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We love these muffins so much that by the time I got around to taking a picture, there were only two muffins left! These are pretty easy to make and my kids love them. It’s the season for pumpkins, so it’s the perfect time to share this recipe. You need a very, very large mixing bowl. This recipe makes 24-30 muffins. 4 eggs 3 cups sugar 1/2 teaspoon baking powder...
Our mornings have been really lovely this semester. I tried to change things up a bit and I’m really enjoying the flow of the day. Usually ED and I are the first ones up. Since the weather has cooled down and we still haven’t turned on the furnace, I have been lighting a fire in our wood stove in the homeschool room. ED and I snuggle up and read while...
We started something new in our family this year. We decided the kids were old enough for a monthly family meeting. Here are some of the things we do in our family meeting: We gathered and went around the circle and said one nice thing about somebody else at the table. We brainstormed on something fun to do together as a family after the family meeting. We wrote down our...
These are wonderful! We make these at Christmas and Easter, but I made them a couple weekends ago after running my first half-marathon in many years. (I kept forgetting to post this, it’s been in my drafts for ages.) Ingredients: 1/4 cup water1/4 cup melted butter1/2 package instant vanilla pudding mix (1/4 cup)1 cup warm milk1 egg, room temperature1 tablespoon white sugar1/2 tsp salt4 cups flour (I used 3 cups...
Life’s been rolling along, but it’s been hard to find time to post. Partly because odd jobs have taken up my spare time — painting a hallway, cutting wood for the wood stove in our homeschool room, creating a new garden for some more blueberry plants, mountains of laundry and trying to clean and catch up with the house. It’s left little time for the computer. One thing I haven’t...
Long a Words — Spelling Practice SentencesWe have gone over the long a words such as a (able, acorn) ai (sail, maid) a–e (cake, mate) ay (day) eigh (weigh, neighbor)ea (steak, break) ey (they) aigh (straight). This sheet uses these long a words in a sentence. They should be able to figure out the word by context, but if not you can tell them the word to write. Click herefor...
Adjacent to the landing where we caught the ferry to Liberty Island we came upon the Empty Skies Memorial. This was beautiful site and an emotional place to visit. We walked silently down the corridor with the kids. When we came to the end I explained to DD why there were so many names on the walls we had just walked through. She reached out and buried her head...
Last weekend we took an extended trip to see some famous sites to go along with our studies of US symbols and landmarks. We stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in New Jersey and used them as a base to go into Philadelphia to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and to travel up to New York to take the ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. And,...
We don’t have a Magic School Bus, but we did make a pretty wonderful field trip this past (extended) weekend. One of our first stops was the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Part of the reason we studied the heart/circulatory system last week instead of going on to muscles and joints was to take advantage of the spectacular interactive science display at the Franklin Institute. You enter this huge heart on...
Our study of the heart and circulatory system started with a listen to our own heartbeats. We measured our heart rates when resting and after walking, running and skipping. Then using a graph put out by Texas heart institute(4th grade curriculum, p. 25, no longer available), we graphed our results. Heart as a Pump: We did this experiment: When your heart beats it acts like a tennis ball filled with...
We have been working steadily on our USA landmarks and symbols unit study. This is a unit that doesn’t lend itself as well to pictures since I have pulled it together using history resources I have on hand. The kids each have a notebook and we’ve been adding to it steadily. Funny enough, LD has said he LOVES history and has been really into this unit. That amazes me a...
Our Study of the Human Hand Why do we have so many bones in our hand? We talked about the fact that there are 27 bones in the hand. First, to demonstrate why this is important I did an activity we had done a couple years ago. We pretended that we just had one bone per finger by taping popcycle sticks to their fingers. Then they had to pick up...
Last spring we started learning a bit about the human body, but then we stopped as summer activities took over. We have re-started our human body unit. Before I knew I was going to luck into a zillion human body kits (see my post about being lucky!), I bought the Squishy Human Body by Smart Lab. The kids just loved this! We talked about how the skeleton protects all of...
My friend shared this really terrific video that talks a bit about how octopus and squid camouflage themselves by changing their skin color AND texture. It is astounding how much the octopus in the video blended into the bush. What an amazing world we live in!
