Apple Picking Season

Our science lessons are focused on something very prominent in Virginia right now....Apples. I hope to take the kiddies apple pickin' in the very near future, but for now we are reading, coloring, studying, examining and munchin' away on our Apple Science Lessons.

We are reading the books that are in my spinning sidebar. My favorites so far are pictured below...

There are a few we haven't read yet, so I'm sure I'll have more favorites to report later. Johnny Appleseed is written as a poem with lovely pictures filling the pages. The girls weren't bored, even though it is kind of long and has a lot of info. The other book is filled with a wide variety of information on apples and it, too, held the girls' interest. I also read them a poem from this book. It is called The Song of the Apple Blossom Fairies.

And the girls are coloring this page from the corresponding coloring book. Such sweet illustrations! They haven't completed them, yet, but here's how they are looking so far.

Above is Alexa's and below is Skylar's.We will be doing something else with the poem, but I haven't decided what yet. I'll either assign it as memory work (maybe half to each girl or all to Sky, but only half to Alexa) and/or I'll have them use the poem (at least Skylar) as copywork.

They will also be narrating the Johnny Appleseed book and possibly one other. And I found this site which I printed out lessons from. Not sure what of it I will use. It seems a bit young for Skylar, but some of it might be fun. I have some other language arts activities incorporating this theme also, but I'll write about those as I use them.

Getting more into the nitty gritty science of it, I am using Life Cycle of an Apple cards found here

and pictured below...

These are the same ones we used for our pumpkin study as I mentioned in our plans. After the girls get proficient at using the cards, they will draw the cycle onto my homemade worksheet.

All of this will of course, go into their Nature/Science notebooks. I plan to make another homemade worksheet for the girls to label the parts of an apple. And I'm thinking I might do one more of an apple tree through the seasons and/or the process of pollination that an apple tree has to go through in order to produce fruit. We'll see. Apple crafts will be coming up, too!

The thing I'm looking forward to the most, though, is heading to the orchard to pick apples of our own. It is getting late in the season, so we better get a move on!

Then all the baking we get to do.....apple crisp (mom's recipe~~so, so good!), apple pie and apple sauce!

Who knew science could be so YUMMY?!

TTFN

~Tina

Our First Nature Day of this School Year

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to take the older 2 girls for a nature walk, just a short one through the neighborhood because Evan was asleep. Taylor was finishing up schoolwork and didn't mind watching him. So off we went. It was a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold, and actually starting to feel like Autumn. The girls were excited. We grabbed some paper bags to hold any treasures they might find along the way. First we spotted these growing on a pine tree:

Then beneath it, we saw that a bird's nest was lying on the ground. I think someone trimmed out the branches of the pine tree so people could use the sidewalk and they probably didn't realize there was a bird's nest in there.Then, we spotted these, which the girls and I thought were mushrooms at first, but upon close examination, we weren't so sure. We took one to examine further at home.

But then it happened.

The enthusiasm for all of the nature we were exploring went right out the window. It was replaced by enthusiasm for ..................PUPPIES!

4 Adorable white Maltese (I think) puppies!My girls enjoy nature walks, but puppies, nothing beats one puppy, let alone 4!We were across the street from a woman taking some trash out. She yells to us that she's about to bring out THE puppies. I don't know this woman. She lives at least 10 or so houses away from us. But she talks like I should know about THE puppies. Well, my girls were going crazy at the thought of seeing some puppies, so we walked very slowly, to give her a chance to bring them out. And she did. She invited us over and let my girls play with them in the yard for at least 15 minutes. They had a blast! This neighbor of mine is selling the pups for $800 each and there are 2 left. She had to announce this in front of my girls. Ugh. Oh, and in our conversation, I realize that when she yelled across the street for us to see THE puppies, it was because she thought we were somebody else! Some other neighbors, who apparently look similar to us, had expressed an interest in purchasing a pup and wanted to see them. So that's why she invited us over. So it was kind of a fluke that my girls got 15 unforgetable minutes with those sweet little pups.

That was such a nice gift.

Sort of.

When we got home I told the girls to draw and color a picture of Skylar's pumpkins for their nature journals. So they sat on the porch and drew and talked together. I saw their pumpkin drawings and they turned out nicely.

Then they wanted more paper to draw outside. I was thinking, "This is great! They are so inspired by our first nature walk of the year, they can't stop drawing !". About 10 minutes later, I look out and see that they are off the porch and the paper is gone. All that remains are the clipboards and colored pencils.

Hmmmm.......

I go out and I find them, a few minutes later, knocking on doors with homemade flyers. The flyers read, "Skylar and Alexa's Pet Business. Call XXX-XXX-XXXX" ( our actual phone number was on it). We had a discussion. The girls wanted a pet business to 1) show us how responsible they can be and 2) raise $800 to buy a puppy.

Although I sympathize with their plea and commend their efforts, we are not getting a puppy. The girls are not too happy with me.

How is any future nature walk supposed to top this one? *sigh*

TTFN

~Tina

Here Are The Plans, Part II

It took me a while to get back to this, but here they are.

Science:

1. Fall Session I:

• Study pumpkins. (Sky grew her own this year! She planted 2 seeds and has 2 pumpkins. She's very excited about them!)





• Use these cards from Montessori for Everyone to learn the life cycle of a pumpkin.


• Draw the life cycle of a pumpkin to put in their Nature Notebooks.
  
• Read pumpkin books such as From Seed to Pumpkin, Picking Apples and Pumpkins and The Pumpkin Patch (many others, too).
  
• Make pumpkin chip cookies like my mom used to make (love these!).
  
• Go to a local pumpkin patch with our home school group and pick some more out and enjoy the other Fall festivities that are available there.
  
• Make a jack-o-lantern from one of Skylar's pumpkins.
  
• Roast some pumpkin seeds.
  
• Make an acrostic poem about pumpkins for their nature notebooks.
  

2. Fall Session II:

• Study apples.
• Read apple stories like Apples to Oregon, and One Green Apple (this one will tie in nicely with what we are learning about in our We Are All Children of God lessons), and educational books like How Apples Grow.
• Go to a local apple orchard to pick our own.
• Make apple crisp (another favorite that mom used to make!)
• Use more cards from Montessori for Everyone
• Diagram the life cycle of an apple for the Nature Notebooks.
• Make apple prints onto blank aprons from the craft store as gifts or to keep.
• Learn about Johnny Appleseed.
• Write a story about apples using a "story starter".
• Anything else I can think of to enhance our studies.

3. Fall Session III:

• Tree and Leaf study.
• Read informative books like Why Do Leaves Change Color? and The Big Tree (this is part fiction, part nonfiction).
• Read stories like The Giving Tree, The Great Kapok Tree, A Tree is Nice and Leaf Man.
• Make leaf prints on fabric to make an Autumn table runner for the diningroom table and small round tablecloth for the entryway table.
• Make leaf rubbings for the nature notebook.
• Use cards I found at Montessori Materials in the botany section to learn parts of a leaf.
• Draw a leaf and label the parts for Nature Notebook.
• Copywork from Flower Fairies of the Trees.. Put into Nature Notebook.

For any of the above: do narrations, poetry and art that reflects the topic.

These plans are not set in stone. A new idea might pop into my head or I might find some inspiration online. Or I might decide something in my plans is not going to work.

The rest of my plans for Science for the year are very general at this point. I want to study astronomy and possibly snowflakes in the Winter and butterflies, frogs and possibly ocean life in the Spring. I'll break it down and get more into details as the year progresses.


Teatime Plans:

All I can tell you about our Teatime plans is the general outline. I plan this month to month and sometimes week to week as the inspiration strikes. If I get an idea for a book, craft, prayer, activity, etc., I write it in my Teatime notebook. I also put any worksheets or coloring sheets I come across into the appropriate file in my file box (from Dawn's Filing System). And I start to gather my materials up to two weeks ahead of time and put them into my Teatime Basket, so everything is in one place when I need them. All of these things have help quite a bit. And my Liturgical Year Boxes help me to keep the decorations and candles organized. I'm still working on these special boxes for Evan (and possibly Alexa).


An outline of our Teatimes:

1. One child helps me set up and decorates the head of the table in liturgical colors using candles and a cloth. Also added are statues, framed holy cards and possibly flowers or a book.
2. We set out the food and heat the water for the tea or hot cocoa, although we do have cold drinks when the weather is more suited for it.
3. We try to set the table in a special and somewhat "fancy" way. We use napkin rings (for our paper napkins ;)
4. We say the prayer, read from the Bible and/or read the story of the day.
5. Then we eat and talk. We discuss what the day is about and why we have come together for this special time.
6. Onto cleanup and crafting. I try to prepare two crafts, one that ties into the theme in some way and one that is using the holy card and prayer (to go into our Liturgical Year Notebooks). The 1st craft sometimes becomes a gift for a family member or a decoration for a future Teatime (such as a candle holder or napking ring).


7. Sometimes we have classical music in the background. That adds a nice touch.

Here is a photo of how my Liturgical Year Boxes are set up on the shelves under our family altar. I had posted details about what I keep inside and how they are arranged here, but at the time I didn't have an updated photo.

That's about all I have time to get into right now. I need to finish my coffee and start my weekend. The laundry awaits, on this cloudy September day, as does a trip to the craft store (one of my favorite places). Have a lovely weekend!

TTFN
~Tina

Some of Taylor's Artwork

These are some drawings Taylor did this past school year. They are from The Flower Fairies books.

For her assignments, she would copy the poem, then draw the picture. I used these poetry books as copywork for her all year. But every couple of weeks, she would have to also draw the fairy and mount both the drawing and copywork on cardstock, then put it in her Nature Notebook. I think this was one of her favorite parts of school. And I love looking back at all the lovely drawings she has done throughout the year.

TTFN

~Tina

Learning About the Weather

These are a couple of the books I used to teach Sky and Alexa about clouds. They did pages in their nature journals, too.

Alexa drew and colored the different types of clouds (above) and labeled them. Skylar did that, too, (below) but also had to write a description of each type. Sorry, I know the pictures are kind of dark.We also printed out these and keep them as reference to use in the van. We got them from this great site.

Taylor has been doing weather pages for her science/nature notebook, too. She uses her creativity, but also has to be informative.

Taylor used many resources for her pages, but I don't have time to list them right now. Most of them are in my Amazon booklist in my sidebar.

All the girls seem to retain a good bit of what we cover by doing it this way. And they always enjoy the "art" part of it, too.

TTFN

Tina

Nature in the Neighborhood

We went for a nature walk to the neighborhood pond that we went to last Fall. It was no walk in the forest, but when you are pressed for time and just want to see some signs of Spring, it'll do. The girls brought along pads and colored pencils to do some drawings. We couldn't actually sit at the pond due to the "pushy" geese (shown above). So we headed further down the path to what Taylor so affectionately refers to as the babbling sewer. It's not a sewer. Trust me. It might be some sort of "runoff" area, but it's not a sewer. Anyhoo, she and the rest of the girls found a shady spot under one of their favorite types of trees, the Weeping Willow.

We saw many signs of spring, even goslings. Those Mama and Papa geese are very protective. They even went so far as to stand near a sign to give us a message! It says DANGER. Needless to say, we didn't get too close. That's why I don't have any close up pictures of the babies.

Some signs of Spring.... goslings,

this plant, we're thinking it's poison ivy,.........and this (still unidentified tree) shedding it's bark.......cool.....and Buttercups......oh, and I believe this is a sign of Spring, too. Children outside playing again!

This was probably the highlight of the day for these two!

Science with Alexa

Alexa is learning about seasons. So far we have covered Winter and Spring. The top two pictures are of the narration of a Winter story we read together. The bottom two are of a Spring picture she made along with an acrostic poem to go with the picture. We discussed things that we see outdoors in the springtime and she added them to her picture. These are now in her Nature Journal. She really enjoys this part of school. And so do I. We are also reading from The Berenstain Bears Big Book of Science and Nature along with several library books on the seasons and weather. And we borrow DVDs from the library, too. I also downloaded some months of the year and season matching cards from this site. (Mike and Nicki-Some of these might be fun for Kyra!)

Love to all!
TTFN
~Tina

Snow Day!

In the previous post I mentioned how we switched gears with school because we got unexpected snow and had to take advantage of it. These are from the experiment we did. We had a full glass of snow. Each girl had to guess how much water it would be when it melted. Sky was the winner with a guess of 3"! It was actually around 2 3/4, but she was closest.

They played and had snow icecream, too.