Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Homeschool Activities

Now that my kids are relatively back to normal (health wise), it's time to get back to work. So here's a look at what we have planned for the week.

1) The three R's - Just thought I better get that out of the way so someone doesn't feel the need to point out that we should be doing these. We do.

2) The study of Bees- The saying may be that April showers bring May flowers, but here in the Northwest it's more likely to bring more showers. No kidding...two years ago I had to wait almost until July to plant my garden because we had major downpours for 2 weeks straight (now you know why it's so green here). But am I complaining? Yes, just a little;)

Anyway...back to the bees. Busy, but interesting little creatures. We'll be taking a virtual tour of a bee hive, making beeswax candles, and I have a few other things planned...come back Friday for the details.

3) Democracy Lessons- While I have posted a few tongue-in-cheek political posts in my time, I really do think this present run for the presidency is a great time for older kids to study the whole election process in action. So my oldest will be working on some projects to do with this subject. Fortunately, he finds it quite interesting already, so it appears I will have someone to discuss politics with in my old age. I picked up a book this weekend that tells how the various positions of the Presidential cabinet came into being. I'm looking forward to brushing up a bit on some of my forgotten knowledge in this area.

4) Dum Dum Dum Dum....in case you don't recognize it, that's the beginning of Beethoven's 5th symphony. I had planned to study Mozart next in our Musical study, but the Professor has been reading about Beethoven (and behind my back no less!) and I fear there will be nothing for me to teach him if I put it off til later. Worse yet, he'll probably know more than I will...an embarrassing predicament he has put me in a few times before.

5) Still exploring the High Seas with World Explorers (probably through the end of school).

6) My sons have informed me that everything taught in the first lesson of our Hooked on Spanish set they already knew...from Dora the Explorer! I knew those Dora DvD's would come in handy, but I thought only in a give-mommy-a-break-for-25-minutes sort of way :)

The Professor is back to his Piano lessons. I asked his Piano teacher to give the Princess a trial run to see if we can start her on lessons as well. I'm hoping we've made enough headway with her communication issues to be able to do this, but we'll have to see.

And, of course, we'll have to check into taking out a second mortgage to pay for all those lessons...

Have a great day!

3 comments:

Marva said...

Sounds like a busy, yet exciting time! I love the bee stuff! Maybe you could also try a honey recipe out.

We have bees here. Right now we have 17 stands (hives). They are mainly for pollination. Most stone fruits are self pollinators, but apples and small seeded fruit need that little extra boost. Also it helps to have a couple three different varieties and a crabapple tree.

Sorry for taking over there......

Sounds like fun and i would love to make beeswax candles!

Blessings!!!!!!

Nikki said...

You make homeschooling sound like so much fun! I cannot wait to start with mine!

MyKidsMom said...

MARVA: Bee/honey themed recipes are definitely in my plans (part of the other plans I mentioned:)

And I love the information, it makes me wish we could head over to your farm for a little tour...

I'm also having hubby pick up some real honeycomb; I used to love to cut off a piece of that to chew when I was a kid (way back when;)

NIKKI: It will be that time before you know it; with that big new house of yours, you could actually have a whole separate school room (alongside that much-envied library:).