My daughter, Jessie, has found two new best friends!  They are www.MarmeeDear.com & www.HopeChestLegacy.com .  These two delightfully quaint websites have so many goodies!  Right now, Jessie has her hand in several sewing projects thanks to the birthday gifts we purchased from these sites.  Here are some pictures of Jessie & her two little sisters baking cookies (in their Home Depot aprons!) from a recipe she found in Marmee Dear's catalog:

These were awesome!

We have a great little garden pond and stream that brings us lots of entertainment and special guests from time to time.  Well, a few weeks ago, while repairing the bridge, my husband came face to face with this little creature:

A Black Widow Spider

Now my husband isn't all too fond of anything that creeps or crawls, but this little guy sure got his attention and he actually caught him for us!  Yeah Dad!  We'll convert him to an official "Nature Nut" one of these days!

There's a great state park about 15 minutes from our home.  We recently spent the afternoon there playing in the creek, riding bikes, walking the trails, & just hanging out.  Here are some pictures of the kids having fun!

Searching for Crawdads...

Still Searching...

Caught One!

Jessie & Allison would rather ride bikes
than get into the "icky creek"!

Of course, throwing rocks into the "icky creek" is fun!

This is a post I made in our notebooking group regarding the topic of  "Narrations".

We do narrations for just about every read aloud and the kids do occasional narrations for me from their independent reading.  I am able to group my 4 middle children quite a bit for the read alouds.  As a matter of fact, right now, they do the following subjects together:  Bible, History, & Science.  For each of these, there is at least one read aloud (usu more) and one or more independent books they are reading at their own level.

BIBLE

For Bible, we use the VOS story Bible as a family.  First, I assign the actual Bible passages for them to read during their quiet times from their own Bibles (& I do this as well).  They have a quiet time journal they keep where they keep track of prayer requests and notes about what they feel the Lord is teaching them at the time.  I assign their readings for 2-3 days and they choose what to read for the remaining days.  See this blog for more info on the kids’ quiet times.  Then we come together for the reading from the story Bible.  They tag-team narrate, orally, after each small section of reading.  (Narration is simply the telling-back of what was just read.)  If the reading was particularly full of lots of details, we may jot some key words on the white board for a very informal outline of what was read.  I esp like to write any names & dates we come across so that they’ll be more inclined to use them.  Then after we’ve covered the reading for the day, they do a written narration for their notebooking pages.  My 3 older ones in this group (ages 9-12) write their own narrations without much aid from me.  The youngest, 8yos, has throughout this year been becoming more independent with writing his own as well.  On occasion, I will still write for him after he has begun on his own with a few sentences.   This whole process takes up to an hour including our quiet times, memorization practice, read aloud, and written narration.  I keep our read aloud short, perhaps 2 pages or so.  We follow this process for about 3 days for a particular story continuing the written narration from where we last left off.  Then we spend the next 2-3 days filling in our notebooking pages with drawings, maps, timeline figures, etc.  During those days, the kids choose their own Bible readings for quiet times and for read aloud, I’ll read from a book like Missionary Stories with the Millers or devotional book while they finish their notebooking pages.

HISTORY

For History, we usu have one or two main read alouds we do as a family & at least one literature book for each child.  We do the same process as above – orally narrating after small sections of reading, but we do not always write the same day that we read.  If possible we do, but it’s not always the case.  With the Bible, you are usually following one main story line, whereas with History you are possibly covering several story lines, several (to many) people, and events.  It may take several days before we finish a whole concept.  Also, with the Bible, I’m more concerned about getting as much of each story into the children’s hearts and mind.  In History, I’m more concerned that they are getting the bigger picture.  If the kids do not do a written narration on a day of reading, I make sure to write down a key word outline from their oral narrations to keep on the white board until their day of writing.  Then after 2-3 days of reading, I usu let the kids pick a person, event, place, or major theme (or combination of these) for them to focus on in their notebooking pages and we set down to writing the narrations and filling up our notebooking pages with all of the other elements.  So we do 2-3 days of mostly reading and then about 3 days of notebooking.  Each of these days, the kids will be reading their own literature books independently and doing occasional oral narrations for me from them (just to make sure they are comprehending what they are reading).  Typically, we do not notebook from their independent literature books unless they are inclined to do so.

SCIENCE

For now, my younger ones do most of their science work on their own during their free afternoons – truly!  They are so naturally drawn to God’s creation and will sit down with books, experiments, bugs, reptiles (& other creatures) and just study to satisfy their hunger for knowledge.  A couple of weeks ago, one of our jars was filled with a worm “farm”, another with an ant farm, and one with a millipede (mistakenly taken for a caterpillar by dd who was quite disappointed that it was going to become a butterfly!).  This week has been great for nature study, too.  We found a 3-toed box turtle, baby robins, mating toads, & tadpoles.  We haven’t had time to get it all into our notebooks yet!  You can see pictures here.

I do have several science books and curriculum guides that we use as well as many field guides and “living” nature books.  Usually after about a week’s study in history, we’ll take 3-4 days to study something specific in science.  I love the combination of books/curriculums I have (106 Days of Creation/Considering God’s Creation/Elementary Apologia Series).  We notebook whatever we are studying in a variety of ways.  We’ll do biography pages (short written narrations based on snippets we read from a book or encyclopedia), experiment pages, narration pages on specific topics covered.  We also try to go out once a week to find something in nature to do a page about.  This week has brought us LOTS to notebook.  We’ll do more nature study throughout the summer as well and back off on some of our history study.  This works well because in the winter months it can be a bit difficult to study nature.  So we focus more heavily on the history during those months.

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 Well, I hope that was beneficial to someone! ;)  Let me know if you have any questions.  .  Narrations are a top priority for me.  If we do not have time for anything else, we make sure to do at least oral narrations from our main studies.  I cannot tell you how amazing this skill is.  I’m convinced that it truly prepares the kids to become greater writers.  After much practice, the words just flow for my kids.  With a little formal training to help “dress up” their writing and to structure it properly, they’ll be great writers!  I get pumped up thinking about how God will use my children in their future with these skills they are developing.  I know it is from practiced narrations that my children are able to sit through a sermon on Sundays and come away knowing more & remembering more than most adults.  Even though they sit and color for most of the sermon, their ears have truly been listening.  It’s awesome!

 One last note, I’m very fortunate to be able to group my middle four children for the above three subjects.  If at all possible, find a way to combine your children for these main subjects.  Not only is it easier on you, but it makes the learning that much more meaningful for them because of the discussions you will be able to have as a group, as a family.  I have two younger daughters who will be joining their older sibling more and more in the next couple of years.  It will be interesting to see how I incorporate them into our studies.  My two older daughters will become more independent I think, so I’ll probably group my younger 4 at that time.  We’ll see…always something new to learn!

To see my favorite homeschooling resources, go to this link.

We have a small garden pond and stream - breeding ground for countless toads & frogs!

Thank you Taylor for Our Awesome Nature Photos!  She's a budding nature photographer!

Dad watching & chirping at us!

Babies at attention!  They love having their picture taken!

Show off!

Since beginning our reading of Minn of the Mississippi, my 8yo son Alex has been turtle hunting.  He & his little sister have spent several afternoons together searching for turtles in the woods.  Well yesterday, while doing the morning dishes, his older brother spotted a turtle just off the back patio behind the bird bath.  You should have seen the boy run!  His little sister was no more than two steps behind him.  A turtle! 

We snatched him up for observation and some great nature sketching.  He was a great sport, so friendly and outgoing!  We let him venture around the family/school room a bit to watch him move and then we released him back to the yard.

Here are a couple of photos of our 3-toed box turtle:

They are called 3-toed because their hind feet have 3 toes.  His front feet have 5 toes!

My daughter breathlessly ran inside today to tell me, "h-h-h- Mom! -h-h-h- There's -h-h-h- a nest -h-h-h- and babies! -h-h-h- The momma h-h-h is feeding h-h-h them!"  Then she dashed back out the door with six siblings chasing after her while I grabbed the camera!  The momma was gone gathering food so we got a close look at her baby robins.  Then when we saw the momma land in a nearby tree, we backed away and waited to get a good shot of her feeding them.  Here are the photos of our baby robins and their Momma (or Papa?), not sure!  I'll have to get out all of our nature books to see if we can figure this out!

Aren't they sweet!  And so photogenic today!

Well it's been quite a crazy week for computers at my house!  We thought things would be easier for me if I had a laptop that I could take with me throughout the house, outside the house, on trips, etc.  So dh went and found a great deal on the last Windows-based laptop Best Buy had available...marked down even!   Let's just say things didn't go so smoothly with the changeover LOL! 

I am currently sitting at my make-shift desk on my old computer trying to do what little work I can get by with until my new one is fixed.  Actually, that's not the plan anymore.  I just got word that they're (Best Buy's Geek Squad) officially retiring the junky new laptop.  No one can figure out what's wrong with it.  So they've wiped it out and are setting me up with a new one.  Great, right?  Well, I'm a bit apprehensive as this new, new one will have Vista instead of the familiar Windows.  Now I'm all for change.  Those who've been with my site since the beginning last year have watched it change multiple times, as well as this blog.  I LOVE change.  However, from what I'm being told, some of my software packages will not "play" well with Vista.  So it looks like we'll need to hold on to this old machine for a while longer. 

Please bare with me in the coming weeks as some of my projects have been put on hold for just a bit until we can get this all straightened out!  If you're so inclined, please say a prayer for this transition as well.  Moving files from one computer to another makes me SO nervous!  ;)