At your best, you are: straight shooting, ambitious, and energetic
At your worst, you are: anxious and high strung
You drink coffee when: anytime you're not sleeping
Your caffeine addiction level: high
The other morning, my husband came back in after leaving for work- he had this in his hands...
He had left his Mountain Dew in the car overnight, and it had pushed frozen pop up and out of the straw. The pop ice art was entertaining in and of itself, but the best part about this cup of frozen pop was the way my husband stopped and showed it to the kids- not just because it's funny, but to show them how liquids expand when frozen. It was a quick moment, but it was like a snapshot of the way we homeschool. We're not really full-fledged unschoolers, but we are pretty relaxed with the formal learning. So much of our real learning comes in moments like this- I love it when that happens!
Well, we couldn't have asked for a much better Saturday this Labor Day Weekend. Unfortunately, we had no camping plans- things are just too busy around here to get away... but, I did muster enough get-up-and-go to bring my daughters up to Little Falls, MN to the Living History Day at the Charles A. Lindbergh House, "with its original family furnishings and possessions — where Lindbergh dreamed of adventures to come." We had been to the State Park there a few years back, but it was later in the year when the house wasn't open for tours, so this was a first for us.
My husband was busy spending the day 'rennovating' the space that is to become his computer room/office for his business- this meant a lot of tearing down of old stuff- paneling, ceiling tiles, crummy old carpet, etc... and he recruited the help of our boys (and his brother!) so it was just me and my girls for the day.
This outing was a bit of a drive, but it was through some nice farm country and we were listening to "Black Beauty" (unabridged audio) while watching for cows and horses, so it was really quite pleasant. Despite arriving right around lunch time, and deciding to wait to eat until after we'd done our visiting, I was so pleased with my girls. They were quiet and respectful; they didn't race down the paths or through the house, and even Hope (my very adventurous and boisterous 2 year old) was very careful not to touch anything she shouldn't. Training efforts do pay off! It is possible to take small children to museums and historic places and not be a nervous wreck! A few years ago, I wasn't so sure...
Anyway, it was a lovely day- I learned much more about "Lucky Lindy" than I knew before- for I realized that I really knew nothing about the man, save for the fact that he was the first to fly a transatlantic flight, and that he hailed from Minnesota (though born in Detroit, MI). After our tour of the house and some time in the museum, we picked up a late lunch and headed to a little park along the Mighty Mississippi River to sit and eat, while trying not to be blown away... it was quite windy down by the river... refreshing on this 80 something degree day in the sun...
Mrs. Evangeline Lindbergh tells the girls about her son, 'that boy', who has been obsessed with flying ever since he first saw a small airplane pass over, and wants her to pay so that he can take a ride in a 'flying machine' at the fair!
Hope checks out the cockpit of the Spirit of St. Louis.
Mercy wasn't sure what to think about that big river...
Nothing like a big ol' 'slurpee' on a sunny late summer day... Shhh! Don't tell the boys- that was our secretspecial treat. Not the healthiest, but it might be the 'funnest'...
The problem with growing out your bangs on a windy day...
I believe all four of them fell alseep on our long ride home, so I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the country ride, thinking and praying... I am so thankful for my family- for each and every child individually, and for my husband, who works so hard for us and wouldn't have things any other way. He loves that I'm home with my children and having and taking the time to enjoy them, and I love that he loves that!
I'm sure there are more tings going on around the metro, the Zoo, Underwater World, The Works, the Nature Center, etc... I'll try to add those things as I find them, let me know if you fellow Minnesotan's find any others!
Well, I decided to throw off the weight of the burden of getting further and farther behind in the blogging... forget about make-up blogging- there's too much. Life moves pretty fast around here, so I'm just gonna jump in...
Regular schooling has taken a break- though we consider ourselves year-round schoolers. We look an awful lot more like unschoolers every summer, when things shift to a lot of play, with a bunch of good reading thrown in. A little writing here and there, a lot of drawing/coloring/art projects, a wee bit of math, and a little bit of science -why can we never even come close to finishing a science book? we get off on way too many rabbit trails. I may need to reign that in a bit as we enter the high school years with my oldest... like in 2 months! ACK!
Anyway- 2 Saturdays ago we headed out to Shepherd's Choice to experience the 'little' Sheep Shearing Festival. My kids were too sick over Mother's Day weekend, so I was bummed to miss the Minnesota Sheep & Wool Festival- this was my consolation trip. There will be no sheep shearing pictures- the funny thing is, we never saw any shearing! We missed it every time... no biggee, my kids have seen that at the Kelley Farm the old fashioned way, although they have never seen it done with electric clippers... oh well. We had fun and the threatened storm held off all day. We spent some time listening to and playing music with the music lady, who was sooo good with kids! She had all of these homemade dulcimers in polar fleece bags and the kids got to play along... there were penny whistles too, but my kids stuck to the stringed instruments. It was cute. We love music! If interested, check out EverythingDulcimer.com- they even have a page with links to music samples to listen to! (**I have not listened to them all, so I cannot vouch for the worthiness of all the music, listen with discretion- music can be a touchy issue sometimes...)
Hope tries her first dulcimer!
Jaron tries his... fun, fun, fun!
I so rarely 'splurge' on 'frivolous' things like this... which makes it more special when I do! right?
My girls preferred painted arms to painted faces!
Hope plays with real clay...
Funny thing- my kids spent most of the afternoon hanging out with Jenny the Potter! Some other kids had gotten a little too touchy feely and there were a couple of spoiled bowls from the set she was making right there before our eyes, so she let my kids play with the clay. She was so very, very cool and laid back about it. She's really into encouraging kids to get into pottery and teaches community ed classes and stuff- she's almost worth the drive down to Minneapolis to do such a thing! Anyhoo- while I was standing there asking here about getting the kids into it, another mom with several kids in tow came up and mentioned something about a place further north she had heard of that did that sort of thing. Her friend had gone with a homeschool group there... she asked if we homeschooled... why, YES! as a matter of fact we do. Then she started looking more intently at my children, saying they looked so familiar... I asked if she went to many of the Kelley Farm events- she said yes, but didn't remember seeing us there. Then the light bulb moment- "Are you Ali?!?" Why, YES, I am! "I recognize you from your blog!" Teehee!! Squeal!! LOL!! "I'm (insert HSB identity I can't remember!)" (used to be justamom, but started new blog)
What a fun small word! She remembered my kids faces from my banner! Anyway, a long time back after I had mentioned something about knitting, she had e-mailed me about wanting to learn to knit, and finding someone to teach her... then a couple months back I e-mailed her about maybe coming up/over to my "First Fridays Knit Night" some month... and it didn't work on her schedule that month, maybe sometime soon... and then- TA-DA! There she was- turns out she doesn't live very far away and she has a couple kids near in age to a couple of mine... is this a small world, or what?! Hopefully the schedules will work and she'll be able to make it out to one of our knitting nights!
Well, we've been trying to pluck along in our botany book, and we took a little minitrip down the road to the county park with our co-op-ing friends to take a little nature walk. We checked out all the wildflowers that had grown since the last time we went- what a difference in the landscape! We brought along our "Wildflowers of Minnesota" book and had fun identifying some wild lupines!
It was crazy hot, humid, and windy, so we'll have to go back someday soon and have the kids sit and sketch and make a nature journal page! We came back, had some ice-ees, and a lesson on bees and other pollinators. They had fun making little paper tube bee projects and coloring butterflies...
Well, that's a bit of what we've been up to! This post is long enough- time to clean up and get dinner ready!
I've been neglecting this blog... I've had web browser issues & password issues... And , well, we've been pretty busy around here (like usual, really...) We've been not-so-patiently waiting for Old Man Winter to loosen his icy grip on our state as he has been toying with us, sending us winter storms in April complete with single digit wind chills and high temperatures below freezing... That's just wrong in April, even in Minnesota- it's not unheard of up here, but it's still wrong.
Well, snow or no snow, we've been plugging away slowly but surely through our botany lessons. Getting together with homeschooling friends has been such a blessing- and a lot of fun as well!
Teaching to my captive audience...
Little ones coloring angiosperms (flowering plants)
Snack time! Eating some seed containers... Painting little pots for planting some flowers...
I'm loosening up, I even let my 2 yr old paint, all by herself!
(Aren't you proud of me?! LOL!!)
Ready to plant some seeds...
We've been having a blast talking about and learning about all things plants- greek and latin terms, vascular/nonvascular, seeds, spores, seed coats... it's all been good! I've been taking a ton of pictures of real learning and one of these days I hope to set aside an afternoon to get them laid out into our own little yearbook of this year's learning- each year's attempt at documenting our homeschooling journey gets a little bit better. We ought to have some good looking books by the time we're schooling the last one...
Anyway, as I said at the beginning of this post, things are busy... so this is all for now... the laundry is calling my name.
One of the main things we're doing with our little coop is going through the wonderful "Exploring Creation with Botany" by Jeannie Fulbright for Apologia.
Lesson 1 begins with learning just what botany is... the study of plants. One of the first things we needed to learn when beginning our study of botany was all about classification and taxonomy, or how scientists place things into groups and then name those groups. I love the example in the book about classifying "people who go to your church." They name 5 kingdoms, then separate each kingdom into different phyla based on age, then phyla into 2 classes (male and female), classes into orders based on eye color, orders into families by city, genus by last names, and species by first names. So the taxonomy for me would look something like this- Kingdom: married adults; Phylum: 30-40 year olds; Class: female; Order: hazel eyes; Family: Timbucktoo, MN; Genus: W**************; Species: Alison. Fun, eh?
We got further practice with an exercise called 'Shoe Taxonomy' where we went from this-
to this-
And then a little 'Duplo Taxonomy'
Now that they can sort and classify shoes and duplos, I think they're ready to discuss vascular and nonvascular plants- that's up next!
Well, we're snowed in for the second weekend in a row, from the second major snowstorm in as many weeks... you'd think I would have all the time in the world to blog, blog, and blog some more... but alas, I've just been swamped with projects- knitting, cleaning, organizing, rearranging...
I guess since I'm sitting on a backlog of pictures I could spare a moment or two to post some more evidence of our cooping fun.
The girls tried on real silk clothes from China! Traci's daughter looking lovely in her silk dress! Sniffing spices... Peeeewww... peppercorns... Cumin, I know I got that one right... I did miss a few... 6 out of 10...
Still can't believe I missed rosemary! Everything starts to smell like basil after a while... Traci only missed 1 out of 10! Drat! I'll have to challenge her to a rematch one of these days...
That pretty much sums up our journey through ancient China and our discussion of the silk route and the spice trade... which, of course leads us into one of the main reason's Columbus was sailing when he got 'lost' and ended up bumping into this great nation of ours...
More eventually,
enjoying them,
because of Him,
ali
If you checked out our coop agenda, posted below, and thought it couldn't be done- not in one afternoon- you were right... but really, we did accomplish almost everything on that list! We didn't get to papermaking (I may try that with my kids over the long, cold, snowed-in weekend it sounds like we're gonna get...) and I didn't get to a piano lesson for Kayla... but everything else got gotten to... I'm pretty sure that wasn't grammatically correct, but there was no grammar lesson today, so, oh well...
Here's a whole host of pics from our positively productive day-
After reading The Silk Route: 7,000 Miles of History, by John S. Major, we followed the Silk Road around the house! We were western travelers following the Silk Road to trade for silk, gold, ivory, and exotic plants and animals. We first had to pass by the hot, dry Taklamankan Desert. We had to have enough supplies to get us through, no oases here...
(Kayla quenching her thirst in the desert, take it easy, that has to last..)
Then it was on to the oasis settlement of Tun-huang-shih, for a chance to rest and recover from our weary travels, and have a snack.
(Aaahhh, refreshments! Do they look ready to get back on the road yet?)
Further down the road we passed to the south of the Gobi Desert. This desert does have some oases where we can get some water along the way.
There was more rest to be had for our travel-weary feet at Loyang-shih. And more snacks.
We knew we were getting close when we came to the Yellow River, which we would take to Peking. We grabbed the oar to paddle down the river and arrived at the marble palace (blanket fort) of the Khan, where we would trade for Chinese goods.
There they are, our little traders, showing off their goods- some fine silks, some ivory, and much fine gold!
The act of physically moving around the house while discussing the places they went was probably more 'fun' for the little ones, but for the kinesthetic learning leanings of our older ones I'm sure it was time well spent as well. They did first follow along in an atlas as the book was being read and walking through the steps helped them to 'flesh out' the vague ideas and concepts being talked about. That is the kind of thing we can do when we homeschool. We don't have the time to do every activity in every book, but we can do as many as we can get to! And things like this go a long way in helping kids learn things in ways that they'll remember, in ways that mean something to them. Reading the book was good, looking at the atlas was better, walking the path and tracing the route was totally icing on the educational cake! The learning got good here today! Yee-ha!
There was so much more, and so many more pictures, but it's late and I need to get to sleep so we can get a little bit accomplished tomorrow as well!
Well, since we happen to be studying the middle ages, and since it happened to be on Friday night... we all enjoyed the second episode of Warrior Challenge-Knights on a local PBS station... and soon afterwards my home was overrun with a band of little warrior knights! Aren't they the bravest (cutest) and most gallant (most adorable) little noblemen and little noblewomen you ever did see?
(notice how the helmets are too small? he, he, he...)
(and how J's using the wrong end of a broken sword, it's now some sort of club...)
Oh, they had way too much fun! Into the night on Friday... and they took up arms again on Saturday... I finally had to declare it a draw and demand a truce... I'm sure there'll be more tournament times as we continue through the middle ages...
(I promised Kayla I'd post this- we call it "Red Green Kayla"!)
My dear IRL friend, mamatc, and I always enjoy getting together for the kids to play as well as for a little cooperative learning. We've been intending to get a little more formal with the whole coop thing, and it's starting to come together a little more each time. Yesterday was fun- we spent some time gabbing, but we also spent some time schooling.
We're still trudging our way through the middle ages and made a little pit stop at the time of the Brothers Grimm. I'm not a big fan of fairy tales, and I would never read one as a bedtime story- but covering them, in brief, as a literary genre is another thing. I explained, and reexplained, how these were imaginary stories that an author made up. My children know that magic and witchcraft (even if the fairy princess is beautiful- think satan masquerading as an angel of light...) are an abomination to the Lord and that the 'black arts' are nothing to mess around with.
That being said, we listened to a few tales on-line (at the National Geographic website) and then printed out a few for our 8th graders to read to the rest of my young crew. We had them each pick out one tale to take home and work on for a week- next week they're gonna try their hand at the genre of speech known as storytelling. I wish we had a video-camera!
Next we had the kids work on the first of their notebook pages for our study of botany, using Exploring Creation with Botany. We looked through some of my gardening books and let them pick out a plant or flower to draw and then had them write out a dictionary definition of botany (Jaron used a kids' dictionary)
I think their notebooks are off to a great start! We'll get a few pages for Liberty and Grace to do as well, we'll have notebooks coming out of every nook and cranny around here someday, but they'll all have so many treasured keepsakes... what fun projects to look back on...
Well, the sun was out (sun, in Minnesota, in the winter, does NOT equal warmth...) and Kayla brought her winter gear with this time, so after the stories and the notebooking, out they went... the squeals of delight were too much, so out the mommies went too... for a few...
Yep, that's me...
Weeee-eeee-eeee! Nice tree...
Here we go again, Weeee-eee-eee! Aaaaah! (Twas icy, ice makes fast sledding!)
Kayla had the nerve to try to run me down! But my cat-like reflexes saved me that time...
That was cold...
Looking chic, with my disc, heading back up the 'hill' for another run...
mamatc, doesn't she look like she's having fun?!?! She's a good sport...
And the picture line-up for the day wouldn't be complete without these... Wouldn't ya know it?! She's a woman of many resources and hidden talents- she can jump start her own car!
There are many more pictures of cold snow fun, but this post is long enough...
Happy Groundhog Day! My kids asked yesterday if they could watch 'Groundhog Day' today- I said maybe... it's a pretty cute movie, and really quite clean. I got to thinking how there really must be more to do on Groundhog Day than watching a slightly romantic comedy. Sure enough, there is!
I found a ton of great resources on-line- I'll list several here, they're not hard to find, just Google it!
You may want to start with a basic overview/definition of Groundhog Day. (This includes brief details about the pagan origin, nothing crazy conspiratorial, just the simple truth... superstitious beliefs from pagan peoples have a way of trickling down into our day and age)
El Nino has caused high winds, heavy snow, ice and freezing temperatures in the west.
Here in the East with much mild winter weather we have been blessed.
Global warming has caused a great debate.
This mild winter makes it seem just great.
On this Groundhog Day we think of one thing.
Will we have winter or will we have spring?
On Gobbler's Knob I see no shadow today.
I predict that early spring is on the way.
There are many more resources out there, just start looking, you'll find more than you could incorporate into any day of schooling...
I've been enjoying so many of the free ideas and resources listed at Ambleside Online lately. I'm very seriously considering going through year 1 with both Liberty and Jaron next year... we'll see... for now I've added some fun in going through as many of the books listed for 'year 0' as we have around the house and searching the internet for various resources that we can use to make notebook pages. Who knows, maybe we'll even end up trying our hands at some lapbooking...
For today's fun, we kept it light and simple (we've got some sick girls...) with reading and listening to Little Bo-Peep from "The Real Mother Goose". Everyone knows who Little Bo-Peep is, right? Well, not everyone... did you know that children aren't born knowing all the Mother Goose nursery rhymes? It's true... somebody actually has to read them to their eager little ears... So that's just what I did. We sat on the couch and I read while they listened and looked at the delightful old-fashioned pictures in the classic book. Then we headed to the table for some coloring and some copywork.
We discussed how silly it was to think of sheep leaving their tails behind, and finding them 'side by side, all hung on a tree to dry." We heard new words like 'fleeting' and 'espied'- ooh, I should have Jaron look those up tomorrow and write out the definitions for his copywork. **mental note- try to remember that!
Here's a sample of our day's work for 5 year old Liberty-
The originals are safely tucked away in a folder awaiting sheet protectors to go into our very own Mother Goose Notebook. That was fun, perhaps we'll get to Little boy Blue tomorrow.
By the way- you can find the entire text of The Original Mother Goose online here.
Finally got around to cropping and resizing some pictures...
Here's one from the boys' first Homeschool Orchestra concert (in November)
It was really fun to watch (for us parents anyway, I can't vouch for the rest of the audience...) They combined the 'advanced' groups into one giant orchestra and they played more complicated parts of Christmas carols while the beginner group played 'Jingle Bells'. It was all orchestrated quite well, pun intended, and sounded pretty good! I wish I had a recording... or a digital video camera... one of these years...
Anyway, on to the next one- Liberty and Jaron had their very first little piano recital a couple of weeks ago. They've been taking lessons from one of the young ladies at church. It's been really fun for them. I play enough piano to have been able to teach them for quite a while, but it just wasn't happening consistently at all. Having a lesson to be accountable for (I'm accountable too!) has made a big difference in the practicing and the effort put into it. It's been a blessing for us all!
And finally, last Monday's violin solo recital-
Ian also played in a quartet, and oh, did they sound g-r-r-r-eat!
This momma couldn't be more pleased with the sounds of music these kids loves to make! It has been one of my greatest delights in parenting and I hope and pray that they will always love music and use their talents and abilities for the Lord. What a blessing!
Orchestra, as usual today. We're out the door at 9:30 to get there by 10:15 so Jaron can be ready for the beginner orchestra @ 10:30. Then he has a small group lesson from 11:00-11:30. (Liberty started out in this group too, but was a bit overwhelmed and not quite ready to move as fast as the rest of the group, so we're just working with her a little bit at home and she can try again next year.) Liberty has her piano lesson during Jaron's small group. Ian is in the advanced orchestra, which rehearses from 12:30-1:30, and then his quartet practices from 1:30-2:00. Jaron gets his piano lesson during Ian's quartet rehearsal/small group lesson. Then we pack up and make the 45 minute trek home. They often go a bit long, so we often don't get home until around 3:30... it all makes for a long day.
Ian has 2 hours there before his group starts and I try to get an hour and a half of work out of him. He generally works on his health and some language arts. Jaron & Liberty usually get some phonics work done as well as some reading, coloring, and general playing, -oh, and some knitting on their scarves! Grace, Hope, and now Mercy get plenty of Mom time and Mom tries to get some knitting time- got another baby hat cast on and mostly knit today... All that, a few chores, and some random evening/suppertime readings about famous composers (remember last week's post about what we're using to study Johann Sebastian Bach this month?) is about all we can fit in a Monday! But don't worry, it's back to math & the rest on Tuesday!
Hope tries her first dulcimer!
Jaron tries his... fun, fun, fun!
I so rarely 'splurge' on 'frivolous' things like this... which makes it more special when I do! right?
Hope plays with real clay...
Teaching to my captive audience...
Little ones coloring angiosperms (flowering plants)
Snack time! Eating some seed containers...
Painting little pots for planting some flowers...
I'm loosening up, I even let my 2 yr old paint, all by herself!
Ready to plant some seeds...
The girls tried on real silk clothes from China!
Sniffing spices...
Peeeewww... peppercorns...
Cumin, I know I got that one right... I did miss a few... 6 out of 10... 
(Kayla quenching her thirst in the desert, take it easy, that has to last..)
(Aaahhh, refreshments! Do they look ready to get back on the road yet?)
There they are, our little traders, showing off their goods- some fine silks, some ivory, and much fine gold!
(notice how the helmets are too small? he, he, he...)
(and how J's using the wrong end of a broken sword, it's now some sort of club...)
(I promised 
Yep, that's me...
Weeee-eeee-eeee! Nice tree...
Here we go again, Weeee-eee-eee! Aaaaah! (Twas icy, ice makes fast sledding!)
Kayla had the nerve to try to run me down! But my cat-like reflexes saved me that time...
That was cold...
Looking chic, with my disc, heading back up the 'hill' for another run...
Wouldn't ya know it?! She's a woman of many resources and hidden talents- she can jump start her own car! 
It was really fun to watch (for us parents anyway, I can't vouch for the rest of the audience...) They combined the 'advanced' groups into one giant orchestra and they played more complicated parts of Christmas carols while the beginner group played 'Jingle Bells'. It was all orchestrated quite well, pun intended, and sounded pretty good! I wish I had a recording... or a digital video camera... one of these years...
