The First of the Year

The weather's been warming up and we've been itching to get out geocaching! (Not sure what geocaching is? Read this post.) We finally found the time to do that today. It was a beautiful day with a bit of a breeze. 

 The first cache of the year!

Those pesky April Showers left large swampy areas just off the path throughout much of the trail. We had to skip some of the caches because we didn't feel like swimming through the muck to find them. We were able to spot one of the skipped caches, but couldn't sign the log.

And what did we find once we got to dry land? A garter snake! The kids were fascinated watching their daddy pick it up with a stick to show them. Me? I stayed far away, to, uh, document it with pictures. Yeah.  

The kids took turns riding in the wagon and running down the trail. 

One of their favorite parts of caching is looking for items to trade. Alyssa found a pretty compact mirror that she quickly claimed and left a toy army guy in its place. Of course, the 2 pieces of the compact are already broken in two. Kids. She kept the pretty top portion and gave Jake the bottom. It's a 2-for-1 prize!

There are so many reasons to enjoy caching. Finding the caches, of course, spending time with the family, getting fresh air and exercise, finding items to trade, and the newest one: making shadow puppets!

Even though we couldn't find half of the caches because of the muck, we still had a fun first time out this year. I call that a successful trip!

Wordless Wedneday 10/29/14

Wordless Wednesday 10/15/14

My First Reports Review

The main curriculum we use requires the student to write a 1-2 page report every day. A couple years ago, I started having Jake (8 yr) write a summary of what he had read that day, but he struggled and complained that he didn't know what to write. Then I tried encouraging him to write about anything--anything--he wanted to. That still brought frustration to meet the predetermined length. I admit, I stopped requiring the daily writing. His writing assignments came just every now and then. That didn't solve the problem though. He still didn't understand how to write a story, summary, or report.  

Enter Hewitt Homeschooling. They believe that the best option is home school, not school at home, by encouraging hands-on learning and making it exciting. Their goal is to combine excellent academics with character development, instill the work ethic, and develop a spirit of community service in the next generation. Their My First Report series teaches elementary students basic writing skills to write their own simple reports. This was exactly what we needed to overcome the frustration of Jake's writing assignments. They offer many sets in the series such as Bugs and Worms, My State, Western United States, Reptiles and Amphibians, and more. We chose My First Report: Outdoor Activities.

The curriculum comes packaged in an envelope, already hole-punched to make it simple to toss in a 3-ring binder. The reports are designed to teach your child to express his knowledge in written form. He'll practice writing in complete sentences, language, penmanship, and researching skills (library, encyclopedia, dictionary). 

The outdoor activities set comes with pages for each of the following topics:

• Hiking
• Camping
• Sport fishing
• Hunting
• Climbing
• Horseback Riding
• Cycling
• Playgrounds
• Roller Sports
• Playing on Water
• Cold Weather Activities

I allowed Jake to peruse the topics and choose which one he wanted to start with. It came as no surprise when he immediately picked hunting. He loves talking to his daddy about the subject and even accompanied him on a trip last fall, where they shot a deer and filled our freezer with venison. 

The report pages include 5-6 simple questions on each page to give the student a starting place and get him thinking. Which animals are big-game hunting? small game? How are decoys used in hunting fowl? Why do people hunt animals? Jake knew some of the answers already. I helped him research the others. He wrote all his answers down in a notebook to make it neat and easy to find the information for his report. There is also a vocabulary box with a list of words at the bottom of the page to further the study. The curriculum includes pages with differing line sizes and a space for a picture to write the actual report.

There is no instruction for how to write the report. Jake had a list of questions and answers, but still didn't know what to do with them. I explained to him how to take those facts and work them together to tell a story. He immediately went to work and showed me his finished report after just a few minutes. Four sentences. He filled the front of the page under the space for the picture with 4 sentences. It was then that I flipped the page over and showed him the entire page of lines for him to complete. The look on his face was quite funny. The summary didn't flow as smoothly then, but he did complete it. 

The other sub-topics continued in the same manner, getting easier each time. While he did enjoy learning more about the individual activities, his favorite part was incorporating the unit study portion of the curriculum. There are pages filled with deeper learning falling under every subject: Bible. history/geography/social studies, reading, language, math, science/health, physical education, music, art, and field trips. We talked about King David's hunting methods in Judges, played outdoor activities charades, learned about map symbols, practiced camp cooking, and had a lot more fun. Unit studies help the student to fully understand the topic by applying the learning in multiple subjects. I have personally seen the benefits of unit studies with my kids. They get a full understanding of the topic and have fun while doing it.

The My First Report: Outdoor Activities is geared towards kids in 1st-4th grade. The entire pack including the report pages and list of unity study topics costs $8.95. It has helped my 8-year-old to learn how to find information and write a simple report. I wish there were some instruction for the student to help him combine the info into the report, to make it even easier, but it has helped in our home.

Hewitt Homeschooling offers many other products like their Lightning Literature series, Joy of Discovery, and Chronicles of . . . A State History Notebook.

You can keep up with the latest news from Hewitt Homeschooling on social media:

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If you'd like to read more reviews of My First Report or any of the other products from Hewitt Homeschooling, you can head to the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog.

Wordless Wednesday 7/2/14

Wordless Wednesday 6/18/14

Wordless Wednesday 4/23/14

MUD!

I was looking for a specific picture for a post that I'm working on and realized that I never shared these from early May of 2012.

The weather was starting to warm up, the rain had ceased, 2-week-old Tyler had just gone down for a nap, and the other kids and I headed outside to enjoy the sunshine. 

Our big plastic playset had killed a small portion of grass underneath it and left a nice mucky mess after our April showers.  Of course, one of the boys quickly found the mud. 

After all, boys are drawn to mud like a man to the smell of bacon.

One boy turned into two, and then a little girl joined in the fun. 

They squished the mud and jumped in it. They made mud balls and threw them at each other. Zac was the target of most of the ammunition, but he didn't mind. He laughed every time it hit him. He licked his face over and over and said, "Mmm, dat yummy!" 

His gets his refined palate from his daddy.

They played for 2 hours in the mud, laughing and squealing. I stayed out of the line of fire and happily captured the moments on camera.

I wasn't worried about the muddy clothes; I was delighting in their fun. Clothes and bodies can be washed, but childhood can never be repeated.

One thing that never crossed my mind while they were playing though? How upset their daddy would be when he got home and saw a huge mud hole in the yard. The little patch of dirt, where the playset had been, quickly grew into a 6-foot circle of clumpy, gunky, icky, goopy mud. 

Oops.

It took that entire summer (and my diligently keeping the children out of the area) for our grass to grow back. 

Thankfully, it didn't take that long for my hubby to forgive me. 

I still think about this day and smile. Their smiles in these pictures are priceless. The memories, even more so. The joy they had in playing in the mud is so precious to me.

And the pictures are pretty cute, too.

Things That Make Me Smile 11/15/13

Jake (7½), Alyssa (5½), Zac (4), Tyler (1½)

Wow, does it feel good to be caught up! I hope you're enjoying the weekend and finding reasons to smile.

1. Jake: "Is there really such a thing as a shoo fly?" 

2. Zac, who has always struggled with dressing himself, put on his pants backwards, his shirt inside out, and his socks twisted, but he did it, by himself.   

3. Zac, about his train track that splits into 2 separate parts: "Look! It's a two-headed track.

4.

5. Zac, while pretending to be a My Little Pony: "I'm Rainbow Butt!"

6. Zac, showing me papers he brought home from church: "See, Miss Sandy let me bring this home. I didn't stealed it. She let me. Wasn't that nice?"

7. Jake, after Tyler woke up from his nap, hugging him: "I missed you! But you're naughty."

8. Me, filling in birth dates on a survey: "What is Tyler?"

Alyssa: "A trouble baby."

9.

10. Zac: "Mommy, you make the best toast!"

11. Zac: "I love you. Do you have a cheese face?"

Me: "Uh, no."

Zac: "I wish you had a cheese face so I could eat you."


What made you smile this week?

Wordless Wednesday 10/30/13

Wordless Wednesday 8/21/13

Wordless Wednesday 7/17/13

Wordless Wednesday 6/12/13

Make It Monday: Tiered Flower Planter

I saw this planter a while ago and knew immediately that I wanted one for my front porch. We really needed something to brighten things up.

We used 3 plastic pots (15", 12", 8"), a bag of topsoil, a 3/4" dowel, and a flat of flowers (I chose impatiens because my porch is mostly shaded.)

Don't forget to enlist the help of a pretty assistant.

Drill a hole in the bottom of the 2 smaller pots.

Ours had a convenient spot right in the middle that was perfect for Leighton to drill for me.

Next comes the fun - playing in the dirt!

Alyssa held the dowel in the pot in that middle well (as shown in the above picture) while I poured in the dirt. You could also dump the dirt first and then push the dowel down.

Zac joined in on the fun, too!

Boys and dirt.

After you're done playing with, er, filling in the dirt, thread the middle-sized pot on the dowel.

Fill that pot with dirt, too.

Playing, optional.

Add the smallest pot and fill with dirt.

It's probably a good idea to cut off the excess dowel before adding the final pot and dirt.

Probably.

But where's the fun in that? It's much more challenging to add the pot, fill it with dirt, and then try to use the sawzall to cut the dowel while not cutting the planter. 

Much more fun, right? Riiight.

A smart person would add the pot, mark where to cut, remove the pot, cut the dowel, re-add the pot, and then fill with dirt.

I'll leave you to decide which person I am.

Finally, add your flowers.

Well, I shouldn't say finally. You'll still have to sweep up all the dirt that was spilled, put away the tools, water the flowers . . . and set up the sprinkler to wash off the kids.

You get the point.

It'll be totally worth it though.


The entire project can be done in about 20 minutes and costs less than $25. Next year, all I'll have to do is pay for the flowers.

I love our new planter!

Wordless Wednesday 6/5/13

Wordless Wednesday 5/22/13

Wordless Wednesday 5/8/13

G is for Geocaching

Geo What!?

Geocaching.

What in the world is geocatching?

No, it's geo-cash-ing. Its kind of like a high tech treasure hunt. You go online and get GPS coordinates for what is called a geocache, the treasure. You either download the coordinates to a GPS or smartphone, or you manually put them in. Go out and follow the GPS, the map, till you get close. Then start looking for a good spot to hide something. When you find the cache sign the logbook, maybe trade something, then put the cache back where you found it. Go home and log the find online where you got the coords from in the first place.

That sounds like a lot of fun!

Oh, it's a blast, you should try it.

I don't know how many times I have had this conversation with somebody in the past four months. Erika and I had heard of geocaching years ago, but when we looked into it there were not enough caches around to merit the puchase of a GPS unit to try and get into it. We were into the idea before we had kids, but having them adds a whole new aspect of fun. Back in June Erika started to think about it again and thought it would make a good family hobby to get into. When I checked geocaching.com I found nearly 20,000 caches within 100 miles of our house. There are plenty of caches to find but we needed a GPS. We decided it would be our anniversary present to each other and began looking. I did the research online and ended up going into REI to talk to somebody in person. That was a good decision. I ended up walking out with a Garmin eTrex 20. I'm not going to go into a lot of technical detail here, but in the research I did and in a few conversations I've had with GPS knowledgeable people, get a Garmin. Garmin has a patent or something on their antenna technology so their unit update faster and are much more accurate than others. If you do not want to spend the money on an independent unit and you have a smartphone running iOS, Android, or Windows Phone you can download an app for that. This way at a limited cost you can either try or get into geocaching.

Once you have a way of finding coordinates you need to find some coordinates. (Yes, that was intended.) I've already mentioned geocaching.com. That's the big one with "all" the caches, but there is also a new kid on the block. Opencaching.com was started by Garmin as a free alternative to geocaching.com, but does not have nearly as many caches listed. Geocaching.com does have a free option, but it limits use, a lot. I don't know what all is limited since I payed the $10 for the year after our first time out. One thing you don't get from them for free is paperless caching. When you download your coords to your GPS under a free account you will need to print out any details or clues you may need for what you are going to find and take the PAPER with you. (I'm all about going paperless lately with my Kindle and iPad.) With a payed account all those details go on to the GPS with the coords, if your GPS can take them. Let me tell you, being able to see the details on the device is soooo nice. Also, a piece of advice that the guy at REI gave me that makes a lot of sense. If you're planning to go out caching don't go for the caches real close to the house, drive a little bit. Save the real close ones for those spontaneous lets go caching times, or for a task for your older kids to do on their own, once they get the hang of it. As well, if you get into the geocaching game and want to load a lot of caches on your GPS at once, look into pocket queries. This can be a little tricky, so take your time and do it step-by-step. I use GSAK to help get the files on my GPS.

Ok, enough with the technical mumbo, what have we done? The first time we went out I loaded up four or five sets of coords and we went for a drive around the area to some easy caches. Of course with the first go round we were getting used to our GPS as well as the idea of geocaching. Part of geocaching is doing the whole thing somewhat discreetly. If you just go out and show off the cache as you find it someone of the general public, a muggle (a non-cacher), might see it and take it after you leave. This is known as getting muggled. With this thought in mind, there we were, a family of six, driving and walking in circles in a parking lot trying to keep up with a GPS that kept changing its mind as to which direction we needed to go. I finally determined that it might take a little bit more than a few milliseconds for the GPS to register a change in position. As we slowed our movements down we got closer to a pair of trees and viola, about head high in the one we found a plastic container.

In this cache we actually found what is called a travel bug, a type of trackable. It is basically a dog tag with something attached. In this case the originator attached a stick of pc memory. On the tag is a number that you need so that you can go on the geocaching.com site and log that you found it and where you placed it. Just remember if you take something leave something.

After our first find we sought out a cache that was about the size of eight or ten dimes stacked up. Yes they get that small. With those all you do is sign the log roll. Use very small handwriting.

We even had our first DNF, did not find, on that first trip out. After walking around in circles in a field for about twenty minutes or more we gave up. It didn't help that people started showing up at the business next door, remember discreet.

Our last of the day landed us in front of i3 Detroit, a hackerspace in the area. This was just cool! I had heard of them on MAKE Live and at Maker Faire Detroit, but had not ever taken the time to go check them out. We found the cache out front and then went in to take a tour of the space.

All in all our first impression of geocahing was great. The kids loved it and so did we. We have been out multiple times since including when we went on vacation to Virginia and DC. While we were out there I think we may have gotten my sister's family hooked as well. All the caches we found in DC were virtual caches, caches that do not have a container to find. They may be a monument or natural formation of some sort. The poster may ask you to find the answer to a few questions about the location in order to log the find, but they're still fun to find.

I could keep going forever about hiking in the woods off a creek down the road, finding a foam rotten apple with a log slip in it, or hanging out behind KFC looking through trees to find a micro cache. We've had some good times out caching. Now its your turn, go find a cache or two.... maybe three.


Don't forget to stop by Ben & Me and read about more G things.

Theory Thursday: Ice Excavation

What better way is there than to spend these hot summer days playing with ice???

Playing with ice and applying science, of course!

This activity requires time and easy prep. You'll need some sort of container, many miscellaneous trinkets, water, and various excavation tools.

Start by pouring a small layer of water in your container and place it in the freezer until frozen. Add another layer of water and a few trinkets. Put it back in the freezer. Repeat the process until the container is completely full or until your desired fullness.

Some trinket ideas are buttons, coins, paper clips, rubber bands, twist ties, Legos, foam shapes/letters, beads,  screws, pom-poms, keys, balloons, rocks, marbles, and whatever other little things you can find lying around. Long items like rubber bands and twist ties require more chipping and patience. While small items like beads and buttons are easier to extract and produce quicker satisfaction.

Once your ice block is completely frozen, remove it from the bowl, gather your tools, and head outside. 

 We used warm water to melt the ice.

 We tried pouring the water through a tiny funnel to concentrate on a certain spot.

We sprinkled on salt to dissolve the ice and make it easier to chip away. The salt left the ice pitted with little holes.

We also used other tools such as spoons, forks, and picks to dig into the block.

But their favorite was definitely the hammers!

Every time they'd hit the block, ice flew everywhere! Whether it was a big chunk or little specks, it was exciting to experience. 

We even flipped the hammer around and used it like a pickax. That really sent the ice soaring!

There was a surprise tool inside one of the blocks. Once Alyssa freed the screw from its frozen prison, we used it and a hammer to chisel away the ice.

We inspected the objects and the variances in the ice. Some parts were smooth, some had cracks, and other areas had tiny bubbles.

It was so exciting when we'd get a portion of an object partially excavated. The kids would grab it and try to yank it completely out of the ice. When that didn't work, they'd have to go back to chipping away at it.

They had so much fun with this ice excavation. Jake extracted all of his objects, convinced Zac to let him help with his, and tried to sneak a few items from Alyssa's block. He declared that this was "one of the best things ever!" He's asked at least 2,000 times - give or take a few dozen - if we can do this again.

Definitely.

 

Linked to I can Teach My Child, Living Life Intentionally, Science Sparks, Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas