Today our co-op homeschool group did a field trip down at the tidepools.  We had a wonderful time!

Here are my boys as we were walking to get to the tidepools.  See the pier off in the distance?  We had to walk past that to get to the tidepools.

My daughter with a friend underneat the pier:

My boys learning about a sea anemone that spreads itself out on the rock!  You think when you go to touch the shells that it will be hard, but it's actually squishy, because there is a sea anenome underneath the shells!

There is a baby sting ray near my son's foot:

My daughter's favorite creature that she found was the hermit crab:

A fun family day!

My husband and daughter walking back the other way once our time at the tidepools was over:

I thought I'd share some photos from the first few weeks of school here...

Here's Ryan doing his English on the white board.  He really likes doing this!   


Ryan is watching the MUS lesson for math... and he thought it was really funny how the cat was watching it with him:


Sarah likes MUS as well.  This is her first year using it.  :)


Every Monday at lunch time, my 80yo Grandma comes over for an hour to visit:


We are studying the human body right now for science.  I got this new game called "Some Body" and tried it out this week.  Here, they are taking reusable stickers and putting the body organs in the right places.


With the same game, we played Go Fish, except we were fishing for muscles and bones.   


Every other Thursday, we go to a co-op "Class Day."  Each of my children get to take three classes, and I have to stay and help teach somewhere as well.  This year I am helping teach cooking for 4th-6th graders.  My 1st grade dd and 3rd grade ds are in the same art class together and they made this at their last Class Day:




On the way home from Class Day today, my van got a flat tire!  My dh had to come rescue us.     And he gave our boys a hands-on lesson on how to change a tire.     Since I had brought my camera with me to Class Day today, I had it for the flat tire, too.   





Gotta love those life lessons that happen naturally!   

~LISA

Yup!  I'm a happy banana!  Tee hee! 

Seriously, I've been wishing for a change in our back room where we school for quite some time.   Mainly, I wanted to get rid of the couch that took up the middle of the room and get separate desks for each of my three children. 

We have always all worked at the same one desk.  That was fine when my children were smaller; however, it was not working as well with them getting older and having more independent work.  Too easily distracted or irritated by their neighbor!

With my hubby off work this week, we went to Staples and found three computer desks that will work perfectly!  See pictures and explanations below:

In the following picture, I am standing by the back door which goes into our backyard.  The table in the corner is where we do art stuff and the kids usually eat their lunch there.  That's the kitchen on the other side.  If you look to the left of the corner table, you will see a desk.  That is my daughter's desk now.  And to the right of the corner table, you can see part of another desk which belongs to my middle son.

In this next picture, I am standing over near my daughter's desk near the dining room area.  On the left of the TV you can see two desks.  Those are now my two boys' desks! YAH!  (My hubby had some baseball game on the TV while he helped me organize stuff). 

Here is a close up of my daughter's desk.  We purchased a lamp for each of their desks, because if the sun isn't shining on any particular day then the lighting in this room isn't that great.  Since this is a computer desk, it has a pull-out drawer for the keyboard.  My husband had the great idea to get a tray for their rulers, erasers, etc.  We put permanent mounting tape on the bottom of the tray to secure it to the pull-out drawer and wa-la!!  Also, if you look near the floor on the right side of the desk, you see that a rubbermaid box fit perfectly where the computer is supposed to go.  This is where they will keep their personal art pencils or books that we don't use very often.

In this next picture, I am standing between my boys' desks.  The door on the right-hand side goes into my "office."  I used to work from home and this is where my computer and work stuff is/was.  The closet has lots of shelving where our board games and extra STUFF goes!  LOL

The blue rolling crate is our library box - it's where the library books belong when we are not reading them.  On the white bookshelves are various resource and reference books, my teacher manuals, and read-alouds, etc.  The very top shelf on the right has my teacher supplies (markers that I don't want the kids getting to, etc).  Math manipulative from Math-U-See are on a shelf, and other shelves have our "game box" and "math box" as well as coloring books.  The storage unit on the left-hand side of the bookshelves locks, and it is where I keep painting supplies or other materials that I don't want the kids getting into without my knowledge.  On the top of the bookshelves are my boys' various Lego creations and such.

And lastly, here are my three precious gifts enjoying the space they have now that the couch is out of this room!  They are coloring those fuzzy poster things.  Why do kids like those so much?!  LOL

Anyway... there are our new desks!  I'm so excited and am beginning to feel ready to start school again next week after my hubby is off vacation and back to work... well, sort of.. it HAS been wonderful sleeping in a little bit and enjoying such huge blocks of family time together!

Any questions?  Thoughts??  Let me know! 

Blessings,

~LISA

And last, but not least, here are some photos from Ryan's Bird Book.  He is very artistic and enjoys drawing (but not writing); however, this project was a lot of fun for him as well.  :)

1) Here is his title page.  He picked out the font and he used colored pencils to color inside the letters and to draw the pictures freehand on the cover.

2)  I had him write a paragraph on "Why Birds Are Special"

1)   2) 

3)  This is a picture that Ryan (age 9) drew after watching a video on birds of prey.  This is a Eurasian Bearded Vulture which picks up bones and drops them from up on high in order to crush the bones so the vulture can eat it.  On the reverse side of this page, he wrote a paragraph about it.

4)  Here Ryan drew a picture of the largest and smallest birds.

5)  He cut out an online of a bird and some of the internal parts of a bird, glued them in place, and then labeled them

4)   5)

6)  Here is colored an outline of a bird and labeled the external parts

Again... I hope you enjoyed looking through my kids' bird books!  Maybe it has inspired you to help your children create a book of their own?

Blessings,

~LISA

Here are some pages from Nathan's bird book.  He is seven and doesn't particularly like to draw or write, but he really enjoyed this project!

1)  Here is his title page.  He did not trace these pictures, but copied them from one of our Draw, Write, Now books.

2)  "What makes a bird" - I printed out the outline of the bird off the computer and he wrote various words around the bird that explained why a bird is unique and special.

3)  We read a book about John James Audobon, and Nathan narrated to me afterwards.  I typed his narration out for him, and he glued it along with a few pictures we found on the internet on this page.

4)  The birds of prey was Nathan's favorite kind of bird.  This picture was from EnchantedLearning.com.  He colored it and narrated something about it to me.

5)  I found these pictures of birds and their different types of feet on the internet and printed them out.  Nathan cut them and decided how he wanted to line them up on his page.

Later this evening, I will post pictures from Ryan's book.

~LISA

We actually finished these books almost two weeks ago, but for some reason, I was having difficulty uploading them onto my computer so I could share them with you. 

I finally was able to upload them, so I hope you enjoy the pictures and it inspires you to do some notebooking of your own!

Each child had a great time creating their pages and was so proud of creating their very own book!  They love to show them to friends and family who come to visit!  :)

I'll start with Sarah's book:

1) For her title page, she sat on my lap and helped me pick out the font.  She colored in the letters all by herself and she used tracing paper to trace pictures of birds.

2)  The page with the yellow strips was really fun.  We picked three birds:  a hummingbird, a duck, and a condor.  We measured out each of their wingspans on a piece of construction paper, then folded them to fit onto the page, and glued them down.  When the kids show this page to someone, they can unfold the wingspan of each bird.  Did that make sense?  haha!

 1)           2)  

3) Sarah really liked reading about hummingbirds, so I found this picture for her to color.  She told me she wanted to color the rest "later." 

4)  I'm not sure if you can see this one well enough.  Sarah drew a picture of a bird coming out of its shell and on the top she wrote, "God Loves Me."

3)    4) 

5)  These pictures were taken from our trip to the zoo when we went to observe and study the birds.  Sarah picked her three favorite pictures and told me about them.  I typed what she said as she said it, and she glued her narration to the page with the pictures.

5)

Well, I think I will end this entry and share the boys' bird books tomorrow.  I need to get to bed! 

Blessings,

~LISA