Academic Presentation Day

Our homeschool support group has an Academic Presentation.  The children display their projects that they have been working on through out the year, as well as give a oral presentation in front of parents, family & friends.  All the kids did such an amazing job.

Collin had fun learning about Space. (So glad that he could use his Lego Solar System from our co-op project.)

Collin made & studied about the following: moon rocks, wrote info. about planets & created a Lego Solar System, telescopes, moon & it's phases (something happened to the Oreo cream in transportation.  I don't know if someone got hungry, or it just got messed up. :)

Faith did her project on Early American History.  I just love kindergarten.

She studied & created projects for: Washington Monument, The Mayflower,  Abe Lincoln (made his cabin), Pilgrims (made boy & girl hats).....

Christopher Columbus, G. Washington (made his wig).....

the Statue of Liberty (made torch & head piece), American flag....

Flag craft, George Washington Carver (check out the cool peanut people), a Compass Rose & Native Americans.

I love looking at all the displays.  It gives this teacher some great ideas of  fun things to study for years to come.

 

Will did not do a display this time since he was the announcer.  

He did a great job.

This cutie patootie, Jacob, did a great job.

Sweet, Audrey, did a super job on Sally Ride.

Adorable Carson, did a fabulous display on Backyard Fun & Beach Adventures.

More great displays. I could post one after another of the great displays, but it would take all day.  It was a fun day of learning.

What Do Painting & Harry Connick, Jr. Have in Common?

Probably nothing, but when you get a crafty girl that hasn't painted in a long time, a fun project to be tested out and great jazz music, then they have something in common.

I saw this really cute project of a whimsical tree and wanted to paint it to use for part of our fall decorations.

I found a great deal at AC Moore & bought 6 for $0.40 each.  I had the rest at home. 

I used the Vanilla acrylic paint to paint the white canvas.  Will walked in & told me that it was crazy for me to paint a white canvas white. :) The Vanilla had just enough color to take the stark white out.

I used the round sponge brushes, and pencil erasers to make the dots.  The Sharpie was used to make the tree.

It was a lot of fun painting along Harry Connick, Jr. playing in the back ground.  Very good "jazz" music to go with this fun painting.

Tweet Tweet

We bird sat our friend's parakeets for 3 weeks when they went on vacation.  The kids had a great time.  They soon started wanting their own birds.  I had no intention on buying birds for them.  Well, when our friends came back, as "payment", they wanted to buy us birds.  Yes, birds ~ not 1, not 2, but 3 birds.

We met them at the "bird store" & they got to pick out their birds.

John Michael, Zachary, Stephen, Faith, Will & Collin looking at the birds to pick out just the right bird.

 Home Tweet Home.

Our birds ~ (Will's) Sunset, (Faith's) Sky, (Collins) Snow Ball

Homeschool Day at The Movies

After seeing the previews for Dolphin Tale, we could not wait to watch it.  We do not see very many movies in the theater, so this was a real treat. We met 2 other families there.  (only one is pictured with us below.)

 (See the dolphin in Will's hand?  His name has now been changed to Winter.) 

We fell in love with Winter, the dolphin.  Dolphins have always been one of my favorite animals.  I'm sure that we will be reminded of this wonderful movie every time we see a dolphin from hear on out. 

It is an awesome cast ~ one of my favorites, Harry Connick, Jr. stared in it.  We have played his CDs in our home since way before the kids were born. The kids never really knew what he looked like, so when they found out that "Dr. Clay" (HC, Jr.) was the guy that we've been listening to all these years, they were so excited.

Dolphin Tale was based on a true story.  When they said that Hazel, one of the main characters, was homeschooled, our little group lifted up a few cheers. :-o

We found out that September 23rd was Homeschool Day for Dolphin Tale.  I asked the lady behind the ticket counter if she knew why it was homeschool day, but she didn't.  After we got home, I found out why. (taken from http://sbees.blogspot.com/)  Please read below.  I don't know this young gentleman, but I am so proud of what he is trying to do.  I pray that he will meet his goal.  It will not only benefit homeschoolers, but every family in America as well.

"Nathan's responsibility is to try to get 150,000 homeschoolers to the opening of Dolphin Tale, a movie coming out September 23. If this many attend the opening across the country, then Warner Brothers has promised to invest its money in producing more g-rated, family conservative films. Through this project, the executives were given a presentation of the gospel to help them understand the "mind-set" of Christians across the nation.

Nathan and his team prayed about a plan to reach families and help mobilize them as a group so that there would be a conservative voice in hollywood... and God gave them the idea to mobilize the homeschool community. The idea behind this is that homosexuals are just 3% of the population in the United States, and yet they banded together and put such an influential force into Hollywood, that they have homosexuals in every area of influence of the media productions in Hollywood.

Nathan's team discovered that Homeschoolers also make up 3%. They thought, "If we can get homeschoolers out to a movie, to show that they are a market to contend with, maybe Warner Brothers will pay attention and allow us to be a formidable, strong group that could influence the content of what is produced in Hollywood. Warner Brothers agreed to put money behind this idea and came up with this movie - Dolphin Tale - to see if there is really an active market amongst families in America.

...The Film Dolphin Tale is a heartwarming, true story based on a book. The producer actually went to a homeschool support group in California to find the actors. Homeschooling is presented in a very positive light in the movie.

A Homeschool Curriculum has been produced by Apologia to go along with this movie. It has been viewed and endorsed by many homeschoolers."

Solar Systems

For Science, our Co-op has been studying space.  We will be out of town when the solar system projects are due, so we did them early.

Collin loves Legos & wanted to make his solar system using of them.  How in the world we were going to make something round out of square objects.  Let's just say that I'm so thankful for the internet.  We found a site that created a ball using Legos. They have a great chart showing  you how to make it.  After trying the 1st & 2nd level, I knew that this was going to be hard for an 8 year old to make on his own.  So we decided to just do flat circles ~ using the chart for making different sizes.

The colors don't match the planets exactly, but that's okay.

We couldn't leave off Pluto.  We know that it is considered a dwarf planet (after it was a planet for 76 years),  but we had to add it.

Collin with his buddies looking at his project.

 

 Will made his out of paper mache.  He added pictures to the planets for a funny spoof.
(For Mercury - a picture of liquid mercury & AG on it,  Venus- the goddess of love, Earth - land, Jupiter- a Jupiter Saxophone, Saturn - Saturn car, Uranus - couldn't find anything, Neptune- the god of the sea, Pluto - you guessed it, Disney's Pluto.)

Will sharing with the class.

This cutie, Hanna, will be out of town on the due date too.  So she did hers early also.  Hannah did a great job.

American Girl Club

Ahhh, at last.  Faith had been asking me almost every day, for a month,  when we were going to the American Girl club.  The day finally came.  With great excitement, she put on her pjs that matched her Life of Faith doll, "Violet's" {Faith renamed the doll Laura Ingalls} pjs  (well it was the doll's undergarments that looked like Faith's "Laura Ingall's nightgown). We bought Faith this doll for her 1st Christmas.  It is the Christian version of American Girl.  I was very sad to hear that they discontinued their line.

I had made Faith's "Laura Ingall's" nightgown & cap a few years back.  I made her dolls hat at the last minute.  

The girls were given lip gloss & eye shadow as a party favor.  Faith was so excited & had fun putting it on.  

The girls getting ready to watch Kit. 

 

Kit Kitridge: An American Girl was a great movie. 

We talked the boys into coming with us. (There were a few other brothers there too.)  Thankfully, we had watched Nims Island a few months back.  The girl from that movie played Kit in this movie.  This movie has adventure and has boys in the movie.  So they were not to upset to come & watch.   The food was also helpful to entice the boys to come along.  We liked it so much that we checked it out from the library before leaving.

American Girl Club Pajama Party

Fun Places To Eat

2 new fun places to eat in the town beside ours are  Mellow Mushroom and Yumiliecious.  The food at Mellow Mushroom is wonderful.  They just opened up a few months ago in our neighboring town.  It has been packed every time we ride by.  So when we rode by at 11 A.M. (a great perk to homeschooling ~ you are out and about before everyone else is ready for lunch.)  and since my kids don't eat breakfast, they were starving after karate & ready to eat.

 The walls are crazy.  The kids love to play I Spy.  Oh my, this kept us busy & having fun until our food came.

Little Miss Faith.

 *** Yumiliecious ***

The kids have asked to go to Yumiliecious for several months.  We finally went after karate one week.  Since this was our first time there, the lady gave us a whole lot of sample cups & told us to try them all.  Oh, by the time we tasted them all (or most of them), my sweet tooth was satisfied.  But we did get a cup.  

You get your own frozen yogurt, which you can mix it up any way you want.  They really need to get kid size cups.  Collin filled his up to the top!  Then you get to put whatever (& how much) toppings on it you want.  When you check out, they weigh it.  Oh my that's where they get you!  But we had a great time.

Will enjoying it.  

Look at my 3 Yumiliecious kiddos.

Lego Club

For the last few years, we didn't do clubs with our support group, because I knew we would be going to much with 3 kids in 3 different clubs.  Well this year, I decided that we would try it.  So I joined in with my friend, Karen to start a Lego Club. (Our 3rd club. 1-Chess, 2- American Girl & 3- Lego).  At our support group's kick - off, we had 64 kids sign up.  Holy Cow ~ Karen & I went into panic mode.  Where in the world were we going to have this club?  Were would we find a place that would hold that many kids (on top of their siblings and mamas.)?  Thankfully, one of our parks has a wonderful picnic area that is free to reserve.

On club day, we had about half of the kids that signed up.  (36 kids)  The kids had a great time.  For the 1st part of the club, they had to make transportation vehicles.  The 2nd part of the club, they could make whatever they wanted.  They had to show both items that they made to the club and tell about it.

:Ethan building:

Ethan, Collin & Will

These kids had some awesome Lego pieces.

Karen talking to the kids.  Faith & Jacob (right) playing with new friends.

Welcome to American Girl World

I have been throwing away the American Girl Doll catalog away for a long time.  Not because I don't like them, on the contrary, I love the stories, think the dolls are beautiful & fun.  In fact, when Faith was an infant, I bought some AG books for her first Christmas. (Because a 5 week old baby doesn't need anything for Christmas.  So I decided to stock up for later.) The problem is, the price. $100 for a doll? Seriously?  Well, Faith got the mail for me one day & guess what was right on top in the mail box.  You guessed it the AG catalog.  I did enjoy seeing her face when she was looking through it.  The oohs & ahhs were priceless.

Our homeschool support group has an American Girl club & we decided to join.  (Thankfully, you don't have to have an American Girl doll to be in the club.) The 1st month's club we are going to be watching a movie about Kit.  So I went through our stack of AG books & pulled out Meet Kit book.  Faith fell in love with her. In fact, she loves her so much that she wanted to get her hair cut like hers. 

  Our local library had a history touring company do a show at the library today.  They  advertised it as "Bring your American Girl doll, dress up like them and boys dress up like a historical character."  Good advertisement.  There were a lot of children girls with their dolls. Just a few boys.  So since we didn't have a doll, we Faith wanted to dress up like Kit.

 Thankfully, we had a top, sweater, skirt & shoes that looked similar to Kit's.  All we had to do was make a hat & hand bag.  It was so fun. Thanks to my son, Will, for reminding me how to crochet a hat.  I've only done one before this one and that was a year ago.

I think the "Kit" on the left is the prettiest. :) 

I wish I could remember the name of the tour group.  They have groups that go all over the country.  This was so entertaining & kept the kids attention.

They needed a few boys to help them out.  Will is in the middle of the 3 boys.  They are suppose to be the founding fathers of America.

Now this group of boys are demonstrating Henry Ford's invention, the assembly line.

Co-op Art & Science Class

We have a great group of kids in out co-op this year.  I have enjoyed teaching the art class so much this year.

We did Optical Art

This is the K5 & 1st grade table.  They did a great job.

Will & Collin (top left) having way too much fun with their friends.

Budding Artists

 

Some of them are working with compasses for the 1st time.   I have not worked with them too much, but they are tricky little things to work with.

Spanish Class.  The kids were counting & talking in Spanish while jumping rope.  How fun.

Spanish teacher, Mrs. Deana, on  left looks like a student herself.

(Will, Mrs. Deana, Gracie, Gabbie {jumping}, Cayman, Matthew & Madalyn)

Some the kids can really jump.

Check out Matthew.  Who says white men can't jump?

(Cayman, Matthew & Will)

Go Gracie.