Volcanic Eruptions

Where can you find a classroom that hasn't experimented with the amazing effects of baking soda, vinegar and food coloring? Well, not here.

Krystal, always a little hesitant, waits in the background to make sure that our volcano doesn't really explode. Clarissa was thoroughly impressed with the results of the experiment and kept wanting to do it again and again.
Even Krystal got more comfortable with it after the first few times. Another successful science adventure.

Eco-friendly Birdhouses

Spring is here, our apple tree is blossoming, so we decided to reuse our juice containers and make birdhouses. This was an easy craft that reinforced the importance of taking care of our earth and the creatures that share it with us.
This one is beautiful hanging in the apple tree, but our favorite one is just outside the dining room window where we get to watch bluejays and cardinals come and feed with their mates. It's so cute, sometimes they even feed each other. The kids are getting pretty good at being able to identify many of our common birds, both male and female and we can all tell the cardinal by it's chirp.

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.