Teachable Moment

Last night we had the most spectacular experience.  We were treated to a display of the Northern Lights right here in West Michigan.  They didn't last long (by the time we were aware of the light show anyway), but it is something we will never forget.  

Last night we viewed this in our back yard...

 

Today we had a renewed excitement for Astronomy.

 I love being my child's teacher. :)

Enjoying Summers End

I'd like to say that we are digging in and really learning some good stuff.  

Faith now knows Algebra, can read a novel, and is entering college next year. Ha!  Alas...all this nice weather has detoured our home school just a little...  But you know what?  That's the BEAUTY of homeschooling!  

We have very long, cold, dreary winters.  During the summer we play hard and it goes by fast!  This year, we did our share of playing but we also did a lot of "schooling".  Since I know winter is just around the corner, we enjoyed summer for just a little while longer.  We'll tackle Algebra next week. 

Here are a couple of pictures showing what we have learned this past week. :)

 

Wish I had more time to read.  These books look good!!! 

A Huge Success

Our Astronomy curriculum (and home schooling in general) is still a huge success!  You might wonder what criteria I used to label it a success.  Well, do tears, begging, and an all out temper tantrum when told we will do Astronomy tomorrow qualify it as a success in your book?  It does in mine!

I have personally just finished a very exhausting week of nursing school.  In Michigan, public schools can not begin until after Labor Day. Since I knew this first week would be grueling for me, I decided this was a very good idea for our home school too.  Plus, what kid wouldn't want to wait a week for school to begin? Well, I found one kid who did not think this was a good idea...Faith.  Since I did not have a structured week planned for her I let her choose.  Her curriculum of choice was Astronomy.  This week we learned about Venus, Earth, and the moon.  :)

My week was a huge success in so many ways. One of the biggest...my 6-year-old who "hated" school has in this past week read me a book, recited facts learned weeks earlier about our universe, and stated in awe, "God made our planet perfect for us to live on!"  Yes...a huge success...

Busy "First" Day

Our impromptu first day of first grade turned out to be a very full day of fun, crafts, oh yea...and learning. 

Ask Faith:  "What are craters?", "Which planet is closest to the sun?", "What color is Mercury?".  This last question posed quite a debate for us.  We decided it should be gray but didn't have any black paint so our Mercury turned out a nice shade of baby blue.  :)

First we read up on Mercury.  Then we made Mercury.  We mixed up some dough, found some marbles and small pebbles, and pretended to be meteors crashing into the planet and creating craters!

This was a big meteor crash...both hands!

We then moved on to History.  We read about Africa and determined where Africa is located compared to ancient mesopotamia and sumer etc...(We have been studying these ancient places throughout the summer).  We then learned about some of the traditions and arts that have come from ancient Africa. 

Our first project was hand painting. This is our version of hand painting. Geometric shapes were painted on the hands. Faith wanted to actually paint her own hands but I convinced her this would be almost as much fun.

We used Oil Pastels and Watercolor Crayons for this project.  Both of these techniques are taught in"Artistic Pursuits"

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What we use.

After hand painting we learned how to make paper beads.  This jewelry is still made today and can be very beautiful. 

 Creative Beads from Paper and Fabric: Create Your Own Crafts and Embellish Ready-Made Items; No-Sew Fun for All Ages

Ours were made from construction paper and glue.  By the end Faith was able to make a bead totally on her own which takes some coordination!

Paper beads ready to be made into a necklace.

Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of the finished product.  Faith was so excited that she immediately ran to give it to Grandma.  I forgot to get a picture.  It was becoming a long day... ;)

After all of this hard work we were tired and hungry.  Since Faith was ready to play, not cook supper, daddy went out picked up some pizzas.  Way to support our home school Daddy! :)

Curriculum Low Down

Before I share about our wonderful day on Wednesday I thought that I should share the curriculum that I (we) are currently using.  I say we because I have a wonderful daycare/home school provider who has been a tremendous help and really relieves some of the burden.  This is what we do...

Artistic Pursuits Grades K-3 Book 1.

Faith is an artist! Seriously, she LOVES art.  Most everything we do incorporates art and the foundations came from this book.  This book says Grades K-3.  We have enjoyed almost the entire book this summer.  If you have an artistic child, this book is wonderful.














The Story of the World Vol. 1 Ancient Times (Activity book is a must for a kinesthetic (hands on) learner)

After reading "The Well Trained Mind", I decided that I would like to follow the classical approach as much as possible.  Since this is way to extensive to get into here, I will just recommend this book along with The Story of the World Series.  You will see very quickly what an awesome curriculum this is and how much we enjoy learning about history.

Exploring Creation With Astronomy

This is a wonderful book full of activities.  Apologia has an entire series and I plan to use them straight through our journey. 

 













We are doing Math and Reading/Writing with our wonderful day care provider so I will cover those in a future post.  These by far are the favorites for us both at the moment.  This post will give you good background info for my next post about our wonderful "first" day.  Hope this helps in your curriculum search. :)

A New School Year

Today, Faith asked me...no more like begged me...to do school.  We have been "doing school" since around March or April.  We worked through the summer with just a couple of breaks here and there.  I decided that for the month of August, Faith (and I) deserved a break.  After one week and two days of summer vacation, Faith was insisting that we needed to do school today.  Hearing those words come out of her mouth is like music to my ears. 

A little history for you.  We tried public school twice and saying that Faith did not like going to school would be an enormous understatement.  By the time conferences rolled around Faith was not progressing like I had hoped.  So, we pulled Faith out of public school (again) and our journey began.

My hope for this blog is to:  Inspire, share, encourage, and  maybe even entertain.  Enjoy!

PS:  I have linked up with Amazon because I purchase the majority of my home school books through them.  I do have a couple of other sources that I will share, but Amazon has become my best friend.  Everything I share from Amazon is something I personally have read, used, etc...   :)