I don’t like to be out of my comfort zone. I mean, that’s why it’s called a comfort zone. I know what to expect, I know what is expected of me, I know how to do the job. It’s comfortable and I can do it with reasonable success. This past year, God has called me to move out of my area of comfort and to try new things.  Some new things, like attending conferences, I was pretty excited to try. Other new things I was scared out of my wits to do– because I knew if God didn’t help me and show up, I was going to fall on my face and be a complete failure.

This week I stepped out of my comfort zone and spoke at my church on Mother’s Day. Putting my thoughts into coherent sentences does not come easy to me. Preparing for this presentation brought me to my knees. It stretched me but also ignited some new dreams and passions into my spirit. If you are curious, you can listen to my presentation: Not Just Surviving, but Thriving and you can view the PowerPoint Presentation as well: Not Just Surviving but Thriving PowerPoint Presentation.

The benefits of being out of my comfort zone:

1. It was an opportunity to experience new things I never would have tried if I wouldn’t have moved beyond my everyday routine.

2. Allowed me to trust God in a new way; fully relying on Him to help me through this new experience, and seeing areas He was growing me to be more like Him.

3. Sharpened old skills and revealed  a couple new talents.

4. Stepping out of  my comfort zone gave me the opportunity to discover new passions and hobbies.

5. Gave me the satisfaction of having tried something new.

6. A willingness to be open to try uncomfortable things more often.

7. Allowed me to see life from a different perspective.

8. Growth– spiritual, emotional, intellectual.

9. It pushed me to do something rather than just sit and think about doing it.

10. Made me aware of how many friends I have who were willing to cheer me on, pray for me, and push me to succeed. I felt very blessed!

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I love books.  Reading is a big part of our homeschool and my desire is for my children to have a love for books too. One child of mine struggles with reading though. I’ve not pushed her and have tried to find ways to help her overcome her struggles. I began to suspect though, that this reading challenge was more than immaturity.  I wondered if she might be dyslexic.

Testing for Dyslexia

Step 1: If you are wondering if your child  shows symptoms of dyslexia,  take the free, online screener from Lexercise.

This test takes less than 10 minutes to complete. I will admit that I was a wee bit skeptical of the screener. I figured it probably had every child who took it not pass and then need the full evaluation. Well I was wrong. There was a group of online bloggers who had their children take the screener. Out of the group, only two of us had children who did not pass the initial test and need the full evaluation. Kris, from Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers is also sharing her Lexercise experience on her blog today.

Step 2:  If your child does not pass the screener, then the next step is to schedule an appointment for a full evaluation.

This in-depth evaluation is not free. You can check the current cost on the Lexercise website.  [For some reason it took me longer than needed to schedule an appointment. I was assuming all dark grey areas were filled and the light grey areas were open. It is the reverse. Open times are dark.]

Step 3:  Meet with your online evaluator.

Our evaluator was Scott. Using Skype and Adobe connect, we were able to have an evaluation done right in the comfort of our own home. Scott was very professional, personable, and encouraging. This evaluation took about 90 minutes to complete. He was fine if my daughter needed to get up and stretch her legs or get a drink. He shared a couple of jokes and tried to make my daughter feel at ease.

There were several portions to the Lexercise live evaluation. My daughter had to read aloud, name pictures, repeat sounds, and turn in a writing sample after the session.

Step 4:  Meet with your evaluator to go over testing results, diagnosis, and treatment plan.

A week after my daughter completed her evaluation, I had a 30 min. online meeting with Scott, our evaluator.  He had a report that showed my daughter’s test results, a diagnosis, and treatment plan options. He explained everything so that I could understand what the scores were revealing about my daughter’s language processing skills.

What I Liked About Lexercise

Honestly, I had a gut feeling that my daughter might have dyslexia for awhile. My problem was finding someone to test for it. Lexercise allows anyone to receive dyslexia evaluation services right in their own home. There’s no travel involved.  This is a huge perk. I also liked:

- live, online testing with a real person
- very thorough evaluation report
- options for treatment (if needed)

Currently we are considering our options for my daughter. Lexercise offers online dyslexia treatment which allows students to meet with a teacher trained in the Orton-Gillingham (O-G) Approach. In addition there are online games, which are part of the instruction. It’s a little out of our budget, but having researched other OG treatment options, it is a fair price– plus you don’t have to travel. What I appreciated is that even though it was apparent from the testing that my daughter could use their services, they did not push them.

If you are wondering if you child has a reading problem, I would recommend trying out the free screener. If a full evaluation is needed, Lexercise is a great option. I was very pleased with the evaluation process and the final report. I felt that much care was given to see the real language processing needs of my daughter. For more information on Lexercise and dyslexia, check out their blog or follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Stop by Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for her thoughts on Lexercise.

Disclosure: I was thrilled to do this review of Lexercise and was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I was not required to post a positive review. Thanks to iHomeschool Network for organizing this review opportunity.

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We have spent the last couple of months observing spring animals and plants. We’ve observed ants, worms, and butterflies. Currently we are observing frogs.

On one of our nature walks, we found a whole little pond of tadpoles. The first time we spotted them, they were just little specks. I was actually surprised there were any alive since they were in a goldfish pond.

The next time we came back, we were surprised at how big some of them were already. We went back this afternoon and they are basically the same size as in this picture above. My oldest daughter brought a jar to bring 2 tadpoles home to observe. She has researched how to care for them and has a little habitat ready.

I will admit that observing frogs wasn’t my plan at all. Who could resist after we found the tadpoles though? So now we are gathering supplies for a frog mini-unit. I’ve been pinning frog crafts, frog activities, and frog resources on my Pond Life Pinterest board. Have you done a study on frogs or tadpoles? Any resources I should check out?

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This past weekend I flew to D.C. to attend a homeschool blogger conference called the 2:1 conference. I had been so busy the days leading up to the conference that I didn’t even have time to think about expectations. I just went. I traveled with Granola Mom 4 God and The DaisyHead. I love having traveling companions! They made sure I got where I was going in one piece.

Kettle Gretel of We Choose Virtues attended the conference too.

When I first arrived at the conference, I felt like I had known these ladies for years! Here I was in the midst of crazy homeschool mommas who also blogged! They understood me!   I was thrilled to catch up with some friends I had met earlier, and loved meeting new bloggers. My favorite part though, was sitting down and talking one on one with bloggers and business owners and hearing their heart for their blogs/businesses. It was a privilege to be at this conference. Apologia is no longer just a company name to me, but a group of amazing people. Grapevine Studies– oh I wish I could have hung out with Dianna longer!  We Choose Virtues– Heather has such a heart for helping parents, educators, and ministry leaders bring virtue training to their students.  Belinda Bullard of A Blessed Heritage put up with me calling her Barb all weekend (I know a Barb Bullard!)    I got to meet Jenny & Linda from Home Educating Family/Virtual Homeschool Convention  and CurrClick Leah– now I know the people behind the avatars.

Click to see individual photos

Here are some of my tweets/retweets from the 2:1 Conference:

There is a danger w/having your priorities out of order-@heidistjohn#2to1Conf

School will go a lot faster & easier if you will just close the laptop.” @heidistjohn #2to1Conf

Develop a POA(Plan of Action) Eliminate time bandits. -Heidi St. John #2to1Conf

It’s not time management, it’s me management -Heidi St. John #2to1Conf

Seek the Lord when ordering your day -Heidi St. John #2to1Conf

Visualize the finish line- May we run the race before us w/endurance. Rachel Carmen #2to1Conf  (homeschooling through highschool talk)

Don’t aim for the head… You’ll miss the heart.  Rachel Carmen of @apologiaworld

Discipleship must come first. Academics are secondary. via Rachael Carmen @apologiaworld #2to1conf

My friend Rachel, at Finding Joy, filled in as a keynote speaker and God used her words this weekend.

“Comparison is the death of contentment.” Great words from @finding_joy at #2to1conf

Where are you on the boat? http://bit.ly/mIi8XN @finding_joy #2to1Conf

“Our identities do not rest in our blogs, friends, or circumstances”-Rebecca Ingraham Powell #2to1Conf

“Nobody can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. God is the only one who can raise up. Give Him the credit.” @2MomSeriously

This weekend was such a blessing! Many thanks goes to We Choose Virtues and WriteShop for sponsoring me.

Related Post:

Live! From the 2:1 Conference

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This weekend I am at the 2 to 1 conference with bloggers from the homeschooling community. It is such an honor to be here! So many people I have interacted with online, I have finally got to meet! You can follow along via Twitter by following hashtag #2to1conf . You can see the conference Instagram feed too: 2 to 1 on Instagram.

Kettle Gretel of We Choose Virtues is a 10! She’s hanging out with me this week at the 2 to 1 conference.

Not only is Kettle Gretel here, but also Heather, the creative encourager behind We Choose Virtues. (If you are are at the 2 to 1 conference, be sure to see Heather! She’s going to be giving away some prizes from We Choose Virtues)

Here’s a special for you! Use promo code SPRING30 for 30% off our Parenting Cards, then add our PDF Coloring Book to your cart for FREE!

I got to meet up with a couple of the Totally Tots team– Jodi, GranolaMom4God, and Sara of Happy Brown House.

And Amber, from 2 Teaching Mommies is such a hoot! I love her! What a great lady.

There are so many other fantastic people! Stay tuned for 2to1 part 2!

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Observing ants in our light-up ant farm has been the highlight of our nature studies so far. Yesterday I shared our ant farm set-up. Today I have a couple of ant activities and a printable paper bag ant journal.

I have a bunch of plastic animals that I like to use for classifying activities, sorting activities, and just plan old imagination activities. We had learned that ants are insects and have 6 legs. So I dumped various types of plastic animals in our sensory bin along with two plastic nets and let my girls play.

The two girls were starting to argue over who gets which animals when my 5yr. old made a suggestion. She told her little sister that she could have all the animals that don’t have 6 legs. [I have a spider sorting mat that could be used with this sensory box]

And she would get all the animals that had 6 legs. I was impressed that she decided to sort all the animals this way without being told. I also had to grin because I also knew that she knew this would give her more animals.

I also had a bag of plastic ants and an ant information flashcard. We used the big ants to go over the parts of an ant: head, thorax, abdomen, antenna, mandible, and legs. We sang a little song to the tune of “The Farmer and the Dell” to remember the 3 main parts of an ant.

Download the Ant Nature Journal Here

I just love using paper bag books as nature journals! It is just the right size for little preschool hands. They also can be customized in so many different ways that no one book will look alike. Our book has ant observation pages, a song page, a cut-and-paste label-it page, and more. Since my posts tend to get photo-heavy, I uploaded the ant journal photos in a slide show. (If you are reading this post in a reader or email, it might not show up. Here’s the direct link to the ant journal pictures.)

Thank you for joining me for my 10 Days of Preschool Science series. Though the official series is over, I will still be posting preschool science ideas on a regular basis. In addition, I have a couple of fun printables coming up. You can subscribe to my blog to keep up-to-date on all the posts.

The 10 Days Series is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutually beneficial projects. Visit us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. And of course, click the image below to visit all the 10 Days posts from these homeschool moms of the iHomeschool Network. You’ll be blessed with tips on how to handle bad days, cultivating curiosity, teaching with Legos, and much much more!

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Usually I do all I can do to keep ants from entering my house, but this month I actually paid for ants to live with us for awhile. For part of our spring preschool science, we have been observing various creatures. Usually we don’t pay much attention to ants. I wanted to allow my preschoolers to see up-close how amazing ants can be.

We purchased the Fascinations AntWorks Ant Farm. At the same time I ordered the farm, I ordered the ants, because I thought they’d arrive on the same day. It’s no fun to get the ant farm and then have to wait for the ants! My ants arrived in a small package and my ant farm hadn’t even shipped yet! Thankfully, my Facebook  friends helped me come up with a Plan B: a mason jar and damp sand. Our ants lived in that habitat over the weekend. When our ant farm arrived, we transferred the ants to the new habitat (that’s why you can see grains of sand in the picture.)

This particular ant farm consists of a special gel that doubles as ant food. The ants are just starting to tunnel in this picture. It was fascinating to watch.

Not only did my preschoolers love to watch, but everyone else in the family too. There was always a chair pulled up to the table to see how far the ants had tunneled for that day. We saw how hard the ants were working! This reminded me of a Bible verse:

6 Go to the ant, you sluggard;
consider its ways and be wise!
7 It has no commander,
no overseer or ruler,
8 yet it stores its provisions in summer
and gathers its food at harvest.

Proverbs 6: 6-8

This naturally brought up the topic of diligence. We could see how diligent the ants were working. We could also see that the ants were cooperating together. We pulled out our We Choose Virtue cards and worked on “I am Diligent” for a couple of weeks. If you haven’t seen these cards, they are available as faith-based or community cards. The cards contain adorable, cartoon kids paired with a special “catch-phrase” to learn about the virtue.

I placed a small jar which held several magnifying glasses so that the children could observe details on the ants. Our ants were harvester ants. It was easy to see the mandible, count legs, and count the ant body parts. One thing we wondered was if the ants had a tunnel plan or if they just started tunneling and wherever it went, it went?

One of the ant books we read while observing ants was Are You An Ant? by Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries. The book taught about ants in a way that captured the attention of my preschoolers. They asked to read this book over and over again, and I often found them looking at the pictures.

After two weeks, our ant farm looked like this. Tunnels everywhere! This was truly interesting to watch. We would not have been able to observe these creatures so easily if we didn’t have this ant farm. This is an activity I know we will do again.

Tomorrow is the last day of our 10 Days of Preschool Science series. I’ll be sharing additional ant activities in tomorrow’s post. Thank you for subscribing  to my blog and pinning all these posts!

The 10 Days Series is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutually beneficial projects. Visit us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. And of course, click the image below to visit all the 10 Days posts from these homeschool moms of the iHomeschool Network. You’ll be blessed with tips on how to handle bad days, cultivating curiosity, teaching with Legos, and much much more!

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I hope you have been gleaning some preschool science activity ideas during the 10 Days of Preschool Science series. Today Ms. Liz, from Fit Kids Clubhouse walks us through making a homemade volcano.

The Clubhouse Kids have been fascinated with Volcanoes ever since we made our lava lamps awhile back, so for our latest Science Adventure we decided to jump right in.

We started by answering the question, “What is a Volcano?”

Actually, I did the asking and they did the answering. The general consensus was,

“Macaynoes are very big mountains with a hole on top!”

“They are green and lava comes out of them!”

“Lava is red and hot so they spit it out!”

We looked at some photographs in our National Geographic Little Kids Magazine and continued our discussion. The pictures showed a wide variety of volcanoes, so we talked about how they come in different shapes and sizes and can be found all over the world, and even on Mars! A volcano you have to take a rocket ship to go see, now that was a hit! After recording some of our thoughts in our Science Journal, it was time to build a “macayno”.

Each Clubhouse Kid is going to make their own volcano, from start to finish, throughout this week. We also have a variety of other volcano related activities, from drawing them to designing our own lava, planned throughout this time. I have a basic idea how this will all unfold, but ultimately the kids will lead the way.

This is the beginning of one Clubhouse Kid’s volcano adventure…

He started by making a salt dough mixture. All necessary ingredients, a measuring cup, and the “recipe” were on the table. He measured out and added one cup of Salt, two cups of Flour, and one cup of warm water, colored green. Green was the agreed upon color for our first volcano.

Once the dough was mixed up (he bypassed the mixing spoon and used his hands for that part, of course) he molded it around a plastic bottle. As he was creating he decided “this needs dirt!”, so he moved his creation to our sensory table, which was already full of soil, rocks and twigs.

The volcano was quickly “accessorized” with dirt, twigs and a few rocks. “The rocks will stop the lava!!” Very well thought out indeed.

Now that the Volcano was built, he peeked inside to find the lava. When I told him we were going to make the lava, he was thrilled! We talked about what lava is and what it looks like.

“It’s RED!”

“It’s hot!”

“It’s like a river coming out of the top!”

Since we will be making a variety of volcanoes throughout the week, we plan on using different “lava” for each of them. This first volcano was going to be filled up with the infamous “elephant toothpaste” recipe all over the internet. Putting a funnel on top, he added around ½ cup of hydrogen peroxide (3%), a few squirts of dish soap and some red food coloring into the volcano.

Aside, he mixed a packet of yeast with a couple of tablespoons of warm water in a bottle. This was the “magic” that was going to make the volcano erupt. With the yeast mixture in hand he announced…

“This Macayno is going to erupt in 10 seconds!”

We had a countdown, and then he poured the yeast mixture into the funnel and stood by excitedly expecting.

As soon as it started to slowly erupt he leaned in and watched closely

Then he ran across the yard to hide. It is always so fun how absolutely involved the kids gets in our experiments. I have learned that Science with Preschoolers almost always incorporates dramatic play. Suddenly we are hiding in wait by a bush, explorers about to experience the latest, greatest volcano eruption.

Although this particular lava did not “explode” in eruption, we did get to watch it ooze and flow and even change colors from red, to white, to red again.

In the end, he rushed to the rescue of all of the onlookers with his water bottle.

“I need to put this hot red lava fire out!”

Volcanoes, Day 1, was a success! The Clubhouse Kids are eagerly anticipating all of the volcanoes, and lava concoctions, we will explore this week. Judging from their excitement, volcano week may last a little longer than a week, and the sensory tables may all end up being volcano villages. That’s perfectly fine with me, since it means we have finally moved on from all that can be done to hard boiled eggs

10, 9, 8, 7, 6… RUNNNN!!

Ms. Liz

Being surrounded by children and elbow deep in play-doh makes me happy. Almost 3 years ago, I became the Mommy who took a hiatus from her teaching career to stay home with my new baby boy. Now, I am the Preschool teacher who can be found running around the Fit Kids Clubhouse singing, laughing, teaching, reading, and always having a good time. Because really, you’re never too old to start a Clubhouse!

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{This post is Day 7 out of 10 in my science series. You can find all the 10 Days of Preschool Science posts here}

Yesterday I talked about taking a nature walk in your own neighborhood or backyard. We do that often, but we also have found other places in town to explore nature. Our local museum has awesome gardens to walk through– and the best part is that it is just minutes away!

With my young children, I have found that it is helpful to have an objective. For this particular nature walk we were looking for animals. How many different animals would we find?

Is this an animal? Nooo… but it sure looks weird! We made a mental note to look it up at home.

We’re going on a nature walk and we’re not afraid! Still looking for animals…

Finally! I spy two ducks! There is a drake and a hen. (See, moments like these are great opportunities for introducing vocabulary. I have printable duck vocabulary cards plus more duck-themed activities under letter D in the ABC section.)

Oh look! Another animal! What is this? Yes, it is a fish! Can you see its fins?

Nature walks aren’t just for little kids either. Can you guess what my older daughters were looking at?

Yes! Frogs! Lots and lots of frogs. Some of the frogs we saw were pretty big!

We also saw at least 5 painted turtles (You can find more turtle printables and activities here.) We thought we’d see more birds, but I think we were a little too noisy.

Printable Nature I Spy Cards

My young children have enjoyed our nature I Spy games. Today I have the I Spy: Animal edition available. I’ve also linked to past nature I Spy cards that we’ve used.

 Download the Nature I Spy Cards: Animal Edition

 I Spy: Spring Edition (This is a subscriber freebie! Subscribe to SpellOutloud and then the link will be in your feed footer. If you like SpellOutloud on FB, you can find it under the gift tab.)

I Spy: Winter Edition

I Spy: Fall Edition

For more information on nature walks and nature journaling, I recommend the following sites:

Cindy has a whole 10 Days Series on the topic of Nature studies!

Barb, from Harmony Fine Arts, heads up this The Outdoor Hour challenges. Sign up for the newsletter for some wonderful challenges and information.

Linking up to:

The 10 Days Series is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutually beneficial projects. Visit us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. And of course, click the image below to visit all the 10 Days posts from these homeschool moms of the iHomeschool Network. You’ll be blessed with tips on how to handle bad days, cultivating curiosity, teaching with Legos, and much much more!

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One of my favorite ways to introduce science to my children is through nature walks. Nature walks allow for hands-on learning, observation, and conversation. Not only that, it allows my children to appreciate and have a love for their natural surroundings.

Nature walks do not need to be complicated. As a mom with three young children, I need to be close to home. In order for my family to plan nature walks in our week, it has to be easy. Many times all my family does is step outside! Our own neighborhood has its own natural treasures to find.

One very windy day, a small evergreen tree caught the attention of my 1yr. old. It was swaying in the wind, almost inviting her to come over and inspect it. She stood there for awhile, just touching the pine needles and smiling. Nature observation happened right in our own backyard (Of course not everything in nature can be touched! Watch small children closely.)

In our area, maple seeds blanket the area. Since these seeds are everywhere we look, I had my daughter grab a handful so that we could observe them. What were these things? Why do you think they have the long “tail”? What happens when we throw one up in the air?

Then we removed the covering to find the seed.  What color is the seed? What do you think will grow from this seed? What does a seed need in order to grow? These were some of the questions that were asked as we observed maple seeds right in our own backyard.

When we were cleaning up our backyard, I lifted a flower pot and found a slug. I called my 3-year old over to see. What is this? Which end is the head? What are those two pointy-things at the top? (optic tentacles) What do you think they are used for?

My daughters have their own paper bag nature journal. The inside pages have a place where they can draw what they have observed on their walk. They can also glue nature items, or collect items and place them in the bag. We have several nature flashcards that were purchased last year at the Target dollar spot. When we’ve found one of the items on the flashcard (i.e. an ant) we place that card in the bag or on the page as a reference sheet. There are so many ways to use paper bag books and they are the perfect size for preschoolers.

You can download the Nature Journal Paper Bag Book Pages Here

Sometimes though, I need to step away and just let my children enjoy nature on their own without the purposeful direction and questions. When I do this, I find they usually come up with questions on their own that we talk about and take time to study later. Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a nature walk game that we like to play plus additional nature study resources.

Missed a post in this series? You can find them all here: The 10 Days of Preschool Science Series

Nature Study Resources:

The 10 Days Series is organized by iHomeschool Network, a collaboration of outstanding homeschool bloggers who connect with each other and with family-friendly companies in mutually beneficial projects. Visit us on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. And of course, click the image below to visit all the 10 Days posts from these homeschool moms of the iHomeschool Network. You’ll be blessed with tips on how to handle bad days, cultivating curiosity, teaching with Legos, and much much more!

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