Some of the fun things about Heart of Dakota

I really like the curriculum Heart of Dakota that I picked out for this year. I has all I wanted in a curriculum.

I wanted something very hands on.  Fun learning of history and science. Creative and enjoyable all the while learning. Easy for me to teach with our crazy life. 

I found that with Heart of Dakota and Five in a Row. 

Five in a Row will be another post...

In history she does vocabulary, crafts and so much more to go along with the reading, 

In science she does experiments to go along with the reading. We have also taking our science to the beach.  That brought her learning to life.  

The art work adds some fun and ties everything in.

In history she is learning about early explorers.  In science she is learning about the ocean and all the life in and around it.

Taking the learning to the beach!  

Digging for the creatures that live in the sand

 Her art making it look like the ocean Finished project resembled the waves

 Showing me the route that Christopher Columbus took

 Activity to show how God made each creature special.  Birds have the right size beaks to collect the food they need.  Longer beaks to dig deep in the sand to get the creatures who live there. Smaller beaks to get the creatures that live on the sand.

 They didn't talk about the Vikings travels so I added this in

 Painting with water color on wax so much fun.  Thanks to the advice of other HOD users we skipped using wax paper and used crayons instead.

Science experiment flop/failure/success?

 I wanted to report that we redid the science experiment and at first I thought it was a failure again...

But then I left it on the table while I ran out for a couple of hours and when we got home....

the balloon was inflated.  Just like the book said the results would be.

Sorry no pictures of the successful one. I took a picture but it didn't save on the camera so no proof that we succeeded.  Just a balloon filled with the yeast mixture and now a clean test tube.  

Great day of homeschooling...

Today was a great day.  Homeschooling went smoothly. She even cleaned up her messes in the living room without too much of a fuss. She tried on some pants to see what fits.  We got through so much work.  It was a great day!

To start the day she went ice skating at the Portsmouth Abby.  They open the rink to homeschoolers for free every Tuesday.  We love it. Samantha loves to skate.  Today she fell and hurt her face. But she was a trooper she went back out on the ice once she was done crying. She is sporting a nice cut on her face.  But besides that she did awesome.

We even read further in her history then planned as she wanted to find out what happens next.  The history I picked for this year is 2 books that read like a story.  The book we are reading now is all about the the first settlers to our country.  About the different people who settled different areas in our country.  So it reads like a story with the children being the main characters in the story.  The facts are all real.  She loves it.  She would devour the whole story that is made up of 4 chapters/lessons in one day.  We always end up doing a craft to go along with the story.  But since she insisted on finishing so quickly the craft will come tomorrow when I am more prepared.

Started a new book for FIAR.  Papa Piccolo.  The story is much different then I expect.  Its a good surprise.  Samantha really enjoyed this book.   I will post more about this at a later date.

For science we were talking about living things.  She then had to create her own "new" living creature.  It could have been anything an animal or plant.  Just from her imagination. She then has to explain how it gets its food, water. movement and how it reacts.  She of course made a new type of cat.  Then went on to make its food and water and surroundings all out of air dry clay I can't wait to see what the finished product will look like.

Tonight going off to bed Samantha was coughing a lot. I hope its just allergies and not a cold.  Praying she will be fine in the morning.

Fun while learning....

So there has been many things that we have done in the last week or so.  I will post about our Five In A Row time tomorrow.


We started a new science kit.. This one is all about flight... how air pressure helps you fly.  So her first experiment was... what will happen when you suck out all the juice from a juice box and keep on sucking. Her hypothesis was nothing.... but she learned that the sides collapsed due to the air pressure. taking the air out of the box making the air pressure on the outside stronger as it pushed on the sides to fill that space.

I then found this great idea to practice math.  Each ghost has a number on it and she had to match them to the right addition problem. I have been making new ones each day for her to complete.  She loves it. 

The last week was a busy week with one day off.  We went along with the public school and took off Columbus day.  She has gotten very independent with some of her work.  I can now leave things for her to do like math, phonics, spelling pages and cursive for her to complete without me being in the room with her or while I am at work.  I don't leave her anything new.  Just work that if it gets done while I am not home or doing something will free up some time to get in the fun hands on learning.  

Last week we had fun with our Five In A Row Curriculum.  We did the story The Clown of God. It was a very good book that she learned many new things from.  I will post all about that tomorrow.    

Samantha was very excited about scoring her first goal in field hockey tonight.  So exciting!

Samantha is also so excited about her first father daughter dance coming up in a couple of weeks.  I bet they are going to have so much fun!  

A week of How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World...

So last week and into this week Samantha and I did the story How To Make An Apple Pie and See The World with Five in a Row.  We had so much fun with this book. There was a lot of crafts and learning that went along with this book. We made homemade apple pie scented playdoh. It was a fun week of learning.  Until reading this childs book I didn't know where cinnamon came from. Do you? One of our goals was to make the pie from as many of the home made ingredients that we could.

First we did the salt water experiment. She waited and recorded how long it took for the water to evaporate and leave behind the salt

We then made butter from whipping cream... 

She made the stores on the city block from the book....

We then went apple picking... I forgot to get pictures with her picking apples... but here is the hay ride part.

Today we made an apple pie.... we used our butter and salt from the evaporated water to make our crust....

We used the apples that we picked at the farm...

The pie came out delicious!  Samantha loved it and she normally doesn't like apple pie. Goes to show if the kid helps make it she will eat it.

By the way cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree... The most popular cinnamon comes from the kuranda tree on the island of Sri Lanka.

Science fun

 Today Samantha had a day filled with science.  We did a few science things at home.We use a news letter type of science papers from estudies weekly.  We are supposed to do one a week but the first term papers just go over safety and instruments of science so we have been doing them almost every day.  We were provided with 6 science pages and then when they new term will start they will send me those for that term.  They all have an experiment on the last page.  Today we had to make a model of an eardrum and how it works.  She had to answer questions like how can she protect her eardrums when doing experiments.  Again she gave a one word answer.... earplugs.    The picture with her banging on the cookie sheet is the noise we hear and the bowl with the rice bouncing on it is our eardrum and how it vibrates with each sound we hear.  She was amazed.                      

Then tonight we went to Mad Science at Heritage Park

It was fun.  Samantha was so excited that she was called up on stage to help at the end of the show.  She got to make goop or whatever its called. Play with bubbles, static electricity, see how a bug sees, dig up pretend fossil, pick up pretend space rocks with fake robotic arms and learn about carbon dioxide and dry ice.  

On a side note is there a full moon tonight??? Samantha today was full of extra energy.  We had a busy day and she was bouncing of the walls all day long. She couldn't sit still in her seat during the show.  Its like she had jumping beans in her pants.  Today I filled in at the nursery at MOPS even though I am no longer a member I offered to help out in a time of need. All the older kids who were in the nursery until their class was ready were all crazy.  Samantha started homeschool swim today so you would have thought she got her energy out. 

Just because she enjoys it....

Doesn't mean I do! Samantha loves science. Normally I do too.  As of a few weeks ago we already moved onto Science 2.  She was so disappointed with finishing first grade science. Well the experiments in first grade science were simple... tasting things for your senses, banging on things to hear the vibration, making our own cloud in a jar, you know simple easy not GROSS.

Well I don't like second grade science. No I don't.  The first few chapters were simple enough. She learned about fossils so she made her own fake fossils. She learned about how plants grow, what scientists do and about magnets.  Well this last chapter was all about bones.  No big deal right??? Wrong.  First I had to get a chicken bone and put it in vinegar and record what happened after a few days.  Fine that was cool.  Then yes I had to get a whole chicken and clean it completely so Samantha can look at the bones and put them into their category.  NOT FUN ask my son's I absolutely hate to tough meat. Mostly raw meat grosses me out. BUT cleaning a chicken carcass not so fun and yes extremely gross.  Samantha better understand what a sacrifice it was to touch that poor chicken and clean it completely.  Then my sweet little child thought it was too gross to touch and only looked at them.  At least she got a good look at what the bones were what shape and what cartilage looks like.

I wonder what the future science experiments will be.  I refuse to look to forward as I really don't want to know. 

Why oh why couldn't we start on next years history instead? That's her other love.

This weekend was a lazy weekend with Samantha sick.  So we just hung around.  Then I was looking in the freezer for supper and found tucked in the back a forgotten science experiment.  Well not so much of an experiment but fun.... we did a lesson on winter.  Part of the fun was making fake snow. So in the late winter when we didn't get any more snow we created fake snow from a kit and she played with. I stuck it in the freezer per directions and forgot it. So this weekend we took it out and played with it in the back yard.  It was weird. It felt like snow.