Wilcox Farm

Last week we joined some fellow homeschoolers for a local tour of Wilcox Farms out in Roy, WA. Wilcox Farm is an egg farm, one million chickens strong - so pretty large! This is our second time enjoying this tour and honestly, I enjoyed this time a bit more... it was not as eye-opening on how the chickens are really living, which last time led us to not eat eggs or chicken for a long time. Keeping some things private it okay with me, LOL!

Anyhow, the kids all got to hear about an old school house, enjoy climbing about a milk truck, view some great older cars and farm equipment, pet the farm dog 'Komo', learn all about chickens of course and they also enjoyed a tour of the plant that sorts and packages the eggs for distribution. It was a fun day!!!

Caterpillars & Butterflies

We are still going strong on learning all about butterflies... in fact, we now have these little guys:

Each day they are eating and growing larger and larger - it won't be too long before they are a chrysalis... exciting!!! Holly has really enjoyed watching, inspecting, learning and predicting.

We also have a large collection of books on butterflies we read all the time, do our coloring field guide, enjoy puzzles and craft projects - the days are full of butterflies! We have spent the nicer days out in search of butterflies in the garden with some luck, not too bad for this early in the year. And, we have enjoyed some online resources too. A favorite has been this site: http://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/

I am trying to decide if we want to do a praying mantis hatch before we wrap up our very hands on insect unit that included ants, lady bugs, butterflies and so much more... a ton of outdoor inspection with a field guide, magnifying glass and nature journal. So many choices!

Nature Medallion

This past weekend we spent some time visiting Grandpa out on Anderson Island, a wonderful natural place. I had a small project in mind so I packed our roll of clear contact paper... keeping Holly's interest. She and I did a small nature hunt for several different kinds of leaves of varying sizes, styles, shapes and colors as well as some small wildflowers and grass seeds. Then we laid our collection out and created!!!

I rolled out a nice sized canvas of clear contact paper for us to work with. Our goal was to create a design similar to a medallion - keeping a pattern the best we could using all items from nature. She practiced laying out her pattern and then tried transferring it over to her contact paper. This project required we headed back out for more materials, part of the fun. Believe it or not once we got going, it required some counting and basic math skills to determine how many more items we needed to collect to create our designs.

This was a fantastic art project, hands on that included nature and math. We'll be doing this one again!

Butterfly Field Guide

A fun book we recently purchased at the Nisqually Delta book shop is the Peterson's Butterfly Field Guide. I knew we were going to be doing a small unit on butterflies so this was a great addition - as well, Holly enjoys these kinds of color books for general use.

This book covers so many different butterflies, some native to our region and others are not. However, it really opened Holly's eyes to just how many are out there. The book is neat in that you choose a butterfly image you would like to color, find the sticker that serves as a guide on what the butterfly looks like and then color that image. There is also a paragraph or so on each butterfly. The beginning of the book also does a nice introduction to butterflies, their habitats and life cycle. This is a great book!

Rock Painting

Earlier this week we met up with some other homeschooling families at a local beach across town. The weather was perfect! The children all enjoyed a long time exploring the beach for treasures, critters and special rocks. Then we gathered up for a painting party. They all had a great time creating special rocks in a rainbow of colors. A creative way to enjoy art for the day. After a nice time of painting rocks, lunch was enjoyed and then back to the beach for more play. It was a really nice day and the kids had a great time!

Venn Diagram: Butterflies & Moths

We have moved onto butterflies in our insect studies, which is a lot of fun for Holly! We have studied butterflies numerous times so coming up with some new books and projects is proving to be a bit more challenging. One project I chose was to create a Venn diagram comparing butterflies and moths - she loved this!!!

I actually found the perfect book to complete this project with. It is called What's the Difference Between a Butterfly and a Moth? by Robin Koontz. This book has beautiful illustrations and is written on a nice, basic level. It offered Holly the perfect opportunity to read it, think on it and then pull out the similarities and differences between the two winged beauties.

A Joy of Homeschooling...

Often times with homeschooling it is easy to slip into the daily grind of work at home, however I try really hard to keep it fresh and fun if I can. Does that always happen? No. Do I at least try? Yes.

For instance when the weather permits we will take our work outdoors to enjoy or change it up to include a natural element if at all possible...spelling with sidewalk chalk, painting outside, reading on a blanket, exploring with a collection box & magnifying glass, etc. One more fun element is going somewhere new to do the daily 'school work'.

Yesterday we were meeting up with other homeschooling friends for an activity at the park, rock painting and beach combing. To change school up we decided to leave extra early and do school at the park versus sitting at home to finish up. So, we took in a beautiful view and sunshine while school was completed then Holly hit the big toy and beach for some fun... all before our friends arrived! A complete joy of homeschooling, one we must do more often!