Nature Journaling

Earlier this summer, I picked up a copy of the book Keeping a Nature Journal. I've been helping the kids to keep one over the years, but it hasn't really taken off the way I'd like it to. Over the summer I've been reading the book and getting ideas on how to do this better in our homeschool.

One of the big stumbling blocks for me has been time and materials. Oh we have materials! I've just been easily frustrated at how bulky the big journals are to take with us and how they end up staying behind when we go exploring. R10 has been taking a smaller book or just sheets of paper and making a list or drawing a list of the things we see on our walks.

After reading a chapter in this nature journal book, I think I finally have a workable solution! I'm going to have the kids keep a loose leaf journal in a notebook. This gives us more flexibility because I can give the kids the lined paper they need (for their age) and it allows us to use the many nature notebooking pages I have for different occasions and topics. Then when the notebook gets too full, we can have the pages bound. I'm certain these will be fun for the kids to look back on for years to come.

As I sat on the swing overlooking the pond I had a chance to enjoy my homeschooling mags and my nature journaling book!

I was on dock duty sometimes- watching the kids while they fished and looked for worms

This is a chapter of the book that talks about the first pages in your journal. R10 will enjoy adding poetry to hers.

As I sat and quietly observed, the late summer sun was distinctly noticeable. The other really significant thing about this trip were the katydids. I realize now that here in NY we don't hear them at night. Boy...it turns out that I miss them! They come out later on at night than say the crickets which I began to hear by about 7pm.

Keeping a nature journal is part of our art studies this year in addition to the science it always provides. Keeping a Nature Journal details some drawing exercises and I have other sources as well including FIAR and the FIAR nature study volumes. Jane Lambert shares tidbits on keeping a nature journal and she provides some fun journaling pages along with other poetry and interesting facts. You might enjoy nature study pages from NotebookingPages.com as well. And of course CurrClick has many nature notebooking pages.

Since we like to take walks often, I've decided to keep a backpack ready with our main nature guides, some pencils, a pack of watercolor pencils and our portable drawing boards. This fall I'm planning on taking the kids to our favorite trail at the Lab of Ornithology weekly to see the changes this season. We'll just grab the bag and go and hopefully come home with some neat drawings. It will be fun to note the changes in the air, the changes in the plants and trees, and to see what the animals are doing. R10 makes a great list of the things we see. One of the last times we were there we saw a mama raccoon and with a baby in her mouth scurrying up a really tall tree.

Our weekly routine calls for Nature Study on Fridays. Such a fun way to end the week, but certainly there will be other times we are called outdoors to observe. If you've never thought about nature study seriously or you just aren't sure it's for you, check out the Handbook of Nature Study blog. Barb does a fantastic job of leading us through The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Comstock. On the surface the Handbook looks terribly dry with its small print and black and white pictures, but Dr. Comstock is really humorous and it's an enjoyable read. And if a new book is not in the budget, then there is good news for you. The book is available online for free!

Those are my thoughts on nature study for the moment. We started school back up again last week, but it is slow going until next week when our summer schedule lets up and stops overlapping with our fall schedule.

Stay tuned for updates as we get started with our new nature notebooks and transfer some items out of the current spirals and new items to the collection. How do you incorporate nature study into your homeschool? If you've never done it, what is holding you back?

Summer Livin'

We are just in from another little long weekend trip to the Poconos with Dan's family. There was a lot of fishing going on! We played a lot of games, hit the hot tub, and the row boat was a lot of fun. The kids spent the whole first day fishing over and over again.

J5 with his cousin's Barbie fishing rod...he caught a few blue gills.

I8 had gone out on the pond in the row boat and decided to map his adventure. He's facing east just so you know...the compass never lies. Unless you don't know how to use it!

R10 had fun fishing too, but I have to say she is not at all hardcore. She refused to touch a fish she hooked and when it would wiggle is itself off she would scoot it off the dock back into the water with her foot. A nice way of saying she kicked it back into the water!

Everyone had a fun time with the game room complete with an air hockey table with no.line. Paradise. Just so you know I beat Dan in a game of air hockey. Just sayin'.

How is your summer coming to a close? We may take a day trip to our favorite state park, for Labor Day Weekend. But that totally depends upon the weather.

Tie Dye Fun!

This is the second time this summer we had fun with tie dye. The first time was at R10's birthday party. We decided it might be fun to make new shirts while camping last weekend. I think it would have been more fun had the water at the campground been you know...not brown. Ahem. But we pressed on despite choosing to leave a day early and having to pack out as we did this. Time was a bit short...and we had to bring in water from the camp store. Who wants white turned brown tshirts to dye with?

I8's creation. He wanted vertical stripes and the key is to pleat the shirt opposite what you want the stripes to look like...a lesson we learned in June when he ended up with one very cool horizontal striped shirt?

E11 tried to do a mirror image shirt which worked, but you have to look closely to see it.

R10 did a nice job with lots of knots all over her shirt- she want more than one spiral and we experimented with a color not in our kit.

J5's shirt...he did the spirals and I chose the colors.

This is Dan's shirt- I was running out of dye so it got a big time shortchanged. Bummer.

Once again I did some socks. These are kinda fun. I did one pair random and one pair sort of striped.

And finally my shirt. I chose an older, really thick white Old Navy shirt and I wanted to do horizontal stripes. I did the sleeves separately from the main portion of the shirt. That was a big job! Next time I'll make sure the dye covers more, but this was a crazy bulky shirt.

We did three families worth of shirts that day. All tolled it was 14-16 projects! We had two kits going. This will be fun to add to each summer I think and I'm going to try some different techniques next year. One is pretty subtle. Should be fun. We use the Tie Dye kit from Jacquard which has a great DVD in it. We learned a lot about technique from watching it so it's definitely worth your time.

I think it's interesting how our playroom carpet has so many varieties in this series of pictures. The one just above this text is probably the closest to the real thing. Just so you know.

On the Way to the State Fair

E11's Truth about New York game is on it's way to the New York State Fair! Congratulations E11! (he had three entries in the county fair this year...which uhoh! I failed to report on this year...better take care of that. All three got blue ribbons, but the game got a State Fair purple ribbon!)

He created this game as an assignment of his choice during our study of The Little Red Lighthouse and The Great Gray Bridge. The original version of the game was really nice, but he figured that typing up the various cards and making them look more trim was a good bet.

He spent a lot of time redoing his cards on the computer after figuring out what he wanted and I helped him cover a mouse trap game box to house his game. He decorated everything with NY stickers. See the results of his hard work below.

The Box- He even put a picture of the set up game on the front. I purchased the stickers when I bought the Bare Books game things.

Check out the deed cards. The first ones were done by hand and this really sharpened up the game's image.

Don't these look nice? E11 remembered to give credit where credit is due and these were all from Wikimedia so the are public domain.

Really nice improvement cards. you can see the difference if you click on the original game.

Every thing looks tidy. E11 worked really hard on this game all tolled.

It displays at the State Fair this coming week. No matter how it does at fair, E11 can be really proud. He did his best work on this game. We are planning to take a trip up there mid-week to see how it does. This is the first time any of the kids have advanced on to state fair. E11 is pretty excited.

Beach Vacation #2

Last week we spent most of it on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. I'm always amazed at the immenseness of the Great Lakes. I didn't grow up near any of these lakes and I've really only seen Lake Ontario which is the smallest. So, I imagine the others are so much bigger and even more amazing!

You can almost pretend you are at the ocean...but there is no salt smell in the air.

We took a day trip to Kingston, Ontario in Canada. We took two ferries...one from Cape Vincent in the US to Wolfe Island in Canada and then another larger ferry to Kingston from Wolfe Island. Cape Vincent is at the entrance to the St. Lawrence Seaway on Lake Ontario. I have yet to see any ocean going vessels on their way to the Atlantic. What is up with that?

The first place we visited were the Kingston Locks on the Rideau Canal which goes from Kingston to Ottawa. It was really fun to watch them fill and unfill.

We saw boats going in both directions and one of the families with us got a ride through a lock in a boat. That bridge up there pivots around when the lock is being filled. Very cool to watch!

This is the larger ferry which goes between Kingston and Wolfe Island.

Back at the campground, we tie dyed tshirts with the kids (we were camping with two other families), played on the beach and rided bikes.

This was our second trip this season to Lake Ontario. The first was last month to our favorite spot on the southern shore. Our camping season is essentially over, but we have one last trip to take this weekend (thought it's not a camping trip).

Beyond Five in a Row: Some Planning Advice!

Recently, I was contacted by three new homeschooling moms. One mom asked me about how to schedule the Beyond books. So, I thought my answer would make a good blog post. Happy Planning!

• Seeing as this is your first experience homeschooling, would you consider doing a semester of FIAR before going into BY? It would give you a feel for the learning appeal of Five in a Row without the confusing nature of scheduling on your own. In addition, you could do volume 4 which is a great transition to the longer books.
• What is your goal for homeschooling? I know when I pulled my oldest out of first grade half way through, my only goal was to restore his love of learning which had been so efficiently squashed right out of him in his first year and a half of school. So, with that in mind, your 11yo would not mind diving into some picture book studies. I’d be happy to share the ones my 11yo has enjoyed and we are about to start tomorrow with an annual favorite that even he would not want to miss- Night of the Moonjellies.
• In regard to BY, I would say you need to choose how long you want to spend on the unit and THEN plan out your activities. With three days down, none of you know what kind of rabbit trail you may feel compelled to hop down when you come across it! I try to leave margin for that sort of thing or try to be flexible with what I’ve planned so that if my kids get excited about one topic, we can keep going with it. Then we return to the regular schedule of events I’ve lined up.
• I have my kids help to choose which BY lessons we will do. I try to do several each chapter that I want them to do and then I let them choose another one or two.
• I pick a long activity to do over several days (or the whole study) and a couple short ones that are done in one sitting for each chapter.
• Staying too long in a book can get very cumbersome for everyone, HOWEVER Becky Jane wrote these volumes to last a whole year. She meant for one book to last for a semester. So, your timeline isn’t really all that off to start.
• The book is an easy read for most kids and how you handle the reading of the book can make a difference with your kids. Do they want the whole thing at once? Read to them weekly? Daily? Do they read it to you? I like go back and forth between reading to them and them reading to me. Sometimes I assign it silently for them.
• Consider getting LOTS of go along books for them to read so they are diving in and aren’t so concerned with being in one book too long.
• Start with a briefer experience the first time and add on a week as you go into more books. They may find they like it as they go.
• Assign your kids different projects from the book at the same time that they come back and share about at a specified date. So, they are learning about more than one thing but not doing all the work themselves. My kids love this approach and it can be as simple as the same assignment on two different subjects within a topic. While doing Arabella, my kids studies islands and each did their own research and salt dough map of a real island. Then we had a family night share time. They LOVE this.
• These units were not designed so that you do it all for every book. We have enjoyed re-rowing one book in particular (Betsy Ross) which is a family favorite and coming back to an old favorite and doing more lessons we hadn’t done before is really fun for the kids.

If you are a Beyond Five in a Row user or you are curious about the curriculum, be sure to visit a post on planning right from the author of the program Becky Jane Lambert.

Space Science

I8 has been asking and asking to continue work in his Magic School Bus space kit. So, the same day J5 worked with chemistry, I did some space science with I8.

He chose to paint the planets to make the mobile.

This involved wires and wire cutters- which we couldn't find so we went with needlenose which did the job.

In the end, the wires are floppy and he had a hard time getting them all together. So, we are going to come up with an alternate design just as soon we can settle in and stop traveling constantly.

Summer is quickly drawing to a close and we are all ready to settle only our schedule is not allowing for it just yet. The soccer coaches are scheduling practices and the fall schedule is resuming even this week. It all happens so fast!

2010 FIRST LEGO League

The 2010 FLL season is underway! If you've been reading for some time, then you know that Dan and I coach a FIRST LEGO League team. This is our second season with FLL. I also continue to coach JrFLL teams (which will gather soon during our homeschool co-op). If you are interested, you can check out some posts from last season.

Last spring we taught an FLL programming class at homeschool co-op to further practice with the kids the programming of the robots. By the end of the semester, we had our new FLL team for the fall season (which includes two girls this year!!). We've been meeting all summer. We meet for four hour practices and this past Sunday we had the new mat and kits for the 2010 season. This year's theme is Body Forward and it's all about biomedical engineering.

During the first meeting in June, the kids voted on a new name. They are The Alps- The Amazing Lego People

This year's mat- the LEGO models will be in various spots and the robot will have to perform tasks with each one.

I was in charge of some fun team building exercises on Sunday (Dan put my Masters degree to good use) and we built the models the rest of the time. And of course there was pizza.

I broke the kids into groups and gave them roles to fill within their group (encourager, time checker, etc.) to come up with ideas for our Team Goals. Success! One of the hallmarks of an FLL Team is GRACIOUS PROFESSIONALISM. Kids need ample practice at it! In the end, they came up with a fine set of goals for this season.

Some built models- there's eyeballs, a heart, a bone and some other stuff. The kids had a great time building these using the directions.

Here's a bone that is broken. Our guess is that the robot will have to move it together and apply a cast. Pretty cool.

Our official season kick-off is Friday, September 3rd when the actual challenge is released by US First. We have a bonfire and hot dog party planned as we get the kids psyched for a new season!

We will teach a co-op class each week and we'll have a 3 hour practice weekly in addition to that once things really ramp up. The competition will be in November.

Stay tuned for more FLL news as our season progresses. I should add that E11 and R10 are both on the team this year.

More Fizzy Foamy Science

We took some time the other day to do more Fizzy Foamy Science. J5 LOVES this kit. What's not to love? You get to combine chemicals and watch things happen. Last time we dissolved citric acid in water and added baking soda to watch it fizz. This time we tested different household substances to see if they were acids.

Testing for an acid

J5's able assistant was interested in joining him in his efforts this time.

Yes! We have an acid!

We tested:

• juice
• soda
• milk
• lemon juice
• vinegar

Care to guess the results? If I were doing this with all the kids or even just not on the fly, I would have created a little chart for him to mark. Next time we pull it out we'll review this one and maybe do the chart then.

I wonder what is in store next for scientist/engineer J5...who just the other day took apart a kaleidoscope to see how it worked.

The Latest...

Since this blog chronicles our homeschooling adventures and apparently my choice of partial highlight....

Here is the latest version. Remember that cool slicing I had done last time? Blond and caramel brown? Well, it turns out that caramel brown turns golden blond when it hits the sun. Yeah...so I was starting to look pretty much blond all over on top.

I decided I'm not really into that so I had her do the blond slices (because I REALLY like those) and then to tone it down in between with my real color (gasp) and she sort insisted on the caramel brown also. I really like being darker again. I am a brunette after all...

But the blond slices are so FUN! Next time I will just go with my color I think and the blond slices. We'll see. I have a couple of months to see what this does.

Postcard Exchange 2010

About every other year or so we participate in the Five in a Row Postcard Exchange with other FIAR users. We put them up around our US map (though there are a few international cards usually) and enjoy looking them and some activities with them. This year we had some really fun home made cards (seems postcards are not readily available like they used to be). I think one of my favorites is the yellow maple card from Tennessee.

I think some postcards are still trickling in, but for the most part they are here and I'm planning to "Starting the New School Year" activities with them. Things like:

• graphing how many cards we got from each state/country
• pin pointing the location of each landmark/destination on our maps
• researching some of the destinations we haven't heard of before to find out more
• calculating distance between some of the locations
• preparing a reasonable itinerary if we to travel and see the destinations
• finding out which is the closest and furthest away from our home

When we are finished with the cards, we'll take them down and put them in the scrapbook we have full of postcards from previous exchanges. Right now they are in a small flip book, but I'm thinking of getting something bigger so all of them can fit in one big book for fun.

I'm in the preparation for school mode at the moment and you can see just a glimpse of our workboxes there under the map. This week I vacuumed them all out (dust and cobwebs gather there easily in a basement room) and I took out all of last year's schooling to be put away. Many notebooks stay assembled and we take the content from the previous year out if there isn't much room- like for math.

Anyone else try a postcard exchange? I highly recommend it if you can pull one off through an online community. Such fun!

Sewing School

Some happenings in the sewing school world are below. R10 has a sewing camp coming up at the end of August. She has a really good time at this little refashioning co-op and we are so delighted to have a mentoring woman from our church who volunteers there. Makes the experience all the more pleasant for R!

R10 has been busying trying to create. One day recently she pinned this little number on her dress form with I8's help. He is dying to sew, but I'm not so sure I'm up for it!

Recently I acquired this little gem- Sew Serendipity. I thought we could use it to design some of our own fashions using the basic design and patterns. R10 really likes the original drawings so I think this will be fun for her whether we take on the patterns for her or for her dolls...I'd even love a few of these skirts and dresses.

While at the co-op shop this week, I picked up a $2 copy of this fabulous book- Bend the Rules Sewing. R10 has been reading through it and helped to give our sewing machine a little once over. It's in need of an official tune up I think and the first time I think I'll take it to the Bernina shop, but we changed out the needle and made sure our thread was threaded in the machine correctly and voila! A well-behaved sewing machine.

While at the shop, we found lots of fabric for a nominal price (looking through the 50 cent and quarter bins!) and we are ready for Operation Sassy Beanbag (making beanbags for a music teacher friend of mine) and other fun projects. That blue flowered fabric I bought earlier and there is a skirt just begging to made from that.


The boys picked out their space type fabric for R10 to make them a drawstring bag. She's already started.
Here we go...the first bag in process. This one is narrow because of the scrap nature of the fabric piece. Still lots of fun.

R10 will have plenty to work on this sewing season. We are looking forward to her creations.

The Year of the Dollhouse - The Journal Adventure

As promised, here is the first post on The Year of the Dollhouse- The Journal Adventure. We've just been getting started the past few weeks. R10 has been setting up house and we went on a field trip which I will share next (almost forgot!). The idea is to just have a chance to talk about keeping house while being creative and connecting through journaling. So far, it's been quite fun and it's just getting going.

The journal- a dollar store original she helped to pick out. We write back and forth leaving it in places where the other will find it. We don't make a huge deal about, but it's been meaningful so far.

The sewing room which is upstairs in the attic. She's all set with the ironing board, the Cheval mirror and a trunk (which I'm certain will have loads of fabric in it!). We need to be on the lookout for a sewing machine and dress form. Notice the dress laid out on the trunk.

Today she pointed me to the baby's room. Such a sweet nursery for the dolls.

R10 has been really excited to do this and the last time I pulled out her old dollhouse things, she didn't want them all but now she does. I used to give them to her every so often in our first round of The Year of the Dollhouse, but this time I gave her the whole box. Some furniture is inherited from my niece (the Fisher Price dollhouse from the mid-90s). That same niece is heading to college tomorrow. Wow. (have a good trip Kim!) Some of the furniture we bought new for this house. R10 has had this dollhouse since she was 2 and it's undergone some renovation that she helped with during Year of the Dollhouse Part 1.

Journal the Adventure

My new post is up over at Heart of the Matter this morning...It's called Journaling the Adventure and it's about how each of my kids and I are embarking on a journey together (each child has his/her own adventure). I'll be blogging here about our progress with more details on the adventures each child has chosen. Read below for an introduction to our project.


Recently, as I was planning some school time with my daughter, I decided it would be fun to bring back The Year of the Dollhouse. Perhaps some of you know about my blogging friend Lynn and her idea to play and make a homemade dollhouse with her daughter everyday for a year a few years ago now. My daughter was 7 then and we did make some renovations to her house and did some playing, but it faded away. As I thought about what would make this school year special, I asked her if she thought doing another Year of the Dollhouse might sound fun. Now that she’s 10 my plan is to teach some home making skills through our creating and playing at the dollhouse. I pulled out a journal and began some dialogue with her. The journal is for us to plan and talk about our activities with the dollhouse and she loves it. Grammar correction is off limits in our journal allowing her to be free to communicate with me without a critique. Read more...

Muffin Tin Monday (MTM)- Swap

Back in July, Michelle over at Muffin Tin Mom held a swap. I participate last year, but unfortunately never received my things. That was a real bummer, but I decided to take a chance this year and Michelle was kind enough to 1) send me a few things because I hadn't gotten anything last year (it was a box of several cool bento box items...maybe that deserves a post too!) and 2)hook me up with a partner who was sure to follow through.

Jenny (at Academy at Thousand Oaks) and her kids turned out to be so fun! Jenny was sweet enough to put in a bit extra for our troubles from last year and boy did she send it early! Here's a look at our muffin tin fun...

The bunch was placed in a pie tin and made to look like a basket of fun! We are the lucky receivers of new silicone cupcake/muffin liners and some sports oriented party sticks. The boys thought they were great!

Look at this stash! We have baking cups in fun patterns, mini leaf cutters, more toppers (love those flowers!), and some more mini cutters. We can hardly wait to have more muffin tin fun with these.

Jenny and family, thank you so much for a really fun swap! We are eager to try these items out once things settle down here this summer. For a peek at the other end of the swap (Jenny's stuff from us), you can click here.

To check out the rest of the swap, head over to the Muffin Tin Mom.