Pictures tell the Story

Welcome back to the Blue Rabbit Academy.  We've been getting into fun mischief lately. This week I'm just going to tell you a series of stories based off some of the pictures I took this week. 

The babies library program this week was about colors.  After the program they had some little activities for the kids to do such as fishing for letters of your color and putting pom poms on the rainbows. 

 Here is Ro-bear hunting for yellow letters.

Here is Boo putting Red, Yellow, and Orange pom poms on her rainbow.

Last weekend at our weekly get together at their Aunt and Uncle's house someone decided to do a fire and roast marshmallows.  The kids had a blast.  Boo got a little cranky when people started telling stories, but it was late.  I brought her inside so I missed a lot of the games and stories, but there's nothing quite like a fire with marshmallows and s'mores.

 We started trying to do some crafts in the morning.  This one is a construct kit, it had three dinos cut out to assemble and decorate.  The girls had fun dividing up the stickers and planning some YouTube videos with these dinos.  We haven't filmed them yet, but they are on the very official looking chalk board of Icy Breeze Show stuff.  I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but L-bug got into poison ivy. Seriously all over her face.  We almost brought her to the Dr because it was near her eyes, but then it stopped spreading.  By today it is down to a light pink and no where nearly as poofy.  I do wish my kids didn't get poison ivy by just looking at it... two out of three had it on their face this month alone.

One of the other crafts we've done this week was a science kit on crystals.  The kit came with little pouches filled with jello like material.  You add them to water and they turn into crystals... Well, they got fuzzy looking (see picture) then they got bigger. They never made me think of crystals, but more like Q-bert- like the boards in that game.  The kids liked watching it grow, but we all agree that the kit should tell us what the crystals are. Or why they form the way they do.  We just would like a little more science.

We didn't have a ton of outside time this week because I can't quite shake the cough I got last week.  We did go out some though.  Boo and Ro-bear decided to put on their bathing suits one day and use a box that was in the yard as a slip n' slide.  They brought out of bucket of water and poured it on the box and slipped and laid on it and in general had fun outside. 

L-bug has been asking for a bunk bed with a futon under it.  She says between sleepovers and playing Nintendo it would just be awesome.  It just so happened that her Uncle was getting rid of that exact type of bed and gave it to her.  Her Dad and another Uncle got it all set up for her and its been next to impossible to get the girls our of her room now. 

 About five years ago L-bug went to a VBS over the summer and they gave out prizes.  L's prize was this turtle, but sadly as soon as she got it home its leg broke off.  She insisted that she keep it because it was important to her, so its been sitting around in different places around the house for the past five years.  This year in school we just happened to be reading Minn of the Mississippi.  L-bug looked up after our reading one day and says "Mom, my turtle. It's Minn!" In one of the first chapters of the book Minn lost her leg to a gunshot woud and we believe it was the same back leg, but we could be wrong.

While taking a picture of Minn up there, Boo insisted on taking a picture of her fox.  So, here is Boo with a fox. Please excuse L-bug's desk. Dear Goodness that kid keeps her desk a mess.  I can't say too much though, that's her craft desk.  Craft desks are made to be messy... Shh don't tell.

Last May a friend gave me a Queen comforter bag full of yarn.  I've been working through it as the year passed and the bag is almost empty.  I found bunches of smaller balls at the bottom of the bag and decided to make a magic blanket with them.  A magic blanket is essentially a blanket where you use the yarn you have and just tie on a new ball as you finish.  Another way to do it is to take the left over yarn from a project and wind it into a ball of other scrappy yarn.  In a week I've gotten it to about baby blanket size, but I'm running out of small balls.  I think I'll finish it for now, and then when I have scraps from another project I can just add more on as I get more.  The girls all love the blanket so we're hoping to get it big enough for a couch blanket.

It has been a fairly busy week even though we left the house as little as possible.  I could use a weekend to rest and get rid of this cough, but its just not going to happen.  We have International Table Top Board Game Day tomorrow.  A day I look forward to all year long! Followed by the Spring Festival on Sunday.  I think we all look forward to that as well so we are going to be super busy, but that's okay. We can rest later. 

Don't forget that you can check out L-bug over on YouTube at The Icy Breeze Show, and you can check out our crafts at Blue Rabbit Cottage on Etsy and Blogger and @RabbitCottage on Twitter.

I hope you have had a wonderful week and thanks for stopping by and listening to my stories.  Hope to see you again soon.

Morning Musing

Good morning, welcome back to the Blue Rabbit Academy.  We've had a rather lazy week this week.  I hope you have had a restful week.

We got a new camcorder for Youtubing and other things people use camcorders for- so we've been doing loads of filming this week.  Its so much fun to see how creative the kids can be when they are working on new ideas for videos. 

We finished our English book early this year. Not doing English is just too strange an idea for me that we started doing some review worksheets.  They are really too easy though. They are supposed to review fourth grade concepts, so I guess it is a good indicator that we did do enough this year if the sheets are too easy.  L-bug did a video on English one day this week.  After I edit it, we'll get it up on YouTube if you want to check it out.  It will be under the Icy Breeze Show.

We had Lego club at the library this week.  L-bug and Ro-bear built bridges and Boo played with the big blocks.  The librarians had two tables spread apart 6" to test the bridges and rolls of pennies to put on for weight.  Ro-bear's bridge was too skinny to hold more than one roll of pennies. L-bug's held all the pennies they had plus some marbles they had on hand. 

I got sick towards the end of this week, so we spent most of our free time watching tv and being laid back.  Boo and Ro-bear discovered Yokai Watch.  It is a pretty cute show, with really annoying theme songs.  Its a little young for L-bug though, so they take turns watching shows.  Her current favorite is Girl Meets World.  Which, if you liked Boy Meets World, you'll like this new one.  We'd started on Animaniacs, but some reason the kids all lost interest about five episodes into the series. What are your favorite shows to watch when you're sick?

We still have three weeks left in school, but we already feel like we're wrapping up.  As I look back on this year my favorite thing we did was listen to audio books together.  Every morning we would take our handicraft project to the living room and sit on the couch and listen while a lovely Librivox reader would read to us.  We read The Secret Garden,  A Little Princess and Kidnapped this way. I completed a cross stitch for a friend's Christmas present while we listened and now when I think of cross stitching I think of the cozy feeling I had while listening to The Secret Garden and most of A Little Princess.  Then we moved on to a new book that wasn't available in audio and now I miss those mornings.

Another thing I missed this year was taking nature walks.  We rarely went out on walks.  We got so busy being busy.  We had school work and extra activities and L-bug has a friend she plays with every afternoon after school and we just ran out of time.  We did spend plenty of time outside with the chickens, but its not the same as taking a nature walk, or any walk for that matter.   Looking at what you miss in your school life doesn't have to be depressing though.  Don't beat yourself up over what you could or should or would like to have done.  Simply start where you are and adjust.  We have three weeks left.  In a 36 week year it might not seem like much, but it is, it is almost a month.  We can find time to snuggle together to read, or do handicrafts with the tv.  We can spend time outside talking walks, having tea parties all the "extras" that make homeschooling worth it.  It is not too late to adjust and make your year what your family wants and needs. 

We've talked over some ideas for next year when Ro-bear will be joining us as a Kindergartener.  We want to start having tea parties maybe once a month to read poetry together and make cookies.  We want to hang our artist study on the wall so we can enjoy the paintings every day.  L-bug will start writing for the blog just a little something for her writing assignments.  We will try a four day a week schedule where we spend Friday's doing crafts, YouTube recording, free interest projects, walks and things that don't make it on the school schedule. L-bug's favorite part of school is science experiments, so I know to add hands on activities to school.
 Do I believe we'll succeed immediately? No, but if we try to implement these things something new will emerge and I think we'll have a more restful school experience.  What are your goals for schooling?

Here's to the final three, may they be everything we hope them to be and more.

Busy Bees

We're wrapping up our school year already.  We still have four more weeks to go, but our PE class just ended and everyone said their goodbyes and we all made plans to meet up this summer to play.  It feels odd to be wearing a jacket in the mornings and be planning meetups at the splash pad by afternoon.  I even managed to get sunburnt at PE.  Just doesn't sit right with me.  We're enjoying a peaceful, but busy time.  We're growing things in the garden, doing our school work, filming for YouTube and buying next years school books.

















Am I the only one who plans next year while still in the trenches of this year?  There's just something so hopeful and fresh about new books, that it helps me pass the last few weeks of school without going insane.

Our chickens have discovered our compost pile.  They think they are in chicken heaven.  The only sad part was that something was growing in there. I think possibly a pumpkin.  Its not now, they totally mowed it over.

We found this little guy on our steps the other day.  Little did I know that Ro-bear would catch him in a jar.  I thought he had run away, went inside and there's a mason jar sitting on the kitchen bench with a very miserable looking lizard inside.

Don't worry about him though, I gently slipped him back out onto the porch and he had wandered off by the next morning.

On the bookshelf preschool edition

Mustache Baby Meets his Match by Bridget Heos

Boo loved Mustache Baby so much she asked for a copy for Christmas, so when a sequel came out we headed to the library.  Everyone else must have run too because we had to wait months to get a copy.  Finally Boo got the book.  She loves it.  The illustrations are just as adorable as the first book. 

I preferred the story of the first book better, but this book gently showed little kids about competition with humor and adorable characters.

This book and Mustache Baby are a great addition to any little person's library! You will reread them over and over. 

Our Misadventure

The other day for art class we decided to do a project with tempera paint.  We read about a Medieval artist who used egg and berries or bugs to make tempera (not that he was the only one, he was just the example in the book).  The book told us to take chalk  instead of natural materials, mix with egg yolk and just a touch of water.
L-bug found a piece of chalk that for some reason was wet, so she had difficulty crushing it for the paint.  She mixed a light yellow and wanted it darker so she added more chalk.  It was not crushed up well, so for some reason she decided to try to melt the chalk in the microwave... a minute later she comes out with a bowl of nasty smelling... scrambled eggs.
It was just about the nastiest paint I have ever seen and hope to never see a paint this sticky again...
If you decide to make tempera paint, please do not microwave your paint. Crush the chalk then add a little bit of yolk with water (just a little water).

I hope you have had some fun adventures lately.  Please feel free to share in the comments.  I'm glad you came back to visit and hope you check back soon for more school adventures are the blue rabbit academy.

Soaking in the Spring

Since the weather has been so lovely lately we've been doing school and spending most of our days outside.  We've had bugs go to school with us and chickens steal our breakfast and scope out our lunches.  We've climbed trees, dug in the dirt and swung on the swings.  It has been a really nice time.  

Ro-bear of all people decided to catch worms, slugs and the little black and red bugs.  The kid who hates to have her hands dirty.  I was very surprised.  She's hold them and watch them then go wash her hands and come back out to play.

Boo likes to follow the chickens around the yard.  She's pretty good about getting them back into the yard when they wander off as well.

One morning Ro-bear had a waffle on the picnic table and the chickens stole it.  They loved it so much they now go check out the table every time we're outside to see what we might have left in reach for them.  That day it was pizza. Amazingly, they did not make a move for the pizza.

 Here's are both chickens on the bench.

 We learned that Snowflake is actually a rooster and had to trade him for a new hen.  Everyone is very upset because he was the sweetest chicken, but Nutmeg is starting to get used to us and I think we'll all get along okay in the end.

 Here's the slug that Ro-bear had working on a worksheet with her a different morning.

 Wednesday was up in the high 80s, and the girls decided to take the garden watering can to splash each other after school and gymnastics.  When they were tired of splashing around L-bug and Boo started to swing on the swing set.  Ro-bear went inside and put on clean pjs and brought out her blanket and pillow and laid in the grass. 

Tonight while L-bug and I were watching tv, I look over and she was winding my grey yarn into a ball for me. What a sweet child.  Of course, I found out she was winding it up so she could steal it and make a scarf, but still a sweet child.

If you haven't tried schooling outside I would highly recommend it.  We fit nature study in with the rest of our book work.  Everything from identifying the bird in the tree beside us, to the hawks eyeballing our chickens, to watching the pea shoots sprout is fit in seamlessly with physics and English.

Another added benefit of so many hours outside is the that the girls are sleeping through the night again.  We'd gone through a phase where Boo was waking up at 11-12 crying and then Ro-bear would get up at 5-6 and want to sleep with us.  It is a very draining cycle.  It is nice to know that fresh air and sunshine can help reset their little bodies and help everyone get some much needed sleep.

Let me know what your favorite outdoor activities are on a nice sunny day.  Its been nice having you visit.  I hope you stop by again soon.

Spring is Early

Welcome

I hope spring has sprung for you as it has for us.  We've been soaking in the sun and we've started sprouting some spring plants.  The winter funk has left and everyone is feeling much better all around.  We've been trying to spend 2+ hours outside a day.  I've found we're all sleeping so much better since we started.  Even if we're just sitting around doing school work, just simply being outside and absorbing the sun is doing wonders for us. 

If you squint you can see a few pea sprouts poking their heads out of the garden.






We're also letting the chickens run around the yard while we do school work in the morning.  They love free ranging.  Every time we go outside the girls get exciting assuming they are going to get to play with us.

Vlogging

L-bug has been working hard on her YouTube channel.  Sadly, I don't have quite as much free time as she has, so I have a queue of five videos we've filmed that I still need to edit.  Shame on me.  If you haven't checked her out yet she's The IcyBreeze Show.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaAZTuEiHrWst4s7I9QqVWw

So far she has a toy reveal, a toy review and a short skit.  We have a baking review in the works, and a few more little projects in the works.  Working on a channel has been an experience so far and its nice to have something for her to work on that's all hers.  It was her idea to open the channel and she's in charge of what and when we film (within reason) I just edit and upload. 

On the Bookshelf

We decided to continue on with The Fellowship of the Rings, it is hard to fit in long chunks of free reading so we're taking it nice and slow.  We'll be in this book for a considerable time, but that's okay because she's loving every minute of it.  How much time do you spend free reading a day?

Crafting

So many of my friends and family are having or are expecting babies that I've been working almost exclusively on baby items.  I've even started making some for the Etsy store.  There's the cutest baby bunny hats I wish I'd made for my girls when they were little and a little fox hat and diaper cover set for sale on Blue Rabbit Cottage.  I can make the bunny hats bigger, but only Boo is interested.  I'm going to get her a pink one made before she outgrows cutsie little things like that. 

Projects

Aside from vlogging L-bug has been busy working on her computer programing and doing art like always.  She might have hit a slump in programing because she has to work with fractions more than she has in math.  She's interested enough in it though, I think she'll work though it pretty easily.  We shall see.  I have to says thank you to Kahn Academy for offering such a great math and programing program for free.  I never would have thought these subjects could be so easy to learn before we found that site. 

L-bug got a blank book today and has already started filling it up with pictures from her favorite anime, Fairy Tail.

All in all things are going smoothly and we're all happy and healthy at the Blue Rabbit Academy.  I hope you can say the same for you and yours.  Thanks for stopping by to visit and come back soon to see what we've been getting into.  Feel free to share what's been happening in your neck of the woods in the comments below.

5 School Supplies We Can't Live Without

We have many things we use everyday in our school.  We have a tote for our most used books in L-bug's room, a shelf for occasional books in the living room, and shelves lining the walls with free reads.  There is the phone where we listen to Librivox, and the tablet where we do Duolingo, and the desktop where we use Kahn, ABC Mouse, and Peep: in spite of all this we have narrowed down the top 5 school supplies we just can't live without.

What is so funny about this list is the fact that these five items are so important they are magical. You see, they get up and move on their own.  We spend more time looking for these things everyday than we spend looking for the hairbrush (and the brush has several little sprites who help hide it each day.

From least to most important we have...

The pencil sharpener.  We have dozens of tiny pencil sharpeners and yet we can never find them.  Do they have parties under the furniture? I don't know, but they are sneaky little pests.

Pencils themselves come in at number four.  We have buckets full of crayons, but pencils simply fly away.  The girls get numerous pencils for back to school and in Christmas stockings, but no luck.  Every day we have the same hunt for a 'writing stick.'

Scissors are in the middle of the pack.  Now, truthfully, we do not use scissors everyday.  However, we have ten or so pairs, ranging from safty scissors to sewing scissors and everything in between.  Can we find them when we need them? Never.

Number two is dry erase markers.  At the beginning of each school year, I buy bushels of packages for brand new dry erase markers. And every year we loose them one by one.  By spring break we're usually down to the yucky orange that's hard to read.  Some the babies leave uncapped and they dry out, but overall they just pull a Houdini and vanish.

Finally, white boards.  Everyday we write out our day's work on a white board.  The board is supposed to go in the aforementioned tote, and yet somehow every morning I'm searching for a board to get the day started.

These are our five top school supplies we cannot live without here at the Blue Rabbit Academy.  In the comments share your necessary supplies and whether they also have minds of their own.

Thank you for visiting the Blue Rabbit Academy.  Please come back and visit again soon. 

February Funk

Welcome Back

We have been rather busy around the academy.  Sadly, it feels like we're slacking in the school department and we're just busy with everything else in life.  I think we're really doing fine, we're just feeling the February funk.  We're a little tired of the snow, wind, and mud.

Sleep Over

L-bug had some friends spend the night last weekend.  We made some cupcakes, got pizza and rented a couple of movies.  Half of us hadn't seen Hotel Transylvania II, so the sissies and I were invited to watch with the big girls.  It was a fairly cute movie.  The other movie rented was Goosebumps so sissies and I left to go watch Barbie and the Rockin' Royals upstairs.  One of our guests couldn't make it because there was a bad snow storm and they weren't sure if they'd be able to leave their house the next day to pick her back up.  Sadly, the snow all melted the next day, but better safe than sorry.  We'll have to throw another sleep over again soon, so that everyone can come.

Sickness

Right after the sleepover I fell to the plague.  Not really, but it was a nasty head cold.  Boo had had a case of the sniffles the week before, but it was nothing like this.  I had a fever and a cold that went straight to a cough.  Thankfully the fever and cold lasted two or three days, but the cough still lingers.  L-bug fell pray to the cough today and spent her day on the couch doing as little as possible.

Snow

After the storm that looked to be pretty bad, but melted quickly- we had another good downpour of snow.

 4.5", and that's a lot for us.  Sadly, we were sick and that storm ended with a rain storm so the snow was totally gone the next day.  Thankfully it didn't then ice over, that was my biggest fear. 

Lego Club

We did manage to make it to Lego Club this month, it was a little bit iffy all day.  We were running late, but we made it anyway.  Ro-bear and L-bug worked on the theme of the month: mazes.  Boo played with some Duplo and we built an 'airplane' together. 

Crafts

Most of my crafting time has been devoted to Christmas presents for the girls.  I decided this year I am going to make some clothes for the girls' 18" dolls, so I needed to start early and work a little bit all year.  So far I  have most of a coat, hat, boots and scarf set done each, and two of three tutus done.  I think after these sets I'll take a break to work on some other projects.  If you like the doll tutus, we'll be carrying some over at the Blue Rabbit Cottage in the months to come. 

YouTube

L-bug finally has her YouTube channel.  Her user name is Icy Breeze and her show is called The Icy Breeze show.  So far we just have the one episode up, which is a toy reveal.  We have a few other videos lined up in our editing software and a few more ideas in our heads for filming.  This has been a fun experience so far. 

On Bookshelf

Due to being sick and crazy, we just finally finished The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. We loved this book, but we're debating about what book to read next.  Books in our line up are, By the Shores of Silver Lake, we had started this book and couldn't get into it like the rest of the series, so we shelved it for later.  The Fellowship of the Ring which we also started, but due to sore throat had shelved for a shorter book.  or continue in the Narnia series.  Any suggestions?  Please comment below with which book you would chose and why. 

I hope you have had a pleasant visit with us today.  I hope you have avoided all the illnesses and the February funk and can sit down with a piping hot cup of tea, put your feet up and just enjoy your evening.  That sounds lovely to me at least.  I hope to see you back here again soon, I have a special post in the works, so check back next week, I'm thinking Wednesday to see what I've got up my sleeve. Until then- peace.