States & Regions: Midwest Week 1

We are now back to learning about the 50 states once again. The midwest section or otherwise known as the heartland of America or the Breadbasket. We had to condense some this week in our learning due to the Presidents holiday on Monday. I will give you a quick review of our week.

Tuesday we played hookey with friends in the afternoon. There was a field trip scheduled that day to a farm but it was canceled due to rain. We met up with a friends at Mc Donalds to have the kids burn off some energy.

Wednesday I read some books on North and South Dakato. The kids did their state pages for each of these. I attempted to read them a book on Mount Rushmore but they were misbehaving so I had them each read a book and recite back to me and color a page of Mount Rushmore. They were not happy with this they love to relax and hear Mom read. Hopefully they will learn for next time.

Thursday was our Konos co-op day. The pictures that you see here are from it. The kids learned about corn. They had to label a corn plant and a kernel. The kids disected a kernel and looked at it under a microscope. This was so cool. My friend has a microscope that displays the picture on her TV set. The kids enjoyed seeing the germ up close. Then she had the older kids calculate how many kernels were on an ear of corn. She pointed out that this is useful for farmers when calculating how much their farm will produce.

After lunch she read a book about Mount Rushmore. My oldest son was well prepared having had to read the Mount Rushmore book the day prior. Then she had the kids reconstruct Mount Rushmore out of clay. It was a fun day of learning with friends.

Friday the kids learned about Kansas. They learned wheat products by searching our cupboards for items of wheat. I plan on doing a little more with wheat next week as we continue or midwest studies. We still need to watch Wizard of Oz for some added fun.

Here are the book list that we read this week:

- Welcome to the USA - Ann Heinrichs

- River Friendly River Wild -Jane Kurtz

-Welcome to the USA South Dakota -Ann Heinrichs

- Rushmore - Lynne Curlee

-The Cabin Faced West -Jean Fritz

-Farming - Gail Gibbons

-S is for Sunflower: A KAnsas Alphabet - Devin & Corey Scillian

- Corn Belt Harvest- Raymond Bial

- Climbing Kansas Mountains- George Shannon

God's Blessings to you. Have a great week learning with your kids. Enjoy a piece of bread or some corn and thank those midwest farmers for all their hardwork.

Civil War Unit Week 3

I know some of you have been waiting to see our lapbooks that we made on the Civil War. They are not entirely finished but I figured we can add more to them in the years ahead. Don't ever let that discourage you in beginning a project such as this with your kids; the completion of a project that is. Things like this will become treasures and can be revisited and added to throughout your homeschooling years. With that being said here are some photos to share with all of you. I want to add that most of the ideas that you'll find on this particular post are not mine. I ordered a CD from Knowledge Box Central that they carry on making a Civil War lapbook. I simply selected which items I wanted the kids to do and printed them off and added colorful

construction paper.

Next time I will try to purchase some more colorful file folders. One helpful hint is if you go to the Knowledge Box Central website and sign up they send you a free downloadable every Monday. A few weeks ago I received one on Mary Cassatt. I am looking forward to adding that soon to our studies.

My kids really enjoyed the Grant and Lee tic tac toe board. I hope this will inspire your creativity. Go on and have some creative fun with your kids. It is a great way to reinforce their learning.

Here is the list of books we read.....

-Ulysses S. Grant -Susan Bivin Aller

-Stonewall Jackson: Confederate General by Martha Henson

-Abraham Lincoln-Koral

-Abe Lincoln Goes to Washington 1837-1865 -Cheryl Harness

-Picture Book of Federick Douglass- David Adler

-Heroes of History: Abraham Lincoln A New Birth of Freedom -Janet and Geoff Benge

Something New in Homeschooling....

Hello Everyone,

I have a quick something to share with all of you. It is called The Homeschool Lounge. It was created by Tiany and her husband at Less Than Me More of Him. It is a great and sake place to meet fellow homeschoolers from around the world. Please stop by for a visit. Grab a cup of something warm and join in on the fun! Hope to see you there. Here is the link....

Civil War reenactment

My family and I traveled back in time to meet and greet some important faces in our US history this weekend. History came alive for our kids. The memories and impressions will last a lifetime.

We just got back earlier this evening from a Civil War reenactment. It was a great way to celebrate Presidents Weekend holiday. Here are some pictures to share....

My youngest son enjoyed having his picture taken with his Union General. He really loved to play the part and was ready to report for duty.

My oldest son was more apprehensive since the his Confederate General looked so real. He really did look so much like Lee.

After listening to the two Generals speak we watched the first of two battles of the day. The guns were very authentic and the cannons were loud.

We also got to listen to President Lincoln reminice about his life, watch him inspect the Union troops before battle and pose for a picture with us. "I never met a president before..Too bad we can't count this one." "Or can we?"

Here are some battle pictures too...

At the end of the day we listened to the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln explained the significance and importance of the speech.

My family enjoyed the event tremendously and look forward to returning again some day again. What a great way to wrap up our Civil War unit.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone reading out there in cyberspace. I have a few great ideas for Valentine's Day to share with all of you. If is too late to do any of these things this year perhaps you can save them for next year.

I found a great idea on No Place Like Home blog to make for my kids this year. She always has such inspirational ideas there. It was for a card. Not just an ordinary card but are card with secret pockets to write special notes on. She has the patterns available on her blog to make one. I made each of my children one and put special coupons inside for a bike ride with Mom and other things like that. They were a big hit with the kids.

Today was a relaxed day of homeschooling. We stepped away from our normal school studies and had fun baking, playing games and reading. After morning devotions with the kids we read a few chapters out of current read aloud about Abraham Lincoln we baked some yummy valentine cupcakes from scratch. My oldest son did all the mixing and measuring and my daughter since she is still fighting a cold I had her read the recipe. Again I found the Red Velvet recipe from No Place LIke Home blog. I didn't have any cream cheese to make the suggested frosting so we made a butter frosting using powdered sugar. These cupcakes were absolutely yummy. Here is a photo to share.

Next, I had the kids find a pair of dice for me. One of the dice I had them cover with animal stickers on each side. For instance, the number one was now covered with a zebra. We used the dice to write a round about story. For example, if you rolled a 6 and a zebra you had to give me 6 words to the story and one of the words had to be a noun. This was a lot of fun. My poor daughter wanted to keep it a valentine mushy story and the boys kept bringing baseball into it. I should have known I have baseball sport brained boys.

The other animals were a tiger( an adjective) a lion (verb), zebra (pronoun) and if they landed on a hippo they got to eat one candy heart and for the monkey they got to eat two candy hearts. It was yummy fun.

For lunch I made them heart shaped sandwiches, with heart shaped cucumbers and sliced apples.

After lunch we played Heart bingo. I found this some where online.I don't remeber where but I'm sure if you do a search you can locate it. We used the candy hearts again playing this game. If they won they got to eat their candy markers.

The kids can't wait for Daddy to come home. They each made him a present to open. It may be a bit late since our oldest has batting cage practice later this evening. Yes, on Valentines day even. Here is a quick peak of Daddy's gift. It's made out of wood. I found the wood piece at Michaels it was already shaped in a heart. The kids painted it and we addd their handprints and a short message.

May God bless you this Valentine Day.

Spring is in the Air....

Look what the California rainy season brought up. Yes, my yellow daffodils bloomed this past weekend. I just love spring. It is my favorite season of the year. I'm a sucker for fresh cut flowers of any sort.

My garden is calling my name. It is saying, "WEED ME PLEASE!" Sadly all the rain we had brought plenty of weeds and grasses into our garden too. I have my work cut out for me out there.

Here is a cute picture to share with all of you of our rabbits. They just love it when we let them run around in the backyard. Most of the time they are caged up. They are two girls Rosedust and Apple. They belong to the kids. My daughter and I have fun dressing them up in her doll dresses. Yes, they allow us to do this. They are very friendly and liked to be held. Apple the darker rabbit doesn't mind dressing up at all. I will have to search for a picture to share with you sometime soon.

All this springtime feeling around here makes me look forward to pulling out all of our Easter decorations this weekend.

Have a great Valentine week. My my daughter has been sick for the past two days. Schooling has been a little rough and she is sad she may miss our homeschool groups valentine party exchange. Poor thing was sick on our churches' Harvest festival on Oct. 31st and now is sick once again on another holiday. My prayer is that she will get better soon and that others in our family won't get hit with the flu bug.

May God richly bless you with His love this week. Jesus is the best Valentine anyone could receive this season.

What a long week it has been......

Yes, I do know it is Sunday. The title of this blog pertains to last week since this week is just beginning. It seems like ever since I became a mother my life has been stuck on fast forward and the button is stuck. Does this sound a bit familar to anyone?? My kids are growing up way too fast and there doesn't seem to be a dull moment around here. I can't imagine what life would be like if we had more than three kids. I have read a few other blogs of families that do and my hat goes off to them. I just don't know how you do it.

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Well this was the week of growing up in our home. My oldest, Chip got his starter set of braces. He is nine years old. Yes, this is a bit young but I guess orthodontic care has advanced since my time. Prior to his installation of braces he has been living with an expander in his mouth since last June. Apparently, his jaw was very small for his age. His teeth were not dropping down. After they put the expander in his teeth started coming in nicely. They took the expander out on Tuesday and began the first phase of braces. Here is a quick before and after photo.


On Friday my youngest, Baba (we will have to come up with another name for him soon) had to get 6 shots. Yes, I did just type six. He was due to have his four year old check about six months ago. The poor thing. I was glad to say that Daddy took him to that doctor appointment. He took him out afterwards for a yummy ICEE.
Needless to say homeschooling ran into a few scheduling problems this week. We did manage to get a few things done. Let me share with you a few highlights of our week with all of you....

On Monday I had the kids begin to make some Civil War lapbooks that I ordered from Knowledge Box Central. I have done a few of these with the kids in the past but this was the first that I ordered from a company. It made our lives a little easier around here. I will post some pix on this soon. We focused our Civil War learning that day on the medical treatment that was available around then and talked about the life of Clara Barton and the dangers that nurses had in the middle of battle. My kids got grossed out at the thought of amputation and were saddened to discover that the majority of the deaths were not due to gun shot wounds but by the spread of disease. Our medical field has come a long way, baby!

On Tuesday I needed to set up a school day a little different. We have been struggling in our homeplate here with attitude and sibling arguments. As a result I had to separate and come down hard on a particular strong willed child to deter them from repeating. This child was removed to another room on Tuesday morning from the schooling of the others. I gave them a list of things that needed to have done for the day. It was called Homeplate Boot Camp and boy I can be one mean Mama when my chicks are having rude attitudes. So instead of having fun with Mommy and the rest of the gang they were separated until further notice. As for the Civil War activities that person had plenty of book reading and paragraph writing to do that day. They did not like this one, one bit.

On Wednesday my strong willed child was still remained in Homeplate Boot Camp. This person is very strong willed did I mention. While the others were pasting stuff inside our Civil War lapbooks and enjoying to listen to Mommy read they were busy working on their long list of to do's and yes that included reading Civil War books and writing paragraphs.

Thursday we had some of a light day around here. My two younger one were fighting a cold. I finshed up a family reading book called Dear America: A Picture of freedom-The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl by Patricia Mc Kissack. Then I had the kids come up with a quick book report of either this book or another that they had read recently and I would tape them. My daughter chose this book and my son chose a Trailblazer book on Harriet Tubman. We did some other light school work and called it a day.

Friday was another shortened day because Mommy and Daddy were leaving town for a quick couple retreat with our church. For the Civil War unit this day I had them write about their Great-Great-Great Grandfather who was a light artilary Union soldier. They were amazed to discover that they had a distant relative who survived the Civil War. I ressearched it in advance with the help from my Mom. He was in Battery C, 1st Pennsylvania light artillery. He enlisted at the age of 19 on June 4, 1864. He took part in 13 battles and skirmishes. One of them being the raid through the Shenandoah valley. He was honorably discharged on July 3, 1865. My kids now want to find other family members. I know we may have have had others and even one that has links to the American Revolution. I have my research stacked up for me.

Thank you for letting me share my week for you. Yes, the get away was fantastic and so much needed.

Here is the list of books we read this week:
Excerpts from:
-Fields of Fury: The American Civil War by James McPherson
-The Long Road to Gettysburg by Murphy
-A Soldiers Life in the Civil War by Dale Anderson
-You Wouldn't Want to be a Civil War Soldier by Thomas Ratcliff

-A Picture book of Robert E. Lee by David A. Adler

Kids Read:

-The Story of the Battle of Shiloh by Zachary Kent

- Robert E. Lee Brave Leader by Rae Bains

- From Slave to Soldier by Deborah Hopkinson

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Do you ever cry at happy endings?

We finished a great book on Thursday of last week (2/7/08). It is from a series called Dear America. The title as shown is A Picture of Freedom-The Diary of Clotee, a Slave Girl by Patricia McKissack. It is about a slave girl who discovers the true definition of freedom. It had me in tears and my kids wanting to read more. I highly reccomend reading this book. It will give your child a picture of the life of a slave.

Civil War Week 1

We started a mini unit on the Civil War this week. I am a little hesitant about teaching this and excited in a way too. Scared due to the fact that I did terrible in school learning about battles and strategies. In school I had some really boring and dry history teachers. They seemed to take the fun out of everything. In many ways I am having to relearn about the Civil War.

I'm excited to learn that to learn that my great-great maternal grandfather fought in the Civil War. He was in the Pennsylvania Artillary Unit. He fought in 12 battles and lived. I'm planning on having the kids write about him.

I have lots of great pictures to share with you this week. After I do some more research on my great-great grandfather I will share a special post on him - hopefully soon.

On Monday the kids and I learned about Maryland. We read books about the Chesapeake Bay and the life cycle of a blue crab. We added a new vocabulary word this week-estuary. An estuary is an area where salt water and freshwater meet. I never knew this nor that the Chesapeake bay is so large and that many islands are part of it. I guess with living on the west coast I have been sheltered from visiting it. One day I'm looking forward to taking our family on a extended visit of the east coast.

Learning about Maryland led into a great segway into our Civil War mini unit since back then there was a dividing line called the Mason Dixon line. An imaginary line was drawn to identify free states to the north and slave holding states to the south. Above is a map the kids colored in.

On Tuesday we learned about South Carolina. I explained to the kids that this state was very important during the event leading up to the Civil War. This was the state where the war began. My children still remember the American Revolutionary War unit we did last year. My son was quick to add "it's like Lexington, MA., right??" Great thinking!! Yes, Lord they are listening!!! I had the kids color the Union and Confederate Flags.

Wednesday was a bit of a catch up day of sorts. I had the kids try on their Civil War uniforms. We didn't have time during this quick unit for them to make or create one of their own. I hit the local thrift store to see what treaures I could dig up. Yes, I scored! I found a great small black sport jacket in my youngest son's size. For my oldest I found a womans gray blazer. This was a great find!

My youngest was begging to be a Union soldier, so I let him. My oldest son was a Confederate soldier and my daughter was a nurse. I found the hats at a local party store here in town. Luckily, we saved our muskets from last year.

Thursday was our co-op day. I hosted co-op this week. Sadly, our co-op has shrunk. We are now down to just two families in all. There use to be four. We originally had 12 kids ranging in age from ages 10 to 2. It was great fun. Life has been busy for many.

For co-op I had the kids make an accordian style book on the road leading to the Civil War and the events that led up to it. Next we learned about Fort Sumter. After reading about it the kids went outside to act it out. This is always great fun for the kids. I caught the whole thing on video. This should be real fun to watch as a family night movie. In the mean time here are a few pix.

After lunch they learned about the life of a Conderate and Union soldier. I had the kids use their backpacks to have a race to pack all their necessary supplies. Next, they learned how to set up a pup tent. This was real fun. After thier tents were inspected they had a soldiers' meal consisting of beans, peas, beef jerky, hard tac and water. Surprisingly they liked it. After a quick rest in their tent they needed to repack and learn about the first battle at Bull Run.

We had fun again reinacting this battle too. It was a fun filled and busy day. God faithfully answered our prayers to hold off the rain. Rain was expected on Wednesday and on our co-op day, Thursday.

For Friday I had the kids play catch up on our state quilt squares. I'm having the kids use fabric markers on white fabric squares. Over the summer we will attempt to sew them together.

The books that we read this week are:

- Welcome to the USA Maryland by Ann Heinrichs

- B is for Blue Crab: A Maryland Alphabet by Shirley Mendez

- Dancing in the Sand: A Story of the Atlantic Crab by Kathleen Hollenbeck

- Waterman' Child by Barbara Mitchell

- If you Lived at the Time of the Civil War by Kay Moore

- Welcome to the USA South Carolina by Ann Heinrichs

- P is for Palmetto by Carol Crane

- Surkey and the Mermaid by Robert D. San Souci

- Marching to the Civil War Drummer Boy by Ann Turner

- Divided in Two: The Road to the Civil War by James Arnold

- You Wouldn't Want to be a Civil War Soldier by Thomas Ratliff