Westward Expansion

We have been having such an interesting year, studying
Early American History. It is hard to believe that we are in the last three months of the school year already! It is flying by. I often wonder if I am doing enough schoolwork, but seeing my children excited about what they are learning, reassures me that we are on the right track.

We recently got together with friends to celebrate our studies of the pioneers and westward expansion. These get togethers are one of the highlights of our history studies. While at home, I read lots of great books to the children, we do map work, and also journaling, but the monthly co-op meetings are when we can delve into hands on projects that require more preparation.

At this months get together we made butter! This was actually incredibly easy and group friendly. We simply poured cream into clean mason jars, screwed the lids on tight and let the kids go crazy shaking them until a nice lump of butter had formed. I took a picture of our butter after we made it, but then when I was going back through the photos, I couldn't figure out what it was and deleted. It was yummy, if not photogenic. 

The butter was spread on fresh baked bread, the best of pioneer treats, and eaten along with tortillas, and cattail tubers which we had harvested from our pond. A good study of the pioneers and westward expansion wouldn't be complete without talking about some of the foraged foods that they ate to survive.

We also drank tea made from nettles. Not the tastiest of drinks, but super healthy and according to research, a good traditional remedy for all manner of illnesses, including allergies and anemia.

Another thing we do at our co-op meetings are oral presentations. I feel that being able to give a report is an important part of homeschooling. It is also a helpful motivator for my children to do well on their journaling projects so that they have something good to share with the group. We have been alternating Draw Write Now books with fine art postcards from Mommy It's A Renoir for art journaling prompts. These go nicely with narration exercises, and if we are not feeling creative enough to come up with an original narration, we simply copy the sentences from Draw Write Now as well. These journaling pages then become oral reports for the younger students.

Draw Write Now, Book 5: The United States, from Sea to Sea, Moving Forward (Draw-Write-Now) Mommy, It's a Renoir!

The oldest of my four students still in my homeschool prepared a report on health care, or the lack thereof, during the time period we were studying. My 12 year old created a stop motion Lego movie about Civil War Sea Battles. I love seeing them use various technologies and mediums to prepare their presentations.




For map work, we looked at where the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled, as well as what area the Louisiana Purchase encompassed. Later, we traced U.S. maps and labeled them with the route which the Lewis and Clark Expedition took, so many years ago.



Back at home, I read to the children from "Sacajawea" by Della Rowland, while they made a tent and pretend fire which they roasted pretend marshmallows over. Or maybe it was bear meat on a stick?
Stories are great at providing prompts for imaginative play. They also do so much to expand your children's vocabulary, these are a few of many reasons why we make a high priority of reading aloud. I also have a basket of books based on the period we are studying, which my children are encouraged to read from as we work our way through the year. If possible, I give my older children books which include source documents. I want them to be aware of what the thought process of historical figures was, and not just hear their stories through a modernist filter. 

The Story of Sacajawea: Guide to Lewis and Clark (Dell Yearling Biography) The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition)
Little House Nine-Book Box Set

American History is full of fascinating people, and I am studying it again, with some of the most fascinating people that I know. I hope that your children, and your studies, bring much joy and inspiration to your life as well.

This post contains affiliate links (Amazon)

Hearts and Pom-Poms

I love holidays, but I am no Pinterest mom. I like the idea of crafting with my kids and enjoying celebrations, but I am honestly not interested in adding the work of elaborate preparations, nor the expense of elaborate decorations, to my already full life.

          

             

This year, we have tried to make Valentine's day special with a few small celebrations. A pink drink party with cookies and popcorn, a crafting time, and a special story are all small ways that we have made this grey month a little, well, pinker.

                

The funny thing about crafting is that even the big kids, and the grandma, when faced with a table full of glitter glue, pom-poms and doily hearts, got excited about joining in. Crafting and creating is a sweet, media free way to spend quality time with the ones you love. It doesn't have to be elaborate. Just put out the supplies and let imagination take over.

            



Or Pinterest. I did let my little girl look up Valentine's cards on Pinterest and the one that got her really excited was the buggy crown. After she was finished, she gave it to her little brother, who promptly declared that he was ant-man. I don't know what cute little ladybugs and bees have to do with a super hero, but it made sense to him.

        

Celebrations don't have to be hard. This year was pretty simple. Dollar Store craft supplies and Trader Joe's heart shaped cookies with pink grapefruit soda were the high points of our celebration, but it was indeed a very fine celebration.

How do you celebrate Valentine's Day?
This is how one of my favorite writers celebrates. Simple and Fun, Flower Patch Farmgirl

Sharing with Casey Leigh's link up

Fun With Early American History

In our homeschool this year we have been studying Early American History. We have created bows and arrows while learning about Native Americans and cooked over an open fire. We sculpted clay maps of the United States and made tiny walnut shell boats. 

We studied about the Revolutionary War and the children learned how to sing The Shot Heard Round The World. We have also read some wonderful books. These are a few of our favorite books this year.

               In 1492

 

     The Thanksgiving Story

   

There are many other Early American History books that we love, such as Carry On Mr Bowditch and the Little House on the Prairie series but we are skipping those this year to read a few books that we haven't read in a while.

We have also been working on our timeline, both our hallway wall timeline and the book that my 3rd grade daughter is keeping. We love the Homeschool in the Woods timeline figures. They are well done black and white line drawings which are easy to color. Timeline work is a great task to keep kids listening while I read aloud. I also have the children color or draw pictures for their narration sheets.

 

For our project day we joined with a few other families to create tin can lanterns in honor of Paul Revere. Unfortunately, I didn't read the instructions very well. After our project day, I read the above post which suggested emptying your tin can of the contents, filling it with water and then freezing it so that when you go to poke the holes the can doesn't collapse like ours did. 

              

We also drew silhouettes of the children, which was also a bit harder than I had imagined! Try keeping a 6 year old boy still while you draw their profile. Not easy. This is a good project with girls. Older girls. Oh, and make sure you buy 11X17 paper because fitting a child's entire head onto a regular size sheet of construction paper is also a bit difficult.

One of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is reading to my children and talking about books. I get to sit and sip coffee and we all get to learn about new people and places. On the flip side, projects are not my favorite aspect, which is why I try really hard to find people to co-op with so my children can learn from other mothers who are hopefully more creative than myself.


                 

History is my favorite subject to teach, I love learning about the past with my children and through the use of maps and timelines, connect people and stories with their place in time. There are many things to love about homeschooling, and learning history with my children is one of them.

This post contains affiliate links.

What are your favorite resources for teaching history?

Toys on a Budget

Christmas is coming and we are days away from the biggest shopping day of the year. I sat down with the children to make a list of what they would want for Christmas and am trying now to remember where I put it. 

As I plan what I will get as gifts for my children, several trains of thought chug through my mind. One prominent conflict about what toys I will purchase for my children is the endless time which seems to get spent picking up and organizing those same toys. 

They seemed like a great idea in the store and they brought a lot of excitement when they were opened but within a short time, they are shoved under a bed or left out in the yard. 

Toys, no matter how much they cost, rarely retain their value to your children. While there may be some exceptions, a special doll or stuffed animal would be a perfect example, many of the toys we buy, lose their sparkle rapidly.

Another problem that I have with too many toys is the way they stifle creativity. My children seem to have more fun making toys or playing imaginative games than they do sitting down and playing with store-bought toys. Again, there are some exceptions, the toy kitchen that we made from an Ikea cabinet 15 years ago is still played with, as are the Legos which the boys have collected throughout the years. 

As I process these thoughts, they bring to mind some of the fun we have recently had which did not involve store bought toys.

Playing "Where Oh Where Is The Big Black Bear"-This scary game involves turning off all the lights while the bear goes and hides. The rest of us then tread carefully through the house until the bear jumps out and scares the living daylights out of us. Play at your own risk, I almost broke my nose in a dark hallway collision.

Making Homemade Superhero Gear-If your children are given the freedom to create, they will not care if it looks exactly real, their imaginations are bright enough to make up the difference between fact and fiction.

Reading Books and Acting Out Stories-This goes the same for movies, where else would they have gotten the idea for the Captain America gear? Stories are great for sparking imaginative play.

Collecting in Nature- My children will often make flower fairies out of nails and flowers, they don't last long, but then they didn't cost much either so the loss is pretty small. They also make boats out of walnut shells, play food and money out of leaves and weeds, and houses out of trees.

Making Paper Dolls and Other Homemade Toys-Paper dolls are quick and easy to create, but what about sewing a simple cloth doll or cape from scraps of cloth that you have on hand?

We have found some special toys through the years and we are so glad to have them, but when we inundate our children with toys, we often kill creativity instead of inspiring it, as well as potentially causing us as parents more frustration as we struggle to pay for, and clean up after, this over abundance of toys.

This Christmas, see if buying one less toy for your children could be freeing. It may be that it frees up money to help someone in need, time to read with your children, and space in your home to enjoy each other more.

For more ideas on Bountiful Living on a Budget, simply subscribe to get them delivered to your inbox. You can also buy the book, Bountiful Homeschooling on a Budget to get page after page of money saving and life enhancing advice.

                                

Discovering Early Americans

We have started another wonderful year of learning and this year we are doing Early American History. We have used various curriculum in the past but this year we are staying on a budget with homeschool materials and just studying a different event in American History each month without purchasing a curriculum. We will then celebrate with a monthly project day with a few of our friends.

Although we don't have a formal curriculum this year, I own a few high school textbooks and student readers which I can use as resources for the younger children, as well as a wonderful set of timeline figures and blank maps which will be resources that I pull from.

Our first month was the study of Native Americans, and we found some interesting books to read about a few different tribes. Because the content of some of these books may be a bit dark, I will edit as needed while I read, but they were all fascinating.

Book List

Sing Down The Moon- Scott O'Dell

If You Lived With The Hopi-Kamma

The Serpent Never Sleeps- Scott O'Dell

The Trail Of Tears- Joseph Bruchac

                                                       

We used our Picture Story form to write and illustrate a book report for each story that we read. This has been a good way to use the writing skills that we have learned through Institute for Excellence in Writing, as well as a good opportunity to evaluate the story and get writing practice.

Another fun activity was to label a United States map with geographical features as well as the territory that each tribe was living in.

The big finale was our project day. The children dressed up in costumes that I had made for some of their older siblings. We mixed up corn cakes in honor of the Pueblo people that we had been reading about and cooked them over an open fire. We used long branches that we had pruned off our apple tree to build a teepee which we covered with an old sheet.

                           

The children also made beaded jewelry, bow and arrows and ground acorns in a grinding stone. They  ate snacks from the time period such as dried cranberries, popcorn and beef jerky.

They also presented reports, my youngest students had a report on the Pueblo people complete with a rigatoni noodle pueblo village and my 11 year old son presented his Pueblo report while donning an elaborately painted mask which he had copied from a book.

                                 

Although our project day incorporated elements from many different tribes, it was a fun filled time to experience some of what the early Americans had experienced.

After we had finished up with our project day, I handed out blank books.  I purchased these in the dollar aisle at Target and we will use them as a scrapbook of our year. The children will fill in one or two pages each month with some of the information that they have learned.

                 

We are having so much fun incorporating many elements of learning into our history studies this year! Reading interesting books to my children and exploring other cultures and time periods are just a few of many wonderful aspects of homeschooling. 

This post contains affiliate links. So far, I haven't made any money from it, but it is worth a try!

Fun With Apologia's Swimming Creatures

Our little friend's amazing ocean box

We recently finished up our year long science study using Swimming Creatures by Apologia. This was my favorite year so far! Although I loved the Botany studies we did last year, and my sons really enjoyed Astronomy, it was amazing to learn about all these crazy creatures that inhabit our oceans. 

The shark, it had been out of the water for a while.

As a finale for our year, we did a few crafts with the younger kids, displayed the ocean boxes that we had worked on, shared reports and even dissected a shark. 

The other two families that we have been studying science with over the last several years, contributed so much to our fun last day, and although the shark brought some unexpected surprises to me, shark brain in the freezer, anyone?,  it really capped off an incredible year.

                         

Aside from working on our Sculpey clay sea creatures throughout the year, we didn't do a lot of crafts, so my littlest student really enjoyed decorating a paper bowl which became his own pet jellyfish, complete with a cutout of a fish pasted into it's "tummy".

                           

We are so happy that we have friends to learn with! Our many years of doing homeschool co-ops have brought so much fun and creativity to our lives.

Click here for a slightly more sophisticated jellyfish craft

A Quick and Easy Frozen Party

The cousins were coming to visit with their brand new copy of the movie, Frozen. The house was abuzz with excitement as we prepared for our informal party. The first order of business was decorating. Since this was just an impromptu gathering, we simply cut paper into snowflakes, tied a bit of blue yarn to hang them and stapled them to the ceiling.

I had not cut out snowflakes in many years, so there were a few failed attempts, but the children enjoyed seeing what a few snips on a piece of paper would create and it was a good motor skills project for all of us.

Another crafty kid cut out the letters to spell Frozen and then hung them on our mantle.

I also designed a very simple Olaf craft

 For this craft you will need, 

White card stock. (we used leftover photo paper.)

Blue construction paper or card stock

Orange construction paper

A few small twigs and pebbles.

Glue, scissors and glitter glue.

I cut out the circles, the top one with a big, happy mouth, and then let my small son glue them on. He also enjoyed glueing the twigs and pebbles on. I helped with the carrot nose, simply rolling a cone shaped piece of construction paper into a cone and securing with glue before handing it to my son to be glued on his craft.

He then added a small paper snowflake and some glitter glue "snow"

When the cousins arrived they were delighted with our winter wonderland, and our little "Elsa" was so happy to share the joy of watching "Frozen" with her family and friends. Although, my husband and I had been a bit skeptical of the film after watching a video of the song, "Let It Go", we were pleasantly surprised by the message of sibling love and faithfulness portrayed in the movie. We try to keep media consumption to a minimum, but this was definitely a sweet diversion. 

Linking up with Welcome Home Wednesdays

A Valentine Themed Bridal Shower

                               

                               

My niece got married last weekend! This was the first of the children of my siblings to be married so it was a whole new adventure for my sister and her family. My girls and I with the help of the rest of the lovely ladies in our extended family had the privilege of throwing her a bridal shower.

Each of the bridesmaids contributed a food item within our finger food theme. There were many tasty morsels thanks to the creative bridal party.

Brie and Crackers with a creative heart cutout.

This was the first bridal shower I had been involved in for many years. There have been many baby celebrations but this was a whole new party realm, and with the advent of Pinterest, party throwing has been ramped up a notch.

The shower was just after Valentines Day, so I was able to score some lovely heart accessories at the Dollar store. To get the guests mingling, we wrote the names of famous romantic characters from books and movies on foam heart stickers and then stuck them on the back of guests as they came in. We then instructed the guests to ask other guests yes or no questions about their character. 

We also used heart shaped cutouts for guests to write love and marriage advice on, which they could then insert into our jar of sweet hearts. This made for a fun keepsake for the bride and stood in the place of a guestbook.

My niece Amanda, made this gorgeous pink ombré layer cake as well as 50 more yummy cupcakes.

                         

For beverages we made a sparkling citrus punch and purchased bottles of pink champagne and moscato, all chosen for their pretty labels. Thankfully, they tasted good also!

   























My crafty sister made the gorgeous banner with her Stampin Up tools.

                         

The happy bride was showered with wonderful gifts to furnish her new kitchen, along with a few other fun things for the sweet couple. It was a wonderful celebration with all the amazing ladies of our family.