Just thinking...

about the label/tags that I have been working on. Don't know if anyone has noticed, but I have started adding tags to the posts so that they are easier to find. I was thinking about all the different things that get covered and the one that was sticking in my head was "reasons to homeschool". I truly think that every single post could be listed with this tag, as each day I find another interesting thing that we might not ~probably wouldn't have and/or totally didn't ~ had time for if KM were still in public school. For instance all the posts that are labeled cousins - she would never have even a 1/5 of the time that she has had with her youngest cousins. The bond that has formed between her and SC never would have grown into this incredible connection that they are fortunate enough to have. All the science experiments that we have done never would have even been thought about. KM's public school friends are always complaining about how they never actually get to do science. They read from the textbook and sometimes have to write a report on something, but they never get to put anything into practice. All the great hikes, field trips and other outings would never have been done - we would have spent every afternoon trying to get homework done.

As I am sitting here typing this out KM is completing the last test of her "6th grade" year. She is sucking on a jolly rancher, drinking a glass of milk, the radio is softly playing in the background and she is calculating math problems. There is no timer, there is no rigid quietness, there is no #2 pencil - in fact she is using her favorite pencil that is covered in jungle animals.

All of the things that have gone on over the last 18 months are reasons to homeschool. Even the frustrations that pop up end in a much brighter light, because you have learned something about your child, your family or even yourself for that matter. There is no one else to blame or hide behind. It is your family, working on it's own schedule, in the way that best suits your own rhythms, desires, and passions!

As this wonderful section of our journey comes to an end and our first FULL year of homeschooling comes to a close, I would like to thank all those people who have helped my family get to this point. Many of you may not even realize how your small comments, awesome blog posts or fantastic ideas have inspired us to reach for new heights and opened our eyes to the wonderful world that we were allowing to just pass us by!

New Study/Playroom

We had planned on doing this project more towards the end of the summer, but none of us could wait! We swapped KM's bedroom and playrooms around. Here is how our New Study/Playroom is laid out...




SC tried it out the other day and I got the feeling that she approved! She spent nearly 45 minutes in playing all by herself with Play-doh! I couldn't believe it! She is never more than 5 feet from any one of us, but she was totally enthralled with that play-doh. Guess that would be a great gift for her birthday next week!

Human Body Study - Completed

We have finally completed our Human Body Study and KM has completed her exhibit...






All pics taken by KM ~ She did a fabulous job on this study! I was very impressed with her increased initiative and independence throughout this project!

She has arrived...

and couldn't be more beautiful!
My newest niece~GM!
Another girl to the bunch!

Both mom and baby are doing wonderfully!

May be quiet for a bit...

as we are winding down things around here and we will be taking a three week break from book lessons. Of course I am sure that we will still be doing lots of educational things that I can post, but with the new little one coming - NOT ME!!!, but my sister MC's of course - things will be a bit hectic to write posts. I will post pics for sure though as the wee one will be here tomorrow!

In the meantime enjoy the weather and have some outdoor science fun with these links -

• Backyard Science Activities for Kids
• Little Kids Backyard Science
• Some Great Space and Astronomy ones
• Cyber Field Trip Teaching Guide: How Ecosystems work

Also be sure to check out the GCK Nature Photo Journal as KM will be posting there as well!

Newest Addition -

KM spotted this Venus Fly Trap at the science museum during our last trip and had just enough money to get it. It is her way of getting back at her archenemies - spiders. She has been spending all her free time looking up information on the companies website.

Astronomy Mural Completed

Though we are still working on our Astronomy unit, KM has finished the mural.


If you click on the photo it will open up in a bigger window and you can see it with more detail.

Here are some more pics from our trip to the MOS last week from the planetarium area -

we checked out the scale model of the planets.

analyzed the stars lights

sent and decoded messages with extraterrestrial life
and discovered her weight on the moon would be 14lbs.
but on Jupiter it would be 148!

Human Body Study - update

I have mentioned several times ~ starting way back when ~ how much KM has been enjoying her Human Body study.

First I have to mention the new subscription that we got to Adaptive Curriculum through Homeschool Buyer's Co-op group buy. OH MY GOSH!!! It is fantastic, I was so impressed with the 10-day trial that we did get the year subscription and it is such an incredible supplement. Science is one of KM's favorite subjects, whereas for me it is one of the most daunting because I feel like I know the least in this area. Therefore it is far and away the one area that I spend the most money on, but I am also so super careful that the things that I get are secular, accurate, engaging, entertaining and WORTH THE COST! This program so is!!! KM has been asking each day to redo the experiments and activities that are on it and since it is interactive she is really understanding the concepts and can work through the situations and experiments on her own. WE LOVE IT! Here is a screen shot of the DNA building model -




You had to build the DNA strand and then it showed you what you animal you would have built based on the given combination that you picked! VERY COOL!

We also did some exploring at the Museum of Science last week. Of course it was their busiest field trip day of the year - just our luck! - but we did manage to get to most of the exhibits that we wanted to -

Explored the different mechanical solutions to bone repair and zapped tumors.

Hmmm...that eye looks familiar, she got it together in a snap and the giant ear was a cinch as well!

She had a very lengthy and informative conversation with a MOS volunteer who explained how infrared lighting works and how the different levels of light can be scene by the eye.

Her FAVORITE exhibit though was a new one on Nano technology

It was amazing to see all the things that they can do with these TINY little particles! I think this will be next weeks research project!

Lesson Completed -

Our proverbs lesson "April Showers Bring May Flowers" was completed this morning and I think the lesson that I needed to learn was completed as well. The title alone could not have been more perfect to me. We started this a while ago and at the time had no idea where it was going to lead us, so I thought I would share the incredible results that have come from this very simple art project.

I have expressed how much KM disliked the process of writing many times here on my blog and in real life to nearly anyone I can think of, so when I was looking into curriculum choices for next year I decided to speak to my all-time favorite homeschool guru, who also happens to be a published writer and has a daughter who received a perfect score on the written part of the SAT, so I felt she surely would have some incredibly wise words of wisdom for me and sure enough she did.

After a long discussion of what the situation was and how KM behaved when given any sort of writing assignment, we came to the conclusion that she was self-editing in her head as she was writing and this was causing her to be blocked right from the get-go. She was so worried that it wasn't going to come out perfectly the first time that she wrote something down on paper that she just wasn't able to cohesively express herself through the written word. So my guru gave me some tips and exercises to try.

The first suggestion that really made sense to me was to have her write for two minutes - either giving her a prompt, word or whatever - she was to just write for the full two minutes whatever came into her head. She shouldn't stop, erase, correct anything, worry about punctuation, spelling or anything else. She just had to have pen to paper for a full two minutes. Well this made so much sense to me, if she was not worried about it being corrected it should alleviate the blocks. So we started doing this every few days using the proverbs that we had written out for our April Showers Bring May Flowers project. It worked like a charm. KM would pick a proverb from the bag, think about it for a minute and then I would set the timer for 2 minutes. She would just write and write and write, what she thought the proverbs meant. There were times when the timer went off and she wanted to continue writing. It was as if I had another child sitting there with a pencil in hand.

The results have baffled me. Although of course they are not perfect grammatically or content wise, she has written down at least 3 to 4 sentences each time. There have been no complaints, arguments, or begrudging stares. The more we have done it, the more she grabs a new proverb out of the bag in the morning and wants to do it.

She is growing so much and truly becoming an independent learner. She is very happy to take the books and go. She wants to be able to learn these things on her own without someone hovering over her. When she has a set assignment she is completing it with no problem. Who is this child? How can this be the same individual that I had to stand over and watch her complete every word she wrote down to make sure it was done - just a year and a half ago? She is not the same child. She is a homeschooler, even better a home learner now. She truly enjoys learning and wants to find out more about EVERYTHING!

So this morning when she grabbed the last proverb out of the bag, it literally brought tears to my eyes...

One today is worth two tomorrows.

This is one of my favorite proverbs, the truest to my heart. You must cherish today because tomorrow may not come. You must love life for it can be taken away in an instant. You must enjoy the time that you have with your family because they could be gone at any moment. Though I do not want to live in constant fear of losing everyone or of tomorrow never coming, it is good to remember those that I have lost in order to remind myself that I need to cherish the people that I have in my life while they are hear.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of her accomplishments. I can tell you the joy that I feel in my heart when I see her completing a project and suddenly the light goes off in her brain. She got it! Something made the concept click and now she truly understands it. She does not remember long enough to complete the test and then proceed to dump it to learn the next information, she truly and completely is becoming educated! Every day that I spend with her I learn more about her and myself. I am truly grateful this path that we have chosen has brought us to such an incredible place.

Astronomy Elective Resource List

KM wanted to do Astronomy for her elective this term and she has been doing an incredible job!
Here is a list of the resources that we have been using -

• Usborne Internet Linked Book of Astronomy
• Learning Pages Space Mural
  
• Ancient Astronomy By Isaac Asimov
• Mythology and the Universe By Isaac Asimov
• The 50 Best Sights in Astronomy and How to See Them By Fred Schaaf
• An Intimate Look at the Night Sky By Chet Raymo
• The Constellations Stars & Stories By Chris Sasaki
• The Galaxies a Project Pack By Hands of a Child
• Astronomy 101 DVD
• Space and Astronomy By Sorcha McDonagh
• Seeing Earth from Space By Patricia Lauber
• Exploring our Solar System By Sally Ride
• Stars and Constellations By Gregory Vogt
• Mercury, Venus, Earth & Mars By Gregory Vogt
  
• Jupiter, Saturn & Uranus By Gregory Vogt

I will post pics of the mural that she is finishing up this week as well as pics from our trip to MOS to do the planetarium exhibits.

Another Busy one!

We had another rather hectic time last week, but it was again doing lots of things that we really wanted to do - which is always good!

We had some HOT days and since the pool looked like....

They decided to fill up the kiddie pool on the deck.

We couldn't get to the water toys so they went digging through the craft closet for things they could recycle into squitters, scoops and floaties!

We went to a local park to do our nature journal pics for the week - TAKE A PEEK!

of course SC was attached to KM, per usual...

they couldn't help wading in a bit

then it was back to the house for a picnic lunch...I was not cool enough to sit at that table!

We experiment with some new bread recipes...

KM said that these were better than the restaurant bread
and she can be a tough bread critic!

We worked on Ancient History and decided to turn the History Pockets into a giant lapbook!

Using this scholastic box as a tri-fold presentation board...

and pieces from different History Pocket books...
we think it is going to work rather nicely
We will let you know how things turn out as we progress through this one...but it will take us a while as we plan to work on the ancient at least through this next year!


Finally our homeschooling group did a benefit performance of Midsummer Night's Dream
for the museum where we have our coop classes.
They had another spectacular performance!
KM's favorite part is the fight scene, though she had a bit of trouble staying in character!
This is the cast mascot, who must be fit into each set!


All and all it was another GREAT week!

Science this week - Nervous System

As we were finishing up on the nervous system this week I remembered that I had some little kits that I had picked up on clearance somewhere or gotten with my Scholastic teacher points - not sure which one...

First was the brain -

Next was an eye -

She has also been diligently working on our human body exhibit and we will have updated pics of that next week!