Noggins & Nonsense

Today Feels Good

2012-01-10T16:38:00.001-06:00

Today feels good, despite the fact that is is cool and rainy and thundering. We are back to our school routine and have had a wonderful day!

We reviewed Butterflies (Life of Fred) for Math, the children completed another day in their scripture journals and they are both engrossed in their reading time. Of course Mattie is always engrossed in a book or four.

Mason, my reluctant reader, is reading but he is still reluctant about choosing a new book. I just remind myself of the improvement he has made. I never dreamed he would read the entire Harry Potter series in a few months time, but he has. He is now reading The Ordinary Farm on our Kindle. I hope the story sucks him in.

We made hoagie bread for our own “Subway” sandwiches for lunch and Mason has just raved about them ever since.

I had the children write lists of 5 things they are interested in. Mattie’s list consisted of gerbils, rabbit raising, hamsters, ferrets, and horses – No surprises there.

Mason listed Minecraft (a game where he builds a world, mines for ores and such), creative books, completed house, food, and fun activities. We had wonderful discussion about what he meant by each thing listed.

I’m off to watch The Secret Garden with my children. Mattie read the book and so we are following up with the movie. It’s just another wonderful addition to our day.

Autumn Reading Log

2012-01-05T10:37:00.000-06:00

I’m a bit behind in posting our Autumn Reading List, but here it is. I’ll have to get the Winter list up soon. Mattie already has a stack for me. She is a reading machine.

Mason’s Book Log

Fablehaven (Book 1) in progress
Harry Potter - Year 7
Harry Potter - Year 6
Harry Potter - Year 5

Mattison’s Book Log

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Anne of Green Gables
How to Train Your Dragon
ND: The Double Jinx Mystery
ND: The Message in the Hollow Oak
B&YT: When the White Dove Descended
The Secret Journal of Brett Colton
ND: Mystery of Crocodile Island
DIOM: Tears of a Dragon
DIOM: Circles of Seven
DIOM: The Candlestone
Dragons in our Midst: Raising Dragons
Floors
ND: The Clue of the Velvet Mask
AG: Molly's Story Collection
ND: Password to Larkspur Lane
SAJS: The Mystery of the Mona Lisa
AG: Felicity Story Collection
AG: Kit Story Collection
Emma Dilemma, the Nanny, and the Secret Ferret
ND: The Clue of the Broken Locket
AIOP: Annison's Risk
Jeffery's Ghost
The Code Busters Club Book 1
Spy Cat
AIOP: Glennall's Betrayal
Harry Potter: Year 6
The Ghost of Honeymoon Creek
The Mystery Girl
AIOP: Draven's Defiance
Emmy and the Rats in the Belfry
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat
AIOP: Fendar's Legacy
ND: Mystery of the Glowing Eye
ND: The Sign of the Twisted Candles
The Quiet Little Woman: A Christmas Story
Plymouth Pioneers
The Mayflower Adventure
SAJS: THe Caper of the Crown Jewels
Dangerous Natural Phenomena
Miniature Horses
Weather Experiments
Your Sheep: A Kid's Guide
AG: Samantha Story Collection
OP: Darien's Rise
SAJS: Peril at the Grand Prix
ND: The clue in the Diary
Odyssey Passages: Arin's Judgement
ND: The Mystery at Lilac Inn
ND: Case of the Sneaky Snowman
ND: The Bungalow Mystery
ND: Nancy's Mysterious Letter
The Magical Ms. Plum
Emma's Dilemma and the New Nanny
SAJS: The Puzzle of the Missing Panda
SAJS: The Search for the Sunken Treasure
SAJS: Pursuit of Ivory Poachers
Ferrets Cool Pets!
Weather
Learning to Care for Small Mammals
Iguanas Cool Pets!
Learning to Care for a Bird
SA Jack Stalwart: The Secret of the Sacred Temple
The Water Horse
Fablehaven (Book 4)
Fablehaven (Book 3)
Fablehaven (Book 2)
Harry Potter (Year 4)
Fablehaven
Surprises According to Humphrey
In Grandma's Attic (Book 1)
Friendship According to Humphrey
Emma Dilemma, the Nanny, and the Best Horse Ever
Quarter Horses
AW: Horses
Good Job, Kanani
BCC: The Guide Dog Mystery
BCC: The Deserted Library Mystery
BCC: The Honeybee Mystery
Nancy Drew: The Secret in the Old Attic
Emmy and the Home for Troubled Girls
The Stallion of Box Canyon
Audio: Dragon Rider
Your Goats
The Three Detectives and the Knight in Armor
The World According to Humphrey
The Missing Doll
NC: Pet Rabbits
NC: Donkeys
NC: Farm Birds
Honeybees at Home
Adventure According to Humphrey
King Arthur & the Magic Sword 3D
Gooney Bird Greene
Your Rabbit

Read Alouds

Redwall
The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs
The Tale of Two Castles

Book Log: The Book of the MaidServant

2012-01-04T10:17:00.000-06:00

I just finished The Book of the Maidservant by Rebecca Barnhouse. From the the first sentence I could hear the voice of Johanna, the maidservant of Dame Margery Kempe; that is what committed me to read this book.

Dame Margery, a renowned medieval holy woman wails morning, noon, and night for the suffering of the Virgin Mary. She boasts of her favor with God, yet she shows no compassion for the suffering around her.

She tells Johanna that she is accompanying her on her pilgrimage to Rome as her maidservant. During this journey they travel with various others either on a pilgrimage of their own or by happenstance. Not long into their travels, Johanna feels the sting of betrayal yet she does not yet know that that is what it is. She soon finds herself not only maidservant to Dame Margery, but to the entire group, and the injustice seems to multiply from there.

Before long Dame Margery has outworn her welcome and the group is constantly in conflict. Unfortunately for Johanna she is right in the middle of it. What will happen to this group of pilgrims? Will they make it to Rome? What will happen to Johanna? I’ll let you read and find out.

Recommendation: I really did enjoy this book, as I mentioned Rebecca Barnhouse did an excellent job capturing the voice of Johanna. Even though I’m not catholic and don’t fully understand all the catholic references, I was still able to follow the story and get a feel of the influence of this religion during the medieval times. This is an excellent addition to a middle ages reading list for older children and adults.

As I read this book I found myself pondering the conflicting behaviors of Dame Margery. It caused me to reflected on what a disciple of Christ looks like versus what a disciple should be.

Throughout the book, characters are regularly offended by Dame Margery and her holier-than-thou air. So much so, that her conflicting reputation proceeds her and her virtue is regularly questioned. At another point in the book, Johanna escapes from a man who plans to have his way with her. The servant who comes to her aid is possibly murdered, we don’t actually know what happened. Based on these events I feel this book would be appropriate for readers in the upper grades, probably grade 8 through adult. My youngest two will have to wait a few years before they will understand just what is going on in this story.

An interesting side note is that this book was inspired by the fifteenth-century text The Book of Margery Kempe, thought to be the first autobiography in English. There is a really interesting note from Rebecca Barnhouse about how this influenced her writing of this book.

If you read The Book of the Maidservant, I’d love to hear what you think. Happy Reading!

FHE: Election Year Focus (January)

2012-01-03T11:32:00.001-06:00

Being an ELECTION YEAR, I want to take advantage of this time and teach my children how the Political Process works, how to wisely choose a candidate and what their responsibility is. Because I want my husband in on this study, we will be using our Family Home Evening time each week to learn about this important topic. We want to keep our study short, simple and fun. We have plenty of time for a deeper study in the coming years as they mature in their educational pursuit.

Since we will be figuring out our study as we go, I expect it might get messy at times. We are not using a set curriculum, but setting up stepping stones leading to our goal mentioned above.

As resources we plan to use whatever we find that suits us. We will be using the original source documents (The Constitution, Bill of Rights, etc.), and we will be recording things we think are important in a spiral notebook. We will watch debates and speeches after the fact to avoid the opinions of the media so we can form our own opinions based on our yardstick.

Here are areas I’d like to touch on in the coming months. As our study progresses, I will share the resources we used. If I find I don’t have much time for my postings, I will update in 100 words or less.

January: The Political Process (5 weeks)

Prep – Introduction and Notebooks
How The Political Process Works – School House Rock * and other resources
Our Responsibility – Words of the prophets + other inspiring quotes
Our yardstick – The Founding Documents

February: The Constitution

March: The Bill of Rights

April: Words of the Prophets

May: The Issues

June: The Candidates

July: Putting the Pieces Together

August: Choosing your Candidate

September: Let your Voice be heard/Share what you’ve learned

October: Support your Candidate/Cause

November: – Election Day!

I have stepping stones for each month that I will share as time goes on.

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*This is part of our “fun factor” all the videos on this DVD are included in the 30th edition DVD which is a better deal and you can also view them for free on youtube.

Our Newest Learning Tool: The Kindle

2012-01-02T12:10:00.001-06:00

I have wanted a Kindle for quite a while, but would not indulge until my Living Room was painted.

I am happy to report that my living room is painted (along with my dining room, front bathroom and hallway). We knocked that out the week of Christmas. Crazy, I know.

And guess what was under the Christmas tree? A Kindle. Just the one I wanted. The children let me use it on occasion. =)

So far it’s a huge hit! We can toss it in a bag and out we go. My shoulder thanks Amazon. Really.

School Update

2012-01-02T11:49:00.001-06:00

I posted long ago that this school year would be different than previous years as my youngest two are now very competent readers and capable of much more independent work. This has proved true.

I am most pleased with the progress they have made on their Scripture Journals. We have also jumped into The Life of Fred Math curriculum hoping to add some joy to this dreaded subject. Our history spirals have worked out wonderfully this year as well.

One area that I am not particularly happy with is read-aloud time. There is far less of that now that they are reading so much independently.

100 words or less

2012-01-02T11:32:00.001-06:00

I want to blog really…. I am just so busy with more important things in my life that when something has to go it’s typically my blogging. Is there a solution? I don’t yet know, but the thought came to me to keep it 100 words or less. This is 51.

This is my experiment, to see if I can post more often if I limit myself to fewer words. To succeed I’ll need to choose my words carefully and make every one of them count.

I can see challenges with this limit. But here I go.

How well do you know the scriptural account of the Savior’s birth?

2011-12-05T21:37:00.001-06:00

Bird Cage Pendant/Watch Necklace for only $7.50!

2011-12-01T09:05:00.001-06:00

This is a deal through Broadcast Bloggers of which I am an affiliate. I rarely share deals because I don’t like to read ads on blogs, however this is such a cute and unique gift that I just wanted to share it with you! You can get yours here! Any proceeds we make through this offer will be going toward our son’s mission expenses. We thank you!

Isn’t this just adorable!

Product Details:

Bronze color, retro style, round case
Watch dial is located on the bottom of the cage
12 Arabic number hour markers
Precise quartz movement for accurate time keeping, one button for time setting
Normal water resistant, NOT for showering or swimming
Inside of the cage is a decoration bird
Battery is loaded
age Material: Alloy
Watch cover is made of mineral crystal glass
Specifications:
Color: bronze color
Cage size: (L x W x H) 2.7 x 2.7 x 4.8cm
Screen: 20mm in diameter
Necklace length: 39cm

*Deal ends on Thursday, 12/8/11 at 11:59pm MST (while supplies last)
*Orders open to US mailing addresses only
*Due to the holidays approaching please allow 3-4 weeks for delivery. Cannot be guaranteed to arrive before Christmas.

Get yours here! Free Shipping too!

Showing Gratitude Through Posters, Leaves, and Letters

2011-11-01T14:03:00.001-05:00

For the past several years we’ve had an “I am thankful for” poster hanging in our home during the month of November. Each member of our family wrote things they were thankful for on it throughout the month. Visitors to our home were encouraged to add something they were thankful for as well.

Just a few weeks ago, I came across our poster from 2009. I was getting ready to throw it out when suddenly something caught my eye.

Here, in my grandmother’s handwriting, is what she was thankful for that year. My dear grandmother just passed away in August. I can’t describe to you how special seeing what she was thankful for in her own handwriting has meant to me. I miss her so.

This year we will still be writing down what we are thankful for, but we will be doing something a bit different. We plan to capture our gratitude all month long through leaves and letters.

To read more click here - I am over at Latter-day Homeschooling today.

Rollin’ in the dough

2011-10-20T14:15:00.001-05:00

While the children were involved in their “reading hour”, I made some bread dough. I was planning on making a French bread loaf, which I did. I’d show you a picture but a French loaf is always lovely, nothing surprising.

However when my youngest joined me, we decided to try something a little bit different.

First we decided to make a sunflower.

Then we decided to make a face. Not just any face… but Moustache Man!

As you can see, these are adorable! Our mustache dropped down a bit as the dough rose in the oven. Next time we will make the moustache thinner and lighter. And in case you wanted to know… his ‘stache was good! As was his hair, and nose, and ear, in case you wanted to know.

I haven't yet posted our 30-day challenge regarding bread, so I’ll go ahead and give you my favorite dough recipe here:

8 Cups of Flour (I prefer to use a combination of White Wheat and All Purpose Flour)
3 Tablespoons of Instant/Fast Acting Yeast
3 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar
2 teaspoons of Sea Salt
3 Cups of Hot from the tap Water

Note: This recipe makes a large batch of dough (enough to make 2 large loaves).

I use a stand mixer with a dough hook. I add 6 cups of the flour and the remaining dry ingredients. I mix them for just a few seconds, then I add the water slowly as it is kneading.

Once you’ve added all your water and it has mixed in, you will need to add your remaining 2 cups of flour. Depending on the humidity or alignment of the Earth, you may or may not need all of the flour. Add flour slowly until the dough is “cleaning” the sides of your bowl. You can knead this for as long as you prefer. I just mix it thoroughly until it makes a dough ball on my hook and call it good.

Next, place your dough ball in a large bowl. I spray mine with oil and make sure it coats the entire dough ball. Cover with a warm damp hand towel to aid in rising. Sometimes, I turn my oven on for just a few minutes and then turn it off. I place my bowl in the oven during the rise time. Do not put your bowl or dough in a hot oven to rise, it could melt your bowl and cook your bread. You just need a warm oven. Use common sense here.

Once your dough has risen for 15 minutes, punch it down. Divide your dough. Shape it and you are ready for cooking.

With this recipe you have two cooking options, which is another reason I love this recipe.

Option 1 – Put your shaped dough in a COLD oven and turn it on to 400 degrees. Check on it in 20 minutes.

Option 2 – Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. While it is preheating, cover your shaped dough and let it rise on the stove until the oven is ready. Check on it in 20 minutes.

I love this recipe because it consistently yields good bread. It freezes well and is quick. I’ll share more about all that when I post about our 30 day bread challenge. Along with tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way.

WonderMaps: Customizable Maps (A Review)

2011-10-14T19:59:00.001-05:00

I love maps! Finding just the right map for a particular subject is something to get giddy about, at least in my book, which is why I’m thrilled to share a review of WonderMaps from Bright Ideas Press. This is a really neat program that offers map customization through the use of layers. Let me show you an example:

Pretty cool huh? If you can check or uncheck a box, you can use this program.

WonderMaps includes:

60+ maps of the world

60+ maps of the USA

125+ historical maps, including 25 biblical maps

The complete map sets from The Mystery of History vols. I–III and All American History vols. I & II

And they are CUSTOMIZABLE!!!

In addition, you have these choices:

historical or modern-day maps

outline, reference, political, or topographical maps

black-and-white or color maps

features including: names, borders, rivers, cities, physical features, and latitude and longitude measures.

Do you know what that means? It means you can truly have it your way! AND you can use it for years to come with all your children. You can start out with simple maps and then as your children grow, you can make them more complex. There aren’t many products you can use from elementary age all through the high school years.

WonderMaps World Map

WonderMaps also includes several great resources in the Teacher’s Guide. One of my favorites is 50 Bright Ideas for Using Outline Maps. This is a list of very clever, yet simple ideas that I am certain we will implement throughout the years.

You can watch the WonderMaps Tutorial Video here:

You can purchase WonderMaps at Timberdoodle for $44.95. Considering the hours of research time you’ll save, the ability to use this for all of your children, and that it will remain useful throughout their whole educational experience, I figure this is a fair price for such a clever product. We give WonderMaps a thumbs up!

For more great homeschooling resources you can check out Timberdoodle's Free Homeschool Catalog and you can also visit them on facebook.

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Legal Disclosure: As a member of Timberdoodle's Blogger Review Team I received a free copy of WonderMaps in exchange for my honest opinion. I received no other compensation.

What I love about making my own Homeschool Planner

2011-10-11T10:36:00.001-05:00

I admit it. I like to tweak things to fit my family. I rarely do things the suggested way. I like things that are customizable. My homeschool planner is no exception.

I’m sure you’ve noticed all the nice homeschool planners available. There are so many beautiful free planners and also some nice planners for purchase. No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to make them work for me. They don’t fit our life somehow. I always have to scratch things out or add columns. My pages end up a mess due to the alterations I make.

For example:

We don’t plan our day by the hour. We’ve tried but it doesn’t last long. What works better for us, is to focus on certain things in the morning and other things in the afternoon, which means planners organized by time of day don’t work for us.
We homeschool year-round for 4 days per week, on the 5th day we meet with a homeschool group for friend time, field trips, and other activities. We also run errands then.
We have our basic subject list – Math, History, Spelling, etc. but we also have projects thrown in here and there. I need to be able to accommodate the routine studies and the various lessons and projects that we add in here and there.

For these reasons and others, I find I need to make my own planner. Using Microsoft Word, I use tables to suit me. Below is my basic daily assignment page and an area of study page. Simple. And customized to my life.

Another thing I love about making my own planner is that I can decide how to bind it. I don’t like bulky 3-ring binders for my planner. I prefer it to be spiral bound. And this year, I’ve found my favorite way thus far – spiral bound along the top. I love this!

I like to have a variety of information at my fingertips, so I use tabs to organize that information.

Behind the Math tab I have a math facts checklist and the table of contents from various math resources I’ll be using throughout the year. I also keep a scope and sequence.

I have tabs for each of our subjects plus calendar, life skills, blog posts, library lists, and more.

So how is your planner working out for you? Are you able to use it as is? Or do you need to make alterations?

Scripture Journaling with Children: Our Journey

2011-10-01T19:53:00.001-05:00

This year I am working on Scripture Journaling with my children. My goal is to establish in them the habit of daily, JOYFUL, personal scripture study, not just a reading of a few verses but to include pondering, likening the scriptures, and recording the things learned. I want it to include marking of their scriptures and making them theirs. Notice my goal does not include things like perfect spelling, handwriting and deep theological discussions on every page. It also does not include a certain amount of writing each day. ☺

To read more, head on over to Latter-day Homeschooling.

Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT! Reading Incentive Program

2011-09-28T14:14:00.001-05:00

The Book It! program through Pizza Hut starts in October. When I signed up months back, it stated on the site that even though there was a deadline, they would continue to honor requests until they ran out of supplies. Visit the Homeschool enrollment page here.

Our Chicken Diary: County Fair Capers

2011-09-10T13:09:00.001-05:00

If you’ve been following our Chicken Diary, I may or may not have told you that we obtained our chickens through a 4-H Poultry Chain. Through this program we gained 23 chickens for $12. As part of the program we were required to sign an agreement to enter 3 of our birds in the county fair; those birds would be auctioned off. The proceeds raised at the auction are put back in the program to help offset the cost of next year’s birds. This is more than fair and reasonable. It’s a great program.

However, we had no idea that we would bond with our chickens. Seriously. Even before summer, we knew parting with 3 of our girls just wasn’t going to work for us, so we decided we would buy back our girls at the auction. Mason suggested we should put our ugliest birds in the fair so we could buy them back cheap. ;)

We entered a total of 7 chickens in the Fair. Three for the Poultry chain and 3 in a pen of pullets, and 1 for a single pullet. Aside from the poultry chain entry, the others would not be sold or auctioned off.

We got our birds to the fair on Tuesday and had to put them in wire cages. WIRE CAGES!!! We all felt terribly disturbed that our girls - who have a nice coop at home and free range during the day all about our backyard – were going to spend the next several days in wire cages. It was too much! Mason was mad about it and Mattison cried about it. We prayed for them each day. Yeah, we are pretty pathetic. But we love them… really.

Each day we visited them 3 times to give them fresh water and food and to talk to them and pet them. It was dreadful for us. Now I want to point out that this is normal Fair kind of stuff. The birds were not hurt or anything, we are just perhaps a little ~~obsessive~~ sensitive about our girls.

Several times strangers approached us wanting to buy our birds that we had there and anymore we had at home. “Are you selling?” they would say. “No” I instantly replied. In my head I was saying, “Are you crazy? We are moping around missing our girls! Even our dog Hank is pitiful. My children would need therapy for years!” Our girls do look nice though.

Early on Friday, we made plans for the auction. We were told that as soon as we got our girls to take them home ASAP and to not leave the cage for a moment. Last year some birds were stolen. As if I wasn’t nervous about getting our girls anyway.

Finally, Friday night came and my husband and I had a date at the County Fair auction, waiting for our turn to bid on our chickens we have grown to love. When we arrived at the Fair all the poultry chain birds had been moved to the arena. I panicked. I hadn’t marked their cage yet. But we found them easily and quickly tied a red ribbon on the cage for easy identification.

As we sat waiting for the poultry chain auction, Steven and I noticed two of our chickens pecking at the other relentlessly. I went over to see if something was wrong with the one being pecked. When it stood up I saw that it was NOT OURS!! Our chickens have nicely developed combs and waddles, this one barely had sprouted a comb and was smaller. I told the 4-H lady and showed her. Then we began looking for our chicken. We looked for a cage that had 2 that looked like the one in our cage that was not ours , but had a 3rd that looked like ours. We finally found one. We switched out the chickens and watched how they reacted. Yep, no doubt. We found our chicken.

The 3 that were not ours were flighty. Ours are used to being handled and were calm. The other two did not peck on our chicken once we returned it. Likewise, the odd chicken was not pecked on by the 2 in the other cage. Crazy Huh? We don’t know what happened. But the poultry chain chickens are owned by kids. One could have easily gotten mixed up by the cages. I guess we will never know. I’m just glad we figured it out before the auction, because believe me when I say, if I can tell our chickens from others, Mattison can definitely tell. There would have been no consoling her. Sigh…

I was prepared to spend whatever it took to get our girls back. Even though we had some competition for our girls, In the end, I only needed to pay $30, and we brought our girls back home that night. Well, the poultry chain girls anyway. The others had to stay.

This morning (Saturday) Mattie and I hurried to the Fair to feed and water our chickens. Check out time was at 4pm. With all the anxiety of the switched chickens the night before and the chicken thievery from last year (not to mention there were some empty cages around the chicken area that were previously occupied), we grabbed our girls and made a run for it. OK, we didn’t really run, but we loaded them up at 8:30 this morning and took them home. Sigh… Will anyone notice? Will I get chastised? I don’t know and I don’t care.

So what was the outcome? Well, we had three entries and ended up with three 1st place ribbons. Will we do it again? NO! NO! NO!

Next year we will definitely participate in the Fair, but it will be with homemade goodies, photography, sewing and educational exhibits. Our pets do not belong at the Fair. That’s not to say that yours wouldn’t. There were many a happy kid there with their animals. It just isn’t the best thing for our animal loving, possibly slightly obsessive crew.

Celebration of the Family is happening NOW!

2011-09-10T10:29:00.001-05:00

{Enjoy this free download from Allison Kimball of Simple Inspiration here.}

Today is day 2 of the 2nd annual Celebration of The Family Proclamation.

This year Montserrat from Chocolate on my Cranium, Jocelyn from We Talk of Christ, Shannon from The Red Headed Hostess, and Jaime from Welcome to the Madness are hosting the 2nd annual celebration on The Family: A Proclamation to the World.

The celebration will be held for two weeks, September 9th – September 23rd. Each of these hosting ladies will concentrate on something different: Jocelyn’s focus will be on teaching the proclamation to younger children, Shannon’s focus will be teaching the proclamation to teenagers as well as personal study tips for adults, Jaime will focus on applying the principles of the proclamation to our families and Montserrat’s focus will be on the effect of the Proclamation to the world – tackling the major issues facing families today.

There will be guest bloggers, crafts, activities and giveaways focusing on the the family. SO hop on over.

Summer Reading Report for 2011

2011-09-08T22:11:00.001-05:00

I’ve been keeping a list of the books Mason and Mattie have read this summer in our sidebar. Here is the book log for each of them.

Mason has read through 4 and a half Harry Potter novels. He is taking a break from HP at the moment. Mattison is quickly reading through the animal nonfiction section at our library. I look forward to seeing what catches their interest next.

Mason’s Book Log (My Reluctant Reader)

Bearskin
Harry Potter (Year 4)
Harry Potter (Year 3)
Harry Potter (Year 2)
Harry Potter (Year 1)

Mattison’s Book Log

Nancy Drew: The Hidden Staircase
Calendar Mysteries (Jan - June)
Guinea Dog
Audio: Anne of Green Gables
Anna and the Little Green Dragon
I'm Growing
A Bear for all Seasons
Mamma Do you Love Me?
Caught by the Cold Catcher
Where are you Little Green Dragon
Crazy Times at Camp Custer
Lazy Ozzie
Cam Jansen: Scary Snake Mystery
RPC: Turtles
Farm Noises
Project Panda Watch
Secret of the Puking Penguins
You Call That A Farm?
Cam Jansen: 1st Day of School Mystery
Jack the Puppy
FTF: Horses
RPC: Hamsters
The Christmas Pony
Your Calf: A Kid's Guide...
Pokemon: Island of the Giant Pokemon
Care For a Pet Horse
The World According to Horses
Possum Summer
101 facts about Ferrets
Max is Missing
Richard Scary (collection of 12)
Webster J. Duck
Winter Days in the Big Woods
What Do You Love?
Mice are Nice
Ms. Frizzle's Medieval Castle
NC: Parakeets
NC: Pet Parrots
AG: Circle of Fire
Your Pony, Your Horse
AG: Watcher in the Piney Woods
Matilda
Puppy Puzzle
Caring For Your Pet Bird
Water Rescue Dogs
Farm Animals: Horses
Care For a Horse
Farm Animals
American Girl: A Bundle of Trouble
PETS
KUP: Geckos
Urban Farm (Sept/Oct11)
Junoia
The Star Maker
Harry Potter (Year 3)
Little Clearing in the Woods
Harry Potter (Year 2)
Wild Wings
Hamsters, Gerbils...
NC: Rabbits
RPC: Cats
IAYP: Hamster
IAYP: Guinea Pig
M&MP: Rabbit
The First Four Years
Seahorses
A-Z: The Quicksand Question
The Big Book of Favorite Horse Stories
Caper the Kid
These Happy Golden Years
Happy Hollisters & The Secret Fort
Little Town on the Prairie
The Long Winter
By the Shores of Silver Lake
Furry Ferrets
KUP: Ferrets
FTF: The Hamster
OBF: Gerbils
Rabbits
NC: Guinea Pigs
Little Town at the Crossroads
The Midnight Tunnel
Harry Potter (Year 1)
Little House in Brookfield
Farmer Boy
Little House on the Prairie
Little House in the Big Woods

In addition, we enjoyed a few read-alouds. A puny amount really, but this summer has been hard for us. Really hard. We’ve dealt with three deaths and that only tops our list of trials over the past 3 months. We typically read just 1 chapter each evening over the summer. We are looking forward to getting back into our normal routine.

Read-Alouds

The Castle in the Attic
Janitors
Doctor Dolittle
LT: Gateway to Foo

Hop On Over!

2011-09-01T10:07:00.001-05:00

The Past couple of days I’ve posted at Latter-day Homeschooling.

Yesterday’s post is a wonderful resource and testimony of why incorporating the Word of God in all our studies is so important. There is such a powerful example found in Leviticus that you won’t want to miss. You can view that here.

As I’ve mentioned before, we are working on Scripture Journaling as part of our homeschooling studies. Today’s post features more Scripture Journal Pages. These are focused on the YW Values of faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity and virtue. You can view that here.

Happy September!

Important Reminder!

2011-08-23T14:41:00.001-05:00

That is all. Have a great day!

Add Some ‘Spice’ to your History Studies Using Aged Paper

2011-08-23T10:42:00.000-05:00

My latest post is over at the Homeschool Classroom today. Find out how you can make HISTORY feel a little more REAL by using aged paper. To see the final product head on over by clicking here.

Places to Visit: Your Local County Extension Office

2011-08-19T16:25:00.001-05:00

We’ve always been city folk, until we moved to the country on Dec 31st of this year. Happy New Year!

We’ve found loads of things to love about the country and one of those things is something available to even city folk. I’m talking about the County Extension Office. The resources and opportunities are amazing. 4-H operates through the Extension Office here. It may where you live to. Pay them a visit. They L-O-V-E homeschoolers!

Today we entered our chickens in the county fair. It’s our first time. We are excited!

While I was at the 4-H Office, I picked up this really neat year-round planting guide for Arkansas. Maybe I’ll try planting. Again.

*Please excuse my scanning. This awesome poster was huge and I had to scan it at 3 different angles to fit in all the info and then piece it all together.

Unexpected and Unwanted Nature Study

2011-08-16T18:38:00.001-05:00

Some days our lovely discoveries out in nature aren’t really quite what we were hoping for. Today was one of those days! There were two Black Widow Spiders this same size! Each had a huge egg sack! AAHHH!

Thoughts on Evolution

2011-08-08T21:34:00.001-05:00

Everything Changes: Thoughts on Curriculum

2011-08-04T13:57:00.001-05:00

My daughter (12) was a late reader by most standards and my youngest son (10) was a reluctant reader by any standards. He absolutely HATED to read! But, this summer they both inhaled books one right after the other. They have been going through books like they are starving or thirsting terribly for them. And we are thrilled! Take a look at our summer reading logs on our sidebar; we started keeping their summer log on the 1st of June.

On the curriculum front, this changes everything! I have waited for this day!

Before I share what we will be studying and the resources we will be using, I wanted to simply say that we are what you would consider eclectic homeschoolers. We use a little bit of this and a little bit of that as we see fit. I do not bow down to any homeschooling method. I bow down to my God and ask for his guidance as I search for resources and subject matter to teach my children. I use what I feel works best for each of our children and that is subject to change at any given moment.

I do however find value in using living books, journals, diaries, original documents and resources. I love learning from historical fiction and our curriculum is rich in it! I believe children need time to work, time to play and time to chase after their own interests. We all do. I do not believe in busy work or filling our schedules to the brim.

We enjoy lapbooking, unit studies, nature studies and read-alouds. We love maps, recipes and learning self-reliance skills. These things are part of our learning experience and life experience. I believe my daughter will need to learn different things to fulfill her life’s mission than my sons will need to fulfill theirs. We are all different. I do not believe one size fits all.

So without further ado….

History

We will be studying The Middle Ages, and it will last as long as we want it to. Here are some of the resources we will be using for that:

The Story of the World Vol. 2 (The Middle Ages) & the accompanying Activity Book
Knights and Nobles ( a 4-week, once-a-week, literature based unit study)
Knights & Castles: 50 Hands-on Activities to Experience the Middle Ages
a good variety of literature (fiction & nonfiction)

Depending on the interest level of each child, they will choose from a vast assortment of related books to read independently, as well as a variety of hands on activities. Our read-alouds will be history related as well. We will add pages to our History Timeline Notebook and as we find treasures relating to our studies, I will record then on our blog for future reference.

Language Arts

We include Spelling, handwriting, grammar and writing here.

We will be using:

All About Spelling level 3 (which is were we left off)
Handwriting without Tears Cursive (to brush up on a few letters)
Easy Grammar (started a few months back and the kids love it)

We love all of these resources. The children ask to do them. As far as writing goes, I am planning for them to practice in their lapbooking, and other History and Science related work. We will participate in some dictation exercises, work on our Scripture Journals, and who knows what else. I like to change things up every once in a while. Variety is nice.

Math

Math is a tricky thing here. The children do not know all their facts yet and find it tedious and boring to have to memorize them. I do see value in memorizing them, but it’s really no fun and seems like such a mountain to climb. The problem with math around here is that the children don’t find it fun. They see no joy in it. While I had plans to practice those pesky math facts this summer, they fell by the wayside.

As we get back to our full learning schedule, we will attempt to make headway with math facts first. For some reason my children can figure out anything as a word problem but working math facts with just numerals is not something they find fun at all. In an attempt to practice math facts and win them over a bit, we’ll use:

Animal Addition Word Problems/ Big Truck & Car Word Problems
Math-U-See online drill
Khan Academy
Anything else I can get them interested in

After that I’m leaning toward Teaching Textbooks for math. We shall see.

Typing

This skill is becoming more and more important in the world and in our learning. Mattison has committed to design a monthly newsletter for her Young Women’s group at church. Her first debuted last month. It’s amazing how much she has learned in Microsoft Word already. She is moving faster than I expected in our lessons and so I just answer her questions and show her how to do what she wants, and leave her to it. Typing will make this easier and quicker for her.

Mason does not have a “reason” to type exactly, but hopefully I will find one. Having a reason to learn something makes all the difference in how deep we drink, don’t you think? I should consider that for Math as well.

We will be using:

Free Typing Game (lessons, games and tests)
MS Word (for projects that give a reason to type)

Anatomy

There are so many interests in Science right now. This makes it hard to tack something down, but most of the questions have been about anatomy so I think we need to fill that cup. We will not start our Science right away, but will add it in at a later date, once we have established our new schedule.

We plan to use the following resources:

Apologia Anatomy & Notebooking Journal Pages

Various other reference resources including (but not limited to):

Like our History study, once we begin our science, we will study it until we are full and move on.

Other

Of course we will regularly visit our public library and bring home additional literary treasures. The children will choose books that interest them and I will continue to record their reading on our blog sidebar.

We will be taking the 30-Day Challenge as part of our homeschooling experiences as well. We are currently in the process of listing ideas we’d like to try for 30 days. Have you tried the 30-Day Challenge?

We will continue in 4-H, which gives our children the opportunity to try new things, give presentations and demonstrations in front of a group, and make new friends.

*This post is linked to the 3rd annual “not” back-to-school blog hop.

To find what others are using for their curriculum head on over. Week one is focused on Curriculum, week two is focused on the school room, week three is for school pictures and week 4 is Day-In-The-Life Week.

A 30 Day Challenge (Homeschooling Style)

2011-07-30T10:01:00.001-05:00

I’ve decided that this simple idea will be a part of our homeschooling this year. I’ll post more about my thoughts on what our challenges will be and the results of them as we begin this endeavor.

Our Chick Diary: 15 weeks old

2011-07-28T10:14:00.001-05:00

At the time of this posting our chicks/hens are 15 weeks old! We still find them every bit as entertaining as we originally did, probably even more so.

So what’s new on the chicken front?

We introduced them to straw in their chicken coop and they love it! We also have rearranged their ladders. Initially when we added their ladders, several took to roosting on them right away but there was a group of about 8 that preferred to huddle together in the corner. NO more! They now all have their favorite perching spots on the ladders. The higher ladder rungs are apparently the most valued from the flapping and clucking going on as they get ready to sleep for the night.

The summer heat is really something here. The chickens are eating and drinking more. The girls seem to be enduring the heat quite well, but I still worry about it. We have invested in a larger watering container. Prior to that, we had to fill their water up 2 to 3 times a day.

For those looking for chicken equipment, consider this kind of waterer (in photo). It is so user-friendly and no flipping upside down. We really like it. There is a nifty place to store the small lid when not in use, but ours disappeared. Sigh. However, we found that the lid that fit a bottle of worcestershire sauce fit it perfectly. Hooray!

Steven adjusted their 2nd window so they now have two open windows to add to their ventilation. We have added a box fan on the outside of the window which sucks the air out of the coop. This really makes a difference. We have also added a thermometer in the coop to keep up with the heat. It’s been triple digits here way to many days thus far.

On really hot days we feed them watermelon or cantaloupe. I know what you are thinking and you would be right. Our chickens are pampered! They love watermelon and can clean off the rind like nothing I’ve seen. They leave a very thin bowl of rind with the cantaloupe.

They are regularly seen dust bathing and sun bathing. Dust bathing is funny to watch. They dig and settle down in a hole and then open and fluff their feathers. When they are done, they stand up and shake and a huge puff of dust surrounds them. It seems to take 2 hardy shakes to clear it out. Have I mentioned that chickens are crazy! :)

Our chickens received their vaccinations a few weeks back. They didn’t mind it so much, but hated being held upside down. The vaccine team said we had the tamest chickens he had ever seen. Surprised? me neither.

We have some greenery on the boarders of our backyard and the girls love to walk through it. When they first started exploring in this area, we couldn’t see them in it, but they’ve grown quite a bit now and it’s not a problem.

Hank loves to run through a group of chickens sending them squawking and running. He really loves it, I don’t think they find it as fun though ;)

Just this week, several of the girls wattles and combs have gotten quite large and bright red. They are looking so pretty. Isn’t she beautiful? Others haven’t developed to this point yet.

The most exciting news is that yesterday one of our girls laid an egg! I wasn’t expecting eggs until around week 20. I let the hens out and there it was - a beautifully-shaped, wonderful egg. It is small compared to the store bought eggs, but perfect in every way.

The night prior, one of our girls was very vocal. When she went back into the coop for the night she was restless and didn’t get in her roosting spot like usual. We wondered what was up. She kept making loud noises at us. We are guessing she was the egg layer. We put a nest place for her on the ground in the coop for now. We’ve got to get our nest boxes in!! Chickens are awesome! What else can I say?

For previous chick diary entries follow this link: Our Chick Diary

Remember My Reluctant Reader?

2011-07-12T09:27:00.001-05:00

Free Ebook: Homeschooling by the Numbers

2011-07-06T14:38:00.001-05:00

Throughout the month of July, you can receive the ebook, Homeschooling by the Numbers, for free. To find out more visit the Homeschool Classroom.

Featured in the Free Ebook:

Five Steps to Becoming Homeschool Teacher of the Year
15 Ways to Have Fun with Fine Motor Skills
Five Things to say “No” to While Homeschooling – Written by Me :)
10 Recipes for Homemade Art Supplies
10 Ways to Avoid Homeschool Burnout
Seven Benefits of Using Notebooking
14 Reasons Why We Homeschool
12 Ways to Break Up Homeschooling Monotony
Four Reasons to Pre-read Your Child’s Independent Reading Books
26 Fun Art and Craft Materials for $1.00 or Less {And some fun things to do with them}
19 Everyday Helps for a Smoother Homeschool Year
Six Things to Do With Broken Crayons
Five Ways the Conquer Your First Year with Flexibility
30 Truths about Homeschooling
Top 10 Reasons to Attend The 2:1 Conference
Five Must Listen to Audio Series for Boys (and Their Families)
Six Reasons You Should Save Time in Your Schedule for Field Trips
Seven Lessons Learned From Our First Year of Homeschooling
Ten Tips for Traveling with Children
Eight Weeks To The Perfect Home Scholar
Seven Steps You Can Use When Choosing Your Home School Materials
Five Easy Steps to Spending Quality Time Together
Fifteen Ideas for a “Mental Health” Day
My Top 10 Homeschool Resolutions

Please note: There is a limit of 100 downloads per day. So, if you go to download and the quota has been met, try again the next day.

What are you waiting for? Head on over!

Printable Book Log Bookmarks

2011-06-23T15:21:00.001-05:00

My children are reading like there is no tomorrow around here. I am keeping a Reading Log for them on my sidebar, but I thought they’d like to see the books they’ve read on a bookmark. Because they are like their mother (grin) and sometimes juggle multiple books, they need multiple bookmarks. I thought I’d share. Click here to get your own! Happy Reading!

Tips: The top, shorter line can be used for your child’s name or the month or whatever works for your crew. The other lines are for recording book titles. The circle at the top is for hole punching and running ribbon or string through.

Year-Round Homeschooling: A peek at our SUMMER PLANS

2011-06-14T09:13:00.000-05:00

We school year round for various reasons and we love it. Each summer it seems we do things a little differently than the one before. This summer is no exception.

As I’ve thought about our summer schedule and what we want to focus on, I’ve realized I needed to let go of a few things and to prioritize. There are some things I need to do that I don’t want to do and things that I will totally miss out on if I don’t claim those days on the calendar now. There are so many things that I want to do and it’s really hard for me to set some of them aside, but it’s important to take care of those most important things first.

Things I need to do but don’t want to:

I need to get my house finished on the inside. This means dry wall mudding, texturing painting, etc. I can’t unpack everything or fully engage in life to my satisfaction until we are settled. It’s driving us all crazy! The children help mud and will be painting as well.
I need to get my garden in the ground. I have started loads of things from seed and they are still doing well, but because I haven’t been able to invest $500 in soil for my raised beds, they still aren’t planted in the ground. I want raised beds! I don’t want to plant in the ground! But sometimes we can’t have things exactly our way and this is one of those times; and so I’m grumbling about it.
I need to get more exercise and strengthen my body. I’ve been blessed to be on the thin side my whole life without having to put any effort into it. You may think that sounds great if you struggle with your weight but I have my own challenges. I have hypoglycemia which leaves me feeling tired, shaky and nauseous if I skip a meal or don’t pay attention to eating. I also have endometrial polyps which have to be removed every few years. This causes me to have difficult menstrual cycles where I become very anemic and fatigued, with severe headaches among other things. I am aware that I am not as strong as I would like to be and sometimes feel quite weak. I love to swim, kickbox, rollerskate, bicycle, hike and climb trees; I just haven’t done enough of it lately and I am feeling it. Opportunity has come knocking, as we are preparing our son for his mission. He has to prepare in many areas and in the area of physical fitness he has to be able to work 12 – 15 hours per day, walk 6 – 8 miles per day, bike 10 –15 miles per day and climb stairs daily. Sounds like a family affair to me and perfect motivation for Mom.
Gather up the homeschooling materials we are finished with or have decided not to use and sell them. Our budget could really use the extra $$$ right now.

Things I need to let go of for now:

Right now I need to let go of Science, History, Geography, Grammar, etc. and basically cut our school work down to Reading, Math and Scripture Journaling. This is a hard thing because we LOVE History and the kids ask to do Grammar and other subjects.
On a more personal note, I need to let go of some of the many things I love to do for now, like crafting, digital scrapbook designing, and sewing. I will have time for those later once I’ve taken care of those most important essential things.

Things I need to calendar or I will not find the time to do:

Plan multiple visits to both my grandmothers who are in their late 80’s
Take the kids places to have some fun. I need to schedule time at the pool and lake. I need to make time for picnics and gatherings with friends. I tend to get so caught up in all the things I need to do that I sometimes forget to enjoy wholesome recreation with my family.
While I’m at it, I need to remember to calendar that needed day.
I need to schedule time for my husband. I don’t want to leave him in the shadows of the busy summer while he is out providing for our family. I want him to know how important he is to us and how much we all appreciate him.

You’ll notice on the sidebar of this blog there is a summer reading section. I’ve added this to keep up with our reading this summer. I am especially excited about it this year because Mattison is now a voracious reader! She really struggled with reading and wasn’t an “official” reader until she was 11. She is now 12 and after her first year of reading she tested at a 6th grade level. We were really sweating that one out! She is improving by leaps and bounds and LOVES to read! Mason who is my reluctant reader has decided that reading is a good thing. He might not say that out loud but he is reading now for hours after he has gone to bed each night and often times during the day because he wants to!!! Happy mom here!!! :)

Note: I’ve linked the titles in our sidebar to amazon.com. If you purchase anything on Amazon going through my link, it will help my budget and we thank you.

Our Chick Diary – Week 6, 7 & 8

2011-06-07T11:01:00.001-05:00

This past few weeks our chicks have grown at a remarkable rate. By the end of week 6 their brooder box was looking a bit cramped. We took the girls out daily if the weather would allow and they have expanded their roaming area in our backyard.

We only thought we heard occasional clucks before; the past weeks we’ve been hearing lower full cluck sounds. The chicks still peep, but I don’t think it will be for much longer.

This particular chick (on the left) likes to pull on my clothes. Skirts, shorts or capris, it never fails; I’ll feel a tug and look down and there she is.

One of our chicks has started climbing up us to get on our shoulders. It kind of surprised me the first time. I was sitting in a chair and she jumped through the side arm section, and climbed up my shirt until she was sitting on my shoulder. A while later, she did the same thing to Steven (my hubby). He ended up with 5 chickens on him at once. Before long they were jumping and flapping from the ground to our shoulders while we were standing. One likes to sit on Mattie’s head! This is almost a daily occurrence now.

As for other new behaviors, the chickens which up to this point have really lived up their name (running for cover, and ducking or freezing at loud noises) are now big brave chickens. They walked right up to Steven while he was using his circular saw to see what he was doing. One decided to rest right by his air compressor. They are obviously feeling quite comfortable in the yard. They are also very curious. They think they have to be right in the middle of whatever you are doing.

Our chicks did get moved into their coop finally. We are not finished with it yet, but they really love it! We put 4 inches of pine shavings in the bottom of the coop. We used plant hangers to hold our feeder and waterer off the floor. WOW!!! This has really made a huge difference in cleanliness. They no longer stand on the rims because they will sway if they do. They also don’t get so much debris from scratching in their dispensers. It’s nice. We’ve hung some outside as well.

Buffalo gnats have been a part of our last week or so. This is our first experience with them. Buffalo gnats are mean little things that can actually kill your chickens. I first noticed the chicks shaking their heads, and then saw a greyish black place by the comb. It was a gnat. They typically attack the head area, especially around the comb and waddle. Some friends of ours sprayed their chickens to relieve them of the gnats and the next morning all 46 were dead. It was just horrible. As you can imagine we were quite concerned and starting researching these pests.

We found out that the gnats life cycle is short, so if we can last a few weeks we’ll be good. We also learned that they don’t like being within walls. Even if your chicken coop or barn is open and ventilated, the Buffalo gnats won’t like being in there. I wondered if this was true and for us, it was. The gnats only bothered our chickens when we had them out in the yard; when they were back in the coop they were just fine. So they have been confined to the coop except at night for a few hours. When our chicks are out in the yard, we kill any gnats that get on them with our fingers. No chicken blood for those pesky boogers!

We added some branches for them to roost on until we could find something else. I was looking for an old wooden ladder. Sure enough I realized we had one in the shed. The ladder was 14 feet long. We cut it into three sections; two at 5 ft 4 inches and the other part that was left over is the perfect size to put under the door. We are happy! The ladders are not fixed in permanently yet since we will still be adding nest boxes and I haven’t decided exactly where I want them yet.

The chicks are so funny, when we check on them throughout the day and at night (with a flashlight) they look at us through the window and come over peeping. We ♥ our girls and they love us too!

This past week has been very hot and humid with temps in the triple digits. We’ve been quite concerned about our chickens and make sure they have plenty of cool fresh water. Their coop is shaded through the day so it doesn’t get as hot inside as it does outside. One day in particular, I researched chickens and heat, because I worry about these things…. I found a site that said chickens love watermelon and it really rejuvenates them in the heat and gives them a fluid boost. Since we had two slices left in the fridge, I cut them up in small pieces and took them out in a pan. I set them in the coop and the chicks just looked at them. I picked up a piece and dropped it and of course they had to peck at it. As soon as one chick picked up a piece, the others started chasing her to get it for their own. I started dropping pieces and they started gobbling them down. Eventually they realized that what was in the pan was what they were eating and I left them to it. The pan was clean when I returned.

Our chicks are pretty calm and peaceful in the morning, but in the evening they are quite excited and make lots of noise. As a matter of fact, we had about 3 nights of near chicken riots when putting them back in the coop. We would put them in and they would jump and flap and fly right back out. It was crazy.

Then an unexpected thing happened; one evening the chickens starting flying into the coop on their own as the sun was starting to set. We were surprised! We helped others into the coop and they stayed! It was crazy! Last night Steven leaned a board up to the door and they went right up it and in again. We guess they have finally figured out that they want in the coop before the sun goes down.

We still have many things to do for our chickens. We need to get the real people door on the coop and finish up our sliding chicken door which will raise and lower by a rope. We need to get some more braces on the legs and also reset the window on the right side so it will open. Once we reset the window, we can put up the rest of the weathered siding.

Eventually we will put their nest boxes in. We expect our chickens to start laying eggs in August. We also need to get their fencing up. We plan to fence in an area they can go in and out of during the day on their own. In the evening we will let them have full run of the back yard for a few hours.

In the event you were wondering about Hank and his love of chickens, here is a final picture with him. He is a happy chicken dog!

Unless something exciting happens, I plan to post monthly now in Our Chick Diary. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

Chastity: What are the Limits?

2011-06-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

Latter-day Saint teens are counseled to stay sexually pure, but what exactly are the limits? Using teachings of modern prophets, this presentation shows why that’s the wrong question to ask and explains how we can find happiness and peace through staying chaste.

Chastity is an important principle we teach our children. I appreciate neat tools like this to add to that conversation. Christians of all denominations could use tools like this to help teach their children to stay pure and full of virtue, in a world that seeks after the sensual and sexual. Find out more here.

Our Chick Diary – Week 5

2011-05-20T09:49:00.001-05:00

We started off this week with a cold front moving through dropping our lows into the 40’s. This coming off of mid 80’s feels really cold. In addition, the wind has been fierce, but our chicks are nice and comfy in their brooder box in our basement as they await their new coop.

Even though they are nice and comfy, they are not happy about staying in their brooder without getting their outdoor time each day. They’ve really enjoyed their jaunts outside lately. They have no idea that it has gotten chilly again and will be for a few days.

When we replace their food and water and clean up in their home, they regularly attempt an escape. I don’t blame them; they’ve fallen in love with the great outdoors. Each day they are visibly larger and I’m sure ready for more open space.

Steven started on the coop Friday after work. He put together the basic frame and legs before calling it a night. We are using wood from the demolition of our house project. Some is new but we are using what we can salvage from our pile.

We are not using plans for our coop. I basically told my husband that I wanted a 6 foot by 8 foot coop that was on legs so I can push the wheel barrel over to it for cleaning. My idea was to be able to shovel or sweep out the coop and deliver the goods to the compost pile.

Before we picked up our chicks we watched several chicken coop tours on youtube and even personally visited some chicken coops. We took various ideas from each and made our own plan. It’s been fun putting those ideas together.

On Saturday the coop really started looking like a coop. On went floor boards, then vinyl flooring (for easy cleaning) and then the front and back walls went up. By the time my hubby called it a day, he also had the roof boards on. We did help him where we could, but most of the work was done by my love. Thanks Honey!

On Monday, The side framing and windows went in. Hooray for saving some old windows! Our girls will have plenty of light year round in their soon to be lovely home.

On Tuesday we were so thankful for the sunshine and much calmer wind. We were able to let the chicks roam the yard for a bit and they were very happy about it. They had been stuck inside their brooder box for days. We attempted to feed them some dried worms, but they are not interested in that yet. We do have a couple that will eat wild strawberries though.

Two of our chicks were acting weird outside, they kind of laid over on their side with their wing laying limp and closed their eyes. They looked kind of dead. I was worried something was wrong, but as soon as another chick came close or a sudden noise happened they hopped up and walked off like normal. The chick who did this the most, was also panting which really worried us. We haven’t noticed this before. We made sure she had fresh water and put her back inside. We’ll watch her for any more odd behaviors. A search on “chickens panting” turned up nothing unfortunately.

Wednesday we took the girls for another jaunt outside. They love it and so do we. One of the funny things about chickens is how they run for cover when they hear a loud noise. When we have them outside they either run under us or they run and hide in a bush that is nearby and then they freeze and listen.

The odd behavior from Tuesday was not seen today at all. The chicks all look great and healthy. They seem to prefer roosting on our arms or sitting on Mason, at least this one did.

And there are signs of WADDLES! For those new to chickendom, combs are on the top of a chickens head and waddles are under and to the side of their beak.

On Thursday some of our chicks were doing that same weird behavior from Tuesday. I noticed they were in the sun even though there was plenty of shade for them. This was the same weather situation from Tuesday so I googled “Do chickens sunbathe?” and guess what they do! They sunbathe to get certain vitamins, to control lice and mite populations and to dry themselves if they’ve gotten damp in a puddle or moist soil. Don’t you just love the internet?

At the end of week 5 our chicken coop looks like this. The roof is on and Steven has started putting the old wood on the outside. There isn’t much on yet, but already we can see how adorable this is going to be. It really adds some charm. If our weather permits, it might be finished this weekend. Our girls will be in their new home before long. We are so excited!!

Will the girls be in their new home next week? Will the coop even be finished? What predator proofing will we add to our coop and surroundings? How fast do waddles grow? Stay tuned for next week’s account.

Reasons We Homeschool: Science Curriculum?

2011-05-19T08:09:00.000-05:00

Mattie has had her face stuck in Urban Farm Magazine the past few days. She’s shared with me all sorts of facts about Mason bees, flower pollination and blueberry plant varieties. The other day she exclaimed -

“Mom, There are female and male flowers! I have to read more about this!”

This sort of thing is becoming common place around here. A huge interest in subject matter will spike and I will plan on that being our next science study… and then it’s on to something else.

Urban Farm Magazine for a Science Resource? I think so.

Serving Others: Vilonia Tornado 2011

2011-05-18T08:00:00.000-05:00

A couple weekends ago, my entire family ventured out with others from our church to help those in need. The back of my Suburban was filled with donated blankets, and water and food for our clean up crew. I wish I would have taken my camera.

The pictures in this post are those shared by others. They are not my own, but I wanted to show my readers and remind myself and my family of this day.

Driving through the town, on the way to our meeting place, we were shocked at the devastation. Trees were broken and twisted and uprooted. They were inside homes and homes were up in trees. It was eerie. These were huge trees probably a hundred years or more in the making and they will never be the same. There were plumes of smoke rising in every direction from the fires burning the wreckage.

We met at the High School to sign in and get our assignments and then we were off to our assigned area. Our area had been relieved already so we went out looking for someone to help. We were told that Marshall Street had lots of damage so we headed there. We helped an elderly lady and then also her neighbor. Just across the street were foundations without houses on top. The houses were just gone. We hauled debris to the curb and lots of metal. We loaded a hot water heater, stove and garage door onto a trailer. We were happy to help at these two homes, but I kept feeling like there was someone who needed our help even more. I knew it.

I was in conversation with my Heavenly Father asking him to show us who we needed to help, when a FEMA worker came into my view just down the road. I hurried to her and asked her if she could direct us to someone who really needed our help. She showed me a location that had 5 deaths and horrible devastation that was farther out away from the main areas of town. My crew headed out that way hoping and praying for the opportunity to give relief to someone.

The area was just demolished. There were piles of rubbish where homes once stood. Unfortunately, these places were a total loss and no one was home to give permission to help. We stopped at the top of a hill near some port-o-potties while we contemplated what to do next.

I again pleaded for help from above … and then down a long hill, I saw some boys pulling a tarp or something to the curb. My husband went down to ask if they needed help, he called back with a yes and we were blessed with such an opportunity to make a difference.

We met a gentleman and his three grandsons. What was left of their home was a split into two pieces as a tree had fallen right through the roof cutting the home in half. The yard was a disaster itself. There were huge trees uprooted, damaging his fence, destroying his swimming pool. What was left of his porch and gazebo were found piled here and there in the yard. He had a huge metal carport building that was folded in half and twisted. With our group of around 30 we were able to cut up and remove the trees. We hauled the metal building and all sorts of wood and metal to the curb, and we also removed the swimming pool and cleared other debris.

It was amazing to see what a group of willing people can accomplish. Definitely much more than someone working on their own. I broke down a few times while we were working as I sensed this man’s relief. That’s what we were there for, to offer some relief and it felt good.

We were lucky the day the tornadoes came through; we had many tornado warnings issued but they skirted around us. Vilonia, a town just a few miles away wasn’t so lucky. I’m counting my blessings!

Garden Update

2011-05-17T12:55:00.000-05:00

In our last garden post, our seedlings were doing well. Much has happened since then.

I set out our seedlings to harden off. They didn’t look so well after bringing them in. The tender leaves on many of them looked bleached and wilted. Some wrinkled up. I tried not to panic. I kept them inside for a few more days and then put them out for just an hour or two every day or so. So far nothing is dead.

It’s been a blessing actually to have these plants still inside. Our weather has been crazy. For a few days it will be in the high 80’s even low 90’s followed by storms (Tornadoes) and then dropping to the 40’s at night. The wind and hail have beat people’s crops to death literally and I’m not even going to talk about all the flooding.

So as we speak I still don’t have garden dirt in my raised beds, but my plants look lovely. My tomatoes are looking fantastic and my cantaloupe are begging for a place to spread.

If you remember right, I started all our plants from seed. This has been quite an experience. I had to separate plants and repot as they grew. I am pleased with the outcome thus far.

I went from several tomato plants in one container, to one in each container by separating the roots and repotting.

This was not difficult at all. They easily came apart and When I repotted them individually I pulled off the first set of leaves and planted the whole stem in the soil.

Some of them were kind of flimsy as the stems were thin and delicate so I cut some straws length wise and made some supports for them. This worked well and since these pictures were taken I have removed most of the straws and the tomatoes are strong and healthy.

They are looking lovely now and have grown significantly. I am looking forward to transplanting them into in my garden; so far the safest place for them has been inside. The weather has been crazy here!

Here is a picture of some of them today. See how they have grown? They are lovely. Don’t you think?

Next week’s forecast looks nice for planting them outside, but I’m not holding my breath.

Approachable Chapter Books for Dog Lovers

2011-05-16T04:18:00.000-05:00

On our most recent trip to the library we found several fun books featuring dogs. When we opened the covers we were surprised to see they were early chapter books.

Coming from a mom of a reluctant reader, let me tell you that how a book “looks” will stop a reluctant reader dead in his tracks.

All these books share the following traits:

spaced lines of text
a bit larger font than your typical book
short doable chapters
fewer words on a page
a fun picture or graphic every once in a while

Titles:

The Trouble With Chickens by Doreen Cronin

Animal Rescue Team – Show Time by Sue Stauffach

Dear Hound By Jill Murphy

The Golden Ghost by Marion Dan Bauer

The Buddy Files - The Case of the Library Monster by Dori Hillestad Butler

Our Chick Diary - Week 4

2011-05-13T12:10:00.001-05:00

We’ve taken the chicks outside a few times this week. They’ve chased ants and other crawling things and pecked at grass and clover. They enjoy being outside, except when there is a sudden loud noise, then they are well…. chicken. They either freeze in place instantly or run for cover and then freeze.

Early in the week, we took our chicks out walking around our yard. We tried to keep the number down to around 5. There was no way we can keep up with 23 curious chicks at once. That changed later in the week though.

As you can probably imagine, if the chicks are out, Hanklin is somewhere nearby. He tried to preen one so I really have to watch him. He preens me and our other dog, but I just don’t think the chicks will like it much.

With this taste of the great outdoors, our birds are even more eager to escape their brooder. When we remove the hardware cloth from the top of their box to feed and water them, it’s just a matter of seconds it seems, before one or several are out of the box.

Each week we raise our heat lamp a few inches and watch our chicks to make sure they are still comfortable. We have not had any problems keeping their temperature comfortable for them. My oldest son and I have both burned ourselves on the heat lamp though. OUCH!

We have also added grit to their menu. Grit helps the chicks digest their food better. We put some in a small feeder and let them have at it. We don’t keep grit available all the time but do offer it every couple of days or so.

Towards the end of the week, we divided our group into two and took half at a time outside in the yard for some free roaming time. One found a wild strawberry and after pecking at it a bit, gobbled it right up. She quickly spied another and ate that one as well.

While Mattie was holding one on her lap, another jumped and flapped her way to join the other. As we were laughing about it, another did the same thing and then she had three of our girls on her lap. They like Mattie. Can you tell?

We are all getting experienced at catching chickens, but I suspect it gets much harder when they get bigger. Some of our speedy ones take some maneuvering and strategy to catch as it is.

As you can see from the pictures, our girls are sporting their new feathers quite nicely. They will be that lovely rust color once all their feathers are in. Even now, there is variation. Some of our chicks have feathers that are a darker rust than others and some have very blond feathers mixed in. I don’t know if the blond ones will fall out and be replaced with the rust colored feathers or not. Some of the girls are very feathered while others are still working on the process. The later group seem to have some bald areas between their wings along their back. The chicks that feathered earlier didn’t have bald spots.

In additional developmental news, we are hearing some clucking sounds more often now and it is lovely. There are still no signs of waddles, but we have noticed their beaks are getting darker.

Some friends of ours just picked up some baby Guineas. They are smaller than baby chickens and very fast. Of course my children want some. This is something I didn’t realize would happen; we would love raising birds so much that we want to raise every kind!

As we start on week 5 with our girls, we are surprised at how fast the time has gone by. We are now down to crunch time for our chicken coop. I knew it would happen this way, we have so many projects going on right now. The pressure of a deadline is what propels us to get on top of things.

Here are past Chick Diary Entries:

A Mom Pride Moment – Grades Are In

2011-05-13T12:06:00.001-05:00

I’m just taking a Mom Pride moment. Above are Michael’s grades for College for the Spring 2011 Term. Way to go Michael!!!

Our Chick Diary – Week 3

2011-05-09T13:52:00.001-05:00

This third week has been a busy one. They finished up their bag of medicated starter feed midweek and are now on 24% protein chick starter. We could switch them to a lower protein which is less expensive but we are showing ours at the fair, as per our agreement through the 4-H Poultry Chain - we want them to look good!

I knew our chicks had really grown during these first three weeks, but I didn’t realize how much, until I saw some adorable 1-day old chicks at the feed store.

Our chicks are now officially odd looking as they have grown taller with longer necks and are steadily adding new feathers to their attire. They have grown some nice combs. We’ve been watching for waddles but so far there are none to be seen.

As their feathers have increased in number and size, so have their acrobatics. They regularly jump high and flap across the brooder. They are often seen on the top of their feeder and waterer, and I believe a few are planning an escape.

A couple of the children have heard them make some clucking sounds the past few days instead of just peeping. I am hoping to hear it myself soon.

At the end of week three, we took our flock out to enjoy the nice day. We put them in the bottom part of our toddler clubhouse to experience the grass and dirt beneath their their lovely taloned feet.

Of course, Hanklin (our Greater Swiss Mountain Dog) was thrilled with the idea and after about 15 minutes of observing the chicks through the windows, he went right in with them! He smelled the ground and then all the chicks of course. He is a familiar sight to them, regularly peering into their box, but this was an up close and personal visit. They didn’t know what to think of him! We allowed him to explore them for a few minutes then called him out and he came, but stayed close observing through the windows.

I do not recommend this! Hanklin has been around our chicks since day 1 and we have monitored his behavior and limited his access to them. He is very sweet and docile with our chicks, we feel blessed. Our other dog is not allowed near them.

Stay tuned next week: Will the chick escape plan be put into action? Will they be fully feathered? Will the waddles make their appearance? Will we get our coop finished? Only time will tell.

Homemaker’s Challenge: Motivation

2011-05-08T16:19:00.001-05:00

I am participating in the 31 Days to Clean Homemaker’s Challenge over at Joyful Mothering. This (above) is my Day 1 Mary Challenge, which was to identify specific reasons that I want a clean home. So here they are for all to see. I am enjoying the daily readings and am glad I took the challenge. This first challenge is already proving beneficial. I find it motivating to remind myself of how important homemaking is to me.

If you recall, last August we were packed up and ready to move, but we had a change of plans and our move didn’t happen until December 31st and it was quick and all of a sudden. From August to December we lived with our things packed away and among boxes and it was HARD.

Since our move now 4 months ago, life is better but our house is still not even painted and we are still among boxes; they are just in unused rooms right now. I can’t hang up things that are important to me or display my favorite things that make us all feel nice. It’s frustrating and sad to me. I took this challenge because I need some help to get things done. The Mary Challenges are the thing I really need at this time in my life.

I love to rearrange furniture. To me, that’s how things REALLY get clean. It is refreshing to my soul to declutter and organize. BUT I am a perfectionist and sometimes, that leaves me feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated when I can’t do it the way I want right now.

I know how to clean. I enjoy the Martha Challenges which are often overlooked areas that feel great to tackle. But The Mary Challenges are what I need. I need to enliven my heart about homemaking, so I can move past this perfection thing.

Are there any other perfectionists out there who can relate?

If you’d like to join in the challenge, you can at anytime, just visit the links above and find out how.

Even Though I KNOW

2011-05-02T02:56:00.000-05:00

Homeschooling for us has always been an evolving process. It doesn’t look quite the same way for very long.

My oldest child attended public school through the 5th grade. We finished schooling him at home. It was the best thing we could have done for him. Since he graduated from our homeschool and has been attending college full time, our homeschooling crew was down to two this year.

For me, homeschooling middle school and high school was just easier than teaching the elementary years. I didn’t wonder if my oldest was “behind” or learning what he should or if he would be prepared for college and life. I knew he would be.

However, with my younger two, I have had these worries.

Even though I KNOW that each child develops at his own rate.

Even though I KNOW it’s beneficial to be patient and wait for my child to be ready for learning various things.

Even though I KNOW if I follow their timetable, they can master in two weeks what I would have spent a year trying to teach them.

Even though I KNOW the Lord has His hand in all things.

Even though I KNOW each of us have a mission that is uniquely our own.

Even though I KNOW that instilling a love for learning is more important than finishing a workbook.

Even though I KNOW they will gain more knowledge from personal interest studies than they could get from the basics in a text book.

Even though I KNOW the value of learning through satisfying one’s curiosities.

Even though I KNOW discovering how they learn is every bit as important as what they learn.

Even though I KNOW these things some days I still worry.

But, lately I’ve been looking at the seeds (of learning) I’ve planted, and I can see blossoms bursting forth. And somehow I just KNOW the fruit will be good.

Our Chick Diary – Week 2

2011-04-29T07:03:00.000-05:00

This second week has been just as fun and enlightening as the first. Our chicks now have lots of feathers particularly on their wings. As their feathers start coming in they look pretty sad. They look dirty and kind of creepy, but it’s just the way new feathers come in. Once they open their feathers they look quite lovely.

With these new found feathers have come lots of flapping and flying. If we didn’t have hardware cloth over the top, some would have flown the coop by now.

They also have grown, I mean REALLY grown this week. They have much longer necks and legs. Their tail feathers which were just sprouting at the end of last week are considerably longer each day. Today some of them even have their combs sprouting on their heads.

We discovered something interesting as well. Our chicks like it when we flick their beaks. Sounds weird huh? We place our finger under their beak and kind of do a “come here” finger motion on their beaks. When I did this to the first chick that wanted to peck my finger, several others hurried over to investigate. I flicked their beaks as well and they really seemed to like it. We can not flick just one beak anymore, it draws a crowd and we have to flick several. Aren’t they just silly? The chicks also are really scratching and throwing up shavings behind them. They cleaned out the center of the box in minutes playing this game.

Our plan this week was to join two large boxes to make more room for them. In preparation, we moved the chicks to the bathtub. They made quite the ruckus! They also made quite the mess in our tub. There was chicken poop all over the bottom. Can you say BLEACH? We didn’t realize how much they pooped until they were in the tub. Their brooder box has a thick layer of pine shavings that get mixed around, hiding the poo and the smell. So, yeah, we really like the pine shavings around here.

Our plans for the box changed and we ran into town to a furniture store to pick up a larger box. This new box is 4 foot by 4 foot and about 18 or so inches high. They love it! Our chicks did not like getting their feet washed before entering their new home, but oh well.

This larger box is on the basement floor. So it’s much easier to look into. The children love it of course, but no one loves it more than our dog Hanklin. He loves the chicks!

The next stop should be their outdoor chicken coop. We plan to add the heat lamp and use it for their next brooder box until they can go in and out without need of any heat. Now we just have to get it built!

This is our week two reporting. This next week we are expecting them to get looking really strange as they continue getting more feathers in. At some point they will even have bald areas. I guess we all have a gawky period don’t we?

I’m taking the challenge, are you?

2011-04-27T19:22:00.001-05:00

If you hurry you can get your ebook free by clicking here. This offer ends at midnight tonight.

You can read more about the Homemaker’s challenge by clicking the image above.

Our Chick Diary – Week 1

2011-04-22T07:47:00.000-05:00

This week has been so fun! We have thoroughly loved every minute with our chicks. They are very entertaining and we have watched them for hours.

Day 1

Friday afternoon we brought home a box of fuzzy joy. They were honest to goodness face-breakers. Baby chicks are such smile inducers that your face feels like it just might break off. Don’t try to fight it! It’s no use! Just expect your face to ache from smiling so much! :)

Our sweet bundles of fluff, 23 in total, were so soft and fuzzy. They peeped and then peeped some more. Within minutes, we were in L-O-V-E!

To make sure we were able to provide for their needs, we set up our brooder box ahead of time, turned on the heat lamp and using a thermometer checked the temperature of the box. We watched the temperature climb to 126 degrees. Ouch!! Too hot! We didn’t want to cook our chicks! We raised the heat lamp and finally arrived on a good starting temperature for the chicks (90 – 95 degrees).

As luck would have it, our chicks were ready for pickup a few hours earlier than expected. We transported them home and got to work. We dipped each chick’s beak into her waterer and watched for her to swallow. Once she swallowed, we grabbed another chick and repeated the process. When all the chicks were thoroughly watered, we added their feed. We expected our little darlings to nap once they had their fill, at least that’s what we read about. Our chicks however didn’t settle down until about 11pm.

It didn’t take long to name our first chick. Mannerless thinks she has to eat and drink with her feet right on her table.

Day 2

We knew we needed to give them more space. So we went ahead and got our large Wardrobe box ready for our chicks. This really enlarged their space! We also switched our smaller feeder and waterer for larger ones.

Young chicks can drown pretty easily, so we added marbles to their waterer rim to prevent this. The larger food and water containers meant more could eat and drink at a time. They flocked to these new delights.

Mason thought we should add some bricks on the side for them to climb on. Well, lets just say that by the end of the day, we had a whole apparatus for them to climb on and they LOVE it! They jump up on it and then back off again. They love the higher elevation. This proved very entertaining.

With the extra room in their new home, chicks would shoot across as fast as they could go! It was hilarious! It was obvious that the chicks loved their larger space. One chick, we named her Penelope, stuck her head up as high above the others as she could and just peeped as loud as her lungs would allow. I’m not sure what she was telling the others, but she really needed to share it! She did this for a couple of hours. It was like the spastic Chicken Little thing.

There was more pecking, leg stretching and towards the evening there was some wing stretching happening as well. We checked little chick bums for clogged vents and two of our darlings had to have bum baths. They didn’t like it too much, but once their fluff was dry they were back to their normal cute selves.

Day 3

The chicks were quite content today. They have settled into their new home just fine. We provided fresh food and water for them and raked the pine shavings around to freshen things up a bit. One little chick got a bum bath.

As far as new behaviors, more of them were practicing for the 1-yard dash across the brooder. One would start running and several others would join in. It makes a funny noise. Have you ever heard a flock of chicks run? It’s a guaranteed smile. Of course with all that running those little chicken legs needed some stretching and there was a lot more of it.

They are now pecking for fallen feed in the pine shavings and occasionally at each other. They are testing out their beaks, or so we think.

Day 4

Our chicks are even fluffier today! So sweet! They look so good and healthy. Today they started a new behavior. We observed this a couple of times yesterday but today, they are really scratching with their feet. One chick was scratching away and shooting pine shavings out behind him. It was so funny! If you can imagine a bull scratching dirt up behind him and then taking off. That is what the chicks have been doing.

The little runners are now flapping a little to gain some speed. One has been dubbed Speedy Gonzales. Mattie and Mason have no idea who that is. (heehee)

To change up their area a bit, I pulled one of the boards across to the brick on the other side which gave them another area to climb and perch on. They are happy with it. Did you know that chickens in the wild sleep in trees for protection from ground predators? They really like to climb.

We gave them fresh food and water and they are happy little fuzz balls. At our last check in before bed, Penelope decided once again, that she needed to loudly proclaim something to the flock and so she did.

Day 5

This morning when I checked on our sweet little darlings, I couldn’t help but laugh. They were running through the box flapping their little wings and jumping on and off their play things. Our chicks have really grown over the past few days. They are all fluffy and look really bright-eyed and healthy. We are happy. Have I mentioned how much we ♥ our chicks?

Since our chicks were so messy, with their new found scratching ability in the pine shavings, I picked up a large 16-inch square paver tile to put under their waterer. The paver has really helped keep most of the shavings out. Clean water is good.

Here is a video I took of them. Towards the end you’ll see a chick stretch his back leg out. They crack me up when they do that. :)

Aren’t they so sweet?

As I was typing this out, my children came running inside, saying our dog had caught a squirrel or something and some birds were swooping down at him. I hurried to investigate and found a baby Blue Jay. I was brave enough to pick him up. A storm was heading in and there wasn’t much time for the momma to reclaim him. We finally had to go get him due to the storm and luckily we were just in time, a cat was on the prowl trying to get to him. He’s very sweet but not used to people like our chicks are. You can read more about that here.

Day 6

We raised the heat lamp a bit last night and the chicks seem to have adapted well. It’s amazing to see the growth just overnight. I wonder what they thought about sharing the basement with a baby Blue-jay last night during the storms. Our chicks are much more docile then that blue-jay. Of course we’ve handled them since they were a day old.

When we stick a hand in the brooder box, about half run away from us and half run toward us. The ones that are more comfortable with us will brush against our hand, peck at us and step up onto our hand. It’s amazing how much they’ve grown during this first week. Our runt is still our runt, but he’s healthy and bigger. Some of our chicks are noticeably bigger than the others. I don’t know why this surprises me; children are the same way, they all develop on their own personal timetable.

In other bird news, we returned the blue-jay outside and we believe he made it just fine. Shortly after, we were visited by wood ducks. You can read more about that here. It was a bazaar bird day to say the least.

Day 7

Our chicks have officially survived a week. Their growth and progress has just amazed me. Some of our chicks have long wings that stretch out a good distance and others still have stubby downy fluffy wings. The chicks definitely have their own personalities. Penelope is sweet and calm until she has something to say, then she stretches her neck high above and loudly makes her proclamation. Mannerless still stands on her food or water container. Some are more active and run through the box, jumping and flapping. Others prefer to stay out of that kind of action.

When we hold the chicks now they vibrate, kind of like a purr. I’m not sure what to make of this. I’ve never heard of this before. The big development of the day is that some of the chicks (the ones with the most developed wings) are now sprouting tail feathers. It is the cutest thing.

Birds and More Birds

2011-04-21T00:04:00.001-05:00

Our rescued baby Blue-Jay spent the night in our first brooder box (intended for chicks) dry and safe from the storms in our basement. This morning we placed the fledgling back outside in our yard in hopes the momma bird would reclaim it. This was the suggested course of action from bird forums online.

Within seconds of placing the bird on the ground, there was a Blue-Jay on the branch right above me watching. By the time I made it back inside, that Blue-Jay was joined by a Robin. Shortly thereafter, they were joined by another Blue-Jay and a Mockingbird.

The adult Blue-Jay squawked at the baby and it hopped to the fence next to a small tree trunk. The 4 birds seemed to be working together somehow to help the baby bird.

When I returned to look out my back door a while later, there was no sign of the baby bird and the other birds were behaving normally. We searched for the baby and saw no signs of it. We have high hopes it was somehow rescued and is doing well.

In a strange twist of fate, we had another bird event just a couple of hours later. Two small wood ducks flew into our yard. I’ve never seen a duck in a tree before, but here are two. My daughter informed me that they are wood ducks and that they make nests in holes in trees. Upon researching, I found this to be true.

There is a male and female in this picture. Can you see them both? Thank goodness for a good zooming camera. They were way up and far away.

Here is a close up crop. I wish the picture could have been clearer but they were flying from tree to tree and I was lucky to even find them in my view to snap a picture in time.

And just in case you haven’t seen enough bird posts, be sure and check back on Friday for our Chick Diary – week 1.

It’s been great!

Birds are falling from the sky here!

2011-04-19T19:40:00.001-05:00

Just moments ago, my children came running inside, saying our dog had caught a squirrel or something and some birds were swooping down at him. I hurried to investigate and found a baby blue jay.

If I had not become comfortable with our 5-day old chicks, I’m certain I would not have picked this little bird up. But I did, and he’s very sweet. Unfortunately a storm is coming. We are hoping the momma reclaims this little sweetie before it gets here. If not we will put him in our first smaller brooder box and try to raise him until he can fly. His feathers are not fully developed yet.

We put some pine shavings in a torn up flower pot to keep the bird comfy. He’s a bit slobbery from our dog. I think the bird is a he from his coloring and markings.We put him on the roof of our shed which is right beneath the tree the momma bird was in.

I could be wrong but I think our dog was trying to pick it up. Hank has been very sweet with our new chicks and not the least bit aggressive. In the past, our other dog, killed birds by grabbing them and shaking them. Hank was not doing that at all. He was holding the bird and dropped it when the little thing started flapping. If he was intending to kill it, I believe he would have been chomping down harder. I lowered the flower pot for Hank to look in and he didn’t try to get it or anything. He looked up at me as if to say “Good, you’ve got it.” Now we wait and hope the momma bird comes back.

It’s becoming a regular zoo around here! We are still into week 1 of raising our 23 chicks; adding a baby Blue Jay could prove interesting.

The Study of Poison Ivy and Other Nonsense

2011-04-19T11:24:00.001-05:00

We like to learn in a hands-on fashion around here. Why read about Poison Ivy when you can examine it first hand? Am I right?

This is my left wrist (below). See all those bumps and welts? Those will look just like that nasty seeping sore in a day or so if I can’t get this under control. These seeping ugly sores drip and run and it’s seriously gross.

This is my right wrist (below). This is just a portion of the swelling on this arm. I have horrid bumps on my elbow and up my arm. They are also on my leg, behind my ear, on my collar bone and who knows where else they will appear. This batch is much juicier than the last. The seepage starts within seconds of washing and treating it. It actually runs and drips. YUCK!!

I’ve foolishly said aloud numerous times in my life, on walking trails and other such places, that I don’t react to Poison Ivy. I may be allergic to several green growing things, but Poison Ivy was not one of them. That is until I encountered the Poison Ivy here at our new home.

One day while working on the house, my husband and I decided to pull the “dormant vines” off the side of the house. It was my idea. A few days later, I was itching like mad, but had no idea I had poison Ivy.

To make a long story short, let’s just say, that I suffered with Poison Ivy for about 1 and 1/2 months. I tried everything, including two rounds of prednisone which nearly drove me mad. No amount of medication could relieve me or stop this poison from spreading. Each day new bumps would appear and I had it nearly everywhere. I knew I was dealing with something bad when the bumps started reemerging after coming off prednisone. I had washed our bedding and clothing and shoes. I was miserable. I was having a full systemic reaction to the poison. I had huge thick scabby sections on many parts of my body, some were as large as a 7 x 4 area. They were thick bright red and inflamed. I just knew they would leave scars.

Luckily, a bloggy friend, suggested trying “natures’ steroid” (a combination of marshmallow root and Astragulas). It brought instant itching relief and the healing process was finally able to begin. This time, just as luck would have it, I was in short supply and went for the first couple of days without it. I ordered quite the stash since and am now back in business.

There’s something to be said for ~~desperation verging on insanity~~ curiosity and the desire to find answers. Believe me I have the questions.

Why have I never reacted to Poison Ivy until we moved into this house?
- Some people may boast that they've been exposed to poison ivy many times and have never gotten the rash, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're not allergic. Sometimes the allergy doesn't emerge until you've been exposed several times, and some people develop a rash after their very first exposure. It may take up to ten days for the rash to emerge the first time. Everyone has a different sensitivity, and therefore a slightly different reaction, to poison ivy.
Why do my reactions go systemic?
- Plant dermatitis is caused by reaction to skin contact with certain plants.
  About 80 percent of these reactions are irritant reactions and 20 percent are allergic reactions. Allergic contact dermatitis is a delayed response that triggers an immune response to an irritant. Guess which percentage I am in?
I touched vines, not leaves! Does it matter?
- Because urushiol is found in all parts of the poison ivy plant -- the leaves, stems, and roots -- it's best to avoid the plant entirely to prevent a rash. Urushiol gets on your skin by direct contact with the plant, or something that has come into direct contact with the offensive plant.
How do I get rid of it? (on me and in my yard)
- “You call the doctor when the itching is so severe that it interferes with your life,” Tucker says. “Itching can be as bad as severe pain, and can cause just as much suffering.” Treatment usually involves steroids for their anti-inflammatory action, by injection or pills. Often general physicians will prescribe a very short course of oral steroids. “Occasionally the dosing cycle is too short—just long enough to relieve the initial symptoms but not long enough to suppress the reaction for good. If there’s a relapse, it is much harder to treat the second time around.” This was my experience. I had two rounds of steroids which had me jumping out of my skin. The spreading continued once the steroids were finished. That’s when I started “nature’s steroid” and could take it for a longer time period with no side effects what so ever.

Here are some Poison Ivy myths I came across:

Myth: Poison ivy is contagious.
Reality: You can't spread poison ivy by coming into contact with a person who has it, unless that person has urushiol on their skin. You can, however, pick it up by touching a dog that has gotten poison ivy on its fur, or by touching the blade of a weed whacker that you just used to cut down the plants.

Myth: You can spread poison ivy to other parts of your body by picking at the blisters on your skin.
Reality: The only way you can get poison ivy is by touching the plant, or by touching an object that has come into direct contact with the plant and has urushiol on it. If you scratch or pick at the rash and blisters, you may cause an infection, but you won't cause the rash to spread. Although the rash may appear to "spread," it is only because the reaction occurs more slowly on some parts of the body than it does in other parts. I don’t know if I believe this one. My Poison Ivy ends up everywhere. On my earlobe, legs, my hairline. Places that are covered when I am in contact with the plant. Some places emerge 2 weeks or more after the initial contact. I had new places coming up after two rounds of sterioids. I seriously suspect that once a reaction becomes systemic, it is no longer just a dermatitis problem, but a whole body breakdown.

Myth: If I eat poison ivy, I'll become immune to it in the future.
Reality: This is not only untrue, but it can be lethal. Eating poison ivy can cause a potentially fatal allergic reaction. Some animals, including deer, happily eat poison ivy with no ill effects.

Myth: Some people are so sensitive to poison ivy that they can catch it just by being near the plant.
Reality: You have to touch the plant to get poison ivy - just being close to it will not get urushiol on your skin.

Myth: You can't get poison ivy from a dead plant.
Reality: Urushiol can linger on surfaces -- including the poison ivy plant -- for several years, even after the plant has died.

If you have horrid reactions to Poison Ivy, you have my sympathies. Really. OH, if you can help it, I would recommend a text book type learning experience of this topic. Hands-on Learning for this really stinks!

- - - - - - - - - - -

Resources:

Limiting Computer Time: A Resource

2011-04-18T12:42:00.001-05:00

As most of you know by now, we moved into the country at the beginning of this year. During the first two months, we were without internet. As a matter of fact we left our computer packed away for much of that time.

Even though I LOVE my computer and all it does for me, I recognize it as a big time waster. When we were once again up and running, so to speak, I didn’t want my children to return to their previous habits on the computer.

My youngest son loves to create in Paint and play thinking games.

My daughter loves to watch animal training videos, visit Poptropica, and other online games, and watch videos on PBS Kids and Netflix instant.

My oldest son loves to watch video game stuff on YouTube, check in on Facebook and research stuff for college.

I write for three blogs. I accomplish many computer tasks relating to my church service and of course tackle many things homeschool related on the computer as well.

It is very easy to lose all sense of time on the computer. Once we regained our internet access, I started researching options for limiting not only how much time we spend on the computer each day, but how much time in a sitting. I came across TimesUpKidz.

This program is simple to use and does just what it says.

You just fill in your daily time allowances. You can even choose to limit the amount of time spent in one session at the computer with a break in between. I love this feature! My children (and myself) know we can’t get back on the computer until our break time is up so we head off to do something else without another thought of it. This particular feature is for me a huge thing! No other product I researched offered this kind of control.

You can also use this screen to customize each day if you prefer.

When your children are using the computer they get occasional audio and visual reminders of their time usage so they can save their work and log off before the program does it for them. No more “but Mom…” or “just one more thing”. They can’t change the mind of the program. (grin) I love this!

If your child tries to get back on the computer before their required break is over or if they have used up all their allotted time for the day they will see this when they try to log on.

As the parent/administrator you have total control, you can add to their time, take time away, totally lock out any computer time until a certain hour each day, Or block for an entire day.

The program works great, but if you or anyone in your family is addicted to the computer,there will be withdrawals. Don’t ask me how I know. It took a while for our family to get used to limitations. (yep addicted.) The nice thing is the program is the bad guy, not you. As soon as they are locked out, they move on to something else. There is no whining, pleading, or begging.

If you would like to limit your family’s computer time, I highly recommend taking a look at TimesUpKidz. Here is more info about the service:

You can take a visual tour here.
You can try the program for free for 30 days here.
You can purchase the program for $29.95 here. This includes multiple computer usage, minor upgrades and improvements.

If you ask me, I’ll tell you this program is great! It does just what it is supposed to do. If you ask my children, they will tell you they don’t like it because it locks them out. So sad… I’m crying tears – not really.

Oops! I’ve gotta go know, my computer time is about up. Time for a break you know. I think I’ll go read aloud to the kids now, make lunch and clean the kitchen.

Disclaimer: When I was researching computer programs to limit computer time, I really liked this one. It’s simplicity and also it’s ability to lock the whole computer not just the internet was what I needed. I received this service free for my honest review.

We ♥ our new chicks!

2011-04-17T22:26:00.001-05:00

How does your garden grow?

2011-04-01T10:59:00.001-05:00

Here are the latest pictures of our seedlings under our grow lamps. We really need to get these outside, especially the sugar snap peas. Hopefully next week will be the week for planting.

This picture (above) shows Bibb lettuce, Romaine lettuce, carrots, cantaloupe, and Kidney beans. Only one cantaloupe has come up though. The package says 10 to 20 days germination, so we will wait. These are on Day 12.

These sugar snap peas were the first things to come up. They are wanting to climb and vine. I have to get them out soon. Our weather has just been too yucky. This flat is on Day 14.

I need to thin my lettuce, I think… We’ll see what survives the move to the garden.

4-H Recipe Contest

2011-03-31T12:55:00.001-05:00

This past weekend, Mattie participated in the 4-H Diary Recipe Contest. It was her first experience of anything of this sort. I was proud of her. She didn’t let her nerves get the best of her. Mattie made Blueberry Bliss for the competition.

How is your personal INERTIA?

2011-03-30T10:18:00.001-05:00

The power of inertia – it is alive and well at our house. How about yours?

I’ve found that if I am moving from one task to the next without much pause or break, I am able to accomplish much. But if I let my body return to a place of rest, I really struggle with getting it going again. I feel tired, and sluggish and find it easy to slip into grouchy mode. Have you ever experienced this?

My latest post is up at The Homeschool Classroom. You can read more here.

Gardening Progress: Day 9

2011-03-26T15:00:00.000-05:00

Flat #1

On day 5, we had sugar snap peas breaking up through the soil. It seemed there was a new plant emerging every hour.

On day 9, we have much larger sugar snap peas. My son has raised the grow lights twice to keep up with the constantly growing plants. We really need to get these outside soon. They are ready to climb and vine.

You can also see 3 types of tomatoes coming up. I’ll need to thin them soon. The only things that have not reared their little heads are our onions in the last row.

Flat #2

This flat (pictured above) was put together 2 days later than the previous one. The lovely green row is Bibb Lettuce. The 1st row of smaller seedlings is Romaine Lettuce. I probably need to thin these and get them out soon. I hope they hang on until next week. I’m glad I didn’t put them out yet. Our weather took a crazy turn and we had brutal winds the past few days and a huge temperature drop. It was in the high 40s at lunch time today. Brrrr! Please come back Spring!

Here is a picture showing our flats under our grow light setup. I still haven’t put up our second light on it’s rail, but need to soon. It’s fun seeing these plants grow right before our eyes.

So how does your garden grow?

Hummingbird Egg Hatching – Live Stream

2011-03-25T12:59:00.001-05:00

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

The first Hummingbird egg hatched today! The 2nd should soon follow!

New Opportunities for Learning

2011-03-24T14:28:00.000-05:00

We’ve now lived out in the country for almost 3 months. I LOVE it! I’ve never lived down town in a big city but have lived in neighborhoods in or near town. I’ve always longed for the simple more down-to-earth dig-in-the-dirt kind of place. I guess I am a country girl at heart. The country does offer so much. We feel doubly blessed, we enjoy the best of both worlds since we are not far from all the modern conveniences we are used to.

We have taken on some great projects lately which have opened up all sorts of learning opportunities for our family. I plan to blog about them all.

We are preparing for our garden. We have built a grow lamp to start seeds indoors. We have planted seeds so far for onions, 3 kinds of tomatoes, sugar snap peas, carrots, romaine and bib lettuce and kidney beans and cantaloupe. I still have watermelon, cucumbers, radishes and other things to plant. How much is too much? That's why I'm keeping a gardening journal. :)
We’ve joined 4-H which has great resources for so many things! Through 4-H we are participating in the poultry chain. We will have approx. 20 chicks scheduled to arrive in mid April. We are raising layers and entering some in the county fair. We are still building our brooding boxes and have to get our chicken coop & run built. Mattie has entered a diary food recipe contest for later this month and Mason recently attended the ATV Safety Workshop. There are so many neat opportunities through this group.
Mason has finally decided to learn to ride a bike and we are in walking distance to a park with a paved track around it. If the weather is decent at all, we head to the park. He has logged miles and miles on his bicycle now. This has really motivated us to be more active and exercise conscious.
We are still working on our house. I think we all believe it will never get finished. Initially we accomplished lots due to necessity, but now we are busy with life and the work on the house has decreased significantly. I’m not going to give up though, I’m going to set a goal for myself to finish mudding a room a week. I just have to make myself do it. Why is self mastery so hard? Michael says it’s pathetic that the chickens are going to have a completed house before we do. I agree. But life is what it is….
We are studying bugs. There are lots of bugs in the country. Our entomology study is using 4-H Entomology activity workbooks and also Apologia’s Flying Creatures of the 5th Day (the insect part).
My oldest son is preparing to leave for a two-year mission for our church. He is mid-way through this semester of college and all his focus will go toward his mission once this semester is over. We have lots to do in this area. I’ll share more about that as it comes.

ATV Safety Workshop

2011-03-23T14:09:00.000-05:00

Since we joined 4-H a little over a month ago, we have expanded our horizons quite a bit. On Tuesday we attended a 4-H sponsored ATV Safety Workshop. It was awesome!

Mason had never even sat on an ATV before. He is normally very much against trying anything new, especially around other people, so I was thrilled when he agreed to try this. I was a little worried about how it would go since he had NO experience, but actually it turned out to be the best way to introduce him to ATVs. He learned the correct and safe way to ride right from the start and had no bad habits to break.

He enjoyed 4 hours of learning and application. It was a great day! He is now certified! We are all smiles here!

From Combined Studies to the Pursuit of Personal Interests

2011-03-23T08:54:00.001-05:00

My latest post is up at The Homeschool Classroom.

Until recently, personal interests at our house were easily satisfied through unit studies and a trip to the library. Lately, however, my daughter has an insatiable interest in animals.

The nonfiction section of our library has become her new favorite place to be. For hours each day, her face is stuck in a book and she is more than happy to share all sorts of animal trivia to anyone who will listen. Just today she brought home books on chickens, farm birds, guinea pigs, woodchucks, sea turtles, chipmunks, reptiles and to her great delight – the platypus.

Seeing my daughter’s drive to learn on her own has truly made my heart sing. It has also sent me back to our homeschool drawing board.

To read the rest, hop on over to The Homeschool Classroom. If you combine children in certain areas, you may have just the insight I’m looking for. You can leave me a comment there. :)

Ready, Set, Go Garden Go!

2011-03-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

Here in Arkansas the gardening bug has bit. This year we are able to move beyond container gardening and have room to garden on a much larger scale. Happy Day!

I came across this wonderful magazine called Urban Farm. It’s all about becoming more self sufficient in a smaller space. It’s crammed full of great tips and ideas. In the March/April 2011 Edition there is an article about making your own grow lamp enabling you to start seeds indoors weeks earlier than you would be able to outside. It is called Portable Sunshine. You can build this grow light setup for WAY less than you can purchase one for.

The grow lamp was made with two 10-foot long schedule 40 PVC pipes. I used 1 inch pipe. The article used 1 and 1/4 inch. You cut your pipe to the following measurements:

2 – 52 inch rails
4 – 20 inch legs
2 - 12 inches spacers
4 – 2 inches couplers

I used a hand saw and the cuts went quickly. My husband did sort of take over the cutting and he was quicker than I was. Hooray! for helpful husbands! Then I used a butter knife to deburr the edges making them smooth and clean.

You also need the following:

4 – PVC caps
4 – PVC tee fittings
4 – PVC elbows
4 – metal S-hooks
2 – standard 48 in shop lights
4 - “sunshine” light bulbs
scrap wire or string or rip-strips to attach the S-hooks to the top rail

You may need double loop chain if it doesn’t come with your shop lamps. It usually does. The PVC pipe and fittings are very inexpensive. Your greatest expense will be your shop lights which you can get for around $10 each or you can use your husband’s, which is what I did. Thanks Honey!

The Directions in a nutshell:

Look at the photo above for reference and put your PVC pieces together. Do NOT glue. You can take this apart for storage later. Then attack your S-hooks to the top rails, attach chain to that, then attack to shop lights. It’s really simple. If this project interests you, you’ve got to get a copy of this magazine. I bought mine from Kroger and am definitely subscribing.

To start our seeds, we cut the sides of a cardboard box and filled the box with cups of gardening starter soil. We prefer shorter and wider cups for this. Our second box has Styrofoam cups because that was all we could find that were suitable size wise. We prefer the solo cups in our starter box #1. We planted seeds of all kinds and wrote on the side of the box what was planted where. Each of our boxes held about 35 cups.

It has been 5 days now since we planted our seeds in box #1. Our sugar snap peas have busted out and this morning I see some tomato plant life. It’s exciting! The article suggests 12 to 14 hours of light each day. So far this has made for a quicker germination of the peas and tomato plants. We await the other seedlings.

One of the neat things about this grow light setup, is that you can start your lights down low and raise them as your plants grow. We have our setup in our unfinished laundry room, which is yet another project we are working on.

We have started a gardening journal for future reference and we plan to attempt an indoor greenhouse this winter using this same setup. Hands-on-Learning is so much fun!

Simple Standardized Test Taking Tips

2011-03-19T12:28:00.001-05:00

We have standardized testing coming up. To prepare, I’ve added some practice tests to our daily routines. I find these very beneficial.

If you live in a state that requires standardized testing, I imagine you’ve heard the typical advice:

Get a good night sleep before the test

Eat a good healthy breakfast

Don’t put undue pressure regarding the test on your children

etc. etc. etc.

These are great tips, but did you know you can help your children score better just by giving them a little experience with the practice test format?

I want to share with you some tips regarding standardized bubble tests specifically.

Purchase a practice test booklet.

Introducing your child to the bubble format will help alleviate fear of the unknown. It will also give you practice material for the following tips.

Practice correctly filling in the bubbles and also correctly erasing them.

If your child doesn’t erase correctly, that question will be counted as double answered and will be considered wrong. If the bubble isn’t filled in correctly it could be counted as blank. Going over the correct way to mark answers is a huge benefit for your child and will become a habit as they practice.

Teach your children to read ALL the answers before they mark their test.

If your everyday curriculum choices don’t include bubble formatted questions, answers like “all the above” or “answers C and D only” probably aren’t the norm. It is a common error for kids to see a correct answer and mark it right away and then move on to the next question. Pointing out these types of answers can make a huge difference on your child’s score.

Look for Specific types of questions in the test booklet.

For example, we are practicing for a reading comprehension section of the test. Several times we have come across questions like

What is another title for this story?

These answers typically contain statements about a specific detail in the reading passage and one more overall statement. The specific details tend to stick out more than the generalization, making it easy to choose incorrectly. Simply pointing out the structure of the reading passage helps eliminate those tricky choices.

What does this word mean?

Typically there are clue words surrounding these vocabulary words. Often you will have the word “or”. For example – the skyscraper or tall, multiple story building. Other times you will have a more detailed explanation of the concept within that same paragraph.

From reading this passage we can guess that ….

This is one of those questions where your explanations will help greatly. Often the answers will contain details already mentioned in the passage. Remember you are guessing about a future event or choice with this type of question.

According to the Table or Graph or map…

No matter which subject area you are testing on, you can expect to deal with graphs and tables and maps. With a little exposure, your child can easily answer these.

Identifying certain types of questions and then making sure your children understand what they are being asked is a great strategy.

Much of standardized testing is not about specific knowledge but finding answers within given information. Giving your children tools to attack various types of questions will make them more confident when it comes to taking tests.

Our Weekly Review (March 7-11)

2011-03-13T20:36:00.000-05:00

Our past week was quite busy. In addition to our normal schooling routine, I had a 4-H Leaders Meeting one night, followed by a Poultry Workshop the following night. The night after that I was working on a dual service project with the young women at church who will not be attending Trek this year. I did enjoy dinner out with my hubby on Friday night and then bright and early on Saturday, I met the Webelos at a State Park to work on a couple of their badges. At the same time and place, Mattie attended a Youth Leadership Meeting.

Wow! That’s even tiring typing it out.

We recently joined 4-H and I am just thrilled with the opportunities. We ordered chickens in February and will pick them up in April when they will be 1 day old. We are so excited! We just moved into the country on New Year’s Eve and have jumped into country life with both feet.

We are also working on our garden. We’ve been waiting for a bigger yard and now we have one. We have so much work ahead of us with our new projects. Learning opportunities are overflowing for us right now.

Mason is still riding his bike everywhere he possibly can, including inside the house.

Michael has 1 week until Spring Break. He is doing really well in college. I can’t believe how quickly the semester is flying by.

Now to plan out our Easter Study. Have a great week!

Mason’s HeroScape Setup – The Rumbling Volcano

2011-03-05T14:34:00.001-06:00

Years ago, Michael, my oldest purchased a board/building game called Heroscape. We would play it every so often and it was a favorite at our homeschool group indoor recess activities. I have to admit, a huge part of the draw to this game is the fact that you get to build the game board. You also get to decide the objective of the game and choose your characters which have different strengths and weaknesses. It is a strategy game at it’s finest.

On Friday morning, Mason, my youngest decided he wanted to learn how to play so he set up a simple scenario and I taught him the rules. He loves this game! Last night he built this creation. He calls it the Rumbling Volcano.

We played on it this morning for over three hours. He was so sad to take apart his game board to let his sister have a turn to build. I took lots of pictures for him to remember his wonderful setup. Here are a few.

This picture (above) shows his overall layout, complete with lava pit, bridge and stream passing underneath.

His characters are the Knights of Weston (seen on and off the bridge), The Roman Legion (shown on the grass level shown in bottom picture), the Marro group (of the more creepy creature variety on the bridge), Sgt. Drake (an army guy on the far grassy knoll past the bridge). He also has another creepy guy in front of his knights.

My characters are the Sentinels of Jandar (winged warriors on the shore of the river), the Obsidian Guards (Lava Creatures in the molten lava pit), Samurai Warriors (on the grassy area) and Raelin (a winged protective character also from Jandar).

Here is a close-up view of the cave area Mason made on the back side. You can see the river going under the bridge as well. His Roman Legion is hanging out down there.

Entomology: How Insects Eat

2011-03-02T12:33:00.001-06:00

We have embarked on an Entomology study through 4H.

There are 4 basic ways insects can eat.

chewing
siphoning
piercing and sucking
sponging

Chewing

This way is simple. It’s how we eat. We move our mouth to cut and tear our food. This is also how grasshoppers eat.

Siphoning

This is relative to sucking through a straw. Butterflies eat this way.

Piercing and Sucking

This way of eating is similar to a needle or syringe. There is a breaking of the surface and an insertion of the siphoning tube. Mosquitos eat this way.

Sponging

This way of eating takes after its name. It is a way of absorbing or taking in food without the use of a siphon tube or chewing. Houseflies can only take in liquid so they often regurgitate their food.

Weekly Wrap-Up (The Two-Month Version)

2011-02-26T11:20:00.000-06:00

Since we were without internet access for two months due to our move into the country, I wasn’t able to post our weekly reviews. I thought I’d wrap up a couple of months with this one.

January

January was cold – very cold. We’ve had more snow here than I can remember. The temps were very low and record breaking for our area. We spent the first half of the month working on our unfinished home and adapting to life in a new place. Even though we are still working on our home, we did start back with our normal learning schedule part-time in January.

Without internet access, the children were not able to work on Dreambox Learning for their Math so we worked on math facts review. The entire time the children read loads of books and I read aloud for a couple of hours or so daily.

Since our home is not finished yet, most of our homeschooling supplies are still packed. I did dig through some boxes and pulled out what I wanted.

Mattie fell in love with the nonfiction section of the library and has read 40 or more books about animals – this is no exaggeration. Mason is still my reluctant reader but he reads what he has to and surprisingly, he picked out a biography on Martin Luther King Jr. and read it on his own. I’m still trying to understand the thinking of this child.

February

So far this month has just flown by. We’ve had above average temperatures here, which were very much welcomed especially considering the below average ones of last month. We are back into our full time homeschooling schedule. It feels so good!

We have required standardized testing coming up soon, so the children have been doing practice tests to prepare. I’ll post more about that another time.

Mason has earned his Webelos badge and has almost earned his arrow of light in Cub Scouts. He has also taught himself to ride his bike. I am soooo thrilled! He insists on teaching himself most things so this was a victory that was all his.

On the day he decided he was officially a bike rider, a terrible winter storm hit and we were covered in snow for several days. Then the weather flipped and we had highs in the 6os and low 70s. We walked down to the park for him to practice riding his bike on the paved trail. He rode around and around and was so happy with his accomplishment. That same night, the cub scouts rode bikes for one mile timed. I thought Mason might not make it. He stopped a few times. I knew those little legs were not yet used to all that pedaling and it was up hill at least half of each lap. He didn’t give up though. He finished his mile in 14 minutes and in March he will repeat the task and see how his time has declined.

Since then we have visited the park nearly every day. He rides and rides. I have no doubt his time will improve considerably.

Another learning opportunity presented itself and we joined a 4H group. We have dove into a 4H study on Entomology and we have ordered a batch of chicks to raise. Yep, we’ve embraced living in the country with both hands. =) We are supposed to receive our one-day-old chicks in mid April, and we have much to do before then to be ready. In addition, Mattie is entering her first 4H event in just a couple of weeks. She is participating in a Dairy Foods Recipe Contest.

Just a few days ago we were able to finally get high speed internet access here – which reminds me, we need to look up info on armadillos. Last week our dog found an armadillo burrowing in our yard and kept grabbing it by its tail. It was pretty scary - I must admit. The next day we were relieved to see it had moved on to a safer area. Good Dog! =)

So far the report from our new country life is that we are more active and enjoying all the new opportunities available to us.

Pictionary Man – Homeschool Style

2011-02-25T10:11:00.001-06:00

We recently acquired Pictionary Man. Like many of the games we play, we adapted it for learning and review. We have yet to play by the actual rules or even put batteries in it. It’s been great fun.

Can you guess who?

Christopher Columbus

Be aware that your children may criticize the accuracy of any map you make. =)

An Entomologist

We are currently working on a 4H project on Entomology (Insects).

Betsy Ross

Again, please note that any flag you make may be viewed with a critical eye regarding scale, number of stars, accuracy in design, etc. Don’t ask me how I know. =)

Noah

As you can see here, various characters traits would work for several different characters. The details on the other pieces are really what identify your character.

Hitting Delete & Taking Back My Time

2011-02-24T19:29:00.001-06:00

On New Year’s Eve, my family and I moved to the country. Until yesterday, we were without internet access.

During this nearly two month hiatus from the internet, I came to know that I really appreciate many online services like:

online banking and bill paying
researching
keeping in touch
Netflix
Paperback Swap
educational resources
weather reports

I also realized that I can happily live without other services that take away from my family. It’s time for me to hit the big DELETE button on my reader.

Since I choose not to be an impulse buyer, I don’t need to know about every great money saving deal out there. I’m no longer following the many “save money on these deals” type blogs. If I lived without a product before a great deal, I figure I can live without it after. I’m quite capable of finding great deals when I need them.

I am also deleting from my list all the blogs that have turned into advertising sites. I follow blogs because I enjoy getting ideas and gaining new perspective, not because I want to be sold a product. I don’t even watch TV commercials, so if this fits your site – sorry. It’s sad that so many wonderful sites have turned commercial. I do still enjoy reading about reviews though.

I am deleting from my reader many of the cool remodeling and craft blogs. I plan to spend the time saved, making my own crafty things for our home.

DELETE never felt so good.

Book Log: The Swiss Family Robinson

2011-01-29T12:52:00.001-06:00

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss

First copyright in 1949, this title is well known. I suspect it is often confused with treasure island. That was my error.

The Swiss Family Robinson is about a Christian family who is shipwrecked on a tropical island. They are very resourceful. They make shelters and tools and tame and raise animals. This story is basically the Father’s journaling of their daily activities.

They regularly come across new animals and each time seem to capture one to tame. They’ve come across all sorts of birds including black swans, flamingos and pigeons and even and ostrich. They’ve found monkeys, jackal, pigs, buffalo, horses, donkeys, lions and more. In addition to all their animal discoveries. They are quite resourceful with the plant life.

They find plants that can make a rubbery substance to coat their shoes and clothes making them waterproof, plants that are full of fibers used as thread, and various other properties. I will admit that I would like to research the plants mentioned to see if they really do have these properties. If the ideas presented are based on truth, this would be a good survivalist book.

Their survival insists on their hunting for food, but there are times when it is quite disturbing, like when they kill a whole group of monkeys and the bodies have to be thrown into a pit.

They spend over ten years on the island without contact from the outside world. Eventually, a ship comes to their island and they must choose whether to stay or return to a world they once knew.

We enjoyed this as a read-aloud for the most part, but some parts seemed to just drag on.

Book Log: Peter and the Sword of Mercy

2011-01-29T12:47:00.001-06:00

Peter and the Sword of Mercy by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

This is the fourth book in the Starcatchers Series. Picking up twenty three years later, Peter is the same age as before, as are the lost boys, but Molly, George and everyone else back in England have gained a couple of decades. Molly is now married to George and they have three children you might recognize – Wendy, Michael, and John.

Something strange is going on and people are turning up missing, including some of the original lost boys, Molly, and even George. Wendy, must get help. Her mother told her about the starcatchers before she disappeared. Even though Lord Aster is on his death bed, Wendy has to seek his help, no one else believes her about the starcatchers. Lord Aster has a small bit of advice for her – Peter.

How is Wendy going to find this Peter? Where is Mollusk Island? and Will he even be able to help her at all? You can follow this exciting adventure and see what the shadows hold. Things are different this time, but something is also very much the same.

If you’ve enjoyed the previous books in this series, you will surely enjoy this one.

Book Log: Mr. Popper’s Penguins

2011-01-29T12:44:00.001-06:00

Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

Originally published in 1938, this book has remained on the library shelves for a good reason. This story is unique. Mr. Popper is a painter and wallpaper man by trade. During the winter season he has no work and his family has to live on meager savings.

Mr. Popper has a strong passion for the south pole. He has always desired to go there; he’s read every book about it in the library and he’s even followed the explorer Admiral Drake on his live radio show direct from the Antarctic. Mr. Popper receives a message from Admiral Drake telling him a surprise is on the way. Can you imagine? The surprise happens to be a penguin. In this story you follow all the crazy antics of not one penguin but twelve, and learn how Mr. Popper finds a way to make some money for his family during the winter season after all.

I will admit the ending is odd. We looked at each other and my husband said “That wouldn’t happen around here .“ I wonder what others have thought about the ending.

Books on Slavery and Discrimination

2011-01-21T17:58:00.001-06:00

In light of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we read the following books on slavery or discrimination.

A Place Called Freedom by Scott Russell Sanders

James Starman, a 9 year old boy, was set free along with his Mama, Papa and 5 year old sister Lettie. This story is told through his eyes. Together, James and his family travel to Indiana where they use their skills to build a home. Papa returns to Tennessee many times to bring other loved ones to join them. They eventually build an entire community including a church, store, blacksmith shop, and grain mill. They decide their community of former slaves needs a name, they choose Freedom – a name most fitting.

The Drinking Gourd by F.N. Monjo

This story is about a boy named Tommy who is regularly getting into trouble. He gets sent home from church for disruptive behavior (fishing for geese out the church window). Instead of going straight home and to his room, as he was told to do, he heads to the barn and discovers a family of slaves. With time being of the utmost importance, Thomas finds himself not only learning about slavery and the underground railroad but assisting his father in helping a family reach freedom.

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman

This is a sweet book about a girl named Grace. She is very creative and dramatic and loves to reenact stories she’s read or heard. When she desires to be Peter Pan in the school play she is told that she can’t be Peter Pan because she is a girl, and then by another that she can’t because she is black. Ma and Nana teach her in a wonderful way, that she can do anything she puts her mind to.

Especially Heroes by Virginia Kroll

This is a great book for a discussion on racial issues. The book begins in a school classroom in 1962 with the discussion of the Revolutionary War and soldiers. The teacher of this 4th grade class remarks “People fight hard for ideals like freedom … Sometimes heroes die for the things they believe in.” This remark is further built upon at church with a discussion of martyrs and the question “Do any of you love something so much, you would die for it?” In this book you meet a lovable grandmother, who ends up the recipient of racial discrimination and violence. Readers are introduced to the “N” word and hatred and senselessness of racism.

My children are not/were not aware of racism. They take everyone at face value and have never considered differences like skin color, origin, or the like to add to or subtract from someone’s value as a child of God. I found the above listed books to prompt some great discussions and awareness.

Happy Tears

2010-12-14T17:42:00.001-06:00

Today Mattie read The Christmas Puppy by Roberta Intrater. Upon completion, she shared how the book was sad in places. I asked her if it had a happy ending and she said it was the first time she read a book that gave her happy tears.

If she’s anything like her mom, she’ll cry many happy tears in the years to come. I just adore that girl! ♥

Christmas Countdown Tags/Pockets

2010-12-13T19:17:00.001-06:00

Every year we read the Christmas Story aloud as a family. This year I added countdown tags/pockets with questions about the Christmas Story for my younger two. They already know the account of Jesus’s birth, but instead of relying on the accounts they’ve heard from us and others, I want them to encounter the story on their own, directly from the scriptural accounts. I want them to spend some time in their scriptures searching for the answers to our countdown tags. If your children enjoy lapbooks, chances are they will enjoy this activity as well.

The Christmas Countdown Tags are made with library card holders, scrapbooking paper and index cards. I added some ribbon at the top for the cute factor. To go along with this countdown. WE use a paper numbered 1 through 25 for them to record their answers each day.

Update: Homeschool to College – The Report is in!

2010-12-10T14:50:00.000-06:00

Grades are in and Michael has indeed survived this semester of college. And he survived very well, I might add! I do have to note here, that Michael did not really have a “C” at midterm. He was required to attend two theatre productions and write papers on them sometime during the semester. He took care of those after mid-term (Hamlet and Wicked).

Last semester, Michael attended a different University, part-time as a concurrent student. This means he was still considered a high school student (homeschooled) but was taking a college course. This was of great benefit to Michael and I am so glad we gave him that experience. He was able to get a feel of college work and deadlines without the pressure of a full load during finals week. Just this week, he completed his first semester as a full-time student.

Michael was homeschooled from 6th grade on. He is a smart kid. He is true and has a strong testimony of The Lord. He also has Asperger’s Syndrome. I don’t mention that here to define Michael by a label, but to offer hope and encouragement for others who have children with challenges to work through and adapt. We have been greatly blessed and guided on this journey. We KNOW of God’s love for his children.

I believe homeschooling really offered many benefits to Michael regarding success in college. I thought I’d share some benefits and also some challenges that we encountered thus far in college.

Benefits from Homeschooling:

Michael was totally grounded morally before attending college. He was not swayed by immoral, ungodly attitudes and perspectives presented in the college environment.
Michael knew/knows the purpose of college. He is there to get a degree to open doors of opportunity for him in the future. While he will learn some valuable things in his course work, there are many things that he has to be subjected to that are less than worthy of learning. So the goal is not to go to college to learn necessarily, but to obtain a degree. The learning will come and happen as he deems worthy and relevant to his life.
As a homeschooler, Michael read more - much more - than his public-schooled peers. He learned so much from reading. He is a great writer; I believe it is because he is so immersed in the written word.
Michael understands the appropriate bounds of authority. What I mean by that, is this - He has learned that just because someone has a title or is in some position of authority, does not mean that he/she is incapable of error. Michael is a very respecting young man, but he also knows he can respectfully disagree with a professor if it is warranted. He knows he can use his agency how ever he sees fit.

Challenges possibly from Homeschooling:

In college, Michael had multiple project deadlines within the same week, sometimes on the same day. He would get quite stressed over it sometimes. We did not have many deadlines while homeschooling as he worked at his own pace. I don’t think this is unusual for any college student, whether homeschooled or not, he just had no experience with this up to this point.
Michael had a difficult time in his College Algebra class. He didn’t recognize the terminology in the initial portion of the text and assumed because he was homeschooled, that he “missed” something. I found it interesting that when something was difficult, he worried that it was because he was homeschooled and that his peers would already know the material. He actually performed well above his college peers in the class. It had nothing to do with his education, but a college instructor who didn’t want or know how to teach her subject.
Taking notes and preparing for tests was a whole different experience in college. We did not take tests regularly in our homeschool, except for the annual mandatory standardized testing. Figuring out what each college professor deems of value on a test was frustrating sometimes. Michael had no experience with this. Lectures and taking notes were also a challenge, but more because he is not an auditory learner and has fine motor struggles due to his Asperger’s.
Keeping up with due dates and assignment requirements was our biggest challenge. In this area, Michael might have had more experience with this had he attended public school. He has no organizational skills - except in his writing. We tried using a calendar, checking in with professors after each class. etc. This challenge also stems from his Asperger’s and We constantly have to work on this area.

The challenges I mentioned aren’t isolated to homeschoolers, which is why I listed them as challenges that are possibly from homeschooling. Any challenges we encountered during this semester of college, were tackled with something we learned through homeschooling. For example, When a class was mainly auditory, Michael would try to study in a manner that was more suited to his learning style.

Given the new insight from this semester, I don’t feel the need to drastically change the way I homeschool my younger two to accommodate the challenging areas. The only changes I see in the near future, would be having them calendar assignments and work within some timeframes.

I am a very proud Mom. We are going to enjoy Michael’s month plus break from college. We’ve missed him during the day. ☺

Homeschooling in December

2010-12-10T12:18:00.001-06:00

I’ve not posted for a while. That’s because this year, I have decided we are taking the month off. Since we school year round, we are easily able to do this. Does this mean learning will stop? Absolutely not!

We will still be reading aloud and independently and we will be working on our daily advent tags. We will play board games and decorate cards and write letters. We will bake goodies and sing Christmas Carols. We will visit the lonely and and try to help those in need.

We are turning our Christmas focus this year to what Christ turned his focus to - We will be serving and loving mankind. We’ve spent this morning working on our Service Tree.

We’ve been busy with service lately and I’m exhausted to tell the truth. However, things will settle down now for the rest of the month for us. I’m hoping that we will be able to slow down and enjoy the service we are giving instead of running from thing to thing. Ok, who am I kidding? We now have a drywalled house! The gas is supposed to be hooked up today and the electric meter switched over to the new one. We are trying to get moved in by Christmas. So things may not slow down… but we’ll find joy in the journey. We always do.

I’ll post more details of our advent tags and our service tree later when I have some more time.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Mason’s Book Log for November

2010-11-30T12:02:00.000-06:00

Deputy Dan Gets His Man by Joseph Rosenbloom - 47 pages
Tales of Oliver Pig by Jean Van Leeuwen – 64 pages
Oliver, Amanda, And Grandmother Pig by Jean Van Leeuwen – 56 pages
Oliver and Albert, Friends Forever by Jean Van Leeuwen – 48 pages
Grandmas At Bat by Emily Arnold McCully –64 pages
Amanda Pig and Her Best Friend Lollipop by Jean Van Leeuwen – 48 pages
Tales of Amanda Pig by Jean Van Leeuwen – 56 pages
Amanda Pig and Her Big Brother Oliver by Jean Van Leeuwen – 56 pages
Amanda Pig Schoolgirl by Jean Van Leeuwen – 48 pages
Babe The Sheep Pig: oops, Pig! by Shana Corey – 32 pages
Poppleton in Winter by Cynthia Rylant – 48 pages
Poppleton by Cynthia Rylant – 48 pages
Walter Buys A Pig In A Poke and Other Stories by Barbara Gregorich – 52 pages
Ribbit Riddles by Katy Hall & Lisa Eisenberg – 40 pages
The Eye Book by Theo. LeSieg 31 pages
Pizza for Sam by Mary Labatt –32 pages
My Loose Tooth by Stephen Krensky – 32 pages
Captain and Matey Set Sail by Daniel Laurence – 64 pages
Father Bear Comes Home by Else Holmelund Minarik – 62 pages
Too Noisy! by Sonja Lamut –24 pages
Maybe You Should Fly A Jet! Maybe You Should Be A Vet! by Theo LeSieg – 39 pages
The Tooth Book by Theo LeSieg – 38 pages
Wacky Wednesday by Theo LeSieg – 36 pages
Gus and Grandpa at the Hospital by Claudia Mills – 48 pages
Gus and Grandpa and the Piano Lesson by Claudia Mills – 48 pages
Cork & Fuzz: The Collectors by Dori Chaconas – 32 pages
Cork & Fuzz: Short and Tall by Dori Chaconas – 32 pages
Bunny Riddles by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg – 48 pages
Chickie Riddles by Katy Hall and Lisa Eisenberg – 48 pages
Gus and Grandpa and the Christmas Cookies – 48 pages
The Rooftop Mystery by Joan M. Lexau – 64 pages
Don’t Be My Valentine by Joan M. Lexau – 64 pages
Gus and Grandpa and the Halloween Costume by Claudia Mills – 48 pages
Gus and Grandpa and Show –and-Tell by Claudia Mills – 48 pages
‘Twas The Night Before Christmas by Clement C. Moore – 48 pages

I do believe we have now read every book in the Amanda and Oliver Pig series by Jean Van Leeuwen! Since Mason is now more willing to read – Hooray! – I had him pick out 20 books at the library. He did so on his own accord, and then continued to add others as well. This is a major improvement, as he used to refuse to pick out a single book and would say “I hate books” every time we went to the library.

Mattison’s Book Log for November

2010-11-30T12:01:00.000-06:00

School’s Out! Rachel Yoder – Always Trouble Somewhere by Wanda Brunstetter – 160 pages
Babe The Sheep Pig: Oops, Pig! by Shana Corey – 32 pages
Arthur and the Perfect Brother (chapter book 21) by Marc Brown – 53 pages
The Berenstain Bears: That Stump Must Go! by Stan & Jan Berenstain – 40 pages
Dog Wash Day by Maryann Cocca-Leffler – 24 pages
Tara and Tiree, Fearless Friends by Andrew Clements – 32 pages
Bathtime for Biscuit by Alyssa Satin Capucilli – 28 pages
Animals on the Go by Jessica Brett – 16 pages
The Berenstain Bears Ride the Thunderbolt by Stan & Jan Berenstain – 29 pages
The Berenstain Bears Go In and Out by Stan & Jan Berenstain – 29 pages
The Berenstain Bears By the Sea by Stan & Jan Berenstain – 29 pages
The Berenstain Bears in the House of Mirrors by Stan & Jan Berenstain – 29 pages
Buster and the Giant Pumpkin by Marc Brown – 31 pages
Buster on the Farm by Marc Brown – 33 pages
Wacky Wednesday by Theo. LeSieg – 37 pages
Gus and Grandpa at the Hospital by Claudia Mills – 48 pages
Maybe you should fly a jet! Maybe you should be a vet! by Theo LeSieg - pages
The Tooth Book by Theo LeSieg – 38 pages
Too Noisy! by Sonja Lamut –24 pages
Gus and Grandpa and the Halloween Costume by Claudia Mills – 48 pages
The Berenstain Bears on the Moon by Stan & Jan Berenstain – 36 pages
Lionel In The Summer by Stephen Krensky – 48 pages
Addition Annie by David Gisler - 31 pages
The Rooftop Mystery by Joan M. Lexau – 64 pages
Gus and Grandpa and the Christmas Cookies by Claudia Mills – 48 pages

Our Thanksgiving Unit – Day 3

2010-11-24T16:15:00.001-06:00

Today we read Mayflower 1620: A New Look At A Pilgrim Voyage by Plimoth Plantation. This book is quite interesting and as the others we read, it has it’s own unique spin. For this book the authors sailed the reproduction ship Mayflower II to better understand what it must have been like aboard the Mayflower during the trip across the Atlantic in 1620. They used trained role players called interpreters to portray the 17th century people who sailed on the original Mayflower. For resources they used the only two firsthand accounts of the voyage – William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation and Mourt’s Relation. This book is full of wonderful photographs and a detailed diagram of of the levels and areas of the ship.

From Give Thanks, we made a couple of goodies from the recipe section and are planning on trying out more this weekend. We also printed off pages to make our WAMPANOAG VILLAGE.

Even though today “officially” ends our Thanksgiving Unit Study. There are some pages of Give Thanks we will be visiting next week to add to our History Notebook. We will be reading about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s call to recognize the holiday we know as Thanksgiving and use the accompanying copywork pages. There is also a really neat section on making corn husk dolls that I would love to try. As I mentioned on Day 1 of our Thanksgiving Unit Study, there are so many resources available in Give Thanks, that we will have new things to use for next year.

In addition, there are many resources we haven’t even had time to touch on this year.

In "Give Thanks!" kids will:
» Read about the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians
» Learn about other special days of thanksgiving
» Read presidential proclamations of Thanksgiving
» Memorize Bible verses focused on gratitude
» Make a Blessing Tree
» Create and Indian village poster
» Illustrate and color two Thanksgiving booklets
» Make Pilgrim and Indian paper dolls
» Create decorations for the Thanksgiving table
» Make corn husk dolls
» Create an apple candleholder
» Play Thanksgiving bingo
» Create a gratitude journal

Plus Kid-friendly Fall Recipes:
»Indian Pudding
» Easy-to-make Pumpkin Bars
» Easy-to-make Pumpkin Pancakes
» Easy-to-make Pumpkin Pie
» Pumpkin Cookies
» Yummy Pumpkin Dip
» Mulled Cider
» Toasted Treats
» Frontier Fudge
» Crockpot Carmel Apples
» Harvest Popcorn
» Holiday Spice Potpourri
» Maple Acorn Squash
» Maple Glazed Sweet Potatoes
» Layered Orange Sweet Potatoes

You can learn more about GIVE THANKS here. You can also download free sample pages. We are happy to have this resource available and will be using it again next year.

Our Thanksgiving Unit – Day 2

2010-11-24T15:45:00.001-06:00

Today we read The Pilgrims of Plimoth written by Marcia Sewall. This book is written as if a pilgrim is telling you of life through his/her eyes.

We read of the everyday workings of the Pilgrims, from gardening and child rearing to clothing repair and cooking from the female perspective. We read of the chores and duties and play of the children from their perspective. From the male point of view we read of the work and weather and toil required to build a life in this new land. I enjoyed the various perspectives very much. It is an enjoyable read and includes things not covered in Pilgrim Voices which we read yesterday. The language of the book, while not exactly modern, is more so than the previous mentioned book. It is 48 pages including a glossary and pleasant paintings throughout.

The children worked a Pilgrim and Indian crossword puzzle from Give Thanks. They really enjoy crossword puzzles right now so this was a fun activity for them.

They also wrote blessings they are thankful for on leaf shapes to add to their blessing trees.

There are several recipes in Give Thanks. I let the children choose which they’d like to try. We made Pumpkin Pancakes for breakfast, and are planning to try frontier fudge and some of the other recipes later.

While we worked on our projects, we listened to some of the songs found in the copywork section as well. Some of these are found in our hymnbook at church. I linked a few here:

Thanksgiving Unit Links:

* You can download free sample pages of Give Thanks here.

Our Thanksgiving Unit – Day 1

2010-11-22T14:27:00.001-06:00

When holidays approach, I head to the library and browse through the various holiday related books. I chose a few (sometimes several) to enjoy. This was the case for Thanksgiving.

In addition to the books we borrowed, I wanted to involve the children in some other activities. I came across Give Thanks from Discover the Scriptures and Rochelle was gracious enough to let me review it for her. You can download 12 sample pages here. I will admit, the hardest part of using this curriculum is deciding what to use. There are 103 pages in the PDF. It is full of so many great things. I can already tell, there is no way we will be able to use all this material in one year; which means I’ll be able to use this next year too. ☺ I love that there are things available for multiple grade levels or abilities. We plan to spend 3 days on our Thanksgiving Unit this year.

Today, we read several sections from Give Thanks while Mattison colored her Pilgrim and Indian paper dolls and Mason colored his Thanksgiving Dinner Place Cards. We are not using these as place cards but as stand-up characters. In addition, we practiced handwriting using one of the notebooking pages. I had the children make a list of what the Pilgrims were thankful for.

We also read Pilgrim Voices: Our First Year in the New World by Connie and Peter Roop. This is a neat book written in journal format using two histories – Mourt’s Relation and Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation. The first-person voice and detailed paintings really helped bring us into the era. It’s nice to read about the Pilgrims in their own words, instead of another’s interpretation of them. It struck me how important understanding one another truly is.

The hungry people of the Mayflower found corn buried in baskets in the ground. They tried to find the natives, to no avail, so they took the corn hoping to repay them later. I can imagine how this must have looked to the natives - their corn was stolen. They had no way of knowing the intentions of the new people who had come to their land. I appreciated reading not only of the actions taken but the intentions and reactions to each other. This book (48 pages long including the index) is easy to enjoy in one sitting while the children work on other projects.

Our Weekly Review (Nov 15-19): So many books, so little time

2010-11-21T20:42:00.000-06:00

We’ve had another productive week. I am so happy the basics get done without a whole lot of effort. The children have all been congested and my run on prednisone was up and left me feeling horrid. So it was headaches and feeling totally wired and jittery for me. I have started some herbals and hope that helps. I will post more on that later.

We’ve had our faces in plenty of books this week. Lately, I’ve been compiling the children’s book reading into a monthly post for our own records. They enjoy seeing their lists grow throughout the month. When they have finished a book, they give it to me to record in Windows Live Writer. I didn’t realize when I started, the effect this would have on their reading. Seeing their lists grow somehow motivates them to read more. Who knew? … something so simple.

We have finished the first 3 books in The Starcatchers Series by Dave Barry. We are on the fourth and final (I think) book. This series is great! It is fun to see the connections to Peter Pan and it is full of adventure and cliff hangers from chapter to chapter. However, reading all 4 in a row, has Peter oozing from my ears. Truly, there is such a thing as “too much of a good thing”. I’m not saying the 4th book isn’t any good. On the contrary, I just needed a break to read something else after probably the 2nd book before diving back into the story. It’s kind of like chocolate cake – It’s good, but eating the whole thing at once is a little much. ☺ Of course the children insisted I jump right into the next in the series, so that’s what I’ve done.

Book Log: Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

2010-11-18T19:54:00.001-06:00

Peter and the Secret of Rundoon is the third book in The Starcatchers Series by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. It is every bit as exciting and fun as the previous books. This particular book, was the one that Mason begged me to read both day and night.

This book begins with a few pivotal happenings.

Shadows combine and merge with another’s. Lord Ombra is back and heading for Rundoon.
A scouting party has landed on Mollusk Island. The Scorpions are planning war and they don’t loose.
Molly and George discover the identity of the missing person who warned the Starcatchers of the starstuff falls. This man was none other than Peter’s Father.

These major storylines have you deep in adventure, regardless of the scene. You'll visit the desert, the city of Rundoon, a dungeon in an underwater ship, lava caves on mollusk island, a flying ship, London and even aboard a rocket.

I don’t want to give away any of the exciting moments, as not knowing what happens next, is part of the fun. Let me just say - If you have read the previous books in this series, you will not want to miss this one! It is fantastic!

Our Weekly Review is WICKED!! More theater!

2010-11-12T15:55:00.001-06:00

This past week has been typical. I know that sounds boring doesn’t it? It’s not really. It’s just that our schooling schedule is so routine, that it just sort of happens without a whole lot of friction. It feels good. It’s just a normal part of life. It’s a nice place to be.

Since the two youngest have been sick with sore throat and congestion all this week, sometimes our length of study time per subject was shortened. As a matter of fact, on Wednesday, they were both feeling so cruddy, I had them lay down with a blanket while I read aloud for 2 hours so they could rest. We are now on the 3rd book in the Peter and the Starcatchers Trilogy.

On Thursday morning, while they were working on math, We had Christmas music playing and I made some cinnamon rolls. It was a nice morning.

On Thursday night, Michael and I went to his second and last required theatre production for his college class. We saw WICKED! I can’t even find words to describe this production. WOW!!! Absolutely brilliant!

This has me thinking. Wicked (which is the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with a different perspective – a prequel if you will), along with the Peter and the Starcatchers Series (also a prequel type story of Peter Pan) have just thrilled us! I’m thinking this might be setting the stage for a great creative writing project ahead. Wouldn't it be fun to pick a familiar story and write the prequel for it?

To see what others have been doing this week, visit the weekly wrap-ups @ Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Thanks - Whoever you are!

2010-11-12T13:11:00.001-06:00

Have you noticed all the hype about the Homeschooling Blog Awards? Several of the blogs I read have been nominated and shared their excitement on their blogs.

Even though I write for this and a couple of other blogs, I’m just not into the recognition thing. I mean it’s nice to get recognized and I appreciate it when people send awards my way, but I just don’t feel comfortable asking for recognition. It’s weird… Writing is just an outlet. A way to share for me.

Imagine my surprise today when I followed a link from my stats page to the homeschool blog awards and found this blog there! Really? It’s under Best Plans, Crafts and Projects Blog 2010. So whoever nominated me, thanks. That was nice!

Book Log: Peter and the Shadow Thieves

2010-11-12T10:13:00.001-06:00

Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson is the 2nd book in the Peter and the Starcatchers Series.

While we thoroughly enjoyed the first of this trilogy, the 2nd was just phenomenal. There is such adventure and daring in this story! We read 10 or more chapters most nights because we just couldn’t put it down.

This part of Peter’s adventure begins when mysterious and foreboding visitors come to Mollusk Island (aka Neverland). These visitors are searching for the starstuff and they aim to do anything necessary to possess it. One of the visitors is different and unnerves all around. He has abilities that enable him to gain information. After learning, the starstuff has been taken to London, the fearsome crew set off in search of Mollly Aster and her family. Peter must find a way to warn them.

Peter sets sail with the crew, hiding in the folds of a sail. When he reaches London, he finds himself in all sorts of danger. He’s having serious trouble saving himself and Tink! How will he ever be able to save Molly? Will he even be able to find her in time?

We absolutely loved this book! It is fast paced, full of adventure and imagination! Some of the characters are kind of creepy. I would recommend this for children probably 8 or older. If you are interested in reading this as a family read-aloud, prepare for some lengthy readings. It’s that good!

Weekly Review: The one filled with tragedy (poison ivy and Hamlet)

2010-11-06T16:54:00.001-05:00

This week has went well considering that Monday I had to admit that Yes, I have poison Ivy. I’ve never had poison ivy before despite the fact that I am allergic to a good part of what grows on the earth, and then some.

It started with a few itchy red bumps which turned into itchy red swollen lines, then more bumps and more swelling and horrid itching. It is now Saturday. I still have new itching bumps popping up despite being on steroids since Thursday Night.

I am grateful for prednisone. It has brought me relief from allergies and asthma many times. I know it’s helping. The swelling has gone down and I am not on the brink of insanity with the itching. Well that is until it wears off about 10 hrs later.

I keep telling myself that at some point when the steroid wears off I won’t notice it so much. That will be a good sign. but until then I have poison ivy on my legs, arms, thumb, neck and earlobe. Did I mention my eye has been itching for the past 40 minutes or so?

Oh and Mason is running a fever today. (sigh)

Aside from this, we really did have a productive week and are thoroughly enjoying our newest read aloud – Peter and the shadow thief. We’ve memorized some more songs and Articles of Faith.

The highlight of my week, I would have to say is our trip to see Hamlet. Michael and I went to the theatre and had a blast! It was so awesome! Next week we are off to see WICKED! There are benefits to a son attending college who is required to attend two theatre productions this semester. ☺

October Read-Alouds

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We LOVE to read aloud. For the month of October we have read-aloud the following books:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowlings
The Year Money Grew on Trees by Aaron Hawkins
Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry
Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Word After Word After Word by Patricia Mac Lachlan
Killer Ants by Nicholas Nirgoiotis
Hey There, Stink Bug! by Leslie Evans
Spider’s Lunch by Joanna Cole
Spinning Spiders by Melvin Berger
Barney and the Runaway by Max Elliot Anderson

*You can follow the book title links to our book reviews.

Book Log: Barney and the Runaway

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Barney and the Runaway is another book by Max Elliot Anderson. True to his goal, Mr. Anderson has created a story fitting for reluctant readers. This chapter book is 130 pages total, divided into 14 chapters. The text is a bit larger than your typical chapter book with matching spacing. These traits, make this chapter book seem approachable and doable for even the most reluctant reader.

Barney and the Runaway is an adventure shared between a boy who feels everyone is against him, his faithful dog Barney, and a clown.

When running away accidently becomes a reality, Michael (MIKE) finds himself in real trouble. Mike needs help whether he realizes it or not, and he finds that help in Big Bob, a circus clown. Big Bob just may be the only person who can truly understand what Mike is feeling, and more importantly, what the consequences of Mike’s choices could have on him in the future.

What seems to be a hallmark of Anderson’s books is that there is plenty of adventure, excitement, and danger mixed with a Christian belief system of forgiving, being responsible, telling the truth, serving others, praying, etc.

We enjoyed this quick read. You can read our review of another Max Elliot Anderson book, Lost Island Smugglers, here.

Mattie’s October Book Log

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Here is the list of books Mattie has read for October. She is so thrilled to finally be reading the things she’s wanted to. While her face is stuck in a book you will often hear her laughing, gasping and commenting about what she is reading. They are VERY happy sounds to this Mom. Mattie loves animals and she was thrilled to come across The Buddy Files.

All of these books were read by her, either to herself or to someone else:

Pup and Hound Hatch an Egg by Susan Hood
The Bears’ Picnic by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Bug Hunter by DK Smithsonian
Sharks by Ginjer Clarke
Slinky Scaly Snakes! by Jennifer Dussling
Baby Alligator by Ginjer L. Clarke
Animal Talk by Melissa McDaniel
Pup and Hound Play Copycats by Susan Hood
Pup and Hound in Trouble by Susan Hood
Pup and Hound Catch a Thief by Susan Hood
Once I ate a Pie by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest
Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion
The Strange Disappearance of Arthur Cluck by Nathaniel Benchley
A Day at Greenhill Farm by Sue Nicholson
Did You See Chip? by Wong Herbert Yee
The Buddy Files: The Case of The Fire Alarm by Dori Hillestad Butler

Mason’s October Book Log

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Mason is my reluctant reader. Being able to even have a list is quite an accomplishment for Mason. I am thrilled with his progress. The books from # 5 on, were read just his last week. He’s into this pig thing. We were laughing at the library about how so many books show animals with shirts on but no pants. Then we found fully clothed pigs in books by Jean Van Leeuwen and Mason decided he should read all of those.

Here are the books Mason has read either to himself or to someone else during the month of October:

The Sunday Comics (Sept 26th edition of the paper)
Pup and Hound Hatch an Egg by Susan Hood
Dirk Bones and the Mystery of the Missing Books by Doug Cushman
Pup and Hound in Trouble by Susan Hood
The Bears’ Picnic by Stan and Jan Berenstain
Harry and the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion
Oliver the Mighty Pig by Jean Van Leeuwen
Did You See Chip? by Wong Herbert Yee
Oliver and Amanda: Amanda Pig, First Grader by Jean Van Leeuwen
Oliver & Amanda and the Big Snow by Jean Van Leeuwen
Oliver Pig At School by Jean Van Leeuwen
The Boy Who Would Not Say His Name by Elizabeth Vreeken
Oliver Pig and the Best Fort Ever by Jean Van Leeuwen

Our Bi-Weekly Review # 2 (Oct 18 – 29)

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These days just seem to fly by for us. The week starts and the next thing I know, it’s Friday. This is another bi-weekly review since I didn’t have the time to post our weekly review last week.

On the educational front, the children progressed through Dreambox Learning, and are working on goals in their Faith in God books. They have been working on some memorization and are reading a lot more independently. Isn’t it nice to see your children sucked into a book? I just love it!

We finished Peter and the Starcatchers and Barney and the Runaway Read-alouds as well.

Week 1 of this review:

We accomplished the norm around here. It’s nice to be in a groove that just happens without a whole lot of friction. I was thankful for that. I had ear and throat problems, which I started antibiotics for. I took a nap each day. ☺

Week 2 of this review:

This week was full of change for us. We started a new routine and it has truly made this week so wonderful.

Since Michael is attending college full time, the family chores needed to be redistributed. Michael pulls a lot of weight around here. He is quick to help out and is dependable with his chores. He has been since he was about 8 or so.

The younger two haven’t had as much (by way of chores) to be responsible for until now. I set up a new routine this week. I am happy to report that our home has been clean and laundry has been finished and behavior has been much improved. In addition, more reading and extras have been enjoyed with our school work. I’ll post later about our routine.

Noggins & Nonsense

Today Feels Good

Autumn Reading Log

Mason’s Book Log

Mattison’s Book Log

Read Alouds

Book Log: The Book of the MaidServant

FHE: Election Year Focus (January)

Our Newest Learning Tool: The Kindle

School Update

100 words or less

How well do you know the scriptural account of the Savior’s birth?

Bird Cage Pendant/Watch Necklace for only $7.50!

Showing Gratitude Through Posters, Leaves, and Letters

Rollin’ in the dough

WonderMaps: Customizable Maps (A Review)

And they are CUSTOMIZABLE!!!

What I love about making my own Homeschool Planner

Scripture Journaling with Children: Our Journey

Pizza Hut’s BOOK IT! Reading Incentive Program

Our Chicken Diary: County Fair Capers

Celebration of the Family is happening NOW!

Summer Reading Report for 2011

Mason’s Book Log (My Reluctant Reader)

Mattison’s Book Log

Hop On Over!

Important Reminder!

Add Some ‘Spice’ to your History Studies Using Aged Paper

Places to Visit: Your Local County Extension Office

Unexpected and Unwanted Nature Study

Thoughts on Evolution

Everything Changes: Thoughts on Curriculum

A 30 Day Challenge (Homeschooling Style)

Our Chick Diary: 15 weeks old

Remember My Reluctant Reader?

Free Ebook: Homeschooling by the Numbers

Printable Book Log Bookmarks

Year-Round Homeschooling: A peek at our SUMMER PLANS

Our Chick Diary – Week 6, 7 & 8

Chastity: What are the Limits?

Our Chick Diary – Week 5

Reasons We Homeschool: Science Curriculum?

“Mom, There are female and male flowers! I have to read more about this!”

Serving Others: Vilonia Tornado 2011

Garden Update

Approachable Chapter Books for Dog Lovers

Our Chick Diary - Week 4

A Mom Pride Moment – Grades Are In

Our Chick Diary – Week 3

Homemaker’s Challenge: Motivation

Even Though I KNOW

Our Chick Diary – Week 2

I’m taking the challenge, are you?

Our Chick Diary – Week 1

Birds and More Birds

Birds are falling from the sky here!

The Study of Poison Ivy and Other Nonsense

Poison Ivy, Oak, & Sumac Information Center

How Stuff Works

UT Health Leader

Limiting Computer Time: A Resource

We ♥ our new chicks!

How does your garden grow?

4-H Recipe Contest

How is your personal INERTIA?

Gardening Progress: Day 9

Hummingbird Egg Hatching – Live Stream

New Opportunities for Learning

ATV Safety Workshop

From Combined Studies to the Pursuit of Personal Interests

Ready, Set, Go Garden Go!

Simple Standardized Test Taking Tips

Our Weekly Review (March 7-11)

Mason’s HeroScape Setup – The Rumbling Volcano

Entomology: How Insects Eat

Weekly Wrap-Up (The Two-Month Version)

Pictionary Man – Homeschool Style

Can you guess who?

Hitting Delete & Taking Back My Time

Book Log: The Swiss Family Robinson