The Architect and The Artist: May 2009

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Earthquake Mini-Unit

We live near the Ring of Fire. So for the past couple of days we have been experiencing some earthquakes. See here for a little more information. This is the first time that Noah remembers feeling an earthquake even though we had a major one (you will need to scroll down to see some pictures of the damage) when he was little. So I thought this would be a good time to do a mini-study on earthquakes since it just happened. First of all, we will be doing an earthquake lapbook that you can get free from Homeschool Share. There are also some lapbook components on earthquakes in the Volcano Lapbook at Homeschool Share. We are also going to use the following books...

Here are some animations of vocabulary related to earthquakes.

I will try to keep you posted on the unit as it progresses!

Posted by Debbie at 6:36 PM 1 comments

Labels: Homeschool Share, Homeschooling, Unit Studies

Catching Bugs....

Photos courtesy of Dad. Thanks, Dad!

Posted by Debbie at 7:48 AM 1 comments

Labels: Nature, Photos

Friday, May 29, 2009

We are feeling....

...a little uneasy as our camper (which is in the backyard) was entered (we haven't been locking it) and some clothing was stolen out of it. I was the one that found it and realized that someone else had probably slept there last night. We are quite unnerved and the boys are very uneasy, but really all is ok. It seems that the thief preferred my clothes so I am the one that lost a pair of Nike's, a nice jacket and a shirt. God is good and even though I feel violated and anxious about the whole thing He is watching out for us. I called a friend today and told her what happened, "Her immediate words were, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7" I am so thankful for friends that know just the right things to say! By the way, we will be locking the camper from now on!!

Posted by Debbie at 5:19 PM 0 comments

Labels: Family, Memories

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Adding a Signature to your Blog...Here's how..

Yesterday, I went on a mission to figure out how to add a signature to my blog. Candace over at His Mercy is New asked me how I did it. Here is a brief description of what needs to be done....
First go to My Live Signature to create a signature. You have the option of using their signature creation wizard, drawing the signature on the screen, or using a scanned image. I chose the first option because it was easiest. After going through the process of picking a signature (which is a total of 5 steps), you get to the "Finished" screen. Click on "Want to use this signature?" Then click on "Generate HTML code". Click on "Generate a code for my handwritten signature". You will copy this code. Then go to "Settings" on your blog and then to "Formatting". Down at the bottom of the Formatting page you will find "Post Template". Paste your code in there and you are done! Now every time you write a post your signature will show up. As you are typing a new post, don't erase the signature and do all your writing before the signature.

A couple of problems that I encountered...I had to do several signatures before I got one I liked. No big deal...just copy and paste the new code. Also, all your older posts will not have signatures on them...only the ones from here on out.

Posted by Debbie at 3:29 PM 1 comments

Labels: Bloggy Fun

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Adding a Signature

I have finally figured out how to add a signature to my posts!

Posted by Debbie at 7:55 PM 1 comments

Labels: Bloggy Fun

T is for Titan

We just noticed this weekend that our new puppy (we have named him Titan) has a "T" across his chest...it isn't real noticeable, but we thought it is cute. Can you see it?Here is Titan with his sister who is younger than him, but almost twice his size. She doesn't have as many markings on her. Here they are playing with their new toy...

Posted by Debbie at 12:58 PM 3 comments

Labels: Family, Memories, Titan

Titan and Olive Playing

We are watching our new puppy, his sister and his mom for one more week. Today Titan (the little one that we are going to get) started playing with his mom. So cute! Here is a short video.

Posted by Debbie at 12:41 PM 0 comments

Labels: Family, Memories, Titan

Monday, May 25, 2009

Weekend Kayaking

Posted by Debbie at 7:11 PM 0 comments

Labels: Memories

Summer is here!

We are in the high 70's -low 80's! Definitely summer here! The picture above comes from my dad. I am assuming he took the photo in South Dakota. It is such a summery photo that I thought I would add it here.

Posted by Debbie at 6:45 PM 0 comments

Labels: Nature, Photos

Friday, May 22, 2009

Our History Plans for 2009-2010

For history this coming year we will use Biblioplan for Families: Ancient History. Biblioplan is basically a reading schedule for history. To read my other post about Biblioplan and how it is set up go here. For ancient history we will do six units: Creation, Egypt to Judges, Nation of Israel, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Ancient East. For Bible to go along with our history I just purchased Remembering God's Awesome Acts. We will not do all of this program...we will only focus on the Bible and history parts of it. We just started it this week and will do a little of it over the summer. So far it has been really interesting! Both the boys and I are learning so much! This program incorporates history, Bible, art, writing, linguistics, and archeology. We will probably skip the art and writing since we do art with another family and we have a separate writing program. The way the book is set up makes it easy to choose what sections you want to do. When we are done the boys will have created a notebook of what they learned. If we enjoy this enough, there is a second book called Remembering God's Chosen Children that we may use. Whereas Remembering God's Awesome Acts covers creation through Moses, Remembering God's Chosen Children covers continues the story line and covers the Israelites in the wilderness, the judges, and the kings of Israel.

Posted by Debbie at 6:59 AM 0 comments

Labels: Bible, History, Homeschooling

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Radio Stars

The boys helped Tim produce a radio ad for our local library's summer reading program. Here are some pictures of them trying to perfect their lines.

Here is Tim coaching them...actually Tim is very talented at getting people to sound right on the radio. There are many businessmen and women who come in to cut ads and he has to coach them on how to use their voices so everything sounds clear and upbeat. Tim had to work with the boys a bit as they were saying the lines too fast, but he finally got what he wanted!

Posted by Debbie at 10:43 AM 2 comments

Labels: Family, Memories

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Our Newest Member of the Family

Meet the newest member of our family, a miniature schnauzer, born May 1st! We are currently dog sitting him, his little sister (who is actually twice his size) and their mom. He was born first, but his sister is twice his size. We decided that for a little dog he needed a big name. We have named him "Titan". He is just learning to walk and can walk farther than his sister (her size makes it harder for her to get off her belly!). He has also just started to play with his sister and with us.

We will officially get him towards the end of July. Here are a few pictures....

Posted by Debbie at 11:44 AM 2 comments

Labels: Family, Memories, Titan

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Let the Gardening Begin!!

Well, this is the weekend that I finally get to work in the garden. I already have strawberry and rhubarb plants up (nothing to harvest yet). I turned over all the dirt in the garden to get it ready. Although we can't leave plants out yet (still too cold at night), I can plant seeds. I have planted a container of carrots. These carrots are called Parisian Market and are ball-shaped which mean container gardening will work for them. Slowly over this next week I will continue to plant seeds.
Here is a cute idea I found at Make and Takes. Zach and I spent some time making garden markers out of foam and popsicle sticks.Here is one of the strawberry markers Zach made. I know you can't see any strawberry plants, but I assure you they are there!! And as you can see I still need to clear out some debris (leaves and the like) out of the strawberry plot. Here is Zach's mega carrot sign! The irony is that these will be the smallest carrots we grow (the ball-shaped ones). We will also grow scarlett nantes and multi-colored ones.My garden plans in picture form.

I will have the most containers this year ever. I have four zucchini plants in pots that we still have to pull in each night. I am scared that I might be overrun by zukes come August so we will see! Eventually I will transplant the bell peppers (there will be five of those plants). I also have basil and cilantro growing in other pots.

Can't wait until it is all in!!!!

Posted by Debbie at 5:16 PM 1 comments

Labels: Gardening

Friday, May 15, 2009

End of the Year Reflection: Biggest Triumphs and Biggest Challenges

The Heart of the Matter Meme this week is an end of the year reflection about our homeschooling...here are our biggest triumphs and biggest challenges:

Our Biggest Triumphs

*Noah learning to read really well.

*Zach completing a series of stories about different family members (we loosely based this on the Write Your Roots curriculum) that we will have copied and bound to give to family members.

*Debbie surviving the year with working part time and homeschooling (bulk cooking with a friend has helped greatly in this area!!)

*For all of us...learning how to work together and get along when life gets stressful. We have made a lot of strides in this area.

Our Biggest Challenges

*Time Management (this goes for the mom as well as the boys!)

*For me, keeping the right perspective...learning that it isn't as important to check off everything on your to-do list as it is to have a love of learning.

*Also for me, having patience (which is also my word for the year)

*For Noah, learning how to be positive in his work.

*For Zach, learning how to push through and get the hard, not-so-fun stuff done.

While it was a good year overall, there are many things that I would want to change. One of them in particular for me is to slow down and not get so uptight when everything doesn't get done. This will probably be a life long struggle for me!

So how did your year go? What were your biggest triumphs and challenges???? I would love to read your comments on how things went.

Posted by Debbie at 5:08 PM 0 comments

Labels: Homeschooling, HOTM Meme

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Experimenting with Stevia

I recently bought a 1 oz. bottle of stevia (from Nunaturals-Pure White Stevia Extract) to try to use this sweetener. I am trying to reduce my sugar intake. Too much sugar and I feel awful. The problem is that I have a sweet tooth! My first attempt with it was a disaster! I pulled a banana bread recipe of the internet using stevia, but quite frankly it was too much stevia for us! It had an awful aftertaste! Yuck! You hardly need any stevia to sweeten things...this stuff is super sweet! Today I took one of our favorite recipes, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, which came from Karrie, and substituted some of the sugar with stevia. I used 1/8 teaspoon stevia instead of one of the cups of sugar. Here is the recipe...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1/2 cup oil

4 eggs

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar (or 1 cup sugar and 1/8 t. stevia)

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. salt

2 t. baking soda

1 small can pumpkin

1 12oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use mini ones)

Preheat oven to 350. Beat eggs and sugar. Mix in rest of ingredients. Bake for 20 min. You can do these as mini muffins, regular ones or as a bread. If baking as a bread you will need to bake longer…about 45min. to hour.

My goal is to make this recipe again, but reduce the sugar more and add more stevia.

Kendra at The Pumpkin Patch has several recipes that use stevia. Check out her site!

Posted by Debbie at 4:26 PM 0 comments

Labels: Recipes

The Cat is out of the Bag.....

...actually I mean the "puppy" is out of the bag! We told the kids last night that they are going to get a puppy (See this post) because Zach's pet toad (a fire-bellied toad) is dying and he is very upset. Tim couldn't bear to see Zach so upset so he decided to tell Zach and Noah that they will be getting a puppy to soften the blow of losing "Toady". The boys were shocked and excited! They are now thinking of names for our new little one.

Posted by Debbie at 6:52 AM 0 comments

Labels: Memories, Titan

Monday, May 11, 2009

Our Mystery Meal is Served!

I served the boys their mystery meal today to go along with the mystery/detective unit. If you want to see what else we have done in our unit see here. This is probably the most enjoyable activity we have done all school year!

Here's our menu:

napkin-crumb catcher

spoon-The Big Dipper

fork-Neptune's Trident

knife-the pride of Switzerland (like a Swiss Army knife, get it?)

Coke-bubbly brownie

Caesar salad-Roman mix-up

croutons-little blocks

dressing-pants and shirt

cucumber slices-lily pads

cheese Bagel Bites-dairy donuts

pepperoni Bagel Bites-dotted donuts

ice cream sandwich-arctic bovine burger

I set the boys up in their bedroom with a small table and chairs. That way I could make all my preparations in the kitchen without them seeing. They were told that they had to remain in the bedroom for the whole activity. I then handed them menus in which they picked the items they wanted for their three courses. Since they had no idea what most of the names meant they randomly chose numbers (of the items) to go in their courses. If you are interested in having a copy of the menu please leave me a comment with your e-mail address and I will get it to you. Here they are filling out their menus...

Here is some of the food served...lily pads, bubbly brownie, pants and shirt, little blocks and Roman mix-up.

The first course: Zach was served little blocks, dotted donuts, a crumb catcher, and a big dipper. Noah was served little blocks, Roman mix-up, Neptune's trident and the Arctic bovine burger.

Second course: Zach was served Roman mix-up, Neptune's trident, The pride of Switzerland, and bubbly Brownie. Noah received bubbly brownie, a big dipper, the price of Switzerland, and a crumb catcher.

Third course: Zach received lily pads, pants and shirt, dairy donuts, and an arctic bovine burger. Noah was served dotted donuts, dairy donuts, lily pads and pants and shirt.

The boys loved this activity so much that they want to come up with a menu to do for their dad!

Posted by Debbie at 11:28 AM 5 comments

Labels: Homeschooling, Memories, Mystery unit, Unit Studies

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Happy Mother's Day

Wishing all of you a Happpy Mother's Day!!!

Posted by Debbie at 7:05 AM 0 comments

Labels: Holidays

Saturday, May 9, 2009

God and the Puppy

My boys have been asking for a dog for as long as I can remember. We have firmly said "no" for so many years that they have lost all hope in ever getting one! Well, about a week ago they got to see our dear friends' dog have her first litter (see this post). The boys are in love with these little ones and who can blame them? What they don't know....so, no spilling the beans...is that one of these puppies is going to become their puppy!!!!!! Our friends are going to give us the little male of the litter! My boys have no idea and are making comments like...."Mom and Dad would never let us have one!" "I so wish we could have a puppy!" Well, sometime in June we will let them know that all their dreams will come true!
It occurred to me today that God works in similar ways in our lives. He knows all and sees the big picture whereas we don't have a clue what to expect in life. We may desire for something in life and he will tell us "no" unbeknownst to us that in the end His whole intent is to bless us!!! How many times have I given up on God and my requests? How many times have I doubted that He would come through for me and then in the end He did and then some?!?! I am giddy with excitement to tell my boys that this time the answer is "YES!"...I wonder if God is like that too...He can't wait to bless us and is excited to see our reaction. I wonder if He gets pleasure in blessing us beyond belief.
Two verses come to mind: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". Jeremiah 29:11 Just like we have plans to bless our sons with something they have wanted for such a long time I truly believe that God does the same with us...just waiting for the right moment to bring the blessing to us. " The other verse talks of how God does more for us than we could ever come up with..."Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory!" Ephesians 3:20-21

Posted by Debbie at 1:57 PM 0 comments

Labels: Faith, Family, Memories, Titan

Math Curriculum

Are you having trouble figuring out which math curriculum to use? All the options can be confusing. We have used Math-U-See from the start and love it. I love that it is the mastery approach and not spiral. However, not every curriculum fits every family. If you are looking into which math curriculum to use. See this handy chart that gives the pro's and con's for several top homeschool curriculums.

Posted by Debbie at 7:51 AM 0 comments

Labels: Homeschooling, Math

Zebra Cake

Since next year our science will be zoology, I am constantly on the lookout for cool ideas.

Well, I found this idea through Kendra's blog, Aussie Pumpkin Patch. It is a zebra cake and it looks so cool! I thought it would be extremely difficult to create the stripes, but when you read the directions you will see how easy it is!

Posted by Debbie at 7:32 AM 0 comments

Labels: Homeschooling, Zoology

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Puppy Love!!!!

Isn't this puppy so precious?! He belongs to some close family friends whose Schnauzer just had a litter of two...a small boy (seen in the pictures) and a huge girl! They are just so precious! The boys were able to watch the girl being born, and they have helped take care of them for a few hours here and there. Towards the end of May we will take care of the Momma Schnauzer and the two pups for a couple of weeks. So exciting!! There is more exciting news in regards to these little ones...but that will be a post for another time!

Small enough to fit in a teacup!

Posted by Debbie at 8:43 PM 0 comments

Labels: My Favorite Things, Titan

Noah's Piano Recital

Here is Noah at his first piano recital. He played "The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down". He did an awesome job!

Posted by Debbie at 8:39 PM 1 comments

Labels: Homeschooling

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

More Mystery Fun!!

Julie, a fellow Five in a Row and Homeschool Share mom, is also doing a mystery unit with her kids. Check out her site, Our Faith-Filled Days, for some great ideas!

Posted by Debbie at 4:35 PM 0 comments

Labels: Homeschool Share, Homeschooling, Mystery unit, Unit Studies

Detective Science-Fingerprinting

Today we started some of the science experiments in Detective Science. See here for more information on Detective Science. I showed the boys how to take each other's fingerprints. They then classified their fingerprints into arches, loops, and whirls. We also read Psalms 139 and focused on the verse about how we are fearfully and wonderfully made and connected that to our uniqueness and how nobody shares our fingerprints. We are each created by God and have things that are special about us!