As I mentioned in my last post, we did some nature studying today. :)
Here's what my kiddo's did:
E picked our Eucalyptus tree to study for the summer.
Waving in the breeze,
Green in all seasons,
and giving different birds a home
to raise their eggs into
things that fly.
Whether it is under the hot summer sun,
Or in the winter's
cold rain, it's green
scented leaves are
always waving against
the blue desert sky
In praise to God.
Height: It can get up to 30 ft
Trunk: One and a half feet thick at the bottom, tapers off and separates into branches at the top. It is mostly gray brown but some places can be light gray.
Thickness: The leaves are thickest near the ground.
Leaves: Some are shaped like circles, some like pears, and the color is from lime green to mint green and some leaves are tinted with purple.
Bark: The bark is rough
(I'm going to have her do some research on the tree then check her observations and see if she was accurate).
Stay tuned tomorrow for A's drawings. She painted our Lemon tree. :)
I love the simple days, where things just flow one into the other, don't you? We had one of those days today. We're taking a brief summer break, probably starting back in July. With nothing, or very little, on our plate right now, I'm enjoying some lazy, laid back time with my kids.
Today we started what I hope will be our daily routine. We headed out the door for a walk around the neighborhood followed by swimming in our pool. After swimming, we had a simple lunch and the kids went off to do their own thing for awhile.
Leanne, on the FIAR boards, posted a Nature challenge to get outside and study your trees. I thought this would be a perfect day for such a study. I had the kids gather up their pencils (colored and regular) and some paper. I grabbed my camera, the cd player and a classical music CD (and the baby of course ;- ) ) and followed them outside. Their assignment was to pick one of the trees in our yard and document the changes it goes through throughout the summer. They could document the tree throughout the months through drawings, poems, songs, pictures, whatever inspired them the most. I encouraged them to look at all aspects of the tree. Check out the bark, the leaves, the canopy, the color, the animals, etc. Then I set them loose.
One of our trees happens to be a lemon tree, which has provided us with so much wonderful lemonade this past spring. I'm going to miss all those fresh lemons here pretty soon. I grabbed five of our very ripe lemons and made some fresh squeezed lemonade. Yum! I filled up 6 glasses with ice, poured in the golden elixir and brought it out, along with some gingersnap cookies, to my budding naturalists.
What a beautiful picture to see all my little treasures out there enjoying God's glorious creation, in all its varied facets.
I'll share their drawings and poems as they come in throughout the summer, so stay tuned.
Fresh Squeezed Lemonade
16 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice (about 5 lemons)
48 oz filtered water
~ 1.5 cups sugar
Stir and serve over glasses filled with ice. Enjoy!
What did you do today to celebrate and rejoice in God's creation?
I know as homeschoolers we don't really "do grades" but, since this particular year marks a milestone for my eldest, I thought it was fitting to celebrate it a little bit.
My daughter has officially "graduated" from elementary school into middle school. Today she finished up her 5th grade year!
Working out the last problem as a 5th graderIt was a busy year with many interruptions, including a death (grandfather) and a birth (sister). Through it all E. worked hard and persevered, even when the books weren't what she really wanted to be reading. LOL
I'm so proud of you E. You amaze me daily with all the gifts God has given you. Love you bunches! Looking forward to starting your 6th grade year together! I'm so thankful that I am blessed to be your teacher.
Here are some pictures of my young scholar messing around w/ all the books she read this year.
The happy scholar
E, where are you? Time for school
The Philosophical Scholar 
The tired scholarI'm popping in to let my homeschooling friends know that I have a new blog that is specifically geared to writers, writing instructors, and writing students. You can check it out at www.encouragingwordsforwriters.blogspot.com.
I'm adding some elements specifically for homeschooling families such as teaching tips, samples of student writing, and some writing assignments as well, so check it out and stay tuned for more stuff for homeschoolers.
Stop by for a visit!
You know you have a sad little blog when your only traffic is coming in off of google image searches of your son's Valley Fever rash. LOL He's all better now, if any of you strolling on in here to see the image care. :D I don't even come to visit my little blog too often anymore. Poor, poor blog. LOL I'm actually dabbling w/ a new blog over at blogger. They tell me it's easier. I know one thing that will make it much easier, I'll be able to blog w/ Safari. For some reason this blog host doesn't like safari. Which means, I have to log into firefox, which doesn't happen all that often. As you can tell from this post, w/ no formatting to it, I'm in Safari. Too lazy to switch servers. :p
I'm still considering what direction to go with this blog and I'm posting so that it won't be deleted due to lack of usage. You can visit me at my new blog at www.bonitalillie.com.
New news:
-It snowed yesterday and we're headed out to play and make snowmen!
My father is:
angry
mean
unwilling to change
waiting for someone to change him
blaming others for his condition
running out of time
and me?
I am too many of these things
I choose today, for this moment to
get up
move
BE who I want to be
who I ought to be
even
if I don't feel like it.
Untidy bookshelves
Footprints across the floor
A floor that "holds" everything and is difficult to clean
Dirty walls, doors, light switches and the like
Dysfunctional floor plans
Ill placement of furniture
The fact that all flat spaces seem to be "storage" spaces...
That it matters not that SOME things actually DO have an AWAY in which to be put
Poorly functioning furniture that doesn't fit the space
Visual chaos of cord disorganization
Being unsure as to how to solve the above without being a shrew
So, Einar made a sign that said:
~
Restaurant NOW OPEN
Daily Specials Monday-Tuesday
until 5
~
He then hung it up at the end of our cul-de-sac on the stop sign post.
~
Someone turned around to read it. 
I'll bet THEY thought it was hilarious!
~
Wayde made him go take it down. He's kind of a party pooper. Always worried about the kids inconveniencing people (sp?)
~
Poor Einar. He came in totally dejected. But then, in a sudden turn of attitude he shrugs and says "THAT plan failed. I won't make money with that one.' mutter mutter "Nope, not with that plan..." The boy is HILARIOUS.
~
I of course had to hold in any expression of humor in the situation. But now, here it is at HSB for posterity.
~
He took the sign to mom's to start a restaurant there. Guess he figured he had a location problem rather than an idea problem!
I know most of us know about the Erskine Family's website Homeschool Radio Shows offers a free weekly radio show. But there are MANY other sites out there offering free downloads. Some of great quality, some of dubious. But it is worth checking out. We use the mp3s we find as bedtime stories while we're summering in Alaska. The laptop lives in our kids' room and I just make up a playlist and let it go. We also bought inexpensive Sansa Shakers for about $11 (including shipping) on ebay for each of them.
~
Ok, so, on to the links:
~
www.wiredforbooks.org/mp3/ has author interviews, several Shakesperean plays, poems, fables and a couple classic children's titles. There is a portion of the Aeneid read in Latin and the Iliad in Greek. I know that some of you classical style homeschoolers will geek out over that. I grabbed Walt Whitman's poems, several plays, a couple novels and a lecture on African American Oral History.
~
http://wiredforbooks.org/kids.htm has Beatrix Potter's stories read in English, French, German and Japanese. These are RealAudio presentations rather than mp3. I don't know if they can be downloaded for later use.
~
The main site has a HUGE assortment of things you can listen to online, though I don't think they can be saved like the mp3 files can. I have not listened to any of these yet.
~
The CurioSoft site has several fairytales, Alice In Wonderland, Peter Rabbit and Twas the Night Before Christmas to download.
~
Learn Out Loud has many free and cheap downloads. You'll need to scroll down a bit to see the list. There are several podcasts that look good too. There is a LOT of "spiritual" junk on it, so be careful with what you grab. But there are many things worth checking out. One in particular I thought was cool was a series of Art History "talks" about great paintings. There is a pdf to download of the paintings too. So those of you doing Art Study ala Charlotte Mason (or otherwise) may find these very worthwhile. Several are linked to other sites (which is how I found the ones above) but several can be downloaded directing from LOL. I grabbed Aesops Fables (scroll down for the mp3 links) and the Art podcast I mentioned above. There is so much on this site, I'm going to have to pace myself. Too easy to sit downloading "important" stuff only to ignore your family! Not all the links go directly to something downloadble. Many are simply free listening, not free saving!
~
If you know of a site that has great audio downloads, let me know! I've also been successful finding stories on music sources like Rhapsody and emusic. You have to get creative with your searching, but we've found Bible stories, ethnic tales, fairy tales and such and often in other languages. Lots of good stuff for adults too - humor and such. While emusic and rhapsody are "free", many have unlimited download subscriptions or trials and it is worth taking the time to find some good stuff for your money's worth. Sort of like a buffet, except you get to keep the leftovers!