Planning Ahead

It's been a long time since I have blogged.  It just seems nothing interesting is going on...and if it isn't interesting to me it surely isn't going to be interesting to anyone else.  =D

This next week is going to be pretty busy.  Tonight Sweet is helping to supervise a lock-in at Sokol.  There are 13 young gymnasts signed up.  One of our coaches planned the whole night out with games and movies.  Cool took our popcorn popper in, bought some great bowls and soda for the event.  Chip downloaded a bunch of group dance songs for the kiddos to learn.  It should be a fun night for all involved.  Thank goodness it isn't me.  I am NOT a night person.  I am usually sound asleep by 10...I can't imagine staying up all night supervising.  But Sweet is psyched about it!

Tomorrow she leaves for a week long gymnastics camp at the University of Iowa.  She is on the front page of the women's gymnastics camp page with head coach Larissa Libby.  Pay no attention to the bent arms and legs.  ;-)

Pretty sweet!  She is packed and is so excited about it.  She saved and payed for it herself so it means a lot to her. She gets to stay in the dorms, eat in the cafeteria and have gymnastics for 8 hours a day.   I know she will work hard and gain a ton of experience from it.  I'm gonna miss her though.

Chip is going to a week long drum camp at a local college this week.  He will learn how to play the drums, have choreography lessons and have an experience of a lifetime with Sheltered Reality.  He loves music so this should be right up his alley.  This group sends quite a message and, I think, will be a great benefit to his character education.  I can't wait until the end of the week so we can hear what he has learned. I know he will be tap, tap, tapping all week.   

Dill is participating in a teen library program Tuesday Where he will watch and review Kiddy Grade:  Pieces of the Past.  It is an Anime movie so of course he is excited about it.  I don't think this will do much for his character education but maybe his artistic side will benefit.  :-/  He also has Tae Kwon Do and Hopkido practice. 

To get ready for our busy week I have done some cooking ahead.  I boiled and peeled a dozen eggs, made 36 banana nut muffins, peeled and cut 10 pounds of carrots, cooked up two pounds of taco meat, have refried beans in the crockpot and made two batches of brown rice and froze.  That will give me a step ahead come Monday.  :)

Hope your summer is as fun as ours.

Drawing the United States

I started this post on July 15, 2009 at 10:23 AM. When I went back to post it, the links no longer worked and I couldn't find them on The Wayback Machine. Today as I was looking through blogpost drafts I ran across these links again. I tried them again on The Wayback Machine and they came up! Yay!

This site has two different areas. One is learning the presidents in order by looking at a picture and using clues. The picklets learned the presidents in order with The Presidents Song years ago and still remember it so that is of no use to us but might interest some of you. The other is drawing The United States. This rocks!

It gives easy to follow directions to drawing different regions of the US. It even has a little story to help remember. Unfortunately, it doesn't have the entire US...the Northeast is missing. BUT I have faith that we can make up something to remember them. Lord knows I need the help with those states!

The picklets only finished the first two regions and then we lost track of it. Guess what we are starting next week! I am so excited. I hope it is of some use to you cause it really is fun.

The original links are these. They don't work. :-( http://www.prosserschools.org/walker/spelling/spelling.htm

http://www.prosserschools.org/walker/Spelling/States01.htm

BUT...here is the link for the archive.
http://web.archive.org/web/20060212061737/http://www.prosserschools.org/walker/spelling/spelling.htm

I hope your kidlets like it as much as mine did.

© 2008-2011 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Journey North

For the last few years we have participated in Journey North's symbolic monarch migration. Each spring we anxiously await a package from Journey North. We received one this spring but it was accidently filed in the generic Tupperware box on the porch, along with a phone bill and a postcard, before it was opened. Imagine my surprise when I searched for a bowl and lid and found mail instead. Mail that is months old. Yup. We moms love surprises like that.

I knew there was major flooding in Mexico so I didn't think we would receive butterflies back this spring. The butterflies that were sent down from Canada and The States were ruined in the flood making the migration back north impossible.

The butterfly we received was made from a student in Mexico. That makes it even more special

As an added surprise we received milkweed seeds. I put the envelope in the fridge and we will plant them next spring.


We are now working on our butterflies to send for this year. Looking at our past symbolic butterflies and the ones that migrated back to us is quite the inspiration. Check out these past posts:
Butterflies received May 2008
Our Symbolic Butterflies October 2008
Our Symbolic Butterflies October 2009

If you want to join the symbolic migration now is the time. Check out Journey North for the rules and regs.

(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Scientific Pizza--Part 2

Better late than never is what I always say.

Back in January 2009, the picklets made scientific pizzas. It was The Year of Science 2009. The challenge was to "Create a Scientific Pizza - whatever that looks like to you!" After a little prodding, the picklets decided that was for lunch. I posted it and didn't think much of it.

A few months later I received an email that stated we won a prize for our participation in the scientific pizza challenge. I sent my address and waited.

The beginning of this year I received an envelope from The American Institute of Biological Sciences. Lo and behold our prize came! A $25 gift certificate to Starbucks and a $30 Visa gift card. Along with the cards came this little note.

Pretty awesome, huh?

I put the envelope into my notebook. And forgot about it. Until I ran across that particular notebook a couple weeks ago. Yup. I went to the grocery store and decided to use the Visa card. The 11.83 total wouldn't go through. I called the number on the back of the card. Only $7.00 of the original $30 was left due to monthly service fees. Never used and the company took $23.00! I now know not to buy those as gifts for my nieces and nephews.

The Starbucks card has been put to good use. Strawberry and Creme frapucinnos for me and the picklets. Nummy!

Anyway, winning the scientific pizza contest was a big surprise. Not to mention nummy.

Today's Happenings

Two posts in one day! I realized that I really need to document more or I forget. That is what I have learned today. I am NOT too old to learn.

Anyway, we have been very active today. We took the entire morning and spent it out of doors. The lawn needed to be mowed terribly. There were patches pretty darned thick from dog fertilizer. I tried to mow last week but the mower wouldn't stay started. So $210 later the mowers are fixed and the lawn is finally mowed. It was definitely a group effort and quite the learning experience. Sweet mowed over half the lawn while Dill weed whipped most of it. Chip pulled weeds in the strawberries, kept an eye on the dogs and picked up as needed. It was nice being outside and having fun. The picklets certainly enjoyed the change too.

While weeding the strawberries Chip rescued a sapling and has replanted it in a dish in hopes of saving it's life. Through the Iowa State Extension interactive leaf identification we found it is a red maple. We don't have any red maples in the yard so have decided that a bird must have dropped it there in passing. I hope it survives. I would love to have a red maple. They are so pretty.

About 10 we took a break. We ate popcorn, apple slices and drank a glass of pop. The picklets then did some nature sketches in their Nature Journals. They each picked their favorite plants from around the yard, sketched them and wrote down their names, scientific names and other pertinent information. Dill was quite enamoured in learning that "Bleeding Hearts" are also called "Dutchman's Trousers".

Chip decided he wanted to make lunch. We ended up calling it "Jellogetti". It is actually modeled after a spaghetti dish my MIL made one time on accident. Chip thought the story was funny and wanted to make his own. It was actually very good and was quite fun to watch. I will have him post the recipe as typing practice next week.

After we got done eating I read from Being A Boy by Charles Dudley Warner. It is about a boy growing up in the country in Old New England. There are quite a few words we don't know and have done a lot of looking up. Reading this and looking unknown words up has really boosted the picklets vocabulary. In fact they refer to themselves as "foctotums" quite often. Do YOU know what a factotum is?

After lunch they jumped on the trampoline for a few minutes and then came in to do chores. They were given free time until 1:30 but decided to come in early when I informed them I would make a strawberry cake with strawberry frosting as soon as the kitchen was cleaned up. Nothing like cake to motivate. ;-)

I made this cake with this frosting. The batter was a winner with the picklets. Chip, who requested strawberry cake with strawberry frosting with strawberry ice cream (as a late birthday cake) said the batter (and he doesn't like batter) was really good. I didn't use the gelatin and put small chunks of strawberries in it for added flavor. It did take a bit longer to bake than the recipe stated. The frosting was really runny and took a ton of powdered sugar. It still wasn't super thick but all the sugar changed the strawberry taste. Once again strawberry chunks to the rescue! (I also didn't have cake flour so used this substitute...it worked great)

The picklets jumped on the trampoline for a while when Sweet decided she wanted to build the bird feeder she got from Lowes this past weekend. Unfortunately one of the roof slats is missing and we didn't get to finish it. So we went into the garage and found the Popular Mechanics for Kids Motorworks. She and Dill sat at the table working on this for the longest time. She got rather bored as he read through each part and identified them. He is very meticulous that way where she would rather jump in with both feet and figure out the parts later.

For supper I made our favorite beef stew from Month of Menus. When I first started homeschooling I downloaded this. It has been one of the most used resources in my kitchen. I printed it and put it in a three prong folder. We have used it for going on 7 years now and it shows. I also made Cheddar Bay Biscuits. They are so good dunked in beef stew. I didn't use Bisquick though I used the master mix (butter in place of shortning) that is in Month of Menus.

Since the table was being used as a workshop for the motor, we ate outside. It was quite breezy but still rather warm. The picklets ate and then played with the neighbor girl for a little while. They rode bikes, played tackleball and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately that is where the fun ended. After the neighbor went home the boys got into a fight and were sent to bed. We didn't even get to taste the cake or the strawberry ice cream. There is always tomorrow.

Sweet picked up the outdoors while Cool and I panted some annuals he bought. We have some major horticultural projects coming up this weekend and wanted to get a jump start on them. We then sat and watched Sweet strut her stuff on the trampoline. What a great training tool that is for her gymnastics. I think Sokol needs to put that on their wish list. It would make a world of difference.

Looking back on the day we were pretty busy. We had a lot of fun and learned quite a bit.

Crusin' along...living, laughing, loving and learning. Doesn't that rock?


(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Last Week of April??

I cannot believe it is already the last week of April! My grandpa was right...the older you get the faster life goes.

Not a lot going on around here but I will recap the highlights...

• Chip turned 16 on Monday. 16! How in the world did he get that old so fast? We had a great birthday celebration at Applebee's that included his grandparents. He wanted a bonsai tree so he is researching them to find out the right one to get to suit his needs.
• Last night was the Presidential Fitness Testing for the homeschool group. Chip and Sweet are in the running for Presidential and Dill is in the running for National. We have to attend the endurance run next month.
• Gymnastics has been on a two week break. It has been really relaxing. We are gearing up for another session of 4 days a week. The kids can't wait to get back to it!
• Tae Kwon Do is still going strong. The picklets are all working toward their yellow belt. The instructor said that they should be ready to test in June.
• We are beginning a gardening unit this weekend. It is time to get things planted. We will probably make our garden pizza again as well as try growing new to us veggies such as eggplant. Such fun!
• The homeschool association year is quickly coming to a close. I have to work on the evidences of learning and get those turned in. I wish I was better organized.

I guess those are the highlights.

Cruisin' along...living, laughing, loving and learning. Doesn't that rock?

Level Six, First Place Floor Routine

Gymnastics competition is over. It went pretty well. Chip received first place and Sweet received second. Long story there. Here is her first place floor routine.

TGIS

Ahhh. I breathe a sigh of relief. After over two weeks of coughing, sneezing, sniffling, wheezing and other bodily functions through the "cold process", I think we are on the downhill roll. Dill, who was the latest to get sick, is feeling much better today. He is still coughing, sniffling and has a sore throat but looks, sounds and feels better than he has in almost a week. Yeah!

Cool has the next week off. We are planning on getting our Spring cleaning done. Sweet and I started work on her room yesterday. We will finish it today. She just got so tired that we couldn't work anymore. She was sitting on the floor looking at jewelry and her head was nodding. Poor thing.

She made spaghetti for supper last night. It was very good and hit the spot as we were all starving by the time 7:00 came around. For dessert we had a bowl of mint chip ice cream.

Today Sweet has gymnastics so we are about to head into town. It is cold and windy today. Really no kind of day to be outside at all. I'd much rather crawl back into bed, snuggle under the covers and sleep for the rest of the morning.

I think bagels are calling my name this morning. Or is it the frozen caramel? Either way Panera is in our immediate future plans.

Have a great Saturday!


(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Vivaldi

I just love listening to "This Day in History" during our morning paper route. I get many ideas for mini units. This morning is Vivaldi, born March 4, 1678.

Vivaldi Composer Study
Homeschool Vivaldi Lesson Plan
Arts Alive Four Seasons Resource Kit
Classics for Kids
Classics for Kids Audio
Music Kit Online Quiz
Colorful Vivaldi this would be very good for a group
The Red Priest
Vivaldi
Crayola Four Seasons

Enjoy!

A Week Already?

I can't believe it has been a week since I posted. My goodness how time flies!

We have been fairly busy with life. I can't remember for sure everything we have done. Nothing like keeping great notes for our school record. These are the highlights.

• Math using Khan Academy
• Math games using Funbrain, Timez Attack and other sources
• Geography games using Seterra
• Constellations and other outer space exploration using Celestia
• Eagle science--I think the site has crashed because it says feed not found this morning
• Bakugan, Yughio (boys)
• Gymnastics
• Deep cleaning of upstairs
• Purging of unwanted/needed toys from toy room
• Spelling and writing practice (making lists for Goodwill
• Best of Mad Libs
• Learned about the whale that exploded in China (History Channel)
• Learned a hard lesson in responsibility regarding lost items--can't put new Pokemon game on reserve until the HUMONGOUS library fine is paid (Dill)
• Painfully observed Millie the Wonder Dog aging with grace but not so graceful like
• Daily household chores
• Various workbooks to fill down time
• Tsunamis (Disasters Up Close) read aloud
• Free play/time
• Family time

I didn't think we had been all that busy but I guess we have been using our brains a lot. Yeah us!

(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Backyard Bird Count 2010

I completely forgot about the Great Backyard Bird Count this year until Dill came in from paper delivery and said he heard a woodpecker. Out we went a counting birds.

The woodpecker wouldn't hold still long enough to get a still shot so I took this video. It isn't a good video by any means but it is a video none-the-less.

There were a number of bird all around us.

We couldn't tell what kind some of them were because they were flying high. Sweet climbed one of the trees out front to get a birds eye view if you will

But some were within reach though hidden in the brush.

The cardinals were my absolute favorite.

They remind me of my Grandma J. She loved cardinals.

There were many birds to count and identify.

After doing so we submitted our results to the website. Being apart of something so big and so good is great!


(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Eagles

Friday Sweet and I headed to town (at a high rate of speed) to get dogfood and pay for the Daddy/Daughter dance when we spied an eagle. We turned around, pulled over and observed him for quite some time. What a beauty. Make sure you check out the Eagle Cam.








(c) 20008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

Iowa Eagle Cam

We are absolutely fascinated by eagles. We always pull over to the side of the road when we see them. In fact last week Sweet and I sat in the snow on the side of the road watching an eagle. I took terrific pictures of it but can't upload them because my camera cords have disappeared. Can I tell you how happy we all were when we saw this Eagle Cam in Sunday's paper? We have been entranced watching eagles ever since! And what makes it even better is this nest is located up around my old stomping ground.

This site has been active on our laptop since yesterday morning. Whenever we walk by the 'puter we take a gander. Cool called us all in yesterday so we could watch the eagles bring corn stalks up to the nest. I called the picklets in this morning to watch one of the eagles work on the building the nest up. It is so educational and so cool. We even started taking screen shots so we can study the birds better. It's also pretty cool to see that the weather in Decorah is as gloomy as the weather here.

Here is some information on the Decorah Eagle Cam. If you are interested in learning more about eagles in the Upper Mississippi Area check out American Eagle. (We are watching it during meals and snacks today.) Read this to learn the difference between male and female eagles. Here is some information from Bald Eagle Info. Enchanted Learning has some pretty cool information too. The Iowa DNR tells about Iowa eagles. The DNR also has Bald Eagle Watch Events. Summary of Bald Eagle Information for Iowa. Here are some lesson plans on Bald Eagles. And, if you get tired of seeing the nest empty, you can watch these eagles on Youtube. They are quite amazing!

I hope you and your "picklets" enjoy this site as much as me and mine do.

(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

January 25-30

What a busy week we had! Between a blizzard, a meeting with our supervising teacher, gymnastics and school I barely have time to do the other 100,000 things I do every day!

We mainly concentrated on Haiti and Earthquakes. There was some fun and some seriousness but I know they learned a lot! One of the reasons I know they know that is the conversation they had with our supervising teacher. It went something like, "Did you know that in Haiti the average day's pay is only $2.00?" and "Did you know that 1 out of 8 children die before the age of 8 in Haiti?" and "Did you know that the age expectancy in Haiti is only 56?" I smiled inside knowing they were soaking the stuff up!

The highlights of the week included learning more Haitian Creole (which they LOVE), listening to a read aloud of Teaching About Haiti (which they hate), making an earthquake and seismograph (tons of fun), mapping the country of Haiti, identifying Haiti on a world map, playing Monopoly, playing Clue, Wordtoons, free reading, free writing and writing prompts, learning about Nam June Paik, Gymnastics, Svetlusky (Czech folk group) and 4-H (where they made kolaches).

During the visit with the supervising teacher the picklets learned about different noses and learned about some animals that have crazy snouts. We should be thankful for our noses...lol.

Dill and Sweet made supper one night consisting of homemade waffles, sausage and a fruit salad. Nummy!

It was a full week. The picklets are learning and retaining the information they learn. It makes for a happy homeschool mama. :-)

What Homeschooling is About

Have you ever tried so hard to do something, teach something or figure something out that you ended up frustrating yourself and everyone else? Tonight was one of those nights.

We are planning on participating in Journey North's Mystery Class . As one of the activities the students must figure out the photoperiod for their area and 10 others. I showed the picklets how to calculate the photoperiod for different sunrises and sunsets. And the more I tried to teach it to Sweet, the more frustrated she got. She cried. I hugged her and told her it was hard and it was OK that she didn't quite understand. She gasped through sobs that she only got one answer correct so far. I hugged her some more and told her it was OK. It is hard business and will take time to learn. Then she cried some more. I wanted to cry. Chip and Dill seemed to catch on OK and grew impatient waiting. I finally told everyone we were going to take a break. Goodness knows I needed it.

Chip came to me during my meditative period on the computer and said, "I think I have a system that will help Sweet." He showed it to me. It was easy, quick and correct. I did the problem his way and then counted out each hour and minute on the clock. His system was right each time.

I asked him if he would teach Sweet. He handed her a dry erase marker and said, "Let's learn!" They stood at the mirror together, Chip teaching Sweet, patiently and kindly. She would do one problem, erase and do another. It took only minutes for him to teach her what I couldn't in hours. My heart swelled.

THIS my friends, is what homeschooling is about. Letting the kids take charge. Letting go. Standing back and being amazed. I have been reluctant in the past to let go of this control. I now *really* know I need to let go, step back and watch things progress. Because they will absolutely astound me if I give them the chance.

I called Cool and told him about the "fiasco" (our pet word for times like this) and I could hear the pride in his voice when he said, "That's great!" It was so nice giving him good news, I should do it more often. :-)

Here's to good days and better days!

© 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

January 22

I found that when I am unmotivated so are the picklets. We didn't accomplish much of anything structured. I posted a couple of bloggy things, did 1 load of laundry, went to the grocery store to get stuff to make subs, dropped Sweet off at her friends and nothing else.

Sweet cleaned her room, made her bed, packed her clothes and went to a friends to spend the night.

Dill walked the dogs, fed the dogs and cats, picked up the diningroom and brawled with Chip. Both Dill and Sweet watched videos on Brainpop. The have some free ones available which are what we watched. They watched Yo-Yo-Ma, Civil War and Earthquakes.

Chip cleaned up the kitchen and bathroom and continued writing his book.

Exciting day, huh? I guess we can say that language, history, science, fine arts and life skills were accomplished.

© 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines

January 21

After taking a day off because daddy was home due to the ice storm, we got back to business. We still don't have a schedule and we are not accomplishing as much as I want to each day BUT maybe I am aiming for too much too fast.

We continued our study of earthquakes and Haiti. I read aloud How Earthquakes Work and we watched the little videos on the site. There were little clips showing how the fault lines work. Also included in this was How Richter Scales Work and pictures of the aftermath that earthquakes leave.

The picklets continued work on the worksheets from Breaking News. They worked on "before reading", "during listening" and "listen and fill in the gaps". I had no idea how beneficial it is to leave parts out of sentences and then dictate to fill in the gaps. It really makes them listen and pay attention.

During lunch we watched Bill Nye The Science Guy: Earthquakes . Is there anything better than Bill Nye when it comes to science?

The picklets then made model fault lines from playdoh and demonstrated how the fault lines work.
Every good science experiment must begin with the proper equipment.

Moving the plates at the fault line to create an earthquake.

Then came their favorite part of the day. Candy Quakes. They loved this! They didn't even mind writing hypothesis and observations cause they knew candy was the end result.

Using transversal force on a piece of Bubble Yum.

The experiments. Bubble Yum with compressional, tensional and transversal force applied. Hershey and Snickers candy bars with transversal force applied. Twizzlers that were stacked and compressional force applied. Upper right is a twizzler that tensional force was applied.

I read chapter 1 of The Story of the Olympics by Dave Anderson aloud while the picklets played with playdoh.

A rattlesnake and Dill made.


The world made of playdoh.

The picklets worked in their Wordtoons books, played Timez Attack, practiced ice skating in the Sokol parking lot (since it was covered with ice from the storm) and attended gymnastics class. We attempted to watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs but the Redbox movie wouldn't play.

And that was pretty much our day though I did leave out the house cleaning and the traveling.
;-)

January 19

It has been a whirlwind of a day. I got a phone call asking if I could take over at the office because the lady who usually works on Tuesday's was going to be at the hospital while her daughter gave birth. How could I say no?

So, after delivering papers, gathering our school things and getting ready, we left home. Our first stop was the sledding "hill".

The "hill" is just a ton of snow that has been plowed into a pile in back of the fire station.
It is steep and it is slick.

After 15 or 20 minutes of intense sledding we headed to the bank. Dill found a bunch of change he received for Christmas and just had to turn it in so he could go to Target and buy more Bakugan or Yughio or something. I swear that boy will let money burn a hole in his pocket.

When we got to town we stopped at the grocery store and headed to my mom and dad's house. I took pictures of the fog and the gorgeous scenery on the way there.

When we got there Sweet made lunch for us while Chip and Dill watched You Are There America Grows Up: The Great Comstock Silver Strike. Since we put the movie in the diningroom to watch Sweet and I got to listen to it.

After cleaning up the lunch mess and playing a quick game of hide and seek we got down to some school work. Haiti and earthquakes are on the schedule for the day so we started off by discussing what the picklets actually know about Haiti. They then watched Mystic Lands Haiti Dance of the Spirit. It wasn't exactly what I had hoped for but it did give a small snippet of culture and history.

They then read Haiti: A Country in Need and answered the questions that I got from Miss Maggie's Earth Adventures and read Disaster in Haiti and quiz from Scholastic News. These gave a bit of history, culture and some insight as to what impact the earthquake had. We discussed how mother nature doesn't discriminate. She does what she wants, when she wants.

We then watched Earth Science Earthquakes to get an idea of how an earthquake works. We talked in detail about what happens underground when there is an earthquake. Then they answered the first three questions from here. (filled in disaster chart for biggest dangers and how to deal with them, ranked what Haitians need most right now and wrote down all the words they know that have to do with earthquakes) I am not using all the activities from the site but am planning on a few because they work on different subject areas while still focusing on Haiti and the earthquake.

I switched gears a bit then and read The History of Louis Braille aloud. We couldn't imagine the pain he went through when he lost his sight. He turned out to be a remarkable man. I printed out the Braille Alphabet for a project but Dill and Chip informed me that my alphabet lacked "h","p" and "x". So I put it on the docket for later in the week. Upon looking at the paper I see I should have printed landscape instead of regular. Hello Sharpie! lol

So, that was the day for the most part. They all played Timez Attack, worked in their Wordtoons books, the boys played Bakugan and Yughio and Sweet assisted in a gymnastics class.

(c) 2008-2010 Wicked Pickles-Homefront Lines