Crunchy and Green

Still Life With Apples

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 21 Sep 2015 22:47:00 +0000

As part of our study of apples last week, we looked at Vincent Van Gogh's Still Life With Apples.

Miss M wanted to do her own, so we set her up a grouping to draw.

Here is her final result!

It was done with oil pastels on watercolor paper.

This Moment: Science

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 13:15:00 +0000

This boy loves all things science and asks if we can do something every day. After Miss M finished a recent experiment in chemistry, he had fun playing with the leftover materials (all kitchen items and safe).

Teaching Art with Picture Books

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sun, 13 Sep 2015 13:05:00 +0000

Miss M loves art, and can often be found drawing and creating at her desk. One of the resources we are using this year is Teaching Art with Books Kids Loveby Darcie Clark Frohardt. This book teaches kids about the element of art through the use of favorite children's books.

The first lessons are on the use of line. We discussed Mirette on the High Wireby Emily Arnold McCully and focused on the use of line in the book. Miss M did this tissue-paper collage to go along with that. She wanted to convey the feeling of happiness, so she chose primary colors and horizontal lines.

Then we read The Girl Who Loved Wild Horsesby Paul Goble. There were several options for go-along projects, and Miss M made this piece.

We are all really enjoying this book and learning the elements of art through favorite picture books and hands-on projects.

(This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you purchase something through those links at no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed on this blog are solely mine. I only recommend items we have personally used in our home and found helpful.)

Studying the States: Delaware

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 21:58:00 +0000

We are going to be studying the fifty states this year, going in the order they joined the union. That made Delaware first up. We used F is for First State and Don't Know Much About the 50 States as our spines but added many more books found at our local library. Miss M did some notebooking, as well as memorizing the state capital, abbreviation, flower and bird. She also watched this YouTube video.

We studied the horseshoe crab (Delaware's official marine animal) using several books from our library. Our favorites were Crab Moon and High Tide for Horseshoe Crabs. We made a horseshoe crab using the template found here.

Next up was the Lenape Indians. She did a coloring page and watched several videos from this website.

Miss M wanted to make a dessert from Delaware, but none of us like peaches (peach pie is their official dessert). So, she made jello with cool whip since Kraft has a large presence in Delaware.

Donuts & Ice Experiments: Farmer Boy Unit Study

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 16:05:00 +0000

We are continuing on with our Farmer Boy studies. For chapter seven, we made donuts. Since The Bug has Celiac, I modified a recipe to be gluten-free, and was pleased with how well it worked out.

Frying in the oil just like in the book. I did this part while they watched from a safe distance.

Finished donuts, rolled in cinnamon sugar.

Miss M and The Bug enjoying the donuts we made.

Chapter six dealt with cutting ice and storing it. Miss M was very surprised when we read that the ice blocks would stay frozen all year packed in sawdust. This called for an experiment! We put ice cubes wrapped in aluminum foil, wood shavings (our closest to sawdust) and bubble wrap outside and checked every 10 minutes to see how fast they melted.

We used plain cubes not wrapped as our control. The kids were surprised to see that the wood shavings did indeed keep the ice from melting for several hours.

The Fuzzy Caterpillar

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 03 Sep 2015 15:35:00 +0000

When I was looking at pictures my husband took this past weekend, I found this shot of The Bug. I love how closely he is investigating the fuzzy caterpillar on the bench.

This is one of the many reasons we do nature study in our homeschool, to cultivate that curiosity and appreciation for God's world around us that is inherent in our children.

Portland & Eagle Project: Weekend in Review

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 02 Sep 2015 03:24:00 +0000

This past weekend was a busy one - I went to Portland for a girl's weekend to celebrate the milestone birthday of a close friend, and The Boyscout completed his Eagle Scout project. While in Portland we did many things, but one of my favorites was a visit to The Grotto. Formally knows as The National Sanctuary of our Sorrowful Mother, The Grotto is a national Catholic shrine and botanical gardens.

One of the many statues set throughout the property.

Stations of the Cross set into stone walls throughout the lower walk.

If you are ever in Portland, I would definitely recommend a visit to The Grotto.

With the help of many volunteers and family members (thanks Mom, Dad and Uncle Dusty), The Boyscout successfully completed his Eagle Scout project this weekend. He cleared a 1/2 mile nature trail and built an outdoor amphitheater near a stream for the local elementary school. This will allow the kids at the school to have outdoor time in nature as part of their regular lessons.

The completed amphitheater, one part of The Boyscout's Eagle Project.

The Boyscout (and The Bug) at the end of the project.

The Eagle Project day ended with a major storm here in the Pacific Northwest which left us without power for two full days. Not quite the end we had in mind, but just part of what made such a memorable weekend!

Recreating Picasso's Three Musicians

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 19 Aug 2015 22:50:00 +0000

When we were at the library earlier this week, The Bug selected a picture book called Lumpito and the Painter from Spain by Monica Kulling. I know he picked it just for the daschund on the cover, but it was a good find. This is a cute story about Pablo Picasso's dog Lumpito, and how he ended up with the painter.

The book ends by talking about how Lumpito appeared in some of Picasso's work, including The Maids of Honor. So naturally, we had to go look at the original painting, which led to a refresher on Pablo Picasso.

We wanted to do an art project, but we had already done Picasso-style self portraits. Instead, we decided to make our own version of Three Musicians.

Three Musicians, 1921 by Pablo Picasso

The kids cut geometric shapes (being sure to use straight lines and angles) from construction paper in colors similar to the original. They glued them on to form their own musicians. I found the original idea here in Parents magazine.

Miss M's version of Three Musicians

The Bug's version of Three Musicians

This was a bit too complicated for The Bug, although he did enjoy cutting. It was a perfect project for Miss M.

(This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you purchase something through those links at no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed on this blog are solely mine. I only recommend items we have personally used in our home and found helpful.)

Milking Cows & Tin Lanterns: A Farmer Boy Unit Study

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 17:00:00 +0000

One of the things Miss M is doing this year is an unit study on the book Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have my Little House Series from when I was a child and have been waiting for her to get interested in them. Finally, that day is here. She is doing the vocabulary and discussion questions from Memoria Press, but we wanted to add a little bit of hands-on also.

We enlisted the help of The Boy Scout to milk a cow like in chapter two. Since we don't have real cows, I filled a rubber glove with water and poked a pin in the fingertips and he held it while they practiced milking. I was surprised how much fun they had with this one.

Tin lanterns were another project we did. We washed out two cans after I used the contents for dinner. (I used a safety can opener so the edges were not sharp). We drew designs on them with a sharpie,

and then hammered a nail into the can along the design (while wearing safety goggles).

When they were done we put a small tea-light candle inside and moved them to a room without any windows to see them glow.

We ate popcorn and apples for a snack (it was too warm for a fire) like they did in chapter 3. Miss M tried the experiment of putting a full cup of popcorn into a full cup of milk and was pleased to see that it didn't spill.

We have only read the first four chapters, but they can't wait to see what happens next.

**These are NOT affiliate links.**

First Day Back to Homeschool

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 00:23:00 +0000

Today was our first day back at school. Usually we school year-round, but this year we took the summer off for our family's much-anticipated trip to Europe. The Boy Scout will be attending our local high school (as a sophomore) this year, and he doesn't start for a few more weeks, but the rest of us were READY!! Miss M is in Third Grade this year, and The Bug is in Kindergarten.

The Bug working on a phonics game from All About Reading Level 1.

Miss M reading from Our Life With Jesus (Faith & Life 3). This will be her First Holy Communion year and we have lots of different resources on hand to prepare her.

Miss M making her shadow-clock.

One of the things we are trying this year is to give Miss M some projects that are completely her own. One way we are doing this is through DIY.org. She chose to work on the Astronomy patch and has already completed two projects. For today, she logged on and chose to make a sundial for her third. She set the timer and went out every hour to mark the sun's shadow on her paper plate. Simple, but her pride in designing and doing it herself was wonderful to see!

**These are NOT affiliate links.**

Asteroids, the Moon and the Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:00:00 +0000

We are wrapping up our science year with the last few units in Real Science Odyssey's Earth & Space Science. We did the work in the book (including charting the moon phases for a month) but added a few additional activities as well. Science is one of Miss M's favorite topics and she loves when we add hands-on work.

We read about the phases of the moon in several books, and Miss M made a book to help her remember them.

She is working on her Astronomy badge at DIY.ORG and needed to make a model of an asteroid. After learning about meteors and asteroids she made this one out of paper and aluminum foil she spray painted black.

She also did this Parts of the Sun activity I found at The Wise Nest. Miss M really loved this one, and there is quite a bit of information on each phase included.

Next up, we will be making a model of the solar system and investigating each planet in a bit more depth.

Our Weekend In Review

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 00:42:00 +0000

We are reaching that time of year (and age of kids) when most weekends are busier than our weekdays. Thank goodness this was one of those sunny, warm weekends here in the Northwest. On Saturday, The Bug had his very first T-Ball game.

Miss M had her second week of Lacrosse, and her first Jamboree where she played three games in one day. She was tired, but happy. It is amazing to see how much she improves from week to week.

Sunday we decided to drive to Snoqualmie Falls and hike to the bottom for a picnic lunch. The hike back up is fairly steep, and The Bug needed to be carried a bit of the way, but overall the kids did very well and it was well worth the hike for the view!

We did a little nature study along the way, and learned how the Hydroelectric dam worked as well.

Definitely one of my favorite trips we've taken so far.

Nature Walk to Big Four Ice Caves

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 20:06:00 +0000

When we moved back to Washington this Fall, Tony and I said that we wanted to expose the kids to the many nature activities within a few hours drive of home. This weekend we started with a trip to the Big Four Ice Caves in the Snoqualmie National Forest.

It is a four-mile hike. At age 4, The Bug was able to hike most of the trip himself, although he did catch a ride a few times.

There were many fallen logs to explore along the path.

We had very little snow this year, and we are having an unusually warm spring, so there was only one cave left to view, the others had already collapsed. However, it was still magnificent to see and well worth the trip.

This is a hike I can easily see us doing again.

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 28 Aug 2014 12:04:00 +0000

We let the kids pick family excursions instead of parties for their birthdays this year. Miss M chose to go to Fossil Rim Wildlife Center for her 7th birthday. We had gone a few years ago, but both Miss M and The Bug were fairly young.

This is a drive-through wild animal park where you can feed the animals from your car. It focuses on endangered species.

The kids got to hand-feed a giraffe and it was the highlight of the trip. (It was my favorite part, also.)

The Bug is already asking if we can go back for his birthday next May.

Learning About India Then and Now

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:25:00 +0000

We have spent the last few weeks learning about the country of India. We started with the history of Ancient India, and moved on to the culture that exists today. We read a number of books (our library had many to choose from) and watched several videos online. Miss M also did some hands-on projects:

Hand-made clay bricks similar to those used in Mohenjo Daro. This was a several-day project as we let the bricks air-dry in the sun.

A paper-plate peacock, the national bird of India. We got our inspiration from The Crafty Chicken.

A tissue-paper lotus flower, the national flower of India.

Examining tastes of India. I laid six spices from India out in dishes and Miss M and The Bug examined them using all of their senses.

Some were tastier than others!

We watched a video of ladies painting henna mehndis, and then Miss M made her own paper version.

Miss M etched styrofoam to make her own seal.

We also did our own version of painted elephants, and the Taj Mahal out of Legos. This was a fun unit study for both of the younger kids. Miss M loves to craft and adding these to her studies really helps bring them to life for her.

Poetry Tea and Feast of the Queenship of Mary

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 22:39:00 +0000

On Friday, we celebrated the Feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary by having a special tea. We placed our lit candle and our blessed icon on the table, read from our Bible and said a decade of the rosary.

Miss M wanted to extend the time by reading poetry (she has been hosting regular family poetry readings every week), and so we grabbed several of our books and spent a pleasant hour taking turns reading poems. Our current favorites are Now We Are Six by A.A. Milne, and anything by Shel Silverstein or Robert Louis Stevenson.

The Boyscout even joined us (he is reading from a poetry for all ages app from his device.)

It was the perfect way to end our school week.

The First Post In Almost a Year

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sun, 24 Aug 2014 01:23:00 +0000

(I am linking up to Weekly-Wrap Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners this week.)

I ended up taking an unplanned blog-break the last ten months. Going from one student at home to three including one in middle-school, plus some health issues and a fussy computer just drained any time or desire I had to blog. However, since this is our family scrapbook, I really do miss having the memories of the little day-to-day things preserved, and I am hoping to return to regularly blogging this year.

Miss M (2nd grade) and The Bug (K4) went back to school in mid-July, although we eased in and are just now up to a regular schedule. The Boyscout (9th grade) is studying right now for several Credit-by-Exam tests, and then will begin his school year the first week of September. (Our public high school goes back on Monday and he wants to stick close to their schedule for now.)

Here is a little bit of what we are up to this last week.

The Bug has been very interested in math lately. Here he is tracing the missing numbers, playing with playdough number mats, building a puzzle, matching up and lower case letters to make ladybugs, making numbers with shape blocks, and driving his car on road numbers. We have also done quite a few pages in our our All About Reading books and worked on a bunch of oral rhyming games. He loves to make up silly rhymes!

(Clockwise from top left:) Miss M is working on a civics unit using America, My Country from Our Lady of Victory (not an affiliate link). We are doing Saxon 3 right now for math, and she insists on timing herself on the fact sheets. Using my rooster-shaped kitchen timer adds some fun, apparently! She is also doing lots of writing, both assigned and creating stories in her free time. Miss M is studying Earth and Space science this year, but you can often find her and The Bug playing with our science tools - in this case our magnets.

As you can see, sometimes she works at her desk, sometimes at the kitchen table, sometimes on a clipboard in our reading corner, and often on the floor. One of the benefits of homeschool is working wherever you are comfortable!

Milk Jug Ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 16:31:00 +0000

My husband saw this idea on Facebook and picked it for the kids to do. It takes a bit of preplanning (we had to save the milk jugs for a few weeks) but otherwise is easy to do.

You need a milk jug that has is washed, dried, and has the cap and all labels all removed from it. Simply draw faces on the cartons with a sharpie marker.

Next, use an craft knife to cut a small opening on the side opposite your face. You need it big enough to fit your light inside. For safety reasons, we used battery operated flickering tea lights (thanks Mandie for the suggestion!) instead of candles.

You can't tell from this picture, but they do shine really well at night. We put them out for our neighborhood Fall Festival last weekend, and will put them out again for Halloween night.

Handiwork: Halloween Pillows

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 17:19:00 +0000

The kids have been asking me for a sewing project, and we decided that Halloween pillows sounded like a fun idea. This project was made up as we went along, but it was easy to do.

First, we decided what our pillows should look like. The Boyscout and The Bug picked pumpkins, Miss M selected a witch hat, and I chose a mummy and Frankenstein for the adults in the house. We took a family trip to the fabric store and selected felt to make the faces of our pillows, and fun Halloween prints for the back.

Next, we cut the felt and backing to 12 inches square. Each child drew and then cut out (or in the case of The Bug dictated the drawing) the features.

I had The Bug glue his face onto the pumpkin and then sewed it on for him later.

Miss M and The Boyscout, however, did the hand sewing for their pillows.

I stitched the backs onto the pillows leaving a small opening for the kids to stuff their pillows.

This took us the better part of a day, but they were so excited with their end results!

Happy Halloween!

Making Corn Husk Dolls

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Fri, 11 Oct 2013 13:55:00 +0000

We are continuing to study the Native Americans, using the American Girl Kaya as our springboard. Currently, Miss M is working on a lapbook comparing the different tribes and their lifestyles. The crafts, however, are still her favorite part.

We followed the directions found here to make corn husk dolls.

We actually took the husks from some corn we bought and dried them ourselves, but you can buy them at a craft store.

The directions were very easy to follow, although Miss M did need some help tying the strings. Not to leave The Bug out, I made him a boy doll at the same time.

Miss M declared this one of our most fun crafts!

Learning With Frog and Toad

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 14:36:00 +0000

Miss M just finished reading the Frog and Toad Treasury (affiliate link) aloud to me, and I wanted to do a small project to extend her reading.

First, we did this character analysis from Step Into Second Grade.

Secondly, I asked Miss M which was her favorite character. After she chose Toad, I had her write to tell me why. It says " Toad is my favorite because he sleeps all the way through November and to tell Frog a story he hangs upside down and pours water on his head."

Then, she made this cute toad craft from Once Upon a First Grade Adventure.

Don't you love how he turned out?

Scarecrow Writing Craftivity

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Wed, 09 Oct 2013 13:00:00 +0000

I saw a cute writing project on pinterest, and knew Miss M would love it. First, we brainstormed a list of things she likes about fall. The she picked three (playing in leaves, pumpkin patches and pumpkin cake) and illustrated them.

The cover to her "Fall Favorites" was a scarecrow. She did all the cutting and gluing herself.

(I asked why she signed her name Miss M instead of her real name, and she told me it was so I could put it on the blog and people wouldn't know who she was! I am not sure how I feel about that.)

When he saw her making a scarecrow, The Bug had to join in. He said his had so many eyes to make it extra scary.

I think these would look really cute as paperbag puppets, so we might have to do them again that way.

Scissors and a School Bus

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 14:00:00 +0000

The Bug is very much into anything involving scissors right now. In fact, we have to watch him as his favorite activity is to cut all the elastic loops for the loom weaving apart!

I was working with Miss M at the kitchen table, and The Bug came over and asked me for some paper. He cut and cut and cut.

After a while, he asked Miss M to cut him two circle "wheels" and asked me for the glue.

When he finished, he had made this cute vehicle.

He tells us it is a school bus. I just love how he came up with the idea and executed it all by himself!

Chemistry Labs at Home

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Mon, 07 Oct 2013 13:28:00 +0000

The Boyscout is in 8th grade, and he has spends most of his school time reading and writing these days. Science is one of the few areas where he has consistent hands-on work. He is using Prentice Hall's Physical Science: Concepts in Action (affiliate link) to do an introduction to chemistry and physics this year.

One experiment we did involved testing chemical and physical reactions. For the first part I gave him three white powders (baking soda, baking powder and corn starch). He added water, vinegar and lemon juice to each powder and recorded the physical and chemical changes.

Next, I gave him two white powders in baggies. One was from a "crime scene" (that was baking soda) and one was from a "suspect's shoe" (that was actually a crushed alka seltzer tablet). The Boyscout had to test them and tell me if they were the same substance or not based on their reactions.

The second experiment had to do with the correlation between changes in temperature and pressure. We heated an empty soda can in the oven for 5 minutes until it was hot. Using tongs, he then placed it open side down into a shallow dish of cold water. The change in the can is instantaneous, and got quite a reaction from The Boyscout!

We have done a few other experiments the last few weeks, but these were by far his favorites.

Tot School: Apples and More

noreply@blogger.com (Amy) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 03:32:00 +0000

The Bug is 3 years, 4 months old.

We have been doing Tot School with The Bug on the days he is interested. Some days, he tells me that his school will be just doing puzzles or watching Leap Frog. Usually, though, he wants to do school like his siblings. (This post contains affiliate links.)

One of his favorite games lately is Camelot Jr. (He copies the patterns from the book, but he is not yet ready to try to solve the puzzles.)

Another day I got out the Who Lives Wheregame and he played it for a long time.

This week he wanted to do apples so I quickly printed the pack from 2 Teaching Mommies and he worked on some of the activities including:

patterning with apples. He was confused by the yellow apples (nobody in our house likes them) so we took a trip to the grocery store to look at the many varieties of apples they had.

We did some of the spin and graph, although he only lasted through about ten spins.

Counting the seeds on the apple was a much bigger hit. The Bug is a getting to be a pretty good counter, and Miss M just informed me that he was able to count to ten for hide-and-seek "without missing any numbers" today.

We also used red and yellow bingo chips to count the number of apples in the tree.

He worked on this upper and lowercase letter match. I only printed letters A through L, and it was a struggle for him but his big sister helped him with it. We also worked on some activities besides apples.

I made some homemade pumpkin pie playdough, and he has played with it a few times.

Painting is always a favorite here, as is doing the cutting and gluing Kumon workbooks.

The Bug rarely colors more than a few scribbles. However, he saw Miss M doing this kitten activity from her All About Reading Level 2, and he wanted the cats. (He loves all animals, but especially cats.) So I gave it to him when she was done, and he happily sat and colored all 12 cats.

We did a variety of other activities (most of them involving movement of some kind like charades and musical chairs) but I didn't get pictures of those.

Since October is Fire Safety month, I think we will be working on that next week. Assuming The Bug is interested, of course!