The Homeschool Mother's Journal: April 28

In my life this week...My hubby and I are trying to figure out how to protect the garden from the chickens.  We can't plant anything until we do.  They'll just dig it up and eat it, so that's been the challenge this week.  We have decided to either build a screen to go directly over the garden,  or a fence to block off that area of the yard, or perhaps a bigger area for the chickens that's not the whole yard.  I think I am leaning towards either a fence, or a screen over the garden.  Also I left one of my pepper starters out back where the chickens could get to it and they already attacked it.  Ate every single leaf off of it.  So, all my tomatoes and peppers are out front for now until we get the garden figured out.  This is our first year with chickens and a garden, so it's a learning process! 


In our homeschool this week...the funnest thing we did this week was read The Magical Garden of Claude Monet by Laurence Anholt, and did a fun art project called Monet's waterlillies that I found at Deep Space Sparkle. Pictures below of the finished art work.  Oh, and ha ha, I just realized you can see my poor pepper plant right there in that picture of the book.  April took that picture and I guess she decided to add the plant since it was out there.

Aaron's waterlily

Aric's waterlily

Mom's waterlillies

Since the craft/art project was a bit easy for April she opted to paint hers.  This is April's waterlily.

Helpful homeschool tips or advice...don't underestimate to power of a project or lesson that takes a long time.  It's easy to say "that takes too long" lets just skip it.  But, I have found that some of the greatest learning comes from the dedication it takes to stick to long projects and lessons.

Some of the cool things we saw at the tide pools.  This is a purple sea urchin.  We had an awesome little card they gave us while we were down there.  We identified 11 out of the 17 or so things they had listed.  Love learning on the coast!

Yes, we even enjoy a rainy/stormy day at the Oregon coast.  Although the first part of the day turned out to be mostly dry.  This was right before we were heading home.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...last Friday we headed over to the coast and spent a wonderful day there checking out the tide pools, going to the coast aquarium, and playing a little on the beach.  Monday we had Monday school co-op.  Tuesday we went on a walk with some homeschool friends at a state park.  It was beautiful.  Thursday we went up to Silver Falls to visit Grandma and Grandpa who were camping there.  It made us so excited to go camping!  On Thursday evening we also went to a baptism of 3 children from the same family at our church. 

My favorite thing this week was...reading a chapter of Pagoo to the children on the way over to the coast then finding a real life hermit crab that the kids could hold, in the tide pools when we got there.  Watching the hermit crabs walk around was pretty fun.  Little Alex figured out pretty quickly if he set the hermit crab down on the rocks he'd come out and crawl back to the water.  He wanted to do that over and over again.

My kiddos favorite thing this week was...hanging out up at the campground I'm sure.  They didn't want to leave both times we went up to visit.  I think they enjoyed the many walks we took this week.  It was beautiful, and so nice to get out and explore!  My kids love that.

What's working/not working for us...being in the car and driving to and fro so much is not working for us.  We spent a lot of time driving over the past week, and I can tell it's wearing on my boys a lot because they are fighting a lot more this week as well.  That's also not working for us, the fighting.  I'm hoping it's because of the car riding.  We have a quieter week coming up, and I think we are all going to be happier.  It'll be nice when my boys can read on their own in the car like April does. 

Things I'm working on...planning Aaron's birthday party.  He picked a fun theme of rocks/gems/geology so it's going to be fun to get creative with.  My hubby already has plans for making rock digging kits for each kid.  He's pretty excited about it too.

I'm cooking...Taco soup with pulled pork instead of the usual ground beef.  It was pretty good.  I also made banana chocolate chip bread.

I'm grateful for...being the mother of 3 little boys and 1 daughter.

I'm praying for...homeschool decisions for next year.  What curriculum, who needs what changes, etc.

I'm reading...Eat & Run by Scott Jurek.  Actually Hubby is reading this to me in the evenings.  He thought it a good book for me as I am contemplating training for a triathlon this summer.  I have never been a runner, but I am pretty excited about giving this a try.  This book is very interesting, and inspiring.

The kids are reading...April is reading the first and second book in The Spiderwick Chronicles. Oh, she is also reading Black Beauty.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...I have a photo of a quote I saw at the Oregon coast aquarium...

"Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere."
~Albert Einstein


 
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Desiree

Tot school with Alex: letter Rr

Tot school has been pretty slow around here lately.  It took us a while to finish the letter R, but he's finally finished!  The theme was R is for rabbit, but we just pretty much did whatever.  Actually it started out with R is for rainbow, but ended with rabbit because we started our Peter Rabbit five in a row unit while he was still stuck on the letter R.  I guess it worked out.

So, to go with the rainbow theme, he had some rainbow sorting...

And, this fun stacking/nesting block activity:

some tot school printables for the letter Rr:

 

It was around Easter time so I got our fun egg activity out...

Letter Rr basket with rainbow transportation vehicles, and R letters to play with.

Having fun with the basket

Some other printables from Homeschool share for his alphabet notebook:  R for rocket that he decorated with glitter, a mini book with r words, little red riding hood story, animals that start with r, and a few nursery rhymes.

His R rabbit craft, which will also go in his alphabet notebook.

 

His letter Rr wall of fame.  It really is fun for him to see all of this up on the wall.  He walks by and he looks at it, and remembers what we talked about while doing each thing.

We have been working on Peter Rabbit five in a row for a few weeks, so that is one of the reasons it took so long for the letter Rr stuff to get done.  As we wrap up Peter Rabbit hopefully we'll get to the letter Bb next week!

Desiree

Skylander's school

My boys have been having a blast with the Skylander's Kindergardener printable pack from 1+1+1=1.  They are a little obsessed with this game/characters right now, so this pack has been fun for them to explore over the past few months.  Yes, months.  They keep wanting to get it back out.  But, we're finally done with it.  They've exhausted all the printables!  Lol.  They'll want to keep reading the book though I'm sure, and there are a few that can be re-used.  We'll probably take them out again someday.

Desiree