Say Hello to the Little Ladies!

Well, we finally did it! After dreaming about it for 8 years since moving to the country, we finally have our own chickens! We purchased these sweet baby girls at a local feed store last Friday. We have 8 chicks – 2 each of 4 different breeds – Ameraucanas, Barred Rock, Rhode Island Reds, and Wyandottes.

Right now the chicks are living in our master bathroom in a large plastic tub (the only place we can keep them safe from our 3 curious cats). They have to stay warm, so we have a heat lamp on them constantly at one end of the box. Their food and water is at the other end. They spend all of their time eating, drinking, sleeping a little, and making a mess.

Some of them have a new form of entertainment – trying to fly out of the box! Last night we added a piece of mesh screening to the top of the box and so their fun has been thwarted a little bit. Soon we will be transitioning the girls to our old rabbit hutch, outside in the chicken pen. I am so looking forward to the days when I can sit on the front porch and watch the little ladies pecking around the yard – not to mention the lovely fresh eggs we will enjoy each day!

P.S. I’m sorry for the tiny pictures! I’m experimenting with posting from my iPad, and still figuring out how everything works! I think I know what to do now with the pics, so they should be back to normal in the next post.

Have a wonderful evening!

Blessings,
Nancy

A Day With the Dinosaurs

A week or so ago we spent the afternoon at the nearby nature museum. They were hosting an exhibit of animatronic dinosaurs, which were placed around the park on one of the nature trails. It was a beautiful afternoon to be outside and we enjoyed the outing. Besides moving, the dinosaurs also made noises and were fun to look at. Here are a few of the pictures that I took ~

This cabin is one of my favorite things on the trail. We used to be able to go inside, but it is in bad need of repair now, so the park had it nailed shut. I hope its renovation is on their spring to-do list!

Thankfully there were some dinosaurs that were specially made to be climbed on by the kids, since they could really only just look at the robotic ones ~

The T-Rex was huge as was to be expected. There was water dripping from his mouth for some unknown reason, which made him all the creepier!

A fairly new and growing part of the museum is their collection of live animals. Some of the ones we saw outside were this raccoon and deer ~

The indoor portion of the museum has many hands on activities for the kids, as well as exhibits about nature items of local interest. Something new this time was live animals, some of them on temporary vacation from the outdoor area for the winter. We enjoyed watching the lemurs ~

There was an entire room devoted to snakes – UGH! But it was a good lesson for all of us on what the poisonous snakes in the area look like, so we can avoid them, like this rattlesnake for instance ~

This guy was fun to look at, although I never saw him move at all!

No matter how many times we’ve been to visit the nature museum, it is always interesting each time. We’ll be going back this Spring, when everything starts to come back to life and enjoy the flowers and plant life that was mostly dormant on this trip.

Have a nice day!

Blessings,
Nancy

A Visit from NASA!

Last week we had a fun surprise – NASA came to town with a test model of the new Orion spaceship. I was working on dinner when Jeff called. He had stopped for gas at a nearby truck stop on his way home from work, and he said that there was a flatbed truck carrying a space capsule parked there. I put dinner on hold and we all jumped in the van to go see. When we got there we joined a number of other onlookers who had stopped by to check it out like we did. Everyone had their phones and cameras out taking pictures and I was no exception! Here are a few of the shots that I took -

At first we thought it might be a part of an old Apollo space capsule, but later at home I went to the website written at the bottom of the trailer and found out that it was a test capsule for the new Orion space program. The inside of the capsule was empty – it was really just the framework that was there, as it was used in testing I suppose. The testing had been going on in New Mexico, but the capsule is now on it’s way to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It is making stops along the way in Oklahoma, Texas, and Alabama to give people a chance to see it. We happened to be at one of it’s overnight stops before heading into the Dallas area. You can read more about this at this NASA website.

It was a really neat surprise and an impromptu lesson for the kids on both the Apollo space missions, as well as the new Orion plans. One of the things I love about homeschooling is seeing how many lessons the Lord brings our way when we least expect it!

Have a great day!

Blessings,
Nancy

Anna’s Snickerdoodles

Anna is working on the cookie baking badge for her Keepers of the Faith club. She needs to bake 6 different types of cookies to earn the badge. She has already made Chocolate Chip Bar Cookies for us and now has added Snickerdoodles to her list. We got the recipe from this book ~

This is a wonderful cookbook that I found at Half Price Books a few years back, and which Jeff bought me for a Christmas present. Many great recipes from everyday cooks around the country! This recipe is credited to Michelle Goddard of Memorial Baptist Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Anna almost didn’t get to make these the other night when I realized that I had no cream of tartar, called for in the recipe. I decided to just go ahead and let her try them without it and see how they turned out. I am happy to report that they were just fine, delicious in fact! And Anna was quite proud of herself as she served them to the family. Here is the recipe ~

Snickerdoodles

1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Additional sugar and cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cream the shortening, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy. Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Add to the creamed mixture. Stir in the vanilla extract. shape into balls the size of walnuts. Roll each ball in cinnamon/sugar mixture. Bake on a cookie sheet for 10 minutes; watch carefully so they don’t burn. Makes 5 dozen cookies.

This was a good learning recipe for Anna, and she had a great time with it!

Blessings,
Nancy

Of Hives and Honey

Yesterday we visited a beekeeper’s honey extracting facility. A young man from our church has his own honey business, and he explained the entire process to us. He has been beekeeping for a number of years and transports his bees all over Texas to extend the “honey” season. He explained a little bit about how the hive operates and showed us some live bees in the process of making honey and tending the hive .

There were stacks of trays like these filled with honeycomb and honey waiting to be extracted -

The trays were placed in a machine which opened up the comb so that the honey was exposed. Then the trays were moved to large cylinder which spun them around releasing the honey to drain into a pipe which took it to another machine where the comb was separated from the honey. The pure honey was then moved to another vat from which it was poured into a bottle ready to be sold. We were all allowed to dip our fingers into the raw honeycomb and taste the delicious natural honey -

It was a fascinating field trip, and I’m sure I will be remembering it for awhile – every time I mix some honey into my bread dough and every morning when I squeeze some of that sweet honey onto my toast.

And yes, dear sister, you will be receiving a bottle – complete with comb – the next time I see you

Have a nice day!

Blessings,
Nancy

An Apple a Day

Last week our study in My Father’s World with Anna and Michael (and David, of course) was on apples. We read some good books, and made some simple, fun crafts. Here is a sampling of the things that we did ~

We read this book about apple trees and how they grow apples ~

We discussed the fruit that God can produce in us when we follow Him and abide in Him. We made construction paper apples with our Bible lesson on it ~

We read a story out of this book about a grasshopper who takes a bite out of an apple that turns out to be the home of a worm ~

We then drew new apple homes for the worm, complete with stairs and furniture ~

We made apple trees by tracing the children’s hands on brown paper to make the trunk and branches. We then cut out a green top for the leaves and painted red apples on the trees with fingers dipped in tempera paint. David couldn’t stop with just a few apples and ended up painting his entire tree red! ~

Finally, we read this book ~

We really enjoyed this story, and it will be one that we read over and over again. It follows Arnold and his apple tree through all of the seasons of the year. We drew pictures of the tree in each season ~

We are all looking forward to our own apple trees getting big enough to produce apples! ~

Blessings,
Nancy

Snowy Day Lapbooks

We finished our Snowy Day lapbooks this week. I did these with Michael, Anna, and David. The lapbooks were centered around two snowy books – “The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats and “White Snow Bright Snow” by Alvin Tresselt, as shown in the picture above.

We read the stories and then completed the activities for our lapbooks. We took our time with this one, completing one or two activities per day.

If you are wondering – What exactly is a lapbook? – it is a way to record the information that you learn as you study just about any topic. It is recorded in little booklets with writings and drawings that are then glued into the lapbook. When finished, a lapbook is a great keepsake for the kids, that they love to look back at throughout the years. I purchased and downloaded this lapbook from one of my favorite Lapbooking sites – A Journey Through Learning – I love their graphics! You can find out more about lapbooking by visiting their site.

“A Snowy Day” is one of my all time favorite winter stories to read with the children, and our lapbooks documented the many fun activities that Peter had on his snowy day.

I had not read “White Snow Bright Snow” before, even though it was sitting on our bookshelf. It was a very sweet story about how the snow affects all of the people in the town – the postman, the farmer, the policeman and his wife, the children, the animals, and even the houses and buildings of the town. It ends up showing how things change as spring approaches – a delightful book!

Both lapbooks were glued together to make one large lapbook which looks like this folded out -

I loved some of the special touches that the children gave their pictures, like the eyelashes on Anna’s snowman snowgirl? -

And the snow on David’s tree -

We had fun putting these together. David was sad to see the end of it – he loves cutting and pasting. I am all set with a new one for next month for all of the kids this time. It is a lapbook on the Winter 2010 Olympics, which promises to be lots of fun as we study different events and record the medal winners in our lapbooks.

Blessings,
Nancy

One of the things I love about homeschooling . . .

is this ~

I assigned Laura the book “Calico Captive” by Elizabeth Speare for History reading on Thursday. She was to read one chapter each school day until it was finished. I expected this to be sometime after Thanksgiving.

Thursday afternoon she reported that she was in the middle of chapter 10. The book had caught her and she was a captive herself. Friday morning she announced that she had finished the book before she went to bed the night before.

Did I mention that there are 23 chapters in the book?

I love that homeschooling offers my children the opportunity to fall in love with a book that they never would have picked up on their own and the flexibility to read it all the way through without having to wait for the rest of the class.

Blessings,
Nancy

Autumn Haiku

One of our final assignments in our Fall lapbooks yesterday was to write a Fall haiku poem. A haiku poem consists of three lines and each line has a designated number of syllables. I only required the older children to write their own, while I had the younger ones copy the ones that were written. It turned out to be a very fun experience for all. In no time, Tommy and Sarah had turned out two wonderful poems which they added into their lapbooks. I thought I’d share them with you here ~

First Tommy’s poem ~

Leaves changing colors,
Scarecrows in the fields of wheat,
Harvest time is here.

The syllable requirement for this assignment was 5 syllables in the first line – 7 in the second – 5 in the last. A haiku poem does not have to rhyme, although Sarah chose to make her’s rhyme. Here is Sarah’s poem ~

The pumpkins are here,
And everywhere there is cheer,
Harvest time is near.

I wrote one myself to put in my lapbook (I always make one along with the kids – it’s too much fun to miss out on!). My poem centers around a kitchen theme ~

Pumpkins, apples, spice,
Cinnamon, ginger and cloves,
Autumn baking day.

This activity was so much fun and fairly simple that I think that we will try writing some more about different subjects – nature, history, Thanksgiving, etc.

Blessings,
Nancy

Our Homeschool ~ Charlotte Mason Style

Over my 14 years of homeschooling, I’ve tried a lot of different approaches and curriculums, but even from the start, I always had an idea in mind of what I wanted our schooling experience to be like. It would be Christ-centered, simple, nurturing, and would encourage a love for learning. My love for books – especially storybooks – fit in beautifully. As I read more over the years about different methods of homeschooling, I saw that I agreed with many of the ideas that Charlotte Mason wrote about in the late 1800′s. Some of these ideas included copywork for writing, reading of great ideas in living books, narration, short lessons, and nature study. I have been incorporating several of these into our homeschool for the past 5 years or so.

This year, the Lord has taken us a step further in our journey. I have added in some new studies on a regular basis that always seemed to fall through the cracks before. Some of these include artist and composer studies, Shakespeare, nature stories, and character studies. Another difference is that we are reading living books for science, history and geography that take us on wonderful journeys every week.

Here is our weekly schedule as it stands right now – I’ve been tweaking it since September 1st, but for now, this is working for us. Every day we do:

Bible & Scripture Memory
Read-aloud classic novel
History (M-Th)/Geography (F)
Copywork
Spelling
Reading (independent assigned)
Phonics (Anna)
Math

Some of these we do together, and others are done independently. Tommy and Sarah also add in a short daily grammar exercise.

In addition to the subjects we study daily, we have others that are only studied from 1-3 times a week -

Monday – Poetry
              Science (older kids)
Tuesday – Character studies
              Composer study
              Shakespeare
Wednesday - Missionary story
                  Nature Stories
                  Science (older kids)
 Thursday – Artist study
                 Drawing
Friday – Book of Centuries (Timeline)
            Map Drill
           Science (older kids)
           Nature Study (outdoors)

Along with these, I am doing the Bible/Science (fun) portion of My Father’s World Kindergarten curriculum with Anna and Michael – this includes many classic children’s stories and fun, easy crafts set up around the alphabet (A-Apple, B-Butterfly, C-Cow, etc.) four or five days a week.

Does that look like a lot? Well, it is, but remember – we do all of these in short lessons, many about 15 minutes each – some less, some more. We average around 3-4 hours for our school day, although that may not be all at once, depending on life – it may be spread throughout the day, and if we don’t get to something, I either make it up later in the week, or start there the next time we are scheduled to do that subject. Also, not all of the children do all of these studies – Anna does the least amount, being Kindergarten age this year. Michael joins us for most subjects, but isn’t doing formal grammar yet or Shakespeare. Laura (10th grade) does most of her work independently, except for a few of the family subjects. In fact, the 3-4 hour day usually refers to my time, as I work with each of the children individually and as a group.

I have really enjoyed this year so far, and feel like we are having the richest learning experience we’ve ever had. We have laughed over Shakespeare, enjoyed classical music, travelled down the river with “Paddle to the Sea”, gone into outer space as we study the planets, had fun with drawing exercises, marveled at Monet paintings, and spent a little time each day in the Big Woods with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I hope to share more about each of our studies, and how we do them, in future posts.

Blessings,
Nancy