We Combed The Beach Today...

 

We homeschool...

we could have just read about sea stars and sand dollars in a book...

  

or we could actually hit the beach and save these beautiful creatures from the dangers of low tide!

I wonder what would make more of an impact on my girls?

Nature Sketches

in  the Butterfly Garden at our local nature preserve!  We had hundreds of butterflies, fluttering all around us!  Several had "half-eaten" wings:(  but that didn't stop them!  It was a beautiful day in paradise!

A Smokies' Birthday for a Six Year Old

Happy 6th Birthday Sweet Fairy Girl!!!

Happy Birthday to My Beautiful Baby Girl

Hard to believe six years have gone by--you are an absolute blessing to this world my sweet girl!

It seems like just yesterday...

hard to believe six years have already gone by...

Unit Study---Oceanography---Story Writing

activity: we are working with a unit study theme of oceanography---why?  we now live 15 miles from the Atlantic and because it was the free, immediately-available unit study that came with the unit study curriculum we purchased and for which we were waiting:)  This particular activity is about day four for this unit (each unit is designed to last about two weeks).  This one suggests, if you were to take a miracle pill to breathe and live underwater, write a poem describing what life would be like.  Well, of course this is right up our alley--but the girls have WAY too much to say (esp. when there is an opportunity to become mermaids:) to put it into a poetic format:)

LIFE UNDER THE OCEAN

The "miracle pill" to breathe under water is SEAWEED!!!  We go to fish school.  We read fish stories.  We do fish math!... (fish + fish = fish)...shark + shark = MAD SHARK....

We also go on field trips to explore shark places.  There, we would ride on a sea horse and have the best-time ever!!  (Fairy Girl) is now a mermaid named Cinderella: "I have a blue tail, a blue bra, and hair the color of the sky, and a pretty voice!  Oh and I found a blue necklace that said to me: 'I belonged to you all this time; I'm yours now!'  I'd be a mermaid forever with animal mermaids: mer-dogs, mer-cows, and mer-catterpillars!"

  We now head to the Sea of Adventureland, where we will be sure to meet dolphins and ride on them.  We would also ride on candy cane seahorses!!  Candy and Icecream are EVERYWHERE!!

 Candy canes started falling everywhere, but dolphin helped us to escape.  It also rains chocolate, in the Sea of Adventureland!

After we escaped the torrential candy cane downpours we met Ice-cream Octopus, Bubble Gum Ice Cream Sea Horses; Ice Cream inside of jelly beans; Sea Sponges made out of vanilla ice cream; sea stars made out of chocolate; sea horses' tentacles made out of jelly beans.

The Queen's crown was made of jelly beans and frosting and a candy tail!

Sea horses are made of lots of ice cream and frosting....mermaids lick them! (of course:)

We are mermaids!  Mermaid City Forever!!! 

(we will never leave;)

The Candy Mer-Tail End 

A New Pizzaria Has Come to Town!

How We Make Our Grilled Pizza:

--pizza dough, made in the bread-maker

--preheat pizza stone in grill (*note: our grill has temperature control, and very even controlled heating--yes we can bake on our grill:)

--roll out dough (I like to use a round silicone mat, coated with olive oil; I roll with my Pampered Chef hand-held (with two ends, different size rollers) roller

--once stone is preheated, sprinkle cornmeal on the stone place dough onto stone, and further roll to stretch dough as necessary, onto the stone.  Drizzle some olive oil onto the dough and bake crust for a few minutes, to your desired finish.  

--place desired toppings onto pizza and bake on grill!!  (this weekend, I scrounged, as I need to grocery shop, but I think we did ok!)

--this is so much fun and so yummy!  We plan on doing this every weekend!

We had two pizza nights this past weekend, and three campfire nights!!!

--pesto

--sauteed peppers

--sauteed sundried tomatoes

--carmelized onions

--fontina cheese

--refried beans

--taco seasoning

--corn 

(these were the only ingrediants we baked)

---sour cream

--fresh tomato

--Parmesan cheese 

(odd with Mexican theme, but that's all we had, and it tasted good!)

 --tomatoes

--lettuce

Fall is In The Air--a look back!!!

Little Angel---Artwork Revisited (created at age 6)

Birds And Butterflies Are Free to Fly Math Store

Fact: 50% of my students LOVE math;

Fact: 50% of my students are bored with math and are in a position of already "knowing it all." 

Fact: one teacher against two FULL-TIME students; with even one student battling said teacher about just "doing" math; even for a few minutes (you know, because it's "BORING") can result in not only a boatload of lost time during the day spent in "arguing," but this can also result in what little creative energy said teacher possesses, being sucked right out of her, often leading to frustration and fatigue!

Said Teacher does notice a pattern here: when the 50% of non cooperative students are in non cooperative-mode, this tends to correlate after maybe a weekend or more off; coupled with  perhaps a late night, resulting in sleeping in late and starting school later in the day.  So of course, this would tell me, that perhaps the parents REALLY need to knuckle down that bedtime routine (we tend to value our family time--tremendously--as do the kiddos--so for example, yesterday, they played with their neighborhood friends, pretty much all day, while J finally finished repairing our boat!!!!!! and I organized our recipes (again) and did some grocery shopping and a boatload of laundry--you get the picture--mom and dad had to catch up, which didn't result in our normal weekend goal of hitting the beach or taking a bike ride with the kiddos--and the kiddos definitely feel this---they want their mommy and daddy time!!!! )  Anyway, we wound up staying up past 11 with a movie (ok, they were in bed, J couldn't sleep, so they came down just to hang with us, as we didn't hang at all yesterday).  SOOOO, the girls and I, of course, slept in...again, ate late, put laundry away, did the dishes, then started school, after 11:30am.  See the picture?  I guess it's time to have a parent-teacher conference to discuss this matter, as it is affecting the ambition of 50% of the students on days such as this.  At least there is a pattern.  

However, this all gave birth to, our math store!!  What fun?!!  I can change out the price tags, we have money, as seen, in a tray (ordered from Pottery Barn Kids)---we can learn about addition, subtraction, money, counting change, finances, budgeting, banking----see where this is going?  Later we can even throw in more "complicated" elementary math skills!  Our math store will be reserved for the "non cooperative" days, to keep it fun and fresh!

Wish our store luck....you know, with the economy, and new business start-up failure rates and all!

A Quote That Resonates with Me!

"If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is." ~Unknown

The Biggest Compliment...

A close friend of mine just indirectly paid me one of the biggest compliments, somewhat in jest.  I'm posting this as a record, because I think she just summed up our homeschooling philosophy---yet I personally haven't been able to simplify our goals so eloquently.  That said, for my own records:

That's ok.. I will continue to mock you for being an odd ball homeschooler who tries to teach your children to be polite and enjoy nature and look at the world with their eyes and heart wide open. Not for nuthen... but that's just crazy... Oh.. wait ... *sigh* Ok, FINE! I'll find something to mock you about. :D

Today is....

9-10-11

A Look Back...

Way Cool Fire Truck on River Street, Savannah

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

 

Happy 50th to My Wonderful Hubby

 

We had some wonderful plans for J's big bday!  Two of his sisters made the trek south to help us celebrate with him!

 A day or so prior to his sisters' arrival, he found out he was going to have to go in THIRD SHIFT!  Let's just say he's never worked third shift, and he's not a third shift kind of guy.  His presence was required to move some equipment around, and so....anyway, the good news was he did get both Thursday and Friday off in exchange-----so, naturally we headed to Coligny Beach on Hilton Head!  

 

He enjoyed a wonderful lunch on the island, a beautiful perfect day at the beach, a wonderful late dinner (and of course cake); followed by a fun day in Savannah, the next day.

 And of course would any birthday be complete sans birthday presents???  Here are just a few things he received: an invitation to join AARP, a swollen foot from a spider bite, a sting from a jelly fish, a completely flooded house and garage (including his BEAUTIFUL hard wood flooring that he spent WEEKS installing---now will never be the same:(; and thankfully this beautiful pillow pet, lovingly selected by his little girls---hopefully that makes up for some of the other less-appreciated presents:(

The End (we hope:/)

Going in Circles

My golden retriever will circle several times before plopping down. 

J says it's because he's a watch dog and has to wind himself up:/

groan....

It seems like just yesterday...

but, it's been six years!

A Look WAY Back...

To the tune of: "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear J...Happy Birthday to you!  How old are you, how old are you?  How old are you, how old are you?"  ...... "I'm () years old, I'm () years old..."  "What?  We couldn't hear you?  A little bit louder please!"  OHHHHHH, ahem, 50!

Oh Crap!