Making Volcanos

To prepare for a trip to Mt. St. Helens, we made our own volcanos. We did the old school vinegar and baking soda, it was lots of fun. The kids had a great time making them and erupting them.
We started with an empty water bottle and a piece of cardboard. Then we covered the water bottle with some plaster strips I bought. After that dried they got to paint. Malachi got very creative and added grass and a river. I gave them some monopoly houses to make it a little more life-like and voila--- our very own volcanos.

Lilli's creation

Malachi's masterpiece

Danic's work of art

Salmon Dissection

All month we have been studying salmon. We read a great book called Come Back Salmon. It is about an elementary school in Everett, WA that adopted a stream, cleaned it up, raised salmon eggs and let them go into the stream. Then they watched for them to come back. It was a great book, we learned a lot.
Then we took a trip to a fish hatchery and saw some salmon swimming upstream to spawn.
Lilli and I did a little salmon artwork, but the finale was today. We did a real salmon dissection. One of the awesome homeschool group moms hosted it and another's brother did the dissection.
Kathy and her son set up a very cool (and realistic) salmon habitat. Complete with an industrialized area to show how air and water pollution and dams affect the salmon. The kids got to do the pollution part and thought it was pretty awesome.

Then the dissection... I love the kids faces. Part interested, part horrified. It was great!

The kids were dying to see the brain. So he was a good sport and cut the head open.

When they were done Lilli asked if they could poke it. Poor dead salmon.

Bladder, Liver, intestines and eggs. Very cool.

Homeschooling is awesome!

Preschool Shaving Cream

So I had a bright idea that we would let Maddi explore some shaving cream. In my vision she would sit in her wheelchair while I held a tray for her, she would play in it and then I would wheel her over to the sink to wash her hands.
So I put her in her chair and got started. After I dipped her hand in the shaving cream, I thought to myself. Hmmm, I need a picture of this. How am I going to do that??
"Hey Lilli, help Moosie while I grab the camera."

As I watched, it got a little messier.

Then it was all over the table. It was on both Maddi's hands and on her clothes and chair. I turned around to put the camera down and when I turned back it was in her mouth, all over her face and in her hair! Unfortunately, I am not laid back enough to take a picture of that. I ran over and frantically held her arms thinking "ahhhh how am I going to clean her up??"
I started wheeling her to the bathroom, but her chair wouldn't go past the fridge, I took her to the kitchen sink, but her chair was too low. So I settled for a wet washrag.
Oh well, she had fun.

I told her physical therapist about it, she said "next time you should use whipped cream. Then it won't matter if she eats it."
Ahhhhh she's a genius!

Self Portraits

Art in the Park- Self Portraits

We met with our wonderful homeschool group today and did Modigliani inspired self-portraits. We worked with oil pastels for the first time, which was a lot of fun. They are now Lilli's new favorite art tool. 

Lilli's is the bottom left picture.

 I may be a little biased, but I think she did a great job!

What color are my eyes?

I forgot my camera this time, so thanks for the pictures Liberty!

Nature Club at Deep Lake

What an amazing day! We met with our homeschool group at Deep Lake in Enumclaw, WA. It's a 40 minute drive from our house.

The kids made waterviewers using an open ended coffee can with saran wrap stretched across one end. 



Then we went to the water to try them out. They held their viewers in the water, kind of like a portal into the lake.

Maddi had a blast in the water! Thanks to her awesome dad, who always makes sure she is included.

Check out this huge tree!

After they splashed around a bit we went on a long nature walk.
The lake has a wide path all the way around the lake. It was gorgeous.

                         The kids stopped halfway through to write in their nature journals.

At the end of our hike they enjoyed some water play. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast!

How we got started

I thought homeschooling was crazy for a long time. I thought homeschooled kids were wierd and honestly, I never knew anyone as a kid that was homeschooled.
 At the beginning of the year (2011) I heard that some friends of ours had taken their daughter out of school and were homeschooling. I thought to myself, why on earth would anyone do that? But the idea was stuck in my head. I stayed up late at night researching homeschooling, I read a couple of books and voila! I had to try it. The thought of being the main influence in Lilli's life was so appealing to me. She had been coming home from kindergarten telling me some crazy things, with a crazy attitude and I couldn't imagine how bad it could get 10 years down the road.
I did a ton more research and found the Charlotte Mason method. I fell in love! Basically, we read A LOT of good literature. Lots of living books on whatever subject we are studying, so we can really get interested. No textbooks or dry facts for us. We do hands on math and we spend a lot of time enjoying nature. We spend only 15 to 20 min per subject to keep her focused and we work a lot on good character habits.I get a lot of my curriculum ideas from Simply Charlotte Mason.

It has been 6 months now, and Lilli and I absolutely love homeschooling. With the one on one attention, we are able to knock out a whole day's work in under 2 hours. We have a wonderful homeschool group that we belong to where we go on various outings. We are involved in Nature Club and Art Club. Lilli has been learning piano for the last 4 months and is getting so good at it, I am so proud!

Mandala Art Project

Lilli had a lot of fun with this project. We met at a local park with our homeschool group. The kids were given instructions about how to remove their specimens without damaging the plants and off they went. They were supposed to create a symmetrical, round masterpiece with their leaves and flowers. She was so proud of her creation. We hung it on the fridge until the flowers started to rot, then she finally let it go.

Then time for play with some good friends