My blog is moving.

Homeschooling in the Rose Garden will now be on Blogger along with my other blog:

Collecting the Moments... one by one 

There are many reasons for me to move, but mostly, it is just ease.  I have another one I keep up with on there, and so I also can keep up with the homeschool one a little better.  At least that is my hope.  I hope to see you all over there as well... I will be missing all your wonderful comments and will for sure come back to see what you are all up to as the days go on.

Thank you for everything my Homeschooling Friends! 

Val

A few new birds to add to our list.  :)

Collecting the Moments

I am just loving this site right now... I will have to look at it when I am not getting sleepy, but I think I have uses for a bunch of these things.  Thank you Sarah!

Montessori for Everyone

And while I am on a web surfing trip, I may as well throw this baby out there:

Make your own Wordle 

Fun!

Alex (left handed!  I think that is pretty amazing!):

Mine:

And Cyan decided to copy this picture instead:

So this is what she came up with:

What a fun lesson that was!  Bach is for next week.  Then we move on to Mary Cassat and Mozart in November.  I love homeschool.

I am a bit of an October nut.  I hate the Halloween stuff... by this I mean, I hate the freaky, fake blood, jump out and scare you, decapitated heads hanging from trees in peoples lawns type stuff.  But the falling leaves, worms, bugs, bird feeders, soup, naked trees, pumpkin, nocturnal animals... well, that side of October, I can't get enough. 

In light of this, I had a bunch of October food things planned.  Baking pumpkin pie from scratch (meaning from a whole pumpkin.) is something we do every year... pumpkin muffins, squash with butter and brown sugar.  Yes... traditions run strong this time of year for me.  To throw a bit of fun in the mix, I have been adding in things like this sandwich. 

The kids spent all of lunch time talking about where the worms came from that showed up in their sandwiches.  They finally decided that they were martian worms from Mars, and these worms drank toliet water and ate puppies.  It always helps with the gross factor to have a teenage boy in the house.  lol...  Fun stuff.  :)

This is our last study of Van Gogh (formal study anyhow) and our first week studying Bach.  My idea is to have two artists for each month.  One classical music, and the other classical art. 

When we read the book The Yellow House, it talked a lot about the way that Van Gogh and the artist Gauguin lived together for those weeks, and although their personalities were vastly different... to the point where they could never live together again, they inspired each other deeply. 

Here is a website that talks more about that and the history of the pair of friends.  Gauguin painting Van Gogh, painting sunflowers.

Today, we will be making pictures of sunflowers.  We have none in our garden after this last frost... but we do have TONS of pictures as they are one of my very favorite flowers, and I am printing some out for my kids to play with.

The picture below is my favorite sunflower picture that I have ever taken.  I know it sounds funny, but I just love the composition of this picture, and the dew drops, and even the dead ones hanging out behind the big one in the center.  It's just a wonderful capture.  :)

The book that will start off our study today is Camile and the Sunflowers. 

And thank goodness.  We have needed it.  I am sick.  We have one day of school this week due to Don's changeover, and then three more days off.  So we will not be doing school again until Saturday. 

Sometimes it is nice to be on such a wierd schedule.  :)

I plan on getting completely well, making batch after batch of roasted tomato sauce, and putting up as many veggies as I can pack in.  I am also planning on going through clothes, now that Fall has officially hit here.  That is my long weekend list. 

I hope everyone is enjoying their week! 

I love Northwest Trek!  I have been there 6 times now and every time we see something different.  This time, it is rutting season.  We got to see all the critters bedecked with huge antlers, rubbing up against trees, calling to mates, and/or sleeping.  lol!  It was great! 

The little Cheney Discovery Center is the best.  It is a building set aside in the center of the park for kids.  It has a couple critters (local toads, snakes, salamanders, and a living bee hive with glass on the back so the kids can see in), but mostly it is crafts.  Today they were featuring bugs and frogs.  Logan was in heaven!  He kept yelling "Bee!  Bee!" and "B-fly!" (toddler for butterfly)... it was completely cute.  :)

I let Alex have the camera honors today... but here is a link to the pics from one of our previous trips.

NW Trek Nov 2007

Field trips are SO great! 

Today we went to the salmon hatchery. 

It was the best field trip I have ever been on.  No kidding.  It was AMAZING!  We saw spawning salmon down in the river, salmon jumping up the water falls and up the ladder, the tour guide pulled a salmon out of the hatchery and showed it to us (it was about 35 lbs!), and he even showed us the roe (salmon eggs) and the milt (salmon sperm) from the different sexes and how to tell them apart. 

It was just incredible...  Cyan kept screaming (because she could do that down next to the waterfall) "This is the best field trip EVER!"  "This is AWESOME!" as the salmon would jump, again and again.  I was lucky enough to catch one jumping on film... (Second video) 

Some really wonderful websites we used to get ready for the salmon run.  First I printed out this book.  Then we went through the lifecycle of a salmon on this website, first with one egg, then another.  By the time we actually went to the hatchery, the kids were saying things like "Look mama!  There is a Sockeye!  It's the red one."  and asking questions that were appropriate and informative to the rest of the kids on the tour too. 

Homeschool Blog Awards has a posting on snack foods this week.  I figured I would join in.  :)

First off.  I am a careful snacker.  Always have been.  I tend to be overly caucious about food in general actually.  But that is another topic.  ;)  This and being frugal tend to make me a 'trend snacker'... one week I prepare this... next week this.  Things like that.  Many of these things we also will make for a whole meal...  Most of the time not alone... but mix two or more of these things on the list and you have what we probably ate for lunch one day in the last few weeks.

So, on to those ever so useful lists:

1.  Hummus.  I make hummus a lot.  Sometimes I even buy it.  My favorite things to dip in hummus are fresh carrot sticks or tortilla chips. 

2.  Chips and Salsa.  I buy a bag of organic corn chips every week.  Sometimes red, sometimes yellow, but even blue corn has made it into our diet via this little conduit.  This time of year, I make salsa or pico de gallo quite often, but when it isn't in season around here, I get mine from the organic Safeway variety. 

3.  Apples and Peanut butter.  A fav of my kids and they have their own apple slicer so they can make it themselves really easily.

4.  Cold Oatmeal.  This was started by my daughter, who loves oatmeal in any form.  And now has been picked up by the baby, who will eat cold oatmeal, plain, with his fingers.  This gets rather messy, but is a good way to use up food left over on the counter from breakfast.  lol...  (My mother has told me that I used to eat oatmeal when it wasn't even cooked yet.  So my husband blames me for this weird cold oatmeal trend.)

5.  Popcorn.  The kids LOVE popcorn.  They would eat it every day.  We put all sorts of things on it.  It is rarely just butter and salt.  Our current fav is Nutrional Yeast, basil, and cheddar cheese.

6.  Celery sticks with Peanut butter.  Same as apples.  Kids can do it by themselves... it makes it a hit.  Plus, right now we get a couple heads of celery every week from the farm (and this celery is amazing.. and hot just cuz I sell it either.) so they are eating this nearly every day.

7.  Pretzels.  We don't get them often.  But they don't last when we do get them.

8.  Animal cookies.  I happen to LOVE the light and simi sweet animal cookies from Trader Joes.

9.  Crackers and cheese.  Once again, I don't get crackers often, but when we do, this is a favorite snack of ours. 

10.  Uncrustables.  My own making.  I throw them in the freezer and the kids will pull one out, wait for it to get just mushy enough not to be frozen anymore and eat it like that.  I can't imagine how... but heck, they eat cold oatmeal with nothing on it.  So... whatever.

11.  Trail mix.  I was going for an even ten, but maybe it will be twelve.  lol... I make trail mix by taking whatever dried fruits we have on hand, and mixing it with whatever nuts we happen to have on hand, and pretty much anything else.  I have been known to throw in raw almonds, peanuts, cashews, walnuts, crasins (we don't eat plain rasins here), chocolate chips, banana chips, M&Ms, dried papaya, dates, pineapple, apples, apricots (all sulfer free), cornnuts, yogurt covered rasins, granola, and/or dried soybeans/soynuts.  Anyone of these would be crazy spendy to buy enough to feed a teen, a kid, and a toddler... but throw them together with something like peanuts or almonds as filler... you have a healthy snack that you don't have to break the bank for.  My favorite bedtime snack for the last few years has been the mix of a few sulfer free apricots, dark chocolate chips, and raw almonds.

12.  Frozen blueberries.  I u-pick/buy 30lbs of blueberries every year from a no spray farm.  That is a LOT of blueberries.  But my kids eat them.  Nearly every day.  So knowing where they come from and what went into preparing them for eating is important.  They like frozen grapes too, but grapes don't really grow anywhere around us, so they are a every couple months thing (maybe) on our locavore diet.

It seems like that is all we do.  Book work.  I don't like it.  I enjoy field trips, experiments, etc.... but it takes SO long to get book work done right now that we don't have time for anything else. 

I am not enjoying the well trained mind method so much right now.  Usually it is really really fun... but right now, it just seems heavy.  4 hours a week of Math, 6 hours a week of English Lit, 4 hours a week of History, 4 hours a week of Science... all of that compacted down into 4 days because of our schedule. 

We have three field trips planned in the next three days and we are taking a break from everything but English.  I have decided.  lol...  We are going to the Salmon Hatchery tomorrow morning, to NW Trek on Friday, and then to a play called "Puppets and Pirates" on Saturday and I am going to have anything else I have them do focus around those events.  Color pictures, write poems, etc.  All about fish, puppets, and wildlife.  lol... 

Better than being in the house with three bored kids.  ;)

All the kids are doing well this school year so far.  We are on day 38, and we have studied all sorts of things and we are really settling into the year.  This week, aside from core studies and penmanship, is Van Gogh in Meet the Masters, and Archaeology in Story of the World this week.  It has been a LOT of fun. 

Books for Van Gogh that we have read: 

The Yellow House

Camille and the Sunflowers

Art for Children - Vincent Van Gogh

Alex:

Cyan:

And me:

Logan gets to skip 'Day 1 Art Time'.  We do it during his nap time.  It makes for a long school day, but so far, it has been worth it.  Oil pastels and paint and my baby just don't mix... and keeping him from them if he knows they are going on is neigh impossible.

Today was History/Geography day (Day 2).  We are studying Archaeology. 

Archaeology books we have read:

Archaeologists Dig for Clues

It's Discusting, and We ATE It!

I don't think that the sandbox dig is going to work out.  I was sad to find kitty poo in it yesterday.  I need to get all the stuff out of it carefully and give it to the kids so they can have the lesson... before washing the sand, so they can play in it on the warm days, without the benefit of kittyroca.

I don't think they are minding the sandbox-dig free lesson however.  ;)

Alex's looks like something from Egypt... what could it be?

Very seriously brushing off their finds.

And now, I have to do a little update on Logan.  He really has gotten left behind lately as the other two go on to greater heights of fun learning experiences. 

Lately, Logan has taken to some "guys" as he calls them.  They are Power Rangers (remember those?), and they were a gift from a long ago neighbors yardsale.  My plan was to toss them in the Goodwill bag, but he found them and has carried them around ever since.  He talks to his 'guys'.  His 'guys' fight.  His 'guys' talk and play.  His 'guys' sleep with him.  And if they are in sight, a full on breakdown happens until his 'guys' are in his hands, curled up with him in his bed.  He asks for his 'guys' when he can not find them and we have to help him find them again.  He really likes to carry all three.... but he only has two hands, so occasionally, he will volunteer me to be his 'guy holder'.  

Another favorite is airplanes.  He has two airplane figurines.  I think they are both jet fighters.  Those bash together mid flight and come crashing to the ground at least once a day with a huge "shooo, shooo, boom!"  He is pretty much the cutest thing ever.  He still loves going Bye Bye, he still loves seeing airplanes in the air and yelling and signing... but signing is quickly being paired with talking.  "More Please" is a favorite phrase, as is "more juice", and "Please mine".  They are, for now, paired with the signs, but I can see the day where he is clear enough that he doesn't need the signs and another one of my babies stops being a baby. 

He was 20 mos a couple days ago. 

For Sarah/Sadie and anyone else who wants a great review of the first two lessons of SOTW.

I am LOVING Story of the World.  I adore history, and she just did such an amazing job compiling all of these ideas and dates.  I love the way they have books to suggest, and art projects and ideas about ways to get the kids to remember.  The timeline was way more than I portrayed... just because I didn't have time that night to really go into it.  But the first lesson in SOTW is about historians and archaeologists and what they do.  But it is ohsomuch more than that.  She talks about (of course, I got the audio book, which is read by one of my very favorite readers, Jim Weiss) how historians do there job.  "What if" (this is not a direct quote) "you found a letter from your great grandmother, to her sister living far away.  And you got to hear about your grandmother as a little girl.  That would give you a piece of her 'history'."  And other bits like "What day were you born?  Do you remember that day?  Could it have been the day before?  Or the day after?  How do you know?  This is another way historians find out information.  They find information that is kept on record about the people who live in the culture."  And then it goes on to archaeology.  "Imagine that a man went to a river bank.  And saw an old piece of wood sticking out of the bank.  He started digging because he was curious, and then realized that he was digging up an old building!  He calls someone called an archaeologist to come with little tiny tools (so he or she doesn't hurt anything) to dig out that area, and they find a toy of an ox and cart.  That shows us that these people who lived in this area had that type of technology."  Etc... REALLY well written. 

So last week, we studied what it is to do history.  I asked the kids what the first thing they remembered was.  Then we wrote it down and found a picture of that time (thank god for digital pictures!)  Then after that, I had them remember things by looking at pictures. "I was a ninja for Halloween three years in a row???"  or "Oh, I have to write down Baby Cake!  She was my very favorite doll until her arm fell off."  Then after we got down near everything they remembered, I started bringing out the baby books and we wrote down their first step, the day they were born, their first birthday, the first word they said, etc.  Stuff they didn't remember, but that I did.  And that was the lesson in history. 

The lesson in Archaeology will be just as much fun.  I am taking their sand box and turning it into a dig.  OMG... So much fun!  They have to figure out what time period (in their lives) that they are looking at by what I put in the sand box.  (I am wetting it down today for Thursday so it will be nice and hard to dig.)  I have had fun just planning it out.  lol!  I also got one of these because I thought they would just love that.... :)  I will let you guys know the verdict this weekend. 

We are doing the first lesson in Story of the World and it is all about history and what it means to keep records of peoples lives.  Both the kids really enjoyed the project, although Cyan didn't really understand at first.  You can distinctly see the time when we didn't have a camera in Alex's timeline.  From ages 3 to 6.  lol... there are lots of blank spots.  My camera got stolen and we could not afford to get another one until 2005.

Hope you all had a great weekend blogland!

Apples, apples, beatiful apples.  Last Friday we made apple cider with my dad. 

Sewing practice:

I picked up Cyan a copy of "My First Sewing Machine Book" by Winky Cherry at the Sew Expo back in March.  It has a bunch of things that you are supposed to sew with no thread on your needle.  As we went through and she mastered the needle, and using the presser foot we moved up to more real projects, but every time she needs practice I would copy one of those paper lessons onto card stock and have her 'sew' through it.  These lessons for first handwriting are very similar to what we did for her first sewing machine lessons and I thought I would pass them on. 

Donna Young, Penmanship Starters

Just print onto cardstock and have her follow the directions with her needle.  No thread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BTW, this is a great site for just about every kind of paper you could imagine as well. 

Handwriting paper:

Donna Young, Handwriting Paper

 (which BOTH kids are using right now because Alex is in 'public school chicken scratch' mode)

And blank top writing paper:

Donna Young, blank top writing paper with penmanship lines

Or blank top lined paper:

Donna Young, blank top notebook paper (College Ruled)

for those of us who like our children to 'illistrate' their own work.  My kids use these blank topped sheets pretty exclusively for history so far.  I like the idea that they are drawing what they are learning at the same time as they are writing it and reading it, and listening to it.  lol... it seems like a fail proof way of getting as much as possible into their head.

This is something we just started...

Penmanship Lessons for Alex

Penmanship lessons for Cyan

Hope you all are having a great week!

This is a great web site for Dolch Word lists.    It is where I have gotten all of her spelling words thus far.  They have games that you can play, and little cards to help her remember, it even has a way you can keep track of how many words she missed on the 'tests'.  It has been a ton of fun for both her and me, and it is REALLY speeding up her reading.  We will do one list a week for the next few weeks.

Making your own food chain

What a cool little web site.  I had the kids draw out their own, but this will be fun as well. 

You can add it into a biome study by printing out the premade food chain charts and having kids put in the correct plant or critter for that biome. 

Alex and I are working on poetry right now.  Not just writing it, but reading it aloud and well.  He is getting pretty good at it.  I bought two magnetic table boards for the kids to practice their poetry (or in Cyan's case, reading) on.  I left them on the table and in the morning, this is what they woke up to in front of their breakfast:

They were each given the task of creating their own poem.  Alex wrote a poem on snow (on paper) and Cyan wrote this:

You may be thinking how terribly rude she was being, but she is on a Penelope kick, so this was actually a compliment and she didn't even know if could have been insulting.  (Alex did however... I talked with him about that).

We have been on field trip city lately.  We went to the zoo on Friday, and the Nisqually Valley Reserve and the Farm I work for on Saturday.  There are too many pictures to try to post them all here, but I will post some of the best.

The zoo was great!  We had a good time and even got to see a couple of friends we hadn't seen in forever! 

This sweet whale came up to say "hi" right next to us, and it started a chain of events that was pretty funny.  Cyan dropped her toy (small blue ball) in the whale tank, and Logan started screaming... not because of the toy falling in (which was rescued very quickly by zoo staff who were wonderful about it!), but because he is scared of whales.  Well, actually, anything that has glass between it and him.  He was fine with the Lemurs, fine with the Meerkats and Walabies... but whales, polar bear, walrus, and even the otters?  Climbed up my arm and screamed every time we got close.  I hope it is just a phase as they are some of my very favorites, but it was needless to say, strange to have him so attached to me.  Usually I am chasing him.  But he wouldn't leave my side.

Then on Saturday morning, we went to Nisqually Valley Bird Refuge.  This was a wonderful and educational trip.  Did you know that birds are the fewest in our area right at the end of the summer?  I had no idea.  We must be in the middle of the migration path, so as the birds go South in late Fall, they are here, and as they go North in late spring, they are here, but in the Summer?  Not a bird except for native ducks were at the refuge. We didn't even see a hawk.  Amazing!

But you know what that really means?  Visiting a bird refuge with no birds?  BUGS!

This fell out of the sky (literally!) and landed on Alex's arm.  Scared the crap out of him until he figured out what it was.  lol... 

And this one crawled right on to Cyan's finger from the bench she was leaning on.  She was watching it as it walked up, and it crawled right on to her.  She was thrilled that she 'got' a caterpillar to.  :)

And here is yet another catterpillar we saw... I think it is an older version of the one Alex had on his arm, but not sure.  They look very similar though.  Deffinetly related.

This one is my personal favorite... a wooly bear.  I love them! 

Whatcha looking at buddy?

Ah-hah!  Sweet little thing.

See how many things you see at a bird refuge when the birds are not there?  My guess is, that all of these would have been food for said birds if they had actually been around, but since they were not, it made for one cool field trip.  It openned up a huge conversation about food chains and food webs.  We drew food chains these things were connected in a bit too, but that isn't nearly as interesting pics of cool critters we saw.