4th of July chalk art

Before July is over I wanted to share our little chalk art fun project.  I was inspired once again by almost unschoolers' sidewalk chalk paint resist idea.  I loved the geometric shapes they did, but realized quickly as I was planning the project that my little guys would not have the attention span for such a big project.  So, I changed it up since the 4th of July was coming to an American Flag.

 They had a great time painting, and playing on it.

This post wouldn't be complete without some fireworks!

Desiree

 

My homeschool mother's journal: camping at the coast

In my life this week...

It's been a while!  Summer sure has been busy so far, but now that we've had our big family camping trip I'm hoping to slow down a bit.

So last week we had our big family camping trip with Hubby's family.  It was a nice week.  A little rainy the first few days, but it cleared up by Wednesday, and there was plenty of sunshine after that.  It was still way cooler than back home.  We left the 90 degree weather and ended up in 60-65 degree weather all week at the coast.  We were actually COLD sitting on the beach some days. 

In our summer homeschool this week...

The kids had so many learning opportunities this week being at the coast and camping and hiking.  First of all the campground that we were at had a program for kids everyday 3 times a day called Junior Rangers.  They learned all kinds of nature stuff, and campground facts.  They went at least everyday, and sometimes to all 3 in a day.  I was very impressed that the camp rangers had something different for 3 times a day everyday.  It was a great program. I wish I would have taken a picture of every craft they made, and some of the stuff they did.  They learned about Tsunami's, jelly fish, wolves, banana slugs, salmon, and so many more things.  I can't even remember all the titles of the classes they went to.  But, my boys were very interested in the tsunami's so we might dig a little deeper into those this week.  My 6 year-old still hasn't stopped talking to me about tsunami evacuation routes, what causes tsunamis, and if one will hit today.

Here is the banana slug craft they made...

Mr. Alex thought it was a slug "kite" and loved flying it around instead of taking it for a walk...

He had a great time running around with his banana slug...

We also had a great nature walk this week.  Remeber the book we got called Oregon coast quests?  Well, we did our first one at Cape Perpetua which was just south of where we were camping.  It was a pretty hike, and the Cape Perpetua visitors center had some neat things inside too.  We started with our hike to find the letters to the clues.  As you read it brings attention to things along the trail.

Like these 2 trees who have joined together due to harsh weather conditions.  We never would have seen that because you have to look up, but the quest brought it to our attention as we were looking for answers to the clues.

This was a pretty moderate hike.  Mostly uphill. My 2 little guys only made it about halfway, so Dad went up with the older kids to finish finding the clues while I took the 2 littles down to the visitors center.

Part of the clues was to read about the tale of two forests.

That's a huge tree stump!  I wasn't there to see it in person, but they told me about it.

While they were finishing the hike we were looking around the visitors center, and came upon some ladies who were doing an art demonstration.  They asked my boys if they wanted to try and paint.  It was pretty neat, all 4 kids got to paint while looking over the ocean.  My little artists loved it!  I love stumbling on things like this.

If you can see Alex he's painting on the left, and Aric is at the easel.

Here is Aaron's finished canvas.  He wanted to do a sunset over the ocean.  He didn't really want to paint the scene in front of him, and that's okay!  He had his own idea.

When they were done with the painting it was time to find the quest box to put a stamp in our book.  It was hidden down under the boardwalk.

Found it!  It's pretty fun to find something after all that hard work.  They got their stamp!  And, they learned a lot of cool things along the way.

What we are reading...

I have to say that reading has really been taking off this summer in our house. Mostly for the boys.  April has always been a reader, and loves to read several books all the time.  But, my boys are finally getting there.  They are starting to read lots on their own.  Right now I think Aaron has 4 books he's working on.  Chapter books!  He is starting to say how much he loves reading.  Yes!  I'm hoping it takes off even more as the summer goes on.

Here is one book for each child from the week.

April is reading Carry On, Mr. Bowditch for a class in the Fall that she's hoping to take.

Aaron is reading The Strange Case of Origami Yoda.  He is reading this one the most, and is almost done.

I pulled these out from April's collection for Aric to read.  He might be our next horse lover, and is really liking all the Billy and Blaze books.  We currently own 5 of the series.

This was Alex's favorite this week.  We read it several nights before bed in the trailer.  It's a simple picture book for my busy 3 year old.

My favorite resource this week...

My new 2014-2015 well planned day homeschool planner.  I got this planner last year, and loved it.  I decided to pick it up before our camping trip so I could look at the school year.  I didn't really get to any planning though, but I was excited to look through the new planner all week.

Things I'm working on...

Getting through all the laundry from our camping trip!  A whole week of undone laundry for a family of 6 means a lot of stinky laundry.

Helpful homeschool tips or advice...

Take the time to just enjoy your kids this summer.  Whether you homeschool or not.  I have really tried to focus on that this summer as our last homeschool year was a little rough at the end there. I have just wanted to enjoy them without any pressures of school or what we should or shouldn't be doing.

Places we're going...

We visited the beach a lot this week since we were camping right by it.

My favorite thing this week...

Hearing the children laughing and playing and the sound of the ocean.

My kiddos favorite thing this week...

Aric turned 6.  That was certainly his favorite thing.  They all LOVED playing on the beach!



I'm cooking...

We ate a lot of yummy food since we were camping. I think the thing I was most excited about over the week was baking a cake for Aric's birthday in the trailer.  I wasn't sure how it would come out since the oven is so small and different from my oven.  But, it came out great, and we had cake for his little birthday on Thursday.  It was still decorated simply though.  I didn't bring much to decorate it with as you can see in the picture above.

I'm thankful for...

The nice weather we had at the coast. All the unplanned, but very neat learning experiences my kids had all week long.  I'm thankful for the prompting to put away all our formal school lessons even though I wanted to keep going and finish them up.  I'm thankful for all the park days, and fun summer outings we have had with friends so far, and I'm thankful there are more on the calendar.

Just a few more photos to share...

April and Alex relaxin' while camping.

Alex loved playing with his pretend golf set.

I am linking this up with Managing your blessings, and Weekly Wrap-up

Desiree

Baby birds

See that lovely mess of weeds that my garden has become?  I am not going to do a garden this year, and have let it go so it isn't too much of a surprise that it looks like this.  But, I did find a surprise when I decided to start pulling the weeds to take out these garden boxes.  I found...

...a nest full of baby birds.  Real live baby birds.  It surprised me at first, and I didn't realize what it was until I had pulled the weeds out all around it.  I was thankful that I didn't grab the nest, which I almost did while pulling the weeds.

Baby birds on the first day I found them.

I was also thankful that the Momma and Dad I assume kept coming back and feeding them after I backed away.  In fact, they would hang out on the eve of the house if we were close to the nest and wait.  We formed a pretty trusting relationship with the momma bird.  We watched it come back several times a day to feed them.  I was so glad.  We enjoyed being able to go out and get an occasional glimpse of them until they got big enough.  But, we mostly just stayed away to let the mom keep coming back to feed them.  I felt bad that I had pulled away all their cover, but they seemed to do fine.

baby birds on the 2nd day I found them.

These are Dark-Eyed Junco babies.  I didn't know that it's pretty common for them to build nests on the ground in places like tall weeds, grass and shrubbery.  It was a pretty neat experience for all of us to see these baby birds in our yard.  On the 3rd or 4th day they got big enough to venture out of their nest, so they started hiding in the other weeds.  I didn't see them but a few times hiding in the weeds after that.  I'm hoping they got big enough and flew away.  I still saw the momma bird coming to feed them for a few more days, then she stopped coming around.

On the first day we found them I had the boys make a nature page about the birds with a drawing.  They came out pretty good.

Aaron, 8 years.  He drew 3 birds because at first we thought there were only 3 birds, but the next day we noticed the 4th.

Aric's 5 years.  Maybe we noticed the 4th bird earlier, because here he has 4 birds.  Or, maybe he was more observant than we were! :)

Reading timers

I had an epiphany recently.  I remembered getting a bookmark timer for April several years back when she needed to time her reading for school, I think it was when she went to kindergarden.  She had to read so many minutes a day, so we bought a timer to help keep track. 

Well, fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was thinking about how to help the boys keep track of their own time for the summer reading.  I really wanted them to be in charge of their own keeping of time, and feel the pull to get the reading done each day rather than me having to remind them all the time (which is what you have to do when you have boys who don't care to read).  These lovely bookmark timers popped into my head.  I did a quick search, and found that Barnes & Noble carried them in the store, so off we went to find some.  I was excited to get started.

I just knew this would get them excited about keeping track of minutes, and it did!  Worked like a charm.  We decided to pick up the ones with built in night lights, so they can read when the lights are out.  Now they are even reading for a good length of time in their beds!

I have been quite amazed at how much these have helped.  The boys are excited to get their minutes in now, and we can count throughout the day if they read a few minutes here or there.

Just wanted to share something that has worked for us lately.

Desiree