Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Home Schooling on Jan 9th, 2012
It seems that every new school year Kaia picks a subject to rebel against. Last year, she did whatever she could to get out of writing in any form. So, this year, I’m getting super creative with her assignments. If there is more to writing than just sitting down at the table and putting words [...]
Posted in General, Home Schooling, Mothering on Dec 7th, 2011
It’s not just Kaia who’s been crafty lately. Leif has been holding his own. Aside from helping me create a parking garage for all of his cars: He has recently had his hands in lots of gloop! We discovered a recipe during a science lesson and he can’t get enough of it. His little hands [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering, Sewing on Dec 6th, 2011
Kaia has been begging me for sewing lessons lately. She’s done a simple square purse on my machine before, but this time she decided to do something with a real pattern. She chose a fabulous owl pillow. I had to stop my hands from taking over and really let her do it all. I gave [...]
Posted in Do It Yourself, Home Schooling, Mothering on Nov 23rd, 2011
Want a quick way to highlight your little one’s masterpiece? How about sewing a lace frame around it? Or, sew the frame on the paper first to encourage them to create. Kaia’s Poem, FALL, introchaic bimeter And Leif’s “blue train on blue train tracks in a tunnel”
Posted in General, Home Schooling on Nov 14th, 2011
Kaia and I have been planning and looking forward to this trip for many months! I knew as soon as we decided to study the Middle Ages that we would need to go to a Renaissance fair! The Renn Faire in NC is one of the biggest around. The village is built on 20+ acres [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Knitting, Mothering on Oct 6th, 2011
I’ve been seriously slack in posting here. That’s because I’ve not been slack in the rest of my life. We are working hard in homeschool, playing hard in the beautiful fall weather, reading great books, picking apples, eating well, and enjoying life! That’s how it should be, right?! I have a feeling new posts will [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Sep 14th, 2011
Mathematician Maria Droujkova has been working on an amazing living math resource for babies, toddlers and their parents. Please take a moment to check out her newest project and think about donating!
Posted in Home Schooling on Aug 31st, 2011
We were super excited to start Anatomy this year. I have so many fun experiments planned. But, of course, we had to start with the Jello Cell. Did you create one of these in school? I remember doing it at least twice! You can use all kinds of things to create your cell. This just [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jun 20th, 2011
Wow! Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments and math game suggestions! We are excited to try them out. We are also very excited to tell you that we now have decks of PrimeBomb and Fractazmic that we will be reviewing soon. So, with out any further ado… The winner of the Pyramath [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jun 13th, 2011
In early May, I read this review on a game called PyraMath and immediately thought it would be a great way to practice math facts with Kaia. I went to the website and clicked on the link to Play. We happened to be visiting in Boston a the time, but I thought I’d just play [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jun 4th, 2011
One of the games I thought we might play this summer to sharpen Kaia’s math skills is Multiplication Bingo. I found this great site for creating your own Bingo cards, Print Bingo, and simply plugged in the answers to the multiplication facts for 2×2 through 9×9. If two or more equations have the same answer, [...]
Posted in General, Home Schooling on Jun 3rd, 2011
School is out! Kaia is officially a 3rd grader, and we are celebrating with doughnuts and a party! But before I retire the curriculum for the summer, I wanted to tell you about Memorize in Minutes: The Times Tables. I bought this after hearing good reviews from other homeschoolers. Adding in art and stories to [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on May 26th, 2011
Kaia and I are wrapping up her school year this week and next, and we thought we’d learn a little about negative numbers to end the year. We talked about things less than zero, looked at thermometers and time lines. Then she drew a number line from -5 to 5. I gave her a few [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on May 22nd, 2011
This is the only way I can ever get Kaia to put paper to pencil! I told her I would make Ice Cream Pie if she could write me the recipe. Yum! Ice Cream Pie by Kaia 1. Fill crust with ice cream. 2. Top with whipped cream. 3. Drizzle on chocolate syrup. 4. Sprinkle [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering on May 11th, 2011
I love this video… whether you home school or not…. whether you have kids or not… you should take a few minutes to watch it. I LOVE how it is animated! What a talent.
Posted in Home Schooling on Apr 26th, 2011
I have to admit, I love planning for school. Searching through all the options that are available to the kids is very exciting. This past year has worked pretty well for us. Really, the hardest part of it was getting lessons done with a 2 year old crazy man bouncing around us. And sometimes, I [...]
Posted in General, Home Schooling on Apr 21st, 2011
Kaia’s been using Right Start Math as her basic curriculum for the past 2 years. It’s a great curriculum, but she’s gotten bored with worksheets. So, I’ve been trying to work in more ‘living math’ done through experiments and hands on activities. When I saw this activity with Peeps, I knew we had to try [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Home Schooling, Mothering on Mar 25th, 2011
This week, we’ve been doing crafts to decorate our Spring Nature Table. Today’s craft was simple and fun with such beautiful results. I picked up a few silk scarves and shirts from Good Will and blew out some duck eggs. Then we followed The Magic Onion’s directions on silk dying eggs. So lovely! We loved [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jan 30th, 2011
Ever since I first saw sandpaper alphabet cards on another mama’s blog, I’ve been wanting a set of these for Leif. I found small wooden cards at the local crafts store, along with felt capital letters and super sparkly, textured lower case letters. The red felt letters are actually stickers. So, Kaia took charge of [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Dec 11th, 2010
Want a fun way to encourage story telling and writing in your home? Create a story board! If you are sew crafty, you can sew some pockets onto a larger piece of fabric. If you don’t sew, what about using poster board and gluing or stapling on paper pockets? I sewed 12 pockets (about 4 [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Dec 10th, 2010
Kaia and I took a break from our regularly scheduled math this morning after seeing some of these videos by Vihart. She calls herself a ‘recreational mathemusician’, but that doesn’t come near describing how cool her brain is! By watching just a couple of her videos Kaia and I found ourselves discussing fractals (again) which [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, General, Home Schooling on Dec 5th, 2010
I’ve been wanting to post about all the things we’ve been up too lately… projects, crafts, homeschooling, the ducks, the land. There’s always so much to share. But, I’ve been finding it hard to take the time to sit down at the computer when life has been so full. With having the kids at home, [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Knitting, Mothering on Nov 11th, 2010
My posting has been fairly sporadic, I know. But life is full and I don’t have much time to spend blogging. So, here are some pictures to catch you up on our ‘doings’. Hope you are all doing wonderfully and enjoying fall! This was a really fun lesson. Kaia asked to do this over again [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering on Sep 7th, 2010
Posted in Home Schooling on Aug 30th, 2010
We started school today… Kaia is now an official second grader and Leif began his pre-pre-pre K studies. (He he, ok, so he ran around grabbing pencils, walking over workbooks, and sitting on Kaia. I did read him The ‘A’ Book, though!) I like the schedule I have mapped out for this first semester. On [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Aug 21st, 2010
Kaia and I have been taking time this week to get her prepared for starting the second grade. We’ve labeled and decorated folders, picked up some books from the library, filled her art box and refreshed her nature kit. I think I’m more excited about school starting than she is I’m also trying to [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering on Jul 2nd, 2010
As part of our summer curriculum, Kaia asked to learn more about the gods and goddesses. We’ve been taking our relaxed time reading through mythology stories, coloring pictures, doing crafts… But today, we brought it all to a close. We started the morning by designing our togas and decorating ourselves in gold. Then we broke [...]
Posted in Home Schooling on Jun 3rd, 2010
Kaia is really enjoying the projects we are doing from Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors! I have to admit…. I’d kinda like one of these head dresses for myself! Tomorrow is her last official day of first grade! Wow! Calling her a second grader just makes her sound so old!! I can’t wait to start [...]
Posted in building our home, Home Schooling, Sewing on May 31st, 2010
The 2 year old roof. Spots are filling in pretty well. I think I’ll give it one more year and then plant a few more things if needed. I absolutely love all the color on the roof right now. It’s like a patchwork quilt! And the yard is coming along, too. After 2 years of [...]
Posted in Home Schooling, Mothering on May 19th, 2010
We had a wonderful 4 day weekend visiting my sister in Atlanta! We spent lots of time seeing the sites and just catching up. Our first full day there we went to the zoo. This poor giraffe really wanted to eat the trees that were just out of reach. Can you see its tongue reaching [...]