heart of discovery

our new dining table

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 12:51:00 +0000

Last week we finished up a quick and easy project: A new dining table!

Our old dining table wasn't cutting it anymore. We bought it when we first got married almost 16 years ago. It was just the two of us, and we didn't need anything big. The finish on the tabletop was wearing off and there were plenty of marks that indicated that we have two growing children in the house. They've done their art projects on this table and left paint and glue stains behind. They've done craft projects that left nicks and dents behind. It was a well-loved dining table and has served it's purpose in our family.

For a few years now, I've been ~~begging~~ asking that we start saving for a new dining table. I knew the size and quality that I wanted and I was expecting it to cost thousands of dollars.

Recently, I came across a fabulous website that offers free plans for furniture! And wouldn't you know it, there are plans for dining tables. I immediately printed off the plans to show to my hubby when he got home from work. I was full of excitement and asked him if he thought it was do-able. Yes, he said! YAY! So I dragged him out of the house the very next day to go buy our materials.

It only took 4-6 hours to do all the cutting and assembling. The staining took less than 30 minutes to apply. We let it dry overnight and applied several layers of polyurethane (sanding between layers). Then I painted the bottom part of the table with a satin finish of Valspar's Cake Batter and gave it a distressed finish.

We absolutely love this table! One of the next projects on the list is to make a matching bench and slipcovers with cushions for our old chairs.

Another piece that we plan on building for our dining room is this awesome corner hutch!

This is just one of many many projects on my to-do list. Stay tuned to see what else we build!

my week in photos

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:52:00 +0000

week one ::: earth science: soils, rocks, minerals, and fossils unit study by intellego

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 23:14:00 +0000

I was very excited to find Intellego Unit Studies a couple of weeks ago and I'd like to share my first impressions with you!

I have done many searches on Google for unit studies in the past, but to my dismay, I never stumbled upon Intellego. It was through an email I received from Homeschool Buyers Co-op that I found out about this company as they offer these unit studies at an unbeatable price! Before committing to multiple unit studies through this co-op, I wanted to buy one single study to try out. I had a tough time deciding which subject we'd start with, but since my kids have shown a lot of interest in geology, gems, and crystals lately, I finally settled on the multidisciplinary (for several grades) Earth Science: Soils, Rocks, Minerals, and Fossils.

Because I wanted it quickly, I ordered the PDF file from CurrClick so I could download it directly after purchase (no waiting for my unpredictable mail person to bring it to me).

This unit came as a 153 page file and is packed full with hands on activities, web links to appropriate material, videos, games, and experiments for the kids to do.

At first glance, this Intellego unit study is brilliant, beautiful, and full of color! I've purchased unit studies from other publishers in the past, and I have never been this satisfied with one. First off, the author tells you there is no need to print off the entire unit study. I am over-the-moon about this! Many other publishers put out unit studies that require printing of an unreasonable amount of pages. To me this equates to a lot of money on paper & ink, and a lot of waste -- both of which I don't like. Not at all. So to find out that I only need to print out the pages that I think my kids will benefit from -- well, I am elated.

The PDF file comes with a wonderful clickable index on the left-hand-side of the document.

This is just another fantastic feature of this unit study! Sometimes I get a little frustrated with having to find my place in a PDF file. And this handy index saves me from all that frustration.

The Table of Contents also has clickable internal links.

At the beginning of every chapter there is a materials list for any hands on activity that you may want to do. With the clickable links it is very easy to just go straight to those lists to gather your supplies.

The kiddos investigating a website recommended by Intellego

Some questions that were answered this week include:

How was the earth formed?
When did the earth form?
How has the earth changed over time?
What is earth science?
Why is earth science important?
How does the geological timeline help us better understand the earth's past?

There was even a fun activity where we learned what material from the earth we have in our kitchen. I think the kids got a kick out of that one.

Week one was very fruitful. Our thirst to learn more about geology was definitely quenched and will continue to be for at least the next three weeks. And, of course, the knowledge will be carried with us for the rest of our lives.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope to see you again soon.

one proud mama

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:42:00 +0000

Monkey Boy is a late bloomer. He got his first tooth at age 10 months. He didn't walk until after his first birthday. He didn't talk until he was 3 years old. And he is 8 years old and doesn't read yet. But PeachyPapa and I have always understood this and gave him the time and space he needs to grow.

Over the past few months, Monkey Boy has given us a lot of clues that he is getting ready to accelerate at reading. However, we wanted to give it a little bit more time because his frustration over reading was still fairly high.

Even though he hasn't been reading fluently and he probably doesn't know half the words I have him copy and write, he will still complete pages for his notebooks in order to practice his handwriting. Today, while filling out Pennsylvania's state study notebook page (found in my freebies), he said, "Mommy, what is a motto?"

I asked, "Where did you get that word?"

He looked at me, practically rolling his eyes and said, "It's right here." Pointing to the word 'motto' on his state study page.

Right then I decided that we were going to go gung-ho on his reading today! To. Day. And it wasn't hard. He read all of the -at, -et, and -ap words. Then I put together a quick little spelling test, and he spelled every word correctly. I was so proud I almost cried. I knew he was ready. I knew it.

spelling words: dad, dog, cat, ham, van, nap

He was proud, too. He gave himself a star.

Small victories.

getting ready for the new year

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:28:00 +0000

I've just been busy planning for the new school year! Usually, we like to homeschool year-round, but this year, I wasn't prepared and we were so busy. We plan to start again in the middle of August -- only about 3 more weeks to go!

If you look along the top menu of this page, you will see that I added our 3rd grade and 6th grade plans for the 2010/2011 school year. I am in the middle of adding links to it and I will most likely be changing our History and Geography plans, but never-the-less, I wanted to get it up there.

A Resources page will also be added to that top menu pretty soon. ::smile::

darks or whites?

noreply@blogger.com (MangoMama) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:22:00 +0000

This is a post from my old blog that I thought I'd transfer over to here. I went back to that blog to read a little bit and was reminiscing over Monkey Boy's dark vs. whites dilemma. Originally posted 3/16/09

We live here:

Yup! In the forest! Well, we actually live in a house, but the house is in the forest. ;o)

So I'm sure you can imagine that a seven year old's white sock doesn't stay white for long.

For a little while now, I've been trying to teach my son how to help with laundry. Today, I asked him to help me look through his hamper to find all of his dark clothes so I could wash them. He picked out a couple pairs of jeans and said, "These are dark." Actually, I wash jeans separately, but I accepted them from him as being dark because... well, they are! Then he pulled out what used to be a white sock that had forest all over it and said, "This is dark." I had to stop him there. I told him, "Yes, it looks dark, but it's supposed to be white, so lets save that for when I'm doing whites." He approved of my assessment and threw the forest-ridden sock back into the basket. I left his bedroom shaking my head and laughing at the same time. Boys! And forests! :o)

Today was kind of a big day in my relationship with my hubby. Since October (when we moved to the forest), my hubby has been living away from home during the work week because the commute from home would be too long. We've missed each other, but understand that sacrifices have to be made. Thankfully, he was able to land a position closer to home and today was his last day at his old office! So from now on he will be coming home every night. We'll be able to eat dinner together every night. We will be able to sleep in the same bed every night! I'm just a little excited. It's been a long five months and I'm so glad to have him home for good.

some free graphic organizers

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:19:00 +0000

I made a two graphic organizers a few months ago to help Dragon Girl write expository essays. And I'd thought I'd share them here with you!

The first one is "blank". I intended for it to be used so Dragon Girl (who is incredibly right brained) can draw pictures of her ideas for her essay in the three middle boxes. The second one is "lined" so she could translate the above pictures into sentences. She really liked these graphic organizers and continues to use them frequently.

Enjoy!

Picture Reading and Writing Graphic Organizer

Reading and Writing Graphic Organizer

x9 facts

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:58:00 +0000

Dragon Girl, 11 years old, is not yet fluent in her multiplication facts. Yep, it's true.

We've been working at practicing them in hands on / living ways rather than trying to memorize them. Dragon Girl seems to be a lot like me in a lot of the ways that she learns things. I'm fairy certain that dyslexia is at play here. Anyhow, I feel blessed (in a way) because I can relate to her when it comes to her differences in learning.

When I was younger, x9 facts were actually a little bit easier for me than some of the other facts because I was able to see all the patterns in them. In this exercise, my hope was that Dragon Girl would be able to see the patterns herself.

We started with:

two green stacks of numbers 0 - 9 (cut 2 x 2 squares)
one orange stack of equations 0 x 9 through 10 x 9 (cut 3 x 4 rectangles)

(I did all the cutting and Dragon Girl did all the writing.)

Dragon Girl laid out all the equations in order. (You can see Copper's nose up in the left hand corner... awww!) Then she solved all the problems.

(My camera had a piece of lint on the sensor (??)... it needed a good cleaning!)

The next step was to examine the problems and products and talk about any patterns we noticed.

After we discussed all the patterns that we could find, Dragon Girl wrote them down on her Handwriting Without Tears binder paper.* I have some math notebooking paper on our computer, but our power was out at the time. Since the paper was so plain, Dragon Girl decorated the page with math symbols and a math rainbow!

The nines are starting to "click" with her and I just love being there when moments like this happen!

*Coming up with an explanation for the patterns we observed was the hardest part for us, but we eventually came up with some sentences that seemed to fit pretty well.

broken washer, mold, new whiskers, and sniffles all around

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:01:00 +0000

Warning: If you have a weak stomach or are such a clean freak that you may have borderline OCD (like me), then the pictures contained in the following entry may not be for you.

Winter, so far for us, has been a doozy!

In November, our washing machine decided that it would like to stop working for us. We are still waiting for the part to come in so MisterRepairMan can come fix it for us.

For some reason I have a fear of laundry mat washing machines. I'm afraid that our clothing does not get as clean. As if clothes being tumbled around in a large metal drum can be any dirtier than clothes being tumbled around in another large metal drum. I'm not sure. Maybe it's the fact that I can set my home washer to 'pre-wash' and 'extra rinse' if I feel like my clothing needs it. Who knows!?

Since my washing machine is broken, I don't go into my laundry room very often these days. It usually works out to be about once a week that I can make it down to the laundry mat and I bring the clothes home to my faithful dryer.

Last week I noticed some markings on the laundry room wall. Well, we keep our teal plastic hampers against the wall in there, so I thought to myself, "Hmmm, those hampers are scuffing up the walls. That's OK. I've been wanting to repaint in there anyway."

As I got a little closer to the marks on the wall, I noticed that they weren't marks at all! MOLD was growing on my laundry room walls! I immediately break out the bleach and start wiping down the wall. At this point, I am not scrubbing, I'm just wiping and the paint (and texture) is simply coming off on the sponge. To make sure that I'm not just losing my mind and I really am not the Incredible Hulk scrubbing paint right off the wall by easily swiping a soft blue sponge across it, I start wiping other areas of the wall. Nope -- paint stays in tact. I start scrubbing. Nope -- paint is still in tact. I come to the conclusion that the mold must be coming from behind the paint. Ugh!

That evening, when PeachyPapa comes home from work, I tell him about our new little dilemma. We both hope that it's not the kids' shower that's leaking into the wall. That would be a huge pain to rip out and have to repair. Another source of the mold would be the water heater, which is in an outdoor closet.

Over the weekend, he gets a chance to investigate. This is what we find in the water heater closet:

In a still image, it's hard to see, but there was a steady stream of water coming out of the water heater. The photo captures the ripples in the puddle at the bottom of the closet.

We immediately call a plumber and are told that the water heater needs to be replaced... today. Ugh! MisterPlumberMan says that he must leave to pick up the new water heater and attend to other jobs, but will be back at 4:00 pm. In the meantime, we need to make it so the mold is dead and does not come back.

PeachyPapa must take out the old water heater and we both need to get busy ripping out all the moist and/or moldy dry wall and spray everything inside with bleach.

Thankfully PeachyPapa is my strong man and can lift up a fairly full water heater out of the closet (which is elevated about 3 feet off the ground) all by himself. The sight behind it was horrifying for us clean freaks!

So we start ripping out dry wall:

You can see the mold on the dry wall that is the wall on the inside of our laundry room. PeachyPapa continues to rip out the dry wall in the closet and I begin ripping out the dry wall in the laundry room. What a chore!

After it is all ripped out, we bleach the heck out of it (!!!) and PeachyPapa incredibly gets everything in the closet repaired before MisterPlumberMan gets back.

I'm so proud of him.

(You can sort of see that we tried to rip up the flooring, too, but found this was going to be an impossible task at this point and with the amount of time we had. So we treated the floor as a subfloor and laid plywood on top of it. In the Spring, we will be able to take the water heater out again and do it properly by taking out the floor and replacing it.)

For now, our laundry room is still torn apart so it can air out and the mold can DIE (!!) and we will finish it next weekend.

On top of all of this, my nephew came to visit us after Christmas (was returned today to Grandma's house) and he brought the sniffles with him. Luckily, the kids and I are getting over it. However, PeachyPapa is just beginning.

Thank you for putting up with the grosso moso moldy pictures. I would like to reward you with a blurry picture of our new lovely:

Her name is Daisy and we got her from a cat rescue. She has long hair, green eyes, and I think she might be part maine-coon.

And here is a picture of our 4 year old cutie that we've had since puppy-hood. He's keeping us company while we were ripping out dry wall.

more math games

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:45:00 +0000

Math is a subject that I am continuously researching on the 'net. I'm always trying to find games or other hands on activities that will make math fun! In addition to the games in my place value post, I'd like to share these with you.

Arithmetic Rummy (and other fun games) -- This is a free printable PDF available through the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose, CA. Just print the cards on cardstock, along with the instructions, and you can play one of several fun math games!

Education World's Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks Math Game Archive -- This great collection of math games may be used to reinforce or teach basic math concepts and can be played using either dice or playing cards.

Calculators for Learning -- This is a short list of activities to teach children how to use calculators, whether it be for checking their work or to just have fun with them!

Math Bingo at Education World -- A list of math games wouldn't be complete without Bingo! This lesson provides Math Bingo game cards and explains how they may be used to practice math skills at all levels.

MathSphere Board Games -- "A superb free collection of board, counter and dice games, including how to play instructions, equipment needed and coloured layouts. These are ideal for printing out in colour and laminating, making a long lasting resource."

Fact-O! -- This dice game can be played with 2 - 5 players and allows kids to practice addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Just print out the cards, grab your dice, and have some fun!

Twenty Five -- This game is just as it sounds. Kids will use playing cards marked 1 - 9 to try to get to 25 by adding or subtracting.

The Game of Pig! -- Marilyn Burns (who wrote about math journaling) put together some great math games about probability for her book About Teaching Mathematics. These games can be played with 2 more players. (One of these games is a solitaire game.) Give them a try!

Blank Playing Cards -- Do you want to make your own game? You can purchase a set of 50 blank playing cards for only $1.75 and do whatever you want with them!

Plain Cards -- If you don't want to draw on a set of Blank Playing Cards, you can download software to create your own playing cards and print them from your home computer! Or, you can design them and PlainCards.com will print them for you.

Classroom Games at Multiplication.com -- This is a list of games to play in a classroom setting, however, most of the games can be played with as little as two people.

Math Games for Primary Children -- This list of games for the younger set will help smaller children get familiar with numbers and counting.

We've played a few of these but haven't gotten a chance to play everything that I've listed here. Let me know if you try any of these and which games, if any, your children enjoy.

'Til next time!

i missed you

noreply@blogger.com (Kimmie) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 23:06:00 +0000

Hello blog! I missed you while I was gone. I'm so sorry I couldn't bring you along with me or keep you updated with the day to day happenings around here. I'm back for some sporadic posting until after the Holidays. And I'll even bring some pictures to show you!

Ta ta for now!

place value

noreply@blogger.com (MangoMama) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:35:00 +0000

Our homeschool math curriculum since we started homeschooling 3 years ago has been Singapore Math. However, lately, I have been trying to transition to living math using Singapore Math as a supplement only. For Dragon Girl, it's been fairly easy because her current studies are fractions and I've been able to find many resources for living math fractions. Thankfully.

Monkey Boy, on the other hand, needs to learn place value before we go any further in his curriculum. It doesn't seem like Singapore offers much for teaching place value and PeachyPapa and I could only think of one activity to show him place value.

I mentioned this on a message board that I belong to and I got several responses including a great idea from the mama at Red Mountain Academy involving a "ones house", a "tens house", and a "hundreds house". (Which then opened the conversation for using an idea from Math U See, which I don't know much about, called "decimal street".)

Much of my day has been spent perusing the internet for living math ideas and I didn't find that many great activities for place value, but I do want to share the ones that I did find:

Place the Penguins -- This adorable game has you place penguins in the ones and tens place in level one. In level two the hundreds place is included in the aforementioned.

Place Value to Thousands at ToonUniversity -- This is a cute game that involves a magic lamp and a correct answer for Bill to get his wish.

Catch 10 -- This is cute, but a little difficult (for me!). You have to be quick to count and quick to click. It's based off of the idea of base 10 blocks and you help a bear make a rod (10 units).

Dino Place Value -- I think this online activity is perfect for beginners. It has only the ones and tens place and it will only go up to 29.

Shark Pool Place Value -- This is another pretty cute one involving base 10 blocks again. The shark reminds me of Lenny from Shark Tales.

These are my place value favorites from all of the online resources I muddled through today. I haven't put them to the test with Monkey Boy yet, so I have no reviews from him. Hopefully, he'll be able to play them within the next week and I'll let you know what he says!

oy... it's been so long

noreply@blogger.com (MangoMama) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:04:00 +0000

Sorry folks! It's been crazy around here and I will try to tell you more about it later. I just wanted to drop in and let you know that I'm still alive and I haven't forgotten about you.

Also, I just now created a blog for me to post links to other places on the world wide web that I would like Dragon Girl and Monkey Boy to visit. The blog is titled Discover Anything and I am working on my first post right now.

More later...

pop rocks

noreply@blogger.com (MangoMama) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 02:06:00 +0000

What a blast from the past! This past weekend we happened upon a great old fashioned candy store and had to pick up some of these! PeachyPapa and I remember these from our childhoods and wanted Dragon Girl and Monkey Boy to experience them.

As children, these little candies are extraordinary!

They make our mouths tickle.
They make us laugh and giggle.
They make kids grin.
They make moms take out cameras.

Did you ever wonder how pop rocks work? How Stuff Works has the answer.

Do you remember that urban legend that we were all told as kids? Can you believe it's not true?

Do you want to make your own? Here's a recipe for chocolate pop rocks!

our journey into living math

noreply@blogger.com (MangoMama) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:36:00 +0000

Like many others who eventually venture into Living Math, I have been hesitant to shift to what seems like a bunch of random games, math story books, and other activities. After all, math is numbers and how can my child learn what she needs to learn about fractions by reading stories?

It all started when I was doing some research on how to teach hands-on Math to my dyslexic/synesthetic 10 year old who stuggles with Math. I was reading several sources that recommended both LivingMath.net (which I had previously read about while in search of good math curriculum for E2 gifties) and the book Family Math.

Hours were spent scouring all of the articles at LivingMath.net. My eyes (and butt) would get tired sitting at the computer, so I would print articles to read on the comfy couch or in bed. I joined the Living Math Yahoo Group in hopes of getting more information on exactly how to implement Living Math into our home. None of these really helped a whole lot when it came to ideas of games to play or how to live math.

The articles at LivingMath.net did help to solidify my decision to try to live math rather than just do math. And there are extensive book lists on this website all sorted by concept, which is incredibly helpful, though overwhelming at times. It took me days, maybe weeks, to pour over all the booklists, match them to our library online catalog, or Amazon.com and figure out which books we might enjoy by reading online reviews and recommendations.

I also bought Family Math, but it was sitting on my book shelf for a rainy day.

Then, as if by some miracle, after weeks of researching (and I wasn't done yet!), I found a resource that I consider one of the best yet when it comes to demonstrating how to make Living Math a reality in our home. I first found Jimmie when I was looking for notebooking pages on Homeschool Launch. I noticed that I happened to be opening a lot of her files because they all seemed to be something I was interested in studying or something we are studying already. I was then led to her blog and found all of her Living Math posts. Then came her Squidoo Lenses and I found a wealth of information there about how she uses it in her home.

Finally (!!), it seemed, I had found what I was looking for! Someone to show me how to do this!

Thank you, Jimmie! I will forever be grateful for this gift you have given to my family and me.

P.S. ~~I just realized that all of the links in my posts are not showing up. I am currently trying to fix this, so hopefully they'll be working soon!~~ All the links should be working OK now! Please let me know if you have any problems. :o)

about us

noreply@blogger.com (MangoMama) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:05:00 +0000

We are a goofy, crazy, crafty, cookie-baking, cupcake-making, gameboard-playing, mess-inducing, try-to-be-green, sort-of-crunchy, learn-at-home, discover-all-we-can family of four.

*PeachyPapa and I are highschool sweethearts and got married in 1995. Three years later, we welcomed our little *Dragon Girl into the world and three years after that we added to the bunch with *Monkey Boy.

*Dragon Girl:

*Monkey Boy:

We live here:

Well, actually, we live in a house ... but the house is in a forest ... and we love it!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you feel like doing it again!

*Names have been changed, just in case you didn't know.