Of Birds and Sharks - Interesting Links for Children

I've been searching high and low through cyberspace for the perfect printout to compliment a nature checklist-type notebook, I'd like to work on as a project, with the children. To begin with, I was looking some kind of bird watcher's checklist for our state, or even better, for our county (which I found at the U.S. Geological Survey site, here).

Then I found exactly what I was looking for, from the the National Wildlife Federation. It's a by state chart, with a list, including thumbnail pictures, of all the birds, mammals, insects, and such, to look for, with a little box, to check off, once you spot each animal. It's absolutely terrific - except, that when you click on the link to go to the PDF file, it won't come up - tragic really.

I'm hoping it's a temporary glitch, though. I'll let you know if I ever find it working. And, in the meantime, on the same site, I found a very fun, shark identification/word scramble game, that D (age 8) is going to flip over. If you have a young, shark enthusiast in your home, you might want to check it out, too.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Spring Activities

Looking for things to do, with your children, this spring? I just found a excellent list of "101 Things to Do This Spring" over at BackyardNature.net.

Not only is it a great list of things to do outdoors, but it contains tons of terrific links, and book recommendations. Be sure to check it out! I know we will be, just as soon as I finish Googling a few answers to early spring questions like:

"Mom, are worms not insects?" (They're not, by the way. They are annelids.)

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Bloggers Day of Silence for Japan

We'll be spending time reading, and learning about Japan, today - praying, loving each other, and looking into what help is needed now - and what we can do personally.

For more information on the Blogger Day of Silence for Japan, click here.

What's In The Bible Popsicle Stick Theaters - And A Give Away!!!

I noticed the folks at What's In The Bible are now offering free printables of their popsicle stick theaters - sooo much easier than screen printing them from the online videos!

And, they were sweet enough to send us a free copy of their first DVD, What's in the Bible - In the Beginning, too. They sent us the DVD in response to our craft suggestion, not as a promotion, but of course we already have a copy, and love it (click here to see our review).

So, I was wondering if one of you might like this copy? I can't say enough good things about the series. It's a terrific way for children to have fun, and learn about the Bible at the same time.

If you live in the United States, and don't have a copy of this DVD, but would like one for your children, then leave a comment on this post, sometime this week, with an email where I can reach you. I'll draw one name from the comments next Friday (March 4, 2011), to receive this extra copy.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Designing Houses With Frank Lloyd Wright

The setting for Blue Balliet's The Wright 3 is the Robie House in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.

Researching the house, led us to the website of the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, the organization currently responsible for the care, and upkeep of the house. On their website we found, not only a virtual tour of the restoration of the house, but also a terrific curriculum guide for The Wright 3, and a link to Architect 3D Studio, where my older girls (ages 10 and 11) spent the afternoon, yesterday.

The program, which reminds me of a scaled down Zoo Empire, allows students to choose clients, and a sight location, and then to design a house that will meet the needs of both. Houses are designed on a 2D blueprint, but then can be viewed in 3-dimensional representations. Frank Lloyd Wright (or an animated version of the architect), pops up from time to time, with helpful advice, as children choose everything from window placement, to furniture, and landscaping.

Bravo to the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, for providing so many useful, and engaging, architectural activities for children, free of charge.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Fun and Learning, Origami for Children

On one of those ridiculously gray days, this last week, when we were all feeling too under motivated to accomplish anything of worth, I clicked over to Netflix in search of an entertaining, yet hopefully educational, documentary.

I landed on the PBS Independent Lens documentary, Between The Folds. I noticed our local library has a DVD copy too, or you can find it on YouTube in six parts, starting here.

The film is a thought provoking look into the modern world of origami, and how far it has moved beyond the simple paper crane. I'm not sure we're buying everything they're trying to sell, or maybe it's just that the half asleep voice of the narrator, combined with the dreamlike score of music, seemed a little overdone, like one of those films designed to make you feel smarter for just having watched it. But underneath all that, was a pretty interesting look at how a craft can become art, and how art combines with mathematics, and science in unexpected, but exciting ways.

It gave us (the older children and I) something to think about, anyway.

Needless to say I popped over to our library website, and put a quick hold on as many origami themed books, as I could find, including a couple of children's picture books, like Lissy's Friends by Grace Lin.



It is the story of a shy little girl, who finds herself in a new school, without any friends - until she makes some for herself. Ultimately, her paper "friends" provide her with an avenue for making real friends, as she shares with her classmates the art of paper folding.

C (age 4), loved the story, and all of Lissy's paper creations. But, she was very frustrated, that she couldn't follow the instructions at the back of the book to make her own paper crane.

I'll admit, I had trouble following the instructions myself. After a couple, paper crumpling, attempts, I turned to Wikihow for help, and finally managed to get something close to a bird. It was good enough for C, anyway. So much for the crane being simple.



Happily, a little bit of searching turned up a much easier paper frog printable, from Click Magazine, with simple enough instructions, we could all make one (the youngest two, with help).



After a few misfires...



...we even managed to get them to hop.



And, right before posting this, this morning, I came across instructions for a two fold, origami fish, at Paper Crafts for Children via Teach Preschool's Facebook page, that C is going to love.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth Activities

We learned how to measure the circumference of the earth, yesterday. Or, at least, how it was done over 2000 years ago, in Kathryn Lasky's The Librarian Who Measured the Earth.

The librarian is of course, Eratosthenes (AIR-uh-TOS-thuh-neez, if the pronunciation guide in the book is to be trusted). He measured the circumference of the earth, with amazing accuracy, in 240 BC, using only his mathematical skill, knowledge of a round earth, a couple of shadows, and a sure footed young man to pace off distances for him.

The children were interested in the fact, that there were people, called bematists, trained to walk with equal steps, so they could accurately pace off distances.

They gave it a try themselves marching across our living room, and then back again, and discovered not only did the number of steps they counted not match each others', but not all of them were able to keep a steady number from one side of the room to the other.

The bematists, Eratosthenes used, kept a steady count for a distance of about 800 km. That's pretty amazing.

We also had to test the idea, that the amount of curve to the earth could change the amount of shadow, cast by the sun, directly overhead.

We put two candles into a flat piece of playdough, and held a flashlight high above them, in the bathroom, where there aren't any windows, to let in side light.

While the playdough was flat, there were no, or almost no shadows, on either candle.

But, if we curved the playdough, one candle cast a long shadow, while the other didn't have any.


Carl Sagan actually does a better job of this experiment, using a map of the area, where the original experiment occurred. I might not always agree with Carl Sagan, but we enjoyed the clip below.



And, since the The Librarian Who Measured the Earth, has a good dose of history to go along with the math, we printed out a picture of the cover art, to cut out...


...and add to our timeline. I should probably mention too, that the book, while full of very engaging illustrations, was a touch too long, and detailed for the younger children.


You can find more fun with history, and geography at this week's History and Geography link-up, hosted by Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

Or, if you're really interested in better understanding the math Eratosthenes used to measure the circumference of the earth, check out this NASA for Kids clip, that not only explains it, but suggests another great hands on math activity to try at home.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

"Painting" Tessellations - Geometry for Children

I was up to my elbows in glue, and tissue paper today, trying to transform a newspaper covered balloon, and a bunch of toilet paper rolls into a pinata, that at least remotely resembled an octopus, or maybe a squid, or anything oceany, for an upcoming "under the sea" birthday party.

At any rate, I needed something to keep the younger girls busy, and out of trouble, and preferably helping to create some marine themed party decor. I also wanted to keep up the geometric momentum we've had going, this week.

Luckily for me, it's a short step from fractals, and polygons, to tessellations. And, fish fit perfectly into repeating, geometric patterns. In fact, when I have a little more time on my hands, I'd like to go back, and check out the fish themed tessellation project at Art Projects for Kids. But, today I needed something quick, and simple - like a coloring sheet.

I found just what I was looking for on the Edkins Family Website. The only thing I was worried about, was whether the girls would really sit still long enough to color in all the tiny squares. Then, as I went to print the pattern, I saw a note suggesting, saving it as a file, with a right click, and then opening it in Window's Paint program.

That was a fantastic idea, because the girls love playing with the Paint program.


I sat with E (age 5), and helped her choose colors to start with.

Then, in no time at all, she had picked up the pattern, and was not only happily filling in the fish, from line to line, but also using the pattern to predict ahead, all the squares for one color.

It wasn't long before C (age 4), joined her, cheering her on, and anxiously awaiting her turn to paint.

They seemed to think it was some kind of new computer game. And, they played happily, oblivious to the math they were doing, for long enough for me to get a good start on the pinata (more on that later).


It's great to be a homeschooler.

Penguin Geography, Science, and All Kinds of Fun

Just when I think we're done with penguins, we get pulled back in by all their black and white cuteness.

On a whim, I checked out several penguin themed, story books, on our last trip to the library, thinking we'd read them, and then move on. One of them, Bob Barner's Penguins, Penguins, Everywhere!, turned out to be a science text, in story book disguise.

It has colorful, cartoonish, illustrations, and a simple text, perfect for little ones, but enough penguin facts, for older children to enjoy. It ends up with a nice review page of what penguins eat, and who eats them, followed by a couple of flashcard like pages, picturing the 17 different types of penguins, with fun facts, such as where they live, how tall they are, and how much they weigh.

D, doubted that penguins really live anywhere but Antarctica (we'd recently had a discussion about how penguins, and polar bears don't live together, because penguins are at the south pole, while polar bears are in the north).

So, we had to look up a map of penguins of the world. The map we found (click, here,to view it), was an interactive one, that let the children click on the locations of penguins (in red), to see pictures of the penguins, and view facts about them.

D (age 7), and A (age 9), spent a good hour clicking around on the map.

They had such a good time with it, in fact, I thought it would be fun to follow it up with some video footage of live penguins. I Googled around a bit, and found this amazing BBC video. You might have already seen it, as it's from 2008, but somehow we had missed out on the fun.

Of course, about the time the penguins were flying over South America, I realized it was a hoax. But, what a hoax! They really did a good job with the special effects. Naturally, we had to watch the "making of" video, too.

It's just unbelievable, how believable it looks. Now, I'm off to search for some credible penguin footage, from the different locations around the world.

But, in the meantime, you can find more fun with geography, and history, at the Geography and History link-ups, hosted by Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Winter Science for Children - Frozen Bird Seed

I came across a simple science experiment for the girls, that went perfectly with our reading of Henrietta Bancrof and Richard G. Van Gelder's Stage One, Read-and-Find-Out Science book, Animals in Winter.

The book details, briefly, what happens to various animals in the winter, and what they do to survive, and find food. It ends with several suggestions for making bird feeders, or peanut, and berry garlands for the birds, and other small animals. One of the suggestions it gives, is mounting a flat board, with drainage holes, on a fence, or post, to place bird seed on.

I asked the girls if they knew why the board would need drainage holes. They weren't sure. So, I asked them what happens when the snow starts to melt in the sun, and then freezes, as the temperature drops. Our temperatures shot up last week, melting some of the snow, and then plummeted yesterday, encasing the world in ice, so they knew the answer to that one.

I showed them what happens to birdseed, when it sits in a puddle of water, and then freezes, and why that isn't good for the birds.

First I gave them each a tweezer, for bird beaks.

Then, I gave them a pan with bird seed just sitting in it. They used the tweezers to pick up the seeds, and move them to another pan.



Finally, I gave them a pan with birdseed frozen in a shallow layer of water, and asked them to use the tweezers to pick the seeds out of the ice.

They discovered it was much harder to get the seeds. They had to "peck" them free, before they could lift them out.

Later today, when we're ready to face the cold, I'll have the girls add some birdseed to the bird feeder on our back fence.

I found the idea for this activity on the Hummingbird Educational Resources' penguin page, where there are numerous penguin, arctic, and winter crafts, and projects for children.

It's great to be a homeshooler.

Bible Alive! Tuesday, The Battle For the Promised Land (A What's in the Bible? Review)

The older children (ages 9-13) finally, finished up reading the Pentateuch last week, and started into Joshua on Monday. So this weekend, I picked up Phil Vischer's What's in The Bible? #4, The Battle For The Promise Land, covering Joshua, Judges, and Ruth.

I think it's awfully nice of Mr. Vischer to stay one step ahead of our reading, so the children can have a nice kid-friendly introduction to the books, before they read them.

This fourth instalment in the series, might be my favorite so far, too. What really impressed me, was when I told the children the fourth disk was out, my 13 year old asked if we could get it right away. I never would have expected he'd be sold on a series full of Sesame Street-esq puppets.

What he really likes about it is, that unlike Veggie Tales, it tells the facts about the books of the Bible, and offers definitions for hard words, like apostasy. I like, that it explains the tricky bits, like all the killing, that takes place in Joshua - or at least makes some good headway into explaining it. I'm sure I still have lots of interesting conversations ahead.

My only "complaint" was with the summary of the book of Ruth. The format is great. It's done as a popsicle stick puppet theater presentation (click, here, to see it for yourself). But, it's overly condensed. One of Naomi's sons, and daughter-in-law, is left out entirely. And, the concept of kindred-redeemer, is not explained as clearly, as it could have been. Instead, quite a bit of time is spent on confusing jokes about how Naomi's husband, and son might have died (run over by a bus, etc).

But, I thought the summary of Joshua was excellent. And, I love, LOVE, the Fabulous Bentley Brothers' "Judges" song (you can view it too, here, on YouTube). Though, I'll admit part of why I love it so much, is the loud groan, that comes from the children, whenever they see these guys.

For more Bible themed fun, be sure to check out this week's Bible Alive! Tuesday link-up, at The Fantastic Five.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

What My Child is Reading - A Couple More Chanukah Stories and Links

We received a treat from Montana Public Radio, this morning, when I happened to turn on the radio, while making the morning muffins. At 8:00 AM, Mountain Time, every Saturday is a program called "Children's Corner", where stories are read for children by the librarians from across Montana, and every other week Dr. Katie visits, with a "Science is Cool" segment.

Today's broadcast was filled with Chanukah stories, and music, and was a nice surprise. Unfortunately, it doesn't look to me like you can catch the broadcast after it airs live, so I can't pass on a link to the stories we heard today, but next week at 8:00 AM, Mountain Time, you can tune in live, on your computer, by clicking the link, here, for a fun story time.

In the meantime, I have a link to a Chanukah story, you can enjoy today. After, our laktes (is the singular - latke, or is it always latkes?) post, we got a comment suggesting we check out the Lemony Snicket story The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, A Christmas Story, which we did, and really enjoyed. We also found it being read, here, on YouTube. So, if you can't get your hands on it, you can check it out there.

It's a funny, but thought provoking story, about giving Chanukah a place of it's own, separate from Christmas. In it, a latke runs screaming into the night, trying to explain himself, and the history of Chanukah, to all the Christmas decorations, who do their best to include him in their celebration. After all, a tasty little hash brown, might go nicely with the Christmas ham.

However, if you are a family that celebrates both Chanukah, and Christmas, side by side, you might enjoy Margaret Moorman's Light the Lights! A Story about Celebrating Hanukkah & Christmas. Moorman wrote the book, according to the note on the flap, after searching in vain for a story that reflected both celebrations. It does take kind of a secular approach to the holidays, though it leaves room to expand the discussion into the faiths behind them.

For more children's story reviews, and recommendations, don't forget to check out this week's What My Child Is Reading link-up, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Crazy about Candy Corn - Books, Links, and Ideas for Children

We've been having quite a bit of fun with candy corn, this week (click here, to see some of our candy corn inspired projects).

Did you know that October 31st is National Candy Corn Day? I didn't, until the Fryman Four put us onto it. They actually had an entire day of candy corn fun, last year (click here, to read about that).

After researching all the great, kid-friendly, candy corn projects, links, and goodies out there, I'm really thinking the entire month of October, should be dedicated "National Candy Corn Month".

I had a hard time finding non-Halloween themed, books about candy corn, though. Keven Henkes' Julius's Candy Corn, that we read for our stART project, came close. The party the cupcakes are for is a Halloween party, but other than that one mention of the holiday, the book could be about any fall party. It's really about Julius, and the candy corn.

My children rejected Kelly Asbury's Candy Corn, because it is a board book, and because it contains (non-scary) witches, and vampires, but if you have a toddler, who doesn't mind Halloween imagery, then this is a cute book about finding triangles, on Halloween night.



The Candy Corn Contest, by Patricia Riley Giff centers around a pre-Thanksgiving contest, in a school classroom. I didn't read it myself, but my 9 year old, read it with ease during "nap time", and seemed to really enjoy it. In the book the children get to make a guess on the number of candy corn in a jar, for each page they read in a book. The child with the closest guess, is to win the entire jar of candy. Which is fine, until the main character sneaks three, only to discover his teacher has already counted the candy, and written the answer on the bottom of the jar..in pen.

This book begs for extension exercises, and in fact, Scholastic has a link to a teacher's website, with an entire unit built around the book.

After completing The Candy Corn Contest, A (age 9) has move on to Ben M. Baglio's Kitten in the Candy Corn. It's number #41 in the Animal ARK series, which centers around a young girl, and her best friend (a boy), who like to help the animals they encounter through her parents veterinarian clinic. In this particular story, they must find a little kitten a home, after it arrives at the clinic, with a box of candy corn.

The story takes place around Halloween, but is centered on the story of the kitten, more than on the holiday.



Finally, I checked out Candy Corn Poems by James Stevenson. Sadly, it only contains one short poem about candy corn, but after reading, and watching How to Train Your Dragon, the children enjoyed the Stevenson's comparison of candy corn to dragon's teeth.



I thought the comparison was fitting too, especially after a math post, at Little Page Turners, where candy corn became dinosaur teeth.

Teach-nology, also has a candy corn, poetry lesson plan suggestion, here.

If it's history, you want, you might check out one these short videos on the history of candy corn, and how it's made from:

The Louisiana Farm Bureau

The Food Network,

or The History Channel

And, for even more candy corn fun, there are all kinds of printables, and craft ideas available:


Kinder Printables has a wealth of candy corn theme pages, such as candy corn alphabets, math mats, counting, and matching sheets.

Mrs. Nelson's Class has similar, but different candy corn printouts too, as well as a cut, and glue template, good for groups of children, and a number of additional fall theme ideas.

Lee Hanson Graphics has candy corn, and bat bookmarks.


DLTK-holidays has a cut, and glue together candy corn man.

Layton Music has a candy corn, musical note, match up game.

Still need more candy corn inspired ideas? Then you might want to check out Candy Corn Wonderland! an entire website dedicated to all things candy corn.

Of course, if you really don't care for candy corn, you can print out the lyrics to Nick Jr's Moose and Zee "I Don't Like Candy Corn" song.

And, then click the links below, to find out what others have been reading, at this week's What My Child is Reading blog hop, hosted by Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.



It's great to be a homeschooler.

Don't Miss Out On The Tea Party

I wanted to let you know that Miss Muffin over at Muffins and More (gotta love a blog name like that!), is hosting a tea party round-up.



All month long, she'll be featuring tea related posts, and projects from all over the blogoshpere. Including, I believe, the teapot pinata from right here. How sweet is that?

Be sure to click on over, and check it out.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

A Good Link To Check Out if You're Going to Teach Your Children Creationism, or Young Earth Theory, in Science

I've been cleaning out, and organizing my online "favorites" list, this week, and came across a link to Answers in Genesis, I thought I should share.

It's a link, to a list of arguments you should avoid teaching, or using, to support creationism, and a list of common misconceptions you might find among well meaning, but not scientifically trained, creationists.

If you are going to be reading up on dinosaurs, or the origins of the earth, with your children, especially from a Christian perspective, I would highly recommend taking a look at this list. It will help you avoid teaching old, or out of date ideas, that have been disproved. It will also help you to recognize the charlatans, masquerading as "scientists", in the creationist world. And, believe me, there are plenty of them out there.

The last thing you want is to send your babies into the den of wolves, we call post-secondary education, spouting false "wisdom" to prove creationism. It would be better for all of us, to have them prepared with truth, ready as Christ encouraged his disciples to be, "wise as serpents, but gentle as doves."

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Happy Birthday to Oscar the Grouch

Did you know today is Oscar's birthday? Well it is, and I double checked it, so I'm sure.

Just in case you want to celebrate the day (he would really hate that), here are a few links to make it easier:

Find printable Oscar the Grouch coloring sheets at MyColoringPages.com.

Play Oscar themed games, watch videos, or find more printables, at Oscar's own special page, on the Sesame Street site.

Make a Grouch-in-a-Can pompom craft with Kaboose.

DLTK has a printable template for an Oscar, toilet paper tube craft.

CraftyNoodle has instructions for an easy Oscar, paper mask craft.

Family Fun has an idea for a Milk Jug Grouch House.

There's a recipe for Oscar the Grouch Smoothies (using kale!) at Along the Daisy Path.

And of course, there are always the ever popular, Grouch Cupcakes, like these from justjennrecipes.com.

As for us, we're going out to the garden, to play with worms.

Happy birthday Oscar. We hope you have a marvelously, awful, bad day!

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Pizza Hut Book It! Program Sign-Up Reminder

This is just a reminder to all homeschool families out there, that the Pizza Hut Book It! sign-up deadline is June 30, 2010. If your children attend school, then it's up to the school to sign-up, so you might want to check with them.

Never heard of Book It? It's a wonderful reading incentive program, for children K-6, or 5-12 years old, sponsored by Pizza Hut. You set a reading goal each month for your child, and when they accomplish the goal, from October through March, you give them a certificate for a free, one topping, personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. The program is available in the US, and in some parts of Canada, and Puerto Rico.

But, you have to enroll ahead of time to receive the free pizza certificates for your children. Click, here, to go to the Book It! site, to enrol, or to learn more. Oh, and if your children aren't old enough yet, you might want to check out the site, anyway. It has a preschool page, with story stretcher suggestions, that are a lot of fun.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

The Young Victoria - A Review

Tomorrow, being the anniversary of Queen Victoria's birth, I thought I'd take a minute to review The Young Victoria, which the man of the house, and I watched recently.

My husband is not a big fan of romantic, period pieces, which this most definitely is, but he is a huge history buff, so I lured him by telling him I needed to preview the movie, to see if it was something we could show to the children. Not that he fell for that, but it was a date night, so he very kindly let me pick the movie.

But, I was really thinking of showing it, at least to the older children (ages 9-12). After all, if your going to teach about the kings, and queens of England, then Queen Victoria, is an excellent place to begin.

Her story has everything - loss of a father, a domineering mother, court intrigue, an arranged marriage (pretty well), family dynasties crossing international borders, parliamentary politics, assassination attempts, a teenage queen, and the tragic loss of true love, that caused her to morn for decades. Her story also leads nicely into a look at World War I, as you follow her children, and grandchildren, into marriages across Europe, leading to both the treaties, and the suspicions, that set the stage for war on a grand scale.

Back to the movie, though. Sadly, even given such great subject matter, excellent costumes, scenery, and acting, it drags to the point of being boring. And, despite the good people at Focus on The Family, giving it a 4 1/2 stars for family friendliness, I would not suggest showing it to your children. In fact, after watching the series of love scenes, which were not exactly raunchy, but still somewhat embarrassing in a voyeuristic kind of way, my husband announced, very firmly, that it was not to be shown to ours.

I know A&E put out a mini-series a few years back, entitled Victoria and Albert. I seem to remember it as being pretty good, but I can't remember if it's something the children would enjoy. I tried to get a copy in from a partner library, in time for Monday's Victoria Day, but the discs had been misboxed, and I ended up with Vanity Fair, instead. Should I ever manage to get my hands on the correct discs though, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, here are a few fun facts about the monarch, for children, I picked up from Project Britain (a great history site, by the way).

• Victoria was 18 when she assumed the throne.



• She reigned for 64 years, making her the longest reigning British monarch.



• She was the first monarch to live in Buckingham Palace.



• At the age of 21 she married her cousin Albert, a German prince.



• They had 9 children, though Victoria hated being pregnant, and did not care for babies.



• After Albert's death, at the age of 42, Victoria wore black for the rest of her life.



• Queen Victoria survived 7 assassination attempts (though Prince Albert was never shot, trying to protect his wife, as depicted in The Young Victoria).

It's great to be a homeschooler.

A Castle Fit for The Frizz

We've been reading Ms. Frizzle's Adventures by Joanna Cole, this week (thanks to Fairion from Lionden Landing, for recommending them).



They are very similar to The Magic School Bus series, also by Joanna Cole. But, this time Ms. Frizzle is without her bus, and the topic is social studies, rather than science. There are only three picture books in the series, but they are so packed full of detail, they've kept us busy all week.

Our favorite of the three is Ms. Frizzle's Adventures: Medieval Castle, which prompted us to build a castle of our own, today. The little ones helped glue the printable template, we found here, at StormTheCastle.com, to empty cereal boxes, and gathered four empty toilet paper rolls, for me.


I cut the pieces out, and assembled the castle, with tape, and glue.


Then, they decorated it, in beautiful princess colors - perhaps not authentic to medieval times, but still a lot of fun. And, it did provide us with opportunity to review the parts of a castle, such as the gate house, the keep, the parapet, and the bailey, all new words we learned thanks to Ms. Frizzle.

To find more children's book reviews, and recommendations, check out this week's What My Child is Reading, link-up/blog hop, at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.




It's great to be a homeschooler.

Science Geeks of the World, Rise Up And Dance!

Have you seen this video for They Might Be Giants' "Meet the Elements"?

It's from their Here Comes Science DVD. We picked up the CD/DVD set at the library, and we've been rocking out to science all day. Well, mainly I've been rocking out to science, and the children have been rolling their eyes at my dancing abilities - but they are great songs! Or, maybe I should say, they are great songs except for "Science is Real" and "My Brother the Ape", which as a Christian, I just found to be an offensive bunch of bunk (catchy tunes, though).

The rest of the songs are terrific. "I Am a Paleontologist", briefly mentions evolution, but it's not in your face, and the rest are straight science. My favorite of all is "Meet the Elements" which I linked above. Of course, you can listen to samples of the other songs, or purchase the DVD, CD, or individual songs at Amazon, or at tmbg.com, but I'd suggest checking with your local library first.

It's great to be a homeschooler.