Baby Pigeons Hatched!

Right after we moved into our home, we discovered this nest built by pigeons right off our 3rd story balcony. We thought there was only one egg, but it looks like mama hatched 2 baby birds! We finally got a look at her babies today. She is very protective!

In our neck of the woods, Summer is the time for Science! Check out this video of her babies.

Science Classics

The Geometry of Fruits and Vegetables

Ooooo! Science! I've always been fascinated by science. I really enjoyed all of my science classes except Chemistry. I was feeling a bit daunted by the idea of learning science through classics. To me, science seems to NEED hands-on experience...you know...LABS! We tried a couple of Science curriculum packages, but really found them tedious and boring. With a sigh and my hands thrown up in the air I said, "Fine! I'll look for science classics!"

I have read a few now and found they greatly enhance my understanding in ways I was not expecting. First, I didn't understand everything, but I was able to understand MORE than before. Secondly, for me, most of these science classics will need to be studied repeatedly for me to grasp all the concepts in them. But, that's what classics are for! To be read over, and over, and over - finding new knowledge along the way in each re-read.

Science Classics from the TJED for Teens list:

• A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science by Michael S. Schnieder (See more below)
• The Illustrated Brief History of Time, Updated and Expanded Edition by Stephen Hawkins
• Relativity: The Special and the General Theory by Albert Einstein
• Elementus - Books I, II, III, and IV by Euclid

Constructing the Universe website

You have got to check out this website - Constructing the Universe. It goes hand-in-hand with the book "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science". There  are lots of different links and additional activity books available on this website. We have not bought the activity books, but I thought some might like this nugget of information. I do want to go to his Constructing the Universe classroom, it looks like so much fun! If I had the money I would have a science "lab" like his.

When to Study Science Classics

It is interesting to note the interaction of math and science. I've read a few books, and also in the Robinson Curriculum, that suggest that students should not start any formal study of science until they have mastered Algebra II and Geometry. We have followed that path and discovered that this method is a sound one. Nayna is taking a college level science class because she felt the study of Science was one of her weakest points. She has since learned that she can rapidly learn all that she does not know. In fact, she is tutoring an adult in her college class and is the lead in her study group, simply because she waited until she was ready to study science.

Studying Science Through Nature

The Charlotte Mason home education method has some great ideas on studying science through observation and hands-on experience. During Core and Love of Learning Phases, this is how we addressed science. Now that my children are Scholars, we can still learn that way and begin adding in the science classics.

NOTE: Science and Religion. It is important to note that some science classics try to rule out God or any notion of Intelligent Design. Studying these science classics with my children, or often before them, allows me to know ahead of time what areas we may need to stop and discuss our beliefs and the truth and knowledge that we have gained. Those with a shaky foundation or Core could be swayed to believe untruths. We enjoyed a movie called, "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed", which touches on the removal of God from science. You can watch this movie on YouTube here if you are interested.

A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time is a fascinating book. I am truly surprised at how detailed a "brief history" can be. I was very overwhelmed by the subject in the first few chapters, then I realized, this was going to take more study and more time than what I had originally prepared myself for. Thus, it took me several more weeks than anticipated to finish.

Do I understand everything in this book? Absolutely not! I have a basic overview, or outline as Hawkings would put it, of the string theory of the universe. I have a limited understanding of relativity and the workings of gravity, but I am happy that at least I know more than what I did before. It can be so easy to get discouraged by an overwhelming subject of study, but I have learned that everything takes time to digest, especially subjects that are not my easiest subjects, like science and math.

I took several pages of notes to help me remember what I studied on this book. Towards the end I was genuinely intrigued by the idea that the universe can have one mathematical theory to explain how everything works. Hawkings does a good job of touching on the existence of God while still maintaining his scientific findings, something rarely seen in a published scientific work.

Another thought I had while reading this book was that I feel outraged and cheated that so much of what is in our current textbooks is so outdated. Hawkings does his fair share of discussing how you need to be an expert to understand it all. It was another glaring example of the dumbing down of society....the general public is too dumb to understand. Will I ever fully understand string theory? Probably not, but exposure will lead to higher understanding over time.

Botanical Garden Fieldtrip

We had the opportunity to go to the Grand Opening of the local botanical garden. Everything was free and we had a great time with some of our friends. We went into the butterfly house, which is about to be closed. I'm sure late Spring, early Summer will be a better time to return. We saw three era's of homes, two log cabins and one wood home. They had hands-on things to do like grind corn. My favorite was the Japanese Stroll Garden with their beautiful ponds full of huge Koi! It was the perfect day to see these with the changing of Fall. Gotta enjoy the weather while we can.

Marshmallow Canons

Chris LOVES making things. He says he is leaning towards becoming an Engineer. I think it would be an awesome career, based on his likes, dislikes, and abilities. He and his friend took apart the Marshmallow Guns he made the other day and made this...

A Pleasant Surprise...

The other night we sat out on the porch and I looked up to see a pile of sticks on top of the porch light. I thought, "Why did Christian put those sticks up there?" Upon closer inspection I realized we have neighbors...cute little birdie neighbors!

A warm, safe place for a nest out of the wind...

...with three babies percolating.

We've seen the mama bird several times and now I realize why the songs she sings are so loud...they are right outside the back door! These eggs are American Robin and will someday look like this...

Slime Monsters!

My post today on "In the TJED Trenches":

I forgot I was supposed to post today...hee hee!

One of our favorite science experiments turned into a slime contest to see who could formulate the best slime.

The contest was for each child to research different recipes they could find for polymer solutions to make Gak, Slime, Flubber, or Silly Putty. They could then experiment with the different recipes in order to determine which recipe was the best. I encouraged them to come up with variations of their own based upon the recipes they tried. Chris really got into the slime making, as you can see here, and decided that combining Silly Putty and Slime recipes turned out the best. I was going to post the recipe and then realized it might be better to let you find out through your own slime contest....learning through experimentation really does work!

P.S. As I'm typing this my daughter, Marly, walked up to read what I was typing and said, "That was really good slime, too."

School House Rock

I remember these little videos that used to play during Saturday morning cartoons. I ran across them on YouTube and thought...."I can use these for homeschool." I mean, I thought they were catchy and fun when I was a kid. Of course, my kids think they are corny...but they do teach something, unlike most cartoons these days.

This one is my favorite - Conjunction Junction:



Here are some others that I found about:

Grammar

• Interjections!
• Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here
• A Noun is a Person Place of Thing
• Verb
• Unpack Your Adjectives
• Grammar: The Tale of Mr. Morton
• Prepositions
• Pronoun
  

Government & History

• I'm Just a Bill
• No More Kings
• The Preamble
• The Shot Heard 'Round the World
• Elbow Room
• The Great American Melting Pot

Science

• Dem Bones
• Electricity
  

There are tons more...

Week 19

Ok - I've been very bad about keeping up on my homeschool posts with moving and all. But, it is never too late to get back on track...forgot to post this one on the right day.

Christian - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Sir Thomas Mallory, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Playaway) - We let Christian go out-of-town with cousins for most of the week, so he did not get as much done this week. He did take a couple of classic books with him on Playaway.
Marlayna - Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl, Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques, The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbol,
Me - Books - Emily Post's Etiquette and started Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Audio files at LDS-HEA - Darla Isackson, Paul Mero, Reed A. Benson, John Taylor Gatto, etc.

Do Together -

• Devotionals - Let Him Ask of God pg. 143 thru147
• Read Aloud - Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingals Wilder
  
• Government and Freedom - Mandate video on the President's of the United States, Civil War, and The New Deal
• Mathematician - Mathematicians are People Too "Galileo" pgs.45-51
  
• Musician - Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers pgs.27-34
  
• History - "Roman Empire" - Story of the World Vol. 2 pgs. 1-5 and Usborne Encyclopedia of World History pgs. 182-191
• Genealogy - Worked on my side of the 15 Generation Chart - See Mom Notes below.
  
• English and Grammar - Winston Grammar (we skipped school this day)
  
• Artist - (we skipped school this day)
  
• Science - "Ears and Eyes" - Usborne Science Encyclopedia pgs. 370-373, How the Body Works, Human Body Coloring Book
  
• Words of the Day - irreverant, meticulous, vindicate,

Mom Notes - We are loving the 15 Generation Chart! It has been so exciting to write in all the names of the ancestors we have information on. It makes it easy to see where work needs to be done. Also, we decided to highlight those born in other countries. Each country has a color - England, Canada, Ireland, France (American born are not highlighted at all) - so that we could get a visual picture for what percentage we are of each culture. We discovered that my mom's side of the family is American clear back for 9 generations! Also, I am a 4th generation Arizonan and my children are 5th generation Arizonan. How often do you find that?

Science, Slime, and the Human Body - 2009 - Week 8

I don't think reading a basic run down of every chapter we did in math and worksheets we used is fun to read....so we are going to focus on more what our real day looks like.

Science Fun
Human Body - Skin, Hair, and Nails Unit
On Thursday we started this very interesting- and a little gross - unit! In true Leadership Ed. (TJED) fashion I allowed the kids to take this lab to where their interests led them and then we looked up more with our books and the Internet. We have an awesome microscope that we bought at Amazon.com and slides (Kit A and Kit B) from the 4-Year Plan. Plus we made our own slides.

Here are the things we looked at:

• Dead skin from our own hands/arms.
• Hair from each of us and the dog.
• A dog eye booger. (eeewwww! not my idea)
• Saliva - Chris' to be exact.
  
• Prepared slide - Human Skin Cross-section - this shows the hair and how it grows out of the skin. We could also see the sweat pores.
• Prepared slide - Mouth Swab - the inside of our cheek skin.
• Prepared slide - Human Blood.

Book Resources:

• Usborne Science Encyclopedia - pgs.368-369
• How the Body Works - pgs. 31-41

Slime Lab
On Thursday thru Friday my kids wanted another lab day and so we went on a quest to find the BEST slime recipe. We tried several recipes and decided the best is to combine a Silly Putty and Slime recipe to get a nice, bouncy slime. The kids also discovered that if you put the concoction in the refrigerator over night it makes a better bouncy slime.

Read Together - We finished Little House in the Big Woods and started Farmer Boy.

Socialization Activities - Principles of Leadership Class

Marly - Projects - Loom Knitting & sewing balls for the Humanitarian Center. Reading - Diary of a Whimpy Kid: The Last Straw, Dairy of a Whimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Guy Time, Regular Guy, The Diamond of Darkhold.

Chris - Projects - Leatherworking. Reading - Redwall series, Diary of a Whimpy Kid: The Last Straw, Dairy of a Whimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules.

Mom - Many of my projects are on hold. My work has graciously given me more hours, to which I am grateful. However, I'm very exhausted! Reading - The Love Dare and Leven Thumps and the Gateway of Foo.

2009 - Week 4 - This Week in Homeschooling

This week my children began a babysitting job for a sister in our ward who had a very preemie baby (1 lb. 10ozs.) I am happy for the experience my children are receiving, but greatly saddened by the situation of this dear friend and her family.

Kid's School:

• Devotionals - Gospel Principles lessons 10-11 (spent 3 days on lesson 11)
  
• Classes/Clubs Attended - Principles of Leadership
  
• SAT Prep vocabulary & spelling words - Review last week's words - New Words - dilate, doleful, conciliatory, insolvent, fawn
  
• Grammar & Writing - Journal Entries on each book read - The Winston Grammar Program: Basic Level - Word Roots Level A A1 & A2
  
• Science - The Human Body Unit - Nervous System - Useborne Science Encyclopedia pg. 364-367, How the Body Works pg. 115-121, Human Anatomy Coloring Book p. 24 (College level book - we do not memorize the terminology, but the detailed pictures are really good).
  
• P.E. - Daily dog walks. We were supposed to attend a hike at the Arboretum, but we had car trouble. :-(
  
• Math
• Marly: Math-U-See - Epsilon - Chapters 5-8
  
• Chris: Math-U-See - Delta - Chapter 14, Review for Unit 2 Test, online math drills (see below)
  
• Individual Reading
• Marly: The Story of the World: Vol.2 2-17, Princess Academy, The Seventh Tower, Book of a Thousand Days, Johnathan Livingston Seagull
  
• Chris: The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Vol. 1, 1-35 thru 1-37, finished Dragon Rider, started The Silver Chair.
  

Mom's School:

• Reading list - How to Be Totally Miserable: A Self-Hinder Book by John Bytheway, The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (quite an eyeopener - I recommend this book as a MUST READ!)
• Projects - (1)Drupal theming - see batchelorfamily.org where I converted the theme from this blog to my Drupal website. I know I'm the only excited about it, but that's OK. :-) (2) Prepared our taxes!
  

Free Online Math Drills!
I hate wasting paper on printing math drills. Math-U-See has free online math drills for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The website allows the student to drill on specific facts (multiply by 7's) or select a mixture of practice questions. I do not keep grades for drills, only for tests because we focus on mastery, so for me this works out perfectly. It has a timed factor that I love, it tells the student how fast they accomplished the drill, but it does not have a countdown visible to the student. I like this because some students have difficulty with "test anxiety".

Spring is for Science!

While most of the country is still pretty cold, we have had 80 degree temperatures this week. We have taken advantage of this fantastic weather and been enjoying the great outdoors. The bikes are getting used frequently, the dog is ecstatic getting so many walks, and the windows are thrown open to receive the gentle breeze. I love this time of year and hope the desert heat stays away for quite a while. My Fibromyalgia pain decreases during this time as the cold leaves. My joints feel better already!

Marly's Project

Last year we started using the Square Foot Garden method. We were successful with our radishes and strawberries, but not our carrots or lettuce. We are starting again. Marly has chosen this as her project. She tenderly cares for the boxes we made last year and we are clearly another section for two more 4' x 4' boxes. She researched and found planting guides for our area and has created a plan for the planting seasons this year.

Chris's Project

Chris has been progressively working on learning about electricity. Last year he made a complete circuit and this year he has been building several types of circuits using an Electronics Snap Kit. We purchased a kit called Crystal Radio, but have been unable to get it to work well (I do not recommend this kit). His project of game programming and HTML is still ongoing.

Sam's Project

Our stake is preparing for a Pioneer Trek. Sam is making most of her own clothing for this event that will take place this summer. We are starting with her apron. She has been on a trek previously and is very sure about what she wants this time. I'm happy to see her geared up to be an experienced trekker!

Homeschooling 4 - 5 Kids

Adventures in Homeschooling! My sister-in-law, who also homeschools, is on mandatory bed rest for a few weeks. She is pregnant and there is a hole in the placenta. They lost a baby in August 2007 also. So, she is an at-risk pregnancy in a couple ways right now. I offered to take her kids for the next few weeks to homeschool along with my own. Sam was home because she had her wisdom teeth out (poor baby!) and she schooled right along with us, working on an online world history class and studying for her other classes.

It is easier than I though it would be. I feel comfortable enough in educating the kids that it was easy to find things for everyone to work on and they have a great time!

I used to stress myself out with complicated curriculum, both public online school and curriculum I purchased. Now I've worked to simplify our education by focusing on a good math program, classic reading materials, and the interests of the children in science, history, and PE. My children are becoming more focused on their own education and actually OWNING it, rather than doing it because they were told to. They chose their own reading materials from the classics list and from the racks at the local library. I have some unit studies and lapbooking materials for times when they just need a creative outlet to show what they are learning.

Here are what we are educating our children with right now:

• Teaching Textbooks - Awesome math program!
• Classics list #1 - Thomas Jefferson Education List
  
• Classics list #2 - 1,000 Good Books List (by grades)
  
• Old Testament Lapbook - (history)
  
• Book of Mormon Lapbook
  
• Discover the Scriptures - Book of Mormon & Life of Thomas S. Monson
  
• Science Kits - Electronics Snap Kit, Froguts, Astronomy for Kids, and the Science Channel.
• Kid's personal projects - Chris is working on a website and Gamemaker. Marly is working on knitting, cooking, and crocheting. Sam is sewing her clothes for an upcoming Pioneer Trek reenactment.
  

Amazing Space

Ever wonder what constellations are visible in tonight's sky? Maybe you live in the city and cannot see the constellations as brightly as you would like?

When we first moved to our new home, the night sky was so bright that I remember being outside one night in our pool when Chris said, "Wow, Mom! Our new house has more stars than camping!" We laughed and began to explain how the night sky works and why one can see more stars when camping than when in the city where we used to live. That was four years ago. Well, our home is still a bit off the beaten path, but the night sky is getting less visible as more homes are built in our area. We still do not have "city" street lights, so that is a blessing when laying outside at night to point out the features of the Heavens Above. (If only the mosquitoes would stop eating us alive.)

We found a website called Amazing Space that has movies showing the night sky and which constellations are available in that month. This website will provide us days and days, or should I say nights and nights, of educational material for an in-depth space unit. This website also features Hubble Space Telescope shots of truly wondrous sights. It has an equally interesting Myth vs. Realities section to discuss misconceptions.