A Little Surprise

Every now and again I get a glimpse of what my children may become in the future.. I have a vivacious 12 year old that loves to organize and decorate. She found this print in the Abeka Book Magazine, cut it out, and framed it beautifully in a frame she found out in the garage. I could almost imagine her future, given to her by our loving God as promised in Jeremiah 29:11. This little girl has been through so much and she still finds beauty all around her.. She embraces homeschool, and still enjoys our time together...well, most of the time. ;) I'm so thankful I get to be her mom, God has blessed me richly! She adds so much beauty to our lives, and now she has added beauty to our home as well.


Proudly, now displayed on our bookshelf along with our other projects and things to explore..

Winter Olympics!

We used the Winter Olympics this year to go back in time to study the Ancient Greeks! We loved this unit!! We did so much from History, to Art.. It's wonderful learning with our children.

Dental Health

  

It's Dental Health Month!!! We are studying our teeth and how to take care of them.. A special thanks to the Colgate Company for our classroom supplies! We were able to donate the extras to an organization that helps homeless families with small children in our area.

This is the chart that we hung up in the bathroom..this kit also came with a DVD for the class, and a workbook & certificate for each child!


Donations:


Dental X-Rays...


We love these books...even if they are a little gross!


Tooth Model...Hands on Science.

Money Math

So, it's no secret that Math isn't my favorite subject. That said, I'm always looking for new ways to teach it! My children do better with Hands on Math...so that's where I start. So for teaching money, I went back to the basics with our manipulatives.. 

(Mirrored image, with student across from me)  

Now, I'm off to set up a little store in my living room. 

The Wild Horses of Sweetbrier and Equine Anatomy

Can I just say how excited I am so do this unit!! We love Five In A Row (FIAR) and we love horses! Well, my children love horses..I'm slowly working through my fear of them and not telling my children about the time I was bitten as a child. This week, weeks we are doing the The Wild Horses of Sweetbrier.


Math..


Hands on Science...Equine Anatomy Model


Discovery.


The riding came later, but we loved it!!

Follow The Drinking Gourd FIAR

This week we are rowing Follow the Drinking Gourd by: Jeanette Winter.


We made constellations with toilet paper rolls, and black construction paper.


Brain Pop!


Drama/Play


I plan to add more pictures to this one as the week goes on...happy Rowing!

The Eclipse...It's a Great Day To Start School!

Good Morning! It's back to school day!!! We are so excited...did I mention it's also the day of the Solar Eclipse?!? We are studying Astronomy as well as books with the theme of the "sun & stars" in our Five In A Row books! It's going to be a great year!!!
French Toast for the First Day of School!


Watching the wonders of the universe...


Writing. We have so much to learn and write about this year!

Stone Soup

I thought I'd share a little of our homeschool with you guys! We are a good way into the year and enjoying learning together..

We are doing Five in a Row for most of our Language Arts and enrichment for our other subjects.. We are also doing some of the Literary Classics in pure ASL. We basically follow the FIAR method with these books, bringing in academic elements from text, and making these stories come alive!

Of course it starts with the book! We read the book or versions of the book everyday for 5 days pulling out all of the amazing bring-it-to-life awesomeness!!! Then, we read the classic book in both languages, and then we have a child-friendly version to work on decoding skills! Lastly, we move to a video, hopefully we can find one in ASL, with English voice over, and English text! DawnSign Press does an amazing job!!! This helps with comprehension and helps the kids relate to the text...

Videos is ASL by Dawnsign Press. 

Rewriting and Language Activities! 

Cooking and Measuring! Did I mention they picked their stone out of the garden?!? 

We loved our Stone Soup unit!!! 

 Yep, that's the stone!!! LOL!

....and Our Butterflies Flew Away~

We observed our little butterflies for about a week, then it was time to let them go... 

Wow, just wow! What an experience! 

 This is me explaining how the butterfly drinks through the proboscis in ASL..

Observing Butterflies

We finally got around to ordering our butterfly caterpillars...a fun journey learning about Life Cycles.

Our tiny caterpillars arrived with their food..some barely out of the egg. 

 They double in size everyday!

 All ready to go inside...

 The molten skin...uck! Those little circles, yeah, that's poop! >>a ton of poop!

 Time to hang them in the enclosure...

 New home...

Our first little guy...

 We made nectar dropped on the flowers and fresh fruit..

 Flying around and enjoying their new habitat...

 A little peek at the beauty!

 The empty chrysalis..

Looking at butterfly wings, legs, and antenna under a microscope.

 We also read some great Usborne books!!!

I love Usbourne Books!!! I had a party recently and you can still order till July 4th online at https://f5935.myubam.com/320070 Thanks for reading!

The Journey Of A Ladybug...

So we ordered a Ladybug habitat so we could study the life cycle of Ladybugs! I can tell you that we learned a lot, stressed a little, and had a lot of fun..
We received these tiny little things in a tube...fresh from the eggs, a few were still Eggs!
                          

They quickly began to grow as we watched, and watered the gel till they were ugly little Larvae!

 They kind of look like spiders, right?!? 

Then it was time for them to enter the Pupal stage

I kind of thought they had died. ;?

They emerged as little white critters that were super hungry!!! They were ready for their raisins? Yep, soaked raisins cut in half..

...and poop, oh dear heavens the poop! 

They changed to pink and continued to darken.. We loved watching them grow, shed their exoskeletons, and grow some more! 

We also studied Delaware...seemed fitting! 

These little ladybugs kept growing, changing, and developing...

Till it was time to let them go...

...it was a Beautiful Journey~ So with a few tears & song we released them to the garden. So they could fly away home.