Elementary

Living Math – Graphs Galore

October/November = lots of falling leaves and lots of candy.  What better to do with both of those things?  Math, of course! Whether you have extra M&M’s, Skittles, Smarties, Runts, or just a big bunch of assorted candy bars, take a few minutes to turn those sweets into more than cavities.  Even little bitty ones…

Embriodery Project

We did many projects to go along with our Colonial Life unit study, but this one tops the list.  Not only were these embroidered hand prints a wonderful handicraft activity, they turned out beautifully, too.  So much so, that they are gracing my mantle right now and I plan to hang them on the wall…

13 Colonies Lapbook/Notebook

We’re finishing up our Thirteen Colonies & Colonial Life Unit this week!  I’ll be posting soon about the biggest chunk of the unit, but I wanted to take a minute to highlight the 13 Colonies lapbook/notebook we put together using: I had to do the legwork of locating library books about each of the Thirteen…

Leaf traced out on graph paper

Nature Study – Leaves

(This post contains affiliate links and links to my business website, Shining Dawn Books.) It was COLD in Central KY yesterday The nature walk part of our nature study was rather short – just a quick trip down to the creek bed to collect a variety of leaves.  But once we got home – the…

Take a Walk in Your Socks??

That’s what we did yesterday!  All in the name of nature study, of course.  With some of Dad’s older socks (one white pair and one dark pair) the kids were instructed to run through as many fields, patches of weeds, fence rows – whatever they could find – and then come back home in ten…

Monet and More

This week’s Fine Arts Tuesday finished our study of Monet.  I’ve love his work and could probably spend many more weeks with him as our focus, but it’s time to move on. We’ve been finding and hearing lots of frogs around the farm lately, so a picture study using three of Monet’s “Waterlillies” paintings seemed…

Field Trip Journals

Remember the Field Trip Journals?  We’re still using them this year and I couldn’t be happier with them.  They are proving to make great writing assignments, and I’m finding the kids absolutely love looking through them for the memories.  I love to watch the kids sort through brochures, ticket stubs and pictures trying to decide what to include and how…

Pilgrims Unit

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine sent out some freebie units not too long ago from Highlights of Homeschooling and one of them worked perfectly for our Pilgrims unit study.  It’s called The Mayflower Unit Study. This isn’t the typical unit that we do around here, as it’s very language arts led and didn’t required much by way of…

Field Trip Fun

For those of you who know Melissa from blogging, consider yourselves blessed.  But, if you’re lucky enough to know her in person, how much more blessed you are!  It was such a treat to spend time with her last week.  Not only that, she took on all three of my children while I spoke at the THINK meeting AND…