Winter Nature Walk!

 

We went for a family walk by our house on the weekend. It was a beautiful day and the snow wasn't gone yet.  The purpose of the walk was to get out, have fun and to look for cat tails and observe winter trees.

We found no cat tails near our house. NONE! So we didn't observe them. There were many other things to look at though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a picture of a hole that houses a small rodent... maybe a mouse? Look at all the tracks and seed shells littering the ground around the hole. And the picture below is near the hole. There are dried plants with seeds hanging that this little guy is enjoying when he can.

 

 

 

Men and boys, generally speaking, naturally end up not being able to help themselves when in the wilderness. They tend to be just a bit louder than girls. They walk a bit stronger. They break sticks and throw rocks and here is my hubby hanging from an old dead tree fallen through other trees. He is bouncing up and down on the ground... men... I'm rolling my eyes but giggling at the same time. LOL!

“Look round and round upon this bare bleak plain, and see even here, upon a winter's day, how beautiful the shadows are! Alas! it is the nature of their kind to be so.” ~ Charles Dickens

Space Travel - added links

I downloaded a couple of space lapbooks and made them into one. Here is one of the activities that went along with the lap-book.  It's a cut out rocket. The rocket sits on a launch pad and when you hit the one end of the launch pad the rocket shoots out the top.

We are still working on the lap-book and may do some of it on vacation. I'll post more of it when it's finished. It's a THICK one!

Here are the links to the lapbooks I found:

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/space_lapbook.php

http://homeschoolhelperonline.com/lapbooks/astronaut.htm

“The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel.” ~ John Glenn

Valentine's Day

I'm glad I did Valentine activities early. We'll be taking vacation soon it would have gotten in the way of our fun activities. Here is Zoe making a heart basket out of a paper towel roll. I wish I got more pictures of this so I could share how we made it.

“Oh, if it be to choose and call thee mine, love, thou art every day my Valentine!” ~ Thomas Hood

Book Sharing Monday

The Great Doughnut Parade by Rebecca Bond we discovered this month while we are getting to know our library through the program "Reading my Library". The link to join this challenge is on the left bar on this blog. It was a great find under the B authors.

Who knew that something so small as a doughnut could cause such a wonderful effect through a town?! It's a joyful story about a great parade starting with a doughnut that Billy had tied to his belt with a string. First a hen follows and then a cat and the crowd grows and grows. A quotation from the book reads: "You never quite think of the marvelous things that happen when doughnuts are tied up with strings!"

To join this contest click on the link to the Left that reads "Book Sharing Monday" and join up on the Serendipity blog.

She did it!

I don't have a picture. Our public pool frowns on taking pictures when the pool is busy. Zoe jumped off of the diving board without any flotation devise today!!! We were so excited! She didn't even look scared. What a brave girl!! I'm so proud of her!

Book Sharing Monday

With Unschooling I think it's good that we have books that incorporate some important subjects. My kids love reading so when they don't want to do lessons we can learn math through this collection of books that we have. I learned of them through a local homeschool forum and knew from the start that they were perfect for our family. I purchased the whole first level right away. For Christmas the kids got the second level (or most of them) from their Grandma. These books are great and have activities you can do at the end re-enforcing the concepts.

The name of the series is "Math Start" and they are written by "Stuart Murphy". Here is his website: http://www.stuartjmurphy.com/.

This book is a favourite for us. It is called "Bug Dance by Stuart J. Murphy". It is about a centipede who is in gym class learning how to dance. He messes up and the other bugs in the class share comments about him dancing. The Caterpillar Coach keeps going over the steps until they get it. The dance sounds fun and there are activities at the end that re-enforce directions. They can make their own dance, draw a map to the park, and play Simon Says saying the directions in the movements.  They also have a short list of other books that share the same math concept.

Homeschool Your Child For Free

Homeschool Your Child For Free by LauraMaery Gold and Joan M. Zielinski is a great book for finding resources to homeschool free or inexpensively. I borrowed this book from our library. It was a miracle they had it since they usually don't have many books I want on the subject of homeschooling. I have checked out many internet links in this book and I'm impressed. We will be using some of these websites in our homeschooling journey. I will likely be borrowing this book again soon.