Tag Archives: homeschool

How to Make a Paper Mache Shark for Shark Week

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If you’ve been following us on Facebook, you’ve probably seen some of our Shark Week activities. We’re doing a summer unit study on Marine Biology (along with our unit on Archaeology) and Discovery Shark Week has been a great fit for some hands-on family fun learning! We’ve had some ocean-themed food, some shark games, and our big group project of building a paper mache shark! This is a very simple project with no special supplies needed. We had everything on hand already. I’ve shared it here in a lot of … Continue Reading…

Resources and Ideas for a Family Unit Study on Archaeology

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Well, the school year is starting to wrap up. Now that our Spring Break road trip is behind us, I’m focused on pulling together some unit study materials for the summer. Our family topics this year are marine biology and archaeology, and this year we’re really focusing on professions in those fields. We want the kids to start seeing and understanding what following your passion really looks like, day-to-day. What jobs do people do if they love history or ocean animals? Archaeology started out as a bit of a stretch for … Continue Reading…

Visiting Fort Boonesborough State Park in Kentucky

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About 2 weeks before leaving for our road trip, the boys and I watched the premiere of the new Men Who Built America–Frontiersmen series. Episode 1 was about Daniel Boone leading the first group of permanent settlers through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. The settlement was called Fort Boonesborough, and it played an interesting role in the Revolutionary War. Since we were getting ready to leave for our trip, and Kentucky was already on our route, we Googled “Fort Boonesborough.” Turns out there’s a state park (with camping!) at the … Continue Reading…

DIY 50 State Passports…with FREE Printable

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One of the special projects I did when planning our spring break trip was making fun 50 States passports for the kiddos to get “stamped” as we traveled. It wasn’t that hard, and I’ve got a free printable for you if you’d like to try it yourself. I found a lot of ideas and a few awesome templates on Pinterest, but I didn’t want to mimic a real international passport too much. The Ladybug just got back from a mission trip and we spent a lot of time emphasizing (and re-emphasizing!) … Continue Reading…

How to Build a Pirate Ship from Corks

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We’re a little behind around here, but we wrapped up our summer unit study on pirates (our astronomy unit study is continuing because we’re just loving it too much to stop!) and I wanted to share some of the fun projects we did! One of our hands-on projects was to build a pirate ship that would really float from corks! Flexibility has become our family motto! With relaxed learning plans, there’s no need to feel behind or rushed. If it takes longer, that’s ok. You just keep fitting it in, … Continue Reading…

History, Adventure, and Treasure…The Ultimate Guide to Studying Pirates

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In the spring I mentioned that we would have two family unit studies this summer. One is our Astronomy unit study–which is continuing casually through the whole summer and has been very fun so far! (I’ll have an update on one of our projects soon.) The other topic I chose this year is Pirates. I had no idea they would overlap so much, but space pirates is totally a thing so it’s worked out great! The history of Pirates is an interesting topic because it can involve a lot of … Continue Reading…

The Quest for Truth Sci-Fi Series for Middle Grade Readers…A Review and GIVEAWAY!

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We’ve continued with our slow, steady, and FUN family Astronomy study this month. So far we’ve already seen and documented several moon phases including a full moon and a new moon; visible Jupiter; visible Mercury, and learned to recognize the Big and Little Dipper.  We’ve also watched several space and sci-fi movies as a family, including a special at-home family movie night presentation of Rogue One (which my kiddos hadn’t seen yet) and a splurge on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 in the theater. We’ve been keeping a list of … Continue Reading…

Space and Science-Fiction Adventure Books for 8-12 Year Olds

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When outlining our simple family unit studies, I mentioned that I like to use a fiction read-aloud on the topic as the backbone of our unit. Then I laid out our summer-long Astronomy unit study for you and there were no fiction books! I struggled with finding fiction books in the space and sci-fi genre because it’s not one that I’m very familiar with, personally. It took a lot of searching, chatting with our librarian, and reading reviews on Amazon to find a list of books to consider that meet … Continue Reading…

Summer Star-Gazing…A Simple Family Unit Study on Astronomy

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Have you gotten your FREE Summer Unit Study Planner? I’ve been hard at work with mine, laying out plans for an Astronomy unit study and a Pirates/Maritime History unit study for the family this summer. I’ve put quite a bit of time into gathering resources and planning activities because I enjoy it. We don’t get much for family vacations and holidays around here with the farm to keep an eye on. So we have to make up our own, local, staycation-type fun for the summer. I’m going to share my resource … Continue Reading…

How to Plan a Family Unit Study for Fun Summer Learning

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A book, a movie, and a field trip about the same topic equal an easy summer family unit study!  Summer brain drain–ugh! For 3 months the kids run around from camp to craft to sleepover wanting fun and games and play time all day, every day because SCHOOL’S OUT so we don’t have to do any more of “that learning stuff.” Um…not around here! So what’s a busy, working mom to do besides frantically shuffle the kids from one STEM camp to another and continue to spend her nights tracking … Continue Reading…

Bald Eagle Encounters…Bald Eagle Study Resources

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I’m out the door in the morning the same time the boys head to the end of the driveway to catch the school bus. When they get picked up, I head to work. So we’re all heading out the other day and the Cowboy comes racing back in, “Mom, where’s your phone?!” Between my laptop, purse, lunch bag, and coat, I had no idea. He stormed through the house, grabbed it and headed back out. We had a Bald Eagle. In the driveway. I dropped my pile of junk by … Continue Reading…

Visiting the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia

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Most of our Christmas/New Year’s holiday this year was kinda drizzly and mucky, so Mr. Fix-It and I decided to take the crew to the Mariners’ Museum one of those last dreary, stir-crazy days. It’s a museum and park with trails and outdoor displays as well, but we stayed inside. The first thing I’ll say (since the majority of my readers are frugally-minded) is that I thought it was a little pricey, and I really think the 3D movie tickets should have been included, or at least discounted with the … Continue Reading…

50+ Resources for Learning About War Dogs and K-9 Heroes

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Have you seen the movie Max, about a Marine Corps dog originally stationed in Afghanistan? As a boy momma, with an equally adventure and animal-loving girl, it was right up our alley for family movie night. We enjoyed it! A little predictable? Yes. But still a quality family movie. And it sparked a lot of interest from the crew about military working dogs. The boys are already crazy about anything military and the Ladybug loves everything dogs right now so this angle on their favorite topics was very fresh for them, … Continue Reading…

Summer is Winding Down…

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I know everyone is in back-to-school mode. We don’t go back until the day after Labor Day, so we’re fighting that a little bit. We did get all our school supply shopping done (except for earbuds, I didn’t find earbuds on sale anywhere) and I’m starting to stock up on lunch supplies and snacks for the first few weeks. But otherwise, we are not going into full-school-prep yet. To underline that, our kiddos have been packing up and heading out on “adventures” every day with the dogs. No explanation of … Continue Reading…

A Tough Row to Hoe

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You know something I struggle with? Not getting my own way. {smile} But you know what’s REALLY hard? Compromising what I want for what I know is right–and things are STILL not easy. For some reason (Christian immaturity, probably!) I feel like when I submit to God in something, the clouds should break open and sunshine should pour through and everything should become rainbows and roses and suddenly I’m on easy street. I mean, I’m doing the Will of God–that means it should be easy, right? Ha! Not so much. … Continue Reading…