Nature Study Week 3: Trees

One of my goals for 2017 was to be more intentional about Nature Study for the four youngest children (5,7,9, and 11).  I want to do Nature Study once a week around a specific theme.  I remembered a friend mentioning a resource she bought at the beginning of the school year and after taking a look at it decided this might be what I needed to help make sure I actually get it done.  I bought Exploring Nature With Children , an ebook with 48 nature study ideas, a poem to go along with your theme, the name of a piece of art work to look up, books, and extension activities.  She also lists coordinating pages from Handbook of Nature Study if you have that book and are interested in looking up more information.



Our week 1 study was on the winter sky.

Week 2 was on the moon.

This week our nature study was on trees.  When we do the nature study, I read through the information that was included in the book.  It only takes a few minutes.  Then we read the suggested poem and look at the piece of art work that is listed.  Then I send them out to do their investigating and draw in their nature journals.  

Our yard has a lot of trees.  I told them they could pick any tree they though was interesting to draw. 

The trees they chose are Saw Tooth Oak Trees.  We kept the acorns in the fridge over the winter a few years ago and then planted them in a small container in the spring.  We moved them to a bigger bucket when they outgrew the container and last year planted them in the front yard. 

I thought that they would choose some of the larger trees to see if there were any nests or anything interesting in them that you might not see in the spring when all of the leaves are on the tree, but once again they surprised me.

 Except for Emmie who tried to draw the big tree by the swing set.

Happy Homeschooling!

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Review: My Soul Sings by Kim Vogel Sawyer

My Soul Sings by Kim Vogel Sawyer is the sequel to Sweet Sanctuary.  In Sweet Sanctuary, we read about Micah's brother Jeremiah who is in Poland serving as a missionary and helping Jewish children escape.  My Soul Sings picks up Jeremiah's story after he has to leave Poland earlier then he wanted because of the childhood bout of Polio he had that crippled his legs and weakened his heart.  He goes to a small town in Arkansas to take over for a pastor that cannot preach because he is recovering from surgery.  Jeremiah hopes that his time in Shyler's Point will help him to recover from the feelings of failure he has for not being able to help more people and also from the fears he carries after being involved in the war.

Tessy grew up in Shyler's Point.  Her father is the minister there but the townspeople are all afraid of Tessy because they are very superstitious and she was born on Friday the 13th.  They believe that everywhere Tessy goes an ill wind will befall the people she is around.  Tessy stays away from the people as much as possible and has only one friend, a hermit named Ol' Gordy.

Seeing the way the people treat Tessy reminds Jeremiah of the way the Jews were treated in Europe. He wonders if God sent him there to help the people get over their fears of her and accept her as one of their own.  But, unusual things are happening around town and many items are being stolen.  People are quick to blame Tessy and Jeremiah fears that befriending her will prevent him from truly reaching the people of Shyler's Point.

Kim Vogel Sawyer is one of my absolute favorite authors.  I loved Sweet Sanctuary and was very excited to see that there was a sequel!  One of the reasons I love to read Ms. Sawyer's books is that she does an amazing job making the reader feel as though they are transported through time and a part of the story.  You will feel as though you have stepped back to the 1940's and are part of the small town of Shyler's Point where you may think believing a child is a jinx may be silly but the people around you have strong beliefs that have been passed down.  The other reason I love them is that they are faith based books.  You will read the message of faith and hope and believe that God answers prayer, uses all things for good, and places people where He needs them.  He helps you overcome your fears if only you will let him.  I love the way that Jeremiah and Tessy both help each other through their different struggles that really aren't so different.

Another outstanding book by Kim Vogel Sawyer! 

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review.  I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance to the FTC regulations.

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Virtual Fridge: The Kitenge Tree from Tanzania

This week in geography, we started learning about Africa.  As I was looking for an art lesson to do to go along with Africa, I remembered that we did finish all of our art lessons from ArtAchieve last summer.  We had so much fun completing those art lessons.  We had great results and did different drawings from many different place in the world.  One of the three lessons that we had left was The Kitenge Tree Wall Hanging from Tanzania, a country in Africa. 

Supplies needed for this project were lesson were:

crayons
paper

watercolor brush
dark acrylic paint

ArtAchieve Lesson and drawing warm up


We only have one computer and Alex needed it for his math, so we had to watch the lesson on the iPad.

I love the ability to pause the video whenever you need to.  Every time he drew a new line, I paused it while the children added their lines. 

After they finished drawing, they colored in their designs.  The drawing and coloring took us almost an hour.

Then you are supposed to crumple up your paper to crack the crayon and paint over your drawing with paint to finish it off, but the children did not want to do that.  They were pleased with the results they had after coloring.

Emmie (5) is top left then Lily (7).  Anthony (11) is bottom left and Christian (9) bottom right.

I am linking up here:

Happy Homeschooling

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Wordless Wednesday

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 17

P.E.: We did 3 days of Family Time Fitness.  I need to find the time to look for a workout DVD that we can rotate with FTF.  The children are pretty tired of our yoga DVDS.

Bible: We read about Turkey in Windows on the World.  In Hero Tales we read about John Wesley.  The memory verse this week was Matthew 6:19 and our Bible reading was Matthew 12:46-12:30.

Read Aloud: We finished our morning read aloud on William Booth.  For our afternoon read loud we read 3 chapters of 21 Balloons.  We finished our evening read aloud, The Ruby Moon.  The children were not happy that once again it ended on a cliff hanger and the next book does not come out until April.

Poetry: We are memorizing the Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson. 

E.C.C: We continued our study of Germany.  We reviewed the location of all of the countries in Europe.  We read some facts about Germany in Children's Atlas of God's World, and I had Alex read us some phrases and colors in German.  He has been studying German and his pronunciation is much better then mine.  I added in a notebooking page on Johann Sebastian Bach and we took a look at some famous castles in Germany.  In the science portion we read about rivers and streams and living by rivers and lakes.

On Saturday I cooked some German dishes for supper: potato pancakes, pork schnitzel, and green beans.  Emmie and I made a German apple cake for dessert.

Art: For art this week we did castle drawings.

Apologia Astronomy: In Exploring Creation with Astronomy we completed the chapter on Saturn.  We did some experiments with a bottle rocket.  That was fun!

Language Arts: Lily has been working on verbs in her language arts book, Jolly Grammar.  In Language Lessons for Today, the boys wrote a short composition on ostriches.  I also read The Fox and the Stork and they narrated it back to me.  They each wrote the fable in their own words.  We talked about homophones and they wrote 6 sentences using see, sea ,here, hear, by, and buy.

Spelling/Reading: In AAS Level 3 the boys completed Step 18.  In AAR Level 4 they completed lessons 44 and 45 .  In AAR Level 3 Lily finished lessons 10 and 11.

Math: Nick completed lesson 16 in MUS Geometry.  Alex completed four lessons in Teaching Textbooks.  Lily, Christian, and Anthony completed 4 lessons in Math Lessons for a Living Education.

MFW Creation from A to Z: Emmie finished up "g" for "goat" by doing her goat badge and we read A Year at Maple Farm.  She started "C" for "cow" and did her picture card page, handwriting page and sound discrimination page. 

Nature Study: Our nature study this week was on the moon.

All American History and God's Design in Nature: Nick will be starting on the second volume of AAH by the end of the month. In God's Design in Nature he has finished through Chapter 7 worksheet 2. 


Other Activities this Week

Tuesday the girls had gymnastics.

It was 75 degrees Tuesday so we went and played at the park until it was time to drop Nick off at youth.

Wednesday we were back at Kid's Club.

Thursday was Nick's birthday.

Card Lily made for Nick

Friday we did our errands and grocery shopping.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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Nature Study Week 2: The Moon

One of my goals for 2017 was to be more intentional about Nature Study for the four youngest children (5,7,9, and 11).  I want to do Nature Study once a week around a specific theme.  I remembered a friend mentioning a resource she bought at the beginning of the school year and after taking a look at it decided this might be what I needed to help make sure I actually get it done.  I bought Exploring Nature With Children , an ebook with 48 nature study ideas, a poem to go along with your theme, the name of a piece of art work to look up, books, and extension activities.  She also lists coordinating pages from Handbook of Nature Study if you have that book and are interested in looking up more information.



Our week 1 Nature Study was on the winter sky, and it was a bit challenging!

Week 2 was on the moon.

We did this nature study in a couple of different parts.  During our school day, we talked about the moon and the different phases of the moon. We read the recommended poem on the moon and looked at the recommended piece of art.

We could not draw the moon until it was out of course.  So that evening the children went out and drew the moon in their nature journals.  I kind of thought they would make small sketches of what the moon looked like over a period of several days, but they did larger sketches of what the moon looked like in the sky.  They went back out the next night and did another drawing for their nature journals.

Happy Homeschooling!

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Virtual Fridge: Castle Drawings

This week in geography we have been studying Germany.  One of the things that we did some research on were castles.  We read about the 10 most famous castles in Germany and did castle drawings for our weekly art lesson.

I had a really good art book from Usborne that had great step by step drawing instructions and one of the lessons was on castles.  I remember Nick drawing them when he was in kindergarten and we did a unit study on knights and castles.  But I could not find the book!  It has been a few years (Nick turned 15 today!) So, I googled step by step instructions for drawing castles and came up with this link.

I had my four youngest working on this project.  They used pencils to draw and colored pencils to shade the drawings in.  It took about an hour from start to finish.

Emmie (5) is top left, Lily (7) top right, Anthony (11) bottom left, and Christian (9) bottom right.  Christian decided to add a fire breathing dragon to his and some knights on the top of the tower shooting at him.

I am linking up here

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Happy Homeschooling!

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