Nature Seekers September 4 H Meeting

When we joined the Nature Seekers 4 H Club in 2008, it was the first and only Cloverbud 4 H club (Cloverbuds are 4hers ages 5-8.)  All of the children in the club at that time were Cloverbuds.  But, as children have a tendency to do, many of those kids grew up and of all the children that were the original club members, I think only mine are left.  Our club did continue to grow and change over the years as we gained new members, but it is not just a Cloverbud club anymore.  I have children ranging in age from 5 to almost 13.  And actually we have a few younger than 5 if you count tag along siblings that love to be able to participate in club meetings.  It can sometimes be a  challenge to find activities that will suit a wide range of ages and that age gap caused me to change plans for this month's meeting literally at the last minute.

I thought it would be fun to do a meeting on LEGO.  When we did the science workshop over the summer everyone's favorite activity was the LEGO table.  So I started looking for some LEGO related activities we could do at the meeting.  I had planned on having the children work in teams to create a balloon powered LEGO car that we could race.  I had my boys gather up a bunch of wheels and axles so I knew we would have enough (I wasn't sure what all was in the 4 H bin) and we had the other supplies left over from when we did our fair booth.  But an hour before we had to leave I decided we really should do a test run, and needless to say it did not go well.  It was really frustrating my 3 younger children because they couldn't come up with a design that moved very well under balloon power.  I wanted the meeting to be fun not frustrating so I threw that idea out the window.

What did we do?

I had filled a jar full of different size LEGO pieces and had everyone write their guess of how many were in the jar on their way in.  I gave out a prize for the closest.

I read a list of fun and fascinating facts about LEGO (and for those of you who were at the meeting if you capitalize LEGO spell check does decide it is correct :)

Then Anthony did a demonstration of our LEGO WeDo Software.  He had built and programmed a roaring lion and showed the club how it worked.

Next we played LEGO Bingo.  We played 2 rounds of this using LEGO as bingo markers.  I gave out those .97 packs from Walmart that has a small coloring book and crayons in it (unfortunately they didn't have any LEGO ones or any other LEGO themed prizes but oh well.)  Everyone else got a sucker.

That gave us about 20 min left leaving 10 minutes to clean up before another meeting would start coming in.  For that 20 minutes the children got to create whatever they wanted to from the available bricks and blocks in the LEGO bin.

We were missing several of our regular members partially because I changed the time so we could make it to soccer, and also because of general busyness, but we had 3 new members and still ended up with 16 children at the meeting.

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When Mommy Needs a Time Out

I really love Mondays.  It's the start of a brand new week.  A new beginning.  Last Monday started out great.  I had gotten everything I needed ready for school Sunday afternoon so I didn't have to rush around Monday morning.  We got all of our morning work completed and had fun doing it.  We had a great recess with some beautiful weather.  But after recess it started to go down hill.  Our afternoon can be a little chaotic at times with so many children at so many different learning levels.  As I often tell them there is only one of me and seven of them (well six in our homeschool since Chelsea is at college) and as much as I try to keep everything systematic and running smoothly in the afternoon, sometimes one thing can throw everything off.

Last Monday that one thing was a missing Math DVD.  Monday is watch your video day for Math U See.  Each child's DVD is supposed to be kept on a certain shelf in our school room.  Christian's was missing.  A quick search on our movie shelf downstairs and the TV area upstairs did not produce the DVD.  Time spent looking for the DVD got me both behind schedule and exasperated.  We skipped over Christian's math since Anthony had already finished his and moved on to Spelling at which point Christian (already frustrated about me being exasperated over the math DVD) has a melt down because he could not remember how to spell any of his words from the week before and we had to review instead of moving on.  Everyone else gets done for the day except for Christian's math which we decide to go ahead and do without the DVD.  Apparently my method of explanation was not working, and by the time we were halfway through the math lesson I wanted to go and beat my head against a table for a long time and Christian was starting to cry.

So we declared school done for the day.  It was time for a snack and a break, for me and the children.  You see, it is not fair to my children for me to try and teach them when I am frustrated and exasperated.  It is not fair for me to expect Christian to be able to pick up his math and just do it like his older brother.  He is only 7 and needs me to be able to work patiently with him one on one.

When Mommy is frustrated so are your children.  Our attitude plays a big part in how our day will go.  If we have a happy, patient attitude, the day will go much smoother than if we are grumpy and impatient.

When you get to the point where you need a time out, take one.  Even if it makes your laundry get a little behind or supper later will end up a few minutes late.  Everyone needs some time to recharge and your family will thank you for it.  Even though I know this, that doesn't always mean I do it.  But my experience with Christian on Monday reminded me.  I do not want my children remembering a grumpy impatient mommy who made them cry over a math DVD.  15 min of reading a book for myself and I was ready to take on the world again!

I also want to mention that sometimes putting away something that is causing a frustration for a child for a day or two or whatever can also make a huge difference.  They can get frustrated even when we are having a good day and sometimes all they need is a little fresh perspective too :)

By the way, I found the DVD, apologized to Christian for being so impatient, and determined that Tuesday was going to be much better.  I sat down with him every other day that week and worked every math problem with him to make sure he understood the concept and we changed up our spelling routine so it would be more fun to review those dreaded words.  The rest of our week went great :)

Happy Homeschooling!

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Homeschool Wrap Up Week 5

In this week's wrap up, I am starting with Lily only because I usually put her last and I wonder if everyone reads all the way to the end of my posts (you do don't you?)

Some pf you may remember that O made the last minute decision of buying My Father's World God's Creation From A to Z and I am so glad I did!  We LOVE it!  After the intro unit which is 10 days on the Creation of the World, there are 26 units that are 6 days each.  We usually only do school 4 days per week, but Lily has been asking to do school work on Fridays as well.  This week we finished the first unit which focuses on the letter "S", the sun, and Jesus is the light of the world.  Some of the activities we did were: painted the sun, made a sun dial, watched grapes transform into raisins, read books about the sun, plus completed some letter activities and worksheets on the letter "S" and the number one.  Also we are working on an activity that teaches children how to count to 100 by putting a straw in a cup every day and writing the corresponding number on a chart, and we are learning about the calender.  For each unit you also make a badge related to that unit.  We made the sun badge for unit one and we decided we were going to put all of the badges on a piece of string and hang it in the school room.

Now on to everyone else.  For Bible this week we continued on to What On Earth Can I Do? We are still working through Chapter 4 on Where Is Your Treasure?  We also have been reading aloud some new books I received to review from iWitness books from Apologia starting with iWitness Biblical Archaeology.

Emmie coloring in WOECID while I read

In MOH Vol III we completed lessons 4,5,and 6 and did the corresponding map work, memory cards, and added the new timeline figures to our time line.  While I was reading one day, Anthony found something nice and quiet and creative to do.

In Science we had a little bit of reading to finish up in Chapter 3 of Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics, plus a vocab assignment in the journals.  We also did a fun little science experiment.

Not an assignment in our books, but we watched Flubber the other day so of course we had to make some.

For Literature and Writing all we did this week was to finish up our lessons that we were a day behind on last week because of our co-op.  I could've doubled up this week, but we had a field trip so we were going to have no school one day this week as well and it was just easier to play catch up.  The older boys did a final copy of their IEW papers and lesson 4 in Fix IT Grammar, and Christian did his Thursday worksheet in Lightning Lit and wrote a story on his 3 important things.  Anthony did his Thursday worksheet in Lightning Lit third grade and wrote a story about his favorite room in the house.

In Spelling Anthony and Christian finished step 3 in AAS Level 2 and Alex finished step 15 in AAS Level 4.

In math, each child moves up one lesson per week.

We have a new review to learn Chinese. Alex is working on that with me.

Other activities this week:

Monday Nick and Alex had their first soccer game.  Christian was supposed to play his first on Thursday and Nick and Alex were supposed to play again, but they got rained out.

Lily had gymnastics on Tuesday.

Thursday we had a great time at the Ka-do-ha Indian village.

Saturday I finished up a sewing project of a tablecloth, plates, cups, forks, knives, spoons, tomatoes, apples, strawberries, pears, and carrots for the girls (and Christian plays with them too.)  Lily was very helpful sewing things closed by hand after the were stuffed.  They have had a great time playing with them so far.

I hope you had a great week in your homeschool!

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Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village

The Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village is not very far from where we live, but we have never been there before.  When a local homeschool group scheduled a field trip to go and invited us along, we decided it would be fun to go check it out.  I had heard that is was not very big and it wouldn't take long to go through, but it is a neat little part of history right here in our town and the prices for the group rate were a really good deal.  It only cost $12 for myself and six children to get in.  Plus field trips and meeting new friends is always fun!

We arrived at the Ka-Do-Ha Indian Village by 10:30.  There was almost a 100% chance of rain, but we were hoping it would hold off.  The gift shop where you go in was very nice and had a lot of interesting things in it, gift shop prices of course :).  The people working in there were very nice and helpful.

Anthony and Christian cracked me up posing like these Indian statues, one outside the gift shop and one inside the gift shop.

Attached to the gift shop was the museum.  It was about the size of my family room.  In it was: a diorama of an Indian village, some pottery, arrowheads, a crystal, beads, and a few other artifacts.

Then you get to go outside and see the excavated mounds.  I did not get a picture of them, but each mound has a building built around them.  You go up the stairs and look down into the excavated mound.  It is like a really deep pit.  In it are replicas of the skeletons that were found and the artifacts that were found with them.   There were 4 buildings that had mounds in them.

There was a sign that warned of poisonous snakes and to stay on the trail.  We just hoped that the snakes knew to stay off the trail :)

Then there was a plowed field that you could search for artifacts and gems.  Anything you found you got to keep.  My children found some crystals and rocks, an arrowhead, and some broken pottery.  Everyone found something so they were very pleased.  Nick found a really big crystal.

After that we bought two containers of dirt (usually $8 but only $5 with the group rate) that were guaranteed to have stones and artifacts in them and we got to wash stones.  This was their favorite part.  We found lots of gems and some arrowheads too.  Each of the children had their own baggie to put the stuff they found in it.

We opted not to stay and eat our picnic lunch because that storm was getting closer and it wasn't long after we started driving home that the sky opened up and it started pouring.  But a good time was had by all.  I wish that there was an actual replica of an Indian Village set up out there instead of just a diorama of one.  But it still was an fun and interesting field trip.

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