God given lessons....

I just love it when the homeschool lessons find us! So, Monday we decided to go to a local campground/park near the river just to go on a walk, be in nature. Well, as we were walking through the park I looked down at my shirt and shrieked! There was this furry thing crawling on my shirt right on my belly! It was a caterpillar!
So, I showed the kids, got my son to pick it up off of me and we sat down at a near by picnic table to talk about it. Well, of course the kids begged me to let them keep it, why not I thought?

The beautiful park!

My daughter showing off her daisy bracelet!

My son, with the cup we put the caterpillar in!

So, we took the caterpillar home and put it in a jar. This morning, I added some caterpillar research to my sons homeschool lesson. I had him use google images to find the type of caterpillar we had, and then I had him do some internet research on how to create a home for him. One that would give us a chance of being able to witness his inevitable transformation!
So, now, we have a beautiful caterpillar home and days of potential unit study lessons on the metamorphosis!
(Of course I will share those and add them to our lynx made lessons page) =)

Here are some more photos of our new friend~!

Energy Unit study Day #5

Energy Unit study!

Visit this site: AE kids it will help you see how many ways we use electricity in our home.

After you visit the site, walk around our house and see how many other ways we use electricity! Write down  3 more ways on a piece of paper.

Next, visit this site: Save energy  it will give you ideas about ways YOU can help save energy.

Then, write down 5 ways YOU are going to start saving energy on the same piece of paper then show it to mom!

THEN, visit this link to see if you can crack a secret code! Be a sleuth!

Some great Ideas I have found recently!

Post by FamilyFun.

Post by JohnandJulie Gorge Vanb.

Post by JohnandJulie Gorge Vanb.

Post by National Center for Learning Disabilities.

Organizing assignments.

So, since homeschooling my 10 year old we have found that he really likes to do things independently if possible. One way I do this, is I created a blog just for him. I put his assignment into a blog post with a date on it every day. He goes to his website, reads his assignments and gets started.

We are using Allinonehomeschool.com which utilizes a lot of online resources.  The section we are on right now has my son read a poem, answer a few questions about that poem, and then go to a website to write a poem. At first I had him writing his answers in a notebook, but we are trying to encourage him to type so instead I found a way to have him type right into the blog post using google forms!

You simply go to google drive, click on "create" and select "form". Then you create your form by inputting the questions, choosing whether you want the child to type in an answer or choose from multiple choice etc., get the embed code and post it into your blog!

Another super cool feature of this, is that google automatically populates the answers into a separate spread sheet! So you can review it later! And they automatically create this spreadsheet for you when the form is created.

Here is a screen shot of what the form looks like!

And here is what the spread sheet with the responses looks like!

You can use this method for creating your own studies/question answer forms also!

Happy Homeschooling!

Cinco De Mayo

http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/thehistoryofmexico/a/Cinco-De-Mayo-For-Kids.htm

Fruit nachos and mexican jumping bean painting

Energy Unit study day 4

• How much does electricity Cost? Look at our Electric bill 
• Just how much electricity does it take? : http://www.affordable-solar.com/Learning-Center/Solar-Tools/Off-Grid-Load-Estimator 

Today we will discuss how much energy we use in our home by looking at our electric bill for the month and the total KWH used in a month. 

Then we will discuss what takes up all of those KW, what are we doing to make that total?

We will look at a load estimator to find out how much electricity each appliance, light etc. uses

Then we will discuss how we can decrease that usage.

This one is from http://www.mitchellinstrument.com/outlet-kwh-meter.html?source=froogle-mitchell&gclid=CK6bkO_Ijb4CFQlafgodu1MAJw 

Energy Unit study Day 3

• Where does our electricity come from? 
• http://kids.saveonenergy.ca/en/what-is-electricity/how-electricity-gets-to-your-home.html 
• Magic School Bus Season 4 episode 9

We will start by learning how the electricity gets to our home. The link above shows us how it gets from the power source to our house!

Then we will watch Magic School Bus, this episode does a great job showing us how electricity travels into and through our home.