Five in a Row ~ Miss Rumphius Day 2

Miss Rumphius, Day two was a hit!  We began with reading  the story.  We discussed personification.  We also did a little seed graph worksheet that I took from an Old, out of print teacher's science book of worksheets.  They loved coloring the seeds and graphing them.  It was very simple, and my 2nd grader did help out my K student.  He got a chance to lead/teach, too.

Also, we read through the page on plants and seeds from a text that we had around here.  I'm not a fan of texts for a whole lot.  I just did it because it had some cool pictures in it and it told the children to soak a few beans in water to see them sprout.  So they did.  They had to read and follow directions for themselves and they were all too happy to do so!. 

Then, we took a brief walk outside for a nature walk.  We discussed a few plants whose seeds spread by wind.  I am ashamed to say that I don't know what they are yet because we've only lived here a few months and we have yet to see a full bloom of all that is growing in our yard.  But we could see that the seeds would drop and fly away.  They also discussed that they had seen a few 'hitchhikers' on the dog the other day.  And of course, how birds  help to displace seeds as well. 

We checked our seeds that were planted but nothing has come up yet so patience will be the theme there. 

Most of these activities today had no paperwork involved.  FIAR really can be a simple way for your children to learn. 

Five in a Row ~ Miss Rumphius Day 1

We are FIARowing the book Miss Rumphius this week.  I chose this book since we are doing a lot with seeds and planting right now.  Spring has made an early arrival and we are down to business.

Day 1

Read book and discussed location of story disk.  Ds placed it and did well identifying directions.

We discussed routine and made and hung our charts to establish a good routine. Checked off today's activities so far....

Dd12 read Jack and the Beanstalk to youngers as I prepared lunch.(I like to add a little CM ~tales)

Ds took some time after lunch/play to explain plant life from the pages of  Usborne Science Encyclopedia.

I like to allow the older children to "teach" some things.  They get so excited to share with their siblings.  And opportunities for leadership, patience, understanding and caring abound.  Also, the youngers learn to learn from others.

This was one day's lessons using FIAR.  It is not the same for all families.

Happy Anniversary

Yes, this is a proof pic of some portraits we had done last year.  But it's the most recent we've got. 
And, just for the record, I Love This Man. 14 years ago.....and more today and every day.

Christmas Mantle

I meant to post this at Christmas time. I just loved this picture.  It looks soo homey.  We had a beautiful Christmas, our first in our new house.  We've even had a few fires in the fireplace in spite of our doubts that we'd give in to the "cold" down here.

Bugs

They grow REALLY BIG down here.  What is this???

Garden

And so it begins.....our neighbor has been nice enough to turn our soil for us.  This is our first year in our new place and we know there will be a learning curve with gardening in a new climate.  But we're going big. Well, in comparison to our little quarter acre home/lot we had in our subdivision, this plot IS big.  But it's not huge.  It only takes a few minutes for him to plow, but we are hoping for a good year. 

Our plan is:
potatoes, spinach, lettuce, corn, carrots

Then later:
peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, melons, and we have a few strawberry plants elsewhere. 

This will be our first go of it in the deep south, so pray for our harvest!

Merry Christmas to Me

Because since we moved in, our bar had been calling out to be dressed up -TSC style.

Thanks, Honey :)