Cardinals lined up on our artwork cloth line in the dining room.
Falcon use water color pencils to create his.
Robin use oil pastels for her bird then did a watercolor back ground.
Duck used just water colors. After he drew his bird I outlined his and Owl's so it would be easier to have them paint. Ducks added a tree with a bird nest in it.
I gave Owl his paints and instructed him to paint his bird RED like a Cardinal and when I came back in the room it was multi colored. I said "NO, Cardinals are red what are you doing?"
He replies, " I wanted it to be a rainbow Cardinal though"
Sigh, he got me at rainbow, I just love rainbows and I guess art is subjective. I was a tad bit frustrated at first because I wanted 4 RED Cardinals on my wall but I will live with 3 RED cardinals and 1 rainbow one.
Not about Cardinals but winter themed and it had red birds.
Gosh, I just love Gail Gibbons books - educational and all about winter and snow
We went bird watching and spotted a male Cardinal, we saw a few females but none of us could get a picture of those shy girls.
We did end up seeing a fox squirrel, those suckers are fast!
How do you deal with an ended friendship of a 7 year old girl? When your 7 year old feels unworthy of having friends or inadequate in some way to have lost a friend to another little girl.
A life lesson we all learn for sure, just a very hard one to explain to a very sensitive 7 year old.
My daughter has had a best friend, basically her first close friend since she was 3.5. For 4 years they have been very close, then one day last fall this other little girl started ignoring Robin and hanging out with a new friend. Robin would save her a seat at events and this other little girl would ignore her and go sit on the opposite side of the room with her new friend. Robin did not want to give up on this friendship she kept trying only to be shut down by these 2 girls over and over. She would call her on skype to play video games together only to be ignored yet again because her friend would invite her new friend to join them (3 is a crowd) and she would be cast off and ignored once again. Many tears have been shed. It is very hard to explain to 7 year old why her friend has been cold, and unfriendly toward her.
It can be very hard for Robin at times because we see this other girl at many homeschool events we do, which is just a sad reminder to her that she is no longer her friend.
We have worked very hard at establishing new friendships and discussing the many ways you should and should not treat your friends.
Yesterday when cleaning out her room Robin made the choice to get rid of some things that this friend had given her and take down and throw away pictures. I was very proud of her for making this final step in letting go ( a very hard thing to do.)
The newest issue of American Girl magazine has a short article about what Robin is going through. The Friendship Fade is what it article is called, Robin said that this helped her not be so sad about losing her friend.
There is light at the end of the tunnel.....
Robin has new friends now, she is sad about friendships lost but happy for the new friends she has made.
I find homeschooling in the last weeks of pregnancy extremely difficult. I am just so big, tired and uncomfortable. I have been trying to get as much done as possible but doing that along with keeping up housework, feeding my children and the extra added items that need to be done before the new baby arrives is exhausting.
The older kids have been keeping up on their math. I have been even more relaxed with the 2 younger kids. I have always found it easier to homeschool with a newborn that being in your last trimester.
So here are a few things we have done lately.
Went to zoo classes and checked out the butterfly greenhouse.
Started an art project that I came up with themed earth, air, fire and water. It is a 6 or more step art project so not quite sure when we will finish that one. We are on step one: earth.
Robin and I are working on a project that we are going to use in the state fair this summer. It is about trees we have used this great book to draw quite a few nature items, this would be a great addition to nature studies.
I plan to see if the library has more items on this series.
This book is the backbone of our state fair project. It's a great nonfiction read about how Kate Sessions overcame many obstacles to reach her goal "making the world a better place." We are also researching what life was like in the 1860's when Kate Sessions and Juliette Gordon Low were born.
A tree Robin drew
The weather allowed us to make it to math class this week. A friend of mine is teaching a class for 4-6 year olds using:
It is a story based math program that Duck seems to enjoy. ( sort of)
Some documentaries we have watched this week are:
Falcon is working on an easy novel right now taking a break from our harder highschool literature course we have been using. He is reading Holes, I am using the teacher guide to go with it making life a bit easier on me right now.
This probably has a bunch of typos but I am just glad I got something posted since I have been a slacker since being pregnant.
I love my homeschool friends they are always in my thoughts. I am always feeling so blessed to know them all. I love that they are always willing to help, share advice, curriculum and so much more.
A few of us had made plans to meet at a coffee shop for some mom time and adult conversation without the constant interruption of kids. What I did not know is that they had planned a surprise baby shower for me. I was so SHOCKED, they totally got me! I kept saying "I don't like surprises" but that is really not true. I do like surprises but they just don't ever happen to me and I never know how to react because I am such a I control freak.The idea of not being in control of a situation is very scary to me. I would rather be the one doing the surprising than the one being surprised because I can control the surprise and am not caught off guard. I did feel so loved by this awesome outpouring of generosity from my friends. I hope they know how much I appreciate them.
I feel so blessed to have these great friends who went through all this trouble for me.
I am always early to stuff so all my friends showed up 30 min before they told me to be there AND then I even showed up late because 2 of the moms who said they are going to be there are always late. They were actually starting to worry that I wasn't going to show.
My poor friend Amanda who actually did a lot of planning never came because I basically dis invited her! Not knowing there was a surprise I called her asking that if she was going I was not going to go. You see, her 4 kids have had a stomach virus for about 2 weeks and I told her I did not want to risk being around her and get a stomach bug 37 weeks pregnant with 4 kids. I sure felt bad when I realized what had happened I wanted to cry!
I want to say a big
To all my friends who helped make this such a great day and surprise I am truly blessed to know all of you.
Now some pics
I love the soft pastel colors of this blanket
from my friend Holly, she is so talented.
A tiny cloth diaper set I am not sure if my baby will ever fit into since I grow my babies HUGE!
Wool owl soaker and hat and socks Holly made.
Some onesies washcloths and assorted baby items.
I also received an assortment of gift cards to baby stores and a massage.
I had 3 balloons; a boy, girl and unisex balloon as was putting them in the car I noticed I only had I looked up and the blue one flew away and was already over the coffee house! I am going go take that as a sign that maybe I am having a girl!
And a funny belly picture my oldest took this morning , my kids find it hilarious that around the house I wear regular clothes that my belly sticks out of!
There has been a lot of snow since Jan. 1st when it all started coming down. I think total accumulation is now at 22 inches which really isn't a lot especially spread out over 6 days but since we have had pretty mild winters the last few years people have become spoiled.
The city got all panicky and went to the grocery store Saturday before we had the last 8 inches dumped on us. I heard from my facebook friends posting pictures that this is what the stores looked like. We stayed home and had a house full of food ( I could have used a few more fresh fruits and veggies) but I stayed home and did not go out into the sea of panic stricken crazy people.
To start our school week with my littles ( 4 and 6 year old) we are learning about Alligators. It was Duck's idea since he needed to to learn about a reptile for his zoo class this month I just made a week of it.
We watched
and this one for fun, I just love the Charlie and Lola but it just figures that the ONE EPISODE that was about alligators was scratched and would only play for 7 minutes, dang library!
We read a handful or fiction and non fiction alligator books
A picture of Owl's Alligator inside his book because I thought the pink and yellow polka dot's were just too cute not to share!
After a week long study on Alligators these are questions I asked the littles at the dinner table to show off what they learned in front of Papabird.
1.Are Alligators mammals or reptiles? Mammals WRONG
2. What do they eat? Fish RIGHT
3.So what are meat eaters called? Cannibals WRONG, close but not quite
4. What are the differences in Crocodiles and Alligators? I don't know
5.How big is a baby Alligator? 10cm WRONG 10 in. close though.
Sigh, they knew all these answers all week but not when quizzed at the end of the week at the table. Papabird just gave me this look like (what DID you do all week?)
I have been in a schooling stand still lately not loving what I am doing and feeling unmotivated to do anything school like. I am guessing it is has something to do with the fact that I am 31 weeks pregnant but maybe something is in the air. Some of my other homeschooling moms have been feeling the same way and they are not pregnant.
After over a month off of school we jumped back on the schooling train. Japan style on a Bullet train!
Speaking of Bullet trains here is favorite song of mine. Don't judge!!! This song is peppy, fun and is just fun.... I am totally a mom and rock this song out in my sweet van full of kids at full blast. As I type this Falcon is singing the song right next to me while on his computer playing Skyrim.
We started our morning with our favorite yogurt
Whole fat plain organic yogurt
Chia seeds
Flax seeds
Cinnamon
Coco powder
Raw honey
Then we headed to the library to get some books. We were also meeting a local astronomer there that Falcon has been in contact with to look at my telescope and figure out why it has not been magnifying well. He gave us plenty of answers and now my telescope is functional and no longer a $600 dust magnet.
As a fun treat (I had BOGO coupons) we all went to a local coffee shop and got super yummy decaf lattes. It was the best one I have had since getting pregnant I am seriously;y going back tomorrow. I have to go back to the library anyway to pick up my books on hold that I forgot all about and it just so happens the coffee shop is just across the street
Back home at 12:00 for lunch, yummy leftovers from the Olive Garden then onto school work.
I got the little boys back on learning to read.
Robin got back to her regular school work, I realized today we need to work on nouns again she seems think everything is an "idea". Robin also worked quite a bit on her Girl Scout badge work since she only has 6 ish more months left to finish out all her badges. We are working on a fun shape book all about Oranges right now for her "snacks" badge. We had fun finding Orange farms in the US and figuring out how many miles away they are from us. Oranges travel a LONG way to get to us.
Robin is also reading the American Girl Rebecca books for our homeschool book club. I invited over a friend of hers who is in that club and they worked on an art project that goes along with the books.Here is the art lesson we used.
They also wrote facts that I looked up about lady liberty on the backs of the art projects.
Falcon has been playing with power point and getting a presentation ready due next week on a founding father. He is also just finishing up Algebra 1, Oceanography and American history.
Hoping for a great productive day tomorrow, as for now this mama is going to snuggle in bed with her daughter and read Rebecca with her.
So have you heard of the marshmallow spaghetti experiment?
You must watch this 7 min Ted Talks video then.
After hearing about this from a friend of mine who had tried it during his last year as an engineering student I knew I had to try it out with some Homeschoolers to see how they did.
Finally a perfect opportunity came up and I tried this with our Homeschooled Girl Scout Troop.
12 girls broke into 3 teams of 4.
1 team of 5 moms (I wanted to see how they sized up against the kids)
I broke them up into ages, as I read that the youngest kids actually always do better at this. Most moms were confused at this point why I wasn't mixing up the ages so the older kids could help the younger ones.
Here is how they did:
There was no parental help allowed at all!
Group one 5-6 year olds: 6 inches
After a lot of sitting and talking and all the moms thinking that there was noway anything productive was going to happen at this table. They Triumphed!!
Group two: 6-8 year olds: 0 inches
There as a lot of talking going on here, and a lot of ideas but no clear way to make it happen. They had some very unique ideas that they tried at first without much success. I think the problem in this group was there was no clear leader established and not much got done. They did try to make a teepee type structure but were unable to get it to stand up. Given more time I feel this team would have gotten a structure up with a marshmallow on top. There were some very unhappy girls at this table when I said time was up.
Group 8-9 year olds 0 inches
These girls had a slow start but were full of ideas just as time was up they had a pretty tall structure but it would not stand up.
Group Moms: 20 inches
I have no idea what their thought process was but none had done this before and this is what they had in the end. Maybe it was the extra person that made all the difference.
This was a fun experiment and I enjoyed hearing all the thought processes going on, I am hoping to bring more team skill building activities into our monthly meetings to get these girls to think outside the box more.
Thank you Ray for telling me about this.
If you are interested in Engineering for girls I just came across this company and it is now on my daughters wish list for Christmas.
