Creature Feature

Grandma and I took the girls to the library for an animal show and we were so surprised at the types of animals that the man brought. He had many bugs, spiders, centipedes, scorpions, reptiles etc.
I believe this was something from the scorpion family, possibly a whip scorpion.
While he showed off the other animals, I got to show off the python. He was very heavy, but also very calm. I really enjoyed teaching all the kids how to touch a snake and answering their questions.
Krystal and Clarissa probably liked the ferret most of all.

Drama, drama, drama

We have a lot of girl drama around our house, but not all of it is bad.

The girls have been spending a lot of time making their own plays lately. They come up with the plot, characters, script, and costumes all by themselves (as a matter of fact, Jared and I are usually banned from the room). Then, we are invited to come watch their play. They are always really cute and actually pretty good and always seem to involve animals. Above they are a frog, turtle and rabbit.
Here they are a beaver, a mole and a mouse.All four of the kids have been rehearsing regularly for The Aristocats and the performances showed all their hard work. It was a lot of fun and everyone learned a lot. Jared especially enjoyed having one of the lead roles as Berlioz the aristokitten. Clarissa was Slick Cat the Alley Cat, Krystal was a mouse and Amber was a goose. They were all adorable.

First Day of Tutoring

After a long process of meeting with the public school, of having Clarissa tested by the school counselor, and writing up an Individual Education Plan, Clarissa has been diagnosed with a learning disability which means that she qualifies for tutoring from the school even as we continue to homeschool. Clarissa started her tutoring today and she was very excited.

Deciduous, Coniferous, and Rainiferous

Okay, so I made that last one up, but we have been studying the difference between deciduous forests, coniferous forests, and rainforests. We read many books about the different forests, made posters of the forests with their different characteristics and made pudding paintings of forests.




We also watched a video about the Redwood Forest and Jared was so impressed that he decided to create his own Redwood Forest out of recyclables. Way to go Jared, you did great.

Word Box

One of our ideas for helping the girls learn to read was to make this word box. We gathered up simple items from around the house like a fork, boat, map, box, etc. and labeled them and then the girls would practice reading the words by taking each item out of the box. This is an idea that works well with visual and kinesthetic learners.

Crayon Science

What do you do with your old, broken crayons? We like to sort them into muffin cups and melt them into new, crazy crayons. This is also a good time to explore at what temperatures wax melt and at what temperatures wax cools.

It's All Greek to Me

Our Study of Ancient Greek History began with the Olympics of course. All the children in our history group were divided into different city-states, we held an Opening Ceremonies and then they all participated in different events. This event was "Test Your Knowledge of the Greek Gods." It was actually coloring pictures of the Greek Gods. Little did we know that this introduction to Greek Gods along with the book Percy Jackson would create in our children a year long obsession with the Greek Gods.

The kids also participated in physical events and relays.

Of course, we ended our introduction to the Greeks with an awards ceremony.
Two weeks later it was time to do presentations. Jared decided to do his presentation on Greek architecture. He and I had a lot of fun driving around Radford and taking pictures of local examples of Ionic, Doric and Corinthian columns on buildings. His focus was on the Parthenon.
Amber made this statue out of scrap wood and wanted to show her statue, knowing that statues were a big part of Greek history.
Clarissa gave a wonderful report about some her favorite Greek Gods with a guessing game.
Krystal's focus was on the clothing worn by several different types of people including women and soldiers during the history of Ancient Greece.