We're Safe Up North

Hi again, everyone. After checking out the forcast this morning, I decided that Alexandra and I should head up north to my mom's in the Dallas area. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers and I'll try to keep you updated as I find out more of what happens in our area. I'm praying for all of our friends who stayed put. Looks like they might be in for quite a wild ride!
- Dana

Hurricane Ike

It looks like Hurricane Ike is heading more or less our way. We're planning on staying put at this point. Someone sent me a link to a neat interactive storm tracker. With it you can view the various forecast models, wind probabilites, your distance from the center of the storm, and much more. It's a great way to keep tabs on Ike!

So far, so good (curriculum reviews)

We've been back to school for 3 1/2 weeks. I can hardly believe it! Anyway, I wanted to take some time to review our various subjects/curriculum and how they are going.

• Bible devotions: We do this first in the mornings and I'm trying not to consider it as part of school. We are studying various Proverbs using a curriculum from our church.
• Bible Study: We are using Rod & Staff for Grade 3, God Leads His People, and this is going very well. Currently, we are studying David's life. I love that the workbooks include mapwork and lots of questions to help you remember the story, because these are pretty complicated stories. I've been drawing stick people to help us remember the key people. I plan on us doing this for every lesson to make a book.
• Math: We used Singapore for the 1st two weeks, but then Alexandra got her own laptop and really wanted to use it. So, we are using Teaching Textbooks Math 5, something we started last year. This is going pretty well and since there are quite a few multiplication problems (we're about 1/4 through the "book" because of last year), she's getting her facts down better. We're also working on one drill sheet per day.
• Latin: We love, love, love Latin for Children! We are both learning so much! (Yes, I took Latin in high school, but I really have forgotten most of it.) We are declining nouns and conjugating verbs and learning lots of vocabulary words. We love watching the videos - they are helpful AND entertaining. There's a CD for you car - a fun workbook - online quizes & worksheets - it just is REALLY working for us!
• Spelling: We already switched spelling curriculums. Neither one of us was enjoying All About Spelling. So, we switched to Rod & Staff Grade 3 Spelling by Sound and Structure. So far, it's pretty easy for her, but at least we are both enjoying it AND it works on other skills besides spelling.
• Cursive: She hasn't liked the Rod & Staff cursive that we bought and I think we might go back to working on print for awhile. Then, we will probably return to this curriculum.
• History: We are kind of continuing with Winter Promise American Story 1 - but mostly we are just reading the books at our own pace. We're getting ready to do a pocket book about the American Revolution to finish that up.
• Science 1 (marine biology): We started Exploring Creation with Zoology 2: Swimming Creatures a few days ago and it's going Ok. I think the first chapter is the hardest to get through. After this, we'll be studying various animals, but this is kind of the background material. We're also doing the extensive lapbook by Live & Learn Press which is a great way to do Q&A and have something to remember out studies by.
• Science 2 (electricity): We also have been studying about electricity because of our studies of Ben Franklin for history. We've been using a kit I bought a long time ago and Alexandra's Snap Circuit kit - which is wonderful!!!
• Science 3 (soap): We've also been doing experiments about soap with a True Book called Experiments with Soap. I've never used any of their experiment books before, and we both really like this one. We'll try to finish it up tomorrow and post about it.
• Composition: We started IEW's Teaching Writing: Structure & Style and it has been working wonderfully! I'm learning from it, too! We did take a break this week as I think she has step 1 & 2 down pretty well and I need to watch the next video!
• Literature: We're reading Laura Ingalls Wilder by the Benges. We're actually both enjoying this better than Laura's own series.

I'll try to post something more entertaining tomorrow - with photos and everything. :-)

da Vinci & Fly Me to the Moon

Yesterday, our school went on a field trip. Yes, our museum lets homeschool "groups" of even just 2 participate in school-priced field trips. And, even though we're members of this museum, it is cheaper to go as a school!

First, we went to the special exhibit about Leonardo da Vinci. It mainly focused on his inventions, though it also show cased some of his artwork. The used his drawings to build models. We were especially excited to see this flying machine as we once built a model of it.

I also really enjoyed this model of a life bouy "in action."

We read 3 books to prepare for this trip and enjoyed all 3:

• Uh-Oh, Leonardo! by Sabuda
• Da Vinci by Mike Venezia (great series)
• Leonardo and the Flying Boy by Laurence Anholt (great author)

Our second part of our field trip was to see the new 3-D IMAX cartoon about the mission to the moon, "Fly Me to the Moon." Although it has gotten some bad reviews, we loved it! We even plan on seeing it again. We went to the Cosmosphere in Kansas just last month, so space travel was fresh on our minds. But, we also read the following book to prepare:

• Project Apollo (True Book) by Sipiera - (we enjoy the True Books)

Booster Seats

My daughter will be turning 8 soon. In Texas, booster seats are only required until age 5 and 36 inches tall. We recently told her that she could get out of her booster seat on her birthday.

I thought I'd check some state laws as we're planning our trip north. (We're now headed to Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Minnesota!) I found a map with state booster seat laws and realized many states require kids to be 80 pounds or 57 inches or 8 years old... or all 3 like Wisconsin!

So, I was wondering... what are your state laws and do you follow them or make your child wait longer? Or how do you decide when your child is big enough to get out of the booster seat? I'm now thinking about waiting until she meets all 3 requirements... which will be quite a while.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #28: Dragonflies & Damselflies

Barb's 28th challenge was to study and try to see dragonflies & damselflies. I had seen a hot pink dragonfly a few days ago, and was so happy to see it land on our bird feeder stand today!


Isn't it beautiful?

Then, we saw a handful of bees! We hadn't been able to find any for the challenge a few weeks ago, but now we have a few. And, if you can see behind him and a little to the right... love bugs. It is definitely love bug season and they are EVERYWHERE right now. We stopped at a stoplight today and 3 "couples" landed on our windshield.

A couple of days ago, this beautiful hawk landed on our bird feeder. Wow! I took this photo through the window and then we tried to slowly open the door, but he flew away.

Daughter's Blog

Like Jamie's daughter at Rose Cottage, Alexandra started her own blog this week. She's also been sending a lot of emails to family members. I'm just amazed at how it is helping her typing and spelling skills! So, I'm going to encourage her to both blog and write emails.

We'll also probably start using Dance Mat Typing again. It is wonderful... and it's free!

Labor Day

I read about Jamie's "labor day" over at Rose Cottage, and thought I'd share my own labor day story...

How long were you in labor? Almost 21 hours!

How did you know you were in labor? Labor pains woke me up at about 1 am.

Where did you deliver? At the hospital as planned. We called my doctor early in the morning and she told us to meet her at her office around 7 am. Then, we went next door to the hospital. Unfortunately, it was a very busy day in the delivery area and I didn't have a room at first. They had me in a wheeled desk chair at the nurses station and they kept rolling me out of the way - right during contractions!

Also, it was neat that every family member had enough time to get here... even from several states away. My brother even had a flat tire, but made it just in time.

Drugs? Yes, I had drugs and an epidural. The drugs helped me sleep some during the day, but I don't think the epidural worked - I felt a LOT of pain. Also, I tried the "breathing" you are taught in Lamaze class... and it wasn't working for me. I worked through the pain by squeezing my husband's hand. :-)

C-section? No, but it was a possibility. I pushed for 1.5 hours and Alexandra's heart rate spiked twice. They said if it happened again, we needed to do a C-section. I did get an episiotomy and they had to use a suction cup to help pull out my average size baby. (7 lbs 2 oz)

Who delivered? Thankfully, my own doctor delivered. I love my OB-GYN. :-) In fact, it's quite a drive to go see her, but I will stick with her as long as possible.

If you'd like to "play along", copy the questions, post your Labor Day experience, and link up to Rocks in my Dryer.

Outdoor Hour Challenge #27 & Unplug Your Kids: Insects

(I decided to use this post for double duty as the Unplug Your Kids topic this week was: insects! So, instead of reposting these photos, I'll just link to this post from a few days ago.)

This week's challenge for Outdoor Hour was to study and look for bees. Sadly, we haven't seen many bees in our backyard for the past few years. We have 2 different types of plants that used to be covered in them, but we rarely see them now. So, we were outside and I was sure we wouldn't find any...

but, we found this one... she was dead. But, it was a great opportunity to study it close up and get a few photos.

We spent lots of time in the backyard this week. Alexandra saved this milkweed bug from the pool - he's drying off his wings.

I found this katydid on our sago palm. I love this photo! You might try to enlarge it. I think it is one of my best insect photos ever. And, I actually wasn't sure if this was a katydid or a grasshopper of some kind when I found it. I did some research and found that you can usually tell a katydid by its LONG antenna. They are sometimes even called longhorned grasshoppers, though they are more closely related the cricket.

And, this was just an incredible gift from God! My dog actually "found" it. This was right outside our back door. I actually thought this poor cicada was deformed... and dead. His coloring was so strange! So, I didn't even wake Alexandra to see it. About 30 minutes later, I took her outside to see it...And, he was out and letting his wings dry! Aren't those incredibly colored wings!!! I thought he was a most unusual colored cicada.

But, once again, I hadn't waited long enough... he is actually just an "ordinary" (but beautiful) cicada. Isn't that just amazing???

Having Fun with Andy Warhol

This week's Unplug Your Kid's theme was cylinders. I'd been planning on studying Andy Warhol and when I saw the theme I thought - "soup cans!" So, today we started a study of Warhol by reading 2 books about him and creating 2 pieces of art.


Our first "assignment" was to draw something that is a part of our every day life. Alexandra chose to draw Ovaltine (a cylinder) - something her and her cousin love to drink when they go to Grandma's.


I drew a modern "Healthy Request" can of Campbell's Soup... just like Andy.


We also tried to make some of his strangely colored portrait collages. We tried several mediums and couldn't find anything we could use to color ON Alexandra's face. So, we ended up coloring the background with markers. I still thought these turned out very neat looking.

If anyone's ever tried this (or knows of a way I can do it on my computer), I'd love to make these more colorful. I'd like to buy some watercolors and see if that would work.

We plan on studying more about Warhol this week... and making more masterpieces! So, if you have any ideas, please let me know!

Next week's theme: INSECTS