Life Around The Farm As Of Late

We're really liking this Botany unit! This morning the kids and I found mosses and lichen specimens on a short walk around the house. We came back in and they drew and colored the finds to put in a notebook that each of them have started for our Botany unit.



Another beautiful moth took up temporary residence in our barn. This time a Luna Moth.



As you can tell by the long worn hindwings, this moth has seen better days and is probably close to death. We measured its wingspan and it was a little over four and a half inches.
After taking this photo, there was another Luna Moth in the barn just a couple of days later.



Yesterday morning a Summer Tanager was flitting about in the oak trees behind the house and I was able to get a quick photo. We've never seen them this early in the Spring and were pleased to get a glimpse of him.

My husband went to one of the local sale barns yesterday morning and purchased our first bottle calf of the Spring.
My oldest child had first pick of the calves this Spring and she named him Raymond.



These past few days have brought horribly violent weather to the east and northeast of us. Tornadoes and flashfloods have brought devastation and death. Please remember those in your prayers that have lost loved ones and homes.

Blessings, Julie

Botany, Eggs, & A Snakeskin

Our Spring has gotten off to a late start. We've been dry here in central Oklahoma. Actually, most of the state has been experiencing drought.
Wonderfully, the past couple of days have brought rain. And it's amazing how quickly the flowers play catch-up!



I had purposely planned a Botany unit for the kids this Spring as we could take advantage of so much of the plantworld beginning the cycle of life.



When in grade school, I personally enjoyed drawing diagrams of the subjects we were studying...labeling them and coloring them with great care. My kids enjoy doing so, also.



It's interesting to watch them...and the learning process is made so much easier when it's a hands-on lesson.
I had gone out to the garden and found several different bean seeds and sprouts in different stages of developement. The children were able to put them in order of growth, label the part of the seed, tell me whether or not the bean plant is a dicotyledon or monocotyledon and then explain as well as show me how they knew that.



We're using Apologia's Botany for our core of study, but I've supplemented from other sources also and will omit the material from Apologia we've already learned. I'm excited about this unit and have lots of plans regarding instruction, experiments, and field trips.

Along with the flowers blooming in the pasture, veggies growing in the garden, and the trees leafing out, other signs of Spring abound.
Interestingly, we have a Wyandotte female chicken that has gone broody (she's ready to lay a clutch of eggs and hatch them out).
From what I've read chickens go broody more so in the Spring. She left her clutch of eggs for a short time to eat and another chicken hopped in the Wyandotte's nest to lay her daily egg. This confused the Wyandotte and she took up nesting in the nest nextdoor to the one she had been in.
Needless to say, the clutch of eggs that she had been on for nearly five days was abandoned after the interloper had laid her egg and went on her merry way.
So this morning I brought the eggs into the house so the kids and I could check to see if they were fertilized and how far along in developement they were.
There is a wonderful website here that shows pictures for every day of developement. We used this website to identify that yes, our eggs were fertilized and they ranged from three to four days developed. I didn't take any pictures but we're now excited about trying to hatch eggs out in an incubator we've borrowed from our local extension office. I'll definitely keep you posted on how that goes.

Speaking of eggs, I gathered eggs from the coop and from the nests that my free range chickens make in the yard just the other day. I cracked open three, one yolk ran, but the other two yolks stayed intact.
By looking at the two intact yolks in the picture below, can you tell which is the cooped chicken's egg and which is the free range chicken's egg? If you said the more orange one is the free range chicken's egg...you're right! The free range chickens get a more varied diet and their eggs are much more nutritous. 


 

And speaking of the varied diet of a free range chicken, did you know they will eat baby snakes? I've seen for myself three baby snakes killed and eaten by two of my hens.
I'll transition there to the subject of these last two photos.
Last week my little guy came to me with a long snakeskin he had found in the backyard. When I told him I wanted to measure it, he said that the tail had torn off when he was picking it up off the ground. We went ahead and measured the majority of the skin.




After measuring the snakeskin, my little guy insisted on going and finding the "tail" so that we could get a full and more accurate measurement of the snake. He came running back with it just moments later and we were able to measure the tail and then add that to our measurement of the larger part of the skin to get a total of four feet ten inches long! There's a seriously long snake out there somewhere. I'm just hopin' he's of the nonvenomous type!



I really didn't want to leave you with visions of the monster snake "slithering around" in your head, so I posted another photo of the Irises that are beside the driveway to the house. I took these in the morning when the sunlight was just peering over the horizon of the property to the east of us. It had rained in the night and left behind some welcomed moisture on the blooms.

Seeing His blessings in the small things, Julie

What A Homeschool History Fair Looks Like

The following entry was from last Spring and I originally posted it at my blog at Homeschoolblogger. But I thought it important to get it out to many of my friends in the area where we live as we've just scheduled the history fair for this upcoming year. I hope it's helpful in giving some ideas!

I have had the privilege of heading up our local homeschooling history fair for the past two years. Last year was my first time to do this and we had a huge response. Sixty-two participants worked on projects that were creative, informative, and many downright amusing (see the Charles Shulz board further down).

My purpose for this particular post is to direct first-time participants over here so that they can see what the finished product looks like.



These two boards are neatly done and I like they way the pictures are matted with contrasting colors, makes them much more noticeable.

Also, notice how the subjects of these boards are front and center as well as in larger font than the other writing on the boards.

You gotta love this! This young man nearly papered his whole board with "Peanuts" comic strips by Charles Shulz, his subject.

It's always a good idea to also include some props in front of your board, not necessary of course, but it does add a little more depth and interest to the project.

But you do want to be careful there aren't too many as they can distract from the subject and cause your display to look cluttered.

This is fun, makes you smile.

This project was done by a mother and her four-year-old daughter. This particular woman is a wonderful seamstress and a fan of Victorian era clothing. Both the daughter and mother wore civil war era clothing while presenting this project. What's not to love here?!

Love it, love it, love it!

These two board were done by a young man (he did the Weapons of the World Wars) and his twin sisters. Please notice all the media in front of the boards. They had a documentary of World War II going while presenting their projects.

This board is neat and to the point. I like that the child has obviously done an activity that had to do with his subject matter. You can see the hand-made shield in front of the board. Did you also notice the hand-written report that has been fixed on the board? Kudos to this parent because I know personally the hours that it takes for a child to write something like that out by hand. In a later picture, I'll point that out with one of Aubrey's boards. I felt it was important at the time because we were working very hard on penmanship. Now, I'm fine with her using the printer for a lot of her writing that needs to go on her board.

This particular board is Aubrey's last year project. She obviously did it on the Mount St. Helen's eruption. She included a cut-away diagram of what a volcano looks like as well as a time-line of the months prior to the eruption.

She included a story of one of the victims of the blast which gave the project some added interest and emotional depth.

Aubrey enjoys drawing and painting so I had her make a before and after picture of the mountain.

The notecards have "fast facts" or "bullet points" about the geography of the mountain, statistics concerning injuries and fatalities, as well as damaged caused by the blast.



This project was done by two young ladies on the life and works of theologian and author C.S. Lewis.



Isn't this wonderful!

Can you tell I'm so proud of these kids?!

This was done by a five-year-old boy. He knew all about his subject, too!

Absolutely adorable!

This project reminds me of something that I wanted to share on my particular philosophy on preparing a board for our fair.

I'm totally okay with parents helping their children with these projects. I feel that working together on these projects promotes discussion on the child's subject, which also promotes reinforcement of what the child has learned. I also feel that the parent can guide the child to compose their pictures, charts, and written work on their board so that it is more aesthetically pleasing. As the child ages, the parent will give the child more freedom as to how they would like their presentation to look. If the child is a very independent child, as the one that did this particular project is, guide carefully as to not quench their creativity.

These next few pictures are a few projects from our 2008 history fair.

I love the duct tape and masking tape on the shield and what a fun project for a young man, Leif Ericson.

This project was done by a five-year-old boy who wore a wig with braids and dressed in a light brown tunic with moccasins. Costumes really do add a bit more to the whole experience!

But again, not necessary as I'm aware that many children don't want to bring too much attention to themselves.

Oh, the book lover in me absolutely adores these projects!

This young lady has also arranged many of Burnett's works very neatly in front of her board. Lovely.

This board, Interesting Facts of the American Revolutionary War, was done by my middle child, Lillie.

It captured her personality perfectly!

She put a picture of her brother up on it (he was four at the time) with a frock glued to his body and the caption, "Boys wore frocks until they were five-years-old back in the 1700's." There was a bubble glued next to his head that said, "Get me out of this get-up!"

This is Aubrey's board from two years ago. Her subject here is Daniel Boone. She did a time-line and glued a hand-written report onto her board along with lots of pictures.

The internet has many sites for getting coloring pages on a wide variety of subjects. You can see here that Aubrey has colored one with Daniel Boone as the subject.

I really just posted this picture to show Aubrey's dress that she wore while presenting her project. Tim's mother sews beautifully and the girls have thoroughly benefitted from her talent!

It is wise that the child is well-versed on their project as parents, relatives, observers, and friends are encouraged to try and visit as many of the projects as possible and talk to the children about their project.

History fairs are a lot of fun, educational, and a great tool for showing relatives or friends units or projects that the child has been working on at home.

Again, I feel so honored and privileged to get to be a part of it!

I hope you're having a productive and blessed week, Julie