Todays classroom...

This evening we took a field trip to Ijams nature center. After a long day we needed to get out for awhile & science still needed to be done. So we packed up our nature journals & headed out to explore.

The journal activity was to make 2 list (living & non living), then find things that fit the definition of living & non living. Tomorrow I will go more in depth with them & look at what they put on their list, but tonight was all about exploration.

Luckily for us we found a net that suited our scientific exploration & helped up find snails & many other small creatures.

Plus we made a new friend along the way.

Then we almost lost Scott to the pond. Just kidding, but it was very tempting to push him in.

Afterwards we fit in a little physical education (AKA a walk through the woods).

Which led us to some much needed rest....

I think Killian took it a little too literally.

Right before going to bed Lotus told me that she loved homeschooling & I can honestly say I do too. We are only two days in, but Im loving it. God has truly blessed us.

Its a bee's life.....

We got started with a little work today. Not too much, but just enough to give them a taste of whats ahead. We started out by reading pages 1-11 of "The Life & Times of the Honeybee". Both Lotus & Killian helped with the reading & then I had them answer questions to check comprehension. I also had them recite back to me what they learned. The plan is to take a field trip to a honey farm & learn more about the importance of bees to the enviroment. There were some fun moments during our study such as when I told them that the drones (males) of the hive are so lazy that the workers (females) have to feed them or they would die. Killian spoke up & said, "Yep sounds like me!" Then I had the kids try to flap their arms 250 times in a second. Of course it cant be done, but it was hilarious watching the kids try. Killian finally just stopped & told me he was going so fast that we didnt see him move. Smart boy!! I thought it was amazing to think that a bee flaps it's wings 250 times in a second. Afterwards I gave them a pre-test on the multiplication tables. They have definently forgotten some things over the summer, but this just showed me what we need to work on. Multiplication tables will be a constant in our curriculum. Altogether they did 90 problems.