Brownies: Aquarium Adventure

Kyrie & I had a super-fun time on our Brownie field trip to Aquarium Adventure! I was very impressed with the tour, and all the girls loved it, too. There was lots of great information about fish and aquatic animals with cool demonstrations. I feel very lucky to be a part of this amazing troop!

The touch tank

I love Kyrie's face in this photo as she watches a ray swim by in a feeding demonstration (the ray is in the bottom right corner).

Kyrie with some of her Girl Scout sisters!

Homeschool: Books! And the Arts

Degen's drawing of the Cat in the Hat

We had a great unit reading some of our favorite books, learning about famous authors and exploring aspects of the arts. We brushed up on some reading concepts while we talked about how authors & artists practice & work hard to be creative.

Kyrie's unit folder.

We were excited to start the Book It! program this month. Both kids setting reading goals and are keeping track of their reading to earn free pizza at Pizza Hut. I participated in this program when I was in elementary school, and I am excited that my kids get to participate, too.

Degen's unit folder

I am increasing Kyrie's writing practice to include a writing project each unit. This was in the plans for the start of our new school year, but I decided to jumpstart it this fall. Each unit, she will complete a writing project starting with a graphic organizer and ending with a typed paragraph. 

One of Kyrie's journal entries for this unit. 

I thought Degen's reading/writing practice for this unit was so cute. On the right, I asked him to draw a picture of someone who can sing, so he drew (and labeled) a picture of himself saying, 'I can sing!' Cute!

Kyrie with her completed writing project. She wrote an opinion piece about her favorite book. She really enjoyed this project!

Speaker of the House

Very proud of Degen who 'graduated' from speech therapy this month! He was diagnosed with a moderate-to-severe articulation disorder about a year and a half ago. Since his diagnosis, he has attended weekly speech therapy sessions and practiced speech exercises almost everyday at home. We are proud of all his hard work and progress and grateful to his speech therapist and the staff at Columbus Speech & Hearing. 

Homeschool: Autumn & Apples

Degen's unit folder. The kids loved these super-cute squirrel stickers I found. 

I love fall, and I love this unit. It is filled with lots of good books, treats and activities like our apple picking expedition you can read about in another post. The kids enjoyed talking about the changing leaves and eating apple goodies like apple pancakes, apple chips and apple juice. During this unit, Degen learned about how an apple grows, the parts of an apple tree and reviewed apple colors along with his weekly work with the alphabet and counting. Kyrie concentrated more on animal migrations, natural changes that occur in autumn and animal behavior during the season along with her weekly math exercises and reading/writing practice.

Kyrie's unit folder.

Some of our autumn books.

Some of our fall activities.

For 4 days in a row, Degen requested apple pancakes for breakfast! Yum! I ate mine with apple butter & syrup!

Kyrie working

I am constantly adding to our classroom collection of books and manipulatives. As the kids get older, their needs change which means that I need to go through our books & supplies to determine what is appropriate and what needs to go. As we approach the end of our academic year, this seems an even more necessary requirement. The state of our classroom felt like it was getting a bit out-of-control, which can happen easily. So, I spent a few days during this past week and went through a lot of things, which resulted in me removing a lot of books & manipulatives and moving around some of the shelves, especially the book shelves. After several hours, the room looked so much better, and as the room became less cluttered, so did my mind. Whew! I was so proud of my progress that I had to take some pictures. 

Our small bookshelf now holds chapter books and hardcover and/or over-sized books.

The larger bookshelf now has all of our book bins, which are divided by subject. I also went through the baskets on the top and tried to organize the small items that accumulate. Later, I tackled the pile of books on the left, moving unit books near our reading spot and putting my curriculum books in a basket. 

I tackled this beast! I took away a lot of manipulatives, toys, games and puzzles that the kids had outgrown and rearranged the remaining items. I also reorganized the top of the shelf, which holds books and teaching materials. 

Homeschool: Learning Circus

Some of our activities. The kids really enjoyed working with balloons.

This is a fun unit that the kids really love. The focus of this unit evolves each year with a focus on learning basics. For Degen, this unit is about shapes, colors & patterns. For Kyrie, this unit is about math & reading concepts with an emphasis on geometry. We also spend time this unit doing hands-on science experiments and talk about the joy of learning. 

Some of our books.

Kyrie enjoyed reading some of these books about language arts concepts.

Kyrie made her unit folder into a design for a circus/fair. (For some reason, I forgot to take a pic of Degen's folder.)

The map Kyrie made of her circus/fair.

Degen spent time making amusement park rides with gears.

Some of Kyrie's journal entries from this unit. 

We did multiple experiments in the course of our unit. One of the experiments we did was about surface tension. We observed what happened when food coloring was put in water vs. milk. Then we introduced dish soap to see what happens. The kids had a lot of fun making "tie-dye milk." 

Food coloring drops in water.

Food coloring drops in milk.

Kyrie adding dish soap to her milk & food coloring.

Another project the kids worked on during this unit was decorating 'school' t-shirt. The kids used permanent markers to decorate their shirts anyway that they wanted. They talked about 'school' colors and things that they thought about when they thought about our 'school' day. This included some interesting/funny things like a preoccupation with ice cream. Ha! After they finished their drawings, the kids used droppers to put rubbing alcohol on their marker designs. This caused the colors to diffuse, creating a tie-dye effect. 

Kyrie's shirt

Degen's shirt

Newport Aquarium 2014

Fall means our annual homeschool field trip to the Newport Aquarium outside of Cincinnati. We are grateful for the aquarium's homeschool days, which offer a reduced rate for admission and some of their special experiences. Every year that we go, we find new things to explore. It was great to hear the kids answer questions and give explanations using information they learned from our lessons at home or other experiences. We spent several hours exploring the large aquarium and enjoyed the hands-on penguin experience. The day was filled with lots of learning and fun! 

I like this photo because you can see Darren & the kids in the background. 

We had never seen this varietal of clown fish before. Beautiful!

My favorite sea anemone! Pretty as a flower!

We loved the new Turtle Canyon.

So cute!

We love all the puffer/porcupine fish!

The kids were hilarious posing in front of the shark tanks!

Love these guys!