Fitness, Fun and Fellowship

At the end of the last school year our original homeschool group decided to close down. We were very sad about this and started looking for a new group. I couldn't find a group in our area that I liked and could afford. So, I had to start my own.

First, I had to figure out where to have the group. That was a pretty easy one. I decided to have it at my church. Then came the process of getting the approval of the church. I was very excited when we got our approval! I had already planned our first two events and I was ready to let other homeschoolers know about our group.

 I have decided to meet once a month and keep this group very casual. We do extra curricular activities. I want the events to be educational and structured but more on the fun side. We have one hour of educational time and then an hour for lunch. The hour for lunch is a nice time for the moms to talk and the kids to spend free time together.

Our first event was a fitness day. It was basically an hour long gym class. We played a lot of different games. The first game I had them play was Duck, Duck...Goose!. It was very easy to tell them the rules of our group while they were in a circle. We also played:

Follow the Leader

What Time is it, Mr. and Mrs. Fox?

Who Has the Button?

Hurry Server.

We played with balls, bean bags and hula hoops. When we started to get sweaty, we took a walk around the church to cool off.
One of the favorites of the day was Hurry Server! In this game you have to pretend you are a server and race with a tray of items. Plastic, of course! They worked as teams and whoever finished first, won the game!

If you would like to see some more games we have enjoyed in the past check out this post.

I'm sorry I don't have more pictures! It's hard to take pictures and lead a bunch of kids in games!

We finished off our fitness day with a couple of races!

Next time we're heading to the farm.

Cross your fingers that it doesn't rain!

Drop That Egg!

Every year at AWANA the girls get to participate in an egg drop. (If you don't know what AWANA is check out this post.) It's Daddy's job to help them get their egg drops all ready. This is Pie Pie's fifth year participating. Since they don't like to do the same thing, every year they have gotten a bit more creative. This year it was parachutes!



The girls and their Daddy worked very hard on this project. They hot glued and drilled. I also heard there was a lighter involved! Nobody got hurt making this project because I wasn't helping.

The egg went into the box and the parachute helped slow down the decent from the high window. We also surrounded the egg with packing foam. I heard someone else used marshmallows. Pie Pie wants to try that next year.

Both of their eggs made it to the ground in one piece!

 All of the kids love this event!

 It's even fun to hear and see the eggs crack and splatter all over the ground!

 Science and Bible in one night, it's a dream come true for this homeschool Mom!

Our Little Ballerina

Pants finally got her turn to take ballet!

 

 

She loved watching Pie Pie dance and anxiously waited for when she was old enough. This week was her first class. She was a little nervous, but we saw a familiar face. She has a student teacher that Pie Pie had when she took dance. She had a great time and was very energized when the class was over. I was hoping for the opposite effect!

 

 

Luckily for me her class is before dinner, so we took a nice long walk after dinner. She was pretty tired by the time bedtime rolled around.

 

 

Now we just have to get her some ballet slippers and she is ready for her next class!



A Month Into the School Year

I was counting how many days we have done for school recently and was happy to notice that we have 25 days finished already! Pie Pie and I like to know how much we have accomplished! I am also pleased with the progress we have made and would like to share some here.

Reading 

Pie Pie and Pants have done a lot of reading. I love reading and will do anything to encourage them to read. They each read enough books for about 36 tickets (5 books per ticket) in the Library Reading Program this Summer. I'm not sure the actual total because I lost track, but that is a lot of books. We have particularly enjoyed reading Carolyn Haywood books.



We are currently reading

These are some of my favorites from when I was little and I am so glad Pie Pie can enjoy them now. Pants and I are reading through the selections in Before Five in a Row. We have, so far, liked all of their choices.

Math

We are currently in our third chapter in Math which should be finished up tomorrow. We are just getting started with some new lessons, but Pie Pie is sailing right through. Pants is still working on counting and writing her numbers. They both like to build with our Math blocks.

History

For History we are currently in the 1800s of American History. We just finished up the Constitution and learned about the Bill of Rights. We are looking forward to the War of 1812  and then we are going to read about the American Girl from that time period, Josephina.

Science

We started off with a couple of different topics. We learned a little about the Ocean and Butterflies. Now we are currently on The Human Body. We are learning a little more about what our body parts do and how to take care of ourselves. Our next topic will be all of the animals that are in Animal Jam. This is their favorite Internet game. Pants is learning about different animals and the Five Senses.

Geography

We just finished up our second Which Way U.S.A. book. This is Pie Pie's favorite subject right now. Whenever I ask her what subject she wants to do, she always says Geography!

Language Arts

We just started our Grammar book this week. We have also been working on Handwriting. I am also hoping to start a Spelling Program very soon! We are going to be starting a Literature unit all about the Roman and Greek gods and goddess.

Bible

We are doing daily devotions and just started AWANA, which  is a Bible Club for kids. Both of the girls participate and it is at our church. They learn about the Bible, play games and get prizes. This is where they recite their Bible Memory Verse for the week.

Pants

Pants has been very fiesty lately so we have been going really easy with Pre-K. We are reading and I have been trying to get her to focus for longer periods of time on a task. She is going to be starting Ballet next week and I think that will be a good physical outlet for her. She loves to draw, color and play.

There's lots of other things going on for us too. We have been busy! I just wanted to give a little update to anyone who likes to read about us!

More to Come!

P.S. I am linkink up with iHomeschool Network's Mother's Journal.

 

It's Lucky's Day!

In my past two posts I told you a little about Scaredy and Playful. If you read one or both of those two posts you know who they are if you didn't, they were caterpillars. I say were because they are no longer caterpillars. They did their caterpillar thing and one of them made it and one didn't. The people at the Butterfly Sanctuary told me that right before they turned into chrysalises they would attach themselves to the lid of the container they were living in. Well, they did. Unfortunately, I was taking care of them. I went to look at them, being very careful, and I tripped and dropped them.  The next day they turned into chrysalises. I assumed they were already dead, so I poked them. I like to poke everything and make things worse! One of them was okay, but one started oozing liquid, okay insect blood! (Did I mention I was poking them with a sharpened pencil?) I decided to save both of them just in case they weren't dead. It's a good thing I did. I happened to glance over at them a couple of days later and I saw one of them had emerged from it's chrysalis.

 

I was very excited! (Sorry about the dead one in the picture.) If anyone else decides to do this project and they fall, just leave them alone. You do not need to poke them. No matter how much you may want to. I know this from personal experience!  We kept the butterfly for a few days and the girls named it Lucky. Lucky because it lived! We fed it a little sugar water on a cotton ball.

 

 

We set it free outside, but had to take a few pictures of it before we said goodbye.

 

 

 

I got some good close ups because it was a little chilly when we let Lucky go. We checked the next day and it had flown away.

 

 

 

I hope Lucky finds some nice flowers.

Let us know if Lucky visits you!

 





What's That Insect?

Pie Pie's project this week was to identify this insect.

 

We discovered it outside at the butterfly sanctuary. First they thought it was a bee, but I could tell it was not a bee. Then we thought it was a hummingbird, but it was too small. We knew it was a moth or butterfly, but weren't sure what kind. We went on the Internet and found it right away! It's a Hummingbird Clearwing Moth. It was really neat to see and discover what type of creature it is.

In this picture you can actually see it's tongue coming out to drink.

I also wanted to share how big Playful and Scaredy are getting!  Almost time for them to turn into chrysalises.

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of Science in your day!





Cleaning up the Frass!

You may think I misspelled a word in the title, spellchecker thinks I did! However, I did not! If you do know what that funny word in the title is, you are definitely smarter than I was last week! So, what is frass? Here's a hint!

It's caterpillar poop!

Why do they have silly names for animal poop? There's guano, road apples, chips, scat, dung and I'm sure there's more! We actually discussed this over dinner tonight! My girls thought it was very funny.

Now onto the real reason for this post!

We recently went on a super fun field trip to 

I want to thank some of my homeschool friends for letting me know about this wonderful place. It was a bit of a drive, but well worth it. We got to watch a video about the life cycle of a butterfly and hear a nice talk all about butterflies. During the talk they have an audience member dress up like a butterfly which was a nice visual for my girls. Then you get to visit the butterflies in a Flutterarium. 

It was very much like a fairyland. There were flowers and butterflies everywhere. 

You could even hold the butterflies, if they let you. Some were more friendly than others!

The girls could have stayed here all day!

Anyone who know us, knows we don't go anywhere without a friend. 

Don't forget about me! I love butterflies.

Since Pants and Pie Pie loved the butterflies so much we brought home some butterfly babies. Say "Hello" to Playful and Scaredy! 

My girls are very literal with names. Playful is the one on Pant's finger and Scaredy is the one in the container. He tends to curl up in a ball when you pick him up. We are very excited to watch them grow, turn into a chrysalis and become butterflies.

Come back soon to see how our babies are doing!