Our School Area 2011

 

We are not lucky enough to have a school room, but we are lucky enough to live in a learning environment.  We learn anywhere and everywhere.  Let me take you on a tour.  Beware, I did not clean it for these photos, this is real life baby!

 

Our Front Room

We love our couch.  It is a Sactional.  Which really is the coolest couch around.  We set it up for movies, discussions, reading parties, and we even build forts out of it. 

We also have our computer station in the corner of this room.

I also have a bookshelf that has the current books we are using, along with some others thrown in there.  I rotate the books on this shelf every couple of months.

 

 

Tyler has a play area here as well.

We keep Tommy’s telescope right here, near our front door for quick set up.

Our Kitchen/Dining Area

We do most of our bookwork/ worksheet/ science/ art at the table.  

 

I also have a kiddie table just right for Katey and Tyler, they do many things there, from eating sometimes, to art, to worksheets, coloring, puzzles, and even sleeping.

We have a island that divides the front room and kitchen.  My laptop usually sits on that, and if the kids need to be separated then I send one of them to the counter.

 

Under the counter is where I store our workboxes.     

Upstairs

The kids’ bedrooms are upstairs, they do some reading and such in their rooms.  I also have a big storage closet up here, which I am ashamed to show you.  I assure you it is on my to do list to clean out and organize that thing. 

 

  

In my bedroom I have a Lovesac, which the kids love to read on.

 

 

My closet is where Tommy works on his models.  It is perfect to keep little kids out of. 

I also have a smaller coat closet upstairs, in the bottom of it I have a big drawers which is where I store many manipulatives, flashcards, beans, misc. things.

 

Outside 

We are a huge outdoors family.  We love to learn outside. 

 

The kids have a secret hidden fort back here, can you see it?

We do tons of reading and nature study in these chairs on the lawn. 

When we need some shade we move them into the garage. 

 

Well that is the grand tour of our major learning areas.   

 

This is linked up to Heart of the Matter’s Not Back to School Blog Hop.  To see other cool learning areas be sure and check it out. 

Tot School 25 Months

This week I didn’t have anything actually planned for Tyler, we just went with it. 

 

He watched mama sew a hard part on Emily’s purse while eating his fruit snacks.

He got so warn out he fell asleep eating crackers and cheese.

He dressed up our bears.

As soon as he found out Emily was giving herself a pedicure he got it.  He literally stepped on her feet to get one. She was nice and let him in for a minute.  He loved the jets blowing on his toes.  He even had to put lotion on his feet like her, and paint his toenails.  (We did clear)

He got so tired playing with his cars while waiting for Katey at swimming lessons.

He had a meltdown.

We solved the meltdown by doing a quick craft at the rec center.

 

He was a very happy boy after that. 

We colored some Cars pages from Disney Jr.

He had a water party.  He loves it so much when we do these.  I just fill up a cooler get out some cheapo measuring cups and a mug for him to play with. 

Later that same night (while dinner was in the oven) we had a bubble party.  “Bubble” is his new favorite word. 

I absolutely love and highly recommend this “no spill” bubble jar. 

He had a hard time blowing from far away and he kept getting bubbles in his mouth. 

 

So Emily was so nice and decided to blow the bigger bottle for Katey and him. 

I am so in love with his face in these pictures.  It just shows such a pure amount of joy.

 

To see what other tots are doing check out Tot School over at 1+1+1=1

Week in review 8/5/2011

This week has been pretty exciting over here at our house.
Just a reminder that we take the Summer slow and easy in order to enjoy lots of unplanned learning.

5^th Grade
  We got Emily’s curriculum and got it organized.  She has even began working in it. 
Language Arts
For Literature she has chosen and began reading her first book of the year, Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary.  She has also been reading some short stories and thinking about the morals of the story. 
She has been continuing to read in Painless Grammar about Commas.  (A section I think I need to read, I love using commas, sometimes a little too much!)
Math
She has been moving right along in Life of Fred Fractions and Math U See Epsilon. 

Fun Stuff/ Art
She made a portfolio out of 2 poster boards and duck tape, of course.  She also has done many new duck tape creations, her latest is a tie. 
We did some sample art lessons in K12

We built a lie detector with Snap Circuits which is an incomplete circuit that you complete with your fingers.  To make it more interesting, I had Tommy and Emily each put one finger on one side and then touch each other to see how they would complete the circuit.  




K/1^st Grade
Language Arts
She has been continuing her lessons in Hooked On Phonics Level 2.  We are adding in quite a few sight words now.  So we do a quick flashcard drill of those daily. 
Math
She has been loving doing the addition wrap ups.  We also have been working on writing 6’s and 9’s, she continues to get those two transposed. 

After dinner when the while the other kids are showering Katey has been asking to work in a workbook.  I have her in a Kindergarten workbook for now, but will soon be moving her up to the 1^st grade one. 

Fun Stuff
Every day we play Brain Quest t Grade 1, before breakfast, once she gets 10 right we eat.  She really enjoys this routine. 


Katey has also been taking swimming lessons every morning. 
One day after swimming lessons they had a craft set up at the rec center, so we chose to participate.  We made visors. 

Tot School
What the two year old has been up to can be seen posted here.

7^th Grade
Tommy really has had quite the full Summer and it’s not over yet.  He has been home for a few days this week and during that time he has been working on his model engine. 

He got the crankshaft and cylinders done.  He has been reading in Little Brother.
 
He made some Banana muffins using a recipe with no help from anyone, and they turned out delicious.  We got the recipe from Cat Can Cook.  I love the recipes from there, they are always so easy. 


Everyone helped him eat them. 

His caterpillar hatched in to a moth. 


In my spare time
I have been reading in How to Have a to have a H.E.A.R.T. For Your Kids, review coming on that soon.   I also checked out Educating the Whole Hearted Child from the library, I have yet to get started on that, but hoping to find some time over this weekend.   

We received Before Five in a Row to review, I have been searching for the first book at our library. Long story short,  I may just have to purchase the book. 

I have also been working on making labels for our workboxes that match our curriculum for this year and I am trying to get Katey organized something similar but simpler than Tommy and Emily’s boxes. 

This post is linked up to the Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Amazing change

 

Remember when Tommy found the caterpillar?

 

It formed a cocoon, and just sat there for weeks.  One day we came home and Paul asked me if we caught a moth in the jar too?  Ummm No! 

Here it is.  That is the black cocoon below it. 

After we took the top off, it slowly climbed to the top.

He got so scared to leave us that he flew right onto my pants leg. 

Not even 5 minutes later we found another caterpillar. 

 

Maybe this time we will be able to see this one emerge.   

Less Mess Bacon Works For Me

Ok, I admit it, I totally stink at cooking bacon.  I never understand that it continues to cook after you take it off, or something like that? 
Plus, I think breakfast is the hardest meal to cook, there are so many things to do all at once. 
This is the way I cook bacon.  I have been doing it this way for over a year now.  Yes, I cook my bacon in the oven. 

Heat your oven to 350 degrees.
Take a cooling rack and lay it on a cookie sheet (you can use your broiler pan instead).  Then you spread out the bacon across the pan.  It’s okay if some overlaps slightly.
Bake it for 20 minutes give or take how done you like your bacon.  Isn’t that about how long it takes to cook the pancakes, hash browns and eggs? 

PERFECT BACON!  

Easy peasy clean up too! 

This works for me, and is linked up over at WFMW at We Are That Family. 

Quick art for tots, and more.

Art projects are so fun.  I decided to put together a quick art day for Tyler.   I cut some simple shapes out for Tyler and he glued them onto a paper.  This was his very first time gluing. 



It was such a hit, that I put together an art day for the older kids too. 

Emily and Katey both did sample art lessons from k12.

Katey did the Kindergarten lesson, a vase with flowers.

Emily did the 5th grade lesson, a Native American Button Blanket.


This was a great way to try out a free lesson.  They really enjoyed it.  Since we haven’t really done a formal art curriculum before, this was nice for us. 

Finally, We have eggs!

That’s right our Leghorn hen and our Golden sex link have been laying eggs. 



How do I know who it is?

Well two reasons. 

One is because our Leghorn is the only hen we have that lays white eggs. 


We have 2 Americana’s that lay blue and green eggs, and 2 sex links, one golden and one black, they lay brown eggs.

The other reason, is because we saw her laying.  We would open the lid and she was just sitting in the nesting box.  A few minutes later, she got up and there was an egg. 

It has been very exciting for all of us. 

We got our hens on March 10, 2011, they were approximately 1 week old then.  We got our first egg on July 19, 2011. 

To see our chicken story from the beginning, check out our Family Farm posts.