Buzzin' with Bees

We enjoyed a small study on bees last week, with a fantastic field trip to a local Apiary to learn all about honey bees and honey making!

The moms at my daughter's monthly kindergarten workshop led an awesome craft last Monday, where the kids made these adorable bee jars out of baby food jars and black electric tape. So cute!! Great timing for us.

We made a "Bee Book" (our own homemade Lap book) and filled it with bee facts, vocabulary words and plenty of hexagon shapes for the honeycombs. We learned all about how bees dance to communicate, the pollen baskets on their back legs and why the cells in their hive are shaped like hexagons instead of circles so they don't waste any space.



Field Trip!

















Free Bee Links
Bugs and Insect Crafts
Honey Bees
A Bit about Bees
Hexagon Worksheet
Hexagon Pattern

Fun Bee Song :)

TRUE Home Economics

Home education moves to the rhythm of a home, not a school. One beautiful thing about homeschooling that I never realized when I chose this journey is, my children will learn, first-hand, TRUE Home Economics. They won't be in an awkward classroom to learn how to mend a fake tear in a square of fabric no one will ever see or use. They'll be at home. With torn pants from soccer practice. They will learn to cook. And to eat food they grow. They'll be part of the rhythm of our home... and that includes household duties.
Now that my oldest is turning 5, she is getting more responsibilities on her chore chart. Her list is growing beyond feeding the dog and making her bed. We are all enjoying the sway of keeping house and working together. Grandma recently taught her how to rinse dishes well and help with the vacuuming.
Beyond the three R's, beyond science and history... true home ec-- with chores, budgets and responsibilities, with pride in home and stewardship-- is a welcome subject in our school.

Proverbs 22:6

A week's worth of Homeschool Lunches

Here are five simple, at home lunch ideas.
Hot Dog Omelette
When you have your own chickens, new egg combos come in handy. And creative ways to serve my son's hot-dog loving taste buds come in handy, too. :)

Tacos, chips and rice

"Appetizer Platters"
Sometimes I just grab some easy finger foods from the fridge for the kids' lunches, it is fun, simple and they love it.

Hard-boiled eggs, applesauce and raisin english muffins

Dad's Macaroni and Ham Salad
My husband's homemade pasta salad paired with fruit and green beans from the garden

For more of my easy lunch suggestions, click the lunch tag below.

September 11: The historical significance for our children

I had just turned 8 years old when the Berlin wall came down. My mom made my older brother and I watch it on t.v. We didn't really want to at the time. We were 8 and 12, we didn't care about Berlin or a bunch of people screaming and dancing with hammers next to a huge slab of graffiti cement. We wanted to go trade our garbage pail kid cards or ride bikes. But my mom made us watch it anyway. She told us history was being made and that one day we would have to tell our children where we were and that we remembered watching it. Afterward, we probably went upstairs to our rooms and blared the song, "Parents Just Don't Understand," by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. But as an adult, and a parent myself, I know my mother understood all too well. I appreciate that she made it an event of significance, because I can say I remember where I was that day as history unfolded.
9/11 did not happen in my kids' lifetime. Even though it happened before they were born, I want them to know it was an important, world-changing day. I want them to know that it is a day of significance, and to grow up knowing their parents were deeply impacted with the entire nation on that day. Although the terrorist attacks were not in their lifetime, the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is. And that is a day I can help them remember being a part of.
We are blessed here in West Michigan, as hosting one of only 14 Healing Fields in the country this year. It is an awe-inspiring event. An American flag stands for each of the 3,200 victims of September 11th. It is an amazing display to witness and an amazing tribute to the lives lost on that tragic day which shocked our nation and our souls, ten years ago.




It is on display at Cannonsburg Ski Area in Rockford through September 13. Attached to each flag stand are the names and short bios of each of the 3,200 victims, 21 of which were Michigan residents. We will never forget. And we will ensure our children and our children's children never forget, either.
“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children." -President George W. Bush

Archaeology Adventures

We've spent the last month exploring archaeology as we start our Story of the World history studies. It's a topic my mom has always loved (see their fun treasure history hunts in my post Treasure Hunting, Archaeology and Unearthing Fun Discoveries for more ideas and links).
Along with library books and fun kits that we shared with friends where the kids dug out dinosaur skeletons (a separate day at a friend's house) and crystals from plaster bricks, we also had a really fun "Archaeology Dig Day" with friends in the backyard. I dug out an area of the yard where we will be expanding our veggie garden next year, and pre-buried coins, paperclips, giant dog bones, dinosaur skeletons, another store-bought brick to excavate, toys, etc. and the kids sifted, shoveled, strained, and raked through to find it all. It took them hours to do, complete with hats and dinosaur chicken nuggets to snack on. What fun!!











Here, too, is an episode of Magic School Bus on Archaeology and how it tells the story of life in the past. And here's a link to a kids archaeology magazine called, Dig!
Here is a really fun They Might be Giants song and video called, "I Am a Paleontologist."
I also just got in the mail an awesome kid's Bible study book I ordered from Answers in Genesis, called, "Digging up the Past." They study chapters of Genesis through the adventures of junior archaeologists, it fits in so perfectly with what we're doing and the Egypt studies we'll be continuing through September. I love when things fall into place like that.
Next month, we'll be visiting the Indianapolis Children's Museum where they have an Egypt exhibit and an awesome archaeology exhibit created by National Geographic just for kids! It's sure to be one of the best field trips ever. SO EXCITED!!

"Not" Back to School Party!

We had our annual "Not" Back to School Party this weekend! A potluck style picnic at the park where families can mingle and kids can stretch their legs playing with their friends. It's our big kick-off before the start of fall field trips and co-op, and busy homeschool schedules. Happy Homeschooling!

No rain on our parade!

Our homeschool group had a blast riding on the homeschool float we made for our city's Danish Festival parade last weekend. The title of our float was "Harmonizing Home Education" and everything went without a hitch. Directly after the parade, a crazy, forceful storm blew through the area, so we were grateful to have missed that entirely! Some of the dads (my husband included) dressed up as Crayon Mascots and helped pass out candy and fliers for our group and FAQ about home education. The kids all had a fantastic time! Go, Homeschoolers!!!

Book: HomeSchooling At the Speed of Life

Whether you've been homeschooling for a while, or are just starting out, or think you could never manage it--this book is for you! Marilyn Rockett offers a wealth of knowledge and ideas for balancing home, school and family in the real world. In addition to the abundance of workable systems and solutions, she also features an array of encouraging Bible verses and other quotes throughout to support her ideas. The included CD-Rom in itself more than pays for the book, as it offers a bounty of helpful, printable files for your endless use. Health and school records, household chores and routines, student assignments and lesson planners, menu and project minders, field trip minder, test records and high school transcript files and more! You have it all. It doesn't matter whether you are organizationally challenged or could just use a few more tips to stay on the ball, you'll love this book. HomeSchooling at the Speed of Life. It's amazing. How do you possibly manage to keep up with the laundry, pay the bills, make the meals and teach Latin, math and science in a day? It may be a work-in-progress, but it is possible! Buy the book and find out!

See the Seahorse Unit Study

While my kids aren't winning their wish of getting a pet seahorse, ("thanks", library book!) we have just finished up a super fun little study on seahorses after a few things fell into place nudging us in that direction. For instance, on our trip at the nature center the kids came across a family of seahorse skeletons, then later that day we returned home to find that Seahorses were the cover feature of this month's issue of my daughter's "Your Big Backyard" magazine. So, off our adventure began!

Beach in a bottle: Inspired by some craft shells I found at Hobby Lobby, we created our own little beach in a bottle, and it's become a game as well. We filled small bottles with colored sand and shells, (fun all in itself for the kids with spoons and funnels) adding one tiny seahorse. Now the kids can rotate the bottle and search through the sand to find the seahorse mixed with the shells.





Library books (Eric Carle has a fantastic Mister Seahorse book!! And, here is a ridiculously adorable Popcorn Seahorse Craft to go with it that I found on another blog.)

We also of course enjoyed reading her magazine about Seahorses, which included this awesome song my kids love:

Pretty Little Seahorse
By Jennifer Bove
(Sung to the tune of "I've been working on the railroad")
I'm a pretty little seahorse
Living in the sea.
I like to hang out in the sea grass
With my tail curled under me.
I wait for tiny snacks to float by,
But I cannot bite or chew.
So I use my snout just like a long straw
To slurp up all my food!

Along with including this in our circle and song time, I also found this great video with another seahorse song, called "The Horseshoe Crab & The Seahorse" by Brent Holmes.


We practiced writing and spelling "Seahorse" and reviewed compound words (side note: with conflicting uses in library books, videos and websites, I actually had to double check whether "Sea Horse" was a compound word or not. It turns out it is considered proper English as both "seahorse" and "sea horse"). We also used this as an opportunity to explore and review the difference between See and Sea. Here is an awesome phonics video on homophones, including sea and see.


For some hands-on science and math projects, I took various facts and turned them into visual examples. Seahorses can range in size from a grain of rice, to as big as a hammer, so we compared and contrasted that.

To demonstrate what slllllloooow swimmers seahorses really are, we took the fast fact that it takes a seahorse 90 seconds to swim 12 inches of water and applied that. I cut a sponge into the shape of a seahorse and filled a clear 9x13 inch dish with water. We set a timer for just over 90 seconds and had the kids swim the seahorse sponge from one end to the other. They couldn't believe how slow they had to move it, it was extremely difficult not to reach the other side until the timer went off! It really brought a seemingly dull stat on seahorses alive into a relative lesson.


We watched National Geographic's Really Wild Animals of the Ocean video, which featured seahorses in a fun way and showed the daddy seahorse giving birth. And found this fantastic, free Seahorse Counting Game where the kids count and set free seahorses for a mermaid on the computer. This was an especially great find for my mermaid-loving daughter. It's been a fun week of seahorse adventure!