Budding Archeologists

I found these toys at Walmart hidden in with the Easter toys.

They had so much fun unearthing their treasures!!

Wordless Wednesday

Home Life Academy ~ Our CRS

My very first post was about the difference in homeschooling laws from OH to TN.

Home Life Academy is the Church Related School that we are registered with. Here's a little bit of info from their website.

HomeLife Academy is a state recognized Category IV church-related school. You will be considered a private teacher for HomeLife Academy and not a "homeschooler" under TN state law. The TN state board of education has a "home school" program and you may register with the state. However, the church related laws (T.C.A. 49-50-801) read: "The state board of education and the local boards of education are prohibited from regulating the selection of faculty or textbooks or the establishment of a curriculum in church-related schools." Therefore, we choose YOU to be faculty and we let YOU establish the curriculum. Instead of having our teachers come to a campus and teach someone else's kids, we let you stay home and teach your own. Your home is like an extension of a campus. Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) calls this "option three." So remember, you are NOT a "home schooler" under law, you are a private school teacher that stays home.

Green Hour: Challenge 2

Due to unforeseen illnesses (is it ever foreseen?) we are even further behind that I would have liked... But here we go with Challenge #2.

I have a confession, I didn't actually read the assigned pages until after we were done. I had the opportunity (and felt well enough) to go outside so we did. :) That's what homeschooling is all about right? Spur of the moment learning? :)

This week we took our walk behind the house (the back of our house faces the road, the front faces the "backyard" :). I decided that I would let them take a picture of something they found "neat." (This is big for me... I don't even like DH touching my camera!!)



*B* took this picture her descriptive words were "yellow flowers"

*C* loves the woods. Anywhere he sees a lot of trees he wants to go on an "adventure." His descriptive words were "curving tree"

*T* found a stick. It's actually about as big as his arm. His descriptive words were "big stick"





After the "walk" we sat in the middle of our field to complete the lesson. This is where we came up with our words, and discussed the things we saw. They all had a hard time coming up with their descriptive words. But we worked through it. I assume it will get easier. It's always harder the first time.

Tomorrow they will paste their pictures into their own Nature Journals. We'll have to add their drawings for Challenge 1 as well.

I have to add this picture of what the baby was doing while we were nature studying.
Can you see him? You may have to click to enlarge. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Green Hour: Challenge 1

I've been wanting to do "Nature Study" for a while now, but I need someone to tell me what to do. Barb at The Heart of Harmony is doing just that. Every Friday she is posting a weekly challenge. She just posted week 3, but I wanted to start from the beginning.


{Walking/falling in our field}

The very first thing that I did was to print out and read the assigned pages from Handbook of Nature Study. I got very excited about starting.



The first thing we noticed was the birds singing.
Then we started looking around and found 3 different bird nests!! All in our yard! Wow!
(The birds were too fast for my camera reflexes.)

*C* noticed that the leaves crunched when he stepped on them.

I asked him how this leaf was different from one that was still on the tree.

He said that on the tree it's green and soft.

After we came inside, we talked about the things that we saw and they expressed an interest in learning more about birds and trees.

We read the section on nests from this book. The kids enjoyed it. *T* even got some of the answers right!

We also read a little about trees from our Kingfisher's The Little Encyclopedia.



I've been debating about taking down one of the nests and looking at it a little more in depth.

I'll update my post if we do.