Posted by Cindy on October 20, 2009
A family in our church owns a pumpkin patch/ corn maze, and they generously host the families of our church each year for a cookout, hayride and free pumpkins for the kids. It’s always GREAT fun – and this year was no exception!
The rule was each child could take home any pumpkin they wanted as long as they could carry it by themselves. Do you see my little one walking near his daddy? Yeah, that was Eli’s pumpkin that he needed “just a little help” carrying.
Posted by Cindy on October 19, 2009
Apples of Gold, written by Lisa Samson is a true treasure for teaching purity to your children ten and older.
I’m always on the lookout for really good literature that brings home the point of purity with a serious message, yet without a heavy hand. This book meets both of those criteria! Not only that, but both my daughter and son were completely engaged in the story from beginning to end! AND, it only took two days worth of devotional reading time to finish!
I just posted a review of this GREAT book at The Curriculum Choice. If you’re interested in books about purity, you can finish reading the review here.
Posted by Cindy on October 14, 2009
Our nature topic of the month is ponds. We’ve been having so much fun studying plant life, water birds, erosion, pond sources, pond health and so much more! Our most recent trip to a pond focused on pond plants. Below are some pictures of the wonderful finds – even in October!
Algae
Duckweed
Rush
We think the foremost plant might be water buttercup.
Pondweed
Possibly hornwort
Measuring the perimeter of the pond
This particular pond is stream-fed and a stream leads away from it, too. We followed the stream and the kids decided to build a bridge across with some downed limbs.
Just a little quiet time. Oh, how I wish there were more! 
An underwater root
Ideas for learning about pond plants can be found in the NaturExplorers unit Peaceful Ponds. This unit is currently being revamped, which means the price will go up soon!
Posted by Cindy on October 13, 2009
I recently reviewed some curriculum from Moving Beyond the Page that included a Poetry unit. Mahayla worked through the self-directed curriculum on her own and then completed a final project of sharing some of her own poetry in a coffeehouse setting. Here are a few pictures from the “coffeehouse”. 
This is some of the poetry she shared.
Nothing like dressing up for you big performance! (Insert rolling eyes.) The poster in the back was a display teaching the audience (her family) about poetry forms and the tv is on because it was playing soft music.
Yummy banana bread. Every coffeehouse poetry reading needs food!
This week and next, the kids are working on presidential projects. I’ll share them with you soon!
Posted by Cindy on October 9, 2009
October is an awesome time for finding spiders and their amazing webs in my area. Take a look at the webs we found in and around a barn.
Orb Web
Sheet Web
Funnel Web
Tangle Web
And I couldn't pass up this picture of spiderlings that recently emerged from their egg sack!
I tell ya, once you start looking for things in nature, God is always good to give you quite a show!
Melissa and I are currently revamping the Spectacular Spiders NaturExplorers unit to make it more meaty and add several notebooking pages. Once we do, the price will jump – but this won’t happen for several weeks. If you’re interested in studying spiders now, the current Spectacular Spiders unit is only $7.00!
