From the Dean of Cambridgeshire Academy....

I woke up to this on the homeschool board this morning from hubby and cried!  It was such an encouragement to me:

To the beautiful ladies of Cambridgeshire Academy,

    I am very proud of your efforts you have both displayed in this school.  Remember; this school was founded with the fullest intentions of providing an education based on the fundamental principles that our God has taught us in His word.   Take to heart the great blessing it is that we can educate our children in our home – with no watering-down of the Gospel.  We experience no assault on the foundation of Christ in this home.  Should it come to that – that foundation will not yield – nor will we.

    I cherish you both.  When I hear the laughter in this room during school time, or the simple instructions being read, or the irreplaceable bond between mother and daughter that touches my soul – I know in my heart that my home is not just my castle – but it is the focal point in which I learn what is truly important in being your provider, your father, your man.  Thank you for teaching me, without opening a book.

With Love,

Daddy

What Detention Looks Like at Our Homeschool

K has seemed to have forgotten to NOT hide in stores and gave us a scare the other night, so for her detention, she had to write 3 times why we don't hide in stores:

Wooden Sphinx

K and hubby worked hard on the Sphinx for 2 nights and here it is!

Week 2 - Skeletal System & Muscular System

Read
Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia - pgs. 20-31

RSO Labs
Units 3 & 4 - My Skeleton Holds Me Up and Muscles Aren't Pushy

Miscellaneous

• Assemble 12-inch Skeleton
• Online Label Skeleton or Printable Label Skeleton
• Online Label Muscles
• Skeletomuscular System Interactive Lesson
• Cut-out & Make Skeleton

Videos 
*NOTE - I haven't screened all of the videos yet, so I may delete some choices later if they have questionable content

• Skeletal System
• Muscular System
• Bill Nye Bones and Muscles (Parts 1, 2, 3)
• "Human Body for Children: All About Cells and Body Systems" by Schlessinger Science Library
• "Human Body for Children: All About Bones and Muscles" by Schlessinger Science Library
• "The Skeletal and Muscular Systems" by Body System Series
• "Human Machine" by DK Eyewitness
• Schoolhouse Rock - Bones

Games

• Wireframe Skeleton
• Skeleton Game 1
• Skeleton Game 2
• Skeleton Shakedown
• Bones Scramble

Songs
"My Bodyworks" - Bones, Bones, Bones & It's Your Muscles

Books
"Young Genius: Bones" by Kate Lennard
"Under Your Skin: Your Amazing Body" by Mick Manning - pgs. 10-11
"The Skeletal System" by Scholastic
"You can't see your bones with binoculars : a guide to your 206 bones" by Harriet Ziefert
"The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body" by Joanna Cole

Week 1 Human Body RSO Labs

You can read our full Week 1 plan here.  Here are photos from the RSO Labs:

Plot Study

Cells - Studying a cell we can see, a chicken egg

Animal vs. Plant Cells

Free Book: All About Homophones

I've got a great deal for you all!  Until November 1st, you can get "All About Homophones" e-book for free!  It is normally about $28 but will be free if you buy something else.  Here is how it works:

Here's how to claim your free book with any purchase:

1. Add any product(s) to your cart.
2. Do not add the All About Homophones e-book to your cart quite yet.
3. In the upper left corner of the cart, you'll see a box that says "Special Code." Type in these three letters, all in capital letters: AAH. Then click the "Apply" button.
4. The free All About Homophones ebook will appear just above where you enter your shipping information. Click the orange "Add to Cart" button.

Head on over to All About Spelling's homepage and buy something to get your free e-book.

We use All About Spelling and love it and they now also have readers as well!  If you go through my referral links, I will be compensated for referring you and giving you access to this great deal. ;-)

K's Drawings

K made some drawings all on her own and I haven't taught drawing yet, so I was amazed at what her creativity thinks up!  The last one she said was a picture of her - too cute!

Homeschool Room Redo

We are changing up the homeschool room this month. You can click here to see what it looked like when we first started last year. We started tonight with adding another bookshelf, seeing how we needed more shelves to keep our projects and crafts coming up. I ended up putting the easel in front of the window since we aren't using the air conditioner anymore.

We are getting 2 armchairs for the ends of the table and then one more simple black chair and we will finally have our dining table chairs lol. I've gone so long with the just 3 chairs but when we have friends over they don't have a seat and we will clean up the chairs on the patio and bring them in. I will take more pics as we finish the room. We are also changing the curtains to bright orange - the color of the paper tray on the shelf. I will do more pics when we finish the room.

LadyBug Life Cycles - Larva:Pupa:Adult Video

We did several video clips while our ladybugs grew up the past few weeks! They went from larva to pupa and then to adult ladybugs and they are orange. K loved it so much and she is sad to let them go outside this week. I was going to keep them over the winter but then I read that a female ladybug lays 50 eggs in one day and 1,000 in its lifetime and well.....I don't want a ladybug farm folks lol! =0 So we are letting them free when we get a warm day since they can't fly when it is below 55 degrees.

Sorry for the bad videoing on my part - I moved the camera a a lot and my camera is 7 years old.




Here are some pictures:

Lady Bugs

We bought the Lady Bug Land and then sent off for our lady bug larvae and they arrived in about 3 days in a tube.  They were so tiny!  In just a little over a week, they have grown so big.  They are still in the larvae stage and we are awaiting the pupa stage and then the final lady bug emerges and we set them free. 

Here is a short video of them in the larvae stage and we hope to add more as they grow the next few weeks.




Here are the life stages of a lady bug, as you can see ours are still in the larvae stage:

Lift the Lid on Mummies Fun!

K has been wanting the "Lift the Lid on Mummies" kit for a while and we finally got it and she loved putting it together. She had to place the 4 organs into the proper canopic jars and then wrap the mummy and place the amulets. It really helped her understand more about the mummification process and she brings it out to play with every now and then. It came with a book as well on mummies and a cat mummy that was a pain to put together! I had to use hot glue in the end to make it stick lol.

Week 1 - Living/Non-Living & Cells

Our first week of our Human Body study is covering what is living and non-living and cells.  Here is my outline that I created for us to follow - I hope to do these each week if time permits! 

Read
Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia - pgs. 10-13

RSO (Real Science Odyssey) Labs
Units 1 & 2 - Signs of Life; Plot Study; Egg is a Cell; Plant and Animal Cells Differ

Misc.

• Cell Model

Videos

• "Human Body for Children; All About Cells & Body Systems" by Schlessinger Science Library
• Introduction to Cells
• Bill Nye: Cells - Parts 1, 2, & 3

Games

• Living & Non-Living Game

Books
"What's Alive?" by Kathleen Zoehfeld
"Enjoy Your Cells" by Fran Balkwill & Mic Rolph
"The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body" - pgs. 4-7

1st Grade Science - Human Body

Here is a full 6-week curriculum for the Human Body that I created.  You can click on each for that week's full outline.  Enjoy! ;-)

1. Living/Non-Living & Cells
2. Skeletal System & Muscular System
3. Nervous System, Brain & Senses
4. Circulatory System & Respiratory System
5. Digestive System & Urinary System
6. Skin & Hair & Nails

2 Free Life Science Curriculums

1.  If you want a plan that is all laid out for you day by day for learning about the Human Body (Anatomy), you will love this!  I'm using some of the book suggestions to tailor our 10 weeks of Human Body study:

Little Otters Science - preschool through 1st grade
Otters Elementary Science - 2nd through 6th grade


2.  Next, this one is a complete Elementary Life Science curriculum.  This covers general life science - humans, animals and plants.  I haven't had time to review it and I'm not sure if it covers creation or evolution - from browsing through it, it seems as though it leaves both out, so check it out yourself before using.

Teacher's Full Text
Student Pages

They also offer links for each chapter here:
http://eequalsmcq.com/elem%20life%20science%20websites.htm

He even has a blog full of fun stuff:
http://eequalsmcq.com/blog/

Science 1st Grade Schedule

For those not familiar to the Well Trained Mind way of doing science, I thought I would do a post to show you what the schedule looks like for 1st Grade.

Animals - 20 weeks
Human Body - 10 weeks
Plants - 6 weeks

The spines are simply encyclopedias for animals and human body and then a hands-on gardening book for the study of plants in the spring.  You should be doing narrations with your science learning as you do in history.  For each study, you simply pick a topic and learn about it and then do a narration page, read some library books on the topic and even do a craft, project or experiment if you want.  The goal is exposure to material not mastery or even covering every single topic in the above categories.

My daughter's interest in learning about the human body is peeked at the moment, so we are going to begin with that instead of animals.

Human Body - Anatomy Links

I will be updating this as we go and find more links - feel free to tell us about any that you know of, thanks! ;-)

Compilation of Lessons, Printables, etc.

• How the Body Works for Kids - This is my favorite link!  For each part of the body, there are movies, lessons with interactive diagrams, quizzes, activities and printables!
• Human Anatomy - lessons, printables; some are not free
• All About Genes
• Kids Biology
• Kid Info - full of links

Printables/Worksheets

• Human Body Coloring/Activity Pages
• Body Book
• Label Body Parts 

Games

• Brain Game
• Circulation Game
• Immune System Game
• Skeleton Drag & Drop Game
• Body Works Games
• Layer Respiratory System Parts
• Lung Lab
• Chewed-Up Food Race
• Drag & Drop Body Parts
• Examine Germs
• Germ Games
• Gene Games

Crafts/Projects/Experiments

• Brain Hat
• Anatomy T-shirt
• My Body Lapbook 
• Human Body Lapbook

Videos

• Various Videos - click on "Body"
• How the Human Body Works - kids animation series 
• Learn Body Parts
• Human Body 101

Interactives

• Explore a Cell
• Organ Surgery
• Build an Organ
• Arnold's Organs are Missing 
• Brain and Senses 
• Skeleton

1st Grade Science - Changing Curriculum

Last year, we did 4 chapters of Apologia's Astronomy and loved it.  I still love it because its all Biblically sound but its very tiring for me to try and explain it while we read in terms that K can't understand.  The book is written on a 1st-6th grade level, but I'm worn out trying to summarize each section in terms K can grasp. So we are saving the Apologia sciences for 3rd grade or above.

I decided to go back to the WTM's recommendations for science.  We are going to do Animals, Human Anatomy and Plants for 1st grade.  The spines are "DK's First Animal Encyclopedia", "Kingfisher First Human Body Encyclopedia" and "Green Thumbs".

I'm also adding in Pandia Press' "R.E.A.L Science Odyssey; Life" because K LOVES the labs that we have done in the Earth/Space sample.  However, we are only doing the first few lessons/labs to try it out and then decide if we want to pay the $39 for the rest.  We will be buying some live bugs, experiments and doing more hands-on learning instead of intense reading for science at this age.

Today, while out shopping we purchased a human skeleton model, human body floor puzzle and lady bug farm.  We are sending for our live lady bugs tonight! K couldn't wait to put the floor puzzle together so she did it tonight.

I'm also adding in free worksheets, games, interactive activities online and library books to supplement the topics each week.

Home Economics - Week 2

In week 2 today for home economics, we learned about peeling.  What peeling is, what instrument peels and why we peel.

Then the lesson was for K to make a carrot tray but we had no big carrots, so instead, we used a potato for the lesson.  She washed/scrubbed the potato first.

Then started peeling and she was so happy when her potato was all done!

She said it was so fun, she wanted to peel another one lol.  Next week is learning to use the toaster.

Ancient China - Pictograms

We finished up chapter 10 in SOTW1 on Ancient China and the project we chose to do was making a pictogram.  K wanted to do the house pictogram in SOTW and then she made up one and had me guess - a girl pictogram:

SOTW 1 Ancient World Google Map

Found this handy tool that someone created of the Ancient world locations in Story of the World 1:


View Story of the World in a larger map

Saxon Math 1 - Store

We are on lesson 73 in Saxon Math 1 and today we started our store. We grouped everything into categories: meat, cold, freezer, drinks, baby food, cereal, condiments, canned goods, pasta, snacks and fruits & vegetables. K had fun sorting what food goes into which category.

Then we pulled out a shelf from storage that I was going to throw away (luckily I had saved it!) and we are using it for our store shelves.  Next, K had to come up with a name and it took us a while, but she said her favorite animals were the elephant and penguin.  So we brainstormed and came up with the name "Waddle Store" because penguins waddle and she said everyone that comes in Waddle Store will have to waddle lol.  Too funny - we had a blast!  Tomorrow we do price tags and start purchasing items from the store.

2-Hour Quiet Time

We started implementing "quiet time" in June and are now resuming it with the start of homeschool this year.  Quiet time for us is simply 2 hours where my daughter stays in her room doing whatever she chooses but no computer or leapster gaming is allowed.  She usually plays, does crafts, or puzzles sometimes while listening to audiobooks.  We do the quiet time after homeschool ends.  I usually bring her a snack and she has a water tower in her room so she doesn't have to keep asking for water lol.

This works really well for us and in the future when I have more children, it will serve as their naptime.  I like to do internet things, read, and all the other many things I have to do after homeschool.  It really helps me to have those 2 hours of no interruptions.  I started this after watching the 2 videos below of what quiet time is like in Susan Wise Bauer's house with her 3 children at home.

1st Grade Memorization - 12 Sons of Jacob

K's first memorization assignment due in 2 weeks is to memorize the 12 sons of Jacob:

Asher
Benjamin
Dan
Gad
Issachar
Joseph
Judah
Levi
Naphtali
Reuben
Simeon
Zebulun

First Day of Homeschool - Review

We started homeschool today and are on break right now and I just had to tell you all how amazed I am right now.  We are doing review the first few days and we did our Bible review for about 20 minutes.  I sat and listened as K told me, in detail, all the stories of the Bible all the way up until Moses.  My eyes welled up with tears as I realized that truly, God has blessed her learning!

Her account of Abraham and the "almost" sacrifice of Isaac blew me away.  She ended her story with "God was just testing his faith."  I almost fell on the ground lol - here is a 6 year old understanding the moral of the story and some adults can't even grasp that simple lesson!

I wanted to say all this to encourage others - you may think your children aren't listening and you may think it isn't sticking up there in the brain but just wait......it is!  One day you will be in the car on the way to the store, and all of the sudden your child will begin to tell you about something you taught and then you realize that they were really paying attention - but sometimes it takes a bit longer for it to make itself evident.

Put God FIRST in your homeschool and keep thanking Him for all your and your child's accomplishments and you will keep the blessings flowing and your cup will surely run over!!

Homeschool Prayer

We start our homeschool day with a prayer and inviting God into our classroom.  I have yet to not feel the presence of the Holy Spirit when we pray.  His blessing is upon His people that choose to count him RELEVANT and IMPORTANT to education for their children.  Our prayer usually goes something like this:

God,

We thank you for the opportunity to be able to homeschool K.  We invite you today to come into this room and be a part of our learning.  We count you the most important to K's learning.  I ask you Lord, to fill this place right now with your presence and touch K's mind to learn and absorb.  Help me Lord, to teach her to were she can understand.  Bless our homeschool today and we thank you God.

Amen