Meeting Meteorologist Dan Henry

This is one of the things I enjoy most about homeschooling. I have been blessed to be able to set up several really fun activities for our group, but so far this one has been my favorite! Today we had an enrichment class with Fox 4's local Meteorologist Dan Henry!! Ok, so I'm not sure if he counts as a celebrity, but I am telling you that I was star struck enough to be very giddy over getting to meet him!



Dan told us all about how he predicts the weather to what to do if you are caught in severe weather. He even took some questions (and we now know that miss O knows that 3+3=6!). The kids had so much fun, as did the adults and I have listened to the girls talk about the weather all day! Brianna has even requested watching the news so that she can see Dan on TV. I think she is a bit "star struck" Hehe. She has no idea what she is talking about, or maybe she does, but she needs to know if there are any upper level lows coming to Texas!

Even Luke had some questions!

Be sure to check out my post about weather unit studies. There are alot of great resources there, including some freebies! And of course watch Dan Henry on Fox 4 News!

A Cowboy's Chuckwagon

I love homeschooling (you didn't already know that did you?). It has given us so many opportunities to do unique things. From our Japanese class to this one A Cowboy's Chuck wagon, we are truly blessed to be able to take advantage of all of the learning opportunities presented to us! For this one we headed over to The Hall of State at Fair Park for an interactive look at how cowboys, fur trappers, women and other pioneers would have lived life in Texas' younger days. The kids got to play with period toys and of course we put them to work doing chores like grinding corn for corn bread and washing the laundry by hand!

Brianna playing with a toy that children from that era would have played with.

The next time I start to complain about doing laundry, I will have a peek back at this photo! Could you imagine the time it would have taken?!

Freshly churned butter, YUM!

Grinding some corn for some corn bread for that butter!

Mary of Puddin Hill Field Trip

A few months ago while we were working on our Chocolate Lapbooks, I did some searching around and found out about a neat chocolate factory tour at Mary of Puddin Hill in Greenville. We were so blessed to be able to not only tour the factory, but we got to make our very own chocolate bars! The factory tour itself is completely free and to make the chocolate bar (which in my opinion is an absolute must!) is $5 and is something they only run in the off season so be sure to call ahead to make sure they are doing it during the time you are touring. The employees were so nice, the tour was conducted by a very enthusiastic manager who was very knowledgeable about the factory, from its history to the chocolate making process, and after we were done we got to try out some yummy samples.

If you are looking for a great lapbook that is fun and easy I definitely suggest the Chocolate Lapbook. I did have to modify it a bit to suit my younger ones, but that was easy enough and between the chocolate factory tour and all of the great chocolate recipes that we tried it was definitely in our top 5 favorite lapbooks.

Bubbleology Lapbook Review and Pictures

This is a lapbook called Bubbleology by Hands of a Child. This was a very good lapbook and we had a lot of fun doing it with friends!

NASA

I finally have the photos uploaded to the computer! A few weeks ago we decided to take a homeschool co-op group trip to NASA. We had so much fun!



Its kind of dark but here is our group!

Keira had so much fun doing astronaut training.

Luke my future engineer?

Yes that is my daughter being a goober.

We of course made a solar system after we got back.

Always loving on each other.

The solar system model was a bit of a disaster, in that the girls really didnt get to do much. Wow, was it way to complicated. Despite that the girls are still very proud to have it hanging in the school room. I am thinking we are going to start Apologia if only I could get past the cost...

Bacteria Experiments

I am science geek. My major in college was Biology so I was so excited when I got to start doing science lab with the kids up at co-op! With the flu season upon us and everyone in a panic about H1N1 I decided that this would be a great week to talk about bacteria. So we ordered kits from http://www.homesciencetools.com/ to grow our own bacteria. We swabbed and cultured 20 samples last Wed and patiently have waited for them to grow. We had major success and the process has resulted in my BOYS(!) constantly asking to wash their hands. I definitely consider that a result! Above are a few pictures from some of our best cultures, including a water fountain, a computer keyboard and hands that had been coughed on(I know totally gross right?!).

Everyone up at co-op was so excited to see this, that we have decided to order a gram stain kit to see what kind of bacteria was growing and you can be sure that we will be making sure to disinfect the areas that we found the growth in.

I recommend this kit for all ages. Even my k-5 daughter understood what we were doing and it really gave her a visual for why we need to take special care not to spread our germs.

http://www.currclick.com/ has some health units that would suppliment this experiment nicely.

If you decide to do this experiment please take precautions and use safety glasses and masks. Remember thats bacteria thats growing in there and it can make you sick!