Gardner Home School

Homeshool Update

2009-12-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

I know there are only a few people who take a look at this blog, but I wanted to post anyway that I am not homeschooling this year. We made a family decision for the kids to go to school, so I could help my husband with his job. He is self-employed and needs some extra help to get the business going. So there you have it.
My goal is to bring the kids home next year, but that decision will be made in the summer of 2010 when we can re-evaluate our situation. I will keep this blog up until I decide. I hope you enjoy our projects and recipes.

New Homeschool Findings

2009-08-12T10:01:00.001-07:00

This new Homeschool Study is very interesting.

Story of the World come to and end.

2009-05-05T22:26:00.000-07:00

After a long and fun journey we completed our last chapter of our history curriculum from Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. We just completed year 2-The Middle Ages. Wow, what a rough time in history. Boy we sure are glad that we did not live back then, with all the crazy kings and queens battling it out over religion and land, and the plague. Yuck. It was fun to study about all the new explorations in the new world.

As part of our last chapter we played the Buccaneer Game, that asked questions from the chapter and the reward was to build a "treasure" and at the end of the game the person with the most, won. Our treasure was m&m's! Yum! We had a lot of fun and the kids were very good at the questions.
The kids had so much fun collecting treasure that they asked to play the game twice. Food is such a motivator for learning.

This is a picture of Sir Francis Drake, a famous pirate and favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Isn't he dashing! What a swashbuckler!

Earth Day Fun

2009-04-22T22:04:00.001-07:00

Instead of doing our regular routine for school we decided to celebrate Earth Day this year by doing a few fun projects to help us be a little "green" around our house. We decided to get started in the garden and get it tilled and planted with a few of the cold weather crops. The weather has been very nice here the past few days, but there is still a change of a frost in our area, so cold weather crops only. Daddy was good enough to till the ground for us the day before, so we were sure to be ready.
We planted cabbage, spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets and potatoes. The kids had such fun dropping seeds and tamping down the dirt. Logan was "freaked" out by the eyes on the potatoes, but I think he secretly liked them. Strange alien monsters, I guess!

The dog was our quality control manager. She was in charge of rows being straight, seeds spacing specialist and general boss. That looks about right for the position of the boss, laying down on the job while everyone else works. The next thing we did was shut off the power for our entire house for 1 hour. We thought we could do without any power for 1 hour, and enjoyed the quiet of the house without appliances buzzing, furnace humming, and well pump running. So during that hour we talked about things people did before electricity. Carrying water, cooking over a wood stove, going potty outside in an outhouse, etc. We also tried our hand at tying knots, and making a cornhusk doll.

I found this kit when we went to Roanoke Island in North Carolina a few years ago on vacation. We also happened to study about the Lost Colony in history this week.

It was fun to do these things, and it made the hour breeze by. Maybe we will turn off the power once a month, until we can install solar panels or a wind generator, it may have to do.

Our final activity of the day was making our very own compost bin. I found the idea on Kaboose. Check out the instructions and make one for your own family. It was very simple and I happened to have all the supplies on hand.

We then sat in the garage and fed Landon strawberries and talked about composting. What it is, and what can and cannot go into our compost bin.

I think the kids will get excited when they see the "rotten" fruits of their labors. Happy Earth Day!

So much Candy Fun!

2009-04-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

In history this past week we studied about the life of William Shakespeare and his wonderful and timeless writings.

For our activity we read the scene from Macbeth where the weird women make their Eye of Newt Soup. "Bubble, Bubble, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." But instead of lizards legs (very hard to come by this time of year) and baboons blood (don't think the zoo would give me any of that),

We used edible ingredients instead of real ones. I dug out some old baby food jars that I have been saving, for who knows what, but they came in very handy for our purposes. I printed out labels with a creepy font and we set to work.

As I read the story, in my best witches voice, the kids added ingredients to their concoction and created their brew.

Addison had to really get into the part and put on her best witches costume from her dress up. She even wanted me to get the Halloween costumes down from the attic. That was a bit much for me and was the bad guy and said no.

Logan didn't care about his clothes, his "Cars" sweatshirt was good enough for him. He was more interested in eating all the treats from the brew.

Here is the list of ingredients (courtesy of Story of the World Activity Book):

Fingers: tootsie rolls

Eye of Newt: chocolate chips

Tongue of Dog: red licorice

Lizard's leg: pretzel sticks

Owlet's wing: mini marshmallows

Sale of Dragon: smarties

Tooth of Wolf: candy corn

Gall of Goat: raisins

Baboon's blood: Grape juice, cranberry juice, red Kool-Aid or red colored water

Have fun bubbling up your own brew!

St Patrick's Day Craft

2009-03-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

I got a really fun craft idea from Keep'n the Sunny Side for a very cute St. Patricks Day garland. We made:

Salt Dough
2c. flour
1 c. salt
1 c. water
Mix into a dough and form into shapes, or roll out and use cookies cutters. insert wire hangers prior to baking. Bake 375 for 45 minutes. Cool completely and decorate as you would like.

The kids had so much fun making these "cookies" as they called them. They kept want to eat them because they look very much like Sugar Cookies. I told them to go ahead and have a chomp, but neither of them took the bait.

After painting them we tied them to a white ribbon, wrote St. Patricks Day on them with a silver pen and hung them from the entertainment center. It was fun, easy and cute, that is my kind of craft. Stay tuned for our Easter themed salt dough creations.

Making the world a tiny bit better

2009-03-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

For science we have been studying Ecology from our Modern Woodmen curriculum. We have been having a lot of fun learning about the earth around us and what we can do to make it a better place.

So for today we learned talked about how we can make a difference in our part of the world. With Earth Day coming up on April 22 we thought we would get a head start on making this better. We decided to collect all the trash along our little road.

Here is Daddy and Logan helping each other out. It worked out well that Daddy was home so he could help us. He was such a great helper.

Our road is only about a 1/2 mile long, so I thought it would take no time at all. Boy was I wrong, we only got to about 3/4 of our road and had 7 bags of garbage. We could not believe how much trash we found.

We had a lot of fun together as a family and felt good about the work that we had done. Our road looks very beautiful now.

Dr. Seuss's Birthday!

2009-03-09T21:15:00.000-07:00

In the grand tradition of the greatest silly rhyming genius we celebrated Dr. Seuss Birthday for school today. His birthday was on Monday, but mommy was to busy dealing with bamboozles in the closet to look at the calender. So, we celebrated before to kids took off to Grandma's house for the weekend.

Logan read The Foot Book and Go Dogs Go! He was an excellent Dr. Seuss reader! I am amazed at the confidence he has when reading. No word is to big for him to try and sound out! Great job buddy!

Addison read the entire book of Green Eggs and Ham and did a wonderful job. She had really struggled with reading the past couple years, but in the past month and really excelled. She now says that she is a good reader! And, she is!

Landon participated by taking a really good nap so we could get all of our activities finished. What a great little Whoo he is. He really loved Logan's Cat in the Hat Hat. He loved it so much he wanted to rip it off his head and tear it to pieces. Little Brother!?!

We had so much fun making hats, place mats, dot to dots, and word searches. We finished off the day by listening to Fox In Sox. Thank goodness we have it on cd read by someone else. I think my tongue would not make it through that book without a lot of errors.
If you are looking for some fun Dr. Seuss sites check Seussville.com for fun games and activities.

Stick Bug Science

2009-03-03T21:03:00.000-08:00

In this science lesson we learned about camouflage and how animals use it for protection. With our Modern Woodmen Ecology curriculum, we got out our log books and set to work. The kids had to pretend that they were birds. They had to think like birds, act like birds and look for food like birds. That meant no talking, because they were not suppose to be parrots, therefore they could not talk. This was a bit challenging, because they wanted to shout out when they had found one. Logan even decided to be a relocating bird and move a few bugs around.

I am sure we will be finding stick bugs (pipe cleaners) this spring when we are weeding. They had lots of fun hunting for the different colors of stick bugs. They determined that the black and green ones were the hardest to find.
Therefore black and green bugs must have some of the best camouflaging techniques in the buggy world. Happy bug hunting!

Making Gloop

2009-02-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

Last year at the Homeschool convention I bought about half of the Usborne booth and this is one of the little gems I found. A box of easy and fun science projects to do at home. They are so much fun and they usually use ordinary household items.

We decided to make some Gloop. The instructions are easy:
2 cups cornstarch
1 cup water
4 drops food coloring
Mix ingredients together and have lots of fun.

Addison had to have pink, pink, pink of course. It was fun feeling how the cornstarch could feel gooey, and if you lifted it up it would run off your fingers like water.

And Logan just had a blast making a giant mess. He played with it for a really long time. Only boys!

The fall of Constantinople!

2009-01-20T10:49:00.000-08:00

Today we learned about the fall of the great city of Constantinople in History today. The kids had fun learning about this great city and the many times it had been attacked. Mehemed, the Turkish sultan, was determined to see it fall, and fall it did. He even had his men drag his ships over land to attack the city on the north side that was so well protected, and used the largest cannons ever seen at that time. So in of this great cities fall we made a cannon out of toilet paper rolls, paper clips and rubber bands. It may not knock down a city wall, but I am sure it could knock out an eye!

Back to School!

2009-01-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

After a month off for Christmas/Snow break we are back in business with our normal school routine. It feels good to be back into a routine, even though the kids would probably not agree with me.
We started learning about ancient China this week. We studied about Genghis Khan and his rein of terror, followed by his Grandson Kublai Khan. Not so nice men. For our project we created Chinese Lanterns out of paper, yarn and the kids art work. We even wrote some Chinese characters on the lanterns. We also read a book about the Great China Wall. We all decided that was some place we would all like to travel to for a home school vacation.

Snow Days

2008-12-29T15:29:00.000-08:00

This is what our kids got to do for most of their Christmas break. We got an unusually large amount of snow or our area and they got to ride their quad for two weeks in the snow. They played so much that they wore themselves out and wanted to stay in the house at about day 5. They pulled each other around the yard about 1000 times. They had a total blast for their break. It is back to school soon though! Yes that would be their Dad laughing when Addison hit the fence. Such sympathy.

Christmas Cookies!

2008-12-11T20:51:00.000-08:00

We had to take a break from school and have our annual Christmas cookie baking day.

The day that we destroy the kitchen in the pursuit of those yummy soft, and sweet cookies.

Addison & Logan are great cookie bakers. They love the eat the dough, the cookies and the frosting. It is a wonder we even end up with any cookies at all!

We had a lot of fun making the mess. It is all worth it for the memories. They tasted great by the way! Merry Christmas.

Thanksgiving Crafting

2008-12-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

For Thanksgiving we decided that the table needed to be a little more festive this year, so we found some fun crafts to do together.

We went to our trusty crayola.com and found some fun projects. We made corn silverware holders and mini turkeys.

We cut, and cut and cut, and then did a little gluing. That means a lot glopped everywhere. They were fun to do and were great on our Thanksgiving table

Space Mobile

2008-12-11T20:31:00.000-08:00

We have begun studying space for science now and are having fun learning about our great solar system. We have learned that there is no air on the moon, the temperature of the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and that Venus is dry and hot. That kids have really enjoyed learning about all these things. We decided to make a moon and stars mobile, courtesy of crayola.com.

Crafting with the cousins!

2008-11-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

Today we had special visitors today, Cousin Matthew and Cousin Spencer came up to visit. The kids had so much fun running around, jumping on the trampoline, and playing dress up (pirates and swords and stuff, ok there was a little Barbie too). At the very end we decided to make our spooky marshmallow mummies. This was just a little sugar chaser to all the Halloween candy. The recipe is posted below.

Marshmallow Mummies
18 large marshmallows
6 thin pretzel sticks (2 3/4 inch)
1 box fruit by the foot
black decorating gel

Thread 3 marshmallows onto each pretzel stick. Unwrap fruit snacks (do not unroll) and cut rolls in half horizontally to make 12 rolls of long strips. Unroll strips and remove paper.
Wrap fruit around marshmallow, leaving a small amount uncovered for the eyes. Add dots for eyes with the decorating gel. Enjoy!

Going I-Viking!

2008-10-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

We learned about the Vikings in history and had such fun learning about this interesting people. When the farmers left Scandinavia to find a more hospitable land the search or journey was called "i'viking". So now when we go exploring we are going to say we are to go "i'viking"! We also learned about Eric the Red with his hot temper and funny sense of humor (naming Greenland). I bet the people sailing with him wanted to give him a good smack upside the head for leading them to such a desolate place. We also learned about his son, Leif, and all his travels. For our project we made viking flat bottomed boats. We had fun creating these amazing boats, with their fierce and scary dragons.

We Love Fall!

2008-10-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

Since we take Friday's off from school the kids thought it would be fun to go out and enjoy the day. The kids decided it was a good day to jump in a leaf pile. The day was nice, the wind was blowing and the leaves were falling. Granted our trees are only 3 years old so the amount of leaves they drop is minuscule, but Addison & Logan were determined. They racked, scooped and even kicked leaves into a pile. They even picked up leaves by hand all in the pursuit of that cherished childhood activity of jumping into a big pile of leaves. This is what they were able to come up with. It may be small in the scheme of jumping piles, but it was still fun.

Recess Time with Dad!

2008-10-22T17:20:00.000-07:00

This is one of the ways my kids spend their recess time. With their Dad, making them push him on their toys! They love it! I am not sure who's the child and who's the adult!

Mt. St. Helens

2008-10-22T15:25:00.001-07:00

Today we went to the Mt. St. Helen's Visitor Center and learned about volcano's and mountains. Growing up in Castle Rock, I lived through the mountain blowing and realized that I had never told the kids about it or taken them to see it. So, this week we were studying about mountains and volcano's for science and I thought it would be fun to go and learn about a real one right in our own backyard.

We watched a very neat movie about the mountain and and Harry Truman. There were statues made of ash and stumps of trees that had been blown over by the force of the blast. The kids loved the model of the mountain that you can go inside and see a lava flow.

We did not go up to the mountain, because this is Washington and it was socked in with rain. Maybe in the summer we will take another field trip up there. So, we went on the interpretive trail at the visitor center. The kids had so much fun running on the trail and reading about the lake. Spencer came along with us and had fun doing "school" with us. He even drew a great picture of the lake.

Then he was pondering going in the lake! I don't think my sister would have appreciated me bringing her child home covered in muck and weeds.

The trail was very fun and had a lot to teach us about a lake environment. We even got to see a few ducks. We got them to stand still long enough to take a cute picture of them with their own trees.

Trying to Think

2008-10-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

I once had a critic of homeschooling actually say to me that home school kids will not be prepared to go to college and sit in a classroom with tapping pencils and people whispering because they won't be prepared for the noise. I have here before you a video of what the noise level is like during our homeschooling. Now if my kids can learn anything with this kind of noise going on, then I think tapping pencils and whispering will not be much of an issue!
I thought I was going to pull my hair out as the teacher. We had to call in the noise removal squad just so we could hear ourselves think. (You have to love Dad's who come to the rescue and remove 6 month old noise making gremlins.) Happy Homeschooling!

Halloween Treat

2008-10-13T22:39:00.000-07:00

Tonight for family night we decided to make a Frankenstein cake. It was oooky spooky, and oh so delicious. We had so much fun, especially when we cut Frankenstein into piece and Logan informed that the monster was dead, because it was "just a cake". If monsters taste this good, then count me in.

Frankenstein Cake
1 boxed cake mix
1 can white frosting
1 can chocolate frosting
Green Food Coloring
2 tootsie roll midgies
1 peanut butter cup
2 red gumdrop slices
1 orange gumdrop slice
1 large marshmallow
4 Candy Corns
Prepare cake mix according to package directions, baking in a 9X13 pan. Cool cake. Mix green food coloring into white frosting. Mix and spread on cake for the skin color. In a pastry bag (or cut a hole in the corner of a ziploc) and pipe on the hair, scars, and chin. Cut marshmallow in half and put on 1/2 of one red gumdrop for the eyes. Smoosh the remaining red and orange gumdrop slice for the nose and mouth. Use frosting to make the candy corn stick to the mouth. Slice the peanut butter cup and place the midge and peanut butter cup for the bolts on the neck. Slice and enjoy a bit of monster.

Fall Break!

2008-10-09T21:32:00.001-07:00

I have learned from more experienced homeschool moms that a week break in October is vital to saving our sanity. We are having our break this week and I thought it would be fun to show what the kids have been up to. With a long break they have reved up their imaginations and had many adventures this week. They have worked on thier fort in the field, explored for dinoraur bones, been rock collectors, lego builders and corn meal matchbox maniacs. They have had a lot of fun playing together this week and mom has enjoyed having some downtime. I even managed to get two books read! Yippee for me!

Hot Lava

2008-09-30T14:18:00.001-07:00

< Today for Science we learned all about volcanos. We learned that some are active, some are dormant and some are exstinct. We live in a land of volcano's and Mommy even survived the Mt. St. Helens. We live somewhat close to Mt. Rainier, which at the moment, is dormant. The kids had a blast creating their very own volcano's. I have posted the directions of how we did it below. Try it out and see what happens.

Homemade Volcano
You will need:
mason pint jar or clean soup can
dirt, sticks, rocks, and leaves
vinegar
red food coloring
baking soda

Build up dirt around the jar or can to create a mountain. We did ours out in the garden, but you can use a tray and clay to create a more realistic version. Use sticks, rocks, leaves, etc. to make it look like a mountain. Fill the jar 1/2 to 3/4 full of vinegar. Put in about 6 drops of food coloring. Srinkle in soda and watch it bubble. Keep pouring in the mixture until interest is gone, or the vinegar.

Austrailia & New Zealand

2008-09-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

This week in History we learned about the people of the land down under, Australia and New Zealand. We read a story about a little boy who ate moths and bats for snacks! Fruit snacks have a whole new appeal now. So we made "Moth Mix", I have put the recipe below.

Moth Mix-(from History of the World)
1 bag microwave popcorn, popped
1/2 c. peanuts (the moths)
2 T. Honey
Pop the popcorn, then mix in the peanuts and honey.
Stir and enjoy a sticky treat.

We also learned about the Maori people who discovered New Zealand. It is thought that they came from the Polynesian Islands. So we painted the kids like a Maori warrior. We were suppose to paint their faces, but the kids were not up for that, so we opted for the arms.

L is for Logan!

2008-09-14T10:32:00.001-07:00

AAAHHH the joys of summer harvesting. Logan has had so much fun with our garden this summer, weeding, digging, and picking. He came running to the house the other day with a special bean just for him. It had grown into the shape of an L. As Logan is learning his letters righ now it was a perfect for him to find this very special bean! You just never know what suprises you might find when you are in the garden.

Indian Sand Art

2008-09-10T15:41:00.001-07:00

This week in History we learned about the Gupta Dynasty of India. One of the projects to do was to create sand art. People of the Hindu religion hang a welcome picture made of sand on their doors at the New Year holiday Diwali.

You Will Need:
Paper
Glue stick or White school glue
Colored Sand (purchase at craft store or add food coloring to your own sand and mix)

Draw designs on your paper and write the word welcome. Trace all areas with glue and sprinkle sand over glue. Shake excess sand off your design and let dry. Hang in your front hall or on your bedroom door.
We got this idea from the Story of the World Activity book by: Susan Wise Bauer.

Learning the Seasons

2008-09-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

This week in Science we are learning about the seasons and the weather. We made this picture of a tree in all four seasons of the year. The kids and I went outside to collect different kinds of leaves for the seasons. Thankfully it is the beginning of fall so there were all colors, red, greeen, and yellow. We got the idea from Crayola.com (their version has you using different colors of curling ribbon, but we modified some of them with real leaves because they were available.)

Candy Oasis

2008-09-04T22:17:00.000-07:00

Today we were learning about Bedouins and the desert of Saudi Arabia. We made an edible oasis out of brown sugar and candy. As you would assume the kids LOVED it! Logan was bouncing off the walls for the rest of the day because of pure sugar shock. It was still fun.

Addison could not wait to take a nibble. Ready, Set, Go!

Logan was really proud of his creation.

Edible Earth Food Craft

2008-09-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last week we studied the Earth and all the layers inside the Earth. We had fun learning about the crust, mantle, outer core, and inner core. For our project we made an edible Earth made out of oreos, rice crispies and marshmallows. The recipe is listed below for anyone who wants to try it out. It was tasty!

Edible Earth-From American Museum of Natural History
13 Marshmallows
1 maraschino cherry, stem removed
1 T. butter
2 C. rice crispies
1/2 c. creamy peanut butter
8 oreos

Directions:
1. To make the inner and outer cores:
Use a butter knife to carve out the middle of one large marshmallow. Insert cherry into the center of the marshmallow (the cherry will be Earth's inner core, and the marshmallow will be the outer core.) Put aside.

2. To make the mantle:
One the stove or in microwave, melt the butter. Stir in the rest of the marshmallows until melted. Remove from heat and stir in cereal. Cool for 5 minutes.

3. Wet you hands with water. Then roll the cereal mixture into a ball around the core.

4. To make the crust:
Use a butter knife and spread a thin layer of peanut better all over the mantle. Then put cookies inside a sandwich bag, close the bag, and crust the cookies into crumbs. Pour cookie crumbs onto a plate. Roll your Earth in the cookie crumbs until all the peanut butter is covered.

5. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. Remove from refrigerator and slice your earth in half and admire the layers of inner core, outer core, mantle and crust.

6. Eat!

Celtic Warriors

2008-08-31T15:20:00.000-07:00

This past week we studied the Celts in history. We enjoyed learning about these people and their lives and habits. We learned that they were fierce fighters and defended their lands at all cost. They even painted themselves with blue paint to intimidate their enemies. We decided to make battle axes and Celtic brooches and cloaks. They had a lot of fun running through the corn being Celtic warriors.