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My Favorite & FUN Homeschooling Resources PART ONE

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Hello friends and unexpected homeschoolers!

I have been homeschooling since my oldest was 5 and have found lots of great resources I have fallen in love with over the years. Since we are all in this harried social-isolation situation together, I thought I would share a couple of my favorite homeschool resources and ideas. I will break it into a couple of posts – here is part one! These are parent and kid approved. To me, the best learning tools are the ones that spark wonder and where you don’t realize you are learning because you are having so much fun. These all fit that bill.

Geography & World Studies:

Maps by aleksandra mizielinska and daniel mizielinski is a book that EVERYONE should own. It is just so beautiful. They also have a special edition version that just came out with 16 additional maps (on my wish list ha ha!). One of our favorite things to do with this is to pick a country and then take turns picking images off the page that we look up on YouTube. We have learned SO many cool things about the world this way. It is like a virtual trip without leaving your couch!

World Snack Boxes:

Fun, themed snacks make everything more fun. We used to have a subscription to Top Munch snack boxes (which maybe closed?) when we got one, we would do a “Worldly Tea Time” where we would learn all about the country featured, dress up, listen to traditional music, and then sample lots of fun snacks from the country. Usually I just find things around the house that go with the theme to set the table. I have been seeing a lot about Universal Yums which is a similar service. Have any of you tried it? When we studied Japan, we ordered this snack pack from amazon. It was so fun and reasonable!!

Math +-*%#:

Math is a subject I happen to love and my kids are not so convinced on ha ha. But we do agree that these resources are great –

Dragon Box Math Apps

I cannot speak highly enough of these cool apps – but my favorite is their Algrebra 5+. By the end of solving the puzzles, kids are solving complex algebra equations without even realizing it. And they are FUN! I would recommend all of them! They have something for all ages.

Image result for dragon box apps

Beast Academy Books

I think the idea of these books is so cool. They come as a set of two – a graphic novel and a workbook. The way they approach math is so refreshing. My kids do get frustrated with these sometimes because they can be CHALLENGING! But I love that about them. And I love that they help you understand the larger concepts rather than just rote memorization. I would recommend going down a grade though because of difficulty.

Image result for beast academy math
Image result for beast academy math

Logic:

Monument Valley Games

Beautiful Escher inspired artwork, a serene soundtrack, and fabulous mind bending logic puzzles – a must play. We have come back to this one a lot. Probably my favorite app game of all time.

SmartGames

I have been so impressed by these logic board games – many of them work for 1 player! They are fun for ALL ages and I love how well made and designed they are. Our current favorite is Camelot Jr.

SmartGames Color Code Cognitive Skill-Building Puzzle Game Featuring 100 Challenges for Ages 5 - Adult

Music History:

Classical Kids

We listened to these Classical Kids albums when I was a kid. I loved them then and I still love them now (as do my kids!)! They are stories about fictional kids intertwined with real stories about the composers and their music. You can listen to them all on Spotify. My favorites are –
“Beethoven Lives Upstairs”
“Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery”
“Mozart’s Magic Fantasy”

Mozart's Magic Fantasy: A Journey Through 'The Magic Flute' [Blisterpack] by Classical Kids

Puzzles:

Canon Creative Park Printables

These are paper printable that you cut out and fold to build incredible 3D paper structures. As long as you have yardstick paper, scissors, glue, and a color printer, there are some pretty incredible models you can make. These are for you puzzle minded, model builder types and are pretty darn cool – and FREE! We have built several models of famous architecture around the world. These are definitely better for older kids/adults with good fine motor skills. If you love 1000 piece puzzles, you will love these.

Space Shuttle Orbiter (Simplified Version),Realistic Crafts/Space,Paper Craft,null,null,null,Space Shuttle,Simple,White,null
Eiffel Tower (Night), France,Architecture,Paper Craft,Interior ,Stylish,Europe,null,null,World Heritage,Brown,null

Djeco Puzzles

These are my favorite brand of puzzles. Solid well made pieces and beautiful artwork. We particularly love this dragon puzzle –

Cooking:

I love these kids cookbooks from Deanna F. Cook. They are full of pictures and fun tips. There is a great selection of recipes that are kid friendly and tasty! We have all three of her cookbooks and the kids pull them out consistently. So many good things to be learned from cooking!

Poetry:

The two beautiful books – A Poem for Every Night of the Year & A Poem for Every Day of the Year edited by Allie Esiri are my favorite poetry books I have ever found. They follow themes and take you through the seasons sourcing from both ancient and modern poets. I have found them to be kid friendly while also enriching for adults. I pick my copies up constantly to add depth to our days.

A Poem for Every Night of the Year
A Poem for Every Day of the Year

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Let me know if you found this list helpful! Any particular subjects/categories you would like help with? I have tons more favorites I will work on compiling for part two. Also I have lots of other homeschooling ideas and resources you can dig into if you need more! Sending you all my love!

Shakespeare Homeschool Unit – A Midsummer Night’s Dream and More

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This year to share our homeschooling journey, I am going to post updates on our unit studies we do, rather than on a month to month basis like I have in the past. I figure it is more helpful for you other homeschooling mama’s and dad’s out there who are looking for ideas/sparks for your own homeschool journey.

Shakespeare:

Lucy(9) was the spark behind starting the year off with an introduction to Shakespeare. She had really enjoyed these two graphic novels by Ian Lendler that are based on the plays but made for kids. They led to lots of questions about who Shakespeare was and what his plays were about. So we decided to jump in and start off the year with a little Shakespeare study.

Image result for zoo macbeth graphic novelRelated image

Thanks to my own parents (who read it aloud to us when we were kids) and the book “How to Teach your Children Shakespeare” by Ken Ludwig, we decided to start with Midsummer Nights Dream. It is lighthearted and silly with themes and content that can be understood by kids (mine are 9,7,3, and 1).

One of the things Ken suggests is to memorize passages – which takes knowing the subtleties of meaning and words to a whole other level. Here is the passage we worked on memorizing –

Because the passage has so many flower references, we spent some time illustrating the different flowers and learning what each flower looked like – touching and smelling some out of our own garden. And then we also learned about how flowers work in this lovely book by Gail Gibbons –

Image result for flowers gail gibbons

And this enchanting one by Rita Gray and illustrated by Kenard Pak

Image result for flowers are calling book

I made some pretty little printouts to show and talk about each of the different plants referenced. Feel free to print your own and use them for personal use if you want. Here is the pdf if you would like a copy —-> Shakespeare flowers

Speaking of printables, thank you Phee McFaddell for sharing the fun printable paper dolls. They were the perfect thing to work on while reading the original Midsummer Night’s Dream play (I only wish there were a few more of the characters! – we improvised and made our own Lysander, Hermia, Demeter, and Helena).

For the reading of the actual play, we would read a couple of scenes in the original Shakespeare, and then switch and read the same part of the story in this kids version. Lucy also jumped ahead and read several of the other stories in the collection.

By switching back and forth between the two, it made it much easier for them to understand the difficult language of the original version.

Shakespeare Childrens Story Collection 16 Books Box | Andrew Matthews Tony Ross

Here are the books we used all together –

Along with the literature side, we learned some history of the era following Susan Wise Bauer’s “Story of the World”. She has an awesome chapter on the Elizabethan Era and also one on Shakespeare. (I think this series has the WORST cover design ha ha with some of the BEST content. The activities companion book has some seriously awesome and creative ideas that go a long with the history).

The Story of the World, 4 Volume Set - By: Susan Wise Bauer

As well as doing some map work, and some coloring pages from the book, the girls chose to learn about 1200’s remedies and potions

The Shakespeare chapter also talked about stage fighting which was perfect because Lucy has been doing fencing lessons this month, which she LOVES

As well as stage fighting, we pulled from this awesome list of drama games and had a great time learning stage directions, playing improv, and miming.

(The only photo I could find of this was of Tim, ha ha)

We decided to wait on watching Shakespeare in Love (partly because I love that movie so much and I want to save it for when they are a little older), but we did watch the clip from the end with Queen Elizabeth.

Image result for shakespeare in love elizabeth

Once we finished reading the play, which we LOVED, the girls worked on making a set for our tiny “Fable Theater” so that we could put on our own stage production of A Midsummer Nights Dream. Overall, an awesome unit! So fun!

 

 

January 2018 Adventures in Homeschooling

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Two years ago we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

JAPAN:

We continued our world tour this month with a “trip” to Japan. This was definitely one of our favorite countries/cultures yet! I surprised the girls by setting up a Japanese style low table in the middle of our dining room with zen inspired decorations and gave them each a silk kimono (twelve dollars on amazon!).

We had a Japanese tea party –

We practiced calligraphy and mark making with these lovely Teagas water scrolls –

We played with origami –

And REALLy loved getting to try all these yummy Japanese snacks from our TopMunch box!

  Watched fascinating videos about silkworms and zen gardens –  

We of course went out for sushi at the end of the month!

SNOW:

A reoccuring theme for January for us is “Snow”! Thanks Colorado!

A day at the best sledding hill –

All the snow books –

Building a funny snow man (snow deer?)

Painting snowy scenes

READING:

Lots of letter play for this little one –

The two big girls joined the Secret Society of Letter Writers

And for Harriet this month we worked REALLY hard to read every day. She has been doing so great!

Polymer Clay and Stop Motion:

We had lots of fun making some little stop motion videos with my iphone and also made lots of oven bake figures.

IMG_7713

 

ART:

So many fun art projects this month. Buzzy helping me do the underpainting on a canvas –

Painting owls inspired by Owl Moon

Painting our to-do list clip boards

Face painting fun

And a really cool art show up at the university

BOOK CLUB:

For book club this month, we read Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

We got to experience Chinese Hot Pot

 

Went on a journey to find the Old Man of the Moon

Had a great discussion

And celebrated the Year of the Dog

DINOSAURS:

Our Natural History Museum at a really cool touring exhibit of dinosaur skeletons, so we adventured to Denver to check it out.

Digging for dinosaur fossils

HOMEMAKING:

Some days, when the chaos is winning, it is best to take the morning off from normal homeschool and learn about the lost arts of homemaking. Headphones and fun music help (Annie soundtrack all the way for these girls)

Harriet came up with her own recipe for Orange Cake. Turned out pretty tasty!

A dinner Lucy and Harriet made.

One day Lucy really wanted to build something. So they designed, built, and painted this shelf with a cup holder for next to their bed.

December 2017 Adventures in Homeschooling

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Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Cardboard Fun:

With all the Christmas shipments (and a couple of new tool purchases for art projects), we found ourselves with an awesome stash of large cardboard boxes.

As well as revisiting this favorite book –

We made all sorts of fun structures.

A castle with multiple rooms and a draw bridge –

A gingerbread house –

Handmade Gifts:

We had a lot of fun making homemade gifts this year. For grandparents, the kids designed and made wood cut out paintings. It was neat listening to them decide what image to make for each person. A fish for grandpa ed because he loves painting, a pie for grandmama because she is the queen of pie making, a girl with a dress for grandma DiDi because she loves buying little girl’s dresses, etc.

As part of our science club, we made bath bombs. So easy and fun! Next time I want to try hiding little surprises in the middle!

Bookclub! A Step back in History…

Our homeschool bookclub is turning into this magical much anticipated event. This month we read Benjamin West and his cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry. A historical fiction story about the father of American painting.

We experimented with making our own colors our of clay and charcoal, made quill pens out of turkey feathers, and practice life drawings of cats.

We feasted on homemade porridge at the “Door Latch Inn”

And even tried Peas with Honey (a funny reference from the books)

And learned how to play Blindman’s Bluff

Some Tinkering Engineering Play:

Hydraulics, robotics, and engineering. What a fun world we live in. So many cool topics to explore and neat things to make. And so thankful for grandparents gift subscriptions, uncles sending cool robots, and libraries sharing their resources.

Homemaking & Home Baking:

We have started having one day a month of learning about simple home making skills – how to fold laundry, how to iron, things like that.

We didn’t make huge batches of Christmas cookies for neighbors this year because our kitchen was torn up for most of December (an unexpected dishwasher replacement) and an expected and much anticipated new countertop and backsplash!

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But when it was finally done, we broke the new kitchen in with a glorious sugar cookie explosion of awesomeness with the help of Grandma DiDi.

Snapshots of Christmas Goodness:

I love this time of year so much it makes my heart hurt. Here are a few moments from December that I want to remember.

   

New Years Eve:

Instead of heading to KS this year, we had a little staycation (and played ALOT of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey) and then had a fun night with friends on New Years Eve

Happy New Year Friends! May your 2018 be as fresh and beautiful as these paper whites, but hopefully not nearly as stinky.

November 2017 Adventures in Homeschooling

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Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Writing and Letter Forms:

As part of our history reading, we learned about Cuneiforms which then led to making our own fonts and lettering.

Harriet had her first show and tell at her Homeschool Access kindergarten class. She worked very hard filling out her “Read All About Me” Poster.

Arlo’s 1st Birthday:

On November 18th, this handsome, ornery, little dude turned One!! I can’t even believe it. He has discovered the joy of food.

He always seems to have a mischievous little twinkle in his eyes.

His tiny makeshift snowman birthday cake made out of cake pops.

Enjoying his cake pop under his new name banner (a one year old tradition for all the kids)

And another birthday celebration with grandparents in Kansas.

Playing with a birthday gift from his Aunt and Uncle. 

Around the World:

To learn the continents, we made our own fun version of pin it maps, really enjoyed this Hopscotch song about the continents, and played map games.

We kept adding to our museum of world monuments by making a great wall of China, a Statue of Liberty, and a Sphinx.

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We took the Statue of Liberty downtown to visit our own tiny Statue of Liberty (right after reading Her Right Foot – which was so great).

We enjoyed another Top Munch box – this time from Germany!

Science Club:

We started an impromptu science club. Our first experiment was to remove the chlorophyll from leaves, then we did some experiments with old Halloween candy, and finally we made lungs out of old plastic bottles and balloons! So fun!

Art and Crafting:

Lucy immediately decided our house was not festive enough and added tiny hats, trees, reindeer antlers, and presents to all the photos/artwork.

 

We made handprint turkeys

Someone got over her fear of the hot glue gun.

I made a ridiculous thing. Peg dolls for days….

Lots of late night sketching

Decorating paper christmas trees

 

Gaming:

I like for November to be our family game night. So I usually add a few new games to our collections. This year I found these beautiful spectrum cards.

This silly but awesome game called “There’s a Moose in my House”

And my current favorite, Qwirkle

In the Kitchen:

Would it even be November without lots of wonderful goodies to bake?

Two books really dominated our kitchen decision making this November. Baking Class for the kids, and Bravetart for me. Both are great.

   

Homemade graham crackers from Bravetart.

Practicing knife skills

Lucy baking braided bread

And Lucy making her first original contribution to the Thanksgiving feast

And Music:

Music always together. Usually with a little brother crowding in on the fun.

In the Prairie and Great Outdoors:

We got to go home to Kansas for Thanksgiving this year which meant lots of beautiful walks on the farm/prairie.

 

 

A couple of woodworking projects –

we built a teeter toter just for fun out of random scrap boards.

 

And I worked on cutting pieces for an upcoming project in Houston

Thanksgiving:

We feasted and celebrated. It was beautiful. We are full.

Matching Thanksgiving outfits from Grandma DiDi and Grandpa Ed

 

Discovering and Rediscovering the magic of Calvin and Hobbs together.

Our thankful tree

And an adorable pilgrim girl

 

Much love from us,

October’s Adventures in Homeschooling

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Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (1). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Anatomy and Physiology:

For October we did a whole anatomy and physiology exploration because – skeletons!
Our favorite layered body puzzle. We all really love this, lovely wood pieces.

I picked up this cool skeleton model at Target on clearance a few years ago. Its great for learning all the organs and bones.

Some magic school bus reading –

Looking at diagrams of the different systems of the body as well as playing with some cool body rubber stamps I found at a yard sale over the summer. (Book is the Firefly Visual Dictionary)

Art:

The girls helped me get my moon painted for my installation piece for the Children’s Museum in Denver.

And helped celebrate the closing of my time as Artist in Residence.

We learned about Leonardo Da Vinci and the Mona Lisa. Here is lucy with her Mona Lisa, smiling her Mona Lisa smile.

Harriet “painting the world blue” at the Children’s Museum’s VW bug installation.

 

Buzzy (and Lucy) painting at easels at the museum

Harriet putting on a shadow puppet show for Arlo

 

 

Lucy and I participated in Inktober (a fun instagram challenge to paint one ink sketch a day for the month of October)

Autumn Goodness:

We collected leaves and tried our hand at preserving them by dipping them in beeswax. Which we then made into a lovely wall hanging.

Collecting and breaking acorns to make acorn flour.

Learning about Andy Goldsworthy (watch this documentary if you haven’t!) and collecting a spectrum of leaves.

A trip to a local farm for fall festivities –

 

 

Our first snow of the year!

Enjoying the fallen leaves by making “leaf angels”

Apple picking!!

Halloween:

And alllllllll the halloween goodness.

Carving jack-o-lanterns

 

 

Howl-o-ween at Centennial Village

 

 

 

Lucy bobbing for an apple –

A trip to Pumpkin-Pickers-Paradise –

 

And we made our own scary movie – “Nightmare Mansion”! Complete with all kinds of cool special effects.

Making Halloween decorations

And our yearly reading of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven (made better by pop up books)

India/Diwali:

Thanks to a delicious Top Munch box, we learned about Diwali and got to taste all kinds of traditional Indian snacks. (and dressed up in costumes…)

Making a mandala from rice and beans –

Coloring India on our giant world map –

Reading Club:

We had our very first Homeschool book club! Our book was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was so so fun.

Homemade “golden ticket” invitations –

Picking out candy favors for the party at Rocket Fizz candy shop –

The whole crew with their candy sculptures! –

We ended the night with Chocolate fondue! (a melted river of Wonka’s chocolate)

 

 

Lucy’s homemade candy factory machine –   

Mazes and Labyrinths:

Visiting the corn maze (where we tried the Left hand on the wall trick, and it failed, ha ha because of this bridge in the middle!)

We tried it again at the pumpkin patches maze and this time it worked, phew.

 

A favorite game – Labyrinth! (Master Labyrinth is really fun too)

And we had a blast solving all the mysteries in Graham Bases “Mysterium” book

Electronics:

We got our first Tinker Crate in the mail and it was so fun! The girls built their own spin art machine! So well designed and educational! Can’t wait to do more of these. Thanks grandmama!!

We also have been having a blast with Snap Circuits – a very cool electronics kit for kids. This is Lucy making an FM radio! It worked!

 

Miscellaneous :

I missed posting this in August, but here is our yearly newspaper, the Coons Delivery

Harriet Orchard lost her first tooth!

The tooth fairy brought her this homemade doll – her name is Sky

The girls made a play dough feast out of a batch of homemade play dough we made.

And finally, we took the girls out to their first experience in really fancy dining at Acorn in Denver to celebrate my time at the Children’s Museum. They did a great job trying lots of new foods. Not a great photo, sorry, I was too busy snarfing down all the things…

September’s Adventures in Homeschooling

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Last year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (6), Beatrice (3), and Arlo (10 months). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

I am a little behind and trying to get caught up (four kids man…) so this month is mostly just a picture journal. Enjoy the show!

School and ABCs:

One day a week homeschool enrichment program started up for Lucy and Harriet (her first time!)

Baby schooling for Arlo ha ha –

Letter play for Beatrice

Front porch reading/tea time

Beautiful new alphabet tracing board from Treasures from Jennifer

All sorts of alphabet play (An Artist’s Alphabet by Messenger, Animalia by Graeme Base)

Animal name alphabet matching

Such a weird and silly book!

Africa/Geography/History:

Did a little general Africa study this month

Building sand and rock maps as part of our history study.

Architecture:

We read several fun books about famous building and then made our own popsicle stick houses – which turned into troll houses and led to endless play with their tiny troll dolls (“Branch” and “Lily”)

 

The girls also built some epic block structures

Art:

Buzzy created her first paintings.

Lucy had a great time drawing fairies

They also visited me at the Children’s museum and had a great time exploring all the cool things there. Here is Lucy trying out my stage art piece

A little “Greeley Gothic”

I sorted all my old jewelry making supplies which led to several days of jewelry making for the girls.

And lastly, we found a really cool velvet embossing kit at the thrift store. Such a fun and easy process!

Kansas and the State Fair:

We took a mid month trip back to Kansas and spent the week having a blast at the State Fair there.

Riding all the rides –

The beautiful quilts on display in the Domestic Arts Building –

Experiencing what it is like to milk a cow –

Sunflowers!

Fun on the giant slide

Arlo meeting Daisy the sheep

Math:

Our very favorite math books – Beast Academy. So So fun.

In Beast Academy we are learning all about shapes, so we played with Tangrams

and some Teddy Bear math –

Music:

Piano lessons started up – although practicing is made a little more difficult by younger siblings.

So that is when we have to get out the tiny piano

Listening to a marching band parade in KS

We listened to Classical Kids “Vivaldi: Ring of Mystery” and learned about different instruments in the orchestra and also learned about the Recycled Orchestra of Cateura – so neat!!

PE:

Playing mini golf in Hutchinson, KS!

Dance classes kicked off and somebody is finally old enough to have her own class!

Autumn Fun Outside:

Learning how to fish with Grandpa Ed

Picking apples

Enjoying the animals at a petting zoo in downtown Greeley during Ag Fest

Poudre river trail races

We read My Side of the Mountain which led to all kinds of nature collecting, learning about eating in the wild, and tree walks to find edible nature finds.

Lucy also picked up whittling

Seed Study:

I love this series of books by Aston/Long – This month we focused on A Seed is Sleepy and had a lovely afternoon collecting all different kinds of seeds.

Garden Gathering:

We enjoyed the last fruits and veggies of the garden.

Birthdays:

We have two important birthdays in September. Buzzy turned 3 and Harriet turned 6!

 

August Homeschooling Journal Catch up…

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This is a homeschooling photo journal of Lucy (8), Hattie (5), Beatrice (2), and Arlo (8 months). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Escape to the Lake:

Photos from “camp” at Under the Radar’s Escape to the Lake – a festival Tim and I get to play at in late August.

Rock climbing wall –

Lucy helped Tim lead “Rootbeer & Hymns” on her little red ukelele

Kayaking on the lake –

Playing in the sand –

A stop off on the way home to visit Mark Twain’s boyhood home

And a little bakery education –

First Day of Homeschool and ABC’s:

The night before our first day of homeschool. I got the kids each a new library bag from Out of Print Books.

Making a set of felt alphabet cards together –

A first day of school picture on the front porch – can’t win them all 🙂

Harriet practicing her letter sounds

Farmyard:

One of our themes for August was everything Farm! We kicked it off with a really fun visit to Deanna Rose Farmstead Park in Overland Park Kansas.

Pony rides –

Bottle feeding baby goats –

Tractor racing –

Picking grapes at our own tiny farm –

Homemade farmers market –

Making their own play farm (complete with bunny pen)

Sneaky farm math –

Pig pancakes to kick off our Charlottes Web read-aloud –

Cutting practice –

“Milking” a cow –

Play at our own farm park in Greeley –

Eclipse:

All sorts of wonderful Eclipse fun since we were very close to the zone of Totality –

Eclipse paintings –

A piece of artwork I painted live at a house concert –

Viewing the eclipse –

crescent shaped shadows

Eerie light mid day –

Art/Art History:

Amazing art installation at UNC gallery –

“Cave explorers” discovering the cave paintings at Lascaux

   

History:

Before digging into our fun new history book we did a little looking back at the kids histories in their keepsake albums.

And we did an interview of Grandma Didi to look at our own family history –

Geography:

For Geography we tried out a TopMunch box (snacks, music, and history curated from somewhere in the world) – this month was all about Paris

Reading and Robots:

More robot building for this little engineer –

And SO SO many books read –

All of us enjoyed getting back to our morning tea time on the front porch with stories –

Pools, Parades, and Picnics – July’s Adventures in Homeschooling

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This year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (5), Beatrice (2), and Arlo (8 months). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

During July, we don’t do any structured homeschooling, but we did still have some wonderful adventures as a family. Here is a little photo journal of our month.

4th of July:

We kicked off July with a bang – enjoying backyard BBQing, fireworks with friends, a fantastic parade, and some adorable vintage outfits on Arlo (that were Tim and his brothers when they were babes).

Artsy Fun:

Inspired by Dogman, Lucy started drawing her own series of comics (it’s called Robot Rambush and Robot Hoverton)

A dress sewn by Lucy for Beatrice (with zero help from mama)

A pretty cool art invention discovered by Lucy –

And I started up my residency at the Denver Children’s Museum!

We also sewed this sweet little quiet book page all together in anticipation of our big camping trip.

Camping

This month we took our first family camping trip. We went up the Poudre Canyon to Roosevelt National Forest and camped at a beautiful lake there. I wouldn’t say it was as idyllic as these pictures make it look ha ha (kid throwing up from the winding roads, miserable heat in the afternoon, whining children, and bugs all put a damper on the idyllic). But we did it, and it had some really beautiful moments.

Skipping rocks.

Arlo was a camping champion.

Reading Harry Potter out loud around the breakfast morning campfire.

 

Enjoying the Outdoors:

A picnic at our favorite Homestead Park

Enjoying their favorite Willow tree in the evening

A not-done-in-time-dinner from mama lead to a lovely restaurant put together by Lucy and Harriet at the “Flower Cafe” outside on the patio.

And a favorite summer tradition around here – UNC’s Concerts Under the Stars series – with the Greeley Philharmonic. Umbrellas are open here, but it only sprinkled for a few minutes and then cleared up for a lovely evening.

Reading:

This month we read –

Clementine by Sara Pennypacker (how have I never read these before!?) and the new illustrated Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The girls also worked super hard to complete their entire Summer Reading Program at our local library.

Poolside:

Summertime at its best.

And a session of swim lessons for all three girls.

Theater Camp:

Thanks to a little help from Great Grandma Goose, Harriet and Lucy got to take part in a local theater camp. In one week they put on an entire production of Snow White! The girls each had real parts and even had to memorize lines! Lucy was one of the narrators (Red), and Harriet was one of the seven dwarves (Wallflower).

Bike Fundraiser:

As a family we all helped put on a really cool fundraiser event called the Greeley Wheelie for Turn Around Bikes – a local non-profit that takes donated bikes, refurbishes them, and donates them to kids in need.

 

 

A Food Fight Party, Playing Planets, and Video Games Come to Life…. June’s Adventures in Homeschooling

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This year we began homeschooling Lucy (8), Hattie (5), Beatrice (2), and Arlo (8 months). We’re including this on our Giants & Pilgrims blog as all our family adventures seem to impact our art & music so much! Also, we just like sharing the stories. So we’ll be sharing posts on the themes we’ve been covering each month and calling the adventure “ABACUS”! Our hope is that these posts will help spark creative direction and inspiration for your family as well as giving us somewhere to be document and record our experiences.

Ahhhh. Summertime.  We aren’t doing anything structured for homeschooling over the summer, but it is wonderful to see how unschooling (or chasing the spark) can play out on these long summer days.

Parties and Outdoor Play:

Lucy planned an Epic food fight battle for her 8 year old party. She decided to use party table linen for her party.
So fun! We did three rounds – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Each round had a specific food and challenge. Thanks to some other mom tips online, it went off with out a hitch.

So silly and fun.

A letter Lucy wrote to her future self, with instructions to mom to give it to her on her 8th B-day.

Trying out her new penny board with some pro tips from friend Calvin.

June backyard pool party vibes…

And garden sketching and reading (also notice the Hidden Valley Ranch because they made themselves a salad from the garden as a snack – ha ha ha)

Rolling down the hills races at the University

Exploring the new city “stained glass” park!

First swing ride for Arlo-man (and the photo that motivated mama to give him his first haircut ha ha!)

Robots Galore:

Lucy got several Robot kits for her birthday. She LOVES robots. Her current obsession is trying to figure out how to get all her robots to do her chores for her. Hmmmm…..

Audio Books/Read Alouds:

We have recently “discovered” audio books (thank you read aloud revival audio deals!). Here are a couple we enjoyed this month – (Tim read Harry Potter book two out loud – so wonderful to get to relive these with our kids – and we have loved these Jim Kay illustrated versions)

 

Lucy dressed up at Mary Poppins

Outer Space:

The only “theme” we played with this month was planets and outer space. We used some Pinay Homeschool handouts and made polymer clay planets.

Lucy drew some stellar rocket ships

We enjoyed lots of space/aeronautic books from the library. I particularly LOVED the Armstrong and Lindbergh mouse adventures. Wonderful illustrations and stories – great sneaky histories for kids.

We also read Magic school bus in space

Did some planet play at the Windsor park

Circus Circus:

For Christmas this last year, Tim got the girls and me tickets to Cirque du Soleil’s “Luzia”. The whole show was about Mexico. It was utterly breathtaking. And so neat to be able to share with the girls after our Mexico study last October. I have seen a lot of their shows (and loved all of them) but this was by far my favorite.

I mean, they made it rain on stage – utterly magical.

Some Papel Picado inspired backdrop.

And then some fun circus books from the library

Lone Valley School:

Greeley has a historic park called Centennial Village that is run by the greeley museums. The two older girls participated in a day camp there at the beginning of June called Lone Valley School. They loved it. Lots of old fashioned activities and fun.

They were so into it that the second day they insisted on wearing period specific costumes.

Here is a photo of the old fashioned school house and some of the drills from their primers.

Morning breaks consisted of time playing old fashioned games like stilt walking and ring toss.

Making and Baking:

Fort building around the dining room table.

Marionette dragon making activity at the library

Lucy really wanted to invent a recipe and bake it. So, with a little help/suggestions from mama, here is her recipe she came up with “Lucy’s Mini Cupcaks”. They turned out surprisingly delicious!!

Dino Days:

Tim took the girls to Dinosaur days at the Colorado Model Railroad Museum

Art:

Lucy has really been honing her portrait/drawing from life skills. This is a drawing she did of Tim while he was reading Harry Potter out loud.

And here is Harriet’s wonderful “portrait” of her imaginary friend “Twinklebell”

Clay can get pretty messy, so summer is the perfect time to play with ceramics since we can do it outside.

Dance Recital:

Lucy and Harriet both danced in their studios annual dance recital.

Celebrating with ice cream in the park afterwards.

Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild:

Our best friends lent us their Nintendo switch at our house for the month. We are not really a gaming family, but we have loved all of the Zelda games since the very beginning. These days, the League of Legends is the most popular game, and it has millions of fans. If you have decided to buy smurfs on unrankedsmurfs.com, you will not be disappointed or bored. It has been so fun to play this incredible game as a family. It is breathtakingly beautiful and so fun – rock climbing, cooking, and so so much world to explore. So, we had to have a real life Zelda adventure as well… Everyone will be a little sad to return the switch next month.