Beautiful Day To Do School Outside!

We had such BeAuTiFuL weather today, we just had to do our schoolwork outside!

Mom's work station :-)

The girlz school desk...
Doing a math project sorting & counting M&M's...
Of course, eating a few, too...
Our Science Curriculum is Apologia Zoology 3. We are learning about habitats and how when animals are camouflaged with their fur or skin, they are harder for prey to find. So we conducted a science experiment camouflaging M&M's in a matching color habitat of construction paper. We discovered the M&M's were more difficult to find if they matched their surroundings.
Then we made Corncob Dolls like what Laura Ingall's used to make and play with.
First we took a corn on the cob...
and took off the husks and silk...
We set the husks and silk aside for later...
Then we scraped off the corn with a sharp knife...
After that, we put the silk on top of the cob for hair, made a face on one of the husks & wrapped it over the "head" and "hair". Then we wrapped them in bandanas. They turned out pretty cute...

The girlz had so much fun playing with the dolls they made. Thank you, God, for this beautiful weather! We love doing school outside :-)

Grady Nichols at Utica Square

We had a great time listening to Grady Nichols play at Utica Square tonight. We were afraid it was going to rain but it actually cooled the air and helped make perfect weather for an evening outdoors! This was the last concert of their summer series so I guess this means goodbye summer, hello fall!

The girlz had so much fun dancing the night away ;-)

Prairie Primer/Little House in the Big Woods - Week 2

Here are a few things we have been learning this week from our Prairie Primer Curriculum...

Pa's grandfather made his own maple syrup. Here is a video about making maple syrup...

How To Make Maple Syrup

The Ingalls girls loved to hear Pa playing his fiddle. We listened to fiddle and folk music on pandora.com by searching for "Old Man Tucker" - a favorite song sung by Pa.

Laura and Mary said this prayer every night. It reminds me of the prayer I used to say when I was little, too. My girlz memorized it when they were younger but have since forgotten it so we are re-learning it this week.
Pa kept a loaded gun above the doorway of his house so we studied about gun safety...

The Ingalls family went to a grand party at Pa's father's house where they had a great time eating and dancing. Being city girlz, I had to educate my girlz as to what square dancing was...

Children in pioneer days learned how to knit at a very young age. My girlz know how to crochet but I think they would like to learn how to knit, as well...

SKIN

Yes, We Dance In Sunday School :-)

Prairie Primer/Little House in the Big Woods - Week 1

Here are a few things we've been studying this week with our Prairie Primer Curriculum...

Pa whittles wood in the Little House in the Big Woods so we watched a video of a man whittling wood and heard about the tools he uses for his craft...

The Ingalls family had a brindle bulldog. So we studied bulldogs...

http://www.loveyourdog.com/bulldog.html

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/dog/Bulldog.shtml

http://www.cartooncritters.com/drawbulldog.htm

http://www.akc.org/breeds/bulldog/index.cfm

This is a video of a bulldog giving birth...

Ma churned her own butter. Here is a video of someone making butter...

Pa had several run-ins with bears so we studied bears & hibernation:

http://www.saskschools.ca/%7Egregory/winter/win2.html

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/Hibernate.shtml

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/painting/Hibernate.shtml

http://members.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/bear/

http://atozkidsestore.com/hibernation.html

http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/hibernation.html

The Ingall's lived off the land and grew their own crops so we learned about nutrition and eating healthy. We've been reading Food and You - an American Girl book about making wise food choices. Great book with lots of colorful photos!

The Ingalls girls loved to make dolls from corn husks. Here's directions for making your own...

http://www.ehow.com/how_2057762_make-corn-cob-doll.html

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-make-thanskgiving-corn-husk-dolls-258084/view/

http://www.michigan.gov/mikids/0,1607,7-163-15941_20571---,00.html

Ma had to preserve much of their food to last them through the cold winters when they couldn't go looking for food. Here are a few sites on food preservation...

http://www.preservefood.com/

http://encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/fo/Food_preservation

http://www.lucygardens.com/storing-fruit-and-vegetables-preserving-fruit-and-vegetables.html

http://www.kids-cooking-activities.com/kids-cooking-lessons-senior8.html

Introducing My New Nephew!

I had the great honor of witnessing my sister give birth recently. It was an amazing experience and I feel so blessed to have witnessed such an amazing miracle!

William David was born August 19th at 5:11 p.m. He weighed 8.8 lbs. and was 22 inches long. Isn't he a dolll?!

Introducing Will...

Testing out the lungs...


Hi Mom!


Welcome Home, Will!

Our First Week of our 4th Year of Homeschooling ;-)

So the girlz and I just started our first week of our 4th year of homeschooling! We're already having so much fun & we really enjoying learning together. The past 2 years, we've used a curriculum called My Father's World and have really loved it. But this year we are taking a break and are doing Prairie Primer which is based on the Little House on the Prairie books. My girlz looove Little House on the Prairie so I thought this would be a great time to try the Prairie Primer curriculum. We will read one Little House on the Prairie book a month and all of our history, science, art, Bible study and writing will be based around topics from the books.

There are a few things we'll be skipping over that are in the curriculum like blowing up a pig's bladder like a balloon, eating venison and baking cracklings in cornbread! But there's lots of other fun things we'll be doing and we're so excited to get started! Here's a few pics from our first week...

The girlz looove getting new school supplies...

"A" working on handwriting...
Snack time...
We store school work that we want to save in pizza boxes. (They stack easily and are a great size for keeping things! We buy our pizza boxes at Arris' Pizza. I like them because they are white with just a little bit of writing on the top that we can cover with paper. They sell them to me for $3.50 for 6 boxes.) The girlz decorate a new box every year and we put their favorite things in their boxes. Here's "M" decorating her box...

And here's "A's" box. I love the strategically placed stickers...
Painting log cabins (containers that held blackberries we picked earlier this summer)...
Putting together miniature teepees...

While making our teepees, I found some pretty neat Indian music to listen to at pandora.com. You'll be able to find it if you do a search for "Indian flute radio". It's really peaceful and calming to listen to. Fortunately, the girlz stayed awake while it was playing but it almost put me to sleep! ;-)




Our Native American and Prairie villages...
I found these miniature characters at Owasso's Classroom Corner. It's called "Wild West Toob" and can also be found at amazon.com here.
Not real sure why some are on the roofs ;-)
We look forward to everything we'll be learning this school year based on the Little House books!

Crafting With the Girlz