Meant To Teach

Don't you love it when your school curriculum goes along with a real life experience at the same time? We did a chemical reaction experiment with vinegar (our acid) and baking soda (our base) to blow up a balloon. The kids enjoyed watching as it changed into CO2. After the balloon was filled up they quickly realized that their balloon didn't weigh the same as a balloon with air from our mouths. Why? CO2 is heavier than air. The balloon didn't float down to the ground, it came down much faster.  Well, it just so happens that we did some filming this weekend with a smoke machine and to do that we had to have dry ice (which is a solid form of CO2). Why does the smoke go low? Again, CO2 is lighter than air.  Want to try something similar and maybe you don't have a fog machine? It is real simple to do one on your own. Watch this dry ice experiment. 

One of the reasons I love homeschooling is because we can pick up and go anytime we please. When my husband suggested on a whim for us to. take a road trip after visiting family in TN, that is just what we did. I jumped! We took a long way home. So from stopping at his old Army base at Fort Campbell, KY all the way to our las stop of the Hoover Dam in Nevada/AZ - the kids got to see so many things. I find it quite startling how easy it is for them to even find the states on the map after we have gone through them. Our plan is to get a big map off of Etsy to put pins in for the states we have visited.  Here is a list of some of the things we got to see:  Fort Campbell, KY St. Louis, MO Gateway Arch Kansas City Wizard of Oz Museum, KS Kansas City Chiefs Stadium Kansas City Royals Stadium Kansas City Art Museum Denver Broncos Stadium, CO Buford, WY Population of 1 Tree in the Rock, WY Salt Lake City, UT Mormon Temple Salt Lake, UT Las Vegas, NV Hoover Dam, NV  Enjoy some pic...

The girls have learned a real life lesson when it comes to income taxes. This past year, they actually made pay checks from a theater they performed at. So we received their W-2s and filed their taxes. My husband came to me and said, "I have their taxes done and I've prepared a small lesson to teach them." As a homeschool mama, hearing him say that statement was like hearing him say "I love you" for the first time. Some homeschool mamas dream of their husband's involvement like this! He stepped up and taught the girls a little bit about income taxes. He educated them on what taxes were paid for, and why they were taken out of their checks. He instructed them to why they were getting a refund as well. I am so lucky to have a supportive husband when it comes to teaching the girls these real life lessons. The girls signed their forms and are expecting a small refund to be deposited directly to their bank accounts. Yes, the girls have bank acco...

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that we can choose how we learn things. I love being hands on. They learn about a subject and then get to apply it. It's awesome. I've always loved the lapbooks at www.homeschoolshare.com . For a while, we stopped doing them as my oldest daughter is getting, well, older. I was becoming more concerned in her passing an ACT test. That's why I hate teaching to a test and its honestly hard to part ways from it, because you know its coming. I honestly, shouldn't let age factor in these fun projects. She has learned so much this week and it's a real life skill. That is the reason we homeschool. I found myself getting too "text book". My oldest memorizes wonderfully, so she would remember it for the test/review but not retain it. So I put the text books aside and we started doing these lapbooks again. I love how they are a unit, so not only do they learn about the subject, but there is science, history, writing, voc...

Note: The inspiration for the title of this blog post comes from this picture...it's really what I kept thinking while I was posting the pictures to the blog. I couldn't get the minions out of my head - video is below. My oldest daughter has been learning a lot about genes, chromosomes, and DNA. So we extracted DNA from a banana. It was a pretty neat project. Viola! We extracted DNA from a banana!  The project we did was similar to the instructions here.   Enjoy the Minions

We our going on our fifth year of homeschooling. I still learn new things every year, along with the girls. The things I think I learn are usually my parenting. The perception of homeschoolers, is that parents shelter their kids. Most think that the parents want their children in a bubble. While this may be true for some, my husband and I aren't those parents who shelter our kids. I won't apologize for that. Are we going to throw them out to the wolves? No! Do they know a lot more than they should about this world, probably so...because we don't hide the ways of the world. I find that we may choose the "unpopular" way to parent among our homeschool peers. You see, I want my children to come to me when they have a question or hear something new. Back in our home town, my oldest daughter had plenty of public school friends who would come to her about things that I know, I didn't know about when I was her age. One of her friends would talk about another girl...

It's time to start a new chapter in our life. So - on our move across country, I tried to make things interesting with fun, simple facts that didn't seem too educational on our drive from the East to the West. There were little things we did, like set the clock back every time we entered a new time zone. For the most part, we actually just enjoyed seeing the scenery change. Every time we passed into a new state, the girls had to get out their folder and read a few fun facts about the state. It gave them something to look forward to when crossing the state line. My youngest exclaim, "Let me get out my folder," without me even asking. Here is what I came up with:    The girls can officially say that they have been and stayed in every one of these states. We have been to TX before, we have family there. So it was cool staying in a hotel in each state, besides TX. Here are some pictures of the scenery and its changes. Traveling parts of the old Route 66 was why we c...