Summer Series #9 - Evening Primrose

Outdoor Hour Challenges - Summer Series #9 - Evening Primrose

We were so excited when we realized we had Evening Primrose growing in our wild side yard that we did this challenge over the weekend. Here A and N are looking at the plant during the day when the flowers are closed.
Later, after baths and pajamas, we headed outside to watch the flowers open. There were many excited exclamations of "Mom, it moved!"

A flower up close - we also headed out later, when it was darker, to watch for insects. We saw a number of moths coming to drink from the flowers, but weren't able to get any good pictures!

We found this flower in our book A Pocket Guide to Herbs. The kids enjoyed learning about the Native Americans, as well as people today, using it for medicinal purposes.

Several Evening Primrose plants

We were reminded of flowers that open during the day - such as Morning Glory, or Bindweed,

We really enjoyed this challenge and the kids keep asking when they can go out at night to watch the flowers again.

School Pictures

Today is our first full day of school. We've been building up to our full schedule for a couple weeks now. This week we will be working out the bugs in our schedule - occupying and entertaining the younger two being the biggest challenge!! They liked some of the pre-planned activities and found their own ways to entertain themselves, but they weren't exactly activities that we encourage, as you can see-O & J are going to be doing some preschool this year.

N is in 3rd grade
A is in 4th grade

Hard at work!!

***I forgot to include the link - Not Back To School Blog Hop: School Pictures

Hello Stranger!

A few weeks ago while talking with one of my sisters said she was shocked to find out I read blogs of people I don't know - COMPLETE STRANGERS. Its true. I do. All the time. Every day. And I like LOTS of them. I've decided to post some of my favorites. I'm posting it here on my homeschool blog because many of them are homeschool related, but not all. I don't read them ALL, EVERYSDAY. Mostly I read a couple on my phone in the middle of the night when I'm up with S - helps me stay awake! I started out ambitiously trying to list them in alphabetical order, but practicality took over :), and the rest of them aren't!


Asking Jane - LDS mother of 11 answers everyday mothering/parenting questions. A recent favorite: Do You Ever Have Down Days


NieNie Dialogues - Stephanie Nielsen, an LDS woman who survived a plane crash but suffered horrific injuries, blogs about her continuing journey through recovery and life.



C Jane Enjoy It - Jane, who is the sister of Stephanie Nielsen- I love her writing style, quick wit, and how I feel we are friends even though we are strangers.


Chocolate on My Cranium - LDS homeschooling mom with lots of homeschool ideas, as well as cute tutorials and family home evening lessons. My recent favorite article of hers was actually published on a different blog: The Highest Education We Can Receive - a must-read for ALL parents about teaching our children to recognize the Holy Ghost. In September she is hosting a month long focus called "Celebrate the Family" in honor of the 15 year anniversary of "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" - can't wait to check it out!!





Eric Carle - The author - He doesn't post much, but I love the short insights into his life and career. Recent favorite: Reading the Funny Papers.


Freebie of the Day - Free homeschool resources and ideas Monday through Friday.



Gentle Art of Chaos - LDS homeschool mom blogging about life and homeschool.


Handbook of Nature Study and Harmony Art Mom - love the nature challenges put together by Barb, as well as Art ideas, and all the practical homeschool advice. She is homeschooling her youngest two boys in high school - someday that may be me!!

In the Sparrow's Nest - Another homeschool mom with lots of nature study and general homeschool ideas.

Homeschooling a Houseful - Another homeschooling mom with 7 soon to be 8 kids



Preschoolers and Peace - I'm constantly trying to figure out the whole preschoolers and peace thing!! What Are Your Most Helpful Posts? gives links to some of her most helpful ideas!


4 Moms & 35 Kids Group: All of these moms give wonderful, practical advices for managing kids, homeschool, and life!
The Common Room - this is the first homeschool blog I ever found and started reading
Smockity Frocks
Raising Olives
In a Shoe

Sidenote: I'm trying to figure out why I am attracted to blogs of large families? Maybe because their craziness is just that little bit more than mine? I don't know.

See Jamie Blog - Christian, Charlotte Mason-style homeschool mom - I've been following this blog for a long time! I like the new series she is doing about Adoption Stories, the latest here.


Latter-Day Homeschooling - LDS perspective, lots of Guest Writers sharing a wide range of ideas, hints, and strategies.

Confessions of a Homeschooler - Lots of ideas for toddlers and preschoolers!

AND I could list so many more!! This is just a sampling!

How do I find blogs that I would like to read?

Blog Carnivals: These carnivals can be about anything, but my favorites relate to homeschooling. Some of the ones I like to read (the links are to the latest issues of each carnival)-
The Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival
Carnival of Homeschooling
A Homeschooling Carnival
Homeschool Showcase


Other sites that share lots of blogs:
Mormon Mommy Blogs
Latter-Day Homeschooling

4 Moms: Kitchen & Dining Room

4 Moms Open House: Kitchen & Dining Room

Smockity Frocks

The Common Room

In A Shoe
Raising Olives

I thought this open house would be fun to join. I may go back and do our yard and entryway - should I have some spare time!? Here is our kitchen and dining room. These are located at the back of our house. We have a small deck but because of the height and little kids we don't have our outside table and chairs up there. But the kids still like to have picnics out there sometimes.

Kitchen - the picture was during breakfast and before we had a chance to clean up some. We usually do clean up in the mornings. On the fridge we keep our picture for our Artist Study (Van Gogh right now). There is also our daily schedule, school schedule, and kids chore charts - these change weekly as I see the need so I don't do anything more permanent than paper! We don't use the counter for school very much - mostly when I need to separate kids to keep them from distracting each other, though sometimes they do decide to work there. The cupboards under the bar hold our art supplies.

Mostly (aside from meals of course) we use the kitchen table for art projects a couple days a week. I like to cover the table with a vinyl table cloth to protect it and let the kids go to work - play doh, painting, stickers, whatever they've picked! In the lower right hand corner you can see an old coffee-table-turned-kids-table where the kids will eat, play, or color. All the kids like to sit on the window sills and look out on the world.

You can join the open house or check out the many different kitchens and dining rooms at any of the links at the beginning of the post!!

UPDATE: To answer a question in the comments here are pictures of the tile and countertop.

Summer Series #7 - Summer Cattails

Outdoor Nature Challenges - Summer Series #7 - Summer Cattail Observations

Spring

Winter

Autumn

We spent a lovely morning at our "Cattail Park." First we took some time to examine the cattails:

Sight: Growing with the cattails were also bulrushes, weeds, grasses, and wild sunflowers. We were hoping tosee the red-winged blackbirds from the Spring, but they were missing. We did see a few cowbirds hanging around.
Smell: We could smell damp mud and the fresh scent of green things growing. Around the splash pad it also smelled of chlorine. And we all decided smells are hard to describe!!

Touch: We compared the green plants with last year's plants. The green ones were soft, but strong and full. Last year's were dry, crinkly, and more easily broken. Last year's also had a different sound.

Hearing: We could hear the wind rustling through the plants and the nearby aspen trees. We could also hear traffic and some model airplanes flying in a nearby field. Lots of kid and water sounds by the splash pad.

After our observations we played at the park - the splash pad run-off provides some of the water for the cattails. When we were home they quickly colored in their nature journals - too anxious to get outside to play with friends!! But when I asked them about their pictures they both talked about including the yellow and green leaves of the new plants and last year's, so they did put some thought into them!

N's-

A's:

Summer Series #2 - Summer Tree Study

Outdoor Hour Challenges - Summer Series #2 - Summer Tree Study

A year of studying our trees!! It was so much fun to look at the past pictures in our journals and on the blog. We have enjoyed watching our trees all year.

Spring - April 2010

Winter - January 2010

Fall - September 2009

A's Tree & Journal Page

N's Tree & Journal Page

My kids enjoyed collecting leaves and doing some rubbings to include in their journals.

Summer Series #1 - Mosquitos

Outdoor Nature Challenges - Summer Series #1 - Mosquitoes

We are getting back to our nature studies after our "new baby break." I printed out pictures of the Mosquito life cycle and anatomy for the kids to put in their journals. We read from and looked at pictures in several books we have that talk about mosquitoes -

First Animal Encyclopedia

Bugs: Discover an Amazing World (Silver Dolphin)

We found a great video at YouTube of the Mosquito Life Cycle. It looks like the poster if this video has a number of excellent insect metamorphosis videos we will be checking out for other insect studies.

And we took advantage of the wonderful studies done by other homeschool families for great pictures and videos of these little pests! Here are a few:

Pebblekeeper - Angie

Barefoot in Suburbia - Allison

All Creation Cries Out - K

I will be including our "Train Your Senses" experiences with the more current challenges as we complete them.