Saturday Fun Day

So what did we do that was fun? Well, we went to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Oh it was so much fun. The weather was perfect. Not too hot and not cold. This is the first time that I took pictures with the boys in a very long time. I normally just take pictures but it was time for me to come out in pictures too. What you see in the background is the Tower of the Americas.

What was there? They had model trains. Now talk about perfect for the little train engineer in our house. It was nice although the train section was too small and they already had christmas decorations up.

There was these large leaves. They were from a tree called the Chinese Parasol Tree. Those leaves sure were huge.

Not only leaves but they also had a Japanese area. Of course, my baby wanted a picture at the little bridge. He is so cute. He loves to be in pictures. I'm glad one of the boys don't give me trouble when it comes to being in pictures.

There were so many nice things in this garden that it is very hard to decide which pictures to show. I took 86 pictures here. This is really a nice place to go for a field trip. I know what will be one of our field trip places for our small homeschool group.

There was also what they call Terrific Treehouse. They were these structures that the kids loved to play in. There were 9 treehouses on the grounds.

Now this botanical garden is a 33 acre garden. We could have spent all day there letting the boys explore. We didn't get to see everything because we were not expecting it to be so big. Next time we will be prepared.

Don't forget to click on the pictures to see them up close.

The Well Trained Mind part 2 or CM

My thoughts on The Well Trained Mind is that you do what subjects you can but don't follow the time frame. That time frame is good to give you an idea of what some "super" person might do. We lead very busy lives in all we do so there is no way we can follow the time frame they show in that book. Although, it does give you an idea of how you set up each subject.

The rest of the subjects like science, art, writing, nature studies and PE we do those also. You could say we are more Charlotte Mason(CM) in these subjects. We do these mostly together. The oldest is doing biology and will be going into chemistry soon. He does that on his own but the other two do Apologia's Swimming Creatures. This book is mostly read by me and we talk about it and are doing their little experiments and projects.

For art, they go to an art class with a few other friends from the hall. It is great because not only do they do an art class but they get to spend some time with their friends.

Nature studies are done while walking outside or going to a nature area. I have also been creating some notebooking pages for them to cover any topic we are learning about.

PE is a fun time. My two youngest are outdoor boys while the oldest will go outside but would rather be inside. Although they all love the pool. During the summer they spend lots of time in the pool. When it's too cold to be in the pool they ride bikes or run around the house and play on the swings. They can be outdoors for hours after school work is done.

One more subject that we do is our service and our meeting preparation. I have a wonderful ipod my hubby got me that I have been able to download our magazines from the JW site. Since my middle son has dyslexia this is wonderful for him. He is very intelligent and this is a wonderful provision for him. I personally appreciate this provision myself. It is wonderful to hear an experience from different ones of different lands with that lands accent. I do schedule time for listening to magazines, book for bookstudy and the Sunday mag.

Our days are filled with lots of fun and a variety of subjects and fun. We also have our own little group that we do field trips with. I've even had a day out with a homeschool mom/friend to just do mom things.

Now don't look at this blog and think we do everything perfect all the time. There are days that we wake up and don't feel like getting up or working on anything at all. There are times when someone has a hissy fit and doesn't want to do school. We are not the perfect homeschool family. What is perfect anyway in our times? What I am saying is that we all have our off days and that is why I have decided to school year round. We do have a few months off from school during the summer months just because we want to.

So I started with TWTM and ended on a CM note. No one way of schooling is right for everyone. You can take what you want from here and apply it. The rest leave it for someone else. That is what I do. Take what you need and work on it in your school.

My, Oh My! Amazing Things We Find

So are you wondering what those little round things are? hehehehehe Well, read on to find out. Yesterday, my brother called to tell me what he saw in his garden.

It was big, mushy, gushy and had a horn looking thing on one end. As you can see on this next picture it is long. It is about 3 1/2 inches long.

By the way, that horn looking thing is on the end part. If you click on those pictures you will see it closer. There are little dots on the sides that look like eyes.

So are you wondering what it is? If you look on this site you will see two different kinds depending on the color of that horn looking thing. This one has a red end so it's a tobacco hornworm.

What will it become? It will be a sphinx moth sometimes called a hummingbird or hawk moth. The only thing is that I have to feed this thing for about a month or so and then it will go into a pupa. You could never imagine the amount of poop this thing creates. It is eating the green tomato and I think that if I scoop up all that poo that it would be at least half that tomato. Ok, so you didn't really want to know that. hehehe Let's see how long this thing will take to go to the next stage in life.

I guess marigolds should be planted into my brothers garden next year. Marigolds are a repellent plant for this. We learn something every time we go outdoors.

The Well Trained Mind part 1

I could say that we use TWTM and we do, sort of. I think a better statement would be that we follow it loosely. I think very few people could say they follow it to the letter. I do have my own copy of the book and look over it from time to time. I also have the book series of What your __ grader needs to know.

Are you wondering what we do exactly? Well, in Texas according to law I have to teach reading, spelling, grammar, math, and a course of good citizenship. That is all I have to do by law. As long as I have those subjects covered I'm fine.

I don't stick by the time set up in the book either because that would cause a revolt in my house. I'm sure it would in many houses too. I looked and read every entry on the subjects we will do and then I chose my own books. I also used the book 100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy. This gives an idea of different curriculums and books out there for each subject and which would be best for which type of student.

Here is our list for the two younger ones. Now keep in mind that my 11yr old has dyslexia.

I will start with the 11yr olds list first.

Reading: There is so much we do for this. We have used Pathway Readers. He is working on Busy Times. My Book of Bible Stories is very good too and we read that together just for reading. He has been read that book so many times but now he has to do most of the reading in it.

Spelling: We started All About Spelling this year and he loves doing this program.

Grammar: He is doing Growing with Grammar. This is a quick and easy program and not expensive.

Math: He is doing Rod and Staff 3rd grade. It has lots of repitition which he needs.

As for the course in good citizenship....we do that all the time with going to meetings and having our family study.

Now my 6yr old.

Reading: He is doing the Pathway Readers too, working on First Steps. Also, reading out of My Book of Bible Stories.

Spelling: All About Spelling He also loves this program. It's more of a game to him.

Grammar: Growing with Grammar This program may take a total of 15-20mins to do a day.

Math: Rod and Staff 2nd grade. He feels so grown up doing the same program that his brother did last year.

Now this is not the only things we do. We do science using Apologia Swimming Creatures. Both boys do this. We do history by doing the 4year cycle that TWTM has. So there is my WTM part. hehehe We also do nature study, art, writing and lots of PE to get those wigglies out.

This has turned into a long post and I am not finished. Well, maybe this will be part 1 and I'll work on part 2.

What is Lapbooking?

I got an email from someone wanting to know about lapbooking. So here are my thoughts on lapbooking. If you go to this squidoo page you will see pictures and links to different lapbooks. I love to go back to this site often to give me more ideas.

Basically lapbooking is a crafty way to do school work. Instead of the monotonous worksheets they can make little books and other paper crafts to show what you have learned. You use a file folder to put all your little creations on one place. Then your child has this folder as a study method or an easy way to review things learned. The picture shows a lapbook the boys did on Marco Polo.

Then there are these other links that you can go to learn more about lapbooking.

http://lapbooklessons.ning.com/
http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks.htm

There is not only lapbook but also notebooking. I like notebooking just as much as I do lapbooking but notebooking is faster to do than lapbooking. Notebooking is more like a one or two page worksheet without the work. hehehe I have made several notebooking pages that we have used from topics like Benjamin Franklin to nature pages. Here is a link about a 50 states notebook.

These two forms of learning are great for younger kids, those with learning disabilities and for the creative kids. This is because they don't do too much writing but enough to not get them tired and frustrated like with a worksheet. Then they have something nice with pictures or drawings that can be kept and looked over and enjoyed for many years.

We are working on a lapbook about Christopher Columbus right now that was a freebie from Hands of a Child. Hands of a Child is an online store that you can buy these lapbooks ready made and download them directly to your computer. You then print them out and do them. The work is all done for you. You don't have to make the projects all you do is print them out and have the kids work on them. They also have a quarterly freebie and right now it is one about Thomas Alva Edison. Dec. 16th will be the last day you can download it free. There is also Currclick that will have a freebie every week and sometimes they are lapbooks.

I hope this answers some lapbooking questions.

A Little of This and That

We got lots done today. Well, I guess it would be yesterday since I am up late into the next day. For those that don't know, I am a night owl. Here are the boys doing their math. My baby is doing triple digits. He loves to see how he is doing big boy things.

Here is middle son hard at work doing his math.

We have also started a HOAC lapbook on Christopher Columbus.

Both boys are hard at work and so far we have finished up to 4 activites for the lapbook. These two are the only ones that like lapbooking. Our next lapbook after this is on Benjamin Franklin. I will print that out on colored paper. I've always printed them out on white paper so they can color but the lapbook on Benjamin Franklin is going to be done fairly quickly so colored paper it is.

Between our other work and the lapbook on Columbus we are starting on guess who? The pages give it away. Today I made up another notebooking page. The boys really enjoy when I read to them and they have a page to do.

When we get the other notebooking pages done I will be sure to post them on here for you to see. For now this will have to do. Today was a little of this and that day. Hope you enjoyed reading what we have been up to.

On The Watch Wednesday

Well, I did it! I put together my first lapbook. I still have a lot to learn about lapbooking or at least about making them. hehehe

Anyway, if you would like what I've made I'll be glad to share. The article I used to do this from was called True Freedom for The Maya from the Dec 1st issue. We learned about the Mayan ruins in Chichen Itza and what the Mayan people believed in. Then the spanish conquistadors came on over and decided to fix the problem. Well, at least in their eyes.
I the pictures for this lapbook from the internet and we put this together in a day.

It counted at writing, art, geography and history. You can't beat that.

We had fun listening to the article on my ipod then doing this activity.

Currclick Freebie

This week's freebie from Currclick is The Girl in the Rag Coat. This is about quilting but also about coal mining and Appalachia. Don't forget to check it out.

Remember This?

Remember I posted about this eating my lemon tree? Well remember I posted pictures of the chrysalis? Guess what happened today?
We had a butterfly come out today. Remember what it is? It's a Giant Swallowtail!

We put it outside but before we did my baby wanted to take a close look. Isn't it beautiful?

I just had to show you an update on the final outcome. We were totally surprised to see it out of it's slumber. I guess it's time for it to hurry and finish off it's life cycle.

A Texan Friend

Ok, you have one guess as to what we saw yesterday right outside my mom's door. I know you will guess this one right away.

My mom heard something outside and saw the cats surrounding something and yep, you guessed it, a rattlesnake. It was not a happy guy. It was ready and in a striking mood. My mom had already called animal control and they were on their way but being the person I am, hehehe, I got in my van and went to her house to take pictures.

Let me tell you that by the time the handler put it in a container there was venom all over it. It was amazing to see it strike. Just glad it was not close to me for the strikes.

Anyone want to move down here? Oh, come on! It's not so bad.

"On The Watch" Wednesday

We have been very busy this week since we have our CO visit and it's the last week of the special campaign. There has been some great groups meeting in the mornings. So this week I figured that I would post this instead of the article because I am not sure I'll get around to it with more service time coming up the rest of the week. I also wanted you to see us all dressed up. I would like to see some pictures of you all.

Nature Picture Quiz

We had some nature time Sunday afternoon and came across some pretty neat butterflies. This is one of them. This is also the only picture I was able to get of it. I'll give you some hints. It has a long tail and it has some green iridescence on the body. Now if I tell you anymore, I'll tell you the name. hehehehe

Look and see if you can find it and leave me a comment with your guess. I'll be back on this post to update it and let you all know what it is.

Update: Ok, I'll tell....it's a Long-Tailed Skipper. Here is a link for a little more info on it. Thanks for playing.

"On The Watch" Wednesday

We read or shall I say we listened to our Awake magazine and for this weeks On the Watch post I wanted to share this one particular article. We went over the one page article about the monarch butterflies. It was short but a very good article for science.
So are you wondering what the boys are doing? I made a notebooking page about the monarch butterflies. I put it on the google group so if you want to take a look at it I have it on there.

I also put a couple of websites on the page of where you can go and see a video clip of the migration of butterflies in Mexico. The other site had some puzzles that you put together online. The boys liked it. They also drew a butterfly and wrote words that describe a butterfly.

So that was our study for this week. I wonder what we will do next week? hhhmmmmm You'll have to watch and see. If you would like to join in then post next Wednesday on something you studied together and let us know so we can read.

Our Spelling Program

I have been asked what we use for spelling. So here it is. Taaadaaaa! We are using All About Spelling. We started at the beginning with both younger boys. Since dyslexia is in our lives we decided to use this for that too. Of course the younger one doesn't have it but it is still great for him.

This program is sort of like Spell to Write and Read in that is has phonograms and you learn them like SWR. So far there are 4 levels. We started on level one and it starts off with them learning the phonogram sounds. Then it goes to learning some rules and alphabetizing.
Here he is putting his tiles in alphabetical order. We have a magnetic/white board and I put magnets on the back of the tiles.

The boys love this program. They can't wait to get to it. So I think I have a great program. I think this is the first program that we have used that they look forward to do. Don't you just love it when that happens?

So this is the magnetic board that we are using. This is how it is supposed to be set up. Well the whole alphabet is supposed to be on one line but I was not about to get the huge magnetic board they said. This one is big enough where we can put it on the table when they use it.

In the center they will eventually do words. So far we are on lesson 4. We do as much as they can handle and also make sure they get it before moving on.
We have also done segmenting words with the tokens they give with the program. Oh and by the way, did I say they love to do this program. What a great plus! Then if that is not enough, I have joined their affiliates program. What is that? Well, if you click on my link to the program and you buy it I get a percentage. I just got my first payment and I will be using it to buy levels 2 and 3.

So that is what we are using. I give this program 2 thumbs up.

Nature Picture Quiz

Ok yes, these are woodpeckers. But what kind? This should be a little easier to find out. HHHMMMMMM, I sure hope so. Gotta look it up myself.
These guys have found our pecan tree in the backyard. We could hear them knocking and knocking. We figured out what they were doing. No, they were not making a home. They were in search of food. One flew away with a pecan in its beak. How cool is that!

So come on girls, take a guess. I'll get the update on here on Friday. Jackie, this is for sure, not eeewwwww gross. *wink* hehehe

Update:I searched my ID books and the internet for the exact name of these guys and I say guys because they are. My search has lead me to Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Males have red on the head and neck while females only have red on the head. If you clicked on the pictures you can see them up close and you can see some yellow on their belly. So yes, the guess was correct. Good job, Carolyn.

Update on caterpillars

Remember those caterpillars that were eating our little lemon tree? Remember that I put them in one of our bug hotels to see what they do? Well, here are a few pictures that show you what they started doing. See those strings attaching it to the top?
This is what both look like after attaching and they still look like this after a week. They look like a piece of wood. It is amazing how well they would camouflage into a tree.

Now I have to look up for information on how long it will take for them to open up.