Making a Chicken Mummy

If you have the guts to make a mummy out of a chicken, watch one homeschooling mom's pictorial here!

Every Day and Neat Sites

Every day we change things on our red vinyl pocket chart. I found this at the dollar store I think.
Inside each pocket is something that changes often.
*The day of the week.
*The number of straws in our counting jar (we are on our way to 100).
*The letter of the week.
*The moon phase.
*The weather (sunny or rainy, so far).
*And all of our My Father's World Badges.


The moon phases by month. Since my kids don't stay up late enough to see the moon we can track its position with this. I right click and print it out each month.

When I surf the internet, I find neat homeschooling sites, but then my bookmarks get overwhelming. So I am officially dumping them here...

The Sun, Earth and Moon in rotation, very simple moving video.

How to Fold a Paper Boat, very easy to learn website for those who think they remember how to fold one until they get to the end and realize they made a triangle with flaps.

Cool government coloring books. Some by state, some by national park, some by subject. This is great for the smaller ones who need something to do while you are talking about something too advanced for their age.

Bible Rhymes and songs. This is great for those songs, you don't know the words to.

Its Meconium!

Not blood. After reading the Butterfly study guide that came with the butterfly netted cage that I borrowed, we learned that it was meconium and not blood splattered so elegantly on the white dinner plate and walls of my homemade cage. So butterflies don't bleed, but it sure does look like it!

So for the most part it took less than 7 days for the butterflies to hatch. They started on Friday night and 5 of the 6 had come out by Sunday. I decided to give my neighbor the newly borrowed cage and put the remaining unhatched pupa in it and one live butterfly. Did you know you can pick up a butterfly? Just hold its wings together close to its body and if it get agitated hold it upside down. I did break one of the tiny scales off of her forewing moving her from the home made cage. But she flies fine. Sunday around 4pm the final pupa hatched.

Anyways, when we finally gave her the butterflies, the two were flying around all excited when I exposed them to the fresh air. Since they have such small life spans (two weeks), I decided to let them be outside yesterday afternoon. What I didn't take into consideration was that ants would find the butterfly sugar water so quickly. Ants covered the bottom of the plate. I couldn't leave the cage outside at night. because the weather was too cool for them (55 degrees is lowest end on the scale). Luckily my neighbor walked by and she offered to give back the cage. I put the remaning butterflies in it and they fluttered about more happily. I think they prefer the soft netted walls. The hard window screen is a little more painful to bounce off of when you want to practice flying.

It has been a busy 3 weeks preparing for company. We have just been playing outside and taking it slow. We covered Lessons 65 and 66 in Saxon K Math on Sunday and have begun discussing Hydrogen.

We made butter on Sunday by shaking whipping cream for 20 minutes. "What do you think this will turn into? " I asked as we were shaking it. "Pizza". "I don't know".... Luckily it was close in consistency when the time ended and they guessed right.

Butterflies Bleed

October the 5th our butterfly larvae kit from Sciencekit.com arrived.I was excited and curious reading the waivers for a live organisms shipment. Apparently because of certain environmental concerns we were not going to be able to release the butterflies. They would die within 2 weeks of birth, and after which I was supposed to freeze their bodies for 24 hours to make sure they were completely dead.

**Double CLICK to see images above appear larger**

Six caterpillars arrived in a small plastic cup with a paper towel under the lid. The food supply, a beige mud was like steroids for them. The caterpillars would double in size practically overnight it seemed. Within a few days, over 60% was gone and their tiny balls of excrement seemed to be taking over. And finally on Saturday the 9th, they started acting broody and hanging upside down from the top of the paper towel. I kept watching them to see them go into pupa stage. Finally they started twitching, and I walked by and one of them had made it! On the floor of the cup was a little caterpillar head or tail, not sure which and it seemed some of the tan balls were tinted red. It was exciting, it just happened so fast. Again they started twitching and making white threads in the jar. I got so excited I called my homeschooling neighbor to come by with her son to see this. It was like one minute they were a caterpillar and the next they were in a cocoon. Everytime they went to pupae, one of these parts of the caterpillar would be one the floor and a little blood.

I thought the directions said I had 10 days to 2 weeks to get them into a cage. Constantly I was watching them. I was walking by on day 7 of pupa stage and a butterfly caught my eye. I had the cup up high on the refrigerator so the kids wouldn't keep shaking it. Eeks, I started to freak out. There was so much excrement in there the poor thing had hardly any room. And if one had made it to butterfly, that meant 5 more were coming! And one of the cocoons was opaque white, which was indicator it was about to come out.

I went into the basement, and saw I had some window screens from our old windows. And I had a box from the strimmer we bought a couple of weeks ago, so I cut a long hole down the side and tried taping the window screen to it. No dice, the screen wouldn't stay secure. I kept praying to God for wisdom, all the while the baby is crying to eat and sleep, but I didn't want the butterflies to die. Their wings are quite sensitive and wet when they are born. I didn't want them rolling on their backs in excrement.

Second cage attempt, I found a wire basket, that is used for holding basketballs and rolled the screen inside. I couldn't get the bottom secure without making holes or jagged edges (I just picture one of the new creatures landing on it while the kids watching and feeling terrible). So I put a plate in the bottom. I stuffed the cracks with tissue paper and put long branches in it. And then on the top I put a pot that kinda fit snug. It seemed doable. I threw a magnolia leaf in there for good measure which I was glad for, because when I carefully emptied the jar one of them quickly crawled under it. I taped the paper towel with the remaining 4 pupae stuck to it to the branch. I have a video showing the 2 pupaes on the bottom shaking. They eventually stopped. They were born about 20 hours later. Again it happens so quick, its a rare event I think to actually see the butterfly emerge.

Today is Saturday. Three more were born today. I put some sugar water in there for them to eat. Mostly they crawl on the branches or the newspaper on the bottom. Occasionally they flex their wings and try to fly. There is little bits of blood on the white plate and even on the side. So unexpected, butterfly blood.

C is for Cow

Cows make dairy products which if you look closely composed our poster this week. Next week we hopefully will visit the dairy farm. Unfortunately my barefoot hippy child got the vomit bug the morning of the homeschool field trip day at Carlton Farms.. We are going to make butter sometime in the next few days if I can get to the store for some whipped cream.

We had physical education yesterday. We belong to a homeschool soccer league. Its basically run by moms and the kids love it. Well hippy boy didn't at first that's because he is a little slow to warm up to new situations. But I am learning to deal with that slowly myself, because that is not necessarily my nature.

We made cow badges today "Gods Word Helps Me Grow!". That's our theme. I need to ask my dh if he can bring home a rubber glove from work. I read an idea of milking the glove for fun. Sounds totally messy, the kids will love it. We only bathe once a week, so I need to do it on bathday. Have you ever smelled old dairy? I once got whipped cream pie'd at work (it was a relaxed environment working in the film business). Quite stinky.

Finishing the Octopus, Ready to Start Cow

We are wrapping up Octopus right now. We finished our ocean mural today. Complete with hermit crabs, octopus (using the outline of their hands, well 8 fingers:), some sand on the bottom and torn green construction paper for sea grass.

I don't have a picture yet of the finished product but I do of the beginning stages. 20 minutes to paint it blue, 1 hour to clean it up and their clothes. Still trying to get blue paint out of little boy shorts. My fels naptha bar didn't make a dent, I hope the Oxiclean spray works.

We are on Lesson 75 of Teach Your Child to Read. I told Dino that he could have anything off the menu at Bruesters when we finished. "And I can read the menu!". Sure I said, "and that constant new trick will probably annoy daddy". He was excited about that unfortunately.

We did our last lesson outside yesterday. Gorgeous weather, a ten on the mellish meter, I let him read a line then ride his bike in a circle. He did great. His lessons are starting to teach him how to read without using the cues, for example, no long dash over the "e" for long e. He is so proud.

We also made Octopus puppets today. Just a brown bag, stuffed with newspaper, and cut the bottom into 8 strips. I found the My Father World forum, where other mom's post their ideas, additional reading on their unit studies. If I hadn't of just finished eating a hot dog for lunch, I would of gone ahead and cut up some dogs and boiled them to look like little octopi.

Teach Your Child to Read in 215 Lessons

The title of the book is of course Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy lessons. But we have had to take it slower with Dino (son#1). We have had to spread lessons over 2 or 3 days. The book is amazing. I have met many mom's who have successfully used it for their children. Realistically, lessons should only take 10-20 minutes a day, unless you have a reluctant one. Dino gets frustrated if he messes up. So there is a lot of encouragement to get through it. Or positive reinforcement with quarters or treats. We have been doing the book pretty consistently since April. We are at Lesson 70. It takes a while for the ball to get rolling, so its important to follow the lessons carefully. The lessons build on each other and around lesson 30 or so, you can see it working. I understand your child will be near a 2nd grade level when finished. I think we will!

Yesterday, was very busy. Homeschool soccer and some nice people helping us finish our front yard gardening swallowed the day up. So officially we did just P.E.

Today was our quarterly doctor's appointment, so we only did a bit of dinosaur drawing and have almost finished our reading lesson. I would of pushed for more schoolwork, but he needed a nap after the morning's appointment and a playdate with our n'borhood buddy. Dino is a very social creature and really thrives off of playdates. They played with dinosaurs, played tag and shot each other with plastic guns. Dino even tried to read his lesson to his buddy, but he wasn't interested. Dino plays with son#2 (haven't thought up a clever nickname yet for him) and his 2 younger siblings, so its not like he is deprived for friends.

We did talk about other peoples feelings today. When we were at the appointment we saw a kid with a mishapen eye. "Why does he have a silly eye", Dino asked. I guess in the past 4 years of going, he's never really noticed the other kids in the waiting room. So we talked about how it would feel if someone called you silly because your left hand is bigger than your right. Also he never noticed that before either. The difference is not that dramatic. But it was good to finally have the talk about kids in wheelchairs that we see when we go. How glad I am that these moments are shared between us, and I get to be the authoritative voice and not some peer's perception on the matter. It was nice little talk with all 4 kids outside the building.

I am off to make pizza dough. If the kids were up I would turn it into math lessons with using the measuring cups for flour like we did on Tuesday when we made oatmeal cookies.

D is for Dinosaurs

Monday Through Wednesday....
Officially we hadn't really discussed dinosaurs, because we didn't have any little plastic dinosaurs or dino books handed down to us by any older boys. Which means dinosaurs are like Kitchen Aid mixers, you don't find them at garage sales because you use them until they break.



D is for Dinosaurs is the unit study we are doing this week. The general curriculum for learning letters and science this year is My Father's World. (MFW). Today we went outside and measured 110 feet on the street and drew an Ultrasaurus. I say we, because they did draw the legs and mouth. After 32 feet, the whining won and I took over with the sidewalk chalk. If you look closely at the head, those are not antennae, those are plants, the Ultrasaurus is a plant eater.

We drew dinosaurs (Tyrannosaurus Rex and Diploducus) on Monday and made dinosaurs with playdough on Tuesday (Allosaurus and something from the Cretaceous period that looks like something from a Captain D's Combo Platter). God is cool, because what should arrive in the mail this week but Williams delayed birthday present, a plastic dinosaur. The boys each got one and have been playing nonstop with them.

As part of of MFW, almost everyday we add one more straw to our straw cup. We are counting to a hundred. Today is 45,that is 4 bundles of ten straws and 5 single straws. We also note the moon phase (M is for Moon) its a full one right now. Finally we have days of the week cards and we also also mark our calendar. The calendar is part of Saxon Math curriculum. This month we are coloring the days, yellow and green, following the ABB pattern. Next month will be AABB.

I also pulled out some used Georgia K12 curriculum science pages and we did some cutting and pasting of animals. I was just checking that we were following along with what the school district is teaching..... scanning.... scan.... (I am a speedreader)... Yep just fine.

Next time we will discuss our reading!