MFW Adventures: West by Wagon and the Human Body

January 19, 2016January 19, 2016 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

Its our favorite time of year! “Winter.” The weather is gorgeous, though very rainy this year, and we spend more time than ever out of doors.

The garden has gone absolutely berserk this year. I love walking outside and cutting a head of lettuce before dinner. We planted more veggies this week and I am looking forward to harvesting them in March.

West by wagon train! The boys were eager to jump right in. I gave them each a small bag and asked them to pack things they would need for one week of travel through an unsettled, wild area.

We had to pack and repack for over an hour. It was fun watching them try to figure out what really needed to go in the bag and what they could do without. We read “Daily Life in a Covered Wagon” by Paul Erickson and the boys made their own “travel journals” as an exercise in creative writing. They wrote and illustrated stories about their make believe travels on the Oregon Trail. These entries read like the old Oregon Trail computer game I loved as a kid. Day 1: shot a buffalo. Day 2: dysentery. The illustrations were hilarious. I love when they ask to do their own projects. Its fun to watch their creativity bloom as they take complete control over their work.

After reading “The Josefina Story Quilt” and our reading selection from American Pioneers and Patriots, the boys asked if they could make their own quilts. After showing them squares from the quilt I’ve been working on for the last nine years (no joke) they opted for glueing fabric scraps onto paper and making “Quilt Art.”

See that little model wagon? Looks nice in the picture doesn’t it? Its garbage. We could have burned three dollar bills in front of our children and they would have learned a greater lesson than the experience of putting this thing together. While we’ve had fun with other wood building kits, this one received poor marks. The quality is terrible and there is no building involved. You glue pieces together and watch the wheels fall off because the accompanying nails don’t fit correctly in the predrilled holes. a big thank you to my patient hubby for seeing that project through to the bitter end.

After that disaster, we opted to use our play stand as a covered wagon. We threw a white sheet overtop and our eldest sang “Old Dan Tucker” as the kids pretended to bump along the trail. They ate lunch in their wagon and pretended to cook a few meals while I read aloud from their book basket. Then our youngest began crying for his play stand. “My birds! My blocks! My sky!” We put things to rights once more and he has not left it since. Territory claimed!

We used the booklet, “My Body” last year during Cycle 3 of Classical Conversations.

The boys each made a life size cut out of their body which they then filled in with various organ systems from the pages of this book. One book can be used for an entire family or classroom.

It was a great learning experience. I was tempted to repeat it once more for this unit but instead chose the following add ins:

This dover coloring book was an excellent choice for the boys. They have loved working in it and describing the various organs and systems to me as they complete each section.

We picked up a Magic School Bus Human Anatomy science kit. The boys completed the majority of these experiments on their own and learned an incredible amount of information. This kit has inspired me to allow the boys to lead more of their own science projects. They are more than capable of gathering their own materials from around the house, following procedural steps, forming hypothesis and recording their results. I picked this kit up several months ago during a Zulily science sale. The school bus kits show up on Zulily frequently at a hefty discount.

Other hands on activities we introduced and enjoyed included: puzzles, three part letter cards and a safari toob of human organs.

This digestive system puzzle shows up in the Target dollar section every August.

Our cross section Human Body Model from Learning Resources.

I put together a human anatomy tray with three part cards for sorting and classifying. We used the Human Organs Safari Toob. The boys reached for this tray often throughout the week.

Our little guys spent the majority of their time playing with Hape’s Layered Body Puzzle (male version).

All our boys, ages 3-8 have used and enjoyed the Hape layer puzzle. It is currently the family favorite.

Lastly, to reinforce right and left, our kids have been working with this Hands Counting puzzle from Melissa and Doug.

We’ll be sharing more Anatomy projects in the days to come!

MFW Adventures: Fulton & Stain Glass

December 5, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

Greetings & Salutations!

The garden is in, my friends. No sooner had we turned our backs on those lovely beds than the heavens began to pour out rain. All our seedlings seem to have doubled in size the past week thanks to the ceaseless rains.

Unit #21 brought our merry group of adventurers to Robert Fulton and his Steamship.

Day 1: I read out of the recommended book basket list and set the boys loose in the yard with 4 kiddie tubs and an assortment of plastic trash. Empty bottles, milk jugs, egg cartons, straws and robber bands. They had a marvelous time constructing their own “steamships.” This eventually led to us hauling out one of our Usbourne science books and executing another round of “sink or float” with other backyard items.

Day 2: We hauled out tons of books and encyclopedias that catalogued various ships throughout the ages. The boys looked at “Into the Unknown” by Stewart Ross and copied his diagram of the steam engine along with a few other pictures of steamships detailed within.

This was intense work for the boys. They took notes and later spent two hours drawing highly weaponized steamships.

Day 3:
Origami style steamboats! Thanks to Chaos Meets Creativity for the link!

While we folded ships my youngest two tackled their own projects. Give the three year old an entire sheet of tissue paper and a glue stick–it will buy you at least 20 minutes!

The 5 year old was content to light up his Christmas trees with the correct number of red and white pony beads.

Day 4:
After finishing our state sheets, the boys did a little more work on their nature journals. On this day they transferred one of the public speaking presentations from our last week of the semester at our Classical Conversations Community. I love when they work so carefully and meticulously.

Meanwhile….

Day 5:
Thanks to the delightful “A Year of Playing Skillfully,” the boys and I discovered the lovely idea of window painting. My Adventurers join in almost every AYoPS activity and this was not to be missed.

We wiped down our sliding glass door, mixed the paint, layed out our painting blanket to catch any wayward drops of color and set to work!

We recently looked through our London Gallery Nativity book which featured several diptychs of the nativity. With two large glass panels at our disposal, we all agreed to make our own “Stain Glass” diptych featuring the nativity. The 5 year old was our creative director. He loves “Starry Night” and it quite obviously influenced his work.

We ended the day with a little sensory therapy in the form of homemade peppermint playdoh. It was worth the 20 minute make time. Peace on earth for over an hour!

We are on track to finish Adventures by the end of March. We’ll spend the rest of the month enjoying advent, studying The Nutcracker and prepping for our “Adventures in US History” Road Trip!

MFW Adventures: War of 1812, Star Spangled Banner & Lewis and Clark

November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We studied the War of 1812 last year during cycle 3 of Classical Conversations. The minute the boys saw our topic of study they launched into the corresponding song, “The war of 1812, gave confidence to the US to write the Monroe doctrine…”

I made several recordings of their young warmly voices as they sang out “The Star Spangled Banner.” Its difficult to imagine what they will sound like a few years from now.

We recreated the Battle of Ft McHenry in our bathtub. We will not be sharing those pictures. Suffice to say, there was a great deal of water outside the tub when it was all said and done!

After spending the first two days of our unit reading about the War of 1812 and the writing of the Star Spangled Banner, the boys asked if we could take a detour with Lewis & Clark. I love homeschool detours. We always learn so much! Here’s what happened…

We jumped in with our Interactive 3D American History maps.
We looked up the various Indian tribes and geographical features mentioned on the map. The boys were very excited about researching these terms in their child craft encyclopedias.

We made a lap book from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus. All the printouts were free and easy to assemble. We listed defining characteristics of various tribes, studied botany and mapped out Lewis and Clark’s route.

We printed out the corresponding coloring sheets to fill in while I read aloud from our Louisiana Purchase book list (see below).

We played a really fun Lewis & Clark Westward Bound board game. The cards relay information about the trip at each stop along the map.

Lastly, I purchased a few pounds of white sculpty clay and the boys fashioned pieces for our Corps of Discovery diorama. I read aloud from a few books written from the experience of Seaman, the massive Newfoundland dog that accompanied Lewis and Clark on their journey.

We baked the pieces in the oven and then painted them a few days later.

This was a great project! I love how hands on it was. I also got a lot of reading in while they worked and afterwards, while they played.

On Friday, we went for our usual nature walk. The boys had spent the week cataloging the plants in our backyard. We dissected a bird of paradise flower and labeled each part. I had seen a great link for making your own grocery bag nature journals, a la Merriweather Lewis. I had planned to let the boys fill their homemade journals with drawings of native plants as though they were the original discoverers.

In the end, I opted to just let them enjoy the great outdoors with a project in mind.

When we returned home, they worked on their natural journals and sketched a large piece of brood comb from one of our pine trees. They also sketched a honey bee and labeled its parts.

I’m glad we did this instead of the journal. They were much more excited to sketch bees today. Some days, its better to let them lead their own learning.

We ended the week by playing one of our new favorite board games, Wildcraft, in honor of those crazy botanist/explorers Lewis & Clark.

Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark Expedition Reading List

How We Crossed the West: The Adventures of Lewis and Clark by Rosalyn Sanchez
Lewis and Clark: The Story of Our Nation from Coast to Coast, from 1801-1850 by Sally Isaacs
Lewis and Clark: A Prairie Dog for the President by Shirley Raye Redmond
The Louisiana Purchase: Would you close the deal? by Elaine Landau
The Lewis and Clark Expedition (Graphic History) by Jessica Gunderson
Seaman’s Journal: On the Trail with Lewis and Clark by Patricia Eubank

We’ll be taking the next week off and I plan to read “Of Courage Undaunted” by James Daughtery.

MFW Adventures: Ohio Pioneers

November 15, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 2 Comments

This past week, I opened American Pioneers & Patriots and began reading the story of the O’Neill family heading down the Ohio River.

The boys were decidedly not interested.

I knew attention and participation would be an all day, uphill battle.

I was not in the mood for that.

So I took some cardboard and the hot glue gun and built a flatboat. Then, I asked the boys to bring out the aluminum foil. We walked to the driveway with a bucket of chalk. I sketched out the states surrounding the Ohio River.

We set the foil out along the line of the river and curved the side up high. The eldest grabbed plastic teepees, warriors and canoes. The six year old held the raft and began gathering “supplies.” Little leaves, tiny berries, small stick to use as rifles.

We poured water into the Ohio river and the cardboard raft achieved lift off.

The boys were thrilled. As I read aloud from our book, they acted out each page. They asked thoughtful questions that sent me running to the computer for more information. They played with this set up for hours. Long after I had finished our assigned reading and the extra books in our basket, they played on.

I sat in a green lawn chair and hummed through Over the Rhine’s Ohio album.

By the end of the day, the water had leaked out and washed away the chalk. The next day, the boys ran out of the house with a laminated map in hand. Together they determined where the boundaries of each states should be. They carefully reshaped the Ohio river and even thought to elevate one end with flat rocks to help the stream flow in the right direction.

Its good to change the scenery sometimes. Its good to give their small hands something to do while they absorb information.

Before starting “On the Banks of Plum Creek,” I handed each boy a bowl, tweezers and an ear of Indian corn. They pried kernels loose while I read. We are collecting all these colorful kernels for our upcoming Thanksgiving unit. I love the concentration they exhibit during this exercise. The silence is also pretty fantastic.

We read five or six books on Johnny Appleseed this week. Our whole week was infused with apples! I made apple dumplings for the boys to eat while I read aloud from Margaret Hodges book. We sliced apples in half and used them to stamp butcher paper. We carefully folded up our project and stored it away for next month, we’ll be using the long rolls of apple stamped paper to wrap up presents for family. My five year old collected dozens of apple seeds and we used them as counters for our math lessons. The boys learned a great deal about John Chapman’s character this week. I believe it is the first time they have ever truly considered the idea of legacy. They are starting to wonder if they could change the world around them, even in a small, yet still significant, way. I pulled out Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney. After reading about the transformation Miss Rumphius ignites in her neighborhood, I charged the boys to begin thinking of ways they could impact our neighborhood for Christ. I am looking forward to hearing what they come up with!

We have been studying kingdoms and classifications in Classical Conversations this year. We used a few of our science worksheets and lab sheets to reinforce our MFW Science. The boys really enjoyed this exercise in particular.

Animal Kingdom Notebook Printables helped flesh out our Animal Kingdom Classification Books. Divider pages for each different kingdom are provided. The boys filled in facts about each one and went through a pile of magazines and cut out animals for each category as an “end divider” for each kingdom. Now as we study various animals we encounter in stories, on nature walks, or in our curriculum, we can draw their picture, record facts and file them behind the appropriate kingdom.

Team B enjoyed many fun projects and games throughout the week with their Year of Playing Skillfully curriculum. Team A joined in the fun! They still need heavy doses of play throughout their day. Pumpkin volcanoes and a Van Gogh study kept hands and minds engaged during breaks this week.

We also had the opportunity to watch a free performance of “Peter and the Wolf” at our local library. I was amazed at how much the boys remembered from their study last year during My Father’s World 1st grade. They called out the names of different instruments and characters and remembered the majority of the plot line.

We are getting ready to study “The Nutcracker” in a few weeks. I have finished compiling all the assignments and we will complete the entire unit before attending the show! We can’t wait!

MFW Adventures: Eli Whitney & Failure

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

We have taken full advantage of all the FREEDOM homeschooling has to offer these past few weeks. During our study of Eli Whitney, we managed to travel south to visit my family for a celebration, we returned home to host my in-laws for a few days and we visited Legoland. We managed to stay on schedule, despite a birthday celebration and the stomach flu tossed into the already crazy mix.

Legoland offers wonderful deals for Homeschool families. We enjoyed an almost empty park and the boys returned, brimming with ideas for new builds. Perfect place to be for studying the great Eli Whitney.

We always love heading back to my hometown. The boys have four great grandparents living there and they soak up all the time they can with them. After spending time discussing the process of harvesting and deseeding cotton, the boys had a chance to visit my grandparents and harvest coffee beans off their coffee plants.

It began to rain as we pulled the red beans off the plant. The large green leaves overhead kept us mostly dry. It was a moment to etch upon my soul, working alongside my little guys in my Abuelo’s backyard, the rain falling all around us and pitter pattering on the leaves. We chatted as we gathered, then we tried to come up with ideas to make the coffee harvest a bit easier.
I spent a few days cleaning up all sorts of coffee gin prototypes off the floor. My favorite lego creation featured a giant claw hand that was manipulated with a long hollow stick. A button on the side opened and closed the hand. The beans fell through the stick into a sorting compartment that hulls the seeds with “tiny razors.” Later, the compartment detaches, the seeds then dry out in the sun within the confines of the compartment. Once the seeds dry, the compartment can be placed over a stove top for roasting. They spent a long time thinking through the design of their coffee gin. The five year old wants to market it. Sometimes I am tempted to make projects for the boys, especially models of things we are learning about. I have to remind myself that they learn nothing from sitting by while I fashion something. It is always, always better to let them build and discover for themselves. The boys made the cotton gin pictured above. They failed repeatedly before they got it just right.
Every week, they are getting better and better at failing. Its wonderful! They are learning how to make mistakes and how to recover from them. They are learning that success takes patience and hard work. Sheltering my kids from mistakes and failures is probably one of the cruelest things I could do to them. I want them to experience failure while they are in my home, while I am nearby to support them as they sort out what went wrong.

We are looking forward to learning more about other great American inventors. So many learning possibilities await! I am currently gathering all sorts of odds and ends, from broken appliances to random spare parts. We are making room in our home for an Invention Station. I can’t wait to see what they come up with!

We are more than halfway through Adventures. The boys have completed over half of their Saxon Math work for Grade 2. They completed the Wolf level of Wild Explorers Club and have moved on to the Bobcat level. It all feels an awful lot like growing up…..
We celebrated all these good things with a day at the theater. I am thankful to live near a theater program that includes homeschool families in their arrangement with the local public school system. Its costs our family much less money to attend the live theater than to attend the movie theater.

Ohio Pioneers are on the horizon. Looking forward to building rafts and making maps with my boys!

MFW Adventures: Wilderness Road & Wild Boys

November 9, 2015November 15, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 1 Comment

Wilderness Road! Wilderness Road!

This curriculum is just too much fun.

We started unit 17 with a long walk through our local grassland preserve to celebrate our “Wilderness Road Day” Celebration. Thanks to the damp sand, the boys managed to track a rabbit for some distance. They also managed to track each other for a good long while, which was very funny. They’d ask, “What on earth made these funny tracks?” I would respond, “Hmmm, looks like a North American Pre Pubescent Homo Sapien to me.” Their father played this trick on them weeks ago but they still fell for it when I did it. Yessssssss!

We spent the rest of our walk imitating bird calls. One boy would pretend to be Daniel Boone and the rest of us were Native Americans. We’d hide and call out like wild turkeys to try and draw him out. We went through our yard and ate lunch based off of what we could find outside. We ended up eating eggs and cocoplums, and drinking pine needle tea, just like our friend Daniel Boone. It was terrible tea and we laughed over the tops of our cups and there were plenty of gagging noises and melodramatic “death by poison” scenes acted out at the table.

Then the Lincoln Logs were brought out and the boys built ever so many forts while bedecked in coonskin caps and fringed pioneer pants. We ended our Wilderness Road Day Celebration with “wagon wheel “cookies and milk. Don’t go looking on pinterest for an adorable recipe for wagon wheel cookies. You won’t find it what we made. Our wagon wheel cookies were made by my son. They are regular old sugar cookies with wagon wheel tracks on them. 😉

The boys happily settled in for their Saxon math lesson after all that exploration, building, gagging and feasting.

We’ve been able to build some really cool models and replicas this year. For this unit, we built a Frontier fort with the help of a very patient homeschool principle. I found this fort at the Rainbow Resource booth at the FPEA conference for $3. A quick search of the Rainbow Resource page did not yield an available link for purchasing this kit. Here is the more expensive Amazon link for the fort. This fort kit if for ages 8+. The boys definitely needed help with using wood glue and clamps to get the pieces to hold together.

This winter we will be harvesting from our first big garden here on the farm. We spent this month preparing the beds and starting our seeds. The boys are excited to eat like frontiersmen. I keep reminding them they will be working hard too. This garden will be a full time job!

We spent that Saturday morning sorting through our seed archive. We talked about what plants would yield the most crop at this time of year. What would be most beneficial for our table to plant? How would we store these vegetables once they came in? The boys had so many interesting answers based off of our readings in Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder. They are quite eager to harvest the crop and find ways to preserve our food! It is their dearest wish to pack something in sawdust and then walk in to the kitchen to find that I have cooked a mountain of food the way Almanzo’s mother does every five minutes. (Seriously, that woman cooks SO MUCH FOOD!!!)

Little House on the Prairie blog has these great pioneer paper doll printables, (along with a dozen other cute things) that we used this week. The boys loved putting these together while I read from Pioneers & Patriots. They ended up coloring and cutting out a bunch of accessories for their paper dolls to take on the long journey.

All this Wilderness Road/Pioneer reading made for a pack of mighty wild boys. They spent the week running, playing in the house, jumping in leaf piles, chasing the dog and bouncing on the adventure rope.
I am so thankful that they get to run wild.

On days when our parenting is terrible, our boys walk in through the back door and I look at them and take comfort in knowing that in this we are doing what is right for them. Sweaty hair, red faces streaked with dirt, grass stains on their clothes, windblown, smelling like sunshine and laughter and joy and childhood.

For the Birds– Birding & Resource List

October 19, 2015October 19, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

Bird watching with tiny ornithologists is no easy feat.
There is a constant flood of noise trumpeting our arrival minutes before we reach the glades that hold our most sought after birds. They often take flight before we even get there. Chances are, if we venture out of the house in search of a specific bird and preschoolers are in tow, we won’t have much luck.

So we learned to look for signs of birds around us. Discovering their nests, learning about their feeding habits, watching for patterns in their departures and returns to the neighborhood. We set up bird feeders in our trees and left colorful yarn in the back hollow for the birds to use when building their nests.

We stopped to listen.

Because we slowed down we heard the tiny chirps of baby cardinals tucked high in the limbs of our jasmine tree. We were there the day the nest tumbled down after a particularly bad storm. We scooped up the nest and quickly tucked it back in place.
We started collecting abandoned nests in the late summer once the squirrels started knocking them down from the trees.

We know where the owl lives in the back hollow. Its small and brown and we love to look for its pellets. His head can rotate in the most alarming ways.

When the baby mockingbirds flew away from their nest, we peaked inside and found one egg that never hatched. Frail and small; blue and perfectly speckled. Dwarfed when held next to one of our chicken’s eggs. We marveled at it.

The gaggle of ibis that frequent our yard, their long hooked beaks and funny legs probing the grass. They’ll hunt for bugs alongside our chickens.

The flash of bashful pink under the pines when the roseate spoonbill comes to visit.

Sandhill cranes, poking around the fence, stretching to their full height of 3-4 feet, look like nosy neighbors. The Gladys Kravitz of the bird world.

Our proximity to the Everglades provides us with a wide variety of birds to watch in our own yard if we simply sit down and look up. Peregrine falcons, hawks, and other raptors abound out here. We are even visited with some frequency by a beautiful bald eagle. We hear the loud screeches of these raptors as they close in on their prey. We find remnants of their meals on the ground beneath the towering pines near the orchard. The back end of a rabbit. The head of a small bird. A gutted fish.

Tell me about the robin’s nest? Where is it located? What is the nest made of? What does the robin eat? We discovered these answers over days of rambling about the farm, remembering to keep our eyes and ears open. Pirate raids and jousting tournaments put on pause when we heard the familiar call of the blue jay that lives in the oak tree. We watched the epic battles between the jays and mockingbirds unfold before our very eyes. Quick turns out to the yard after breakfast to stop and listen under a nest teeming with young. We watched them grow up and fly away.

We spent time writing down the things we saw and when we saw them. Recording our findings helped us to see the patterns. The exquisite formula of nature.

Two weeks ago we drove to a bird trail and found the gates locked. The boys were terribly disappointed. As we slowly drove home along the canal, we encountered a large stork, lit up by the early morning rays, a long snake dangling from his beak. I stopped the car and we stared at him in silence as he slowly slurped the snake down his throat like spaghetti. Nature always finds us, even on days when we are turned away at the gate.

Yet the boys were determined to begin their own birding expeditions away from our yard. So I set about slowly teaching the boys how to birdwatch on the trail.

We started out by reading “Take a Backyard Bird Walk” by Jane Kirkland. This is a fantastic introduction to the world of birding. How to find nests, learning about habits and migration, even learning how to determine what a bird eats based on the shape of its bill. There are blank pages for observation notes. This is not a book for bird identification but rather a birding “how to.” Truly, a great find that cements birding in the backyard and helped transition us to birding on the trails.

A few other books have sat on our school table, providing information and vocabulary tools for any curious passersby.

Along with the house favorite Fandex….

We started with our native birds. Two at a time. We loaded our ark with knowledge in this way. We drew pictures and watched quick youtube videos about each bird. We squinted up into the sky in search of them.

We learned how to pack for our nature hikes. I learned to always bring a snack for the loudest preschooler. It keeps him quiet and out of trouble. I recommend our recipe for Audobonbons.
We record our findings and remember to check in with our local Audubon Society for help identifying unknown birds we encounter. Birding with littles can be challenging. Teaching children to be purposeful in their nature walks is challenging too. Both are incredibly fun and rewarding.
What started out as a brief unit study for My Father’s World Adventures in US History has become a lifestyle habit. We observe and record birds. They are familiar to us. They are part of our life rhythm here on the farm. Birding teaches us to classify, record, relate, recall, and dialogue. It is now an integral part of nature study for us.

Here are a few other tools and resources we use in our ongoing bird study.

Booklist:
Mama built a Nest by Jennifer Ward
Birds, Nests and Eggs by Mel Boring
Feathers, Not Just for Flying by Melissa Stewart
What Makes a Bird a Bird? by Mary Garelick
A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins
About Birds: A Guide for Children by Cathryn Sills
The Bird Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
Feathers for Lunch by Lois Elhert (great for the littles!)
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton W Burgess
Beaks! by Sneed B. Colard III
An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston
Birdsong by Audrey Wood
Our Yard is Full of Birds by Anne Rockwell
Two Blue Jays by Anne Rockwell

Activities:
Bird Bingo: A family favorite! There is also this version which features lovely hand drawn illustrations instead of pictures.
Lego Birds Model Kit: Bluejay, Hummingbird and Robin. They come with stands and a little sign inscribed with their latin names.
Bird Printables: I discovered these gorgeous printables off the delightful homeschool blog Chaos Meets Creativity. We used our printables around the house on a rainy day. I perched them on picture frames or high on shelves. The boys took their toilet paper roll binoculars and practiced spotting them an identifying them.
State Birds & Flowers 1000 piece puzzle
Birds of the Backyard 1000 piece puzzle
Backyard Birds toob: We always use our 40% off coupons at Hobby Lobby for these. They work in sensory bins, working with ordinal numbers or color sorting, and we love to make homes for them out of playdoh.

Online Resources:
Xeno Canto: The largest online collection of bird sounds
550 North American Bird Calls: specific to N.A.
All About Birds: Learn how to listen to and identify, bird calls. Browse the rest of the site for great information on birds!
10000 Birds:Loaded with info on birding and conservation
Nature Songs: More North American bird calls
Where do you want to go Birding today?: Database of the best place to go birding worldwide
There are some websites with bird calls specific to each state.
Florida
Wisconsin
Lots more if you do a google search of your state + birds!

MFW Adventures: Daniel Boone & Weather

October 18, 2015October 19, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ Leave a comment

Its time for Daniel Boone! Its time for Daniel Boone!!

We ended up doing a much more in-depth study of Daniel Boone than I had anticipated. My eldest spent the majority of the week sporting a coonskin cap and hauling around his trusty rifle, “tick-licker.” So named after Boone’s own gun which earned its moniker through Boone’s storied ability to shoot a tick off a bear from one hundred yards away.

We read through dozens of books on Daniel Boone. My boys were wide eyed and filled with great questions. Learning about Boone and the Wilderness Road compelled us to study the art of tracking and identification! Check out our MFW Adventures board on our pinterest page for links to various studies and printables. Can I also add that this is one of my favorite things about homeschooling? Find something interesting? Go ahead and deviate from the lesson plan and take time to explore. Fantastic!

We read books. We tracked the chickens in our backyard. We discovered the nests of the feuding squirrel families that live on the farm. We even made tracks in cookie dough for a fun snack! However, once baking started the cookies ended up rising a bit too much and filled in the tracks. But we still had fun making track cookies and eating them. Later in the day, the Littles made tracks in their playdoh using their Schleich animals while the eldest sorted track cards and read through books on tracking animals and identifying various plants.

Speaking of plant identification, we had the best time playing Wildcraft, a lovely cooperative board game that helps children learn about various herbs and their uses.

The kids and I recently signed up for Wild Explorers Club which has been a great fit for us! We ventured out to complete our second assignment for the highly anticipated Wolf Badge and to put our Boone study into practice.

As you can see, not many autumnal colors for us, but plenty of beauty nonetheless.

Our explorers were eager to find tracks and scat. They were not disappointed.
Poop, ahoy!

We found deer tracks and scat, rabbit tracks, grey fox tracks, horse tracks, and snake tracks. Best of all, we got to play nature detectives when we discovered the exoskeleton of a crayfish discarded on a muddy patch of trail covered in raccoon tracks, which led us to raccoon scat 50 yards away. We had read Millicent Selsam’s excellent book “Big Tracks, Little Tracks: Following Animal Prints,” the day before, which had detailed this exact scenario. What a blessing to have it unfold before our very eyes. We were pumped! Its good to spend the morning slowly uncovering nature’s stories.

We’ll spend the next week focusing more on our native plants and animals, along with celebrating our own “Wilderness Road Day” which we’ll be sure to share with you!

The first portion of our weather study was a big hit! The boys loved all their Science with Air experiments. We added in plenty of fun weather related reads to our Literary Lunch hour.

I made sure to include a few books related to the weather in our area. Hurricanes are a part of life down here.

It never ever snows here. So we threw in a few snow related books as well.

One of my favorite science resources is this gorgeous book:
My boys love looking through this book and I often find them copying pictures from its pages. This week we took a closer at Julia Rothman’s snowflake renderings.

The boys were fascinated by these pages. It eventually led us to this snowflake generator. Small clicks leave small ice prisms, long drags and clicks make larger shafts of ice. The 2D and 3D views of our snowflake creations were quite the thrilling experience for these southern kiddos!

Unit 17 is up next. We are eager to continue our journey deeper into the frontier.

Art Appreciation + Resource List

October 10, 2015October 19, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 3 Comments

“We cannot measure the influence that one or another artist has upon the child’s sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sights of life; he is enriched more than we know in having really looked at even a single picture.”—Charlotte Mason

I want art to be a part of the mold that serves to shape my children into the adults they will one day be.

Art trains our eyes to behold life with wonder. Studying art adds texture to our history timeline. Art adds depth to stories and breathes life into our everyday academics. Art provides a space for souls to encounter and reflect. Art calls us to create. Art is a valuable and worthy use of our time.

Teaching children to appreciate art felt like a daunting prospect when I first started. While my lovely sister was always supremely gifted with art, I was gifted in the art of hacking together a *good enough* project. I could *kind of* make art. I certainly knew how to appreciate various forms of art, but in the execution department, I was sorely lacking. When it came time to teach my children, I felt a bit overwhelmed and more than a little underprepared.

One child loved art, one child hated it. One child loved to make and break, one child could not bear to touch anything weird. One child loved Picasso and Monet, one child repeatedly asked “is this over yet?”

All of them are growing to love and appreciate art.

When did that happen? It happened over time. Growing up with art takes time.

If you’ve been following, you know I am not a “Top Ten Ways to” or “How to Perfect…” kind of blogger. But I do love me some philosophy of Education. After tons and tons of reading over the years, I have learned to approach any subject I teach like some weird Classical/Charlotte Mason Ninja with Montessori-ish throwing stars sporting a Fred Rogers Tshirt. Whether its the Trivium, or Charlotte’s 4 R’s (Reading, Reasoning, Relating, Recording), when I approach something I have a system in mind and a mantle of compassion and grace balanced precariously on my shoulders. Ahem, and *reinforcements in the pantry. *Read: chocolate and wine.

For me, Art is all about the E’s.

Expose, Encounter, Explore, Express, Emulate.

Expose:
This is, somehow, the simplest and most difficult of all the steps. There has to be a purposeful step taken towards including quality art in your home. You have to go out of your way to bring it inside. You have to decide to mix it into your everyday life.

The paintings pictured above are part of an art study called, Enjoying Art Together, from My Father’s World. They helped me get the ball rolling back in the days of little to no quality art. I would hold up one painting before breakfast and lunch. I would not say a word. I would just hold it up and the kids would look at it. I would display it on the server next to our table between meals. I would leave the other paintings around the house where the kids would find them. Art books and puzzles started popping up around the house. Art sprang up around the home wherever the kids looked. They lived with art.
Encounter
Then I cracked open the books and read stories. My goal was to engage them with each painting. I started to ask questions, “What colors are used in this painting? How does that color make you feel? What are these people doing? Is it sunny where they are? How do you know?” Then they asked each other questions. They would look and look into a painting until they came up with a story about each one. Some stories were quite lovely, I will never forget my eldest son’s interpretation of Renoir’s “A girl with a watering can,” it was simple and heart achingly sweet. Nor will I forget my cheeky four year old’s story about Jackson Pollock’s “Blue Poles.”

“Forest made of spaghetti, my name is Blue and I DON’T like you. You show up on my plate on Thursdays and I wish you were tacos. Stop making me into blue forks, when all I want is to be free to love a taco.”

Deep stuff, I know.

Surface value questions that lead to internal interpretation of what the artwork relates to them. That is pretty much the goal.

Explore
We start to look into how these pieces of art were made. I call their attention to certain elements. I slip in vocabulary words and touch on techniques. They repeat words back to me and then the new questions start. Michelangelo used marble? Where did it come from? How long did it take to haul out each piece? How long did he train to do this? What were his days like and how did that impact what he made? What other sculptures did he make? Do you have a favorite?

Lets think about these cave paintings. Where did all the different colors come from? What materials can we gather if we were to make this painting? Could we make this painting in another form? How would it look as a sculpture? watercolor? mixed media? The more artists and artwork we add to our vocabulary the more depth this step begins to have. For example, my seven year old choosing to paint triptychs based off of woodcuts from one of his favorite storybooks using brushes he made out of sticks and ferns from the back hollow. This idea sprang from a dozen sources and converged upon our dining room table one random rainy afternoon.
Express
Technically, they have been expressing all along! Their reaction to the initial art exposure, their questions and answers as they encountered art, their research and response as they explored the artwork. Now I gather all those balloons, tie them together, hand them over to my children and watch the lift off. This is the place where ideas and concepts mesh together and my children have the opportunity to express what they have learned. They talk about the odds and ends they have gathered and the different ways they employed each piece. This is probably my favorite portion of the process. We have moved from questions to conversation. Its a beautiful step and always takes the most unexpected shapes. In Classical education, every single subject is interconnected and it really shows when we reach this portion. Science, history, geography, math, language— all of it comes into play. Art and academics serve to enrich each other. Its rather thrilling. 🙂 Emulate
Now we go back to the beginning and look at the piece anew. I bring out texts or tools and we try and learn some techniques together. We recall the vocabulary we learned as we explored. We remember lines and shades and shapes we studied. Then we emulate what we have processed. It is easier to do this step after we have formed a friendship with the artist. We just had tea in a cozy Parisian cafe. Remember that crazy waiter who kept dropping the hot croissants? The night sounded like a lone trumpet and the breeze knew every hair on our heads. We can learn how to paint these elements now that we have spent days with them. Of course, it will never be the same breeze. It won’t be the exact waiter. We know this. We keep trying and we keep learning, and in our minds, we see the painting we want. We encourage our hands to keep trying.

Sometimes kids freak out when their art doesn’t match up to the idea in their minds. Sometimes I freak out too. But we are doing this together, the kids and I. The chances are high that at least one of us can talk the rest of the group away from the ledge of artistic despair. (So many FEELINGS in art class! Ay yi yi!) We remind each other, “Emulate might look more like an Echo, for now.” (or forever, in my case). Art is not a perfectly executed machine. I don’t ask for or require perfection. Art is chance to demonstrate what they have learned and showcase their experience with it. The children’s Matisse renditions looked nothing like Matisse, but they felt like Matisse.

My eldest hated drawing for the longest time. But he persevered and continued to work hard. A few months ago, he drew this picture of his hero, George Washington.

Technique may not be perfect, but art has seeped into their pores and mingled with their thoughts and become impressed upon their cellular memory as they paint, mold, sculpt, paste, splatter and create.

Posts like this make me nervous. Don’t read perfection. Don’t think I have it all figured out. With four kids in the mix, we rarely have an art session that does not include tears or disappointment of some kind. Find a way to let art find its way into your home. Whatever that looks like for your family, just take the first step because it is a beautiful, valuable element of education that should not be overlooked.

Farmhouse Schoolhouse Favorite Art Resources

Websites~
Donna Young: the whole site is full of ideas for various subjects. Donna’s art tab has great projects and directions for learning drawing techniques and perspectives. Very helpful!
Art History Mom: I really dig this site. Art History Mom has tons of project ideas based off of various famous pieces of art. We loved her Van Gogh Sunflower art project.
The Artful Parent: Pretty much everything in this site is great. “Simple ways to fill your family’s life with art & creativity.” Yes, please.
Filth Wizardry: Discovered this gem thanks to The Homegrown Preschooler. Messy art for kids. Huzzah! #sayyes!
Jackson Pollock Painting Center: it comes up as a blank site. As you drag your cursor the lines appear and once you click it will switch over to a new color. No ads, no weird pop ups, just painting Pollock style. The tots LOVE this and I love it!
Picasso Head: Make Picasso heads with clip art. So much fun.
National Art Gallery for Kids: There is so much on this site, I don’t even know where to start. Check it out. My kids made a gorgeous landscape a few weeks ago using this site. It was really fun to watch unfold.

Art Studies~
Simply Charlotte Mason’s Picture Study Portfolio
My Father’s World Enjoying Art Together
Memoria Press Art Cards
Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes

Book List~
Katie and the Picture Show by James Mayhew (Adorable little Katie visits Museums, crawls into pictures and goes on adventures. We love every. single. one.)
Katie and the Starry Night by James Mayhew
Katie and the Sunflowers by James Mayhew
Katie and the Bathers by James Mayhew
Katie Meets the Impressionists by James Mayhew
Katie and the Waterlily Pond by James Mayhew
Katie and the Spanish Princess by James Mayhew
Katie and the Mona Lisa by James Mayhew
Anholt’s Artists Books for Children by Laurence Anholt: This is a great series! We love “The Magical Garden of Claude Monet”
Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists: Another great series by Mike Venezia. Your local library may even have some DVDs. Our boys adore Venezia’s story about Michelangelo.
Mini Masters Boardbooks: A series for toddlers. We love these. They have gotten really really pricey. I’m talking $40 on amazon for the Monet one. We found ours as a bundle on ebay. These are definitely cute but I wouldn’t break the bank to get them.
Henri Matisse: Drawing with Scissors by Jane O’Conner
Vincent Van Gogh: Sunflowers and Swirly Stars by Joan Holub
Pablo Picasso: Breaking All the Rules by True Kelley
Tickle Tut’s Toes by Julie Appel
Make Van Gogh’s Bed by Julie Appel
Count Monet’s Lillies by Julie Appel
Maryann F. Kohl has fantastic art books! We have about 10 of them. We have found them for pennies at thrift stores and on used book sites. Global Art, Story Art and Discovering Great Artists are some of our favorites.
A Child’s Book of Art by Lucy Micklethwait
ANY COFFEE TABLE BOOK WITH GIANT PICTURES OF ART. Truly, get thee to a Barnes & Nobles and check out that huge clearance section of books. There is almost always a giant collection of art that you can buy for around $5. Its usually tucked behind “Weapons of the Civil War” and “Haunting Visions of Ireland.” Pictures. of. art. Go!
Paul Cezanne Block Puzzle: I know its not a book, but this one is too good not to share. Six paintings, one puzzle, big chunky blocks. We love ours.

Art Supplies typically not listed on other blogs~
Kraft Paper Rolls: I’m talking the ginormous 1000 ft rolls. They last a good year and a half or so and we use it every week. I just unroll enough to cover the table, cut and the kids can paint and practice new techniques or make a huge mural.
Plastic Egg Cartons: Yup. Ask your family to save them for you. Cut them apart so you have trays with six slots each. These are cheap, disposable paint palettes.
Twine: We use a surprising amount of twine. Mostly because the boys love making their own paintbrushes thanks to “Benjamin West and his Cat Grimalkin” by Marguerite Henry. (Story of American painter Benjamin West who grew up in a Quaker home, no art allowed, and made paint brushes out of his cat’s hair). We use the twine to bundle up pine needles or grass blades to sticks for a natural paint brush.
Vegetable/Fruit Scraps: Don’t throw that celery butt away. Hand it to your toddler to make celery stamps while you are teaching your older kids the basics of drawing. Keep those moldy strawberries and squish the juice out of them to make paint.
Grocery bags: Its not a bag anymore. Its a smock. Paper or plastic—it will work.
Standing Mirror: For self portraits.
Chocolate: For despair.
A camera: For documenting your child’s artwork and progress!

MFW Adventures: States & Birds

September 30, 2015September 30, 2015 ~ Feisty Mama ~ 4 Comments

We are loving our tour through the United States.

The boys memorized all fifty states and capitols last year during Cycle 3 of Classical Conversations. They also tackled all the geographical features and memorized many different important pieces of American History in their weekly History sentences. I’ve loved watching all this information burst out of them at different points this year.

I was initially worried that the State Study would not be enough on its own for them. But once again, turns out what MFW has prepared is more than sufficient!

I comb-bound all our state sheets into one notebook for each boy and purchased a special set of Prismacolor colored pencils. The boys know these pencils are very special (aka mucho dinero) and are only to be used with our state sheets. I love seeing the special care they have taken with these new tools. Its made them work carefully and their trademark little boy sloppiness has diminished greatly as the days pass. They are eager to shade their state birds just so and capture the exact color of each state flower.

While the boys work on their State Sheets and Lego State creations, I read from various books. We have been using the suggested book list from MFW, but I have also incorporated a book of collected poems by Lee Bennet Hopkins entitled, “My America: A Poetry Atlas of the United States.” I also try and include readings from a few poets or authors hailing from the states we are studying. We usually glean these authors from the list of state poet laureates. (PS There are FIVE states with Official State Poems). Lastly, I read the next book off of our Beautiful Feet Books list. I will be posting our list and references soon so be on the lookout! We’ve read so many wonderful new books in the last two weeks. Its fun watching the boys play “raise the barn” or make knick knacks around the house to sell at Portsmouth Market like the Ox-Cart man.

Some days the reading outlasts the work at hand. On those days the boys rush to pull out their much adored US History Geo puzzle. Some days the work outlasts the reading. On those days I rush to find a bottle of my much adored Essie nail polish.

The littles stay engaged by coloring their own states sheets and then making states out of play doh. Other times they prefer to stick with their own motor skill/sensory play activities.

I have honestly spent more time in the last two weeks preparing activities for the younger boys to engage with so that our older boys can focus well on their work. Of course, this means that when the older boys finish their work they rush over to see what their younger siblings are up to and the join in the play!

Our study of birds is progressing beautifully. I am in love with this portion of Adventures! Having the Everglades nearby blesses us with a large variety of birds year round. This gentle introduction of state birds has blossomed into a new hobby for my children.We’ve started collecting feathers and nests. The eldest has asked for several new books on Audubon’s life. We are eager to learn about the birds in our area and are planning a field trip to our local Audubon base. Pretty much everyone was happy… until they realized we would not be making a delicious chocolate nest treat every single time we studied a new bird. Oh, the drama!

Training the boys to observe nature quietly is not easy. I’ve armed them to the teeth with binoculars, notebooks, cameras and colored pencils, hoping that occupied hands would silence voices that lack volume control. This plan met with mixed success. I finally realized that merging the toddler’s snack time with our nature walks was the way to go!

BEHOLD!!!

A recipe on my blog. This may not ever happen again, so enjoy it….

Audubonbons

Ingredients:
Granola bars
Chocolate Bar
Wax Paper

Step 1: Cut granola bar into bite sized squares.
Step 2: Place granola squares onto a cookie sheet lined with wax paper
Step 3: Melt the chocolate bar and drizzle it onto the granola squares
Step 4: Place in fridge until hardened. Or place in freezer as an extra treat for teething toddler or as a tooth loss motivator for your 7 year old and his loose tooth thats been hanging in there for two months without falling out. Sigh.
Step 5: Place in baggie and take along on your nature hike.
Step 6: Hand it to your toddler and say “stick some Audubonbons in your pie hole and let your brother draw the mockingbird!”

Next week, we will be writing up a more thorough look at our bird watching activities. It will most certainly not be a “how to” guide, more like a “don’t you feel better about your nature walk/life in general now?” kinda thing. Tears and laughter abound.

Speaking of life in general. The humidity is starting to dissipate! Its still warm, but its bearable. As in, I no longer feel like I am walking in a can of soup when I walk outside. From this point on, any schooling that can be done outside—will be done outside! Hooray! Time to bust that picnic basket out of storage.

Anyone else adoring “Farmer Boy” by Laura Ingalls Wilder? Its inspiring the boys to get even more involved on the farm. Training the new pup to guard the chickens, pulling weeds and helping mark out garden plans. Its going to be a lovely, all hands on deck, kinda Fall!