Hiking around the Sugar Bush…
Visiting the Native American camp setup…
Enjoying the smells of the Sugar Shack…
We have been reading a lot of books on Maple Syrup right now, since it is Sugar Season, and I wanted to share one of our favorites that wasn’t on our scheduled reading list… "Sugaring Time" by Kathryn Lasky.
The kids enjoy the black and white photographs with lots of ‘pony’ pictures. The text is beautifully descriptive and the process is outlined thoroughly. If you are interested in the Maple Syrup process, I highly recommend this book.
We were supposed to have a Sugaring Field Trip today, but it is just too cold so it has been postponed. I will be sharing photos sometime over the next couple weeks when we are able to visit the Sugar Shack.
Recouping from nasty colds this weekend, all we managed today was to spent the better part of the morning working on Valentine cards for all the grandparents. While everyone was busy working on their cards, I read about Saint Valentine. What a beautiful book! I think we might try a mosaic craft latter in the week to mimic the illustrations in the book.
Please tell me your desk ends up look like the above photo! Papers, books, art supplies pile up in what seems like just a few moments around here.
Then there is the chaos of recording what we have worked on, what we are working and what we would like to work on. I’ve played with many a store bought planner. I even demoed several home school record keeping computer programs (which btw Homeschool Easy Records was my favorite) but in general nothing I found seemed to fit my needs.
I don’t plan daily. I don’t want us to ‘fall’ behind the preplanned schedule, so I don’t plan ahead sequential lessons like math. We do a lot of spontaneous project activities, which for the most part, wouldn’t be accounted for in a more traditional planner. And of course, sometimes life happens… and well, you know how that goes.
So where am I going with all this…
I thought I would share my cork board/binder based system. My record keeping seems to have three or four distinct parts. Even if you have a totally different system… I thought some of you might find the pages I designed useful.
First a Month a Glance Planner page for the binder. Here I keep track of all the out of the house activities such as, Tae Kwon Do class, play group, field trips, doctor’s appts, etc.
Then there is the Weekly Record. This I print out weekly and hang on our bulletin board… empty. I fill in the boxes after we do things. Being on the wall means I feel free to jot stuff down throughout the day rather than feeling like I have to pull out the binder… which I would push off until the evening and then inevitably forget some of those spontaneous lessons. At the end of the week, I three hole punch it and put it in the binder behind the month at a glance. Aha, a true record of what we did. I can fit both of my kiddos on one print out for now, but I could see needing to print one for each of them down the road if they really branch out into different activities.
I also have some activities each week that I like to use an Assignment Checklist to make sure we accomplish… at some point during the week. This includes stuff like our Nature Study theme for the week, a special craft or recipe, a specific book I want to make sure we read, etc.
As for math and reading, those I just assume we do every day and pick up where we left off last. I just note what we did on the Weekly Record. We review as needed, spend a day playing games instead or what have you… never falling behind and I no longer have to keep adjusting my planner.
The fourth part is documenting some of the kids project activities. For this I referred to Lori’s post about her project journal on Camp Creek Blog. What I have done is developed a bunch of journal pages for the kids that I print out and leave where they can get to them without having to ask. I use the same journal pages to track their project progress adding photos and notes.
Journal Page – 1 Image Box, Dotted Mid-line Text Lines
Journal Page – 1 Image Box, Standard Text Lines
Journal Page – 2 Image Boxes, Standard Text Lines
Journal Page – 4 Image Boxes, Standard Text Lines
I’m happy I finally took the time to develop my own planner system and I hope some of this stuff is helpful for others as well. Feel free to print as many pages as you need for personal use, co-ops, or any other non-profit need. Also, please let me know if you find any typos.
I’m not going to kid myself into thinking that Spring is here. I am fully aware that we still have a full month or two of winter left… BUT we are coming out of the bitter cold and we have had proof that there still is a Sun! If nothing else, this past weekend was rejuvenating in its teasing sense of Spring. What struck me most were the sounds!
Little joys of the day…
We spent over two hours at our favorite farm were there was an adorable litter of 5 day old piglets. What a noise they made at feeding time.
The sky was filled with birds. Swooping, diving and chattering up a storm. It must have felt nice to stretch their wings.
There was a constant sound of running water. The streams were vigorously flowing… icicles dripping. And who could resist the splash of jumping in all those puddles… oh so tempting.
Gone was the squeak of stepping on super cold snow, replaced instead with a satisfying crunch. We trudged through the 2 foot deep mounds without feeling cold just in our fleece coats and stocking caps. It was the perfect wet snow for packing to make snow forts and for throwing snow balls that landed in a thudding splat.
Once inside, hot chocolate was served by Gammy in English Garden tea cups that made such a delightful clinking sound.
We had a glorious weekend. It actually hit 45 today! While we enjoyed being outside for a few hours… we took some time to catch up on our Nature Studies.
Here is our entry for squirrels. This is a mammal we are able to observe daily at our feeders. We read about squirrels a couple weeks ago in the Handbook of Nature study as well as the fun book Nuts to You! We also enjoyed the You Tube videos Barb posted. After teaching the kids what to look for… searching for squirrel nests in the bare trees has become a fun game in the car. They are so easy to spot this time of year.
This weekend we were finally able to get some photos to share. Here are some squirrely photos…
Here are some photos of squirrel nests…
And here is Fairy Girl’s journal entry (that is my messy handwriting that she dictated)…
Join in the Outdoor Hour Challenge!
I don’t think any Groundhog in his right mind would be poking his head out around here yet. There must be at least 15 inches of snow on the ground… probably more. (I’m guessing Phil sees his shadow next week.)
The above photo was taken in late September. We had a groundhog who loved foraging in our compost pile. He made a daily appearance for a couple weeks before settling in for the winter. We loved watching him from the window but he was very skittish and took off the minute we tried to get a closer peek.
Today we watched the You-Tube videos Barb had posted on Handbook of Nature Study, colored one of the Groundhog coloring pages she also had listed and then read our Rookie Read-About Holidays: Groundhog’s Day book. The kids really liked the video with the wrestling Marmots… of course my TaeKwonDo kiddos argued that they were sparing not wrestling.
We made some basic pine cone bird feeders this week. We took several of the pine cones we gathered and cleaned this fall, spread peanut butter on each of their scales and then rolled them in shelled sunflower seeds.
The older two kiddos each made a couple but as most of these types of projects go, Pixie was the one who insisted on finishing every pine cone I brought to the table. Hehe, I’m glad I didn’t bring in the entire bag full… but rather just a couple hand fulls.
We hung several on the tree outside the kitchen window not far from our other feeder and plan to take the rest to Gammy’s house. The birds don’t seem to have discovered them yet… but I’m sure they will enjoy them once they do.
BRRRR! It is so cold outside right now that basically all of our Nature Studies are being done at the kitchen window. Fortunately the bird feeders really provide a lot of Nature Entertainment. When we have gotten outside over the last few weeks, we have been collecting snow track photos.
I believe the above photo shows tracks from our neighbor’s cat who likes to hunt our birds (devastated a nest this past spring) and uses our sand box (insert snarl on my part here). I tend to send the dog out when I see said cat.
One of our dog’s prints. Four toes front and back indicate canine or feline family.
The above two photos show squirrel prints from under the bird feeder. Four toes in front, five in the back indicates rodent family.
Bird prints across our deck.
The deer, rabbit and raccoons that are normally found in our yard in the warmer months… move on in the winter. I am assuming this is due mainly to the water source (pond across the street) freezing. They will definitely be back when I fruitlessly try to plant our garden this spring 😉 .
I am not in the mood for any more baking… especially considering we still have tins of Christmas cookies left. So instead of the Snowballs I had thought about making this week… we instead made stuffed apples/apple dippers.
I do not have an exact recipe for this. It is more of a ‘to taste’ sorta deal but super easy and I highly recommend it! This was a childhood favorite of mine.
Apple Dipper Filling: Mix approximately 1/2 a stick of cream cheese, 1/2 cup of peanut butter and 1/4 cup of honey.
Core an apple (if you do not have a corer – just slice the apples and serve with dip on the side).
Stuff the apples with the filling.
Slice the stuffed apples in thick slices.
Serve with extra dip.
Enjoy!