Book Review: The Nature Connection

The Nature Connection by Clare Walker Leslie is absolutely the best nature study book for children that I have ever come across!  I love the idea of nature study, but am always a bit unsure about how to begin.  Winter usually ends up stopping my plans short anyway.

After paging through The Nature Connection, I am extremely impressed.  The book makes nature study completely doable, with easy assignments and even space to do them in.  It also includes a TON of information (in easy to read bites) about nature, things you might see, sketches and good-to-know tidbits.  I'm amazed at all of the information included.  This book could very well serve as a homeschool science textbook for an entire year.  One of the best parts of the book is that it goes monthly through the year.  The assignments and information are relative to the particular month (even winter!).

I haven't decided if I am going to have Lucy write directly in the book, or in a nature journal.  There is actually a link provided in the book that you can go to and print off extra pages to write on.  At $10 on Amazon, this is a book that every homeschool or nature loving household should own!

Can you tell I'm impressed with this book?  :)  We received it for review, but the opinions are all my own.  :)

A Simple Snowflake Party

Esther turned two on Sunday!  Its hard to believe that it has already been two years since her crazy arrival.  We celebrated at home with family, a few gifts (including her new felt card table playhouse), and some snacks.

Our snow themed menu included:
homemade popcorn
sweetheart fruit salad
veggies and ranch dip
crackers and a cheese snow ball
cupcakes with white frosting and sprinkles

For Christmas, I got a set of Fiesta mugs and dessert plates.  They were the perfect size for party food.

I can't remember where I saw this idea, but I made little candles for our Christmas table this year.  I used a jelly jar, LED tealights (from Costco), and Epsom salt to look like snow.  Super easy and the girls love having these on our table!

I bought the snowflake tablecloth before Christmas, and found these snowmen salt and pepper shakers on clearance at Kohl's last week.  I love having a few simple touches that help our home look festive.  Since everything is snow themed, it can stay out a bit longer than the Christmas decorations.  ;)

The girls and Grandma cut out snowflakes for party decorations.  Simple and fun!
linked to Kitchen Tip Tuesdays

Felt Card Table Playhouse

I started a tutorial here, but this pregnant mama was just too tired to keep snapping pictures and figuring out how to explain this as I went along.  (Partly because I didn't even really know what I was doing, and I was sewing late at night after the kids were asleep!)  Thankfully felt is very forgiving and it turned out pretty well.  Allow me to show off our new felt card table playhouse:

This is a cover that slips over top of a card table - ie completely put-away-able.  

The apples and flowers are removable (velcro).   

The tree can have either apples, or apple blossoms.  This tree has both at the moment.

Mama bird also has velcro on her so that she is removable and can sit in the tree.

Here you can see her hungry baby a bit better:

Doghouse with doorway, removable bone in the dog dish, and more velcro flowers in the window box:

The mailbox opens up of course. 

We also made some paper envelopes that the mailman can deliver.

Close-up of the apple, apple blossom, and some extra birds:

I think she likes it!  Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

(and thank you to my mother-in-law for help with cutting things out.)

linked to Made By You Monday, Make It Yourself Mondays, Fabric Tuesday,

Homeschool Update - Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory

Lucy, age 6, is enjoying Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory.  We finished up week 11 just before Christmas, and are looking forward to continuing on with this in the New Year.  Over the Christmas break I've been thinking about how I want to tweak things next semester.  Here are some of my thoughts:

History - We are loving history!  I really enjoy reading the history books and Lucy and Julia both listen attentively.  History in Beyond does not consist of dry facts, but rather an interesting story about people who lived during that time period.  Sometimes the history activities are a little strange or don't end up working for us so we skip them.  I'm going to be adding in some history notebooking pages instead.

Poetry and Rhymes - Lucy is enjoying writing out the poem each week and decorating her handwriting.  We have all of her poems saved in a book with page protectors and she enjoys reading them to Grandpa and Grandma.  She doesn't memorize the poems, we focus more on the memory verse for that.

Bible Study - I love that most weeks have a song that goes along with the Bible verse.  We've had some good discussions about the verse and its application.  I've found that asking Lucy questions about the Bible verse as the teacher's manual suggests ("What does this verse say we should do?" "How can we show God that we love Him?" etc.) is not a good way for her to learn.  She balks at answering and it takes some work to get the discussion going.  The Morning Bells devotional is NOT a book we enjoy reading, and is not understood by my kids.  I'm glad that we are going to be starting Little Hands To Heaven as I'm sure Lucy will listen to the Bible and character lessons in that.

Language Arts - Spelling is easy for Lucy, she rarely misses a word.  I've wondered about adding in more grammar lessons for the technical aspect of things.  Looking at next year though, Heart of Dakota does start using Rod and Staff grammar, so I guess we'll just keep going with things as they are.  We are adding Explode The Code workbooks now and then for phonics reinforcement.

Reading - Lucy is doing very well with reading.  She is on week 16 of the emerging readers set.  (We started these before actually starting Beyond.)  I like that the readers are scheduled for us in order of difficulty.  She looks forward to each new one.  The comprehension questions are great as well.  When we finish these books, I have some ABeka readers to use.

Storytime - So far we have read Helen Keller, My Father's Dragon (all three books), and we are working on Little House in the Big Woods.  All have been big hits with the girls and much looked forward to.  Many of the storytime activities are fun and on their level.  Sometimes they try to include a character lesson that just doesn't apply to the story and we skip.  We've enjoyed learning a bit about story setting, plot, and so on, which I think are good things to be discussing.

Math - I really like the combination of hands on activities and workbook pages.  Lucy is challenged, but doing well with math.  The activities are excellent at helping illustrate the concepts being taught in each lesson.  Math is going very well.

Art - The art activities are fun for the most part, but I feel like they are "craft projects" rather than actually teaching art.  We have Artistic Pursuits books that I am going to schedule in once a week starting in January.

Science - I really dislike the science in Beyond.  In my opinion it is pretty random and shallow.  After doing some searching, I am going to be switching to another science program: REAL Science Odyssey.  It looks like it is going to be a lot of fun!

Spanish - Because it is important to us, we are beginning a Spanish language program.  We have used various resources in the past, but I recently ordered The Easy Spanish Junior Level to begin.  It sounds like something both Lucy and Julia will enjoy.

Overall we are happy with Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory.  Because Lucy is on the younger end of the age range for the guide, I'm okay with the lighter grammar, and skipping some of the history activities that don't work for us.  Its beginning to have an easy feel to it, but I think adding in art, science, and spanish will be plenty.  That, along with starting Julia in Little Hands to Heaven and a new baby due the end of March should keep us busy.  :)

What about you?  How is your homeschool year going?  Anything you are changing for next semester?