I am so excited that we all have had our applications to DAR and CAR approved and we have a national number!!!!  Thanks to my husband's Aunt...we were able to trace several lineages back to the Revolutionary War.  Both these groups are excellent and we are so excited to be a part of them. 

http://www.nscar.org/

http://www.dar.org

 Check this neat site out:  It is an ABC book of the Revolutionary War

http://diana.thehunterfamily.com/abc_book

Here are some good unit study websites for the American Revolutionary War

http://www.eclectichomeschool.org/articles/article.asp?articleid=106

http://www.easyfunschool.com/article1076.html

We are looking forward to using this curriculum this summer as we continue our study of nature, botany and gardening.  Each child will have their own 2X4 foot garden to plant and tend.  We will still have the other raised beds for the family garden and we are going to incorporate these ideas presented in this book as well as ... The All New Square Foot Gardening Book by Mel Bartholomew.

 In the front of this book is a note to Home School Parents written by the author:

It states " Square Foot Gardening is a uniquely simplified system of gardening that eliminates 80% of the space, cost, and hard work of conventional row gardening, yet produces 100% of the harvest, joy, and beauty of a garden.  It is user friendly, economical, adaptable, teaches the 3 R's - Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle - and besides that, it's alot of fun....."  ...... "  There is extensive associated subject matter included, such as math, history, geography, art, science,etc..." Mel Bartholomew

We are looking forward to fun all year round with our gardening.

www.squarefootgardening.com

In addition to our indoor worm composting system, we are planning to build this outdoor compost from pallets this summer.  Here are easy instructions:

 http://www.instructables.com/id/Pallet_Compost_Bin/

 We also use this book on an ongoing basis:

Our spring garden is growing very nicely!!!  We have been composting some directly in our garden if we have more refuse than our worm bin can handle.  This has given us quite few pleasant surprises...such as these potatoes!!!  Awhile back I noticed something growing that looked like a potato vine...we left it alone and it continue to grow....a few days ago it wilted and died and so we knew it was time to dig for the potatoes!  I was surprised myself to find 15 - 20 potatoes.  The girls were so excited!!!   We also have had 4 tomatoes plants and we also have had some surprise gourd vines and melon vines!!!

We are about to put an additional 4 foot by 8 foot square foot garden prefab box and use a curriculum for part of summer science lessons.  I will keep you posted on our progress. http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ 

These seeds are the ones we just planted a few days ago.  The girls got seed packets in their Easter baskets.  They were so excited to see them sprout so quickly....now to get them planted.

We have been studying Native Americans in a unit with some friends.  We are going to plant one part of our garden as a "3 sister" garden which includes squash, corn, and beans.  It was common for Native Americans to grow these crops together. 

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth....Happy Earth Day....

Last year we made some family goals concerning Earth Day and being more aware of our environment.  We chose realistic goals that we felt could make a difference.  We have always had a compost bin of some sort.  Last year we decided to invest in the can-o-worms composting system.  It has worked very well and been an ongoing science lesson.  We even have a curriculum that goes with it....Worms Eat My Garbage...

Worms Eat Our Garbage: Classroom Activities for a Better Environment This curriculum uses over 150 worm-related classroom or home activities to develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills in children grades 4-8. Activities integrate science, mathematics, language arts, biology, solid waste issues, ecology, and the environment.   Author: Mary Appelhof, Mary Frances Fenton, and Barbara Loss Harris Level: Grades 4-8 Specs: Paperback, 8 1/2 x 11, 232p, 16 appendices, resource materials, teacher's guidelines, bibliography, glossary, index.

We also compost directly into our garden.  It is one of our daughters jobs to dig a hole in the garden and pour in the vegetable and fruit, eggs shells and coffee grind refuse.  The soil in our garden is extememly fertile.  Sometimes we get surprises that actually root from the compost.  We had potatoes this spring! 

We also decided that we would be very diligent in recycling.  Our town does not have recycling through our garbage system so we find an independent company that would service our house.  They have been great and every week the girls put the recycling out and they have fun deciding what can be recycled (which is alot!) We have almost a full bin every week.

We are still working on using reusable shopping bags.  We have plenty but it is hard to remember to TAKE them into the store.  We are going to work on that some more.  When we get the plastic shopping bags we at least use them for garbage sacks or take them back to the store for recycling.

http://www.amazon.com/Recycled-Crafts-Box-Laura-Martin/dp/1580175228 This is a fun book we use to make crafts.

This what want to make this year: http://www.instructables.com/id/Pallet_Compost_Bin/ I saw one of these built using the direction and it turned out really nice.

I really like this site www.instructables.com .  There is a lot of interesting ideas here.

The girls have been diligently learning the Child's Shorter Catechism this past semester.  For every 50 questions they learn they are able to go to the store and select any Webkinz they would like.  They have worked so hard and we went to Bereans today and brought home 3 new Webkinz!  ML does not know hers exactly but was told she get the reward if she sat and quietly listened during question and answer time.  I know she is picking up much of what we are saying...as evidenced by the conversation with a lady at the grocery store...after my granddaddy died recently, she was in the grocery store with my mom and a lady came up to give her condolences...ML looked at her with bright eyes...it's okay....Poppy has a soul that can never die...... That comes straight from questions 18 and 19  ... What did God give Adam and Eve besides bodies?  He gave them a soul that could never die ....Have you a soul as well as a body?  Yes;  I have soul that can never die.  It was so cute and the lady thought it was pretty good theology for a 4 year old.

So we are on to the next 50 questions...they are doing great and do their recitation during morning story time and devotions.  We are also memorizing the Apostles Creed this year along with their regular Bible memory work.

http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/cat_for_young_children.html

 Here Nana is giving the girls a lesson in food preparation, canning, recipe reading, time management, marketing, and basic math skills.  It was a fun day and the girls learned alot.  Thanks Nana!

As part of a spice unit study we did while in MS with Nana, we made these pomanders.  They were very fun to make and smelled so good!  We all enjoyed making these in the outdoor "living room" with a big fire going and munching on popcorn.  We learned many things about cloves that day.  We even got the globe out and did a little geography.  The unit study is called Sugar and Spice and is very fun.  Over a couple of weeks we studied and did crafts and baking with spices such as nutmeg, cloves, cinnammon and sugar.  http://www.theoldschoolhousestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1269   Here is Marmee Dears website...it has a lot of great ideas and products... http://www.marmeedear.com/ .

We made pumpkin spice playdough one day as part of the unit....it smelled so good.  Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.recipestogo.com/childclay/childclay37.html

This was also part of our lesson on "Fall Harvest"...fruits, vegetables and seeds.  I have always loved this activity.  I get several bags of dried beans...black, kidney, split peas, lentils, blackeye pea, lima bean etc... and mix them together in big bows.  Each child had a large bowl filled with dried beans.  They love to pour and feel the beans.  We also sorted the beans in egg cartons which is a great activity.  I did not do it this time but in the past, I have brought in jars and let them layer the beans by color for a fun activity and you then have a gift to take home...bean soup mix.  We made some dried bean mosiacs and had a lot of fun.

I taught a unit on "Fall Harvest" in November to our youngest class in co-op.  It was such fun.  Each week I brought in my cornicopia or "horn of plenty" filled with fruits and vegtables.  We had so much fun identifying, touching, tasting and collecting the seeds.  I had red, yellow, green peppers, eggplant, sweet potatoes, avacados, cucumbers, oranges, grapefruit, kiwi, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, brussel sprouts, cantelope, coconut, pomegranate, persimons, cantelope, apples, onions, gourds, artichoke, and indian corn.  Each week they had so much going through the different fruits and vegetables.  We learned that fruits have seeds and we made a large collection of seeds.  They really liked seeing the largest seed...the coconut!  It was fun to contrast that to something so small as a kiwi seed.  We even had some mustard seed to look at ... and I centered my opening devotion around the mustard seed.  We learned poems, finger plays, colored pictures, made a sewing card acorn, and had a very sensory focused unit.  They found new tastes that they liked and it ended up being a very fun unit for the fall.

This is a picture of my dining table at home.  Each year I always decorate in November with my cornicopia.  My grandmother always had hers overflowing on her hearth.  It was always lovely and I love to do it myself.

 http://w4.nkcsd.k12.mo.us/~rbeckett/Pumpkins.htm 

This little light of mine...I'm gonna let it shine!  Let it shine!  Let it shine!  Let it shine!

 We had a great Pumpkin Patch Parable party this year.  I have done this party several times for different groups.  This year it was for our homeschooling group.  We have had the party for neighborhood kids and for a couple of MOPS groups.  I had stations around the house and outside with different activities.  I had a coloring page table, spiders made from tootsie pops(http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf28637025.tip.html), a table to make slime (http://www.madsci.org/experiments/archive/878680114.Ch.html), a station to make glittery spider webs (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/halloween/spiderwebcard/), and a scrapbooking table to scrapbook the "pumpkin prayer" and a station to collect tracts for everyone to take home and pass out to Trick or Treaters.  We had some great food.  Everyone brought food and I had made orange punch (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Orange-Party-Punch/Detail.aspx), spider crackers (http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf89919296.tip.html), apple cider, and "dirt with worms"(http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/recipes/dirt-cups-57763.aspx)?.   When we scrapbooked the "Pumpkin Prayer", I also had various verses which were in the Pumpkin Patch Parable that they could glue on to their page.

Here is the "Pumpkin Prayer" by Liz Curtis Higgs

(cut off top of pumpkin)

Lord, open my mind so I can learn new things about you.

(remove innards)

Remove the things in my life that don't please you.

Forgive the wrong things I do and help me to forgive others.

(Cut open eyes)

Open my eyes to see the beauty you've made in the world around me.

(Cut out the nose)

I'm sorry for the times I've turned my nose at the good food you provide.

(Cut out the mouth)

Let everything I say please You.

(Light the candle)

Lord, help me show your light to others through the things I do.

Amen

Here are some of the verses in the book:

"I am the true vine; my Father is the gardener."  John15:1

"The kingdom of heaven is like a man who planted good seed in his field."  Matthew 13:24

"My hand made all things.  All things are here because I made them," says the Lord."  Isaiah 66:2.

"Creat in me a pure heart, God."  Psalm51:10

"In the same way, you should be a light for other people.  Live so that they will see the good things you do.  Live so that they will praise your Father in heaven."  Matthew 5:16.

"If anyone belongs to Christ, then he is made new.  The old things have gone; everything is made new!"  2 Corinthians 5:17.

We had several tracts to pass out ... these came from www.ATStracts.org... We used the Bag of Jokes, Costumes are Cool but Heaven is Awesome, and Pick'n Pumpkins...and The Secret Wardrobe. 

We also made our own using "Being a Christian is Just like a Pumpkin"

•            6  to 8 cups confectioners’ sugar 

•  1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

•  1/2 cup milk

•  2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Place the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add 4 cups of the sugar and then the milk and vanilla. On the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to be of good spreading consistency. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. (Use and store the icing at room temperature because icing will set if chilled.) Icing can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

I made this flag cake for election party at our homeschool co-op last week.  We had a great party with lots of food and fun!  I also made a punch with 1 can pineapple juice, 1 sprite, 1 bottle white grape juice and 1/2 gallon vanilla ice cream.  Yummy!

We ended the unit with a game of Elections Vocabulary Bingo with words like...candidate, vote, electronic scan, conserative, liberal, democrat, republican, mudslinging, suffrage, tax, inauguration, debate, urban, rural, illegal, ballot, victory, poll, elect, campaign and absentee ballot.  We reviewed our study of some of the American symbols like: The Great Seal, Uncle Sam, The Liberty Bell, The Eagle, The U.S. Capitol, Independence Hall, The White House, and the The National Anthem.

We memorized the verse: Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another just as God in Christ forgave you.  Ephesians 4:32 as we prepared for our own elections within our co-op.  Everyone who memorized the verse got a small pumpkin as a prize.

We had a chance to go to the "voting booth" with a voter card and cast their vote.  It turned out to be a great day.  In conclusion, we made a banner with the verse:

If my people, which are called by name shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14.

Each child tied a ribbon around their banner and were asked to put it in a special place and read over it each day and pray for their country.

Elections Unit Study

We had a lot of fun this week in our co-op class as we expanded our study from Presidents into Elections.  We are adding to a lapbook that was started with the Presidental study as well.  We started out the day with "Start Student" and then had our devotions.  We went into the sanctuary and discussed the need of each family and person praying for our country...not only in these times...but in all times...we discussed some ways we could pray for our country and read over some Bible verses with justice as the theme and then each child pasted a Bible verse to a flag which they colored to remind them to pray for our country.  We discussed that the Bible is very clear that we should obey the government and keep its laws, pay taxes etc...  We learned that in Romans 13, God tells us that all authority comes from God (good or bad) and the we are to be in subjection to it.  We also learned that that Paul encouraged us not only to obey our government, but also to pray for it...(1Timothy 2:1-2 states: First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority, in order that we may lead a tranquil and quite life in all godliness and dignity.)  We learned that it was especially interesting for Paul to be writing this because during the time of his writings, Nero, was the emperor and he was famous for killing Christians.  We learned that even though we are to have an allegiance to our country and obey our laws...ultimately our home is home is in heaven and our king is the KIng of Kings and Lord of Lords and there is no other allegiance as important as our commitment to God.  

We then made a booklet to go on the back of our lapbook that had many of the American symbols in it.  www.bensguide.gpo.gov The kids sang the National Anthem several times while they were working away on their books.

I had several books on the tables which worked our great.  If someone got finished a little early they just sat back and read a book and seemed to really enjoy that.  Here is a list of a few of the books we are using:  A More Perfect Union: The Story of our Constitution by Betsy and Giulio Maestro, Duck for President by Doreen Cronin, The U.S. Constitution and You by Syl Sobel, The Voice of the People - American Democracy in Action by Betsy and Giulio Maestro, This is America - The American Spirit in Places and People by Don Robb,  If I Ran For President by Catherine Stier, America: A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney, How the US Government Works by Syl Sobel and The Story of the White House by Kate Waters.

I read aloud the Dr. Seuss favorite, Yertle the Turtle, which was suggested as a simple reminder of power and balance and a good analogy for children of all ages.  It is a good example of the concept of dictatorship and how it affects others.  They loved it!

Next we did some exercises and stretches from the Presidentals Physical Fitness Challenge.  www.presidentschallenge.org

We then went outside for some free play and ate red, white, and blue rocket bomb popsicles!

We then moved on to some vocabulary words and made some cards and wrote out definitions and put them in a little book in our lapbook. 

The older class came into our class and did some campaign speeches and we had a chance to do some voting.  That was fun!  We will do more with in the next few weeks.  We also voted on a secret ballot for our drink for next week: milk or juice!

After lunch, we shifted to our book club ... which this month we are basing off the book: 

All in all we had a great day!  We are looking forward to next week! 

I used material from the elections unit study I purchased from:

www.currclick.com and www.handsofachild.com

We have decided to start anew with our Mystery of History curriculum so everyone is in on the fun and learning....we are going over a quick review of where we left off last year.  (which was about 1/3 of the first book).  We are reviewing creation and made these creation mobiles today.  Thanks Lori..... www.homeschoolblogger.com/pearcefamily 

I read the creation account from the Bible as the girls were working on their mobile this morning and then printed them a copy of the scriptures for their notebooks.

Tomorrow we are making creation books with the actual scriptures and will place in a 3 ring folder. 

www.themysteryofhistory.com

Did you know that Sept. 17th - Sept 23 is Constitution Week?  Our town celebrates in a great way.  All week they have volunteers that go into the schools dressed in period clothes and educate the students on the Constitution.  We had a wonderful lady visit our co-op and do a presentation.  We found out she was a homeschool mom and Christian.  On Saturday, they hold a big festival with games, music, food, campaigning, characters dressed in historic attire, replicas of some of the buildings in Washington, fireworks...and the list goes on and on... I am planning to volunteer at this event next year! 

Maybe I can dress as Betsy Ross!  We took our girls and two of their friends.  We also made it a mini birthday celebration for one of our daughters!  It was so much fun!  We have been to this several times before and it always such a wonderful patriotic experience.  We had hamburgers, hotdogs (which they only get on rare occasions) and apple pie!  Yummy!  Later that night we stopped by Sonic and got mini banana splits and sang "Happy Birthday" in the car!

I also met a very good contact for the DAR (to join DAR is on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days) and the Children of the American Revolution.  I am very excited about that! The Children of the American Revolution has a wonderful program here in our area that I wasn't even aware of!  www.dar.org

The website is www.constitutionweekusa.com.  It has specific details for the event in AZ but it also has a great family lesson plan that you can download for free and some other really good resources. 

We are studying the presidents and the election over Sept. and Oct. in our co-op so this just fit in perfect with their learning.  We are working on a lapbook in co-op.  Some of the sites we are using are... www.whitehouse.gov , www.notebooklearning.com (a great free downloadable lap book on elections) and www.handsofachild.com .

 Here is another good site: http://www.usconstitution.net/constkidsK.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_TXJRZ4CFc

The girls are having a great time with the new addition of a weekly nature walk, nature journal, and nature table.  They are have really enjoyed planting our raised bed garden and they go out and water it every morning.  It usually turns into a quick run in the sprinkler though while they are fill their water buckets!  We had a great walk this morning and found some really neat things. 

Here is some of our work we did this week with our nature journal.  We are having issues getting our irrigation just right with our lawn.  Now we know we are over watering due to the large amount of mushrooms which appeared in the back yard.  But it made for a fun nature study.  The girls took their blankets, towels, papers, markers, pencils and notebooks out on the lawn and studied the mushrooms and then drew them for their nature journal.  I always have loved mushrooms...they are just so cute looking! 

The next day one of our daughters spotted a large amount of tadpoles in a mud puddle near our house.  So early this morning, we all made our way out there and  collected some.  We have been researching the best way to care for them.  Hopefully, some will make it to frogs.  The poor other guys I guess will die when the mud puddle dries up which will be soon out in the AZ heat.

Here are some samples of their work.

Our worm compost system is coming along very nicely.  At the bottom is a spout where we can get the liquid worm compost fertilizer.  We used it on our rose bush this morning.  We have been recycling all of our glass jars by filling them with the "compost tea" and using it on all of our plants and sharing with neighbors.

In the past, we have celebrated several authors birthdays and had fun parties as we read their books.  This year we are going to celebrate composers birthdays and have a mini birthday each month to celebrate.  I have a compiled a list of the composers for each month.  I will have music from each composer for that month for us to listen to in the car and when we are doing art or a craft.  I have a large "Happy Birthday" poster posted on the wall with each composer in the balloon for their month.  We may celebrate at home with a special cake or dessert or we may go out for ice cream or something special!

September - Bach (9-5)

October - Strauss (10-25)

November - Copeland (11-14)

December - Beethoven 12-15)

January - Mozart (1-27)

February - Mendelssohn (2-3)

March - Vivaldi (3-21)

April - Ellington (4-29)

May - Tchaikovsky (5-7)

June - Stravisnsky (6-17)

July - Foster (7-4)

August - Schuman (8-4)