Frogs

My silly little girl loves frogs. This summer we caught a bunch of tadpoles and a few baby frogs. Turns out larger tadpoles will eat the small ones. We were able to raise six of the frogs/ toads until late fall when we decided to let them free. Grandpa Austin also helped the frog farm by catching little miss a tree frog and bringing it over. Turns out tree frogs like crickets not meal worms. The other frogs loved meal worms and would eat several at a time. The tree frog also got released into the wild.

This year in science we are studying zoology, and this week we are studying amphibians.  So today we focused on frogs. I found a fun website that had all kinds of fun information on frogs and toads. She loved it! She spent over an hour reading about frogs and listening to their sounds. She even wrote down interesting facts that she wanted to remember later. I love this kid!

Our Crazy Life

Life has gotten rather busy around here lately. After much prayer and fasting we decided to home school. I must say it isn't exactly what I had expected. It is a lot harder and way more stressful for starters. I find I have very little time to myself, between school, house work, two church callings and now my new responsibilities in FB, my mind is constantly thinking about something that I really need to do. I have decided to help my sanity by going back to kickboxing class. 

Things I've learned, there is a ton of options to choose from when looking to home school. And lots of different ideas on methods. I decided to go with Latter Day Learning for our main curriculum. It combines gospel learning into our everyday learning, and while I like it there are things that I think it is lacking in. I just realized that the stuff that I think it is lacking is where I am supposed to go into more depth. I have the freedom to teach what I want. WoW! Imagine that.

Also I need to change my views on how we do school. If I try to shove to much into one day then we both end up frustrated and mad. Nobody learns well that way. I was also trying to fit in the entire curriculum into my school year. Who cares if we finish it all. It's quality not quantity that matters. 

We also do Harmony School. I don't really know how it explain it but it's really cool. She goes to Meridian for four classes once a week. She is starting to enjoy it, most of the time. She is learning Spanish, Sign Language, and music and movement, and has PE. It is really good for her to get out of her comfort zone and make new friends. She even made a craft for one of the other girls in her class. 

One wonderful thing about homeschooling is that I get to find out more about my little girl that is growing so fast. She loves, loves Science and Anatomy. So to feed this interest I got her a human anatomy coloring book where she can color and label all the different parts of the body. I also got her an oceanography coloring book. Plus she is getting some fun Science stuff for Christmas. We also have science Thursdays which include our zoology lessons and experiments. She also loves art, so I try to incorporate as many crafts in our lessons as possiable. She is a very crafty, artsy girl.

Math is an on going struggle. She like her mother hates math, so I am continually trying to find ways to make it less of a struggle. But life is a struggle. We will figure it out eventually. 

Also she reads at a third grade level and is only in the second grade so I am trying to figure out what to do for her english work. Writing however is a bit easier. She has horriable penmenship so we are working on that. She really wants to learn cursive so I decided why not teach her. I must say her cursive is pretty dang good for a beginner. 

I think if I learn to relax a bit on my idea of how school should go we will  get it figured out. All in all our first half of the school year has been going pretty good.