Mining

Even though we were on a summer break, our kids did not stop learning. Do they ever?? I certainly hope not! Their learning was self-motivated and all I did was sit back and encourage and occasionally help by providing materials or opportunities to fuel their passions. Summers are exciting for us in that way. We can go on whatever  learning bunny trails we want!!

Brandon has always been so interested in science. He was a very early reader and almost always gravitated to science books. I now have a lot of science-type books ;) Now that he's older, he's allowed to use the internet (somewhat supervised!) to help satisfy his unending curiosity about nearly everything science related. This summer has revolved around chemistry and geology for him :) I have to say that last one surprised me. Geology? Really? The study of.....rocks?? But oh how he loved it! He spent quite a bit of time this summer learning all he could. I love that!

A couple of weeks ago, Kristen gave me a brilliant idea. I got up at 4:30 in the morning to see her off on her vacation to the beach. They were leaving a day early to stop at a gem mine at about the half-way point. After she left, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I looked up gem mines to see where they are in Ohio and guess what I found?? A gem mining experience stuck right in the middle of beautiful Hocking Hills! There were others too and maybe we'll get around to visiting more, but this one is pretty close and has the added bonus of having other really cool things to see, which we took advantage of ;)

We didn't tell them where we were going, and you know what? They went anyway! Our kids LOVE to go places; field trips of almost any kind are always exciting and always are at the top of the things they want to be included in our homeschooling lifestyle. Even the old favorites like the zoo, COSI, and the park; they love them all! Anyway...they were so excited when we got there and told them what they were going to get to do!

We all went inside and the very nice lady took us to the shelf that has the different containers of sand/gravel to choose from. We chose the family bucket, then we headed outside to the sluice. They could hardly wait!

 Todd gave each of them a scoop and they got down to business.

 Beautiful gemstones already!

 This is the way I saw them mostly: heads down, concentrating. Intense little miners!

 Todd went through a scoop himself but quickly realized his job would be refilling their trays ;) and that was more fun for him anyway :)

 And, of course, we spent lots of time delighting in their finds!

 The lady inside told us we might have a geode in there, and we did!

 As well as some arrowheads and other fossils.

 Check out that loot! They were thrilled with their beautiful gemstones :) My favorite part of this picture though? The hands. They are Nicholas' and they are still little and soft with a tiny bit of "baby" pudge. I know it won't be that way  too much longer so I'm loving this reminder that he's still little(ish). In the blink of an eye, his hands will be big, strong hands just like his dad's.

 And, oh, the sweetness here! Loving that I still have a tiny 1st grader :)

 Inside, the guy behind the counter put our geode in this and cracked it for us.

 The kids are loving this ting!

The kids had an amazing time! As soon as we got home, they each took their bag to a table and sorted all their pretty rocks. The lady at the mine had given us a card with the more popular gemstones on it for identification purposes (brilliant!) so we spent time that evening looking at each stone.

And you know what? When they got up this morning, the first thing they did was pull out those stones :)

A Glimpse of Our Rather Unschooly Week

Last week we started hitting the books again. I have so much to post about what we're doing this year! But this is not that post ;) Last Friday, Nicholas had a minor procedure done on his foot. He's fine! But we took it very easy over the weekend and that sort of continued through the rest of the week. We did get around to a few things...reading mostly, but most of the week was spent doing a few "chemistry" experiments. That means we made a lot of stuff ;) Here's some of our fun:

We made home-made bubbles. I wish I'd used the glycerin recipe, but I wanted to use up the corn syrup that's been sitting in my pantry for-e-ver. I think the bubbles would be a little tougher with glycerin though. Maybe I'll try to add some to our mixture.

We made play-do. I used a recipe from a book but there are many on the internet. I don't care for the smell so I usually add spices so it smells like gingerbread (yum!) but they turn the play-do brownish and this time we wanted colors. Vanilla essential oil to the rescue! Now it smells yummy again ;)

We made sidewalk paint. It's so easy! Equal parts corn starch and water then add food coloring. When you first add the water a really neat reaction happens. It becomes as hard as a rock! Very, very hard to stir. Basically, the mixture hardens if you are rough but becomes like liquid if you are gentle, so stir very slowly and it will calm down a bit ;) The kids were surprised that when they painted it on the sidewalk it was clear. They were so disappointed! But after it starts to dry, it darkens considerably. It only takes a minute or so.

 

 

 And just to prove we did crack open the books a bit:

:)

Wrapping Up Last School Year

I have a confession: We started our 2011/2012 school year, which marks our 11th year homeschooling, before we wrapped up last year. In my defense, we started earlier than I was planning and much earlier than we ever have, but I was also procrastinating. Our shelves had become a landing place for every book, notebook, boyscout manual, and potential teaching tool that I ran across this summer so sifting through that hot mess was not something I was looking forward to. Finally, I just called our assessor and made the appointment. I knew with a deadline of sorts, I'd get it done ;)

And I did! We lugged all our stuff out to our assessor's house last week. Now we can finally put last year's work away and move ahead with this year!

Mary is so sweet. She been doing our yearly assessments since the beginning and the kids just love her! She use to come to our house, but last year she needed us to come to her. The kids had such a great time at her house, we decided to do it that way again this year. Here's why:

 Mary has ducks! She doesn't just have ducks; she rescues ducks! Our kids love to see who she has staying with her :)

 This beautiful girl was abandoned at a park. you can tell she was someone's pet because she is still so tame.

 The gorgeous guy following her is her boyfriend ;)

 He has the most beautiful feathers. This photo doesn't capture the iridescent quality or the stunning shade of blue on some of the tips of his feathers.

 In the background, you can see the pond that Mary's house backs up to. Last year, one of her ducks went out for a swim and was attacked by a turtle. After that, she 's been concerned about letting them out there, so she built them their own "pond" with a swimming pool liner. Genius! They love their little "pond".

It was a sweet visit and the kids received lots of praise and encouraging words from Mary for the work they did last year. Now on to the next, our 11th, school year!

And So It Begins

Today was Megan's first soccer game of the season and also our first in a long line of Sports-Filled Saturday mornings. Even though I thoroughly enjoy our lazy Saturday mornings, I also love, love to watch our kids play!

Megan's team has been practicing hard and looking forward to their first game. At this age, you can't always see what they need help with until you start having games. I love that it's so laid back that they can learn during games as well as the practices. I think they really get the basics of the game that way. with not so much pressure!

 (I edited the picture above in a more warm, vintage-y setting. I'm kinda liking it!)

 She was goalie for a couple of periods!

 The other team kept her hopping ;)

She did good and had fun! 

Finally!

We finally made it to one of our co-op's many scheduled park days! This has not been a very good summer for us to go. Either we already have plans or it's been a bazillion degrees. But today, we made it! It was great to catch up with a friend and make a new one!

When the other two families headed out, I took our group into the woods for a little nature walk. We didn't have our notebooks, but that wasn't a problem. We can still enjoy being out! The path led us down to a creek where we could sit on a bench, have a snack, and just enjoy the sights and sounds.

 As we headed back to the path, we saw this little guy:

 We're going to have some fun looking him up ;)

We swung by the library on our way home to pick Brandon up a copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" so he can get a jump on one of his co-op classes. It's another historically-based play and he's so excited about it! When we got home, there were more surprises waiting for us.....school books! I'm not the only one around here excited to start our books:

 Brandon's checking out his One Year Adventure Novel curriculum for Language Arts. He's so excited to write his own novel!! This is our first year using this so I'm hoping it's everything he's looking for. (yes, he was giving me his "my-mom-takes-pictures-of-the-weirdest-things" look but I just wanted something to look back on when they start giving me grief about their work in, oh, September ;))

Megan is SO EXCITED about her work this year! We used "Draw Write Now" last year too and it's great to teach writing (copy work) and drawing. I ordered her two new books from Amazon so when this one came in, she plopped right down at the table and got to work!

The park and books....what a great day!

Nature

Last week, I spent my time planning our upcoming school year. I'm really getting excited about some of the things we'll be doing! One of our new additions is a real nature study. Every year I buy the kids a new sketchbook and make plans for nature journaling, but, although we make it out several times to specifically study nature, their sketchbooks usually have more cartoons drawn in them than anything else ;) I'm planning for this year to go a bit differently. 

First thing I did was tell them, "This sketchbook is for Nature Journaling  only!" (I couldn't really blame them for all their lovely cartoon sketches when I hadn't really told them it was a nature journal, now could I?)

Second thing we did was head to the park on a nature walk! It's amazing how many things you notice when you are purposefully setting out to notice things ;) Here's some of our day:

The bad part of our day was that every time we stopped to look at something, the bugs caught up with us! I didn't even know we HAD that many bugs in Ohio! 

It was a good start to what I'm planning to be weekly journaling.