Tolle Lege Christian Academy

Homeschooling Highlights-September 12-16

Another great week has come to an end!  DG took so much enjoyment in getting up and started on her work independently this week, and in deciding how she would use her free time later in the day.  We had a bit more free time than usual, and it was very nice to be at a slower pace than our normal for a few days.

DG has become "hooked" on latch hook!  We spent part of one afternoon listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and crafting-----she on her latch hook project, and me on my first soon to be finished crocheted baby blanket.

DG also started a Sew Teach Me sewing project-----a pet blanket.  She measured out her seam allowance with a sewing gauge, marked off her seams, and sewed two fabrics together for the first round.  She will sew another round and add fringe soon, so we'll post the finished project next week.  In the meantime, here she is sewing away!

 

We completed a delightful nature study of our milkweed plants and all the creatures that are enjoying them, and enjoyed being able to work outside one day as well.  (We are both looking forward to more days like that!)  Here are a couple of other pictures DG took while we were outside:

And a picture taken from the inside as she watched birds at our feeders-----until this furry little guy came along:

 

DG and her Daddy have enjoyed playing No Stress Chess over the years-----and she is so excited that they have begun playing regular chess together too!

And to wrap up for the week, I'll close with some snapshots of some of her written work.

History timeline, copywork and narration:

 

From Jashub's Journal:

 

Some multiplication:

Logic:

Grammar:

 

From the animal tracks book she adds to periodically in science:

Science questions:

 

 

 

 

Weekly Report-Happy New Year!

We started our lessons back up this week, and JB was just about as excited to start back as she is when we begin a new (grade level) year!

This week's roundup:

Math-MUS Beta-Unit 3 Test, MUS Gamma- Lesson 1, BJU math multiplication and money lessons

Language Arts-First Language Lessons 4, Lessons 3 and 4, cursive work

Latin-JB started work on chapter 7 in Latin for Children, Book A

Science-JB wanted to do an experiment on our first day back (of course---science is one of her most favorite things!)  She got an experiment book for Christmas, but the first one we tried didn't go too well.  So then we did a short air experiment and then she had fun mixing colors just for fun.

We are continuing our reading in The Burgess Animal Book for Children.  I have been enjoying listening to JB read this aloud!

Nature Study-We completed the first Winter Wednesday Challenge and also enjoyed a time of sketching one of our crape myrtle trees.  We've decided to watch our crape myrtles and a Japanese magnolia closely as the seasons change this year for a year long tree study.  JB's sketch turned out great!

Literature-We are reading The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit together and we are both enjoying it!

History-

For our American history study, JB is independently reading If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620 and she is narrating each section as she completes reading it.  I also asked her to do a written narration/report on all that she had read to so far and she did a nice job.

For our World history study, we are reading several books:  If You LIved in the Days of Knights, Days of Knights and Damsels, The Little Duke (which we just began) and God's Troubadour: The Story of St. Francis of Assisi (which we have almost finished).

Artist Study- We are continuing to read Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin.  We'll add picture study back in next week.

It was a nice week "back". 

Winter Wednesday Challenge 1: World of Color

I don't know if we'll do every Winter Wednesday challenge, but we did complete the first one:  World of Color.  We had a nice time walking around our yard and finding many different colors:

And the Beat Goes On

A little of what we've been up to....(science, science and more science!)

Moon,

star

and

Jupiter gazing.  :-)

Solar Science-Finding North without a compass

 

Continuing to learn and dream about space
 

along with a trip to see the Hubble IMAX movie with Grand D!

Life Science Labs

(Egg/Cell Investigation)

(Plant cell model)

Nature Study
 

We are humming along in other subjects too.  Good days!

La de da de de, la de da de da

Spring Plants and Sunflower Project

We've been freshening our flower beds and have started growing potted strawberries, cucumbers and tomatoes.  So far we've been able to eat a few very yummy strawberries!  The birds or other little critters seem to get most of them, and that's okay. (As long as they stay out of the way of the tomatoes, especially.) 

We also planted sunflower seeds so that we might be able to participate in the Great Sunflower Project (HT:  Barb) if all goes well.  Here are a few close up shots from around the yard, starting with our sprouting sunflowers, which have already grown a few inches since the picture was taken. (Fun!)

 

 

 

Oh, and our orange tree blossoms smell so good!  Bees and birds have been having fun in the trees.

A Recent Nature Walk

We had a great time recently with friends on a nature walk.  JB decided that she wanted to draw this underwater spiral looking plant, and she did a great job.  She also drew a reflection of a tree in the water of the pond.  I've tried searching to find out what the plant is, but to no avail.  (Does anyone know?)

 

 

Winter Nature, Art and Music Study

I just wanted to let you know that Barb at Handbook of Nature Study has put together a wonderful sounding nature, art and music study for the winter months.  I have her Outdoor Hour Getting Started ebook and her Flowers and Plants ebook as well.  Barb does a terrific job of leading the reader through the challenges with her children, and each book is full of practical examples from her own family nature studies.  While she generously posts these challenges freely at her blog, it is so nice to have all of the information in one place!  I'm sure this next ebook will be just as helpful!  I am so excited that she is including art and music appreciation with these challenges.

(I asked her if the challenges would be able to be used outside of snowy climates, and she said yes.  So if not for someone misusing our credit card and having to wait for a replacement, I would have already placed my order.  :-)  )

Thank you, Barb, for all of your work and inspiration!

Why Study Nature?

This post written by Jimmie is one of my favorites about why we should focus on nature study, and I just wanted to share it with those who read here. (So be sure to click over and read it.  ;-) )

Also, Barb posted her second ebook, and it is lovely!

It has been so hot lately, that we haven't done much outside other than swim, but we have been enjoying the beauty in our own backyard and will start our nature journals soon.

Praise the LORD.
       Praise the LORD from the heavens,
       praise him in the heights above.

Praise him, all his angels,
       praise him, all his heavenly hosts.

Praise him, sun and moon,
       praise him, all you shining stars.

Praise him, you highest heavens
       and you waters above the skies.

 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
       for he commanded and they were created.

He set them in place for ever and ever;
       he gave a decree that will never pass away.

Praise the LORD from the earth,
       you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,
       lightning and hail, snow and clouds,
       stormy winds that do his bidding,
       you mountains and all hills,
       fruit trees and all cedars,
       wild animals and all cattle,
       small creatures and flying birds,
       kings of the earth and all nations,
       you princes and all rulers on earth,
       young men and maidens,
       old men and children.

 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
       for his name alone is exalted;
       his splendor is above the earth and the heavens.

From Psalm 148

 

Outside Our Window

We had so much fun watching the birds at our feeder this week.  I was glad I had the camera nearby.

Weekly Report-February 20th

We've had a nature-art-science week, with a smidgen of history and math mixed in.  :-)  The weather has been beautiful here lately, and we are enjoying being outside more than usual.  JB also attended the last of our local zoo homeschool classes for the year this week.

We spent some time drawing and painting flowers with friends and on our own a few days later.

JB was really paying attention to the lights and darks on the stems and in the flower.  This is a Japanese Magnolia that has a few blooms on it right now.    Here is a photo of one of them  (not from the angle JB was observing):

And thanks to Homeschool Share, we are beginning an "Animal Classification" book.  We are putting the mini-books into a regular book format, instead of a lapbook, so we can add in different information if desired as we go.   Note the "thought bubbles" beside the animals asking or answering questions.  :-)

I decided to make a bunch of blank mini-books for JB to use as desired, and also re-subscribed to Enchanted Learning to have access to different materials there since she has expressed an interest in learning about many different things lately.  She has already written two chapters in a book she has titled "The Story of Nature".  She is saving the book as a surprise for me to see when it is finished. 

We are also going to start work on a book she has titled "Snakes Around the World" soon.  (Yes, family, s-n-a-k-e-s!   This is a small example of how much I love our girl.  :-)  LOL  That third grade class from long ago who noticed that I stood as far to the other side of the room as possible from an a animal keeper visiting with a snake, would see me as a different woman!  LOL)

For Math, the theme this week was "heart math".  JB estimated, measured, graphed, added, subracted and made comparisons all with candy hearts from Valentine's day.  :-)

JB has taken up a strong interest in how she can help America.  It all began with wondering how she could help America when she was a grown up.  She and her father were having a conversation about some of the current events and the economy.  She pondered all of this and quite seriously (and simply) came up with the idea that families should be in charge of themselves and make decisions for themselves; and that taxes should not be raised (so families could take care of themselves)! 

She does not think that the government should be in charge of so much.  Which I think must have gotten her thinking about how and why America started.  So she has decided that she can help America now by reminding people about how and why America began.  Since then, she has been busy working ideas for a play about the American Revolution and she wants to memorize parts of the Declaration of Independence.  Tonight I listened to shouts of "the Redcoats are coming!" as her father read through several short plays I found in a book today.  That's our girl!  :-)

Science Projects

Just a reminder that the Great Backyard Bird Count starts this week.   We are planning to participate this year.

Also, I'm pondering participating in this "Mystery Class"  project (on a small scale.....maybe just tracking our own photoperiod and trying to guess one or two mystery locations.....).  We may try it out a bit and continue or remember it for future years if it is too much for now.  It looks VERY interesting!!!  I'm not sure if we have a big enough map with enough details, but if nothing else, we are going to jump in (a little late) and track our own sunrise/sunset each day and also do some experimenting with shadow length and daylight cycles.  JB and I were both very happy to really notice how much brighter our evening was as we traveled home from ballet class tonight!

Little Visitors

We had several little visitors the other day, but most of them were too fast for me to get a picture-----especially a most beautiful cardinal!   I was able to get a couple  of good pictures from just inside our kitchen window before they all flew away.

It will be time for the Great Backyard Bird Count soon!  I think that we are going to try for a couple of different days this year.  I think we have enough bird books and guides now to figure out which ones we might actually see.  (Always a challenge for me!)

 

 

Butterfly Update

 Two of our caterpillars emerged as beautiful butterflies, but it seems that three have not made it.  It was AMAZING to see the transformation from caterpillar to chrysallis.  We actually were able to see two of them as they changed.  The pictures don't show the action like I wish they could.  It was really something to see-----and happened so fast!

 

The caterpillar wiggling/spinning around and the outer layer rising to the top before falling off.

 

Almost finished

 

The chrysallis

 

Almost ready to emerge

 

Hello world!

 

Goodbye, beautiful butterfly!

A Short Update

We recently returned from a trip, and here are a few pictures that represent the awesome beauty we saw around us as we visited different places. 

 

 

Outdoor Hour Challenge #1

Many thanks to Barb-Harmony Art Mom for beginning a weekly nature study challenge!  This will be just the gentle nudge we need to start our nature study.  JB has started a Nature Notebook already and we do have just a few pages in it, but the challenges will be a way to become more consistent in our endeavors.

So on to sharing what we did this week!

We took a walk around our yard and then around our block; and along with snapping some pictures of the beauty around us, JB collected some things that she wanted to look at more closely back at home.  The weather was terrific for a walk, and as you can see "spring has sprung" around here.

Do you see the busy bee?  We watched close by while at least 10 of them buzzed all around the azaleas.

JB collected a pod from the ground that came off of this tree.  If you look closely you can see the new leaf buds on the brances too.  (Something that we'll find out:  What type of tree this is!  I know I should know, I think it's on the tip of my brain, but I'm going to have to look it up.)

Something else that we'll find out:  What type of plant this is.  I am so not "nature smart", so I'm going to be looking for a few field guides this weekend if not before.) 

JB loves the little weed flowers that are all around.

The collection at home (picture taken by JB):
 

She recently received a EyeClops bionic eye/magnifier (thanks again!) and she was curious to see what these things would look like magnified.  Here's one of our nature finds magnified (the dollar weed):

(After we finished with our collection, we moved on to magnifying hair, skin, clothes and such!  It was really neat, so I wanted to share one last picture with you.  This is her shirt.  How cool is it that you can see the weave on this cotton t-shirt and that you can see the individual frays of string?!!)

I am going to do the reading portion of the challenge tonight from the Handbook of Nature Study (free online here) and also see if I can get a start to answering our questions.  If you'd like to see more pictures from our walk, I'll post them on our nature blog (that will now get more use!) soon.    Thanks again to Barb!  We're looking forward to the next challenge.   

Can You See the Stars?

A friend of mine in Georgia sent me an email about this project that at first glance seems similar to the Great Backyard Bird Count, only in this project, you will be counting stars!  It's called GLOBE at Night and here is the official website with more information:  http://www.globe.gov/GaN/

Here is a link to a PDF file put out by a nature center in Georgia.  It is similar to the family activity packet at the GLOBE site, but I think it goes in to a little more detail with explanations. 
http://www.elachee.org/Astronomy/GLOBE-at-Night.pdf

The dates this year are February 25- March 8.
Let us know if you participate!  Happy star gazing!

The Great Backyard Bird Count

The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming!  This year's count will take place from February 15-18th.   I think we are going to give it a try this year!

I came across the site last year and was a bit intimidated thinking I might not be able to correctly identify the birds, but as I've looked over the site this year in more detail I found a place where you can print out a checklist for your zip code and go from there.  There are still LOTS of birds the we might possibly see, but the checklist includes a link to pictures of the birds so that will really help.

JB and I started a study on birds earlier this year right before we moved, and participating in the count would be a great way to get going on our study again and to finding the answers to her questions (we've found some, so I'll have to update our lists).   In addition to a wealth of information at the site for all ages, there are also pages especially for children. 

Our original bird charts revisited:

   

Let us know if you'll be participating!