Merry Christmas!

Being first-time homeschoolers, we arrogantly thought we'd do school straight through Christmas break.  Well...we didn't.  I'm kidding about the arrogant part, but we were a little surprised to find that, as much as we enjoy school, we did actually want a change of pace for a while.  It was nice just to hang out with family and do Christmasy things without having to worry about schedules and checklists, for a while.

One of the highlights of the Christmas break was a long weekend in Sunriver with the Diefenbaugh side of the family.  We had a blast playing in the snow, playing games, and chatting with family.

This was one of the rare years that we actually spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home.  We did our usual traditions of watching a movie (Polar Express this year), drinking cocoa, and opening PJs on Christmas Eve.  Then the we opened stockings and presents in the morning, after reading the Christmas story.

Because of schedules, we had our Brownlee-side Christmas on New Year's Day in Eugene.  We had our traditional dinner at the Oregon Electric Station and opened gifts in the evening.  The kids enjoyed performing piano pieces and playing with their grandparents and cousins.

We had a great Christmas, and we are looking forward to another wonderful year!

And Now Presenting....The Planet Mars!

At the beginning of our astronomy unit, each of the kids chose a planet that they would eventually do a project and presentation on.  Kyler chose Mars.

He made a paper mache Mars, painted it, labelled it, and prepared a speech highlighting the main facts he had learned about Mars.  I will eventually post a video of the actual  presentation, but for now, here's a picture.

Good job, Kyler!

Martian Mania!

Did you know that the biggest known mountain in the whole solar system is on Mars?  Olympus Mons is three times bigger than Mount Everest.  Since it's a volcano, the kids made a model of it and made it explode, in a variety of colors!

Building Olympus Mons

Another fun event this week was pajama day.  The kids wore pajamas until P.E., which is just after lunch.  We had a "cozy" breakfast of pancakes, warm applesauce, and cocoa.  Reading time was enjoyed on the couch under a warm blanket.  The kids each picked a couple of stuffed animals, which accompanied them to their various stations throughout the day.  We'll definitely repeat it next year.

Kyler's education on PJ day was supervised by "Papa Bear"

Fly Me to the Moon

Since our last post, we've studied the Earth and the Moon.

The emphasis of the Earth chapter was on how God created our home to be the perfect place for us, with perfect rotation speed, atmosphere, mass, etc.  The kids also learned about the layers of the Earth and made a compass out of a sewing needle floating in water.

For our "field trip", each of the kids pretended to be from somewhere besides Earth, and that they were on a field trip to the Earth.  Brennan was from the sun, Ella from Venus, and Kyler from a planet in another solar system.  They made special hats and did a presentation for their fellow visitors on what they'd learned about Earth.  After that, they created alien lunches, followed by an "Earth Dessert", which we pretended was actually made of earth (chocolate pudding, Oreos, and gummy worms).

Alien Hats

mmmm...worms

We also learned about the phases of the moon, the tides, and Apollo 11, capping the lesson off with a peek at the full moon with Kyler's telescope.

Family Night

If you ask our kids what their favorite thing about homeschool is, they'll probably say "CO-OP!!!"  They love getting together with friends and learning from someone besides Mom and Dad for a day.  We love that we get to take advantage of other parents' expertise, and it costs us practically nothing!

One of the highlights of the fall was co-op family night.  We were able to fellowship with other parents, and the students displayed their artwork, performed music, and presented what they had learned in science.

Ella was one of a couple of kids in her class that volunteered

to prepare a speech about the human body.  She chose the femur.

She did a great job preparing and presenting the speech!

Kyler and his partners worked together on a model of the

digestive system.  They explained what they learned 

to the group very well.

We are looking forward to a similar program this spring!

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas

OR..."My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles", depending on if you think Pluto is a planet =).

We've started talking about the planets.  So far, we've covered Mercury and Venus.  We've learned that Mercury is very hot during its day and very cold at night, since it has no atmosphere to hold in the heat.  The opposite is true of Venus; its thick atmosphere makes it the hottest planet, both day and night.  We also learned that Venus rotates the opposite way than all the other planets.  The kids are becoming experts!

One of my favorite things about our curriculum is that it emphasizes the evidence that shows that there is a Creator.  Here are some of the things the kids have learned, in their own words...

Ella: "Venus spins another way than the other planets, so that shows that there couldn't have been a Big Bang."

Kyler: "Since the sun is getting hotter, it would have been too cold for there to have been life on Earth billions of years ago."

Brennan: "God made the Earth."

The kids created model Mercuries out of salt dough.

For their Venus project, they acted out a story about astronauts landing on Venus.  Maybe some day I'll post the video here =).

Next week, we're off to planet Earth!

Somewhere in Outer Space

A couple of weeks ago, we started our new science curriculum!  We will be studying astronomy for the next six months or so.  We decided to kick it all off with a trip to the Evergreen Aviation Space Museum!  We all had a "blast"!  Get it?!  Like a rocket...blasts...off....sorry...=)

Our first project was a scale-ish model of the solar system, made with balloons.  The kids took turns measuring the diameter of the balloons as we blew them up to make sure the relative size was accurate.  The sun and some of the planets have since deflated, but the kids enjoyed making the model and learning about how much bigger some of the planets are than others.

This past week, our focus was the sun.  The next time you see them, ask the kids some questions about the sun, such as what solar flares, sunspots, and solar eclipses are.  They've also learned a lot about light and color.  We weren't able to do all of the sun experiments, since it has been missing for most of the past several days, but we were able to make and use a pinhole box during a quick sun-break yesterday.  The kids thought it was neat that they were able to look at an image of the sun.

Next week, we're off to Mercury!

This isn't necessarily school-related, but the below conversation did take place in the car on the way home from Kindergarten.  Plus, it's so darn cute, I had to record it.

Brennan: "Boy, it's not a good day for building houses."
Mommy: "You're right."
Brennan: "Let me tell you about sunny days.  On sunny days, it's good to drink lemonade."
Mommy: "Really?"
Brennan: "Yeah.  Let me tell you about cold days.  On cold days, if you have a popcicle, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger!"

Crazy kid!

Way Down in Egypt Land

This week, we learned about ancient Egypt.  We read piles of books about the Nile and pyramids and pharaohs and lots more.  The kids learned a ton, but their favorite was the projects.

The boys made throwing sticks and Ella made a paddle doll.

They created clay pottery, which will be painted when it dries.

The crowning achievement was a miniature Egypt, complete with cardboard pyramids and a Nile river made out of blankets.

The "Seedlings"

Yesterday was a Johnny Appleseed day for home school.  The kids have been learning about apples, orchards, and Johnny Appleseed this past week.  They put on a performance of the Johnny Appleseed Song for me (Daddy), where Kyler played piano, Ella sang, and Brennan played "drums" on some toys.  Unfortunately, the band, named "the Seedlings", was only a one-hit-wonder, and will have to be coaxed out of retirement for encore performances!  They really enjoyed the crafts they made today as well (Mommy's craft ideas are always so much more "crafty" than Daddy's!).

Here are the kids memories of the day:

Kyler - "I finished my typing lessons.  Ella, Brennan, and I made a band that we named "the Seedlings", in honor of Johnny Appleseed.  Our big performance was for Dad tonight.  He's a big fan!  We also made apple cards with our memory verse on it (Psalm 17:8) to put in our notebooks for a craft, as well as pots to wear on our heads & potato sack shirts to wear (out of paper bags...).  I had a great day."

Ella - "Well, today we had a really good day because we did home school with mommy.  I got to do some educational games on the computer and do a test in math (that I got 100% on).  I'm also learning to round numbers in math."

Brennan - "I loved my band with Kyler and Ella.  I got to play drums!  I made a Johnny Appleseed suit to wear for our performance.  I made apples with paper: white paper, red paper, green paper, and brown paper.  Everything.  Nothing.  0."

Today, the apple theme continued, but with a science emphasis.  The kids looked at apple cells under the microscope and performed an experiment to see if lemon juice would prevent apple slices from browning.  Also, they created apple life cycle wheels.  Later this afternoon, we will make apple sauce from the apples we picked last weekend, and tomorrow will be apple pie.  Now, that's my kind of chemistry!

Welcome, Sports Fans...

It's the start of another busy week, which was preceded by a busy weekend!

We decided we weren't done celebrating the start of fall, so we had party #2 on Friday.  The kids and I made and decorated autumn-themed cupcakes, we decorated the dining room, and we had a delicious candlelight dinner.














Saturday was soccer, soccer, soccer!  The boys both got their first goals of the season, following their sister's example from last week.

As soon as the last game was over, we headed south and met Grandpa Brownlee at Detering's Orchards.  We picked a couple of bucket-fulls of apples and one pumpkin for each kid.  That evening, we watched the Ducks play Stanford while enjoying pasta and breadsticks at Pizza Hut.  The kids enjoyed sharing cupcakes with Grandpa, as well as reading and talking with him.

Continuing the sports theme, we met Kyler's soccer team (actually, we were the only ones who showed up besides Kyler's coach and his son) at a University of Portland women's soccer game.  They ended up winning on a penalty kick in overtime.  It was very exciting...but Kyler's favorite memory is of the Kettle Corn his teammate shared with him. =)




Today, the studies resumed.  Brennan read a story about a box and drew a picture of a box and what he would put in it.  A ball and a Spongebob Squarepants toy, in case you're curious.  Kyler says he did well on his math test and started lesson 4, which is about equivalent fractions.  For free writing time, he wrote letters to superheros.  He also started a new level in his typing lessons.  Ella wrote a poem about cats and bats.

Fall Party

Kyler:
"Today, I watched a movie called 'The Mysterious Islands' for unit studies.  I watched it because we are talking about creation, and it is a movie about creation vs. evolution.  I liked how it showed animals like the blue footed booby and the black sea turtle.  My favorite part was when it told us about Charles Darwin and how he was wrong.  I also went to my brother's soccer practice and helped his coach.  My friend Mason also helped.  We played 'Kick the Coach' and Mason and I were coaches.  We also played when Brennan's team tried to shoot goals, and Mason rolled balls to them, and I retrieved them from behind the goal and in the goal.  I liked talking with Mason as we did it.  At school, I did lots of other fun things, and we caught a frog, made a habitat for it, and had a fall party.  At the party, we jumped in a pile of leaves and played a game called leaf tag where two people are at the top of the playground, and one person is at the bottom of the playground who walks around the playground to the beat of a song that everyone else chooses.  When the song ends, someone at the top says 'Fall!', and everyone on the playground has to get off the playground and run to a certain point.  I think that the party was a great success."

Ella:
"I had a great day.  You know what Kyler said about the party.  Did he tell you about the leaves we raked?  Well, we raked leaves, then we saw that there weren't enough leaves to jump in.  And, we did unit studies.  We finished a movie about creation and evolution.  Also, we pretended that we were doing a performance.  Can I tell you about it?  OK.  We were having Kyler teach us a music class.  And, we did performances after we practiced them.  The End."

Brennan:
"I did leaves.  I pulled a wagon.  I love you.  I got to do some goals and play a game where we kick the ball at the coach and throw the ball at the coach.  I read a book.  There are millions of things that I read.  I read 'There Was a Small Pig Who Wept Tears' and 'Surprise!'  and 'The Box'."

When Dinosaurs Roamed....Our Living Room!

We've been having a lot of fun with our study of creation. We found a great book called "Dinosaurs by Design", which is written for children, but explains how the evidence supports creationism, not evolutionism. Here are some of the activities we've done:

• The kids had their own dinosaur dig, except we used rice instead of dirt, and lego guy pieces for bones, which they then assembled.
• They saw the powerful effect of water on the rice, illustrating how a catastrophic flood could have created geological phenomena, such as the Grand Canyon.
• I placed "dinosaur bones" (K'nex pieces) in a bag and shook it up, and asked if they thought it had formed into a dinosaur, showing how unlikely it is that a complex creation could happen by chance.
• The kids designed and built their own dinosaurs out of K'nex peices, and we talked about how God had created us in His image, including a desire to be creative.
• We learned about several kinds of dinosaurs, including Iguanadon.  On the globe, we located some of the places in which their fossils were discovered, and we used tape measures outside to show how long and tall they were.

Brennan also got to try his hand at hat design, for crazy hat day at Kindergarten.

Cooperation...Makes It Happen...

...Cooperation...working together...Dig it!

Today was the first day of co-op!  The kids were so excited, and I heard nothing but fantastic reports when I got home.

Kyler immediately got out his Latin book and started reading the first lesson to me.  Can you imagine a 9-year-old that excited about Latin?!  He also enjoyed science.  They talked about cells and inventors from different countries, and next week they will be making edible cells (out of candy).  In P.E., they played link tag and flamingo tag and talking about different muscles.  I guess that crazy P.E. teacher knows what he's doing after all =).

They made pictures in art class which they will later cut out and make into other pictures.  Kyler liked being able to make up his own designs, and he liked using things like pieces of carpet and sponges to make patterns in the paint.  Most of all, he had fun meeting new friends, as well as seeing old ones.

Ella's favorite was recess, because she got to play tag with lots of friends and use up lots of energy.  She also enjoyed their science experiment in which the class mummified an apple slice using baking soda and salt.  Next week, they will compare it to another, non-mummified apple slice.  Of course, she loved P.E., because "My Daddy is the best P.E. teacher in the world", as she kept telling everyone all morning.  She enjoyed playing  flamingo tag amd animal red light / green light.  Finally, Ella was happy they got to eat a picnic lunch outside because of the nice weather.

Brennan spent the morning at Teacher Loekie's.  He says he "painted orange around a meeellions of green."  I'm not sure what that means, but I'm sure we'll find out.  His snack was string cheese and grapes, which he liked, but one of his friends didn't.  He got to come to co-op for lunch and the rest of the afternoon.  The favorite activities were Hi Ho Cherry-O, making play-dough that smells like cherry, and making the letter "A" with felt.

Autumnal Equinox

Brennan's tree and serpent

It's been a while! We've been very busy with school, including our afternoon unit studies, which we've been enjoying. The kids are eager to participate in discussions about passages we read together in the Bible, and they've been coming up with their own related crafts and activities for afterwards.

Ella and Kyler working on their creation timelines

Brennan's leave rubbings

Kyler's leaf rubbings

Another favorite is family exercise in the mornings. The kids take turns picking the exercise, such as riding bikes in our cul-de-sac, walking to the park and playing tag, and Simon Says. During our walk on Friday, we started picking up the first of the colorful autumn leaves. Later that day, we arranged them on the table as decorations and did some leaf rubbings.

As for today, here is what the kids had to say about it...

Kyler:
"Today I played typing games and did my second math test. I went to Brennan's soccer practice and played with my friends. We watched a movie about creation and I read creation books. I also read another book, and wrote an intro for a story. Like always, I had a great time today."

Brennan:
"Today I learned about vowels. I learned about numbers that add up to six. I wrote these two sentences:

One hen sat in a van.
One hen sat in a hat.

I read books. I love you! The end."

Ella:
"I remember when we played tag at the park. It was fun. I played with my friend Gavin. School was fun today. I wrote the words to a song called 'I Love You More Than the Stars.' I haven't figured out the tune yet, but I will figure it out soon. I did math, and a couple days ago or yesterday, I watched lesson 2. Lunch was good. The End. Bye bye."

In the Beginning

Today was a day of beginnings.  It was Brennan's first day of Kindergarten at Teacher Loekie's school.  There were mostly new faces, but there were a couple from last year and a some friends from other places there.

It was also the first day of unit studies, which happened to be about the first day ever!  Scott and the kids read and discussed Genesis 1 and did some related crafts.

Kyler:

"Today, I went to soccer practice again, and I won multiplication and division racing games online.  I also started unit studies.  In unit studies, I started a timeline and made a Earth flipping coin (west/east hemispheres).  I also rode bikes.  I wrote two letters.  I also started a book and finished one.  I had a great day."

Ella:
"I did another poem.  It was a fun one.  And I did some language arts.  I learned about a little snake that couldn't see very well, so he fell in love with a hose.  It helped me learn about capitalization.  I did unit studies today.  We did one chapter in Genesis.  We learned about a part of creation.  And then we made some crafts of the things we learned about.  And then I did cursive.  I'm learning to do cursive.  All done."

Brennan:
"Today at school I made a gate with paper.  And then I saw Boris and I ate string cheese.  I love you, everybody in my class, and in my whole family.  The End."

Welcome to Fort Diefenkid!

Today was a fun day at home school!  Some things seem to take longer on these fun days, though.  The kids' imaginations start revving up & the focus can become less important.  Fort Diefenkids was a project that was imagined, planned, and built without any adult consultation (and I'm proud to say that their engineering feat lasted all day long!).  It sure is nice to be able to re-arrange our schedule to accommodate imagination like that! - Scott

Brennan:
"I liked everything.  I wrote Ella, Kyler, Megan, and Dad in my notebook.  It made me feel happy.  I finished my whole pattern in math.  I love you, family.  And I love grandmas and grandpas and uncles and aunts and cousins."

Ella:
"I played at the park with a boy named Gavin.  It was fun.  I wrote a different version of 'The Three Little Pigs.'  I get to take my math test soon.  I almost finished lesson 1.  Lesson 1 is about units and tens and hundreds.  We did chores too!  Just like always.  We had Cocoa Krispies for breakfast.  We get to do unit studies some day."

Kyler:
"I got to go to my dad's and Brennan's soccer practices.  When I went to Brennan's soccer practice, I played with my friend Mason.  We played Bionicles and Hero Factory mixed together.  Before that, me, Ella, and Brennan built a fort by putting blankets on my and Brennan's bed like curtains.  I wrote a story called 'The Ant Who Went On', which is about an ant who was bringing a cake to a caterpillar.  The moral of the story was 'If you are doing something important, stick with it.'  I also did math in my math book.  I am excited about taking my test soon.  I also read part of my book.  My book is called 'Landslide!'  I had a great time today."

Welcome to Fort Diefenkid!

Books, books, and more books...

Yesterday was our first trip to the library to gather resources for our upcoming unit on creation.  We're going through the Bible sequentially and building a unit around selected topics, integrating subjects such as Bible, science, history, geography, art, technology, and life skills.

We came home with a rather large pile of books :).  Which is good.  I'm looking forward to getting started on the Bible portion of the unit next week, as are the kids.

The kids had their first soccer games today.  All of them played really well and had fun.  We won't talk about the scores =).  Kyler's team is the "Golden Eagles", Brennan's is the "Rockets", and Ella's is, of course, the "Butterflies".  With pink shirts.

Now we're off to the store to get supplies for our first math application project...brownies!!!

O Queen

Queen, I will give you a quilt.
O Queen, I will give you a quail.
O Queen, I will ask you a question.
Do you have a duck that quacks?

Oh yes, I do.

by Ella Diefenbaugh

"I don't go to school. I go to HOME school!"

Day three was supervised by Daddy. The kids must have enjoyed it, because I heard Ella telling her soccer coach, "I don't go to school. I go to HOME school!", with a very proud look on her face.

Ella:
"My favorite thing about today was soccer practice. I liked to see my coach. I liked the stretches. I did a split. I liked kicking the ball into the goal. For language arts in school today, I wrote a thank you email to Grandma Brownlee because she took great care of us. And I said 'Thank you, Grandma. I had lots of fun. I liked it when you took us to a water park.' That's all."

Kyler:
"My favorite thing about homeschool today was that I started math. For math, I watched a movie and learned about fractions with unit blocks. I also liked to type an email to Grandma Brownlee and keep working on my story. I had a great day."

Brennan:
"I love you. I read a book with Daddy and made a cow sign. Some day, I'm going to nail it on a pole. Not a light pole, just a wood pole."

I'm looking forward to tomorrow!