Learning through life

One of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is that we can learn all the time.  Even without lesson plans and books.

Did I just hear you gasp?!

We can learn in all we do throughout our day.  Not that we always do and not that we always have fun. BUT we CAN.

It is those moments, when I realize that the kiddos are learning in an unplanned way, and I take advantage of it, that make me fall more in love with homeschooling.

The other day on our walk we had one of those special moments. 
The girls remembered seeing butterflies over by the azalea bushes near Trey's office, they wanted to check it out again.  So, we took a little detour over to the bushes to take a look. 

To our delight the bushed were covered with both butterflies and bees. 

Here is a conversation Abigail and I had.
I asked Abigail what the butterflies were doing and she said, "drinking nectar from the flowers." I also asked her what the bees were doing and she said, "drinking from the flowers." when I asked here what else they were doing she said, "helping the flowers grow." I then asked her what the bees were gonna do with the nectar and she said MAKE honey :) Yeah Abigail!!!

My little Pumpkin Pie, aka Hannah,  also knew that the butterflies and bees were drinking and that the bees were helping the flowers grow.  Way to go Punkin!

Here are some beautiful pictures of the azaleas.

Physical activity

We have not lack of physical activity around here, which I love.  Between playing outside, riding bikes, going on walks, and our newest activity playing on the sports field up at Daddy's work, I don't feel a need for a formal physical education time. 

However we do play outside and get our bodies moving everyday.  Well, unless we are under the weather. 

Here are some pics from some our latest activities.

in front of one of the trails

Yes, I made them stop to pose for a picture :) But the smiles are real!

Rebekah goes for our walks in style

wearing them out on the sports field

soccer time

Library visit

We took a trip to the Library Tuesday morning.  Abigail's sound for the week was the short /oo/ sound like in "book".  It seemed fitting that this be the week that we get back into the routine of going.  The girls were very excited about, Samuel had no idea what was going on.  We have not been since he started walking :) So, first things first we had a talk, before entering, about being on our best behavior and how we have to whisper in the library. 

We actually happened upon pre-school "story hour".  We were a little late but the kids got to make a Mardi Gra mask and had a snack.  From what I could tell it is put on by 2 local moms.  The group meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month.  So we may give it a whirl and see what kind of stuff they do.

After "story hour" was over we headed to look for books.  Before the kiddos starting grabbing books I handed them a place marker, our library uses the wooden paint stir sticks, and showed them how to place the stick on the shelf before they removed the book that they wanted to look at.  I let them know that we were supposed to do this so that when we were done looking at the book we could remember where it belonged on the shelf.

The big girls had a good time looking through book, completely based on the covers :) Which meant that they were only choosing the ones on the end b/c they were the only ones that had their covers exposed.  They each chose 3 to bring home.

I chose some books about tools for Samuel.  He pretty much just walked around the whole time taking in the new sights.

Rebekah crawled the isle for a while until she found the child magazine section.  I then realized I would need to put an end to that activity.  I figured they would probably like to keep the pages inside of their magazine covers. 

Best find of the day by far was, Baby on theWay, William Sears, M.D., Martha Sears, R.N., and Christie Watts Kelly.

The book explains how Mommy may be feeling, what is happening with her body, how they can help Mommy and Daddy, and what to expected once the baby arrives. This book seems to address some of the more curious questions that the big girls have been asking lately and it answers them in a way that they can really relate to and understand. 

I am so glad that I found this book.  We have already read it several times.  I will probably recheck it so that I can have it on hand as Shepherd's birth day gets closer.

Baby boy #2

Baby boy number two is officially named.

Drum roll please.......

Shepherd Sanborn Krum

will be joining us late July. Oh, who am I kidding I am sure he will hold on until August.

more updates to follow :)

Growing

We got the garden planted a couple of weekends ago.  I am so excited to have fresh organic veggies of our own again.  The kids love to check on it daily and always want to help water. 

This year we planted

lots of tomatoes

Green beans- hopefully they are successful they have not been in the past.

cucumbers

zucchini and squash

this years new addition: 2 blueberry bushes


I planted plants and seeds so that we would have veggies at different times.  Things are already starting to sprout out of the soil.  YEAH!! Now if I can just keep them alive, we are hoping for a plentiful harvest. Go veggies go!