P & P Thursday

Today was our first Presentation and Project Thursday.  The kids had such a great time putting together their presentations and assembling and painting bird houses.

Guard's presentation was an oral report about bald eagles. (We are studying birds in science currently.)  He drew a picture of a bald eagle in its nest and and told us some facts (he dictated them to me and I typed them to put on the back of his picture).
"Bald eagles are very fierce.  Eagles make very big nests, big enough for Gavin to lay in.  They have beaks that are strong and good for catching meat.  They lie to eat rabbits and fish.  Baby bald eagles are all brownish-gray and they get their white heads as they grow older.  They fly fast.  Bald eagles are American's national bird.  These is also a bald eagle on the Utah flag."

Kate has been studying and reading about the Underground Railroad.  She has read several books and learned how conductors on the Underground Railroad used quilts to communicate with escaped slaves.  One of her favorite blocks to learn about was the bow tie block.  A bow tie block would let slaves know that they could stop at that house for fresh, clean clothes.  New clothes would make it harder to spot a runaway slave and throw off the scent for the dogs who were searching for them.  Kate choose some Civil War colored fabric from my statch, cut the blocks and sewed her block.  She did about 75% of the sewing herself including the machine quilting.  I did the binding.  She did an incredible job for her first quilting project!

Enoch also chose a Civil War project.  He has been studying espionage during this war and he has learned some really interesting facts.  One of his favorites was Union soldiers sending coded messages in hollowed out eggs.  He tackled this project by puncturing two tiny holes in both ends of an egg and blowing out the liquid.  He let it dry for three days.  He wrote a coded message on tissue paper, rolled it up as small as he could and put it in the egg. 

The children had a great time cracking the egg and decoding the message.  One message was not coded, but the mystery message read "Confederates have sub" (he read a book about the first submarine to sink a ship, which happened during the Civil War - he loved it!).

Hannah gave an oral report on penguins and showed her lap book she has been working on - very impressive!

After presentations, we assembled and painted bird houses.  Nailing the houses together was a bit tricky, but we got it done and painting was a blast.  The kids loved it!

Scattered Thoughts

1.  Guard has decided he is going to be a astronaut zookeeper.  He wants to open the first zoo on the moon.  Dream big, little man!

2.  A 8:oo am nap is always a good idea when your alarm clock accidentally goes off at 4 am.

3.  These Brik-A-Bloks have to be the best toy we ever bought!  The kids are building with them constantly.  Tonight they constructed apartments with windows into each other's flats.  They wanted to sleep in them, but only made it about an hour before they all headed to their beds.  Still, a lot of fun

January Field Trips

We are still trying to organize ourselves in this new adventures of Beehive Academy Homeschool.  We have fun things planned every week, but the schedule is still a work in progress!

We have gone on a few fun field trips - one in December and one in January.

December we toured the Bean Museum with the Hatch and Jensen families.  We had a wonderful time.  The children love it there and being with friends was even better.  The kids especially enjoyed the new exhibit, Titan Boa, a huge prehistoric snake.  Yikes, it was creepy!

The play area was always a hit, especially the bear cave.  Afterwards, we went to McDonald's for ice cream.  It was a fun get away right before Christmas.

In January, we toured the new Family Search center in Lehi.  It was incredible!  We can't wait to go back and do some research and explore all their fun centers.

Kate the Seamtress

Today, Kate asked me to help her sew something.  It was a bit out of the blue.  I didn't want to squash her interest, so we came up with an easy project - a hot pad.  She picked out some cute red and blue fabric and I helped her cut the squares.  I sat next to her for a few minutes, gave some general instructions and she was ready to go.

She sewed almost the entire hot pad by herself!  She is a natural!  She is very precise, deliberate and has a great eye for color and design.  I couldn't believe how straight her top stitching was and how good her corners looked.

She did such a wonderful and has definitely caught the sewing bug!

January Homeschool Adventures

It is amazing when God talks to us!

Sometimes it is challenging, and so rewarding, when God answers prayers we didn't even know we were praying.

That happened to me at the end of November of last year.  I won't go into detail (if my descendants ever get a hold of my personal journals, they can read all the gory details there), but I will say it was quite a jolt in my life and had me shaken for about a month.  The Lord tipped my world upside down and asked me to do something I never saw myself doing.  In fact, I'm embarrassed to say, I ignored His requests for a few weeks.  I was overwhelmed, confused and quite honestly, angry.

What was this prompting?  I was to homeschool Enoch, Kate and Guard.  What!!??  This was not in the plans.  I felt so inadequate, unprepared, and just really didn't want to do it.  I was finally going to get some free time.  I haven't had free time in almost 20 years (the perils of having large gaps between your four kids!).  I had projects to work on, places to go, errands to run by myself, naps to take, cleaning to do.  I had plans, for crying out loud!  Homeschooling was not in the plans.

But, here we are.  Starting in January our family became homeschoolers.  Yikes!  It hasn't always been an easy transition, but we are figuring it out a little more every day.  I have found some wonderful curriculum online (a huge thank you to so many moms who share their lesson plans!), great workbooks from Amazon and Heavenly Father has been very generous with his inspiration.

We have settled into a schedule with our sister homeschool family, the Hatches.  Mondays are our field trip day with other homschool families.  So far, we have been to the Bean Museum and the Family Search library in Lehi.  We study Book of Mormon, history and geography with Hatches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 9:30-11:30 in their home in American Fork.  On Thursdays we do presentations (projects the kids can share of something they learned about that week) and hands-on activities like holiday crafts, cooking or gardening.  Fridays we spend with just our family, finishing up schoolwork, cleaning. laundry, errands and whatever else needs to be done.  So far, it is working well.

Even on the hard days, I can see blessings.  My children love to be with each other.  Doesn't always mean that they is no fighting or disagreements, but they genuinely have learned to play and cooperate with each other.  It is a lovely thing to see.  We get so much more time in the scriptures than our after-dinner family scripture study.  We are learning so much from the  Book of Mormon and I love our discussions.  My kids are learning new skills.  They can do their own laundry, mop the kitchen floor and clean bathrooms.  Enoch and Kate love to cook.  Enoch is learning some skills in landscape design and gardening and Kate is getting quite good at sewing.  They are learning to serve each other.  Nothing warms my heart than seeing Kate helping Guard with his reading or Enoch explaining math to Kate.

We learn from each other.  Heavenly Father sent each of my children here with special academic talents and it is amazing to me how they compliment each other.  Enoch takes the lead on math, science and technology.  Kate is a gifted writer and will help Enoch edit his papers.  She also loves history (she must be mine!) and helps get her brothers excited about learning about our past.  Guard is a remarkable mathematician already, but his job is to make sure we have fun.  That kid is all about fun and we need him to constantly remind us to have fun!

And me?  I get to learn from my children.  I do love learning and growing with my children!  Even though I am 'the teacher', I have gathered so much knowledge from this journey.  I see all the struggles, the triumphs, the frustrations, the joys.  I see all of it and it is a gift.  Even though I fought against this so hard in the beginning, I am truly loving it (most days!).  What a blessing it has been for our family.