Egg Drop Experiment - April 2013

Around Easter time, the kids were given the assignment to wrap up and protect an egg so that it could withstand being dropped from a high spot.  They went to work packaging them up and couldn't wait for Dad to come home and drop their eggs for them.

Lydia used lots of scrunched up paper towels and rice to pad her egg and then put it in a box and taped it up really good.  Wyatt smeared peanut butter around his egg and put it in a box with paper and rice.

Hmmm...wonder if it was enough?!?!

drumroll......

The egg looks like it cracked open because of all the peanut butter goop around it, but if you look at that kids face, you'll know his packaging skills were a success!

Two for Two! 

Both eggs came out in one piece and boy were the kids excited that they got it on their first try.  Super fun little project for them.

Snow Caves

Today's assignment was to go outside and make a shelter that you could survive in if you were lost in a snow storm.

We established that Wyatt would not survive long.

(notice the missing glove....insert "face palm" here)

Hopefully if he is ever stranded it will be with his sisters...

They found a great drift to make a nice deep cave in.  And although Lydia did take off her hat, she worked long and hard making sure their cave would be big enough to fit three people.

still digging

The finished cave.

(it's pretty high inside and much larger than it looks in the picture)

School Room - August 2012

Well....we are trying to get ready for our first year of homeschooling!  One of the main things was getting our school room ready.  We converted the T.V. room (that we didn't have a t.v. in anyway) into our school room since it's right off the kitchen and a main part of our house.  I had the basement space to make a school room, but couldn't see us locked away in the basement all day long.  So far we've liked having most of our schooling take place in the middle of all the action ;)

The biggest challenge with this room is that there isn't any wall space.  I picked up a white board that has come in handy (Wyatt will write almost anything as long as it's on the white board...I pick my battles) so I really wanted to make room for it.

Here's what I was working with:

My only option was to go ghetto and board up some windows.  I coudn't bear to board up both of them and do away with all the natural light, so I only covered up one which means we are only half ghetto.

I popped the trim off so that the white board would lay flush against the wall and then recruited my handsome handy man (I knew Greg was good for this job...still can't convince him to tackle our bathroom though) and we screwed the white board into place.

It works!  It was worth having the extra wall space for now.

Lydia had fun putting up all the "extra" stuff and was excited to show it all to Amy the next morning.

So...now I think we are officially READY.

(and we are one step closer to having a safer home if ever there's a tornado)

2012-2013 Curriculum

I decided if I was going to be a legit homeschooler, I needed to post our curriculum picks for this next school year.  In the past year and a half that I've been preparing to homeschool, I've really appreciated those bloggers who post their curriculum choices and what works for them and what doesn't.  Here is my disclaimer though....this is my first year homeschooling!  I really have no idea what I'm doing yet.  I think picking a curriculum for the school year was much harder than making the decision to homeschool.  I finally just had to make a decision and go for it! 

For our main curriculum we are using Memoria Press

I didn't purchase the entire curriculum package, but was able to pick and choose the things I wanted to use.  I'm really excited for this classical curriculum and I hope it is a good fit for us this first year.

For math we are going to try Math U See

This is one I debated on over and over!  I had planned on using Saxon Math since that is what the kids have been doing in public school.  However, this last year was a rough math year for Lydia.  She has always done well with all subjects and even though she still tested above average for her class in math this year, she hated it!  It's the first year she has been discouraged and frustrated with her math assignments.  I could see her slowly giving up on math throughout the year.  Her scores also went down throughout the year (but were still above average so the teacher wasn't concerned).  I don't have a great love for math and I really don't want Lydia to feel the same way about the subject.  I'm hoping that Math U See will be a curriculum that will help her understand math and give her more confidence in her math skills. 

For history we are going to use Story of the World

These have GREAT reviews and I'm excited to get started with it.

So there you have it!  I hope that in 6 months I'm reporting back with GLOWING reviews on all of these choices ;)  We will just have to see how it all works out.  The hardest part of choosing a curriculum your first year is that you really have no idea what is going to work best for you and your family and it can be quite expensive to get started.  When you are spending money, you want to get it right the first time!  But the great thing about homeschooling is that if something isn't working, we can stop and try again. 

Wish us luck!!!

Highlights Hidden Pictures

We love Highlights Hidden Pictures!  All of the kids enjoy doing them.  Lydia and Wyatt like to have competitions to see who can find all the pictures first and Amy (3 1/2) is getting better at finding the pictures all on her own.

 These printables are one of the activities I like to whip out when the "I'm Bored" monster starts to show up. 

These....and extra chores!

Bodies - August 22, 2011

About a year ago, Greg made the suggestion that we should start homeschooling our kids.  At first I was NOT interested.  I didn't think I would have the patience or ability to take on that kind of a responsibility.  However, I decided to look into it and I have been very surprised at how many people are homeschooling now and how much support there is for it.  We decided to give it a little trial run this summer to see if it would even be a possibility for us.  Can I just say...BEST SUMMER EVER!!!  I have been AMAZED at how well it has gone and I am SO not ready for the new school year to start.  For various reasons, we have decided to send both Lou and Wye to school this year, but we are planning to begin homeschooling full-time by next year.  I can't wait!!!

One of the things we did this summer was a unit on the body.  This was not even in the plans when we began our summer of homeschooling.  It all came about one day when Wye started asking questions about the heart.  Next thing I knew, we were making posters, reading books, looking up things online, and planning a family trip to end our unit.  The kids soaked it all up and so did I!  It's funny how these things work out.

When I decided we were going to make this a summer long unit instead of just studying the body for a couple of days, I decided to go all out!  The kids had a great time  tracing their bodies onto butcher paper, coloring them, and labeling the parts that they knew.  It was very easy to adapt this to their different age levels.  For example, Aimers (3) labeled her "tummy" and Lou (8) labeled her "stomach".

Afterwards we hung them up down our hallway where they would be easily visible and ready to use for the rest of the summer.

One of the greatest resources I found was this website: 

 http://kidshealth.org/kid/

It has a section for kid and parents.  I felt like it explained things really well and had a lot of illustrations, games, activities, and even worksheets that we were able to incorporate.

We also checked out books from the library and read other books about the body.  One of our favorite books, The Explore and Learn: Me and My Body, we discovered about half way through the unit when a very nice door to door salesman with a fun accent showed up.  When I realized what he was selling, I was hooked.  And NO, I didn't get suckered into buying anything since I WANTED to buy them! ;) (and luckily Greg was around when he came by and was just as interested in them as I was, so that helps!)

We purchased the Explore and Learn set and found that the book about the body was PERFECT for what we were studying.  It really has been a fantastic resource for us. 

http://www.swadvantage.com/

Each week we would study something new.  We covered the heart, lungs, brain, muscles, bones, eyes, ears, senses, reproductive system, gall bladder (when I had my gall bladder attack during the unit and the kids wanted to know what part of mommy's body was making her roll around on the ground screaming in pain...side note:  I'd rather have another baby than another gall bladder attack!) etc.

We did everything from test tastes (for senses) to sports (to test out our heart rates) along with our study.  After studying a certain part, the kids loved coloring/making that part to put on their poster.  So by the end, our posters were looking very interesting:

Any guest that walked out of my bathroom and into the hall probably thought we had very interesting taste in home decorating!

To end our unit, we decided to take the kids to the BODIES EXHIBIT which is on display about an hour away from us for a limited time.  At first I thought it would probably only be appropriate for Lou, but because Wye was always so fascinated with seeing the REAL thing instead of illustrations, I decided we might as well take him, and then it just turned into a family event.  The date was set and they were counting down the days.  Both older kids were SO EXCITED and I was really hoping it would go well.

It was AMAZING!  Our bodies are seriously, SO AMAZING!!!  I had heard many different things and reactions about the exhibit.  We chose not to tell our kids that they were real bodies.  So they thought they were more like statues.  However, they did know that the displays of different organs and such were real.  Our kids loved it!  They were so fascinated with everything.  And it was so rewarding to watch them point out the different things that they have been learning about.  My favorite was when Wye was looking at a display of the female reproductive system and he yelled out (with several people standing around) "Hey, I know what that it!  It's a BAGINA!"  Yes, I even taught my children the appropriate names for ALL of their anatomy (Unless you have a few speech problems like Wye ;).  Hopefully it will counteract all the years we've been calling the boy part a "winkie".

We ended the evening with a trip to Applebees where the kids got to use their "free kids meal" coupons they earned during the library summer reading program.

So, all in all....A great unit, a great family activity, and a great summer!