September

Augh!  All of September I kept saying to myself "I need to write this stuff down and blog later.  After that one more thing I'm going to go sit down and blog."  And now, September has come and gone.  We did accomplish much and have a few pictures to prove it :)

Watching a Caterpillar

Trying to Put a Puzzle Together w/out Their Opposable Thumbs

First Day of American Heritage Girls with Their All About Me Posters 

Morning Activities

Harper's 10th Birthday!!!

Doing Schoolwork Outside Because It Was Just a BEAUTIFUL Day 

Beautiful Day - Beautiful Girl

BSA Fall Festival - About to go Canoeing

Everything is More Fun Outdoors!

Sonora's Music Teacher was SO Impressed that Sonora Knew Her Note Names 

Eurasian Eagle Owl at the BSA Fall Festival

Beautiful Hawk Ben & I Saw at the Reservoir

Mapping Caniforms

M&M Selection

Apologia Land Animals Chapter 1 Experiment


They look so innocent, these three.  But, in reality, they are fierce predators about to go on an M&M hunt.   First, they had to stop and write a list of all the materials they needed.

Gathering of M&M 'animals'

Next, they gathered all the M&M's to be sorted and counted.

Sorting into 'species'

Then, they built the M&M's a colorful habitat where some 'species' could hide.

Building the habitat

I'm SO hungry!

Finally, the hunt is on.  A timed hunt where the predators had to LOOK for their prey.

Run, M&M's, RUN!

Afterward, it was discovered that certain species are more likely to survive in the construction paper habitat.  Natural selection had made it's choice.  Goodbye red M&M's, your species won't last long according to our experiment.  Yellow and orange were GREAT at camouflaging themselves so they will probably be around for awhile.  

Kids had a great time and I think they learned a few things :)

Today

The first meeting of CHEER (Christian Home Educators Encouragement Resource) is tonight and I somehow found myself on the greeting team.  Sooooo not my thing, and it is going to be a long night so I thought I would blog before I forgot.

Just some shots/thoughts from today:

Working my way out of a job :)

Quinn begs to be the science teacher.  I must say, he's very good at it.  I stayed in the room to make sure things went smoothly and everything that I wanted taught got covered, but he did a FABULOUS job!

Totally staged.

Once I started snapping pictures they decided to pose for this one.

Experiment #3

General Science Module 1 Experiment 3

Experiment #3 part 2.

I think Nate is really enjoying the experiments, and I am incredibly impressed with his independent attitude.  Good on you Nate!

Oh, and Harper, you are sitting here as I write this and I am SOOOO PROUD of you! (Just in case you think I don't tell you enough ;)

Well, I'm off to say hello, shake hands, and smile until my face falls off. :))))))))))

Apologia Science

I LOVE Apologia Science.  This is our third year to use their Elementary series and our first for their Middle/High School books.  I am SO impressed.  They not only teach everything from a VERY Creationist viewpoint, they also teach the kids to use this knowledge to defend their faith.  Preparing them to give an answer for the HOPE that lies within them.  LOVE APOLOGIA.

That said, this semester we have chosen Zoology 3 - Land Animals of the Sixth Day.  We did our first lesson today.  It was basically just an introduction to what all they will be learning.  The books look like textbooks but Jeannie Fulbright writes directly to the students, even giving personal examples for the topics she is covering.  It reads like a story.  LOVE APOLOGIA.

Sidenote:  Today while I was reading, Sonora was doing a coloring page from the Junior Notebooking Journal.  Hard to see, but it's just a picture of a Prairie Dog with Genesis 8:17 below it.  What impressed me however, was the fact that Sonora identified the hills in the background as The Badlands.  My heart SOARED.  She remembered that we had seen white Prairie Dogs in The Badlands and made her picture reflect her memory and even colored them correctly.  Ahhhh...Sweet sigh.  Vacation was worth it.  For many reasons.

Back to science:  The girls and I discussed predator/prey relationships and how it wasn't always this way.  Also, how it won't be this way forever.  1 Corinthians 15:26 says that the last enemy that will be abolished is death. We talked about how this applied to animals and used passages in Isaiah to show that the wolf will dwell with the lamb.  Harper was SO excited and said when Jesus comes back she's getting a pet cheetah.  The passage in Isaiah says that "the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den".  We discussed and Judah overheard us.  He piped in (LOUDLY as always) and said, "I don't like snakes.  I like caterpillars."

On a different note: Years ago, we had the privilege of hearing Jay Wile speak at a homeschooling conference.  We were so inspired by his lecture that we KNEW when our children were older we would be using his textbooks.  He also speaks directly to the reader which I personally love.  Nate is using his Exploring Creation with General Science this year.  It's Nate's first year to do all the reading, experiments, and lab reports on his own.  So far, I am impressed with his effort and with what he is learning.  We are on week 2 and he takes his first test on Module 1 soon.  The grades are weighted with the tests making up two thirds of his grade so I am holding my breath.  Today, I did see the following in the front of the teacher's manual:

"Finally, I must tell you that this course is user-friendly and reasonably understandable.  At the same time, however, it is Not EASY.  It is a tough course.  Thus, a letter grade of "C" would represent the score of the average student who will most likely be college bound."

Whew.  We're up for a challenge.

LOVE Apologia.

Newness

I love it.  Everything is still new.  Books, supplies, attitudes.  New.  Hope it lasts ;)

General Science Experiment Number One Begins.  Exciting! Too bad he didn't feel the same way about the lab report!

Ben surprised me by making these nifty little posters of some of our household rules that we repeat ALL.  THE.  TIME.

The hard to see bottom rule is:  Schoolwork + Clean Room = Computer/TV

And finally, while the boys were at Scouts last night I made the clock in system that they imagined.  They wanted a Velcro clock in/clock out and they also wanted badges to wear like their dad.  Right now they are just simple pics (You know, in case I forget who's who :) but who knows what they will end up being.  I remember using a badge with Sonora in kindergarten for all sorts of things.  We're limited only by our imaginations.  Oh, and time.  And energy.  But, besides those, the sky's the limit.

~Hopeful

First Day of School

First Day of School 2012/13

We survived the first day of school!  We have not added in everything and we are taking a couple of subjects very lightly this week, but we did make it through without any revolts.  I'm going to say it again.  NO mutinous behavior!  It was a very busy, very long day due to a Co-Op meeting, but everyone seemed to sail through with joyous spirits.  As first days should be.  Praise God!  

Here are a few highlights.

Working on cutting skills

Starting a Poky Little Puppy Lapbook

Apparently the Poky Little Puppy is COMPLETELY Yellow 

Starting Apologia General Science

This kids thought that it would be fun to have a 'clock in/clock out' badge so these are the photos I took to make those.  More on those tomorrow.



All in all, I am overwhelmingly pleased.  I am, however, also overwhelmingly tired.  ~Blessed

Book Organization

To start off, yes, this kind of stuff makes me very happy. Weird, uh-huh, but a very happy lady nonetheless. Here's why.


These three shelves are our science books. They were a mess. The kids either pulled them all out to find what they wanted, or they didn't bother because they couldn't find what they were looking for. For that matter, neither could I. Then I saw ~THIS~ at 1+1+1=1 and thought 'hey, I can do that,,,what a great idea'! So here ya go...
Now, you know my husband, being the engineer that he is, decided to take this one step further. (and about five more hours worth of work longer wouldn't you know...:) He thought that if we tagged the books somehow, they would be easier for the kids, especially the girls, to put away. Soooo.... we added little sticker tags to the spines and made cute little labels for the boxes...

Now, the books should be easier to see, easier to choose, easier to find when we need them for school, and easier to reshelve. THAT is why I'm a little bit more joyful this evening! Here's someone who isn't so happy however...

Just in case you're wondering, I think he's tagged as a drawing book...