 in “First Language Lessons.” Marin memorized the poem “Work” by M.A. Stodart. We covered proper Nouns and Places (common nouns) such as city, state. Performed exercises in story and picture narration.

Completed Lessons 16 through 27 of the Math.U.See Primer book. We lack only three lessons to complete the Primer book. Marin worked on addition plus one and memorization of addition with doubles (1+1 through 5+5). She learned to skip count by 2s, 5s and 10s. Added to the tens and hundreds place. Solved for the unknown. Learned to convert tally marks to numbers and write numbers using tally marks. Introduced addition to 10 and telling time. We supplemented these new concepts with fun dot to dot and skip counting activities.

Finished the Homes and Houses section of “The Usborne book of Living Long Ago.” While reading from this section of the book we built a four poster bed and a model teepee. We were given a paper castle to play with for a week to reiterate the areas of a castle and Marin was able to identify what types of people lived in the structures we read about.

Chose a new Science book for this six weeks. “Usborne Starting Point Science” Volume 1. We covered the first three sections: What makes rain? What makes a flower grown? And Where does electricity come from. The format of this book is similar to the History book and was more specific to Marin’s interests in the world around her.

In her Calendar note book Marin made daily notations on a calendar and learned to write the date with numbers. We are still drilling month/number association. She kept track of the number of days of school numerically and with tally marks. Everyday she practiced writing the Month and charted the weather. She practiced dialing her home phone number and wrote and addressed letters to friends four days a week. We also did a short unit on Veterans day.

We also introduced piano lessons at a very relaxed pace using “Music for Little Mozarts.” We covered the first few lessons introducing terms such a Piano and Forte. As well as covering up and down the piano. Marin learned to play We Three Kings after practicing numbering her fingers.

Thanksgiving 2012

I snapped this photo of Coralee and Grandma Posey on Thanksgiving day. It embodies the happiness in our family and the blessing of love we all share with each other.

We took the week off from homeschooling and I focused my attention on doing crafts, stories and activities focused around the Thanksgiving holiday with the girls. I wanted to use the time to teach Marin about the first Thanksgiving and so we spent the week working on projects like these.

Thank you Lord for...Pumpkin Pocket courtesy of Christian Preschool Printables. The three items in the foreground made me smile. She wrote "LaLaloopsy" first, then "Bunny" and "me" came later in the lineup, but I found it humorous that she thanked God for herself. These foam activities I picked up at Michael's.

Other activities we enjoyed were:
Turkey Skittles Sorting Mat - Making Learning Fun
How To Draw A Turkey and a Color By Number Turkey - I can read. I will succeed.
Thanksgiving Dominoes Game - DLTK
Made Paper Pilgrim Hats - Martha Stewart
I read aloud a Magic Tree House book "Thanksgiving on Thursday" by Mary Pope Osborne and
"The Story of The First Thanksgiving" by Elaine Raphael and Don Bolognese. And of course we watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.