Lest you think I have it all together

A friend of mine recently shared some thoughts with me from the book Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe by Todd Wilson. This guy runs through a literal gamut of comparison and envy issues plaguing moms.

Check out the list of lies he says we believe:

• Everyone else's kids are better.
• Everyone else's home is cleaner.
• Everyone else fixes better meals.
• Everyone else is more disciplined and more spiritual.
• Everyone else's marriage is better.
• Everyone else can do it all.
• Every other mom loves homeschooling.
• Everyone else is more capable.

Yup.  I've definitely fallen for several of those whoppers in my weaker moments.

Summing the book up, I'd restate these unrealistic comparisons this way: Everyone else has it all together but me. 

And let's face it, judging by my online persona, I certainly seem to have it all together.  Snagging deals, making homemade fruit roll-ups, and creating crafty projects to correlate with our homeschool studies paint me as some homesteading do-it-all mom that is whistling a happy tune and enjoying every moment of domestic existence.

And that is NOT me.

I'm not purposely trying to fool you all.  I just get more excited about sharing my successes and mountain-top experiences than my low-points.  I mean, c'mon do you really want to hear about how my youngest broke our $250 air purifier?  Or how my floor hasn't been thoroughly mopped for 2 months?  Or how it took me NINE hours to bake said stupid homemade fruit roll-ups and then my husband was so miffed at my excessive use of energy that he went out and bought me a dehydrator?

Honestly, most days I feel fairly overwhelmed and tired.  There are always toys on my floor to be picked up, noses to wipe, dishes in some state of uncleanliness and unsightly scattered paper piles on my desk.

So, lest you think I have it all together let me assure you - I DO NOT.  And below there are pictures to prove it.

I'm inexpressibly thankful that regardless of my failings and inability to get my act together, God never lets me down.  I'm living proof that His grace is always enough.  

How about you?  Have you fallen for any of these lies?

Our dining room table mess during a typical homeschool morning. 

My son drinking milk from a bowl on the floor while playing puppy.

Trying to keep Solomon occupied by putting dry spaghetti noodles into a sieve.  Great idea, pinterest!  Now if only you would have warned me about what a mess this was to clean up. And how frustrated Solomon would get when the noodles broke.  (An even better picture would have been capturing what happened next.  Clive decided he was hungry for peanut butter and shared it with Solomon.  Both boys eating peanut butter out of the same jar with their fingers.  All this happened in the span of 2 minutes while I was working with Chloe on schoolwork.)

Yes, I let my son play with sewing pins.  While perched on the edge of my bed.  Not my wisest decision as a mom.  But he's my fine-motor-skill guy and he didn't prick himself even once!  Honest!

Chloe is my sweet angel.  But I'm afraid she might suffocate while she sleeps beneath her obsessive collection of stuffed animals.

School's out for summer!

Chloe proudly showing off portfolio evaluation.

[WARNING: This post includes excessive use of exclamation points.]

Chloe is officially DONE with kindergarten!

Yahoo and Hallelujah! 

I'm unspeakably proud of all that Chloe's accomplished this year.  She's a fabulous little reader and a true joy to teach. 

We've had many mountain and valley moments through our year of kindergarten.  I pray the valleys will help teach Chloe the value of perseverance and keep her humbly relying on God for strength in her educational journey.

In Ohio, there are at least three different ways you can provide documentation of your homeschooling year.  I chose to compile a portfolio of Chloe's year of schoolwork and then to have the portfolio evaluated by a certified teacher. (Ironically, both Matt and I are teachers but neither of us are certified to teach K-12 here.  I suppose we might be a trifle biased in evaluating our own daughter anyhow.)

I purposely didn't take a photo of the ginormous binder we put together chronicling Chloe's kindergarten year.  It's embarrassingly huge.  I had no clue what to omit.  Nearly everything that was worthy of saving throughout the year made it into the portfolio binder.  Besides dividing out her work by discipline, I also had sections for handwriting, book reports, field trips, enrichment, homeschool co-op group, and unit studies. 

Thankfully, she passed the evaluation with flying colors! 

And now we celebrate, eat chocolate cake and take a much-deserved break from schoolwork!

Though not entirely.  Our family life is so completely infused with books that reading will naturally continue throughout the summer months.  I have a list of chapter books I'd like to read aloud to Chloe and both kids have already completed their first week's chart for our library's summer reading program.

And of course summer is the perfect time to do a few fun outdoor science studies.  I hope to do a unit on stars with the kids and explore the warm summer sky with our telescope for constellations and other celestial objects.

Don't worry, we're not such eggheads that we'll read the summer away.  Bike riding, swimming, visits from family, park playdates and general summer fun-nity is also on the agenda!

Big congratulations to our new little first grader! 

Enjoying the celebratory dessert of chocolate almond cake and ice cream.

 

Clive is happy to partake in the spoils of big sister's hard work! 

Horn homeschool: Weeks 34-36

For our final unit study of the year, we've been learning all about flowers. 

As usual, we began with a boat-load of books about flowers from the library.  We talked about the vast variety of flowers including flower bushes and grasses.  Did you know that grasses flower?  I sure didn't!  We also learned about the basic anatomy of a flower and the processes of pollination and fertilization.

We dissected a tulip flower head and I showed the kids the various anatomical parts of the flower.  Then Chloe drew her own flower diagram of a tulip on a posterboard.

We planted lots of different flower seeds in pots for our yard and noted the great contrasts between them as we planted. We did sunflowers, marigolds, snapdragons, calla lilies and sweet peas.  I love it when we can combine a learning activity with a household task!  Got my flowers planted and did a little homeschooling at the same time.  Nice. 

Another fun aspect of our flower study has been our "What's in Bloom?" poster.  Chloe and I are charting the perennial flowers that we see blooming around our area.  On the chart we note the date the flower blooms, I write down the flower name and then Chloe colors a swatch of color to match the blooming flower.  Then we both draw the flower in the last column.  At the end of the summer (assuming we keep it going) I look forward to seeing if there's anything we can conclude from our flower chart.  One of the flower books we read said that in general, flower color can tell you what part of the year it blooms in.  For example, pinks and purples are mostly mid-summer flowers while whites and yellows are spring bloomers.   We'll see if our findings prove or disprove that color-season pattern. 

I'm certain we could have done more crafts and such for this unit.  The possibilities with flowers are practically limitless!  But the end or our school year is in sight and we're ramping down considerably.  Only 10 pages left in Chloe's math book and then she's all done with her formal kindergarten studies.  Hooray!

Horn homeschool: Week 33

For week 33 of our homeschooling venture, we did a short study on drama and the performing arts. 

During the last few months of our homeschooling co-op, we had endeavored as moms to create more opportunities for our kids to present projects in front of the group.  So, we concocted a few poster-style project and each kiddo got a chance to present his/her work to the others.  It was GREAT to see how they blossomed and grew in confidence through these mini-projects!

Knowing the valuable experience it is for our little students to speak in front of an audience, and knowing the serious cuteness factor involved, we decided to do an end-of-the-year play!

And while organizing 12 children ages 3-8 was, at times, maddening it was also ridiculously FUN.

Another mom and I collaborated to put together a script based on the well-loved story Goldilocks.  I took over as director since I have lots of childhood theater experience (and I also have the loudest voice to be able to get the attention of my rowdy cast).  A super creative crafty mom in our group led the scenery making and stage set-up.  Then each family and their kids were responsible for their own props and costumes.

Our play was titled "The Real True Actual Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears".  Overall, it really went well and was VERY entertaining.  And I was super extra proud of my Chloe (Mama Bear) and Clive (Baby Bear).  They remembered their lines and delivered them with gusto!  Clive even added his own gestures and improvised a little.

During our mini-drama study we read several books about acting and all the behind-the-scenes work necessary to put on a show.  In doing so the kids learned some drama vocabulary words.  And of course we practiced their parts at home while I gave them a teensy weensy bit of coaching.  Just simple things to help them speak in character and to always face the audience.

Additionally, I took the kids to a performance of the Akron Symphony Orchestra. They've both heard orchestral music before but never live.  Both Chloe and Clive were MESMERIZED!  The concert was geared for kids and included many breaks for interaction with the audience.  There was even a narrator and actors who acted out the story, "The Little Engine that Could".

This unit has made me realize that I need to work much harder at exposing my kids to the wonderful world of the arts.  I know they're still young yet but this seems to be the prime time for generating an appreciation and beginning a love for the fine arts.

The bear family realizes that someone's been eating their porridge.  As you can see, Baby Bear was very animated about it all.

Baby Bear encounters Goldilocks.

Papa and Mama Bear confront Goldilocks about her habit of breaking-and-entering.

The cast takes a bow!  (And Clive gets distracted by a newfound set of toy binoculars.)

Horn homeschool: Weeks 28-29

Knowing we had an upcoming field trip with our homeschool group to a local police station, I planned a two week unit study focusing on Community Helpers. 

Our field trip was AMAZING.  The police officer giving us the tour was not busy so he spent LOTS of time and showed us every nook and cranny of the station.  Literally.  We saw the dispatch center, shooting range, detective offices, interrogation rooms, jail, locker room, and police cars.  The officer patiently answered all our questions (from both kids and mommies) and indirectly gave us much insight as to how vital his service is.


At home, Chloe and Clive and I read through MANY books on various community helpers.  We focused on police officers, firefighters, librarians, postal workers, and doctors/dentists.

In studying police officers, we made costumes (ironically, Clive refused to wear his) and role-played with walkie-talkies.  Additionally, we talked about stranger safety at length.  Unfortunately, this back-fired on me.  Instead of creating an awareness and caution of strangers in Chloe, she became transfixed with a newfound fear of unfamiliar faces.  To the point where she would hide behind me in stores and not engage in friendly banter with cashiers or bystanders in public.  It didn't help that during the police station field trip the officer showed the kids a binder full of convicts' photos.  And Chloe thought she spotted one of our local drug store clerks in the mugshot.

THANKFULLY, this intense fear has worn off somewhat.  She's back to her cheerful self and often chats with trusted folks in my presence.  Last week she proudly told the check-out librarian all about her swimming lessons.  Whew.

I didn't forget Clive in this unit study.  I pointedly chose several community helper books of particular interest to him including garbage truck drivers, snow plow drivers, farmers and construction workers.  Anyone driving a machine is very important in Clive's mind!

I really wanted to write up some thank you notes with Chloe for a few local community helpers.  Alas, my dream did not meet reality and we never got around to it.  :(  But thank you notes are never late so I'm hoping to do this with Chloe as part of our handwriting practice in an upcoming week.

There are a myriad of sites out there with valuable resources on this topic.  My faves include:

• Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos: A wonderful list of ideas, books and linked crafts, songs and activities for this teacher's community helpers week.
• Enchanted Learning:  Enchanted Learning ROCKS MY HOMESCHOOLING WORLD.  It's been a huge aid to me when I'm scrounging for some extra sheets and activities to round out a unit study.  Definitely worth the $20 year-long membership.
• Homeschool Share: Great ideas and printables for lapbooks for community helper themed books.  My kids loved the Community Helpers A to Z book listed. 
• First School: This site is wonderful!  All the activities and crafts use every day household items.  Which is perfect for me since I usually scrounge around last minute in planning out crafts.  This site gave us the police officer costume idea.  Thanks, first school!

And thank YOU community helpers for your valuable service and sacrifice!

 

Horn Homeschool: Week 26

Week 26 of our homeschool ventures found us right around the "official" beginning of spring, March 20.

But alas, spring did not arrive as scheduled here in Northeast Ohio.

Regardless, we still read through stacks of books with springy themes including why seasons happen, signs of spring, and what spring looks like around the world.

We also made coffee filter daffodils, went for rainy cold walks looking for crocuses, and jumped in puddles.  Let me clarify that.  The KIDS jumped in puddles not me.  I watched from the window with Solomon because I don't own rain boots.  :(  A sad fact I'm hoping will change once Target's adorable women's polka dot boots go on clearance come summer.  (Those boots do eventually go on clearance, right?)


Looking for more spring crafts?  DLTK has a super section devoted to fun and easy spring-y projects.  The coffee filter daffodil was RIGHT up our alley since it was using regular around-the-house materials and still involved a new technique (spritzing water to spread the marker color).


As usual, we continued with our regular school work during the week plodding along in math, phonics, reading practice, read-alouds, and handwriting/journaling.

Horn Homeschool: Weeks 30 & 32

Weeks 30 and 32 of our homeschooling studies focused on EASTER.

We studied Palm Sunday, and all the events leading up to Easter Sunday in detail using many picture books and our family Bible.

We also made several visual projects during our study of Easter:

• Stained glass crosses 
• Easter cards
• Construction paper crosses on which we each wrote "Thank You Jesus"
• Resurrection cookies (REALLY powerful activity for the kids this year)
• Easter mountain (This is a super easy project and very kid friendly.  You make the *mountain* from a homemade playdough recipe and bake it to harden.  Then you fold pipe cleaner people and act out the events of Easter together complete with a cross made of sticks, a tomb, and a rock door.  We placed the Jesus pipe-cleaner man in the tomb on Good Friday and then sealed the tomb with playdough.  The kids were thrilled to see that the rock was rolled away on Sunday morning and the Jesus pipe-cleaner man was gone!)
• Easter story with colored eggs.  (We did the traditional dying of eggs as usual for our Sunday afternoon egg hunt.   After the kids finished the hunt, I gathered them together and asked for specific colors as I did an informal retelling of the Easter story.  Colors were as follows: Green - grass in garden of gethsemane where Jesus prayed, White - moonlight that shone down on Jesus' hands as he prayed in the garden, Orange - color of torches of soldiers, Red - blood that Jesus shed, Black - dark SAD day as Jesus died and was separated from God the Father, Pink - sunrise on Easter Sunday when Jesus rose from the dead!, Yellow - Golden color of heaven where we can live now that Jesus paid for our sins!)

We sang several Easter songs and hymns throughout our study.  We also read some fascinating books about how Easter is celebrated throughout the world.  And of course we listened ad nauseum to that great Easter classic, A Very Veggie Easter.  I subjected myself countless times to the annoying and super silly "Easter Cow" track.  Ah, the love and sacrifice of a mother.  :)

Overall it was a fabulous celebration, study and reminder of the great importance of Jesus' death and resurrection. 

We rejoice as they did in Luke 24:6, "He is not here; he has risen!"

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Horn Homeschool: Week 25

Week 25 we journeyed back to the wild wild west and learned all about cowboys, ranches, and cattle drives.

This was an odd week for me to teach since I really have very little interest in cowboy stuff.  And as is usually the case with unfamiliar subject matter, I surprisingly found myself very interested in all things cowboy!

As usual, reading books on the subject was central to our study.  We read up on wild west shows, the makings of a cattle drive, tall tales and biographies about Annie Oakley, and picture books chocked full of cowboy/cowgirl vocabulary.

Our favorite cowpoke book was definitely Cowboys and Cowgirls: Yippee Yay! by Gail Gibbons.  Whimsical illustrations and covering a huge variety of cowboy topics, we read this one several times throughout the week.

Another favorite activity of the week was staging our own cattle-drive supper.  We read the book Cowboy Cooking: Exploring History Through Simple Recipes from cover to cover and selected a menu for our mock cattle-drive.  This book was fabulous!  In amongst the recipes were sprinkled historical tidbits and black and white photos of actual cowboys on a drive.  This book really fascinated Chloe and we had a fun time choosing and preparing our cowboy grub.  Chloe and I dressed as "cookies" (that's what the chef on a drive was nick-named) and cooked up cowboy chili, cowboy biscuits and then peach pie for dessert.  Of course, I did most of the work while Chloe rigged up the chuckwagon and pretended to drive it.  Precious!

In searching for cowboy books, I stumbled across a really cute series of reader books called Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa (her horse) by Erica Silverman.  The illustrations are by the renowned Betsy Lewin and perfectly accompany the simple humor of this series.  Chloe loved them and we're still checking out these books even though we're well past our cowboy study.

The crowning touch to our cowboy-themed week was a special theater show about Annie Oakley and other American legends.  Chloe was captivated!  The show was geared for kids and incorporated lots of humor and interaction.  The theater company also used these amazingly huge puppets that were really spectacular!

Yeehaw for cowboys!

Chloe used a scarf to tie the *horses* to our chuck wagon.

Cowboy biscuits.  These were delicious!

Chili with lots of beans. 

Peach pie.  Yum!

Me and Chloe all excited before the curtain opens for the Annie Oakley show!

Horn Homeschool: Week 24

Toast in the shape of 100 for breakfast.

During week 24 of our homeschool venture, we had a split theme.  On Monday we commemorated our 100th day of school!  Yay!

Felt good to reach this typical kindergarten milestone.  And as is also typical, we did lots of activities centered around the number 100. 

Of course there was lots of counting to 100 involved in our day.  We did 100 jumping jacks (that was hard!), counted and ate 100 pieces of popcorn, make posters using 100 items (paperclips and pennies), and weighed five different groups of 100 things.  The weighing activity was especially engaging because we made a prediction chart before weighing the articles.  We weighed a box of 100 paperclips, 100 pennies, 100 cottonballs, 100 popsicle sticks and 100 stickers.

The rest of our week was devoted to one of my all-time favorite children's authors.  Theodore Geisel's birthday falls on March 2.  He is otherwise known as the legendary Dr. Seuss or by his other pen-name Theo LeSieg ("Geisel" spelled backwards).

To commemorate the special day, we read MANY books by the birthday author beginning appropriately with Happy Birthday to You.  We also had a special Seussical birthday party dinner with chicken in the shape and style of One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.  One of the absolutely invaluable aspects of homeschooling is getting your children actively involved and excited about learning.  Chloe hopped right into the Seuss party preparations and concocted her own "Pink Ink" drink for dinner inspired by a Seuss book.  She also had the idea to dress up as characters from The Cat in the Hat.  She and Clive became Things 1 and 2 and we crafted a cat-like hat for Matt to wear at dinner.

We never watch tv during the day simply because our television is in a bad spot to pick up digital reception.  For our Seuss marathon however, I pulled the tv out and rigged it up so the kids could watch a few episodes "The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That" on pbs.  What a fabulous show!

And because I'm ridiculous I verbalized an idea about making a Cat-in-the-Hat cake.  Chloe got even MORE excited and promised she'd help me make and decorate the cake.  So, we concocted a cat shaped cake.  That part was fairly simple.  It was the frosting and decorating that proved to be the most time consuming.  Thankfully, a kind neighbor friend of mine gave me some black decorator's icing and I did the best I could with my very limited artistic abilities. 

Dr. Seuss' books are so out of this world fun to read!  Though I gave up on the tongue twister book about 1/3 of the way through. That one is crazy!  Conversely, I also dig how many of his books are so easy for beginning readers to read for themselves.  His reader books aren't the contrived no-plot type of books that you find on the library's "emerging readers" shelves.  His books maintain a silly whimsicality while still using simple beginner words.

Happy happy birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Counting 100 pieces of popcorn for her and Clive to eat as a snack.  100 pieces of popcorn is surprisingly small!

100 posters in which the kids glued 100 paperclips and pennies.

Thing 2 was a very helpful cake froster!

The cat cake.

Close-up of my attempt at the cat's mischeivous face.

Thing 2 patiently waiting in her red "box" (a pack-n-play covered with red towels and blankets).

Thing 2 waits to jump out and surprise Matt.

Even Solomon joined in on the Dr. Seuss fun by wearing his special bib!

"Pink Ink" for dinner. 

Our "one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" were actually homemade chicken nuggets.

Horn Homeschool: Weeks 22-23

In conjunction with President's Day, we launched into a two week unit study on American presidents, American currency, the 50 states, the American flag and general USA history.

Regarding presidents, we mainly covered the two presidents whom we celebrate come February 22.  Namely, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.  We read biographies of these two men as well as several picture books about them and other presidents.  Additionally, Chloe did a few mini-books on these guys from enchantedlearning.com.  I LOVE THIS SITE!  I know most of the site is workbook-page-heavy but I love the extraordinary variety of activities and topics they cover. 

In line with the presidents, we talked currency a bit and the kids were able to identify Washington and Lincoln on coins and bills.  With Chloe I did some extra work with counting money and categorizing coins.

I'm so glad my frazzled brain somehow still remembers all the words to the classic ditty Fifty Nifty United States!  We sang that tune every day and so often that Chloe can sing it from memory now.  And inadvertently, she now knows all fifty states in the union.  Mission accomplished!  And if you're looking for a light-hearted read, I highly recommend the silly Scrambled States of America books. 

In my quick grabbing of America-themed books we also read about the revolutionary war, the constitution, the star-spangled banner, and the American flag.  During this unit, I led the kids to look for and count American flags when driving in the car.  And Chloe and I crafted an American flag out of crepe paper and construction paper.  (Details for the craft linked here. Though ours didn't turn out nearly as nice as the pictured link!)

Chloe and her friend Kayla had a blast decorating the presidential cupcakes.

Horn Homeschool: Week 21

Week 21 was the week before February 14, so we were obliged to do a Valentines-y lesson.

Of course we made heart shaped everything.  Heart-shaped sugar cookies, hair barrettes, stromboli and a big ole chocolate chip cookie.

We read books about how people celebrate Valentine's Day and made a few valentines for local friends.

We also talked much about love. About God's love for us and our responsibility to love others.  And believe me, there's lots of fodder for application about loving one another with bickering siblings cooped up indoors during the snowy winter months.  :)  This mama is continually getting schooled in the areas of patience and love in dealing with these precious blessings of mine!

Without a doubt, the highlight of the week was going to sing at a local nursing home with our homeschool group.  We sang all love-y themed songs and at the end of our mini-performance, the kids all handed out valentines to the residents. This was our third time singing at this particular nursing home and although Clive acted naughty while I was leading the singing, Chloe is really started to *get* it.  On the way home Chloe initiated all sorts of questions about the nursing home residents.  It was a GREAT opportunity for us to talk about what it means to show love and to consider the needs of others. 

Simple heart-shaped felt barrettes that Chloe and I sewed for her little church girlfriends.  Found this idea on the purl bee.  This was an easy beginner sewing project for Chloe.

My counter-top helper, aka Clive, helped make heart shaped sugar cookies.

Matt's requested Valentine's Day dinner was stromboli. And because I'm a nerd, I had to try to make it heart-shaped.  :)

Horn Homeschool: Weeks 17-20

Our month of January was devoted to studying the human body.  Following this basic lesson plan (thanks to homeschoolshare.com), we did several science lessons, demonstrations and readings which covered most of the body's systems.

We started the unit study with a WONDERFUL and extensive lesson on the body with our homeschool group.  It was a great way to kick-start the human body fun!

After that initial lesson, I used the rest of the first week to talk about how to take proper care of our bodies.  We read books on topics such as healthy eating, exercise, sleep, and cleanliness.

The next three weeks we learned about bones, lungs, skin, the five senses, the heart, the digestive system, muscles, the immune system, and the brain.  We read LOTS of books.  We did several fun demonstrations.  We made manipulatives and watched movies.

The human body is pretty stinkin' amazing.  As we read and learned together I kept finding myself in awe of this complicated machine God has knit together. 

Here were the highlights of our four week study:

• Easy Make & Learn Projects: Human Body by Donald M. Silverman.  This book was phenomenal!  A lot of crafty learning books are pretty lame but this book actually taught concepts through the crafty manipulatives.  Through the course of our study we made paper arms with muscles to demonstrate pulling action, skin diagram with hair follicles (made of yarn), and a skeleton to review various bone names.
• Boiling bones.  To show Chloe the various parts of bone, I purchased some beef bones at the grocery and we boiled 'em up.  We also cooked up some chicken thigh bones to compare to the beef bones.
• Magic School Bus Human Body dvd.  I LOVE THE MAGIC SCHOOL BUS!  Talk about making complicated unseen concepts come alive!  Wow.  We watched all three body episodes repeatedly.  The dvd was entertaining, packed with education and enjoyable enough to watch over and over again.  I'm certain my kids understand the digestive process solely because of this fabulous dvd. 
• Human body poster and model.  My mom scored a few body books for us at yard sales and one of them opened up into a life size poster!  It was hanging in our dining room/school room for the duration of our lessons and it was fantastic to be able to take the kids to the poster and point out various parts.  Additionally, I had a simple body model we used primarily to learn the parts of the digestive system.  We named him Hugh.  The kids had loads of fun taking Hugh's organs in and out.
• My Amazing Human Body computer software.  I picked this computer game up at the library not realizing what a valuable teaching tool it would become.  Chloe spent many an hour playing the games and she learned much without even realizing it!  The interactive cd not only taught body basics but it also allowed for body exploration and unguided learning.  One memorable activity let the user choose a body part or organ and then do various virtual things to learn more.  You could virtually poke the organ to see it's texture/density, take an xray, or turn the organ around 360 degrees. 

This was a super fun unit study but I wish we could have done it justice!  We didn't do much with the circulatory, nervous or respiratory systems.  At times like these I remember Chloe is in KINDERGARTEN.  She'll catch up when she gets to high school biology.  :)

Horn Homeschool: Week 16

Week 16 in our schooling was all about CHRISTMAS.  Surprise, surprise!

We did all the usual Christmas-y activities including cookie baking and frosting, decorating the house, trimming the tree, and making ornaments.

Another beneficial Christmas activity we partook of was caroling at a local nursing home.  I dressed up the kiddos in their Christmas best and we sang with a few other families from our homeschool group.  Then we gave out homemade ornaments to the residents.  Let me tell you, those old folks LOVE seeing little kiddos!  Their faces beamed with joy and their pains were momentarily relieved.  What a blessing to be able to spread some joy and remind them of the miraculous baby Savior born so long ago!

We hammer it into our kids that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth.  Along that line, we did a countdown paper chain as well as a Jesse tree to further emphasize and anticipate Jesus' birthday celebration. 

Additionally, we read myriads of nativity centered books and watched portions of The Nativity Story.  We sang Christmas carols, made a timeline of history leading up to Jesus' birth and sang the song Matthew's Begats way too many times.  (Check out this fabulous Christmas album too by Andrew Peterson.  Along the same lines as the Jesse Tree, the songs travel throughout the Old Testament showing the foreshadowing and expectation of Jesus throughout history.  There's also a book that follows the song Matthew's Begats that is a fun and helpful visual aid.)

Lastly, we learned a readily applicable Bible verse for the Christmas season.  "It is more blessed to give than to receive."  Not sure that lesson sunk into their little brains yet.  But it is SO TRUE.  It truly is more fun to give than to get!