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 on our summer study units. We start mythology next week and I’m still trying to find a little bow and arrow so she can dress up like Athena and practice archery 
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 having huge piles of dirt and rubble in the yard, we finally had it leveled. Now I have the perfect spot for my berry garden!!! Yum Yummy!!
We also put up a bear fence for the beehives that are coming this week. I finally painted the chicken coop… I just need to trim it in yellow and put some color on the windows… green or blue maybe?
I also made myself a Medicino sundress. I love this pattern! It’s so simple and such a cute dress! Kaia wanted to pose in her dress with me.
Kaia has one more week of ‘official’ school left. We will continue with math and reading through the summer, and add in whatever else she is interested in. We are definitely going to do a few lessons on Greek Mythology!
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 out?
This elephant was having fun cooling himself off by splashing mud up on its back.
When we got to the panda area, this one got up from its nap, came over and sat right in front of us to have a little snack.
Of course there were rides:
And silliness:
And exhaustion:
The next day, we hit the Aquarium… the largest one in the world! Really cool place!!
Kaia pet the sting rays and the sharks!
They have a tunnel that goes right through the largest tank of fish! REALLY COOL to walk underneath basking sharks and other huge fish!!
See the people in this picture below? That gives an idea of the scale of this tank. The tunnel was about 4 times what you see in this picture.
Check out this manta ray!!! Fabulous!
There was also a beautiful coral reef display! I LOVED the colors of the fish. I think this pink one with the purple square on it is a Square Spot Anthias. Sooo Coool!
Then there was more exhaustion!
We really had a blast!
Of course, we are decompressing this week, and homeschooling has been very light! But we are mostly wrapping things up for the end of the year, so that’s just fine by me!
One of the things I was worried about when deciding to homeschool Kaia is that she would feel that she missed out on some of the fun things that big schools offer like going to school games, prom, and year books. Now, I laugh about those things, but back then, they were a huge deal. I’m lucky to live in an area with a big homeschooling community. There is a homeschool yearbook, homeschool prom, and homeschool athletic leagues, and if Kaia and Leif chose to participate in those… great. But in an effort to cover all of my bases, Kaia and I decided to create school t-shirts. First we had to decide on the school name: Green Meadow School. Then we had to create a mascot: a flying unicorn with a shape-shifting mermaid on it’s back. Once that was done, we knew that the motto had to be “Where flying unicorns and shape-shifting mermaids RULE!”. The school colors are “blue and rainbow, with a hint of gold” (yes, that is exactly what Kaia said). We may create a new shirt each year… maybe we’ll change the mascot and colors, too. We’ll see. But, now, she can show her school spirit and be proud of her school when people ask her about her shirt!
(Some family and friends have asked for one also, so I created a store. You are welcome to one, too!)
Here is our family school picture:
No, wait, that’s not it….
Here it is:
OY! It’s so hard to take a picture of all of us being still at the same time in the same place. Let’s try this one:
Much better
Last week, were were able to enjoy a day at the Biltmore House during their Homeschool Festival. They put this on twice a year and it’s lots of fun. Their focus this year was Farms, Flowers, and Food. We made terrariums, listened to a stories about farming, learned to make peanut butter, made leaf prints, and lots more. But my absolute favorite part was stomping grapes! We all got in the grape bucket and tried our turn at making wine, even Leif! Then we made prints of our feet (the prints are actually made with purple ink).
It also happened to be during the time of their Festival of Flowers, so we were able to enjoy that too!
Kaia and I have been working on the concept of symmetry in math for the last few days. We’ve looked at the symmetry of shapes, objects, foods, etc. We talked about how our bodies are symmetrical (one arm on each side, one leg…), but thought it would be fun to see what it would look like if our faces were really completely symmetrical.
I took a picture of Kaia (she hammed it up) and then altered it so that we could see what she would actually look like if the right half of her face was exactly like the left (and vice-versa).
Here is the original picture:
Here is her right side.
Here is her left:
Her favorite part was seeing the design that her hair makes. It would be neat to make something like this with an object from nature… maybe a tree, and look at the symmetry of the branches.
One thing I really like about homeschooling is going on field trips! (OK, I know that I could go on field trips even if Kaia was in public school, but it just seems like more fun when we get to design and plan them ourselves!) She just finished up her solar system and prehistory studies. So, we headed to the Raleigh/Durham area to visit friends and play!
The first day, we met up with some other homeschooling friends and headed to the NC Museum of Life and Science. The little ladies enjoyed looking at the butterflies in the butterfly exhibit.
Driving the boats in their wind exploration exhibit.
Climbing on the dinosaurs.
Digging through the rubble for fossils. (Leif especially enjoyed tasting the fossils!)
On day two, we went to the Morehead Planetarium to see a show! We all enjoyed relaxing in the reclining chairs and watching the stars above in their huge dome auditorium. After, we spent hours playing and exploring at the NC Botanical Gardens. Leif made some great moves on their life size chess set.
Day three took us on a tour of the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. We went specifically for the Megalodon exhibit, but enjoyed walking through the whole thing. Leif said ‘hi’ to the little turtle swimming back and forth.
Kaia heard the secrets of the dinosaurs.
And, of course, there were lots of smiles along the way!
Kaia, who has always been a very cautious little lady, decided she wanted to take a ride on ‘uncle’ Mark’s bike! I was really proud of her! She’s usually one who would prefer to sit back and watch rather than participate. So for her to take this step was a pretty big thing!
Off she goes!
Leif enjoyed some riding of his own!
And a little exploration of daddy’s face.
And a little more exploration!
Kaia took this picture when she noticed the sun shining through the glass door. I love it!
By the end of the 4 days, we were all pretty tuckered out!
We’ve got lots more field trips planned this year! Next stop is in May when we head to my sister’s in Atlanta for some time at the Aquarium and the zoo!
While we were gone, our fantastic neighbors and friends took care of our animals. Kathie even put up a few videos of the chickens, too.
We are wrapping up Kaia’s Prehistory studies this next week and she has been begging to do a dinosaur dig. I got this kit because it looked like it was pretty good quality and the tools (which are metal) could be used again.
The kit says it can be ‘hours of fun’, especially if you go slowly and carefully, like a real paleontologist would. While this did fill up a chunk of the mid day, when you go at it like a jack-hammer it won’t take long to get to the bones. Kaia’s never been one to be gentle about much
Leif woke up while she was working and was a wonderful assistant!
Little hands, hard at work! I love it!
Kaia has changed it’s name from a tyrannosaurus to a Droptolipadon because anything she tried to feed it fell right out of it’s mouth.
Let’s start our morning with some daredevil antics!
Don’t see anything wrong with this?
Let’s look again:
Then off to a sweet farm tour where we enjoyed some fabulous home made jellies and ice cream, and I scored an angora fleece from this guy:
Then we spent the rest of our day enjoying the beautiful spring weather:
(You didn’t know chickens can read, did you? Well, our chickens can!)
What I didn’t get was pictures of the fabulous sand creation that we created! We got a bucket full of sand from the pile in our back yard and Kaia put all kinds of stuff in there. Then we all went dinosaur fossil hunting. Even Leif was getting into it. At one point, Kaia pulled her hands out of the sand and said, “Hey mom! Coprolites!” I was thrilled that she remembered the word for fossilized dinosaur poop. Then, I looked at what she was holding in her hand and realized that it really was poop!! Turns out the neighbor cat has been using our sand pile as a littler box!! Needless to say, we all stopped playing archaeologists and went inside to scrub off!!!
Still, it was a fabulous day!
Kaia and I have been busy planning her summer and second grade curriculum. No, we won’t really be doing much ‘real’ school work during the summer, but she has asked to learn about certain things, so we are planning ‘camps’. Mythology, Weather, and Mapping camps. She will also be attending a couple of camps outside of the house.
I’ve also put together her second grade curriculum. When I started homeschooling, I didn’t think I’d use a lot of pre-written curriculum, but I’m finding it to be nice, especially with a little one crawling around under my feet. It’s much easier to draw from something that’s already prepared than to have to write my own right now. Then I can put my energy and focus on the fun stuff! So, here’s what next year looks like:
Math – Right Start C, Mind Benders, Analogies and other math games
Language Arts – All About Spelling (we’ll probably be at level 3 by then), Language Smarts (grammer), for handwriting I’ll probably create my own copy work and also continue having her write letters and postcards to friends, along with lots of reading time.
Science – R.E.A.L. Chemistry, and continued animal habitat studies, and Nature Walks
History – We are doing an in depth study of Prehistory this semester, so we’ll begin with Ancient History using Story of the World and History Odyssey. (I’ll pull from both)
Art- Artistic Pursuits book 1, and continue with art group
I’d love to add in some Music and Foreign Language, but don’t have anything planned yet…
Here’s Kaia perfecting her recipe for Home Made Asteroids They were yummy!! (Oh, and we used cheese and didn’t have a problem with them going flat)
We found this craft when we were cruising around on the web looking for info in sea monsters of prehistory. (scroll down to Sediment Fossil Surprise). As soon as Kaia read the details, she was dying to do it. So, saturday, we got all our ingredients together and created our layers of history in a cup. We took out our giant time line and followed along. Our first layer was from the Cambrian period (red jello) and had trilobite fossils (gummy bears) in it. The next layer was the Silurian period (chocolate pudding) and contained Pneumodesmus worms (gummy worms). The third layer was the Carboniferous Period (shredded coconut) with Belantsea fish (pink star cookies) in it (those things are crazy looking)! Next was the Triassic (more chocolate pudding) and Lepidotes (Cashews). Then the Cretaceous (whipped cream) and coprolites/dino poop! (chocolate covered peanuts). Finally, topped with granola to represent the Quaternary period, or where we are today. Whew!!
We piled these yummies high into our glasses and served them up for dad, with a card that had clues to what he might find in each layer.
As we ate our way through history we looked back at the time line to find our fossils, and when Toby was done he took out our Ancient Creature Cards and read to us about some of the things he found.
It was a sweet way to spend the afternoon. Literally! Nauseatingly, horribly sweet!! I needed a big glass of water and a nap after that project!!
As part of our dinosaur studies, Kaia and I made some coffee fossils.
(Yes, that was me who shoved Jasmines head into the clay to see what it would look like!)
It was a really simple recipe with very cool results!
I love having things like this to do in our home school days. I often feel like we don’t get enough hands on and creative learning. Her math and spelling/language shouldn’t ever take more than about 45 minutes total of our day, but still… sometimes it seems like all day! I’m getting better at adding in more creative stuff, but it takes creative effort on my part to find or develop these things, and after a full day of teaching/learning/playing often, all I want to do is put my feet up and veg out! We’ve only been at this for 7 weeks, though and I think we are doing pretty darn good!
Smrt Lernins is having a photo contest. They want to know what homeschooling looks like to you. Well, we’ve only been doing this for 6 weeks, but it seems like I’m always posting pictures about what Kaia is up to. There are so many photos to chose from. But, I think one of my favorites is one I took this last week when we went to visit family at the beach. I absolutely love that homeschooling is portable! We packed up some of her books and headed out to the shore, where she found herself a nice rock/table and went to work.
She did a little of her language studies first and then we read some books on dinosaurs. We decided that we were in the perfect spot to make a dinosaur. We measured out 160 feet (the size of a Seismosaurus), found some good drift wood drawing sticks, and drew ourselves a dinosaur!!
In this photo, I’m standing at the tail end and Kaia, the little red speck in the distance, is standing at it’s head.
And, of course, no sand dinosaur is complete without a little dino dung!
Leif wanted to support us in our dinosaur creating efforts, so he put on his Dino-Might shirt. (Punk hair courtesy of daddy)
You need a little more of his squishy cuteness? How about a side view?
Kaia has decided that since I am taking sewing lessons, I must teach her! Now! As often as possible!!! So that she can use the sewing machine all by herself… with no one watching!
Hmmmmmmm….. We’ll see.
I did, however, help her make a little bag to hold her new fossil collection in. She did a fantastic job!!
And here’s what she’s keeping in her baggie:
You can’t study pre-history without making trilobite cookies!!
This was Kaia’s first time using the cookie press and she LOVED it! I had to make her a deal though… we make one full sheet of trilobite shaped cookies and she could use the rest of the dough to try out all the other cookie press shapes.
We ended up using this shape/disc. It made perfect little trilobites!
Once they were cooked and cooled a little, she used raspberry preserves to put in the middle of the cookie sandwich.
Then dip them in melted chocolate and give them some eyes (we used chopped up gummy bears:-) )
And serve them up at Trilobite Tea Time!! Mmmmmmm!! Taste much better than chicken!
For a family that lives on 25 acres, we seem to spend most of our time indoors, especially in the winter. Now that Kaia is at home most days, I thought it increasingly more important to make getting outside a priority! So, we’ve added a weekly Outdoor Hour Challenge to our studies. This week, we got outside and made it a point to keep quiet and listen to the things around us. It was so peaceful and replenishing. The 20 minutes outside turned into a couple of hours for Kaia while she ‘ice skated’ on a puddle of water.
Here are my notes from the things I heard/sensed/saw while outside:
Finally, it’s gotten above 35 degrees!! The snow has been on the ground for a month and it seems like every morning I’ll wake up to a little more! The past few days it’s gotten up into the 50′s and it’s been wonderful! The chickens are having a field day taking dirt baths and stretching out in the sun.
Speaking of chickens… have you ever heard of longcrowers? Check this rooster out! If you have crappy neighbors, you need to get you one of these babies!!!
Kaia and I had a great week of school! She always starts with math. She loves using the abacus. Most of what we are doing is review as we try to get caught up to her skill level in her new math program. She’s really enjoying so much hands on and not a lot of workbook pages. Leif really likes the abacus too… I’m going to need to get him one of his own
She’s also enjoying spelling, and usually does more than one lesson a day. There is a chart that comes with the program that you mark off each lesson you complete. She’s on a mission to put stickers on the chart as fast as she can. It really is amazing how fast she is progressing, though. She’s soaking it all up. It’s not that they didn’t teach it at her old school, but the kids had the choice to spend their day how they wanted and she always wanted to color. Me… I’m a task master. I think it’s important for her to start learning this stuff, so if I present it to her in a way that she enjoys, then we both win. All About Spelling has lots of hands on too… she’s all about that! Her reading skills are really blossoming! She’s feeling so much more confident and she’s started reading to Leif, writing letters to friends…
This week we also continued with Prehistory and the Precambrian period. We’ve started making a time line similar to this one. It’s fun to see the way her mind works with stuff like this. As she is filling in the pages, everything she pastes on the page goes in perfect alignment with the last piece. It’s all square and in order. Funny how some things must be in their proper place while other things (like her room) can be chaos! We focused on volcanoes this week and she made one out of model clay. We were supposed to create an eruption (with baking soda and vinegar) but she wanted to make a volcano just like Mako Island (from the show H2O: Just add Water, the Australian show about kids that are mermaids). So, she didn’t want to make it erupt.
Here are her little hands hard at work. You can see the secret entrance to the magic cave where the girls turn into mermaids.
She pulled the top of the volcano off so that she could paint the magic pool of water inside!
And here it is… Mako Island in all it’s glory! I think she should call it Phallic Island
Leif is keeping me on my toes, too. He finds all kinds of stuff to keep himself busy while I’m occupied with Kaia… like boxes full of shredded paper:
Even with his hands in the box, he can still give you a great “Who Me??? What did I do??” look!
While we aren’t busy doing fun learny-type stuff, I’ve begun planning this years garden. My cucumber, peas, greens, and beans did fabulous last year, but the squashes (winter, summer, and pumpkins) got hit hard by borers, and the tomatoes and melons just crapped out. So, I’m going to fill each bed with a good helping of chicken poop compost to see if that helps the soil. I’m also rotating what goes into each bed so that the heavy feeders aren’t draining the soil in the same place. I think the only thing I’m going to drop from my list is melons. I’ve never had good luck with them… you can’t can them up and save them for the winter, and for the space they take, you get so little return. I’ll just buy them at the markets when they are in season and use that space for other goodies. I’ve never had luck with Eggplant either, but it’s supposed to be so easy to grow. I think I’m going to try the good-old standard eggplant this year instead of trying to grow the skinny kinds. How do you grow your eggplant?
This week was the first official full week of Kaia and I homeschooling and we had a great time. Along with the standard weekly math, spelling/language, and stuff, we’ve begun studying prehistoric times (Thanks to Sarah for the curriculum!). We started by doing our own little recreation of the Big Bang. Kaia stuffed a balloon with all the confetti and glitter that she could.
Then I blew the balloon up and attached it to a post. I also tied a bamboo skewer to the end of a broom for her to pop the balloon with (I thought it would be better if we were farther away from the balloon so that all the stuffing could burst out without us in the way, and spread across the snow like a new solar system.) We were both in hysterics watching her trying to lance the balloon as it bounced this way and that. When she finally got it, we were both surprised and screamed! Then, all the stuffing fell like a lead weight straight down. A few stray confetti flew off with the wind. Kaia said, “Well, that wasn’t really a Big Bang, was it?” It was hysterical!
Later in the week, Kaia tried hopscotch on her prehistoric timeline. She had a blast, especially when the giant Leifasaurus tried to grab her as she hopped by.
And occasionally the Leifasaurus would plant his cute patoot in the middle of the time line and refuse to move!
Chasing and attacking the time traveler can be such fun!
But, he decided to let Kaia finish her exploration of the prehistoric time periods while he watched from his sweet wooden swing. Leifasauruses need to play, too, you know!
We’ve had the crafting spirit in our home lately! This weekend Kaia and I made some santa ornaments after seeing them at Write-It-Down. We just happened to have everything we needed and couldn’t resist the cute little guys.
Then we had a few friends over for more crafting. We made beeswax ornaments with beeswax from a local beekeeper! I got 5 pounds of it!! Mmmmm, the kitchen smelled yummy!
I had some lollipop molds, so I used a dab of play dough to block where the stick would go so that the beeswax didn’t flow into that part of the mold. I also put some sparkles in the bottom of the molds. (You could put some on top too, right after pouring the beeswax in, if you want sparkles on both sides.)
When the beeswax was cooling, but still soft, I poked holes for the ribbons.
Then there were the glittered pine cones:
And the pipe cleaner trees (Kaia’s is looking a bit like Charlie Brown’s tree… she said she will be putting more ornaments on later
And once our friends went home, and Leif finally fell asleep, Kaia and I just kept going and made Cinnamon-Applesauce ornaments with the recipe that we found over at 5OrangePotatoes. I love these!! I will definitely be doing them again!! And the cool thing is that you can use any cookie cutters you want and hang them around your house all year long!! They don’t have to be holiday ornaments.
We used some of the dough that was left over and made them into beads!! Just roll them into a little ball and poke a tooth pick through it for the hole.
We stamped a sweet little fairy print into most of the ornaments.
The house smells delicious!!
I always love seeing kite paper stars in the windows. They are so bright and happy. They fancy-up any house! With the winter coming on and it being a gray, gloomy day, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make some of these! A Toy Garden and Nova Natural Toys have nice selections and good prices on the kite paper, and there are some nice tutorials on folding the stars at Arwen Art and Duo Fiberworks. Kaia and I enjoyed this calm, concentration time as we folded our stars.
Creating our holiday cards…
Kaia has just started getting into reading. She’s really not had much of an interest until I started introducing fun games and stories. I found this game through Pink and Green Mama (the original game is at The Snail’s Trail). It has everything my daughter loves… rainbows, paint chips, secret peak through windows, funny make up words…. So, I ran out to the local paint store to snatch up some chips. I felt so devious! Kaia loves it. She shows it to everyone who comes over.
Sometimes, I’ll hold all of the cards and say “Pick a card, any card!” and she loves it. It’s like a magic trick.
Leif really enjoys the game too!
Sorry it’s so blurry…
I love seeing these word cards spread out all over the floor!
What a fantastic gift this would make for a new reader!
Kaia and I took a little detour from our scheduled homeschooling (detours are fun!) to study a little about comets and meteors. The Leonid Meteor Shower is at it’s peak Tuesday and Wed. (I wrote a little about it at Homemakers Who Work), and we plan to set up a cozy spot outside tonight (well, more like early, early tomorrow morning) to watch the show!
Talking about comets and meteors brought up that “what if…” question that seems to pass through every kids head when they are learning about this stuff… “What if a meteor gets through the earth’s atmosphere and hits us???!!!”
We found some great pictures of craters online…
Here is a nice picture of a crater made by a meteor that struck the earth.
And there are some great pictures of the moon’s craters on This site.
And we also did a little experiment to make our own craters….
Comet Kaia zoomed past our bowl filled with flour and cocoa powder (Planet Yum).
On her way past the planet, she dropped a little meteor rocks (marbles) into the planet’s atmosphere. Down went the meteor rocks!
It landed with a nice puff of ‘planet dust’ (it actually puffed out all over the floor). And craters were created.
Next time, I want to get a bunch of flour and put it outside so we can really throw rocks into the pile and make big craters and large puffs of earth! (Am I showing my destructive side?)
Kaia absolutely loves to color! I think she spent most of her kindergarten year drawing rainbows! So, when I’m planning out our day, I try to make sure that she has time for coloring, and it’s even better if some of her actual ‘work’ (math, language…) has drawing required! Then she’s really happy.
Frequently, though, she just wants me to print out fairies or mermaids for her. So, you know I was ecstatic when I found this site. Phee McFaddell has page after page of amazing line drawings of magical creatures, puppets to create, stories, and other craft projects!!!
Her skin isn't yellow! It's GOLDEN!!
I’ve found so many wonderful resources for homeschooling on the internet! I have a huge file of bookmarked pages… Give me a little time and I’ll make a page for you all to access with all the resources. (There. I’ve said it… now I have to do it!!)
Tracing the image with a charcoal pencil
Pressing the image onto the rubber block
retracing the image with ink, in case the charcoal smears
Cutting out the image
The final stamp.... isn't she cute!
Some of our other creations
I have great memories of my elementary school art class. The room was dark and and crowded, but our teacher always had the greatest projects for us. One of my favorites was linoleum print making. You trace a picture onto a linoleum block, carve it out, roll paint onto it and press it onto paper, or a t-shirt…. I loved the detailed process and the “cooooool” moment when you get to see the final picture.
Stamp making is almost the exact same process. I’d not done it in a long, long time, but I was inspired when I visited winemakerssister’s fantastic etsy store and fell in love with her stamps!! I totally stole some of her ideas! But, I’m going to have to go back for this mug! (Hahah!! All you knitters out there get it!)
Kaia loves stamp making, too. Today she carved me an adorable flower!
I see some stamped holiday cards in the near future!!
We’ve been having so much fun homeschooling. Yes, there are those moments where I want to shut her in her room and turn the music up real loud to drown out the drama. But, I guarantee we would be having those moments if she were in school full time too. In just a few weeks, Kaia and I seem to have changed our relationship somehow. She is being more respectful, she is helping out around the house… I’m sure it is partly due to the fact that I am spending more time with her, focused on her.
Kaia wanted to have a ritual to start our school day. She likes the idea of lighting a candle, singing a song, and ringing a bell. So, Kaia gathered some fall leaves, got out the mod podge and made an adorable fall candle (a la 5 orange potatoes). She wants to make a new candle for each season. I like that idea!
It’s not the best picture, but the leaves on the bottom are red maple and there is golden ginkgo on the top! We melted our own wax and colored it red, another reason why it’s not so easy to see the leaves.
And what could be better than working in pile of blankets, in pajamas, at 9 pm at night, because you want to!?!
Leif likes to join us and tends to keep himself occupied very well. One of his favorite things to do is to hold onto a cloth and move it up and down in front of his face as fast as he can. He wears himself out completely and makes himself laugh! What could be better?
We’ve been talking for the past few evenings and Toby and I have decided that we are definitely going to homeschool Kaia next Jan. I did a general outline of topics today and it got Toby really excited too.
From Jan. through May (at least) I would like to touch on (formally or informally):
-Continue with Singapore math (along with manipulatives and other math games/logic puzzles)
-Continue with Sonlight Language Arts and Explode the Code, adding in as many word games and reading as possible (she’s not a fan of copy work and some of the readers that go along with this curriculum. We may add in some Starfall since she likes playing the games.) And Handwriting Without Tears.
-All the holidays that fall in those months and discuss the religions and customs of those holidays (This also includes days like Martin Luther King day, president’s day, etc…)
-Science – the scientific method and observation, how magnets work, cardinal points, states of matter, reading (and creating) a map, weather, seasons, air/water, fire/temperature, plant and animal habitat, waves/currents/ocean habitats (this will necessitate a trip to the Charleston aquarium!), sun/moon/stars/planets (and a field trip to the Morehead Planitarium), basic machines (pulleys, levers)
-History- Pre-history (the formation of the earth, first life, first mammals, first peoples, dinosaurs (and the creatures before the dinos)… maybe this will necessitate a trip to the Smithsonian Museums???!!) We may get the “cartoon History of the Universe” series to read through with this, too.
-Arts and music – I’ve asked Kaia to chose an instrument that she would like to learn and she may start lessons. We will also incorporate art into daily activities since she loves to color and draw.
-Foreign language- I plan to sign her up for a Mandarin Chinese class that is supposed to be happening in Jan. (She LOVES anything China)
-I hope she will participate in all my garden planning and planting along with learning how plants grow, what they need to survive, and the plant parts
-Then there’s always cooking, knitting, daily/weekly chores, strawberry picking, play dates, park days…..
And as far as socializing, there are home school co-ops, home school sports leagues, library groups, LEGO clubs, Odyssey of the Mind Clubs, and so much more for her to interact with other peers.
I’m sure things will change as we flow through this, but at least we have a place to start and we’ll see how things go from there. I’m excited!!
Right now, Kaia is in school 3 days a week and home schooled two. Though there are definitely those hair pulling times, we are really enjoying ourselves and looking forward to all the things we can do together. So, we are actually thinking of home schooling full time. It’s something we had thought about doing when she was first born, but house building, jobs, life happened and she ended up in a private school. But, this past summer, when she was out of school, our days flowed so nicely! We enjoyed each others company, doing projects together, reading together…
Right now, I’m kind of following the private schools curriculum and we cover similar things on her ‘home’ days. I’m curious, though, how you home schoolers out there plan out your curriculum? Do you take some time before the ‘school year’ starts and plan what you will go over for the year?? Do you sit down on Sunday night and plan out the week ahead? I like to plan things, even if the week doesn’t go as planned, so I’d love to hear how you make your lesson plans for your kids? If you write about it on your blog, please let me know!!
Kaia has been studying the 5 kingdoms of life at school for the past 4 weeks. So, we thought we’d take a trip out to the Nature Center to see what in the Animal, Plant, and Fungus kingdoms we could find.
Poor little papa peacock is moulting and has no tail feathers. But you see behind mama Peahen’s legs there is a little baby??? Once that little one gets big enough, he/she will be coming to live with us!!!! Do any of you own peafowl?? If so, do they live with chickens?
When we got home, we found this:
We aren’t really sure what kingdom it belongs to… It seemed to enjoy eating non-living things.
But, it sure was friendly.
And it enjoyed hanging around with us
Oh, and the prize for naming Louise has arrived safely at it’s new home. Isn’t it cute?
I’m a creature of habit. I like things organized. I like routine. Yet, my life has little of this. So, with Kaia starting the first grade and homeschooling part time, I thought it might be nice to create a basic rhythm that we can count on. Even if things get adjusted here and there, we know we can jump back in the next day.
In the morning, I tend to get up before the rest of the crew. This is a time that I like to read through my emails, catch up on blogs, and get breakfast started. Once the kids get up, we have our breakfast and take care of feeding the animals (cats, dog, and chickens). If Kaia is able to get up a little earlier, I’d love to make time before breakfast to read to her. If she has the choice, though, she is a late sleeper.
After breakfast, we will take a few hours for our more ‘formal’ schooling….. working on math (she has a math book from school that we work with), language arts (I’m looking into curriculum that might stimulate her to try reading on her own more, we’ll see… I want it to be self-directed as much as possible. She does much better with learning if I’m not too encouraging. She likes it to be her own decision.)
We’ll make lunch, do some clean up in the kitchen and then clean one room in the house (we rotate like this so that cleaning never seems to overwhelming. The whole house is cleaned by weeks end).
After clean up, if we have errands to run, we will head out. If not, we may do some baking, gardening, laundry, play with friends. This time is left more open and flexible.
Then it’s time to make dinner, harvest the eggs, feed the animals again.
After dinner, the kids may have a bath. We try to read everynight, but sometimes the days get away from us and it’s time to get the kids to bed.
Kaia, Toby, and I also all take Tae Kwon Do. So, often one of us is out doing that in the evenings.
I think this will be nice for all of us to have a basic schedule that we can rely on. When Kaia is in her formal school (3 days a week) I will try to stick to the schedule and get some of my own schooling or work done in the mornings, and errands in the afternoons.
The weekends are kind of crazy. We have had so many projects to finish up since we started building on our land. Every weekend seems to be filled up well in advance. Toby and I have made a pact not to start any new projects (after the new chicken coop is built) so that we can try to relax on the weekends this winter! That would be very nice.
I would love to hear what your homeschool rhythms are like. How do you get it all accomplished each day?