Pointing to the queen bee.

A couple of weeks ago our local homeschool group took a field trip to a bee farm, and despite all of the children’s misgivings about it, it was actually a lot of fun!! The beekeeper was very nice and told us a lot about bees and the important role they play in nature. He showed us how he collects and harvest honey and let us all have a tasty sample of fresh honeycomb – yum!!

Some honey and comb that he scraped off to show us. He's not wasting that honey! That drain is collecting that honey.

We actually did learn a lot and the kids found it really interesting. Here’s some of what I remember (because I’m getting old and I didn’t write them down.)

~The queen bee can live up to 8 years. 8 years!!

~ The queen bee lays about 1400 eggs a day (you’ll have to ask my kids if I got that right.)

DO THE MATH ON THAT. IT’S CRAZY.

~Of course we all know it the GIRL bees that do all the work *ahem* and the boy bees are just kept around for reproduction purposes. But did you know that the bees kick all the males out for the winter? There’s no reproduction going on during the winter. No work, no food for you! Hahaha!

~A flower needs to be pollinated by a bee not just once, but something like 8 times in order to produce fruit. (Don’t you like how specific I’m being with this? I should have taken notes.)

~A queen bee can CHOOSE what kind of egg she is laying, whether a worker, a drone or a new queen. Totally cool.

~When a colony becomes too large, a new queen egg will be laid and a new colony will break off from the exiting one — but not the new queen. The existing queen will take off with a swarm off bees and go begin a new colony elsewhere.

There were more, I really should have written them down. Fortunately for me, the kids remember more than I do. ; ) Sometimes when we go on field trips we have a lot of fun but the kids don’t retain anything that they’ve learned. This time the kids remembered MUCH of what the beekeeper told us. I think that’s partially because between the honey tasting, watching him spin the honeycomb to get the honey out, and getting a closeup view of a queen and new colony inside of a glass viewing box… it was pretty hands on and involved.

Field trips like this one not only help to make memories, and serve educational purposes, but they really make learning fun and totally come alive for a little while. We were a little obsessed with bees for almost a week after we went. We shared the fun bee facts with anyone that would listen. We looked for bees in our yard. It was pretty cool. =)

Also, inspired by all the bee learning, I watched the Vanishing of the Bees on Netflix, because one thing that homeschooling my kids has taught me is that this mom is not too old to learn something, too! The documentary was really interesting and I definitely recommend watching it.

Field trips like this are awesome and I definitely want to make time for more educationally fun field trips this year. But you don’t have to take a field trip to have fun learning, sometimes you can just have fun learning something new that came up in daily life!! Like panthers are not their own breed of cat but a black variant of either a jaguar, cougar or leopard, the smallest bird in the world is the Bee Hummingbird and the hummingbird moth is not a hummingbird but a moth that imitates one (all questions the kids and I have recently looked up and had fun learning about!)

So whether bees or birds, at home or not, remember: ALL of life is a field trip! Have fun with it. Learn something new every day. =)

This is a part of the ABC’s of Homeschooling by Dawn @ The Momma Knows.

The ABC’s of Homeschooling started back up again last week (and I missed it I was so busy!) but tomorrow is the B post so you know what that means — I need to get my A post written so I don’t skip one! =p

At first I wasn’t sure what I would write about but then I realized that “A” is actually quite easy. Now that we’ve been back to school for six weeks, we’re a few chapters into our Apologia Anatomy book. I have to say… I LOVE IT!

I knew that I would.

I had no doubt.

I mean, it’s Apologia. And we LOVED their Astronomy. So I had high hopes and I’ve not been disappointed. Why do I love their books? Well, let me tell you:

1.) It isn’t boring and dry. They can even be considered “living books” since they’re written by one author who is passionate about the subject and they can be read out loud in story fashion. In fact, this is our preferred method. The kids gather round and I read to them, sometimes stopping for questions or to further explain something but often reading a whole section and then discussing it together.

2.) It’s a good option for teaching multiple ages together. Soon, probably next year, my oldest one will have to break out and do some higher science.. but all of the younger science books are good for teaching across the grades as a group. I don’t expect my 5 year old to get as much out of it, but he often does! (And sometimes he remembers more than the girls because he’s my little science guy!)

3.) The notebooking journals are great — especially now that they’ve come out with the junior notebooking journals. When we did Astronomy last year I just didn’t require my then 7 year old to do as much as her older sister. This year she has the Junior notebooking journal and that’s a better fit for her. (And I made copies of the copywork and coloring pages for the 5 year old so that he can join in, too!) The journals provide a variety of ways to go over and practice the material they’ve just learned. In addition to hearing it, then talking about it, the kids can then write about it and draw about it, too. I like things that incorporate multiple learning styles. = )

4.) It’s written from a Christian point of view — but it still addresses non-Christian theories and ideas so that we can discuss them and know what they are. The very first chapter of the book taught the history of Anatomy & Physiology, in which we discussed how Ancient Egyptians (though they believed in an afterlife and were trying to prepare the Pharoah’s body for traveling to the other side) are one of the first examples of people studying the human body… and though some of their ideas were wrong (they thought the brain was useless and threw it out!) their practices of removing some organs for the canopic jars is evidence of early study of anatomy.

5.) The book is full of pictures.. very colorful and interesting pictures! (This is one of the things that helps keep my little guy in my lap while I’m reading.) And if often has suggestions for other books to read or websites to visit.

6.) The experiments are easy enough but educational AND fun! That’s just a win/win all over the place.

We also have Apologia’s worldview Curriculum, “Who is God? And Can I Know Him?” — Yeah. Love that one, too. I plan on continuing with that, as well as their sciences, all the way through high school. I’m happy. And you know what? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” right??

Also, you can click here to see a list of supplemental anatomy science books that we have.

This is a part of the ABC’s of Homeschooling series by Dawn — brought to you on HER NEW BLOG!– at The Momma Knows. You can find all of my previous “ABC” posts here.

We’ve reached the end! The end of the first round of Homeschooling ABC’s. Yes, there will be another, but there will be a short break first! These last two, Y & Z, are hard letters. But I know what I want to do with them, oh yes I do!

Y is for “Yes, Ma’am!”

Manners. They are so important! And it’s something that has really come to my attention lately. There’s more to manners than simply saying “Please” and “Thank you.” There’s properly addressing adults, manners with hosts and guests, manners for socializing and dealing with people.. there’s a lot!

I want my kids to respond with “Yes, ma’am?” or “I’m sorry” or “Can you repeat that, please?” instead of just “HUH??”

I want them to respond with “Yes, please” or “Yes, thank you” or “Yes, that’s right” instead of just “Yeah.”

I want them to know that it’s rude to open someone’s door without knocking, go into someone’s home without being invited, read someone’s mail/e-mail/text/letters without permission, and SO MUCH MORE.

But here’s the thing: Someone has to teach them! And that someone is ME. Some of those things I’m really good at doing.. I always knock on someone’s door, even if they’re expecting me and told me to “come on in” I will knock and THEN open the door so that I don’t scare the living daylights out of them. But other things, I’m not so good about doing all the time. I’m terrible about just saying “Yeah.” So clearly, this mom is going to have to step up to the plate a little bit. Manners are one of the things that we’ll be addressing over the course of the year as we do our character studies.. but I also need to keep an open eye and look for teachable moments throughout the day to be truly, effectively teaching our children manners. And that, of course, is the hard part.

Z is for “Zest.”

Zest, flavor, spice, gusto. I really don’t want school around our house to be dry and boring. I mean, who does, right? There are just SOME things that are less interesting. Linking verbs? Helping verbs? Meh. A verb’s a verb, right? But even then school doesn’t have to be dull.

I can’t keep everything super interesting all the time, but surely I can keep it from being dull, right? I hope so. I want the  kids, and myself, to add some ZEST to our school day. I can do that by stopping and looking into things that interest them, right then, in the moment. Like last week when we stopped to look up the smallest bird in the world. I can do that by switching things up when they start to drag. Move to a different subject, go outside, work through the lesson together…whatever. I can do that by just being silly. Grammar sentences don’t have to straight and dry. They can be silly. “The boy ate the pirate ship” would send my kids into fits of giggles and they’d still be able to identify the verb. ; )

So Z is for ZEST. Add some to YOUR homeschool today! = )

This is a part of the ABC’s of Homeschooling series by Dawn @ 5 Kids and a Dog. Check  it out! You can see my other ABC posts here:

• All Year
• Books
• Choices
• Differences
• E & F ~ “Everyone Together” and “Flexibility”
• God
• Housework & Homework
• Imitation
• Joy
• Kids
• Lead By Example
• Methods
• Not Comparing
• Overwhelmed
• Planning
• Q & R ~ “Questions” and “Relaxed”
• S & T ~ “Supplies” and “To Do’s”
• Unpredictable
• Virtues
• Workcharts/Workboxes
• X-periments

I’m so happy to have such a great report for our second week of school! This school year is going really well so far (And I’m loving THAT of course!) Even with lots of running around to do — sorting the organic co-op produce on Tuesday morning, visiting my grandma and aunt on Wednesday, some seriously needed grocery shopping on Friday morning, canning on Saturday,… we still managed to get our school work done and have fun learning, too.

We started the week off with a “Back to School” party (We were supposed to have a first day of school party that kind of didn’t work out, so I made up for that on Monday.) The kids got back to school outfits, I made a special breakfast and I made another attempt at taking some back to school pictures. I got a few decent pictures but I’m getting really tired of messing with my dying camera. I need a new camera!!

Just as much as we enjoyed last year’s Apologia Astronomy, we’re really enjoying this year’s Apologia Anatomy & Physiology. What’s a mitochondria? I really had no idea – did we learn that in school?? I know now! And so does my 5 year old. My FIVE year old. Yes, he’s the science nut.. but the fact that he understands and picks up a lot of this with his two older sisters makes me smile. Two science highlights of the week.. first was making our edible jello cell. The second was when we were reviewing and I asked the kids to name parts of the cell. Princess said “the nucleus” and Little Prince added, “the nucleolus! The little one inside it!” That’s right.. the NUCLEOLUS.. something we talked about on ONE of the four lessons. Man that kid has a memory.

Speaking of that kid… he’s really become all fired up for reading. I’ve been patient, not pushing. He’s had all of the tools and knowledge he needed to begin learning to read, but he hasn’t had any interest. A month ago or so he told me he wanted to start learning how to read and we’ve begun working on that. He amazes me at how quickly he’s picking it up now that he’s ready. I’m so proud! As for the other two, I have noticed a HUGE improvement in Drama Queen’s handwriting since only a few months ago and her spelling is really taking off, too. Princess still despises math and it’s still a lot of work for her, but I’ve noticed some increase in skill and speed there as well. Here’s hoping that all three of those continue to progress smoothly!

Another thing I’ve been working on this year: papers and grades and records, oh my! I’m not required to keep any certain amount of records or grades or papers, but I do want to keep some. And I’ll need to keep records for a high school transcript when we get there. So I’m trying to hammer out a good system. So far I have a weekly folder, a 6-week folder and some places to record grades, but I’m really working on the “how to” aspect of getting it all done and staying on top of it. I don’t want to make it too complicated but I want to do it justice. I’ll keep working on that.

We capped off our school week with a sewing project for Princess and a “date night” with the boy as the girls left early for separate sleepovers. It was a nice week. =)

This week is a double whammy of ABC goodness. Dawn wrapped W and X together in the same week and gave us the option of doing either – or both!! And yes, I cheated a little bit with the “X” part… but with our new “Experiment Box” and our first experiment of the box landing on TODAY.. on “X” week.. how could I pass it up??

In the past, I’ve had trouble being prepared enough to do right by our science experiments. It has been hard to make sure that we had all of our materials. It’s been difficult to make sure that we had enough time to do it. Ugh.

No more!! This year I determined that We.Would.Get.Our.Experiments.In! To help us meet that goal, I’ve set up our first ever “Experiment Box.” Simply put, it’s a plastic file box with supplies. Specifically, I have envelopes for each experiment in the book with a copy of the directions and all of the supplies that I can fit inside the envelope. Other supplies we’ll need such as tubing and iodine are also in the box in front of the file folders. Large everday items like knives or mixing bowls will be handy enough as is so I’m not worried about those. There were a few items I couldn’t prepare in advance (such as a cooked chicken wing!) but I’ve made a note and hopefully I won’t forget it!

Everything is ready and waiting. I’m so excited!

Today was our very first experiment, too. We made “edible cells” for our first Apologia Anatomy lesson. The kids really had a lot of fun and they turned out well — and they were rattling off which ones were the mitochondria, lysosomes, centrioles, etc, just as quick as you please. I’d say they all deserve an “A,” don’t you think? ; )

When it was (finally) time for the experiment we pulled out our Experiment Box and got to it. Fortunately I remembered that we need to make and refrigerate the jello beforehand so we did that at the beginning of our school day. Later, we pulled out our envelope and dumped out our ingredients and our directions. After gathering some plates and spoons and a knife we were ready to go — in MINUTES! That was pretty cool.

It’s amazing how a little preparation can go a long way….

I’m looking forward to fitting in all of our science experiments this year. They may not all be as tasty as this one, but the success will be just as sweet! Yay for preparation! And experiments!

This is a part of the ABC’s of Homeschooling series by Dawn @ 5 Kids and a Dog. Check it out! You can see all of my ABC posts here:

• All Year
• Books
• Choices
• Differences
• E & F ~ “Everyone Together” and “Flexibility”
• God
• Housework & Homework
• Imitation
• Joy
• Kids
• Lead By Example
• Methods
• Not Comparing
• Overwhelmed
• Planning
• Q & R ~ “Questions” and “Relaxed”
• S & T ~ “Supplies” and “To Do’s”
• Unpredictable
• Virtues
• Workcharts/Workboxes

Okay, so it occurred to me that now that I’ve confirmed the winner of the Apologia Live Retreat ticket, gotten a response back from her,  gotten her all set up with that.. I should probably ANNOUNCE it, right?!

Chosen by the WP plugin “And the Winner Is” by random draw, I want to offer a GREAT. BIG. CONGRATULATIONS. to Jennifer! Who said:

I went to a homeschool conference last March with my family , but they didn’t find it enjoyable listening to seminars or looking at school books.. I need a conference for me that I can go and get recharged.

I hope you DO find you’re able to be recharged and blessed by the retreat — we all need that from time to time! Congrats again and thank you to everyone who entered, and thank you to the team at Apologia for offering the free ticket to give away. If you’re going to the conference in Austin, I’ll see you there!