Oh Me Oh My Oh Mushrooms!

I love the idea of foraging for food and living off the land. I remember being a young girl gathering wild strawberries and eating wild lettuce. I have yet to eat any fiddlehead ferns or find truffles, but hey, I'm still young. My darling kids have gotten caught up in the simple beauty of eating treats from the wilds. They are every bit as excited as I am every spring for our annual morel hunt. Eating aside, mushrooms are just plain cool, and very abundant this time of year! I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I found myself outside this morning walking in the cool rain looking for fungi with my brother. We took several species inside and he showed me how to take a spore print. After he left I rounded up the kids and we went back into the woods.   I snapped pictures, Natalie sketched, and Macy thumbed through our mushroom book. I delighted at hearing my four year old holler, "Mom! I found a polypore! Come look at this fungus!" We were hoping to find some oyster or chanterelle mushrooms, or perhaps another Lions's Mane, but no luck today. We had a wonderful time, and were even blessed with a bit of sunshine. These photos are just a small look at all the amazing fungus' we found.

 Orange Witches' Butter, and Polypores

Bolete

We never touch LBM's. (Little Brown Mushrooms)

Birds Nest Fungus

Puff Mushroom (see the little slit on the top right side for letting out spores)

Polypore

Western Amethyst Laccaria 

Coral

Eh, Let Me Check My Schedule

We're back in school! I think anybody who has home educated their children for more than two years has often heard the question, "How do you do it all? What does your day look like?"

Sticking to a tight schedule is very difficult for me. First, I'm just not that type of gal. Second, so many things come up, and keeping it water-tight is restrictive and makes the household stiff (okay, makes me stressed which stresses the kids).

I use a daily schedule with times but it's more of a reminder of how much time to give to each subject. 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there, 5 minutes here. I totally dig putting a little 'done' dot on the side of each time slot! I also have a weekly schedule of everything that needs to be taught. Using a weekly (week 1, week 2, etc.) schedule works out wonderfully for us verses using a calendar week, as things come up and again, I don't stress that we learn about Columbus exactly on September 10th at 9:45 am. :)

My two oldest children also have a schedule in their school binder. There is never any need for debate about what is expected or what needs to get done. They also have a printed morning chore list in a plastic page protector, and know if they don't get those chores done, it cuts into their free time.

We are only at day three, but so far, we are loving our new curricula and days are going smoothly. The girls appreciate their brief lessons, and having the afternoon to play (um, I mean, P.E. and Home Economics and Animal Husbandry).

Our 4th & 5th grade subject list:

Bible:
The Holy Bible
Studying God's Word, Book E

Language Arts:
Sequential Spelling
Vocabulary Vine (Greek & Latin Root Words)
Poetry (misc. books)
Institute for Excellence in Writing

Arithmetic:
Calculadder (2-3 minute drill)
Singapore Math

History/Geography:
The Mystery of History Vol. 3
The World of Columbus & Sons by Genevieve Foster
The World of John Smith by Genevieve Foster
History Through the Ages (timeline)
WonderMaps

Science:
Lyrical Life Science Vol. 3 - The Human Body
Blood & Guts (experiments)
The Handbook of Nature Study

Fine Arts:
101 Hymn Stories
Living Biographies of Great Painters by Henry & D. L. Thomas
The Great Masters
Stories of the Great Composers

Typing Instructor for Kids.

This is what I would consider our "core" curriculum. I wanted to write a little note beside each book, but everything was the same- excellent! We LOVE it! I would say the girls' favorite subject is History, which feels like such a big win, since I hated history in school. I highly recommend Genevieve Foster's books, which makes history come alive, even for adults. For instance, today we read about Ferdinand and Isabella starting the Spanish Inquisition, which undoubtedly is an important piece of history. Then in the World of Columbus and Sons we learned about Isabella's childhood- being torn from her mother, whisked away at the start of a civil war, kidnapped by soldiers, and then taking refuge in a nunnery. Exciting!

Before we leave the subject of schedules, I have to add one little bit. Make it pretty. I found Fonts for Peas and downloaded a myriad of adorable fonts. There are a bunch of adorable calendars you can print for free (This watercolor one over at Etsy is adorable).

So here is our school schedule (Monday - Thursday). I wasn't sure how to upload the file from Excel, so it looks a little different here. I like having all the kids on one page so I can quickly see what everyone needs to be doing.

	Macy & Natalie	Lindsey & Hudson
8:00	Bible & Prayer	Quiet Puzzles & School Games & Playdoh
8:15	Spelling & Vocabulary Vine
8:30	Language Lessons
8:45	Calculadder & Poetry	Calculadder - Lindsey
9:00	Lyrical Life Science	Color at Table
9:20	Mystery of History
9:40	Snack	Snack
9:45	Singapore Math	Singapore Math - Lindsey
10:15	Fine Arts	Play time
10:40	IEW
11:00	Work Alone / Independent Study	Help Prepare Lunch
11:30	Lunch / Read- Alouds
12:30	Break
1:00	Independent Study	School time: Bible, Phonics, math, flash cards, history, reading, craft
1:30	Finish any school work
2:00	Play time
2:30		Play time
5:30	Clean up	Clean up
6:00	Dinner	Dinner
7:30	Get Ready for Bed	Get Ready for Bed
8:00	Lights Out	Lights Out

I'm going batty!

Sunday morning. Lounging in bed. Thankful that church doesn't start until 10:30. I look up at our window covering (a beach towel) and lift it up to let the sun shine down on us. Shock, horror. It's not the sun I focus on, it's the BAT hanging directly above my head. I dropped the towel down, quickly jump out of the covers and let out a wonderfully girly, "eek!" Hubby raises up, I point and say, "Bat, bat! There's a bat!" Quiver. He jumps up, and as we head out of the bedroom I grab my camera. The kids are all in a flurry, I'm still shivering thinking about it being there, directly over my head, and Jon grabs the kids' bug catching net. Trusty ole' bug catching nets! He goes to work, quickly gets the little guy, and we release him outside. And let me just interject: 1. He didn't seem so small as I remembered bats and 2. SO thankful he wasn't flying around! After the ordeal was over, I calmly told my hero that I had known having a bat in the house would be the natural next step in our life. He laughed, "The next natural step of life?" I explained that I had heard stories over the years from my dad (who grew up in the same house we're in) about running around the house with fish nets trying to capture bats, and our time had finally come. Happily we have reached that milestone and hopefully, will never face that obstacle again. :)