Thanks-Giving Blog Challenge, Day #19

Today I am thankful for clean laundry. Yup.

We've been going on desperate for laundry for the past several days, but we've were running around so much that I wasn't home to do much more than flip loads. And so the clean laundry was piling up in front of the dryer, creating a mini Mt. St. Laundry.

Finally, I got all of the loads completed and hauled up the stairs. While Abby was finishing some school work, I raced through folding the clothes and then she helped me put it all away. Is there anything better than laundry that is done, folded, AND put away?

Wonder if Rosie would fit in Santa's sleigh?

This is my first attempt at a blog challenge, something you might see friends doing on Facebook - "__ days of Giving Thanks." I thought this was a very fitting challenge to get myself back into a regular habit of blogging again. Feel free to join me, and post your own blog link in the comments below, so we can keep up with each other! Follow others that are participating HERE.

MFW Homeschool Highlights

I had been procrastinating on a few "science projects" and so last week we had a catch up science day.

Our first project was a taste test of goat milk and goat cheese. We compared it to regular cow milk and to almond milk and to the various (cow) cheeses we had on hand.

The verdict? We like goat cheese! Abby likes the plain verses the one with the seasonings added, which Mommy prefers. And Abby liked the goat milk as much as she liked the cow milk, but was not a fan of almond milk. I personally prefer almond milk over cow milk, and think goat milk taste awful!

And then we put together our ant farm since our ants finally arrived in the mail. This ant farm came with our curriculum kit.

This was not Mommy's favorite project and I was totally creeped out. First of all, it was too cold to leave the ant farm outside, which was my original plan. Second of all, these ants are HUGE and I can not stand anything creepy crawly. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a huge sissy. And then having to keep them in my house??? Yeah, not my favorite homeschooling moment. But trying to be the good mommy, I hid it and kept telling how cool this was. Yes, I lied right through my teeth. Oh, I forgot number three. The paperwork mentioned these ants bite. Yeah. You read that right. (Can't you hear me saying, "Isn't that  . . . interesting, Abby?" LOL)

The verdict on this is we had stupid ants. They did NOT cooperate and build their little ant tunnels where they were supposed to. (There is this flat chamber on the back, which is supposed to let you observe them better.) Oh no, these dumb ants actually would pull the sand from that flat chamber, and drop it over the rounded front, and started building their ant hill at the bottom of the front section you see in this picture. Where we couldn't see anything but what looked like a huge mess. And when I dropped food in to feed them (and yes, that freaked me out even more - having to open the top to put food in), they pulled the piece of fruit out of the chamber as well, and pushed it down over the rounded front so it would be at the bottom as well! Sigh. Apparently the ants did not read the directions as well as I did.

They have recently "vacated the premises." I'm sure they are having lovely little lives at the town dump by now!

This week we finally got in our field trip to Brantley's Petting Farm. The girls had a blast. (It you're local, I totally recommend it!) This fit in with our units on goat (letter G), cow (letter C), and horse (letter H). Here are a few more pictures.

Be sure to check out what others are doing in MFW by heading on over to Kattie’s blog ~ 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard.

Our Little Homeschool

I'd thought I'd share our little homeschool area.

Since we're living in a townhouse, we're limited on available space and we're limited in options. First, though most homeschoolers take over their dining room area for homeschool, I did not want to do that. First, we host a weekly Bible study in our home, and I like to keep "public areas" ready at any time so that we can share our hospitality when needed. So that cut out our living room and dining room areas.

The other rooms were the master bedroom and the playroom. Well, the playroom is out for obvious reasons, even though in some ways it would make the most sense. It is the biggest room in the house, but there are way too many distractions for my highly distractable kindergartner! And I would prefer to keep the master bedroom as a hideaway and sanctuary. 

So, our little homeschool is in our girls' bedroom. 

Above you can see our bulletin boards, and some of Abby's work I've hung up on the wall: her self-portrait showing her senses, her turtle, etc. To the left of her desk are my file bins, and to the right is a little garbage can (made out of a plastic coffee container- one day I'll mod podge or something and make it cute) and little shelves holding her Lil Carry All with all of her supplies, and the bottom shelf holds her Couisinaire rods that we use on a regular basis. Inside the desk cubby is construction paper and coloring books to keep Lily occupied when she's home with us. The rug is there to keep the chair from scratching our hardwood floors.

Here is the wall pocket hanger I got on sale at Staples. I use it to hold all of our "active" work, our math books and various materials, our library books, and unit folder.

Here is the girls bookcase (I just love this bookcase, it's one of the things we added when we remodeled this house). The square tote at the top holds all the math manipulatives. The basket on the third shelf holds of our Spanish flashcards, and the basket below that normally holds all of our Leapfrog Tag Reader books (I am a HUGE fan of those, by the way!) and all of our Spanish language books.

To the left of our bookcase is a new addition to our little homeschool! Since Abby is now progressing with her reading, I created flashcards with all of the words she has learned to this point. Now we can use those flashcard words to play our "word game" (i.e. make sentences).

And quite often we will spread out on the floor right in front of this area with our work, when sitting at a desk just gets to be too much for our antsy selves.

And here are my "teacher" files. Inside are the teacher handbooks, the big binder of Abby's work, record book, etc. The basket on top holds highlighters, pens, stapler, and the electric pencil sharpener (my personal toy). Also in this picture you see the trimmer and 3-hole punch. Seriously they should write on the front of the teacher's manual how much you need these things! I could not live without them.

And this bin is our curriculum organized in folders by unit. I've organized our books with the connecting unit as well, so all we have to do is grab the next set of books and folder and get started. That really takes a lot of the pressure and stress out of homeschooling, and I wish I could say this simple, brilliant idea had been mine. But nope, another homeschooling mom came by and mentioned her idea and I copied her gladly!

So, that's our little homeschool. I've seen other homeschool pictures that have amazing, ornate set ups -- but I am happy to say it IS quite possible to homeschool, even if you have only a little corner to make it work.