Narration & Nature

R's narration of Ch 12
T's Ch 12
Orb web

I've been reading Charlotte's Web and having the kids narrate. It has been a bit painful at times, but we are keeping at it. Today I had them draw a picture of the chapter instead of tell it. I thought they did a good job. We also included a bit of nature today and found lots of good orb webs under the bleachers of the school track. We spray painted them black and then pushed card stock thru them until they were stuck on the paper. Turned out cool. Hopefully you can see it in the last pic.

Laundry soap

I've decided to try to make my own laundry soap! It was actually really easy and quick after I finally located all the ingredients. Strange thing was, I had all but one. After spending the weekend looking for Washing Soda, I called Arm & Hammer this morning to find out where it is sold, and it was at Harp's here in Alma-go figure. Anyway, here is the recipe I used and a beautiful pic of it. I will post how well it works in a few days.

1/3 bar Fels Naptha soap, grated

1/2 cup Arm&Hammer Washing Soda

1/2 cup 20Mule Team Borax

large bucket to mix it in.

Mix Fels Naptha in a saucepan w/ 6 cups of water and heat on low until dissolved. Stir in Soda and Borax. Stir until thickened and remove from heat. Add 4 cups Hot Water to bucket then add soap mixture and mix well. Fill bucket with addtitional 1 gallon and 6 cups of water and mix. Set aside for 24 hours or until mixture thickens. Use 1/2 cup per load.

You can find this recipe and others at www.soapsgonebuy.com

Best place to be in summer

We swam again with our homeschool friends and in this heat, the kids have the best place!

This camera is really fun. It is a Olympus Stylus 770W, waterproof and shockproof. I got it at Bedford's last year and it takes really good pics. That first one of R's friend turned out the best of any I've taken underwater. Actually, R is the one who took it! It would probably help if I would actually go underwater to take them, but for someone who squeenches up her eyes and holds her nose, it wouldn't work too well anyway!!!

Ridin' In Style

Tuesday the Strykers got to ride in style! A HUGE stretch Hummer picked them up at their practice field and took them to the water park.

One of their coaches got them together and took pictures of them w/ their backs to the limo as it pulled in. Everyone started yelling for them to turn around and they didn't know what to think. When they figured out it was their ride, there was lots of running and screaming. The thing was so big, that all the brothers and sisters got to ride too. There were 27 people in it in all, including Richard! I mostly filmed, but these are a couple of pics I got. It was a fun night for everyone.

Survived Softball

Well, we have survived another season of girls softball. I probably need to see my doctor to make sure, but I don't think I'm in need of any blood pressure medicine at this time! They played in the National tournament this weekend. It was extremely hot! The highlight of the whole thing for the girls was the goody bags they exchanged with another team. Last night, we noticed R watching the ice cream truck(that lady is no dummy, she circles the fields during games) go by instead of paying attention to the batter. That is a good indicator it is time for it to end.
Now we get to have the team party at the Alma Water Park this week. They are getting a surprise-a ride to the park in a stretch Hummer. I will post pics-should be a hoot.
I must admit, we are all very glad it is finally over for this year. Now, on to the next sport-sigh!

Water fun

Last night our homeschool group rented the AlmaWater Park. We had a good turnout and everyone had a good time, dads included. I never did get pictures at the park, but I did take some earlier in the day at the pool. My camera is waterproof, so we had fun taking some underwater pictures. Summer is so much fun!!

40 with Friends

Saturday night I met up with classmates to celebrate turning 40! We met at La Huerta and had dinner , spent time catching up and sharing the misery of getting old!! Only about 15 made it , but it was a fun time. I forgot my camera but there is a new slide show of our pics on our class website. As far as I know, only one of us is a GRANDPARENT. Talk about making you feel old. I think for the most part, turning 40 hasn't bothered me too much. I do find myself wondering who that is in the mirror and where did I go?
Anyway, I'm blessed and thankful, so age doesn't matter!

Happy Birthday Rich!

Today was Richard's birthday. He is celebrating the 10th anniversary of his 39th birthday! None of his gifts arrived yet, but we did get to stuff ourselves at Olive Garden. The best part was we had a gift card, so it was free. No better gift than that!
Anyway, happy birthday , we love you!

More Nature

Last night, I found a large spider web so I rounded up the kids and a big flashlight and we watched her work. She had already finished making the web and was now sitting in the center waiting for supper. As a bug got caught in the web, she would run to it and wrap it up very quickly. It as amazing to watch. Of course, our light attracked more bugs, so she had lots of work to do! We finally left when the big moths started for the light and were tearing big holes in the web. It was a great learning experience for all of us!

Nature Study

It has been my desire to do more nature study with the kids. Of course, that means you actually have to get out into nature and I'm not always the best at that! I did buy these journals for the kids and they are really neat. R took to hers right away(I think it was a little too educational looking for T!). We found-or should I say our dog(Daisy) -found a box turtle last week. The kids decided to keep it awhile so we found a box for it and did a little research on it in our Handbook of Nature Study. We decided it was a box turtle and it eats vegetation and bugs. We gave it grass, lettuce and a few dead beetles we found. It nearly drove the poor dog crazy! Anyway, we ended up letting it go before we left for the holiday weekend but before we did, R wanted to draw it in her new journal. She did a good job. On Monday, we saw a turtle in the road a ways from our house and the kids were pretty sure that must be our turtle!

We also got to watch a bird's nest over the last few weeks. It started w/ 4 eggs, then 2 babies and they finally left the nest last week. It was a neat experience for us all! We have also picked blueberries twice so I guess we are doing better at this nature study thing than I thought!

I found this site of absolutely beautiful nature pictures!

4th Weekend

Rachel Trent My parents and all their grands

We survived a trip to the lake with family over the 4th weekend! We took the pop up camper we just bought to try it out. Great part was my parents were in their trailer and we didn't have to worry about food. We had fun when it wasn't raining.

Someone has put a swing from a tall tree limb up the river from where we stay. It has bicycle handlebars for holding on. All the kids tried it and were hooked. We spent a lot of time swinging into the lake. No, I most certainly did not do it myself!

Of course we shot off fireworks and the people who own the campground put on a pretty good show on the 5th.

Best part for me-sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, good fiction in hand, fan blowing on me,looking out over the lake w/kids entertained by swimming with cousins!!

Now, back to real life and cleaning house!

Planning for the new year

Now that I finally have all my orders in(along with the credit card bills!) it is time to sit down and plan out the school year. So far I have only made a partial list of the books I would like for the kids to read. I also want to decide what we are going to read for our Bible study time. I think that we will just read and discuss instead of buying a curriculum. If I had the new planner from The Old Schoolhouse, I know this task would be much easier!!!(I'm hoping to win it by submitting this post-hehe)
Now, just to find the quiet time w/out a million other things to do, to actually plan!

Sometimes it is the simple things!

I just installed new software,Startwrite, that makes handwriting worksheets. You can choose from different fonts and sizes . I am going to use it to teach cursive this year and to make our own notebooks. It is going to be a great tool! It is amazing what small things can make a homeschool mom's day.