Nature Journaling

When I saw that Bravewriter, an amazing homeschool writing company, was offering a 4 week nature journaling class this September, I signed us up. I couldn't imagine a better way to start the school year than lots of outdoor time, drawing and writing, remembering to pay attention to the details and appreciate the beauty and awe of the natural world.

It has been all of those things for us, even on the hard days. It's also been a chance for Peanut to work through his new fear of bees (and all flying insects) after his rough encounter while camping a few weeks ago. 

It's been a chance for us to do hard things--walking when our legs are tired, drawing even when we can't make the pencil do quite what we wanted, being part of the family and going along for the ride, even when we didn't pick this and don't always feel like it. 

But most of the days, it's been peaceful and meditative, and delightful, at least for a few minutes. Peanut has a short attention span for the level of detail nature journaling encourages, but he's done well with it.

We've had some amazing experiences, too. One day, when I had decided we were just too busy and I wasn't going to get out the journaling stuff, we were sitting at our kitchen table, which looks out to the backyard and we noticed a scrub jay with an acorn in his mouth. We watched him fly from tree to bush for a moment, and then he dropped to the lawn and pushed the acorn into the ground. I thought, "Cool, we got to watch him bury his food." But he wasn't done--he pulled it back up, and buried it again, over and over, before he finally left it in the lawn and shoved some dry grass in the hole after it. The boys got so excited when they saw this because apparently there is a Wild Kratts episode about jays and it talks about this very behavior that they use to trick other birds that might be watching them and want to steal their food! It was such a great connection for them to make, and they were very excited to record the incident, so we grabbed the nature journals, and a bird guide to draw from since the jay was now gone, and spent 10 minutes sketching and writing what we'd just seen. It was such a great reminder to keep watching what is going on around us because you never know when it might be something incredible.

We've studied the trees around us, gone for a color walk, done a scavenger hunt where they boys each picked a plant, drew and described it, and then I had to figure out what they'd picked. (I did, in both cases--they are good at the details!)

We've paid attention to the littlest things we've seen on our hikes.

This has added something beautiful to our homeschool this fall and I'm hoping we can keep it up, at least once in awhile, so we don't lose the connection we've been making with nature. It's the flexibility and choice to take a class like this, and make that our writing focus for the month that makes homeschool magical.

Homecoming, Take One

It's hard to believe this girl is old enough to be having all these high school experiences, but we're over a year into this whole thing! Bean missed the homecoming dance last year because of a water polo tournament, but this year, things lined up and she was so excited to go to her first high school dance. We went shopping a couple weeks ago to get her dress and shoes, which was remarkably easy. I had mentally prepared for it to be difficult, but she found this beautiful dress at the second store we went to.

She went with the group of girls (and one guy) that she eats lunch with each day. They met up ahead of time for pictures and dinner at one of the girl's houses.

Daddy-o may have gotten a little teary when he saw her all dressed up. (Hair credit goes to her friend, L. She and I haven't had much luck with getting curls to stay in, so she called in the reinforcements for the dance and it worked.)

 By her account, the dance exceeded her expectations--everyone danced, it wasn't too crazy, or too hot in the gym. She came home happy, and tired.

The Great Escape

For the last week of our intro unit on the scientific method and what science is, I found an escape room-type experience to review what we'd learned in science this month.

This ended up being such a fun activity, even the modified version I did with the youngest class. The kids LOVE getting codes and unlocking padlocks.

I was happy with the level of review--they had to know the steps of the scientific method, types of variables, and how a graph is set up. And there was a lot of good discussion going on between the team members as they tried to remember the last three weeks of class.

The puzzle solving aspect was also a lot of fun for them. The middle class (ages 9-12) asked for a lot more hints, but they still came up with some good ideas to solve these puzzles.

And the oldest class blew me away. Both groups beat the clock by just a couple minutes, one with no hints at all, and the other with just a couple small ones. They were having so much fun and worked hard for the entire hour. They all asked if we can do this type of class again. I'll have to see what else is out there on Teachers Pay Teachers. Not sure I'm ready to create my own (and this one by Kesler Science was so well done, I was happy to pay a few dollars to not have to do all that work myself.)

And a shoutout to Bug who created my lock boxes. I was shopping around for a metal lock box and lockout hasp that could hold 4+ locks for this, but I could stomach paying $80 for two sets, so I settled for buying bunch of locks that we need for family traveling next year anyway, and then letting Bug get creative with duct tape and Tinker Crate boxes. It worked perfectly.

Huzzah!

It was pirate weekend at the Renaissance Festival!

We're starting to run low on pirate costumes that actually fit most of the kids (and it was crazy hot, so I had no interest in wearing a double layer of long skirts.)

The atmosphere was great.

Bug got called up on the stage at the magician/comedy show. As fun as it is to get to participate in a show, I think the best part of being chosen for this was that he was not sitting on the haybales during that time. Apparently the rest of us had been sitting there long enough for some little creatures to find us and we suffered the consequences with mite bites--dozens and dozens of mite bites. It was traumatic and I honestly don't know when I'll have a desire to go back to a Ren Fest again. Or sit on a bale of hay.

But, at the time, we didn't know any of this yet, so we were still having fun.

We watched the joust. Here's our knight.

We cheered him on enthusiastically, but sadly, he didn't make it. There was actually only a little jousting before it turned into hand-to-hand combat.

We had a good time, ate a lot of good food, got really hot, tired, and itchy. We stopped at a couple produce stands on the way home and got 3 for $1 avocados and a few end of the season peaches. Honestly, because of the itchy bug bites, I'd probably have to say the day was a wash. I'm just really glad we got those avocados.

Class is Back in Session

Science classes are going strong this year. I'm now teaching 3 classes every Thursday, with a total of 20 students from age 6-13. It's a step up in intensity from last year, for sure, but I'm loving it. I feel like I've found my calling in life. I've always enjoyed teaching, and feel like it's something that comes pretty naturally, and homeschool classes provide the room for creativity and fun in a way that I don't think I could find in the typical classroom. So creating this job for myself has been amazing.

It's made me reflect on our move out here. It hasn't always been easy and there have been plenty of times that various members of the household (including myself) have felt like we all made this big sacrifice so Daddy-o could follow his dreams. And as much as we do like to support him, it's been a little hard to not feel sadness that we had to move across the country to do so. But then, I find opportunities like this, which I don't think I would have done if we'd stayed in Charlotte. Our kids were in a school we liked well enough that I don't know that we ever would have homeschooled again. And if I wasn't homeschooling, I don't know that I would have thought of teaching homeschool science classes. I would have been missing out on this part of my life that I love. Sometimes the hard things in life lead to something even better.

It's not always easy--there's a lot of prep work involved in lesson planning and getting all the supplies ready for our labs and activities that we are doing. I struggle a little to fit this into my week, which is already pretty packed. I knew, coming into it this year, that I was going to be spending a lot more time because we are doing physical science this year, and I'm a lot stronger in biology than physics, but doing the research and learning is part of what I love about this job, so it's also fun for me, even when I spend 5 hours of my Saturday looking up lab ideas for how to teach force and motion.

The other part that makes it so rewarding are my students. I love sharing new ideas with them and seeing their interest sparked. I love when they want to share things with me, and when something delights them. I love that they all have such different personalities. 

I've got several returning students from last year (in fact, my oldest class is 5 returning and only 1 new, who already knew the other kids, so it's been such a nice group to work with straight from day one),

 and then a whole bunch of new kids, including Peanut, who is so happy that he gets to be part of the science classes this year. He's been enthusiastic and helpful, even during the 3.5 hours he has to wait before his class starts. He reads and draws in his room while I'm with the other two groups and all I can say is that I am SO glad that he learned to read last year because none of this would be going as well if he didn't enjoy getting lost in a book.

This isn't what I'd ever imagined when I thought I'd someday go back to work. I assumed that would involve grad school and employers and benefits and a salary. Instead, I have personal development, flexibility, creativity, and a small stipend to supplement our travel costs. And that is exactly enough for me at this time. 

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

When I realized that the first book Bravewriter was using for the new school year was one of my favorites, I decided to try out the year subscription to their book guides. We probably won't get to all 10 this year, but it will be nice to have some Language Arts planned out for me, and they picked a lot of fantastic books that I'm excited to read, or reread, as the case may be.

The last time I read this book to the kids, Peanut was a toddler, so it was time for him to be introduced to the magic of this book. And he loved it! Loved it so much that when I suggested we have a Mrs. Frisby dinner, he jumped at the idea. We found a traditional farm-style tablecloth, picked some flowers from the back yard, and then made foods to go with the book, like the clam chowder that the rats ate as their first canned food when they figured out how to get the tops off the cans.

And the corn muffins Mrs. Frisby is wishing for in the beginning of the book. Peanut made all the labels for the foods, complete with parenthetical comments from Mrs. Frisby herself.

We even had a random assortment of foods from the mouse family's winter food storage.

For dessert, we decorated cupcakes as the characters (and then had a kind of hard time eating them--luckily there were some plain ones as well for those of us who didn't really want to eat Mrs. Frisby or her children.)

I love getting to turn school into a celebration. We probably won't have time to do this with every book we read this year, but it's fun to sneak a few book parties into the schedule.