Zoo Fun

This week has been a little fun. We had a small field trip. Small because we went to the zoo and we have a very small zoo in town. We do plan on going to the zoo in Houston next week. It should be nicer and hopefully not too hot yet. We are of course doing this also into a lapbook experience. HOAC has a lapbook called A Trip to the Zoo. You can lapbook any zoo with it. So for now we just took pictures and had fun at the zoo and went over the first part and took a little trip to our local zoo.

There was a tortoise taking care of the lawn work. We laughed and decided that we needed one of these to take care of our lawn so we don't have to get that mower out. We actually would need a dozen or so but we would settle for one.

Then the peacocks were so beautiful. The male was trying to attract the attention of the female by puffing up and strutting his stuff. She didn't seem to be interested in him at all.

The colors are just gorgeous. Not only did we see the few animals there but also observed these beautiful flowers. They are purple and had an awesome smell. These big fat black bumblebees were attracted to them so the kids didn't stay around there too long.

Can you imagine the smell of those flowers. It's called a Wisteria.

So although we are not finished with out lapbook we did get a good start and are excited about working more on it next week after a trip to the zoo. This lapbook is for grades 3-6 but my 6yr old is doing them. That is the great thing of lapbooks, you can adjust for it to fit your children no matter what grade they are in. Stay tuned next week for our progress on our lapbook.

Waiting on Mother Nature

Are you wondering what I'm waiting for? We have been in drought conditions for a long time. It's hard not to get any rain. No rain water to fill the buckets at all. Still all our hard work is paying off. Our garden is starting to pop up. Look at our veggies.

Can you see our green beans? How neat is that. The last picture is our lettuce popping up.

So we got our hands dirty and did a lot of work to get it all done then we planted. Now the learning continues as our hard work pays off. We have all learned a lot about square foot gardening and how close or what to plant in a square. We also learned about the soils and what veggies to plant during different times of the year.

The learning will continue.....

Update: We got a little over an inch of rain! Finally some rain.

Another Book

I can't wait to get my copy. All About Spelling has come out with a Reader. It's called the Beehive Reader. Check out the products page all the way at the bottom. This is what the site says about it.....

Your beginning reader will delight in finding out what happens when…

…a busy cat lives in a windmill

…a sleepy bear cub takes a nap

…a grumpy duck demands a snack

…a singing bat befriends a lonely king

… a curious boy shrinks from tall to small

…and much more!

I can't wait to get my copy. I look forward to any book that is sweet and clean

Update: I got my book this weekend and it is better than I expected. You have got to see the sample pages on their site. I'm sure lots of you will be interested in this book. Go here to see this new book.

Reading for Fun

We have started reading a new book. This was not a book by choice. Do you ever find that you must find something fun. Since starting to read this book I have discovered that many have already read it and think it was a great book. I am relieved to hear that others thought it was good.

We have just started with the first chapter and tomorrow we will continue. We need something just for fun besides all the other things we read.

So what are you all reading just for fun?

Wildflowers Popping Up

As we drove home today from our meeting I stopped to take a picture of our wildflowers popping up. We live out in the country so stopping on the side of the road is really not much of a problem. I just love to see these flowers come up.

We call these "buttercups" but their name is showy primrose. These show up during March through July. So they are on time in popping up. I'll try to show some others that have come up in our area this week.

What is coming up in your area? Well, for those of you that don't still have snow. hehe I'm not making fun...really!!!!!

Gardening

I got it done. Well, at least the upside down part. I am planning on putting herbs on the top part of this neat thing I found. Actually, hubby saw it all done and suggested I get another one. YIPPEEEE!!!

I have my squares done too. Even the one foot square slats are down. I have some things planted too. I have different varieties of tomato. Some my brother from next door had some extras so I got some from him. He gave me a tomato called Mr. Stripy. That should be interesting. I am starting some green beans and peas from seed. I have a few more packets to start.

Oh, yes, I also got that bell pepper plant into its square. An old friend had her square foot boxes and they always had lots of veggies so I've been wanting to make my own for a while. I'm glad the kids helped me to get it done now.

I am also trying some strawberries in containers. We have so many ants on our land that I want to try it this way instead of in the ground. Let's see if this is better.

I will slowly be adding some blocks to the paths. Who

knows I might try something else

Although the last picture is not about gardening I had to post it. Today is the first day this year that the hummingbirds came back. I only got this good picture. It was dark already and thru the window but it's a hummingbird.

I'm all upside down

I needed more compost today and since it is spring break here for public school kids we took the week off. Although, I still consider this school but, shhhhh! The kids had their cousin spend the night. They stayed up way to late watching a movie. So after he left it was time to hit the town. I paid bills. (not fun) Then came the fun part. It was garden stuff time. I had gone to Sam's and had seen this neat contraption. I figured it would be easier for me to get some hanging baskets and the hooks to drill somewhere. I had gotten only two baskets with the hooks and it was half the price of this thing which I could put anywhere. So guess what I got?

I will be working on getting it all set up and filled up tomorrow. Can you tell I am excited about this. Not only do I have two 4x4 squares for gardening but also this thing. I already have some tomato plants and some bell pepper to get started. I have to fill the bottom part with sand first before I do anything else. I can't wait to get started tomorrow. It got a little chilly this evening and I just couldn't get myself to go out there and work. I'm sure tomorrow it will be back up to the 80's. Can't wait. I'll take some pictures and post after we (yes, boys too) get it set up and planted.

Square Foot Gardening

We started it already. Our garden is started. I have two squares. I need a little more compost for the second square and to get the strips to make the one foot squares.

This first picture the boys helped me take off all the grass. That was a lot of work. Of course, we stopped and took a small water break. Then we came back and finished it off. We mixed the compost, peat moss and vermiculite and filled the squares. Soon we will add our plants and on some squares we will be adding seeds.

As we added the different ingredients we talked about them. Vermiculite is a rock that is heated until it pops like popcorn and you get the end result that you can put in the garden. We also talked about compost and that not all bags are equal. In the book All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew he mentioned that we should have around 6 different brands of compost and mix them all to end up with a good compost mix. I was like...what??? It actually makes sense since some of these companies make compost out of different materials. Some use manure some leaves and other materials.

We have a good blend of compost in our garden. Tomorrow we will continue with the garden and get ready to plant before the rain comes which is supposed to be this weekend. Did I mention that I will be sore?

Feed Me

I mentioned a while ago to a friend that I got a different bird feeder. It's the kind that you stick on a window. Its been so fun having it that I got another one. So we have two of these feeders and the birds have actually gotten a little used to use being around. They don't fly away when we move around the room that much.

We have so many types of birds out there. So I have my camera ready at all times to get some pictures of the birds when they are there which is ALWAYS.

We have to refill those feeders every other day. Same goes for the ones we have hanging outside under the trees. The cardinals are just beautiful.

I've take some of these thru the screen so you don't get to see a perfect picture but still they are so beautiful.

These birds are pigs though. I have to be filling the feeders every other day. We still enjoy seeing them at our window every day. We stop our school work to look at them and their beauty.

Getting Ready for Game Day

I got this idea from an old friend and thought it was a wonderful idea. So what is it? We will have a game day. Putting away written school work and bringing out the games. Of course, this will still be educational. Let's just not let the kids know, ok? *wink*

On that note, the UPS man came over today. Have you seen the Professor Noggin's card games? I got a whole bunch of these. I also got a game called Budget. Yep, there is math. We also have Allowance for math. We now have cards for geography and science. I already had a few other games and puzzles to round out the day.

For the day that comes where we just don't feel like doing regular school I have something fun to throw in to boost our excitement and have fun while still learning. Now, I wonder when game day will be? hhhhmmmmmm

A Celebrity in Town

Yes, a real celebrity! He was in town today. As I was driving into town there he was. I only had my little one and he thought it was so cool to see Mater. I had to pick up the rest of the kids from art and I took a van load of kids to see this guy. They were all laughing.

What a day! Art class then seeing a celebrity. WOW!!
Click on the picture to see him better.

Columbus Who?

We are done! We were working on a lapbook on Christopher Columbus. We have had fun doing different lapbooks over this past year.

Sometimes we print out copies with colored paper and sometimes we just print it out on white paper. The reason for white paper is so they can color what they want. Sometimes they color a lot and sometimes they don't. This time around they colored some. I love having the choice of making each one different.

We used several of the trace over wording for them to have some practice writing. We also added some extra reading with this. We read the book ...If you sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 by Ann McGovern and also Christopher Columbus by Susan Bivin Aller.

This is the back side of the lapbook and this was the first time I actually added things to the back. The front side had pictures of a young Christopher Columbus.

Another thing I did to make life easier is that I cut out everything and they just did the work. They don't like to cut out and I find it relaxing so I took over that responsibility.

One final picture showing their completed work. They are always happy when we complete one more lapbook and they can look thru it and see their work. I just love doing HOAC lapbooks.

We are off to complete a few more and finish off our history, art, and science lessons for the year.

Art Gallery

The boys have been taking art classes at the Art League here in town and they entered a contest. It was so cute to see every one's art work displayed on the walls. I only took one picture of the art work because I thought this one was much funnier. So this was on Sunday after morning of going to our meeting so that is the reason we are dressed.

There was another couple of our friends there so it was even
more fun. Can I say it was funner? hehehe Anyway, we had gone to have lunch in town and were stuffed. We all looked at all the walls of art work and then stood around talking to the friends there. Hubby was tired as you can see from this picture. I just had to take it. The kids thought it was so funny that they had to do a picture together.

So this was a post about art but ended up being about being just plain tired. Don't they all look so funny? He woke up while this was going on and smiled but I made him close his eyes back up for the picture. I'm glad we had a willing participant. This just makes me laugh.