MFW Insects (Update) -- Ants!

When I was writing my post about the Insect Week we did not have our ants, yet. As I was blog reading tonight I realized I never posted about the ant farm. The ant farm is truly wonderful. I had no idea we would love it so much. I mean, who LIKES ants?! Many times we look at them as just a nuisance.... especially when they are biting on our precious little babies. Those naughty ants are really quite fascinating. We were all glued to the ant farm.... we could not walk past it without checking to see what they were up to. It was really fascinating to see how they climb around in their tunnels. I thought they would simple walk on their little legs, but it is more like a gymanstics move. It is as if they are doing the splits while crawling through their tunnels. The tunnels are truly amazing to watch them build. And sometimes they try to do the impossible.... and achieve it!!! And they are funny.... like you will have this one ant lifting a fragment that is larger than him and obviously struggling under the weight of it.... stumbling and falling backwards.... getting back up to continue his impossible goal.... when along comes his buddy ant that just crawls right over his head without assisting or showing any concern for the struggling ant. ;) They seem to be on a schedule and most all will rest at once. And they seem to clean one another. They are very odd, fascinating creatures. And if you want to see a picture of an ant farm click here. Ours looked just like that... except with different children in a different house. I really can't post my own pics because it seems that one year olds like to throw cameras across the room and I am not saying she broke the shutter button off my camera, but I am saying that the shutter button was gone after the toss across the room. I did not notice for a few days, so it is possible that was a coincidence, but..... Hmmmmm.... my bet is that my camera flying through the room was a big factor in the missing button. And I am filing this under "Funny Things Kids Do", although I have to say that I do not quite think it is funny right now.... I do know that one day it will be funny... maybe. ;) On another note I do need to take more pics. I seem to lacking in that area these days. I am just trying to live life without necessarily documenting every moment.

{Thanks for reminding me aboout the ants Isabel} Everyone should go check out her fabulous blog!

Food, Inc. Movie ~~!~~A MUST SEE~~!~~

You don't have to wait until Saturday night to see the Food, Inc. movie!!! Here is a streamng video link. http://www.pbs.org/pov/foodinc/photo_gallery_watch.php (Thanks Jennifer!)

Food Crisis in America !! MUST SEE TV!!

Saturday on PBS there is a show airing called Food, Inc. (listed as P.O.V.) that is a MUST watch show about the food in America and the dangers we do not even realize. The DVD can be ordered on www.pbs.org .

This show aired last night and I DVRed it and it took my breath away. None of it is a real shocker as individual facts, but as a whole it is mind blowing. I was down to one feeding in weaning my baby this week and today when I went to hand her a sippy cup of milk I felt a tremendous burden just giving it to her. Needless to say, she is grateful I watched the show. She has been nursed twice today due to my guilt! LOL!! But in all seriousness, you MUST watch this or order a copy. The price to order is almost $30, so it is pricey. It is worth buying to learn and educate yourself and the generation of kids we are raising up. Maybe you could go in with a friend and order a shared copy if the price is too much. I have mine on my DVR, so for me it was "free" (not counting the fortune Dish runs each month.... ahem!).

Please, please, please... mark your calendars.... set your TiVo or DVR thingys... You NEED to see it!! It could change your life. And make sure you watch the FULL two hours. At first you think there is nothing you can do because the situation seems hopeless, but there is something. It starts with what we buy and demand to have available. Don't buy the garbage... change a little at a time.... change one thing a week... You will want to have your own farm after you watch this thing!!!


Oh yeah!!! ........ And when you are done with that give your mind time to absorb it a little and then, go read this post http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/the-most-nutritious-sweeteners about the sweeteners that area available. In particular, click on the link that takes you to Dr. Mercola's website about HIGH FRUCTROSE CORN SYRUP and the way it is killing us all.

Now, if you have seen the Food, Inc. movie and read the High Fructose Corn Syrup article then, think on this. Not only is the high level of fructose dangereous for our bodies on epidemic proportions, but it is also being made with this genetically altered corn that is mentioned in the movie. So super scarey!!!

Some things I am doing to change already before this movie aired... some of these have been for allergy purposes and other reasons, but they are working and the go along with this:

• I have been using less REFINED sugar. That means drinking more water and less Sweet Tea and Kool-Aid. My husband drinks Dr. Pepper, but I only allow the kids to about once a week.
• I made banana muffins with honey (for the sugar -- reduce by 1/4 cup per cup) and coconut oil (for the butter -- reduce by half of what you would use of butter).
• We have been using some honey on our pancakes rather than syrup. Syrup is mostly made with high fructose corn syrup unless you use a natural syrup like Pure Maple Syrup or Cane Syrup. READ THE LABELS... make sure there is nothing added to it. Try different types of honey to find one you like. I have three honeys here right now. One is local Wildflower Honey and that is great for allergies, but it is bitter to eat straight. You can not taste that bitterness in muffins, though. I have some honey shipped from Arkansas that was purchased on the Wal-Mart store shelf and it is sweet as corn syrup and has that taste. This one is great for everything, but you are not going to get the allergy benefits with this one. I think this one would even taste good as a drink sweetener (tea, etc.). The other honey is just one I had from travelling that has a great flavor (Sourwood Honey) that we use for whatever we want. The point is that all honey taste different, so if you do not like honey (I don't as much) try different ones, because I am gonna tell you that the Wal-Mart one has the most NON-honey taste to me. It is Great Value Clover Honey from Bentonville, Arkansas. I am not telling you to buy that one.... the best for you is the local honey in your area. One other sweetener that is not mentioned on the Heavenly Homemaker site is Stevia, so you might want to consider that. Anyway, more I am doing... instead of using margarine or butter I am using coconut oil some. NOBODY can tell here!!! Olive oil and other natural oils are a great way to change out your butter/shortening/margarine. Try it! You might like the change! You WILL be better off for it ... and save your kid's lives and your lives!
  

MFW K: Horse and Obedience

[Template for Horse Craft. Click on pic to open and view larger. Print OR Copy and paste the graphic to use.]

Horse = "I obey right away." Hmmm... we could spend some time on this one.... LOL!!

Actually, as I say that, I know the message is great for both parent and child. ;) The Priscilla Shirer bible study that I recently attended called "Hearing The Voice Of God" was really focused on that. Now, bear with me a moment. I know this is supposed to be a cutesy post about Kindergarten, but I am going to veer off course a bit. The bible study was more about what we do when we hear the voice of God... do we ignore it? do we obey it?.... do we try to bend it and shape it into what our plans are rather than God's plan for us?.... when we hear God we need to look for scripture that backs it up and make sure it is not contradictory to the Bible, then OBEY Him right away! That means do what He is telling us to do! Do WE obey right away? I love that this K curriculum has lessons in it that we can all learn from. It really is true you know that "everything you really need to know in life you learn in Kindergarten"! Okay, on with the Kindergarten stuff....

We really had to change this one up a bit and did a lot of reading. I just had my own ideas. We did make a list comparing horses and cars. We did not visit a horse stable, but with our cow study we did go to the Fair, so I used that fair visit to fill in the gaps for what might seem to some as leaving out too much. They did see horses there!! It counts! And we live in Texas... we see horses... maybe not up close all the time, but we do see horses. We repeated some of the activities in the previous post (MFW: Cow). We made horses to sit on our desks for the week that stand up. I hade the die cut, so I traced it on cardstock (and I scanned and saved the page for future use). I will share here. When you cut out all the pieces and clip the notched areas you can assemble your horse. I reinforced ours with a little tape to kee the parts toghether and taped toothpicks to the back side of the legs for extra stability.

The kids also did some mazes from a little booklet called Treasure Hunt.

We read a lot... The books we used:
The Horse In Harry's Room by Syd Hoff
The Cake That Mack Ate by Rose Robart (Great book for farm study. About where our food comes from... the farmer that feed the chicken, that laid the egg, etc.)
Horses by Monica Kulling
Farm Animals (reference book.. could use any book)
The Crooked Colt by Anderson (Great book!)
When The Leaf Blew In by Metzger (Great book for farm study. About a series of events that happen when a leaf blows in a disturbs things. Fun, because at the end it starts all over again!)
Shoe For My Pony by Friskey (So cute art! I love this book just for the art, but it does discuss on a child level "shoes and blacksmiths")
Flip by Dennis (Great book! About a colt that falls asleep and wakes up confused. Great moral to the story about believing in your abilities.)
Gidappy by Elsie Church (Cute artwork... can't remember the story at the moment.)

We did not read these, but they would be great options:
Seabiscuit by Dubowski (a level 3 reader) -- I did just check Amazon and this link will take you to a list of Seabiscuit books and there are various versions and some that look really cute for younger kids. The one we have is great for my 3rd grader, but I did not want to use it as a read aloud due to it's length with all my other obligations. ;) I picked more youthful, fun books to read for this one.
Black Beauty -- various versions available

MFW K Lessons: Cow and 100th Day

First of all, let me say this.... we are way off on everything we do, but we are learning the ropes of homeschooling. LOL! I am tired of worrying about where I might fail, so I am over that (for now, anyway). We so do not always mark off our days and so we technically have done 100 days way before we celebrated doing such. And I really just wanted to do the 100th day activities to really drive home the Math concepts that you learn from it. It did just that, so if you ever wonder if it is a waste of time or a "copy of public school", I have to say that in my opinion is not that at all and the kids really get it when you do it right. So, for our 100th day (a few weeks back, so I am trying to jog the old memory... and thank God I wrote it down):

We sang a "100th Day of School" song.

We sang the #100 song in an old church Chorus book I have, Learning To Lean.

I considered the hymnals we have, but was not familiar enough with the songs.

We did our normal calendar time and added our 100th straw, bundled and moved our straws into the appropriate "place" to represent "place value", added the number 100 to our number chart, and counted aloud to 100.

We counted to 100 by 2s, 5s, 10s, and 100s and observed the patterns on the chart that it follows.

We counted aloud by 100s up to 1,000. Sierra was surprised how easy that was and that she could do it. She was very proud of herself.

We took 100 steps to get started on our walk around the block and found that got us 1/4 of a block.

We enjoyed 100 licks on a popsicle after a hot walk. They LOVED that one and actually counted there licking. Funny kids!

We did a 100th day of school worksheet from http://www.starfall.com/ where they fill in the missing numbers in the count to 100.

I made a $100 shopping worksheet with a photo of a $100 bill and asked them what they would do with it, if they had it to spend. I was quite impressed that Savannah wanted to buy a few things, but said she could not do all that because she had to "give some to God". For Sierra she drew a picture to represent what she would spend her money on and I wrote the words down under the picture. For Sierra she drew a picture and had to write about it on a page. I am learning adapt work for multi-age level learning (and it is making our homeschool so much better).

We were supposed to put 100 items on a page that we gathered throughout the day, but we did not (we failed this one last year, also). We did plenty of other stuff, anyway.

The girls wore clothing with 100 of something on it... and no, we did not actually count the flowers on the clothes are the number of stripes. If it looked like 100 or so that was good enought for us. And yes, that does count as teaching Math based on the principle of Estimation! ;)

WE HAD A GREAT 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL!

And now.... on to the cow studies. It just so happens that these farm animals weeks fell during the fair season here and during the cow week we had an opportunity to see a dairy demonstration at the fair. We did not go to it, though. Instead we went to the fair that night thinking they would have the dairy demonstration... not so, but we did get plenty of petting zoo time and animal observation time in. Overall, it worked out well and was a great time "studying". LOL! Fair school was awesome!

I seem to have a hard time finding the books that are suggested at our local library, but I have just started pulling together different books and changing the activities, if necessary. I was able to get "Buzz" Said the Bee, but decided to just do the activity my own way. The manual suggests writing the words sat and scat on cards and teaching them to your child. I find that when you are sitting side-by-side with your child with a book that has that much repetition it is not necessary to do any more than point the words out in the book. Sierra was able to read them without me prompting her and she just seemed to chime in and read those words for some reason. I love when things work out like that. As an activity to go with that they drew a picture of the bee sitting on the duck, on the chicken, on the pig, on the cow, on the sheep and colored it to their liking. They did dot-to-dot pages of a baby pig and a chick. They did a do-a-dot page of a cow. I made and animal sorting file folder game recently that we used to sort out the zoo, farm, or ocean animals that I found at http://www.homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/ . This also fell during St. Patrick's Day for us, so I used a Shamrocks Phonics file folder game that I made from http://www.filefolderfun.com/ (sort words by -an family, etc.). I have a Melissa & Doug Hide N Seek Farm Puzzle that we used, also. I actually made some extra animal and attached magnets and hid all the animals behind the little doors and had Sierra search them out. Caden had a cute little Sunday School Farm Animals page that he brought home one that that we also used that worked perfectly with the lesson and he demonstrated all the animal sounds for us and we realized he is an EXPERT at neighing like a horse! REALLY! We did make the butter, but not on the day that it was suggested. For me that just went along with the "Dairy Party" day. We made a tiny book of farm animal stickers with some words in it... nothing major. I just had some great farm stickers that I wanted them to get to use. I stapled some construction paper together and let them go at it.

What we did not do.... first we mixed the days around. We did not do the "Hey! Diddle, Diddle!" nursery rhyme activity. We did not do the dairy poster and cut up magazine pics, etc.. And I confess... I never do those things really. I think it is enough to talk about some things... or GO TO THE FAIR! LOL!! We did not have a Dairy Party, either. But....

What we did do was.... THE FAIR!!! ... read a LOT.... make our own activities to add... sang "Old McDonald Had a Fram" (ridiculously long version with all our animals from the puzzle)... and had a bit of a dairy focused food DAY.

DAIRY DAY included: For lunch we had Grilled Cheese Sandwiches, Crackers with Cheese, and Yogurt with some fruit on the side. For Dinner I baked some fresh bread. We made homemade butter and homemade Whipped Cream while I was cooking dinner. During dinner we ate the bread with the butter and afterwards, we had Chocolate Ice Cream with Whipped Cream and chocolate shavings on top.

Books we read:

Going To Sleep On the Farm by Wendy Lewison (AWESOME book with the best artwork imaginable for this study!!!)

Farm Animals (for reference book... You could use about anything)

"Buzz" Said the Bee by Wendy Lewison (great one)

The Cows Are In The Corn by James Young (very simplistic & short)

The Berenstain Bears: Down On The Farm by Stan & Jan Berenstain (GREAT book.... ends with a comment about "Farming is hard fun". Great book about being a hard worker.)

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley

Buttercup the Clumsy Cow by Moffatt & Williams

Baby Calf by Hinds (references dairy cows & great for little kids)

Babe The Sheep Pig: What Pigs Love Best by Corey (I had my doubts about this one, but it was good and had a good message about friendship and forgiveness.)

King of the Stable by Melody Carlson (Fictional story of a boy that cares for the stable the night Jesus is born. Beautiful artwork. Great story, but it must be pointed out that this is fictional account.)


(SORRY I HAVE NO PICS TO SHARE... I HAVE HAD SOME CAMERA ISSUES.)

MFW State Studies: How We Are Doing It

I love the principles that are taught in My Father's World Curriculum, but I want to stress that as with any curricula choice that you must find that way that it works for your family. We are doing that now and the last couple of months of homeschooling has been so different for us. We have found what works now and have begun the journey of homeschooling and actually enjoying it. This is a quick overview of our week 12 in Adventures. We are way "behind" because I put the curricula down for a while to really avoid catastophe. I spent some time listening to God and that has made all the difference. He message to me was something like this, "Stop trying to follow someone else's plan and follow Mine (God's). I want you to raise your kids to serve Me. The academics will happen, if you get the Biblical principles right. Teach them and love them. Stop panicking. Stop acting childish. Work on teaching yourself what you did not get taught, so you can be a better mother to guide your children. Follow the kids lead academically and they will enjoy it more and give less struggle. Look at the root of the problems and not the moment."... and the just compact about two months more into that and you get the picture. ;)

Without further ado here is a glimpse of our Week 12:
We started the state studies and bird studies finally! Momma did not want to do it.... but Momma has ended up liking it... Momma felt ill-prepared, but Momma gave up on the library and ordered two great books to use instead that save me time and money. The books are:

Smart About the Fifty States: A Class Report (1)which is written and illustrated by 5 students in "student style". It really shows a good overview for each state and highlights the things that interest the kids in a fun format that we are all enjoying on a two page spread. It is a great example of what a mid-elementary level child would be doing for State Studies.

Our Fifty States (National Geographic) (2) by Bockenhauer & Cunha is gives a more in depth look at the states. Each state gets four pages and has great pictures to look at with a good amount of detail that makes it so that we do not need books for every state. This one covers it all. It covers the history, industry, landmarks, agriculture, and other facts that are interesting to know. Each state has a small photo of the flag, bird, flower, state map, and location on the U. S. map. This book would be appropriate through all their school years.

And Friday my husband came in with a fabulous find! The Young People's Atlas of the United States (3)by Harrison & Van Zandt is an oversized book with a misleading title. When I saw it I thought, "We have several atlases." until I looked at this book and now I can not wait to start using it this week, also. This one is even better in some ways for the mid-elementary age. It has a two page spread for each state with less details, but more small pictures. Each state has a photo of flag, bird, flower, state map, and location on the U. S. map, as well as, the state tree.

Other things we will be using for our State Studies:

We will NOT be using the State coloring book that is recommended. It looked a bit "busy" to me when I looked online at it, so I chose not to order it. We will use the free pages at http://www.crayola.com/ as these are more kid friendly in my opinion. Right on the page they give details about the colors to use for the flag, bird, flower, etc.

We also used the INTERNET for a closer look at map pics, etc. I would find the picture, then hold down the "Ctrl" key while pressing the "+ =" key to zoom in on the pic. Afterwards you do the same to zoom out using the "_ -" key.

We will not be using the library because that is just exhausting to me. Iwill be returning the books we have checked out called Let's Discover the States. Although these books are good, I just do not want to deal with due dates, planning library trips, searching out books, and checking out the appropriate book in this series each week. I would like to say that if I had the series here at home I would use it.

I did order the state stickers, BUT I only ordered one package. Bad move because I need a set for each child. What I think I will do is make a small poster (arghhh.... don't like posters on the wall) and as we study each state we will add the state sticker to it. It just does not seem fair to let Savannah stick a sticker on her page when Sierra is working just as hard.

Day 1 = Delaware -- Right away I discovered that it would be best to start them coloring their coloring page and doing the details that were not color specific while I was reading to them or showing them the pictures in the book. I start with book #1, since it is so perfect for their level and read and show the pics, then I move on to the other books. Meanwhile, I pull up the internet pics or lay the book down for them to look at between them as they color. All the while we discuss the state information. For Delaware their was no activity listed other than the coloring page. I felt there should be some sort of "activity" for each state. By "activity" I would mean a special area of study, craft, food sampling, outdoor activity, etc.. I decided that the State Bird would be our "activity" focus. The Blue Hen Chicken is the state bird, so I just found that fascinating. We discussed why and the story that goes with it. In hindsight I would have had Savannah right a brief re-cap writing assignment about that and maybe have Sierra write some words like "blue hen chicken" and possily have them do some art in the form of "chicken scratch" on the writing page. LOL! Darn! I wish I had thought of that then. They would have loved that! Anyway, we just did some discussion and oral question and answer.

Interesting Note: The girls instantly said they want to go there. I think we are going to have to tour the fifty states now!!! And I must say that my kids have been to more states than most at their age and we are planning more soon! .... very soon!

Day 2 = Pennsylvania -- Each day we do the same series of things as listed above. For Delaware we did NOT make the craft suggested in the MFW teacher manual. Instead, I pre-cut some parts out of construction paper for them to assemble a Liberty Bell and had them write the verse from Leviticus on it. Isn't it amazing that our founding fathers put Bible verses on everything!! We also found had some great discussion about Hershey, Pennsylvania and the Crayola Factory in PA. I should have bought some Hershey bars in advance, BUT I have come to the realization that we can discuss it and do it later and that it OKAY!

Day 3 = New Jersey -- Each day we do the same series of things as listed above. For New Jersey there was no activity listed. I had the kids use a decorative paper and I found a couple of food items with Nabisco and Campbell's labels on them. We cut off part of the labels and they taped those to their page. Both of these are major companies in America and I felt it was something very relateable to kids... even if we do not have a great deal of these products in our home. Ritz crackers by Nabisco are a staple here and Campbell's Chicken Noodle or Chicken & Rice soups are, also. So, I had only two labels for each of the kids, but it worked.

Day 4 = Georgia -- Each day we do the same series of things as listed above. For Georgia the teacher's manual suggest making Peach Cobbler. Eeeeekkk! I personally like my fruit simple and my kids do too. And simple is what we need in our lives isn't it. We ate a real peach cut up and that was a much healthier alterantive anyway. The girls especially like the state butterfly on their coloring sheets and we pulled out a couple of books and pulled up a pic on the internet to get a closer look at the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly.

We also just took a trip to our local State Park for the day and participate in a bird nest study for kids and then, went on a nature walk that all tied in perfectly with this study. The girls even made their own bird nests.

Interesting kid funny: Immediately, upon tasting the peach the girls called it a "nectarine" because they are used to their momma's preferred version of "non-fuzzy peaches" (nectarines). We eat peaches, too, but they are usually the canned ones. I choose nectarines over peaches in the produce section usually; however, we love both. We have a crew of kids with "food texture issues" and the got it from their momma. ;)

Of course, we did the Bible and bird portions in the study throughout the week... reading and discussion. And that is it! That is how we are making this curriculum work for us. We use it as a base, but we are changing what we want and adding or leaving out some things. And we are loving it that way. The very study I was avoiding has turned out to be the most enjoyable for us ALL. I just had to get my hands on some good books, stop all the library craziness, change up some things, and chill out about it all.

Easy Spring Sewing

[THIS IS NOT MY PHOTO. I DID NOT MAKE THIS DRESS. ALL CREDIT FOR THIS DRESS GOES TO THE SELLER @ www.lainaline.com . ]

Summer Sundress Idea: The quickest and easiest sundress idea I have for girls is to make a pillowcase dress. Remember it does not have to be a pillowcase... Simply buy a yard (or little more) of a fabric, sew up one side, hem the bottom, cut out a half "U" shape for each armhole and use seam binding (bought or homemade) to finish out the armholes, then fold the two top pieces (a front and a back) down to form two seperate casings. Run ribbon or fabric through and tie at the shoulders and you have a sundress. I actually make these so that they will slip over the head without untying and make a stitch or two to hold the ties permanently tied. These can be made for a variety of ages and I have seen children wear a shirt under for extra modesty and it is cute that way. These also "grow" with your child. What can be a dress for a two year old will fit an eight year old as a shirt. Imagine the family that wants to be all matchy... Hmmm... I know some of you! I do that too as often as I can and this is a quick way to make the kiddos match. Brother can wear a coordinating shirt to blend with the girlies. ;) And on a side note, I want to say that matching your kids clothing is a great way to "bond" them to one another. My kids just get the giggles about be all "matchy" and they love it.

Don't forget how easy a Bandana Skirt is to make, also.

Follow this link from last year:

http://littlethingstx.blogspot.com/2009/07/fun-pics.html

to make this and see the other's that coordinated with it, as well as, the shorts for my boy.

We were just playing in the kitchen...

trying on the skirts and not gettin all fancied up...

just a quick snapshot.

Is It Already APRIL !!!?

Crazy how time flies! On a lighter note I did not mention April Fool's Day the day prior or the day of around here until calendar time. For some reason April Fool's Day is not written in on their calendars. Being that it was a new month I told them it was now July and we were celebrating Independence day this weekend. I was so excited that it was Summer and my birthday would this month, also. Seriously, I was going really "out there" ... ridiculously so... and they still believed every bit of it until... I said, "April Fool's!" The rest of the day was all about silly tricks.... there's a bee in your hair... a worm (which turned out to be no joke).... and lots of others all day long. Tricks are so fun! But really... It is April. We will be celebrating Easter this weekend. It is Spring. And my birthday is not this month. Hope you all enjoyed April Fool's Day!