What's in YOUR Neighborhood?

Before we can really jump into geography ... we need to know how to read a map, right? So we made one today! I drew the main streets of our neighborhood and explained where our house was, then I asked the kids what else they'd like on the map.

It's funny what they chose! Of course we have the food joints that are close by, Papa's Ice Cream, Pizza Plus, and Buttonwoods Fish and Chips. Megan also insisted that her school (BSYC) be on the map and Ryan mentioned the Church that our neighbors across the street attend every morning.

Then we figured out other landmarks like the playground at the Masonic Park, the horse farm, and OUR beach. :)

Last, we drew a few houses for people we know. Some are kids in the neighborhood and some are from Church. The kids colored the houses and other things and now it's proudly displayed on our wall!

This was a fun project...next, we're all about paper mache. :)

Capillary Action-wha?

Ryan is constantly asking to do "science." OK...where to start! He's usually happy if we do a small experiment or something like that. So yesterday, we made water "walk" from one glass to the next.

The scientific term for this "phemomena" is Capillary Action - or the ability for water to flow against the force of gravity. We just called it WALKING WATER...

We started with two glass glasses and put some water with food coloring in one. Then, we tore a strip of paper towel and "linked" the two glasses together. Right away the paper towel started to soak up the water and move down the paper towel.

It took a little while - a LONG while according to the kids - but eventually, water started dripping into the other glass.

After leaving it all night, the final result was about a quarter of the water walking over to the other one.

Cool, huh?

Appleseed Math

I LOVE the Internet! It's SO easy to find things that I can add to our lessons! Ryan LOVED doing this - not even realizing that he was practicing his addition. He rolled the dice to get the number of seeds for each half and then added them together.

FUN!

And...Dinosaurs Come to an End

After graphing, charting, coloring, handwriting, tracing, fossilizing and researching, we think that we're done with dinosaurs for now. (Though we do have a field trip planned in a couple of weeks when Dad is off!)

What was our favorite part?

Ryan said, "The 'fartosaurus' - the new name we call Willie and all of the rest of it."

OK, I'd call that a success! (Little does he know that we also threw in some math and geography during the whole thing...YAY!)

Fossilized!

One thing we promised the kids was to make our own fossils while we were learning about dinosaurs. So we finally picked up some clay and Plaster of Paris to "dig" in to our project!

First, we rolled out our clay and decided which objects we would make into fossils. We found some cute little plastic dino's, a cool piece of wood, and some shells we've collected at the beach and pressed them into the clay. Ryan decided to make footprints too, so we ALL had to have footprints in our clay.

After that was the messy part...we spread some oil on the clay and then covered it with the Plaster of Paris.

Tick tock...while we waited the 30 minutes (an eternity for the kids) the dino's got a bath...

 

Peeling away the clay

 

Oooohhhh.... Ahhhhhhh....

 Ta Da! The final fossil molds. We thought they turned out pretty cool!

Graphing Dino's

HOW BIG IS THAT DINOSAUR?

Can you see two kids about 90 feet away? That's how big the Apatosaurus was (known as the Brontosaurus to us older folks!) We broke out the chalk and the tape measure.

What did we learn?

The Velociraptor is the same size as Dad.

Both Megan and Ryan are taller than the Leptoceratops.

All the other dino's were BIG!

Megan the photographer

Ryan's Dino

Apple Picking!

Last Friday, we met some friends at the apple orchard to pick apples! YAY! It was the PERFECT Fall Weather!

We went to the Barden Family Orchard in Scituate, RI it was so quaint, and not commercialized like so many others can be! The kids learned that there's a star inside of every apple and about Johnny Appleseed. But I think by far, their favorite was actually picking the apples!

Ryan & Megan with their friend Therau.

We ended up with a bushel of McIntosh, Gala, and Liberty apples. (Don't ask me to tell them apart though!)

 So many red apples to pick!

 I'm amazed at how small the apple trees really are! This farm had 10,000 trees! All kinds too!

Of course.. I put Dad and Ryan to work so they could continue to learn about evaporation! Yummy dried apples! :)

What's Up With Water?

Both kids like science - I think because they just like to see what happens when we put things together, take them apart, or whatever.They especially like it when things explode.

Right now, we're not equipped to conduct major science experiments, but we can play with things around us! This week...we're about WATER!

(Like my impromptu chart?)

We learned that water can be found in different states...liquid, solid, and gas.

We also learned about how things dissolve with salt and water, funny how the salt disappears and yet you can still taste it! We also learned about evaporation - magically, once the water evaporated, the salt came back! We also talked about how water condensed on the outside of our drinking glasses because the water vapors in the air are pulled to the coolness of the glass.

Dad even took evaporation to another level and dried the parsley from our garden and banana that was hanging around on the counter. (Way to go Dad!)

We'll see what happens to the apples next!

Dinosaur Madness!

We're all about dinosaurs at our house right now. Ryan is becoming quite the fact "rememberer" - just ask and he'll tell you about the latest one, how tall or long it was, what it ate, and more.

So far, we've learned about Brachiosaurus, Letoceratops, and Oviraptor...

Just a few pictures of the things we've done so far...next up is graphing how big they REALLY were! Yep, we'll be stopping traffic for this one!

Where's Kippy?

Meet Kippy. He's just a little plastic lizard that we picked up somewhere. Funny thing is, he's gotten pretty good at exploring the house. Every once in a while, I find him some place new...with no idea how he got there!

Kippy might have a story of his own, maybe the kids can understand him and tell me one of these days. But for now, I'll just take pictures of his travels.

BTW - Ryan named him Kippy.


Edited - 1 1/2 hours later...Nevermind. Kippy ended up being kibble for Willie. Sorry Kippy... :(

The Soap Box and That Darn "S" Word!

Last Spring, Ric and I sat down with Ryan's preschool teacher for the annual parent-teacher conference. I remember her mentioning many nice things about Ryan and how he's such a great learner. She also mentioned one thing that really confirmed our decision to start homeschooling this Fall.

What she said was that Ryan is a bright, quick student. He normally finished his work WAY before the other students and would look for other things to do. She learned early on that she needed to give him ideas when he finished so that he didn't get into trouble, or start making trouble with those who were still working.

I know for a fact (because I have to do it too) that very often, teachers teach to the lowest aptitude in the class. Because of this, I could see in my mind being called in every week because of Ryan's behavior in Kindergarten. He'd probably start talking, or messing around, or fidgeting or something because he was done with his work and was bored!

The result? He would be punished, we'd be called in to discuss his behavior. He'd possibly be labeled as ADD/ADHD or something, which is the furthest thing from the truth. And, he would begin to hate school. All because my son happens to be smart and quick.

Ric and I didn't take the decision to home school lightly. I have PLENTY of school stuff to keep me busy with New England Tech AND Bishop Hendricken High School classes! Adding home school wasn't an easy decision! Even up to the very last minute, I was crying on the phone with my sister (who also is a homeschooler) and telling her how overwhelmed I was at the thought of doing this! My running joke lately, is "that it's only Kindergarten...so if I mess it up, he can go to school in 1st grade." I honestly don't think that, or plan to put him into first grade. I think that joking is my defense against the usual questions that come up when someone mentions home schooling. I know that I've planned all that I can plan and prayed many a time about this. So I can only hope for the best results.

Ryan (and Megan) won't get to experience the school bus, or the cafeteria, or the other kids in their class. They won't get the "traditional" socialization that so many people hold up as the only way to exist these days.  *GASP!* She said it! She doesn't want her kids to be socialized the traditional way! (Yes, I said the "S" word AND YES, you read that correctly!)

Honestly, I don't want them to be traditional! I want my kids to be able to hold an intelligent conversation with peers AND adults. When was the last time you saw a high school student actually converse without texting? Or even converse with an adult? I can't tell you the number of kids I've had in my college classes who can't communicate  or who don't socialize with others. I see the torment that others put upon their peers, and how isolated these kids can be. (Even though it's college, there's not a lot of change that happens over the summer when they graduate from high school!)

I'm not saying that I plan to shield my kids from all the evils that are out there, I couldn't even begin to do that. But I do plan to give my children a well-rounded education that includes learning how to live in the world around them. No, they won't be socialized in the so-called "normal" way. They'll grow up with a great sense of who they are and what they can accomplish, instead of being bullied and put down by their peers. My kids will be leaders, instead of being forced to conform and submit to the "norm".

Why be normal? (Wasn't that written on a t-shirt in the 80's or something?) What's normal about kids who are isolated and bullied to the point where they shoot up their schools?  I read an excellent article about this very thing, and because it was so good, I'm going to quote it here:

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but there’s nothing “normal” about our kids. Your homeschooled child is odd compared to the schooled population because they have not experienced ongoing school-based socialization and standardization.

When you consider that the homeschooled population makes up only 3-6% of the entire school-going population, you may begin to understand just how different your kids are or will be.

Interestingly, you can even pump them full of standardized curriculum and their homeschooled experience will still be so far outside the norm, that they will always think and act differently than those who attend traditional schools.

How could it be any different? They haven’t been indoctrinated in the same way. They have not been steeped in the popular consumer culture to the degree that most schooled kids have been. They are not adult-phobic and peer-dependent.

They haven’t been grouped and sorted according to age and academic track. They haven’t been expected to know their place and stay in the “class” to which they have been assigned. They haven’t been trained to respond to the bell and do assignments without question.

They haven’t had to surrender their individuality and will to an authority figure who may not have their best interests at heart. They aren’t subjected to judgment, grading, and the bestowment of rewards and punishments without the ability to object or appeal.

They haven’t been conditioned to be passive and compliant or dependent on others to tell them what to do or how to spend their time. They are not powerless. They have the choice to remove themselves from bad situations or people and change the curriculum when it’s not relevant, interesting, useful, or meaningful. (Credit)

I know I'm getting a little high up on my soap box, and I'll step down, promise! But not before I say this...our choice to homeschool our children in no way reflects that we are better than anyone else because they choose to or have to send their kids to public/private school. We're fortunate (and VERY VERY LUCKY) that we have the ability to do this for our kids.

Additionally, I shouldn't have to explain the hours of research, study, and prayer that I've put in to this decision because someone is worried that my kids won't be "traditionally or normally" socialized. I'm not worried in the least. I have always been one to go against the flow, and because of it, I've been successful. We are teaching our kids to do the same.

They will stand out, they already do.

Native Rhode Island Birds

I took pictures of the posters at the Audubon Society place that display the birds in RI during different seasons. We've seen just about every one of these in our yard at one time or another!

 

Look Mom! A Downy Woodpecker!

A friend of ours organized a group outing to the Environmental Center in Bristol, RI, which is managed by the RI Audubon Society. What a fabulous place! There's an inside display area showing animals native to Rhode Island - many that we've already seen as we've walked on our beach! Just about every bird they had has been in our back yard at one point or another. (OK, not the Ring-Tailed Pheasant, but all the others!)

To make it fun for kids, they have scavenger hunt papers that the kids can use to find the different animals. Ryan was ALL over that! Megan ran all over looking at everything and yelling "Hey Ryan, come see this!" every few minutes.

It's much easier to show pictures of what we did than explain, so I'll just add captions where I see fit. (Ric was able to come with us - his comment was... "I like homeschool fieldtrips!" Good - He's in charge of them then!)

 

Looking out the hole at the pheasants.

 

Horseshoe crabs

 

Striped Bass, Flounders, Dogfish (mini sharks), to name a few. (I can't remember them all!)

 

The Blue Lobster

 

Some of the sea stars that have survived the wrath of the blue lobster! 

(There was an awful lot of "carnage"- or 3- and 4-legged sea stars in that pool!)

 

Ryan taking inventory

 

Inside of the whale - see Nemo and Dory? (just kidding...)

 

Story time with our group

 

Nature walk through the reserve

 

While we were on the walk, Ryan said, "Look Mom! A downy woodpecker!" It took a minute, but we found it at the top of a tree! It wasn't pecking, so it didn't give itself away. I have no idea HOW he spotted it, but I was pretty impressed that he knew what kind it was! (I didn't teach him that...must have been dad!)

We had fun and will definitely go again! Maybe when the seasons change...