New Baby Chicks!

We just received some new baby chicks this week and thought I'd share some pictures. We love having baby chicks, this is our third year. These chicks are fresh from Murray McMurray Hatchery. Last spring we incubated some eggs and hatched around 6 chicks. And also last spring our hens decided to get broody and hatch their own chicks too (30 chicks). Great experiences for us! With our older chickens we are getting around 14-17 large brown eggs a day out of 18 hens. The kids are in 4H and need new chickens for the county fair this summer. Now we just need to figure out how to add to our chicken coop so we have room for another 25 chickens. If anyone has any ideas on how to do this cheaply, please let us know. We ordered 4 different varieties, we even ordered some Aracana chickens that lay colored eggs (can't wait to see these eggs in 6 months). AREN'T THEY CUTE!

Ancient Egypt Lapbook

We have been studying ancient history this year with "Mystery of History Volume 1". We did the Ancient Egypt lapbook this fall, new from www.homeschoolshare.com, but did not put it together until now. The kids drew the pictures on the cover from their work in "Draw and Write Through History-Creation through Jonah", fun book. We are also doing the "Homeschool in the Woods Activity Pack for the Old Testament" as we go along. We weren't sure how we wanted to put the lapbook together since we plan on doing some other ancient lapbooks also but decided to do it this way for now. The kids enjoyed learning about this time and place in history.

By the way, THANKS Homeschool Share and Jodi for these great ancient history lapbooks!

Duck in the Bathtub!

We have 3 ducks, 2 Pekins and one Rouen, prize winning ducks actually. The kids won Grand Champion of Poultry with the Rouen (like a Mallard) and runner-up with the Pekins at the 4H County Fair last summer, their 1st year. For some reason the Pekins have been picking on the Rouen duck this winter and the poor duck wasn't doing well at all. So we brought the Rouen duck into the garage to help it get better. Tonight hubby put the duck in our bathtub (sorda weird, I know), the duck had a great time! We are hoping this will help the duck have a quick recovery. (I know you gotta be laughing by now!) And yes he made the bathtub quite dirty. The ducks name is Daffy.

Twelve Days of Christmas Lapbook

Our last lapbook of 2009 was the "Twelve Days of Christmas", a great FREE lapbook from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/. Relating the days in the song to biblical references was lots of fun! Some of the material they already knew but reviewing and refreshing these things in their minds is a good thing (such as the books of the bible). The links to the cards for the books of the bible and the disciples are wonderful. I highly recommend this project.

Native Americans Lapbook

My kids finished their joint project on indians after Thanksgiving. We combined lapbook components from Live and Learn Press (lots of very nice and colorful minibooks) and Hands of a Child (nice research guide). We decided to put everything on cardstock and make a book out of it because there were so many minibooks. We read lots of living books from home and the library. There is so much to learn about Native American indians. We were amazed at the number of different tribes, traditions, customs, etc.

Create-a-Story!

We have been using "Create-a-Story" several times this school year and the kids are doing very well with it. Suz on http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ shared this page earlier this school year, it is http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/english/createa.htm.

We have a 10-sided die that the kids roll, they roll 2 numbers. These numbers tell the kids which "characters", "situations", "places", "objects", etc. on the tables that they will write a story about.

For example, today my daughter rolled a "5" and a "2". So these are the things she needed to include in her story.
1-the desert
2-turning into a grown up
3-a pretty doll
4-in a few days
5-a living statue

Here is the story my 10yr old daughter came up with, I really enjoyed it.

A Desert Boy

Well to start the story, there was this kid that lived in a desert. Now the story begins.

"Hey, Andrew, what are you doing today?"
"Well, I'm going to sell this doll at the market, then I'm going to buy some food for the family and then go home."
"Sounds like you have a busy day."
"Oh, I do. Well see ya later, bye."

A few days passed and Andrew was walking by some rocks he had never seen before. Then he saw a hole in a rock just the right size that he could fit through. So he went in and he saw a live statue talking to a different live statue. So he just walked by. Then he saw a fountain with the clearest and most beautiful water. Since he was so thirsty (he did live in a desert), he just drank and drank and drank. He drank so much he felt like he was going to explode. Not knowing that it was magical water, he instantly turned into a man. And how happy he was knowing that he was a man. He went home and told his parents that he was a man. And his parents asked, "How did you turn into a man?". He said, "I truly do not know!"

And all the rest of his life he still did not know how he became a man. And never again, no matter how hard he looked, he could not find the rocks or the hole.

The End

All Reading Day!

Since I've mentioned some books my son has been enjoying to read I thought I should mention some books my daughter is enjoying. Yesterday my daughter requested an "All Reading Day" for school, she has asked for this before but we have never done it, so I let them. I was very impressed with how my son and daughter both did. My daughter loves to read so I knew she would do well. She gathered a stack of books together and read and read and read and read some more. My son found one of his favorite books he has read many times and read that for awhile then he started the new book "Conspiracy 365" that I previously mentioned and read and read and read it all day long. After reading a book or reading for a period of time the kids would narrate to me what they had read about. This day was a great success in my opinion and we will be doing it again sometime.

A funny thing about the books my kids picked is that all of them were Usborne/Kane Miller books. Yes, I am an Usborne Books consultant and we have a lot of these books but we also have lots and lots and lots of other books (just ask my husband) and books from libraries. Here are some of the books they read:

Knights Handbook, Conspiracy 365-January

Cleopatra, Hansel and Gretel, Florence Nightingale, Heidi

My daughter loves the Usborne Famous Lives series, actually my son loves this series also. The Famous Lives series has greatly impressed me as well. The books present famous people in a very interesting way, with lots of detail and the kids remember almost everything in the book and can repeat it to you. My kids also talk about these books to many people without being asked to, even long after they have read the books. The "Young Reading" series is also a big favorite of my daughter's.

My daughter is now asking for an "All Writing Day", she enjoys writing but my son does not like to write. Since my daughter knows her brother doesn't like to write, she came up with a possible solution, she said we'll take turns making up parts of stories and she'll write them all down. We'll see what the future brings.

(These books can be found at: http://www.usbornebookstore.com/)