noe schooling

Fun at the horse farm!

A friend in our homeschooling group has a horse farm (and does riding lessons too!) and so she invited us all over for a little lesson on taking care of horses. The highlight? All the kids got a little lesson and got to ride on a horse! My little animal lover Joselyn was definitely the one who appreciated this all the most. We actually plan to start lessons with them some time soon!





The kids all watched some of the teenage girls do some trots and jumps. It looked so fun... what is it about horses that makes you just feel so wild and free? They are such beautiful animals! Joselyn also told me she got to clean out a stall- although I never actually saw it!

Nomads/Ancient Egypt

For history, we have been reading a couple of chapters of The Story of the World each week. I try to find a few fun activities on pinterest that go along with the chapters we are reading. These were a while ago, but I thought it was worthy of posting. 

My kids loved the chapter on the nomads where they talked about eating lizard stew. I joked about making it for dinner quite a few times! We looked at tons of pictures of cave paintings and then made our own!






We made the double crown of Egpyt and wrote our names in Hieroglyphs on a clay tablet. I would post the recipe but it wasn't all that great... they ended up breaking a few days after we baked them! It was still a fun activity though! 

university of kentucky geological open house

I can't remember when the obsession first started, but one day Joselyn started to get really into rocks. Landen likes them a lot too. On our trip to the east coast, we did a lot of rock collecting and we love finding cool rocks on our nature hikes. One of the homeschooling groups we belong to posted about a Geological open house at UK and everyone was saying really good things about it, so we went as a family. SO GLAD we did. It was a very neat experience for us! There was a lot of hands on fun and they even gave us all some fossils and amethyst/fluorite to take home! We will for sure not miss this next year! (the volcano demonstration- first picture- was really really cool!)

first day of school

The day before our official start date, I laid out a very organized chore chart/schedule complete with pictures for the kids so they would know what things had to be accomplished during the day. I'm trying to really focus on teaching them responsibility and cooperation and respect right now more than anything, and this chore chart/schedule was supposed to help that. I expected that it would all go according to plan and that everything would get done just the way I had envisioned. Well, as you can imagine, it didn't. 



My baby slept terribly that night and I wanted to sleep in. (thank goodness for flexibility!!) We all basically did. I did manage to actually make a fun breakfast as planned- chocolate chip pancakes. We also did our morning exercise with a quick jog/walk around the block. The kids took it very seriously until a neighborhood cat (who we later learned was named Sally) started following us around all the way home. Such a cute little cat and definitely distracted us. The kids got a kick out of her because she walked right along the side of us as if she were joining in on our family walk. My phone was full and I didn't get any pictures. So sad. 

We got home a lot later than planned and rushed out the door to run a few errands and pick up some books from a friend in a neighboring city. This friend of mine lives on a cute little farm complete with a little garden, barns, and barn kittens. Her kids were so sweet to my own and what I thought would be a quick pick up turned into a nice visit. We enjoyed the sweetest cantelope straight from their garden and Joselyn and Landen got a tractor ride!





Because we stayed a little longer than I had planned (and also had arrived later than I had planned)  Lyla ended up falling asleep almost immediately on the drive home. This wouldn't have been a big deal if we didn't have to make the 30 minute drive home. I was counting on her nap time being learning time with the kids... she did go back to sleep when we got home, but by the time Jos and Landen had lunch, she was awake and ready to play. This was the biggest curveball of our day. I knew sitting down with the kids to teach them their reading lessons was going to be near impossible. She loves to be a part of everything we do. So instead we did a quick math play session and studied a little bit of Geography. We are getting ready to go on a road trip with my dad and so we talked about the states we would be driving through and marked our path on a map. Then we watched this amazing video more than a couple of times! 

 

The kids had a FUN first day. Did it go as planned? Definitely not. But was there some learning going on? Major. And we had fun doing it. I learned that even though things don't go as scheduled, learning can still happen and it can be a rewarding experience! I was proud of myself for being flexible and not getting overly upset and not accomplishing everything I had in mind. It's going to be a great year! I just know it!