HomeschoolingKeeperAtHome

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/alienempire/multimedia/bee.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/alienempire/multimedia/hive.html

The children and I had fun today checking out these two neat websites.  One is on the parts of the bee – internal and external.  The other is on the hive, pollenation, and more.  My children from ages 5-10 were all hooked.

Aaron (dh), Naomi Ruth, and I worked on processing a lot of our roma tomatoes tonight.  We’ve got lots and lots and lots of tomatoes right now!  I canned tomatoes.  My dehydrator is on and full of them.  I even have them in my freezer.  lol

Love, Dawn

We continued our bee unit today and it was another very successful day of homeschooling.  Some of the highlights involved:
- me dancing around the room and the children determining from my dance where the nectar was
- Thomas (drone), Naomi Ruth (worker bee) and me (queen ) describing ourselves as bees
- animated discussion about what would happen if any of those 3 categories decided they didn’t feel like cooperating any more with the rest of the hive – and then how that applies to a family working together
- search in the yard for different kinds of flowers and then we found the pollen in them
- created a little swamp cooler – we fanned ourselves over a large bowl of cold water to see how the water affected the way the air felt (bees use the technique of bringing water into the hive and then fanning it with their wings to cool down the hive)
- learned and then labeled the different parts of the bee

We received our box from Rod & Staff with the ABC Preschool workbooks for Hannah (5).  I have used those with all of the children and they have all really enjoyed them.  We’re just waiting on our order from Queens Homeschool to arrive now.  It will have our language arts material.

I realized that I did not correctly understand the placement test that I did yesterday with Naomi Ruth (8).  The level she scored at indicated that she had mastered those levels.  So she has mastered 2nd grade math (perfect as she’s just starting 3rd grade) and has mastered 6th grade reading.  Go Naomi Ruth!  I tested Thomas (10) today and was thrilled with his results, too.  He’s just starting 5th grade this year.  He has mastered 7th grade reading and 8th grade math.    Homeschooling is awesome!

Love, Dawn

We had a wonderful first day of school.  We went to the bee farm on Saturday, took lots of pictures, and brought home 6 gallons of raw honey.  Today we got our new notebooks current.  I printed out pages of pictures from all of the activities we did over the summer (swimming, 4th of July, nature walks, the bee farm, etc.) and we went over all of them and put them into the page protectors in the notebooks.  Then we started our bee unit.  At the end, I got out 3 bowls and put some of 3 different kinds of honey out for the children to taste.  We had an American honey, a German honey, and the new raw honey.  Everyone got to taste and compare the honeys.  Rebekah (6) was happily eating honey and yelled out, "I LOVE SCHOOL!"    Our box from Rainbow Resource arrived today.  Thomas and Naomi Ruth were able to look through their new math curriculums.  We’ll add in math next week.  They both think that they look great.  I also got a diagnostic placement test.  I used it on Naomi Ruth today.  She is 8 and in 3rd grade this year.  She placed in 2nd grade in math and in 6th grade in reading.  I’ll test Thomas with it tomorrow.

Love, Dawn

I’m so excited about the upcoming school year.  This week I finished ordering our curriculum and am eagerly anticipating its arrival.  We are going to use KONOS as our core study.  We will be using Language Lessons and Copywork from Queens Homeschool.  For math, Thomas (10) will use the Key To… Math and Naomi Ruth (8) will use the Developmental Math.  Rebekah (almost 7) and Hannah (5) will get to enjoy Family Math for Young Children with me for a relaxed approach to math.

We are going to a bee farm on Saturday for a really neat field trip to kick off our new school year.  Then, we will gradually ease back into homeschooling one week at a time.  Next week, we will do just KONOS and language arts.  For KONOS, we will do a one week bee unit.  Perfect! 

Love, Dawn