On May 17, 2013 our homeschool group KICK  got together at the Pinery for a walk with a naturalist.   I took some quick notes using EVERNOTE, just very quick ones as I didn't want to be noisy and interrupt Allison the naturalist.

yarrow is a cure for poison ivy
poison ivy is related to sumac, cashews and something else.

birds are defending territory or wanting to invite girls to come on over.
most female birds are drab.  not so with robins.

there are no bull frogs left in Pinery Provincial Park
They were over hunted.

The naturalist did a good job of imitating the sounds of different frogs. 

We did manage to see some turtles sunning on a log though. :)

showed latex animal footprints
goose, raccoon. snapping turtle

children learned about biodiversity.   hummingbirds will lick up sap left by yellow sapsuckers.    that's a type of woodpecker.   flying squirrels and screech owls also depend on wood peckers.

The Children very much enjoyed their time together.  Afterwards we went to area 9 for a picnic lunch and some time on the beach.  :)   Good time had by all.

My Son is reading better..... that's what I can say this program did for him.  He is reading better.   Reading is making more sense to him (and it's easier for me to explain) why vowels change how they sound (they were such a source of angst earlier).     So this program gets two thumbs up in this review.  :)

Vendor: Joyce Herzog
Product: Scaredy Cat Reading System Level 2
Pricing Information: Complete Package is $75. 
Age Range: There is a pre-test on the site which helps you to learn which level is best for your child.    You can find that on the Downloads Page.

The Scaredy Cat Reading System is designed to help beginning reading well...read.  :)   The placement test helps you to pick out the level best suited.

It comes with a CD, a book with the CD, a teachers manual, games, die, flashcards (The flashcards came on thick cardstock reading for cutting) and a student manual.     The level we chose was reading level two, it seemed to be the best fit.

When we got the materials I looked through it and thought, okay, this looks intimidating.  I've never used a curriculum to teach reading so hadn't been too sure what to expect.   Looking through it, my thoughts were ACK, I can't do this, but as I delved into the materials my thoughts changed to oh....this will be a highly adaptable system.  I can do this.   This will fit with how we learn.  :)

So I read through the teachers manual and got the basic gist of the program.   Found some typos which bothered me.  I will need to make a list and point them out to the author.

Then we dove in.

The lad had FUN playing the games.  Imagine that.  My lad having fun playing a word game.    The games have low pressure, he could use his angry birds as players and they could be teaching each other how to say words.. it was ALL good.   He learned!  :)  No tears!  :)

The lessons are LARGE I found.  We've been using the first lesson now for quite some time and still aren't through it.  Mind, I'm a one page a day gal as that works well for my lad when doing a formal type of curriculum....and we go back to pages and read them again, try it again, can you do it better?   Do you understand the mirror concept...ooh...let's play an actual mirror game to reinforce this idea.   We are taking our time as stressing over reading is not where it's at.   But as we use it...he learns!  

The word flash cards, these are working well for us.  The lad scatters them, groups them by whatever method seems best to him (and it's not always the same way with the same group of words), picks a set or two to practice reading from.    Sometimes we toss angry birds at them when they are scattered and the lad helps them learn to read the word (sometimes getting mom to step in when he has no clue).  

This system works for us at a pace best suited to our household.   I love the flexibility of it.

I find it interesting how much he enjoys reading a list of words and seeing if he can read them faster.   He loves it.  He's gotten down from reading with with help (3.20) to reading it by himself me assisting slightly (4:20) to reading it completely on his down (320) and now he can read this list of words in 2 minutes 20 seconds.  He's impressing himself.  "Mom!  I'm getting it!"  :)

He still is quite concerned that he's not reading as fluidly as mom or dad are, but he's starting to see how he is getting better at reading.   This confidence I attribute to the practice that he is getting reading the same words over and over again and being able to see (as we write down the time) how he really is getting better and faster at it.

"He's reading with me... oh.. I'm just so delighted!    He's willing to read with me".  :)

I like this program.  I will continue to use it.  My recommendation is, if you have the ability to make a program suit your needs, this reading program will work for you quite nicely.   If you have a child who stresses over reading the ability to go slowly with this program will make it an excellent fit.  My son enjoys it, though every new page is greeted with "mom... I can't do this"..... with encouragement and experience he is learning that he too, can do this and it's not something to worry on.  :)    See all those checks?   Those are words that he knows and is for the most part very confident in reading.   Though I have to admit... those D's sometimes like to fool him into thinking that they are B's. 

He's reading better!   That quite frankly says it all to me!  

Typos, I dislike typos since to me it shows a lack of attention to detail.  I have no issues forgiving one or two....but when it's a recurrent theme it's like hmmm... something is not quite right here, it just raises my level of concern.

Magnetic letters: I should have received these (according to the website they were part of the package) but I didn't.   So I can't comment on them.  Not sure what happened with that.

If getting this product shipped to Canada do specify HOW you want it shipped.  UPS will charge a shipping/duty fee, USPS does not. 

You can either click on this link here OR click on the banner below.

Yesterday the lad and I picked rhubarb.  Our patch has really grown over the past two years, I"m starting to wonder if I need to start gifting bits and pieces of it soon.  But for now it works for us.

BUT since we had a fair bit I wanted to do more than make rhubarb sauce so we looked for recipes.

I came across my old stand-by of rhubarb Crisp.  But I also found a recipe for Rhubarb cake.  My goodness....I should have found this recipe AGES ago.  It's just lovely. :)

Preheat oven to 350

Have pie plate, fill with diced rhubarb, top with 1/4-1/2 cup sugar depending on size of pie plate and your sweetness preferences.

mix together the following:
1/2 cup oatmeal
1/4 c butter
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder

put this mixture on top the rhubarb.

Bake for about 30 minutes.  Might take a tad longer depending on your oven.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking dish.

Stir together
1 1/4 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Add in
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sour cream (we used greek yogurt)

Once it is nice and smooth add in
3 cups diced rhubarb

In separate bowl mix together
1 cup white sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup all-purpose flour

Sprinkle the mixture on top of the cake then dust lightly with ground cinnamon.

Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

I received this book from a friend Tuesday.  The lad loves it.  He finds it interesting, challenging, and just plain fun.  Some of it is too hard for him yet, but when you play with two people you can help each other out.

But it has challenges: who can build a paper hat the fastest, which planet is farthest from the sun, and such like.   It's a wonderful homeschooling game as it covers so many different areas AND if we don't know the answer, we can go look it up and it's all in fun.   I am very thankful for my friend gifting this game to us.  I expect we'll enjoy it for a good while yet.

Right now we are continuing to work our way through review materials.

Scaredy cat reading system by Joyce Herzog.   The lad is understanding vowels and what not better.  It's cool to see his understanding grow.

Mammoth Math.  We do one page a day, no more than that.  The lad finds it hard, but he's getting it.   It's good to make him think.   Part of the reason it is hard is that I'm doing grade three with him rather than grade two.  But at this stage in the review it's basically review of grade two and it's showing him that he can do this, he just needs to think on it a bit.

We're continuing to work through the Christianity Cove study on the Lord's prayer.   yesterday we did a wordsearch, this gave us an opportunity to really think about some of the words used in the Lord's Prayer and what they mean.

We've also started a new review from Birdcage Press.  The lad is learning  Eygptian terminology while playing games.  He even had fun playing it with one of his friends yesterday.   It received a thumbs up!  :)

Did you know that making muffins incorporates alot of schooling?

Reading, math (if you double the recipe), following directions, chemistry and in our case....also art!  :)     yes, that's an angry bird you see drawn in our muffin mix.

He attempted to do so in the liquid portion as well, that didn't work out quite and well but certainly made the liquid squeal as it was being poured in with the dry ingredients.

FIRST preheat oven to 400.   Child can do this part easily.

In a bowl mix

1 cup mashed bananas (about two large)
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted  (didn't know this could be so much fun for a lad to do.   He had a hoot cutting it up and stirring it ah!!!  I'm melting, I"m melting)
1 tbsp molasses (we didn't have molasses so used honey)    Gave us a chance to talk about substitutions and how they can be made, even how Jesus died in our place (he substituted himself for us) and it's all good. 

Reserve this.  (explain what that means to a child if they don't know).  Practice spelling it in the mixture to if you'd like.   Really...it's fun!  :)

In a different bowl Mix
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup wheat flour (we might have accidentally used multi-grain ... it works too)
1/2 cup wheat bran (we might have used oat bran ... it obviously worked as well)
1 tbsp baking powder (this is what we use in making volcanos right mom?  So why don't the muffins explode in the oven?  - excellent science lesson right there)
1/4 tsp cinnamon (according to the lad, cinnamon tastes horrible on it own)
1/4 tsp salt

OPTIONAL ingridents (we chose NOT to add these)
1/2 nuts of your choice added into the dry mixture.
12 banana chips (these would be placed on the top of the muffin just before baking)

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

I would highly recommend if your child is younger, unskilled or nervous that YOU place the muffins in the oven.   It's just a safety thing.  The lad will bring the trays to the oven, but he'll stand back to let me place them in.

We learned that our oven has a hot spot as 8 of our muffins turned out dark and the rest turned out just fine. Two of them got immediately eaten anyways, we just pulled off the black stuff.

As you can see we made a double batch.  The muffins turned out quite nice and have been being enjoyed by all.    We're freezing a few for our yard sale later this spring.  The lad wants to make some money selling things and this is good work on his part.  :)  (and excellent schooling).

Would it be quicker for me to do them on my own?   For sure, but it's a whole lot more fun to do them with a lad and it's good schooling too.  :)

Grand River Asian carp catch is 'bad news'.  This article in the paper this morning led to a discussion on invasive species.  

So we learned more about the different types of carp, and how they are dangerous to fish in Ontario.

Then we took a look at some of the other invasive species of water critters in Canada.

Round Goby (this we have seen, caught and killed) zebra mussels (have brought these home to study), spiny water flea, rusty crayfish, sea lamprey (have seen pictures of), bloody red shrimp, Eurasian Ruffe

And the rest we looked them up.
The Spiny Water Flea - here's a link.   They eat the food native species need to survive.

Rusty Crayfish - here's a link. These critters have aggressive eating habits.

Bloody Red Shrimp - form dense clouds, compete with native species for food, here's a link. 

Eurasian Ruffe - this one surprised me, I thought from the name it was some sort of small critter, but it's a fish.  They compete with perch and reproduce rapidly.  Here's a link. 

It was eye-opening to the lad and I just how many invasive species there are in Ontario.  Not just water critters, but plants and other living creatures as well.

NEAT!
Was the expression I just heard from one seven year old lad.

He's having fun experimenting with chalk, water and microwaves today.

So let's today follow the thought processes of one child, age seven, learning to think through what he wants to do.

He started with just chalk and a microwave.  it took 10 minutes before the chalk got hot, but when it got hot it got VERY hot quite quickly.

But it didn't do what he hoped for.  He wants the chalk to melt.

So together with Dad he figured out how microwaves work.  So how to add water....that was the question.

Do you dip it in water?
Let's try that.  Nah...that doesn't work.

Do you sink it on a plate of water?
Well it works a bit, but not very good.

Do you put it entirely in water in a cup?
Well that works great!  WOW MOM!!! look at this, MOM come quick!

BUT problem, whenever it bubbles it spills over and cleaning up the mess is a problem.
So now what?

MOM!  Can I use this?  (a glass jar)
Sure
Oh...it's too big.

What Can I use that I can keep?

Mom interjects this comment: what can you use now, but then later clean, so you can store your melted chalk in something different later (like your jar)?

Son: after looking around the kitchen.  MOM!  Can I use this?  (bigger measuring cup).   Sure.

So... he's having fun and he's learning, and it's all good.  :)

Do you see this mostly empty area?
It was filled with all sorts of metal recycling items.
Parts of cars, old metal easy up parts, metal from old cages, and pop cans.
Today the lad learned about taking metal out to the recyclers.   We talked about how metal can be reused, what sorts of metal, what kinds of things can be made from old pop cans, and why they like to take old metal back.

We found our way to the recyclers.  it was a new place to us and took a bit of figuring to get to, but we made it okay.  On the way we talked about a dream to make an outdoor cattery... or what the lad calls a cat coop.  :)   We got on that discussion when I mentioned where we got his cat Milo from.

The lad helped us unload the pop cans and then helped me safely back up after we went on the ramp to be weighed.   He was a good spotter, I am NOT a good backer upper.  :)

How is this homeschooling?
1. teamwork
2. practical learning: hands on seeing what metal is, sorting it, crushing it to conserve space,
3. the answering and asking of questions
4. conservation of the earth
5. saving money, earning money
6. starting and finishing a project (saving pop cans and then selling them)
7. attention to detail

Before we left the lad also had this brilliant idea about making money at the yard sale next month.  He dug up some of the maple trees in the yard and has temporarily planted them in one of the raised beds.  His goal: sell them for $1 each.  He'll need to keep them watered, but dad and I will help him remember.  And he'll need to look for pots to put them in (gardening centres we hope will help with this aspect of things).

After the recyclers we stopped at a friends house to pick up my old doe Slip.  She was staying at their house for the winter since she didn't like the cold.  we took their younger doe here for the winter.  It worked out well.

The lad played while I helped her pack for a weekend away.   Being 8.5 weeks pregnant makes for some exhausting days and she needed a bit of a push to get some things done.  I helped her brain work and her body to pack.  :)   Even loaded the car for her.  The lad did an excellent job of entertaining her children during the whole process.

All in all an excellent homeschooling day, which rounded out an excellent homeschooling week.  If all weeks went like this one life would be very grand indeed.  :)

"Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the DVD Ring the Bell for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. All opinions expressed are mine alone. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

Ring The Bell shares the story of a slick, big city sports agent Rob Decker who seems to have it all. But on his latest mission to sign a high school baseball superstar, Rob becomes stranded in a small town where the simplicity of life—and the faith of the people—stand in stark contrast to his own fast-paced, win-at-all-costs mindset. Torn between these two worlds, will Rob have the courage to let faith transform his life? This heartwarming story of redemption is sure to entertain and inspire the whole family.

Ring The Bell features a host of well-known Christian music artists, several former and current Major League Baseball and more.

Ring the Bell is available on DVD for only $19.99 
Website:  http://ringthebellthemovie.com
Watch the Trailer: http://ringthebellthemovie.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RingTheBellTheMovie

The initial part of this movie started very slow and the acting appeared to be forced.    It took a while for the actors to get a good flow going.    I was pleased that as the movie progressed, the acting and flowed changed.  The characters appealed to meld better.  There were still awkward, somewhat forced moments, but overall it became good.      I actually enjoyed the last half hour of the movie quite a lot.     I found myself routing for the main character Rob Decker to make some better choices in his life.

This is a movie that I think my parents would very much enjoy, and would be an interesting discussion movie for a group of young people.  

I would have no issues having my whole family watch it as well.  It is a clean, easy to view movie.   Nothing that I could see that would set off parental alarms.

isn't it fun when I get to offer a giveaway as well?   You can get your own copy of this DVD if you win.  :)  Enter below. :)