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!
Enjoy spider nature study with oodles of ideas in the NaturExplorers Spectacular Spiders study.
Posted by Cindy on October 7, 2009
Well, another unit bites the dust! We had a great time learning about energy, with a main focus on heat and electricity. This slide show gives you just a glimpse into some of our hands on experiments.
What turned out to be THE BEST of all the curriculum we used was the Electric Kitbook. In fact, I liked it so much, I’m going to do a review about it soon at The Curriculum Choice.
At the end of the unit, I gave the kids a test that you can find on my Homeschool Launch page. I’ve been enjoying adding more tests to the curriculum this year. It keeps everyone on their toes!
Below is the resource list that’s been in my sidebar. I hope you find some treasures the next time you need to plan an energy/electricity unit!
Energy
Moving Beyond the Page Energy Unit
Electricity Lessons
Heat Lessons
Next stop – Presidential History!
Posted by Cindy on September 19, 2009
Many people think fungi are only around during the wet and warm spring months. How are these for August and September fungi finds??
Unidentified Polypore
Silky Parchment
Mustard-yellow Polypore
Tapioca Slime
Likely another image of Silky Parchment
Likely some sort of Carbon Mushroom or a Slime Mold
Likely a Jack O'Lantern or False Chantrelle
This area of fruiting body was huge!
I have no idea what this is, but it looked like a mold.
Hairy Parchment
Possibly Carbon Balls or Red Cushion Hypoxylon
Possibly Bear Lentinus
I took these pictures near the edge of a creek on rotting logs and on a walk in the woods. They were everywhere! Finding fungi is one of my new nature study passions ever since writing the Fungus Among Us NaturExplorer unit! Since there are many thousand varieties of fungi, it’s sometimes hard to pinpoint exactly what you find. But that’s okay, just seeing them is enough for me!
Posted by Cindy on September 17, 2009
So sorry I’ve been MIA for several days. We’ve been enjoying lots of pretty afternoons and evenings outside and I’ve let lots of things indoors slack. Oops! Gotta enjoy these perfect days while you can, though!
Last week we finished a unit on US Government and Civics using The United States Government 7th-12th grade lapbooking unit from Knowledge Box Central. It was a great refresher for me and a super way to teach my children everything from the history of the Constitution to the design and procedures of our government to the rights and responsibilities we have as citizens. We should all be teaching US Government and Civics anyway, but in light of so many political issues in our country right now, it’s extremely important to teach our children the fundamentals of how our government is supposed to work and what we can and should do about it when it isn’t working like it should. (Sorry for the run-on sentence and the soap box.)
Anywho, here are some pictures of our lapbook.
To be sure they understood the wealth of information learned during the unit, I gave the kiddos a test that you can download from my Homeschool Launch page. Mahayla scored 100% without help. Caleb was allowed to use his lapbook when he came across a tough question. With the help of his lapbook, he scored 100%, too!
We’ve moved on to the first of a four-part energy/physics unit – focusing on the definition of energy, heat and electricity. Some of our resources are posted in the sidebar. I’ll post about our fun soon!
