New Beginnings

So, we've wrapped up our insect unit. Gosh, it was so much fun! We have a great folder we've created of our journey including our artwork, worksheets, adventures, etc. Our last 2 lessons were so much fun! Here's a brief summary...

For our ants we read Two Bad Ants. It was a fun book written from a great perspective! We discussed the social life of ants, did some relevant worksheets and some awesome artwork too!

For our bees we read 2 really cool books on honeybees. BabyGirl added after we read the books that they didn't happen to mention the fact that honeybees are almost extinct and we need to work to keep them around. She asked what we would do if there were no more, and we had a very interesting and productive conversation. She never ceases to amaze me with her intelligence. We played Flight of the Bumblebee and ran around dancing expressing our feelings and emotions the song brought out. We had to do this several times! Then, we played the song again using crayons to transfer our dance onto paper. She had so much fun with both of these activities, and so did I!

And thus ends our insects for now....I'm sure we will keep revisiting our log book when we find different and new insects to add.

Today we started our human body unit. We did a preliminary quiz to re-cap the 5 senses. BabyGirl aced this with flying colors, so we will not need to go over any of that before hand. Our Magic School Bus Human Body Science Kit is so awesome and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to learn about the human body and have fun at the same time!!!! We put up our human body life-size poster and went over all the parts to start off. The kit goes over the human body one system at a time starting with the skeletal system. We found the skeleton stickers and placed them in the appropriate places on the poster, and we were off. Our first experiment is on the strength of our bones. What makes our bones strong? We put some chicken bones in a jar of vinegar to let them sit overnight. BabyGirls hypothesis was: "Milk. The calcium from milk makes our bones strong. I think they will get soft." We can't wait to see what happens. This kit is so hands on and right up our alley!!!

We practiced counting today and writing our numbers. We also did some matching. We practiced identifying beginning consonants, then having BabyGirl write them down upper-case and lower-case. We did the short I in our phonics kit, which is still a big hit around here. It's so much fun to see who we will meet with each new sound! We also work on introducing a new reader each lesson. Right now as I type BabyGirl is sitting in her own little chair, feet on the ottoman, going through all the readers she has read so far. The stack keeps on growing and she just loves to sit and read them aloud to her dolls, or mom & dad.

Last night as I was watching BabyGirl out the window running through the yard, shaking her head making her hair fly side to side and squealing I was speechless. What a great time in our life. Childhood is so wonderful and amazing....what's even more wonderful and amazing is that I, as her mother, have this great gift to give her. A chance to learn with no boundaries, to be free in her thinking and doing, to keep hold of her curiosity, to have fun every single day and take all of these things along with her into adulthood. If I accomplish anything in my life, this is what I want it to be. This is what homeschooling means to me...