Whew!

I am out of sorts today. We did a light school day yesterday and had friends over for dinner. My kitchen looks like a bomb went off in there. I stayed up until midnight watching "The Gates of Splendor" with my husband last night. What an awesome story about Mr. Elliot and his buddies... and the entire tribe of jungle-dwelling people who are now believers! I made my lasagna roll-ups again last night (with pepperoni instead of Italian sausage in the sauce) and my husband's famous stuffed mushrooms. I should have cleaned the kitchen last night before bed and saved the last few of them, but they sat out overnight and are destined for the trash can. That is just not like me to leave a HORRID mess like that... but everyone needs some down time every now and then. Needless to say, we are off to a slow start today.

Kevin found a great website this morning that has a great Science section with awesome flash animated quizzes. Kaden played on the site all morning and was doing a lot of the 10-11 year old stuff (he just turned 9). He was really proud of himself for being so "smart". We enjoyed clicking the sound buttons and listening to the British people read the questions off. We love foreign accents in our family, and all of us do a few of them relatively well! Morgan's friend let her borrow a My Little Pony movie, and she's been watching that this morning. I've been putting off the dreaded dish disaster in the kitchen. I guess it's time to buckle down and get to work.

My kids are doing three days worth of standardized testing next week, so our school week is shot. I'm going to start Seasons after that. One of the projects we most anticipate is making an All-Season Tree and home-made ornaments for each holiday we study. We really should be doing animals this week, but we may skip animals and do that next year instead to make up lost time. My kids know a lot about animals anyway... since we are animal lovers and have tons of books on animals in our home-library. Kaden told me this morning that our "Light" unit really helped him to do well on the BBC quiz he took this morning. I was amazed he even remembered it!

Now that I'm done with my 2003-4 Homeschool Series, I'm going to get the records out for 2004-5 and start preparing my First and Second Grade info for posting. We had so much fun in 2004-5. It was one of our favorite years ever. We were part of a great weekly, local (non-KONOS) co-op that added so much to our academic year. My kids were in choir for the first semester of school. We had a long list of wonderful field trips, also. We did more fun KONOS units, including: Horses, Elections/Presidents/Government, Ecology/Conservation, Physical Science (not a KONOS unit), Stewardship of Time, and the beginning of Stewardship of Money. We ended our year a little early because I had to work full time for the entire summer while we were trying to sell our home. The kids enjoyed playing with my friends' kids and spending time with their grandma while I was working. We finally sold the house in late August, and closed on it in early September (the day that school started THIS SCHOOL YEAR, I think! - more moving!). We all have very fond memories of 2004-5!

As soon as I get myself organized (the house cleaned, school done for today, etcetera) I'll sit down and start compiling my 2004-5 spreadsheet. Hopefully I can get that section of the Homeschool Series done before my website is re-done. I can't wait to see the final "face" of Sprittibee's Blog in early June. After I get the series up, I'll start back on "Field Trip Foto Friday" again, and share the pictures we have (and links) to some of the field trips we mentioned for 2003-4 and 2004-5. Be sure to visit again! This site is updated daily (or almost every day!).

Have a great FRIDAY, and a wonderful weekend!

Technorati Tags: Homeschooling, Food, Plans, Fun, KONOS, Curriculum, Housework, Blogging, SAHM, Unit Studies, Teaching, Learning, Friends, Children, Parenting, Life

KONOS Kings and Queens Unit Fun

As part of our Homeschool Series, this particular post is a photo record of the fun we had doing our favorite Konos unit for the year (2003-2004) when the kids were 4 and 6. You can see that we had a blast doing this unit. We did this unit for much longer than the prescribed four weeks, and drug it into a nearly three month journey through the Medieval Times! This was one of our favorite all-time units (of course, every year we find another all-time favorite unit).

We finished off our Kings and Queens study with a fabulous Medieval Feast where we ate “authentic” medieval cuisine and dressed up like lords and ladies at court. We turned our garage into a “great hall” and invited our family and friends to share in the festivities. The feast was our last “school day” of the year, and we used it as a ceremony for graduating the “Queen Morgan” and “Knight Kaden” into the next grade level… while presenting them with awards and honors. They were thence dubbed Second and First graders! Even the non-homeschooling crowd had fun. My husband got a kick out of calling me “wench” and making me fetch his ale (cider). We all took turns making home made butter in a glass jar with a marble (however incorrect for the "period" that method might be – it worked for us!). My children remember this unit (especially the feast) fondly and hope to do it again in older years. Maybe I can learn to sew by then and actually provide them with REAL costumes. We still make a few of the dishes we ate at our feast. The menu is at my Gathering Manna Recipe Blog (along with a cute photo of Morgan with our home-made butter loaf)!

Paper Castle complete with portcullis


Making Chain Maille out of Pop Tabs and Beading Wire


The Finished Coat of Maille – This took 3 Hours!


Coronation Orb Craft


Experiments with Coffee Paper for our Invitations to the Feast


Marble Paper and our Feast Invitation Wording


Wax Grape Seals with Red Melted Crayon


Lady Nana at the Feast Table in the "Great Hall"


The Graduation Cake (Minus Cinderella)!


"Salat" with Edible Flowers


"Queen Morgan" and "Knight Kaden" at the Seat of Honor


Our Tapestry (throw blanket) and Photo Display Banners


The Royal Bow after being dubbed First and Second Graders

Update 2008:
Here's a fun link to build your own castle. A friend of mine has left a link with her Medieval Unit Study ideas recently and I wanted to link them here for you as well. Hope you have a fun trip back into the days of the Kings and Queens with your little ones, too!



Technorati Tags: Homeschooling, Graduation, Medieval, Fun, KONOS, Curriculum, Homeschool, History, Home School, Unit Studies, Teaching, Learning, Feast, Children, Parenting, Photos

Favorite KONOS Memories from First Grade and Kindergarten

To give you an idea of what this Homeschooling Series is about for those just “tuning in”; you can also look at my 2001-2 Favorite KONOS Memories post (Pre-K and Kindergarten year). The year my children were in First Grade and Kindergarten was 2003-4. I was using the KONOS Obedience Book, except for a few of my own units that we threw in before we were able to buy our own KONOS book. We were unable to co-op with my friend Kelly as we had the previous year (due to distance), but we invited her to our end-of-year Medieval Feast with friends and family, and got to see her a few times for other field trips. Even without a co-op, KONOS is very fun.

KONOS is a character based unit-study curriculum that teaches Christian values and all subjects as related to God. It is full of history, science, practical living, writing and English assignments, book lists that are related to each subject studied, and more. The books we used for this unit can be found in the following list. You will get an idea of the type of learning you do with KONOS as you skim the lists below. Most of the ideas are right out of the curriculum, but other things you can think up on your own because KONOS helps you to be creative and serves as a spring-board for your own fun activities once you get going on a subject! A few of the ideas below are ones that I added in to what we were learning. I couldn’t tell you now which ones they were, though! Google (or your favorite search engine) is another great resource while using KONOS. I usually find tons of extra unit study ideas by “googling” my subject matter and finding other teaching ideas, songs, crafts, photos, information, and print-outs. I also make crossword puzzle worksheets for my KONOS vocabulary words online using a free crossword puzzle maker linked here on my sidebar! Of course, the ideas below aren’t ALL we did for 2003-4 with KONOS, but they are some of our favorites for you to browse through!

We didn’t do that many KONOS units in 2003-4 because we did a few of our own units (like bats and sunken ships). We began our year late (the first 9 weeks of school, my children were in a private school and we pulled them out when their Daddy left for a few months to Iraq). The two KONOS units mentioned below we did were not supposed to last as long as we did them. Sometimes I wonder how Jessica manages to get so much activity crammed into such a short "suggested" timeframe!? I think we spent nearly two months on light and almost three months on Medieval times. That is the beauty of KONOS! You can do it in the suggested amount of time, leaving out the activities you aren’t interested in… or you can follow every rabbit trail and make it last as long as you are having fun! We ended school early in 2004 (the end of April)... our Medieval Feast was the first weekend of May... because we were moving. Ah, the joys of moving - something our family knows QUITE a LOT about! No unit study needed!

Photos from our Light and Kings and Queens Units will be up by the end of the week, hopefully! Come back later and see them!


Benefits that we enjoyed that span across

KONOS Units, regardless of topic:

• You can participate in a co-op with other children (so fun!)
  
• Learn Vocabulary Words with units - lots of neat words
  
• Bible Memory and Character Building lessons woven into every topic
  
• Geography, History and Science comes alive in ways no textbook could dream of!
  
• Researching and planning was as much fun and informative to me as for the kids!
  
• Topic related field trip suggestions in every unit
  
• Wrap-Ups (parties at the end of larger units where you dramatize, dress up, cook, etc.)
  
• Things we had fun doing... and the unit they were associated with:

Light, Bible & Authority Unit:

• Discuss different types of light (sun, fire, electricity, bioluminescence, Jesus)


• Learn Bible verses relating to "LIGHT"


• Watch PBS Lighthouse Series DVDs rented from Netflix


• Light Field Trip: Lazer Tag!


• Watch a History Channel Video about Edison and the Electric Light


• Learn Light related vocabulary words such as… incandescent, fluorescent, neon, mercury vapor, laser, halogen, LED, electricity, tungsten, lighthouse, bioluminescence, concave, convex, spectrum, infrared, ultra-violet, translucent, opaque, prism, etc.


• Experiment with Magnifying glass to see Red Blue and Green dots on TV Screen


• Driving Field Trip - Find Different Types of Man-made Light in City


• After-Images Science Experiment to trick your eyes into seeing a "Ghost Pattern"


• Learn 4 Types of Sentences and Play Sentence Game (Declarative, Interrogative, Exclamatory, & Imperative)


• Make Candles


• Carnation Experiment - Use colored dye to tint petals through the water in the vase


• Science Experiment: Spin Colors in Milk with a drop of detergent


• Watch Pete's Dragon (Lighthouse) - Light Unit


• Lighthouse Geography Assignment: Get postcards from other KONOS families from across America of Lighthouses and Map them


• Trip to Bolivar Lighthouse in Galveston, TX


• Read about Bolivar's part in the Great Storm of 1900 (website)


• Act out Noah's Ark from Genesis "It Pays to Obey"


• Draw and label the parts of a light bulb


• Use a Timeline Wall Chart and put figures of people we study on it


• Write a journal entry about rainbows and draw them


• Paint rainbows on a canvas bags with our initials


• Sing "This Little Light of Mine"


• Find objects that reflect and absorb light


• See how water refracts light (pencil in a clear glass of water)


• Learn about Primary Colors, Color Blends and the Light Spectrum


• Learn about Light Waves (infrared - slowest/violet - fastest)


• Use the 7 letters of the rainbow to make a sentence: "Red Octopuses Yodeled Going Backwards in Vermont"


• Read books about sea animals having bioluminescence


• Experiment with a spoon to learn difference between Concave and Convex


• Experiment with a mirror and a bowl of water to make a moving rainbow on the wall


• Make a lighthouse out of household items (tubes, boxes, glass jar, plastic caps, etc) and paint

Kings and Queens Unit:

• Draw and journal about Castles


• Build a Kingdom out of toys and blocks


• Play War with Jack in the Box's Medieval Shaped Kids Meal Card Decks


• Dress up and play Kings and Queens


• Visit an old Cathedral church to see Stained glass windows for our Kings and Queens Unit


• Use paper and tape to cut and create a castle with a drawbridge

Medieval Vocabulary (King, Monarch, Orb, Queen, Coronation, Crown, Scepter, Ampulla, Lord, Lady, Anointing Oil, Middle Ages, King Arthur, Serf, Nobleman, Knight, Armor, Castle, Siege, Manor, Jousting, Tapestry, Dubbing, Tournament, Shield…)

• Learn about the history of St. Patrick's Day and the Celtic Cross (website)


• Make a Bible Memory Verse Crown (gain a gem each week when the verse is recited from memory)


• Sing kingly hymns to the Lord


• Read poems about Knights ("One Knight's Passion", "A Ballad of Two Knights" and "The Three Knights")


• Draw and label a castle


• Draw artist's conception of God's throne


• Read through Mother Goose and note all references to kings and queens


• Be a King and Queen for a day at home (everyone bows and says "Yes, Your Majesty")


• Make Orbs


• Learn about the 5W's (Who, What, When, Where & Why) and an H (How)


• Make a 'coat' of chain maille out of pop tabs and beading wire


• Have English "Tea Time"


• Make butter with cream, a glass jar, and a marble


• Bob for apples


• Dress in Costume and have a Medieval Feast (invite family/friends)


• Eat authentic Medieval Foods


• Get "Dubbed" into the next grade and get awards for accomplishments

Technorati Tags: Homeschooling, Learning, Book Reviews, Reading, KONOS, Curriculum, Homeschool, Homeschool Planning, Home School, Unit Studies, Teaching, Children's Books, Fun, Children, Parenting

Green-Haired Easter-People

Here's a fun idea for a fun Easter craft/project that we did in 2001. I'm sure I mentioned this in my Learning Enrichment list or some part of the Homeschool Series for our first year. The kids still remember doing this, even though they were quite obviously VERY young! The kiddo pictured below is my Morgan at about age 3!

All you need to do this project is:

• sunlight


• water


• dirt


• egg shells


• bird seed


• water color paints


• paintbrushes


• a black sharpie pen


• a basket


• some plastic Easter grass


• some kind of tray to hold the water if it leaks out of the shells

DIRECTIONS:

After you make scrambled eggs for breakfast (yum!), wash your halved egg shells out and let them dry. I used a few brown eggs and a few white.

Let the kiddos help you paint the shells with water-colors and then draw some faces on the shells (or you could draw the faces first if the marker doesn't leak when it gets wet - I can't remember if it does or not?). Poke a tiny drip hole at the bottom of the shell cup so that the soil won't get moldy.

Fill each egg with soil about 1/2 the way up the shell to the top. Let the kids sprinkle a layer of bird seed in, and then cover with another 1/4 of dirt so that only 1/4 of the shell rises above the dirt.

Set the eggs side by side in a basket that has a drip-catch pan inside it and surround them with fake Easter grass. Set them in a sunny area and watch them sprout some green hair. "Radical, dude!" My kids really enjoyed giving them a "haircut".