A little Caving Field Trip

Last Thursday Daddy mentioned wanting to take a field trip to a local cave.  Last Friday we just happened to finish school with a reading on limestone making stalactite and stalagmite so we decided to take a trip Saturday to a local cave. 

 There is a rock formation called the dragon.  They let the girls climb on its back to take a picture, but Ro-bear was afraid of climbing up, so this was the best I could get of everyone.  Boo fussed because the dragon didn't come to life and move. 

 The guide took out picture at the 'heart of the cave'  one of our few and far between family pictures.

 The largest stalagmite in the cave.  The girls were extra silly posing. 

 Just a few pictures of rock formations.  They also let the girls do a couple of crawls, but I was too busy watching them that I forgot to take pictures.  Boo loved the crawls so much.  Ro-bear was so nervous she kept wanting to turn back. She said she knew that way was safe and didn't know if this way was safe.  Once we finally finished and were driving home she said she wanted to go back again some time, it was fun.

We actually had a pretty busy week this week. We got a new garden bed and lots of seeds and sprouts to fill it with.  We'll keep you updated on how the garden does over the summer.  Our spring garden is still overflowing with peas and spinach and strawberries and onions, so we needed a second garden to start summer. 

Sorry for the poor picture quality, some reason my phone doesn't like to zoom in for pictures.  Probably something about the girls dropping it way back when. 

We also go our Little Passports for England this week.  We were thinking about canceling and trying Eggdrop, but L-bug loved the England pack so I do not know if we'll stick with it or change up boxes some.  Ro-bear really wants to get Green Kids Crafts again.  We loved it, but even with the siblings pack we didn't get enough for everyone so it was more trouble than it was worth with the fussing and fighting over who got to do what.

 We got a 3-D puzzle for Big Ben or as Ro-bear points out, Elizabeth's Tower.  We don't have a bell inside so its not Big Ben.  Note: its the bell who is named Big Ben incase you were like me and didn't know that before this week. 

It wasn't too too hard to put together.  The little girls didn't help very much, but L-bug and I enjoyed working on the puzzle together.  She wants to look into other 3D puzzles, I haven't started looking yet.

We also got 'new' couches this week.  It was perfect timing.  His brother and sister in law were getting new couches and offered us their old ones.  At first it was just nice because our couch was a little ratty, but then the back hinge on our couch broke and became frustrating.  Every time someone sat on the right hand side of the couch the person on the left hand side went flying, or at least got jarred a bit. 

Ro-bear got sad the day our couch was leaving and wrote it a note.  The inside said, "your kid will miss you." the outside of the envelope said "This couch I hope it will be safe here"  She told me what to write then drew pictures on it and taped the envelope to the couch.  She got upset when dad tried to take her note off because he didn't know it was a note for the couch.

 Here is the new couch and loveseat and no Boo isn't jumping on it, she's climbing up, but man is it hard to stop her from jumping.

Boo so very much wants to be just like L-bug.  She even sits the same way on the loveseat. 

Tonight L-bug has some friends over for a sleepover, so Boo, L-bug and I are having a party upstairs.  We have popcorn, pizza, movies and old Lootcrates that got put in a corner and ignored.

 Sorry this one is grainy, but the fact that Ro-bear is chilling watching Bolt with a Face Hugger strapped to her face is just too awesome.  She had the Face Hugger downstairs in her bed, but the rubber band was found in a box upstairs, so she had to bring him up for movie night. 

I hope you're starting your summer off nicely.  Thanks for visiting the Blue Rabbit Academy.  Before I looked through my pictures from this week I thought we had mostly laid fallow this week and rested.  Now I laugh seeing all the things I discarded as relaxing.  Our summer is off and running, come back soon to see what adventures we've found for ourselves. 

We Reached the Finish Line

Fourth Grade is over. Shew.  Now time for summer to set in.  We've agreed to do some morning work together as a family and do the library programs and summer reading program.  We should have plenty of time to just sit back and have fun on top of all that.

Summer Reading

On our summer reading bucket list so far is a wide assortment of books. 
Peter and the Starcatcher by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson,
Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
Nature Anatomy by Julia Rothman
Farm Anatomy by Julia Rothman
Walking the World in Wonder by Ellen Evert Hopman
and Botany in a Day by Thomas J. Elpel

In truth, I'll be happy if we make it through one or two of those books.  We're hoping to do some nature study this summer so I also have myself a copy of The Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock and Pocketful of Pinecones by Karen Andreola to read on at my leisure.

Next year I'll officially have two kids in school.  You all with littles know that we don't just do nothing with the kids until school age, but it is a little different from going from a learning environment to ahhh you're in school now.  In the parent's mind at least.  The child probably shouldn't see much of a difference from a learning environment to school at Ro-bear's age. 

Gardening

Now that it feels like summer outside our spring veggies are blossoming and growing and are getting harvested.  We had a lovely salad tonight of pea pods, pea leaves and spinach.

So far the strawberries that have ripened all but one the bugs got to before us, but the chickens enjoyed the double treat of strawberry and bug. Here are some of the unripen strawberries, aren't they lovely?

The only other thing we have in the garden right now are some onions. 

Some Fun

 L-bug hugging Tammy cat with Ro-bear sneaking in the background.  Tammy is our little old girl, and she's been loving on everyone lately for some extra pets.

 My friend from middle/high school had a little boy last weekend. I made him and his big sister each a little present. Yay. Sadly, he's already a week old and I'm just getting it mailed.  Please ignore the school papers and tissues in the picture.  I snuck the picture in before mailing because Boo wanted to keep the bird desperately.

L-bug got a book about nail painting, so tonight as we sat around watching Good Eats and Guy's Grocery Games on Netflix we painted our nails.  I won't quit my day job just yet, but I painted ying yangs and hearts on my hands. L-bug wasn't happy enough with hers to do any pictures.

I slacked on YouTube this week.  We only posted a few videos, which is really a shame because we had enough for one a day lined up this week.  I pulled something in my back and sitting to edit wasn't high on my priority list this week sadly.  I look forward to many videos next week.  Its so much fun to see L-bug be creative making skits and working out issues as they arise.  Don't forget to check her out, Icy Breeze Show. 

I hope you've been having some fun as spring turns into summer.  Thanks for visiting our little school house and I hope to see you again soon!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  Things around the academy have been pretty normal this week.  We're having more poison ivy going as soon as one kid gets over it another breaks out.  We're going to have to break down and dig it all up.

Last weekend we went to the annual Spring Festival at the Exchange Place which is a 1850s farmstead.  They had a May Pole that Boo and Ro-bear each participated in.  Dad got some pictures of Ro-bear and L-bug took some of Boo. 

They also had little activities for the kids to do like washing and carding wool and making flower prints.

They also have farm animals around and the girls got to pet some horses and watch a little black sheep play in the meadow.  There are musicians there who play 'old time' music and plant sellers there for you to get your summer vegetables going.  We bought three tomatoes and Dad's brother gave us some jalapenos to grow this year.

Ro-bear decided that she wants her own separate green peppers this year because she likes to eat them.  As I was cutting open a pepper for dinner she took the whole top and took the seeds out and planted them in a pot and brought them out to the green house.  We'll see how that works for her.  I hope she gets some peppers.

The other day Ro-bear dropped one of the eggs bringing it inside and our strawberries are about to ripen so L-bug and I decided that we need a basket for carrying in the goodies from the garden/yard.  She decided we needed to make our own basket, but we don't have any basket materials so we decided to make a plastic braided basket from old Walmart bags. As most in depth craft projects L-bug started out strong and promptly got tired of working on it and I'm doing all the work.  I will admit that this basket is more work that I'd like.  First you must cut off your handles and the very bottom of the bag and cut it in a continuous strip, one Walmart size bag can make about three rounds around the bag for a strip.  Then braid three bag strips into a long braid and sew them into a coil. 

Here's L-bug braiding the strips.

Me sewing the beginning of the coil.

L-bug pretending the basket is a finger sombrero.

That's about all that's been happening on our side of the world.  My best friend from high school just had a new baby so we're making her a belated happy baby present this weekend.  Will share pictures later. Yay for babies. 

I hope you have had a wonderful Mother's day and got to spend today with people you love and love you back.  Those are the best days. 

Thanks for visiting. I hope to see you back next week.

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.