Merry Christmas 2014 Video

Wishing all of our family and friends a wonderfully merry Christmas and a blessed new year! 

Enjoy this video of our 2014 adventures: 

Five In A Row - Owl Moon

Each time we finish a Five In A Row literature unit, I declare that book to be my newest favorite. I love each and every story we study. J does too. Aside from Bible, which is his current most loved school subject, our story time and activities with FIAR are our most anticipated during school. E and J really get into the stories, and love to act them out and explore them more during the week.

This week we "rowed" Owl Moon. 

After reading the book, we had to dissect an owl pellet. Owls can't digest bones so they cough them up. We used a bone identification chart to help us figure out what our owl had eaten. We found a rodent skull & jaw, shrew skull and many leg and rib bones. J loved this activity and repeated it several times!

E had the most fun with painting a winter scene on canvas. I simply taped off the shape of two snowflakes and then gave her blue and white paint and some glitter. 

Our big adventure for the week was to go 'owling' just like the little girl in the story. I found a nature center nearby and we set off. The center houses raptors and other birds year round, so we were able to see some big birds up close before we took our hike.

Along the way we saw several deer tracks! 

After our owling adventure we were lucky enough to catch the volunteers working with the birds. We got a private lesson on how to care for a bald eagle and even got to help feed it a rabbit head. The kind lady even took some of the eagle pellets out of the enclosure and gave them to J to inspect. It turns out that eagles can digest bones, so their pellets simply consist of fur and feathers from their dinner!

We spent one day learning all about the moon. J's favorite part of this learning adventure was making the moon phases out of Oreos. :)

The kids used animal track stamps to make tracks in white playdoh and we read 'Who Pooped In the Park?'

We also studied similes and metaphors, how to measure time, perseverance and patience as part of this unit. What fun! 

1st GRADE!!!

I can hardly believe I have a first grader now. J is super excited to continue homeschooling. We've decided to school year round to give us a consistent routine and to allow us time to travel throughout the school year.

With a 2 year old and a 6 year old, I know we will keep busy. :)

Oh, yes, and our first *hairy* pets - Gerb and Squeak (the gerbils) will be joining us as well!