I can’t believe it is Friday already!  The weeks just zip by.

1.    Kathy and I took the girls to see “Dark Shadows” .  The movie was not very good but Keilee really wanted to see it because of Johnny Depp.

2.    Keilee made me this for Mother’s Day!  She nailed it together and painted it.  I had seen one similar to this and she decided to make it.  It is for the squirrels!  My Daddy would DIE!  He spent so much time getting rid of the squirrels here and Keilee names them and feeds them.

3.   Bread in our Dutch Oven!  This is so good and it really worked!  I had my doubts.  I first saw this recipe over at Deb’s and followed her link to the recipe I ended up using.  I WILL make this again.

Crusty Bread

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 cups water

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast.  Add water and mix until a shaggy mixture forms.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 – 18 hours.  Overnight works great.  Heat oven to 450 degrees.  When the oven has reached 450 degrees place a cast iron pot with a lid in the oven and heat the pot for 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, pour dough onto a heavily floured surface and shape into a ball.  Cover with plastic wrap and let set while the pot is heating.  Remove hot pot from the oven and drop in the dough.  Cover and return to oven for 30 minutes.  After 30 minutes remove the lid and bake an additional 15 minutes.  Remove bread from oven and place on a cooling rack to cool.   You do not need to oil the Dutch Oven.

4.    My dryer stopped working when I had just washed 2 loads of clothes!  Keilee and I had to go to the laundry-mat!  First time I have been there in forever and first time ever Keilee has.  It made us both very appreciative of our washer/dryer.  A friend of my Daddy’s came and fixed it for us, thankfully.

5.    Keilee’s first attempt at French Braiding.  She wanted to learn so I taught her and she braided my hair.  Not bad for a 1st time!

1.  Keilee and I went out to eat the first of the week.  This is something we rarely do.  We had so much fun.

2.   It’s Fairy House time!  Hours are spent of this each summer.  I am so glad she is still interested in building these.

3.   Going to church.  I love her sense of fashion.  [and I used to be the same way!]

4.    Keilee and her friends at play practice.

5.  Keilee even took her ‘studies’ to the dentist office.

She has surprised me so much the way she has taken off on educating herself.  There are times when I want to say something to her, but for now I am letting her do things at her own pace.  She makes a schedule and works from it.  This week she has studied about “Flying Creatures”.  She reads and takes notes.  She watches videos and draws birds.  She even made a spelling list of 20 words from her Science.  Seriously I couldn’t spell some of these words without studying.  She asked me to give her the test today and she missed 1.  She is also reading about WW1 and WW2.  She has compared life in Germany to life in Russia and read her book everyday.

She has also been working on a new blog.  Check it out!  I love that she uses quotes just like I do.  She scours the internet for just the right one.

I also have great news!  There is a VERY good chance that Keilee and I are going to meet Jessica and her family next week.  They are coming to Knoxville for a DI tournament and we are going to Gatlinburg for vacation!  We have talked on the phone about our plans and we are so excited.

I have 2 Favorite Resources of the Week

Lit2Go A great site with audio stories and poems and the pdf files to go along with them.

 Periodic Table of Elements with Videos!  This is awesome!  Each element is clickable with great videos featuring an “Albert Einstein” type professor.

Happily linking up with

Mary @ “Collage Friday”
&
Susan @ “Favorite Resource”
Kris at “Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers”

Have a magical weekend!

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

 ”Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”  ~William Butler Yeats

“All sorrows are less with bread.”  ~Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author

Last Friday was National Garden Day and we were able to go to our local Botanical Gardens for free.  We made a day of it.

First of all, Keilee has a much better eye than I do.  She makes pictures on her iPhone camera that are better than my digital.

It was a beautiful day and the fact that it was filled with public school kids didn’t faze us a bit.  Keilee said a few ‘poor public schooler’ comments under her breath though

Keilee’s favorite Flower Pictures

Other Pictures from Keilee

The butterfly house was stunning.  Butterflies everywhere, blooming flowers, turtles, waterfalls.  I could have stayed in there forever.

My pictures:

So funny every picture of me and Keilee together is taken at arms length.  See my arm in the sunglasses.

The pictures of me, Keilee took with my camera.  I should have let her use her own!

It was such a glorious day.  We were very lucky we could meander at our own pace; no following someone’s notion of how we should explore, no walking in lines, or being told “no’ over and over.

So blessed to homeschool.

Homeschooling Rocks
Karen

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Afternoon on a Hill”

I really wanted the week after Show Week to slow down for us, but no such luck!

Keilee tried out for another play and had her first cast meeting.  It is “Robin Hood~ The Musical” and I think it will be really good.  She got the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s wife, a social climbing woman who wants desperately to find her place in society and get her awkward, silly daughter married.  It should be a really cute play.  I just wish there would have been, I don’t know, more than ONE day between shows!

Kei studying about stars.

Kei and her cool tennis shoes before church started.

Kei, Sophie and Mags at Robin Hood practice.

We are still on our ‘unschooling’ journey and I have already had one HS Mom say “oh no, unschooling is awful”.  I just smiled…different strokes and all of that.  Keilee became fascinated with stars, galaxies and solar systems because of a class she was going to take on Wednesday.  She spent hours researching and told me tons of things I didn’t know.  Then they had to cancel the class because they didn’t have 5 students sign up.  It all worked out though; I talked to the instructor and she sent me the lesson plan she was going to do and Keilee signed up for another BETTER [to her at least] class.

They dissected an owl pellet and a R.A.T  A GIANT Rat.  Better her than I!  When I asked her why she didn’t take pictures of the dissected rat she said there was so much blood she couldn’t pick up her camera!  She touched the heart too.  I mean she is 12 and has done so much dissection.  We are so lucky to have access to these classes.

1.   Rat jaw found in Owl Pellet…see the teeth?

2.   THE GIANT RAT [Kei's finger!]

3.   Everything found in the owl pellet.

4.   Some bones and things from pellet

5.  The Owl pellet in half.

6.  The RAT in the bag.

One thing that Keilee spent a lot of time on is Khan Academy.  It is a GREAT RESOURCE for Math and so much more.  We always watch the videos and then work some problems.  She is doing Pre Algebra and really liking it.  He explains things so wonderfully!  It isn’t just for upper level Math.  He starts at the basics.  They is an iPad app too!  It is my favorite resource this week.

2 years ago Keilee took summer classes at our theater offered by Bethel University.  She fell in love with the college kids teaching the classes and decided that is where she wants to go to college.  They have an amazing Fine Arts program.  She even met the director of the Fine Arts program when she was 10 and said, “My name is Keilee and you should remember me because I am going to your school’.  Well they put on a performance Tuesday and we went.  The director was there and walked up and said, “Hi Keilee!”.  He then told some students what she had told him.  She was so excited that he had remembered her.  The did skits and songs from several plays including Wicked, but the one Kei liked best was from “Anne Frank”  These pictures are from her iPhone.

Thursday we spent the day with our Roamies!  Esther had made tuna salad and egg salad and everyone brought yummy things.

These are the only pictures I took.  The top one is the only one with all 4 girls.  [See Keilee in the mirror ]  We had a great day.  It was beautiful weather.

Kei has been doing so much art lately.  She has this really big Art Pad and she has been ‘arting’ like crazy. 

Kei’s Owl

This is a song she decided to do.  It is by Kelly Clarkson.  I told her it wasn’t a very ‘happy’ song but she likes it.  She found the Victorian girl and printed it out to put in the center.  I love the way it turned out.

This is a collage of everything she loves.  Hopefully in no particular order since Johnny Depp is above MOM!

We spent all day today at The Botanical Gardens but between us we took 250 pictures so that is another post for another day.

Happily linking with Mary @ “Collage Friday”

and

Susan @ “Favorite Resources”

I hope all of you have a FANTASTIC Mother’s Day!

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  ~Tenneva Jordan

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! ~Anne Frank

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.  ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am Mother.

Honestly it is something I never thought I would be.  An Aunt? I rocked at that.  I was the cool Aunt, the one who would let you do things your parents never would.

But a Mother?

Not I…

Funny how God had other plans for me.

Keilee has changed my life.  She has made me understand a million things that I never understood completely.

It is hard at times being a single Mom.  Hard being a homeschool Single Mom.  Hard being a homeschool Single Mom without my Mother, but things happen every single day to make it all worthwhile.

Thank God I had an amazing Mother who showed me what is was to be a great Mom.  I find myself channeling her SO often.  And I smile…..

I am raising this amazing child.  This amazing girl child with a huge heart and wonderful talents and a love for God that is awesome.  A child who has so many passions and interests.  Who I have never ONCE heard say, “I’m bored.”  I am so thankful that I decided to homeschool her.  A thousand, a million things I would have missed.

There is no rule book for Motherhood.  No set of guidelines.  Everyone does it differently.  Most of us do the very best we can.  We don’t live a lavish lifestyle.  We live very simply.  We don’t eat out, or buy expensive clothes or drive a new car or live in a big house, but we have something so much more than all of that.  We have a unique closeness, a language almost all of our own.  Laughter, silliness, joy, love mark the passage of our days.

I am far from a perfect Mom.  I yell, I get frustrated.  Mostly I think that is because I forget that Keilee is 12, with a 12 year olds perspective on things.  She is still a child.  She still leaves her room a wreck and throws everything on the kitchen table and forgets to do something I ask her 100 times to do.

I have trouble making time for myself.  There are no dates or time spent without Keilee.  Now she does things without me, I just don’t do anything without her.  I spend my ‘me’ time reading or blogging or finding a TV series that maybe isn’t appropriate for her and watching in my bedroom.  I love working backstage at her theater productions with the other Moms.  We have a blast.  I also love playing online games but I find they take up too much of my time.  My friends who play are the ‘let’s play for 12 hours at a time’ kinda gamers.  So we are mostly together; always.

She will be gone so soon.  There will be time for Karen time.  Now I just want to be Keilee’s Mommy.  It is the best ‘Job Title” I have ever held.

 Here are  2 of my favorite “Mommy/Keilee” stories.

When Keilee was about 3 or 4 she would drive me crazy asking me to change her Barbie’s clothes.  Every 30 minutes all day long.  Why do they make those stinking clothes so hard to get on and off???  So I had a brilliant idea!  Instead of changing their clothes, I would jerk off their cute little heads and stick it on the other body! Voila!  Years later I told Keilee this story and she said, “I always wondered why my Barbies always had different color bodies and heads”

Keilee…around 2 years old ….I was playing a game online, she was watching a movie; probably The Wizard of Oz since she watched that back to back to back every day for 3 MONTHS!  She came up to me and said, “I have something on my finger, get it off pwease.”  What did I do?  I looked, saw a little dot and stuck it in my mouth.  Guess what it was?  Yes, I ate Keilee’s booger!!  Is that TRUE MOTHER LOVE or what???

April 30^th was my birthday.  This is what Keilee wrote on my birthday card:

Mommy,

Thank you for always being the calm one.  Thank you for always being there for me.

Thank you for being the amazing Mom that you are.  Thank you for every meal you have ever cooked, every dish you have ever washed, every shirt, pants or shoes you have ever bought me, every drive to another city to take me to play practice or field trips or classes, every time you told me everything would be alright, every kiss and hug, every good night kiss, every dance in the rain, every cuddle or snuggle.  But most of all thank you for making me who I am today.

Love,
Keilee

 No words in the world could be as sweet as these are….

Motherhood Rocks!
Karen

Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs in my field, since the payment is pure love.  ~Mildred B. Vermont

Sweater, n.:  garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.  ~Ambrose Bierce

What do girls do who haven’t any mothers to help them through their troubles?   ~Louisa May Alcott (Littler Women, 1868)

Be sure to join Susan at “Learning All The Time” for tomorrow’s post on Motherhood!  I can’t wait.

Week 1 is in the history books.  It was not without problems.  See the whole thing about ‘unschooling’ is my child craves lists and plans.  She kinda freaked out about not having them.  Which is ironic considering SHE NEVER FINISHES THE PLANS EVER!
NOTONESINGLEWEEK!

I told her to let’s just do it this way for awhile.  I remember when we began homeschooling all the things I read about deschooling.  Maybe the same thing is true for letting completely go.

She wrote stories; a lovely story about a turkey who planned his getaway right before Thanksgiving.  It was so hysterical.

She worked on the Webkinz blog.  This takes up huge amounts of her time. 

She knitted and knitted and knitted.  She is working on a purse with the colors of Ice Cream in each patch.  She read.  All by herself. She worked on a documentary whose subject is a secret from me.

I bit my tongue, MANY times.  I started saying, “Maybe you could” ….and I would just stop.

We watched a DVD called “Princes in the Tower” about one possible scenario for the strange disappearance of England’s King Edward V and his younger brother.  We both LOVED it. 

We watched another DVD, “Creatures That Defy Evolution, Disc 3”.  We both really liked this too.

Keilee watched episode after episode of “Dance Academy”.   She loves this show.  It is about a Dance Academy in Australia.  She loves all things Australia.  [*Waves to Helena]. 

She played “Tower Madness” on iPad which she loves.  Very physics based.  She tries to save sheep from Aliens.  I mean how great is that?   I got this free on “Apps Gone Free”.  I am telling you if you have an iPhone or iPad download this APP!  Free stuff every single day.

We had 2 semi performances of “The Princess and The Pea”.  Director asked Keilee and Britney to do their roles for “Relay for Life” and a fundraiser at the theater where she performs.

Relay for Life FundRaiser

Fine Arts Center Fund Raiser

She has had practice and she is working on her audition for ANOTHER play which she tries out for Saturday.  More on that later.  We are also exploring options for even more theater experiences.

We went to Panoply with a homeschool group.  This is a HUGE Art festival in Huntsville.  We had such a great time.  We heard a blues band, we watched a Shakespeare performance,  we watched dancers and saw amazing art.  I got so many ideas for art journaling.   The place was filled with Public School kids and Keilee kept telling them to ‘shhhhh’ during the performances.  She couldn’t believe how rude they were.

Panoply

 Really bad lighting but here are some of my favorite ideas.

So Week 1 is down and out.  My feelings….it went well.  It feels weird.  What about Math???  What about???  I am trying.

Favorite Resources this Week:

Teenage Liberation Handbook – Grace Llewellyn

I have known about this book forever but always thought, “Keilee is too young for me to read this”.  She is suddenly not too young.  About 1/2 way through it and LOVE it.

Happily Linking up With:

Susan at “Favorite Resource“

and

Mary at “Friday Collage“

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

I recognize June by the flowers now.  I used to know it by review tests, and restlessness.”  ~unschooled teen (From The Teenage Liberation Handbook.

 ”Education is hanging around until you have caught on”  ~ Robert Frost

1 Year Ago Today.

I wanted to homeschool Keilee since pre K.  I was scared.  She was in her first week of 2nd grade and I picked her up one day and said, “How would you like to be homeschooled?”  The rest as they say is history.

I was drawn to unhomeschooling from the beginning.  I was scared.  [familiar theme  here?].  What if…she never wanted to learn Math? or read?  or learn anything??

So we never did it.  It has still hovered in the back of my mind.  I read about unschooling and child led all the time.  I read unschooling blogs, I read unschooling books, But would it work for us???

I mean Keilee drives me crazy at times; complaining about work, hating Math, doesn’t want to read…. How could I trust her to learn ANYTHING!!!

Then I had told her about what Theresa did with her girls; asked them to make a list of 10 things they would like to learn more about. 

I asked Kei if she would try to do that in the next few days. She did it that day!  And the things she put on her list blew my ever loving mind!  Here is her list.  *The ‘red’ are my comments.  I would have just taken a picture of her list, but you wouldn’t be able to read some of it..seriously.  *See #16, at least she knows her shortcomings.

1. Renaissance
2. Gypsies/Magic [about Fortune Tellers, their history]
3. Algebra  [WHAT?? Really????]
4. Italy / history of
5. Robotics
6. 1950 America  [She LOVES the 50's for some reason]
7. Africa animals, plants and wild life
8. Famous historians
9. More Geography
10. Architecture
11. Mechanics [how cars and electronics work]  [HELP!!???]
12. History about Girls [she wrote “HERSTORY about girls”]
13. Space; the alternate universe.  Like that guy in the wheelchair believes. [She means Stephen Hawking; Where does she come up with this stuff?????]
    
14. Geometry  [Again..REALLY???]
15. Proper writing skills  [She loves to write but hates anything about the proper way to write so this surprised me]
16. Spelling  [SPELLING?? Hates this too.]
17. Mysteries in history that have not been solved
18. UFO history, sightings, theories and documentaries
19. Light, understanding how light works and travels
20. Horrible happenings involving weather throughout history.
21. Lost City of Atlantis
22. String theory  [What ??? What???  HELP AGAIN!!]

This just made me giddy!  Seriously. Who knew she wanted to learn about all of these things?  Where did she even hear of some of these things??

I have been struggling so much with just letting go.  Just letting her do what she wants to do.  My friend at The Mournful Cry of the Laundry said to me the other day, ‘Just give her a year and see what happens”.  GULP!  A year??   What if her ‘Child Led” leads her to the couch to watch TV or nothing but knitting???

But,  I am doing this.  Starting today….  Sometimes you just have to…

L
E
A
P

I remember getting this bike; her feet didn’t reach the pedals.  Wasn’t that only yesterday?

UNschooling Rocks?
Karen

“Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes: and leap!”  ~Elphaba from “Wicked”

Happily Linking with  Make Life Meaningful

Friday after Skate Day we had a get together at the park for our very first Homeschool graduate.  It was a great day filled with food, fun and friends.  We are so proud of you Evan!  Gosh our kids are growing up so quickly.  But they still run and play all through the playground.

After the park Chan came home with us Friday and stayed until Tuesday.  The girls had some serious talking/playing/creating/laughing time.  I loved watching them play.  It reminded me of all the posts and pictures from so many of my blog friends who have 2 girls.

1.  Hours of Dogopoly.  I am so glad because Keilee loves Monopoly, Dogopoly, Fairyopoly, etc. and I DESPISE them.  Like a good Mommy I play them with her but I am not thrilled.

2.  10 Days in the USA.  This game continues to be a favorite of ours.

3.   Making plans and just talking.

4.   Snack creations.   Strawberries with grapes inside!

5.    Lots of iPad playing.

There was also kite flying, badminton playing, back yard scavenger hunts, movie making, picture taking, Webkinz playing, TV watching, dog playing and more girlie good times.

Saturday morning I pulled their butts outta bed at 6:00 so we could go to a HUGE Community Yard sale in a neighboring town.  We found some deals…not as many as I expected but several.  Keilee loves yard sales, I tolerate them.  I do love the deals, I just hate driving all over the town for them.  That is why I LOVE Community sales.  You park your car and just walk from sale to sale.

Keilee got a World Puzzle that the man assured us had all the pieces.   Keilee spent hours putting it together.  Once she finally got it, we played a game where I would pick a country from a list and we would see who  could find it first.

As you can see it did NOT have all the pieces.  Notice the iPad in the background.  We are still watching the Red Tailed Hawks and they still haven’t hatched!

We got to attend a college production of “Much Ado About Nothing”.  It was awesome.  I made Keilee and Chan look up the storyline and tell me about it.  I just think you should have some sort of background when seeing Shakespeare.  We packed a huge picnic lunch; bagels sandwiches, strawberries, pasta salad, grapes and more.  We sat on blankets under a huge white tent to watch the play.  It was so great.  We also watched this version later in the week to see how they compared.

I think it is so amazing that Keilee already has such a great knowledge of this play.  She knows Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Benedick and more.  I had no clue of anything Shakespeare when I was in the 6th grade.

What would we do without Nomad?  For some reason Keilee is sure that he is happier with a blanket over his head.  He is completely fine with this and many days we find him trailing it behind him like Linus.

I found a great resource this week.  It is my Favorite Resource of the week.  It is a magazine published by Homeschool Girls FOR Homeschool Girls.  They take submissions and Keilee is excited about maybe submitting something.  It is all free and you can get the latest issue and all back issues here.

I just keep repeating the same thing over and over, but I love our life.  I feel so blessed to be able to homeschool.  That I can work from home and stay with Keilee.  That our classroom is our world.  Isn’t that just the greatest thing ever?

Happily linking with

Susan at “Favorite Resources“

and

Kris at “Weekly Wrap Up“

Homeschooling rocks!
Karen

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~ Anais Nin

“There was a star danced, and under that was I born.”
- William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, 2.1

I suwannee [that is a southern word we say instead of "I swear", Actually I don't say it, but it just seems fitting]…anyhoo I digress… We have been so busy going places that I am plum tuckered out … and I have no clue why I am typing in ‘Country Southern’ ????…..

It is like that for us every Spring.  I think people are so tired of being stuck inside they go ‘field trip’ crazy.  At least homeschoolers do!

We had a blast this past week.  And we even learned too!

We took a field trip to the Courthouse.  We sat in on a “County Commission” meeting.  All of us got a copy of the minutes and Keilee even marked how they voted.  All the councilmen came and talked to us afterward and it was really awesome.  Then we got to go into the EMA [Emergency Management Agency] located in the basement.  That was SO COOL!  The man that spoke to us told us all the procedures for emergencies and how they had vamped it up since the April 2011 tornadoes.  Keilee really loved it.  She even said she thought working there would be really interesting.

Keilee is working on a stop animation movie that she is making with paper toys.  These are the city of Paris and we found them here. 

One of Keilee’s play friends has really bad allergies.  She is a 2nd grader and Keilee found out she had to wear a mask when she went outside to play at home or at school.  So Keilee made her a BEJEWELED mask!!  Isn’t this awesome??  Maggie loved it.  One of our dear friends 2 year old daughter has leukemia and spends so much of her time wearing a mask.  Keilee told me she wants to make Ava a mask and also make a bunch more for Ava’s Mom to take to the Children’s Hospital for the kids that need them.  I love Keilee’s heart.

This is our left over knit pieces that we hung outside for the birds.  We are impatiently waiting to spot a colorful bird’s nest made from them.

Keilee found her first ever 4 leaf clover.  I am sorta the Queen of finding 4 leaf clovers and she always gets all bummed, but she finally found one!

We also had Field Day.  Does your homeschool group do this?  We have a blast every year.  Look at the bottom right picture.  This is the mile run.  What did these homeschoolers do as they were about to cross the finish line?  Joined hands and crossed TOGETHER!  How cool is that?

In our ‘school week’ we did 3 Teaching Textbook lessons [thank you ONCE again Theresa!], did our Botany lesson, learned about Joan of Arc and watched “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc“, this is rated R for violence as in ‘heads getting cut off’ but we really enjoyed the movie. I always love to find a movie about what we are studying. 

Keilee is reading her 3rd Poison Apple book. She actually likes them.  Not enough to read more than her 2 chapters a day but she doesn’t complain.  Thank you Jessica for this recommendation!

We also did a Robin Study and decided we are going to dig up some worms for our Robins!  Keilee sat in her treehouse and observed them for an hour and drew in her Nature journal.

We also have had practice for “The Princess and The Pea”.

My “Favorite Resource” is one Keilee spent HOURS on this week.  You use beautiful drawings to make your own stories.  You can then ‘publish’ them to the site.  The site is called “Story Bird”

Finally, with everything blooming and so beautiful I just had to take pictures.  My girl is growing up too fast.  I wish I could stop time some days…

Happily linking up with

Mary at “Collage Friday“

and

Susan at “Favorite Resource“

Happy weekend!

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes. ~  Charles Lindbergh

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

What better time to study Botany than Spring?  Everything is blooming and beautiful and just there for you to see.

We did a really cool experiment to tie in with our Botany Unit.

Keilee did this entire experiment herself and took ALL the pictures.

GARDEN IN A GLOVE

Here’s the Materials You’ll Need:

 Plastic glove

Permanent marker

Five types of seeds

Cotton balls

Water

Pipe cleaner

Scissors

Soil

Small cups

Step 1 of 5:

Use a marker to write the name of the seeds on each of the glove’s fingers. Write one seed type per finger.

Step 2 of 5:

Dip the cotton balls in water and wring them out. The cotton balls should be slightly damp.

[*Note: That is marker on her fingers, not blood or dirt, although she has had both on her fingers at times]

Step 3 of 5:

Put two or three seeds of the same type into each cotton ball. Put a cotton ball inside each finger of the glove. You may need to use a pencil to push the cotton ball all the way to the tip of the glove’s finger. Make sure the type of seed matches the label written on the finger.

Step 4 of 5:

Blow a small amount of air into the plastic glove and close it with a pipe cleaner. Tape or hang the glove in a warm place, like a sunny window. Keep an eye on the seeds over the next few days – you should start to notice something interesting!

[Note- See the pink on the sprouted pumpkin? It is from the marker which was written on the OTHER side of the glove.  Isn't that cool?]

THEY GREW!!

Step 5 of 5:

Replant in little cups to transplant outside in the garden!

Information:

Each seed contains a baby plant that will start to grow under the right conditions. All a seed needs to begin growing is warmth and water. The first stage in seed growth is called germination, which is when the tiny root emerges from the outer seed covering. Once the seed starts sprouting, it needs soil, room for the roots to grow, sunlight and water.

Now she is about to replant them outside and watch them grow, or get eaten by the squirrels!!  [I'm betting on the squirrels!]

Peas, Pumpkins, Broccoli or Squash anyone???

Happily linking with Theresa and Susan at “Look What We Did”
Go check them out, they have some fabulous resources!

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

“Why try to explain miracles to your kids when you can just have them plant a garden.” ~ Robert Brault

“Nature never hurries. Atom by atom, little by little she achieves her work.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson