HOPE Zoo Trip!

Today we had our zoo trip to kinda end our homeschool year! Aimee was able to get some great scavenger hunts!!!!! Thank You Aimee! There was a ton of people there, but we were able to see all the animals that we wanted to! We went to see the arctic animals, then we went to see the Africa animal. The kids were all very excited to see the giraffes! There were walking around! Next we headed over the bridge and went into the aviary. There we saw all kinds of birds, but the favorite of the kids was the Rhinoceros Horned Billed Toucan. It was huge and made the weirdest sound the the kids kept trying to imitate! Next we headed to the Primate area. Lily wanted to see the "monkeys" all week! Se we stopped to watch the Orangutans for a while and then we saw the gorillas. The male silver back gorilla came right up to the window and posed for everyone! It was really funny! After that we went to the garden behind the conservatory to eat lunch. It was a nice relaxing time sitting the the grass and watching the kids play cops and robbers! :) We ended by checking out the fish and the reptiles! The kids had fun and were all worn out (at least mine were)! Here are the pictures that I managed to get!

Africa!!!!

Rhinoceros Horned Billed Toucan

  

Orangutan

Lily just watched and watched!

Gorilla Posing. (sorry the lighting was bad)

We ate in the shade of these bushes. The boys thought they were a great place to hide!



Here are the kids looking at a Python.

I hope that everyone can join us for our next event! My mom now has a pool, so we are planning a pool party soon! I hope everyone had fun today! I know that we did!

Sprangler Candy Factory!

Well our trip to the candy factory was a great success! The kids were able to eat suckers to their hearts content! It was wonderful! The tour guild did a great job of explaining things and keep everyone interested! Almost everyone came, and it was wonderful to spend time together and learn quite alot about candy! Jackson even got to sit up front and "help" drive the trolley! Some of the things that I learned were:
~that the flavor in the candy is all extremely flammable and if you get it on your skin you must be treated for chemical burns!
~ that the Sprangler Candy factory is the only company in the US to make Candy Canes
~that they make 10,000 suckers a minute!
These are a few things that I remember. Here are a few pictures that I took. If you have other ones that you would like to put up let em know! :)

Dress made out of Dum Dum sucker wrappers

Up close of the dress!

Dum Dum sucker wrapper purse! Carly and Caroline thought this should go with the dress!

Dum Dum drum!

Hunter stuck his head out the side!

We all had to wear hair nets in the factory.

Here is a picture of the trolley. We weren't allowed to take pics on the tour.

All tuckered out! :) So cute!

What did you like best about the trip?



New Fun, New Beginings!

Well we are well on our way to a great year! Here at my house we have gotten our school room organized and I started a blog about our school projects! And we will all be getting together this week to talk about what amazing things we will do this year with HOPE! I know that we will think up some amazing things! I cant wait and I hope that you are all excited too! So put those thinking caps on, and check out my blog if you get a chance!

We are all in this together!

Wow it has been a long time since I have posted anything. Sorry about that! Its seems like there is a ton of things going on here lately! Fall is here now (for the most part) and it has gotten me thinking about schooling, and schooling has gotten me thinking about next year! (Yes, next year already! :) Carly will be in Kindergarten and I have been tossing ideas around about the best way to teach her as this year goes on and as we enter full force into schooling next year. And in my thoughts I realized that no matter what I do, no matter what choice I make there will have to be changes, challenges, and sacrifices (ugh. I wish there was an easy way out lol). I also realize that you guys (and every other parent in the world who has to educate their child) have to deal with the challenges and sacrifices too. This made me extremely thankful for the people that I know who are there to help talk things through, who can offer ideas, and who are there to understand the fears and dreams. And that I realized is exactly what HOPE is all about. Its not necessarily about homeschooling, its about educating our kids to be the best, most well rounded, and happiest kids they can be. For most of the group that is homeschooling right now, but maybe that changes. Maybe some find a school that will work out super well for their kids, maybe someone cant handle the time demands, maybe someone has to go back to work because of family situations and cant homeschool anymore. Those thing happen everywhere, and does that mean that they are no longer welcome to HOPE? No! We are a group here to support everyone who wants a great education that will make their kids amazing people and happy in life. In fact out name means " Helping Ohio Parents Educate" not just homeschooling! So I want to encourage you to invite anyone who might need some support to come to the meetings, to visit our website, and to ask questions! We are here to share our hopes and joys, our fears and insecurities, and our successes! Just remember that we are in this together! Happy Schooling! :)

PS. I thought that this picture was funny! lol Our picnic in May was SO COLD! :)

Summer Fun and Relaxing Learning

Summer is half way over and it has been a great time! I had all of these great plans to do our unit studies all year, but it hasnt exactly worked out that way! We were all set to study trees, but Carly all of a sudden got way out of control! She was crying all the time, and if she couldnt do something perfectly, then it was a store of hurricane proportions! So I backed off. She told me that she wanted to learn about Lanie ( the American Girl Doll that she bought who learns to have adventures out in her back yard). So I did that. We just played in the back yard! She loved it! We looked at our plants, planted out garden, watched out birds, and caught our bugs! She was very impressed by the Red Admiral Butterfly we caught, and we learned that it eats bird poop and rotting fruit. ( she even named it Jackson!). I cut a little house out of bushes in our yard that were dead. It was big enough for both of the girls to stand in! ( I really need to cut those bushed lol).

The other thing that really got us thinking this summer was mom's great idea to have discovery weeks. She decided that she would pick an idea and let the kids explore it on their own. So one week she did dirt and gave them tons of bowls, pans, spoons, dirt and water. They made mud pies and learned about the different consistency of mud. They played all week. The next week it was water, and they had colors, straws, bowls, tubing, buckets, corks, etc. Carly loved that so much we took the idea home and had a water kitchen out side that week too! We played with mixing colors and pouring. We also did a bubble day! Talk about fun! There were bubbles, soap, and water everywhere! This week is sculpture week and we are playing with clays! It should be fun and I cant wait to see what they come up with!

So I have learned that my ideas sometimes get in the way of learning and that Carly (I'm sure most kids) is presented with ideas and opportunities then will learn more, learn better, and have a bunch more fun in the process! I guess I need to relax a little! Its easier on me too! :) Has anyone else had any great ideas or summer fun? Let me know, I'd love to hear what you all are doing! Happy Summer!

Naming your mission!!!

Discovery Day Homeschool! That is the name that I am thinking of naming our homeschool. What do you all think? I think that it says what I want out homeschool to be about. Sure we need to learn all the state required stuff, but I want her to love doing it! I want her to really understand what she learns and I want, more then anything, for to never loose her enthusiasm for discovering new ideas! So this brings me to the question that I want to see if any of you have thought of, what is your mission in educating your kids? What do you want for them? I think that having a really clear idea of what you want out of your homeschooling experience. As parents out first and primary mission is to make sure that out kids are ready in the best possible way to be the best citizens they can be. How will you do this? Summer is here and now we have a chance to really prep for the fall that comes upon so fast! lol The homeschool catalogs are starting to flow in and all of a sudden the school supply list starts to grow! lol Having the goals in mind before getting into the catalogs can save a ton of time( and money ;) For me, I love doing unit studies and preparing so many different topics. I love also to have the freedom to take off and learn about whatever strikes out fancy! Our best friend is the library!!!! lol So I really encourage you to find YOUR mission, hold on to it, and let it shape all you do in your education, even if your not sure your are a homeschooler! All parents are educators and have to determine the best way to educate their family! Dont just pick the easiest thing, the cheapest thing, or the common thing without making sure that it is the best thing. Happy Educating! :)

I get caught up too!

Well everyone, I have just found out that I dont always practice what I preach! Yikes! Thats always a humbling thought! lol We have been hard at work doing our around the world study, and while we have been having fun, I realized that the outdoors are calling and we are both loosing interest- Fast! So mom asked why we didnt just move on and it hit me, I can!!!! Isnt that my goal in homeschooling? Isnt my goal to make sure that I am feeding her interest to learn? Well her interest is moving outside as the weather gets better. Well silly me thought that I need to finish what I planned out. Why? Cause it was all written up! Does it need to be done? No not she's only 4 and we have experienced a wide variety of cultures. Mission accomplished! Do any of you do that? Do you think you have to finish something even though everyone is board and got the point of the study a long time ago? I guess that i am not perfect after all ( bummer). This is something that I know I will need to work on as we move through the years. If we have learned what we are meant to learn then we can move on. Why beat a dead horse? That's not say that we dont need to finish things, just that if a concept has been learned then we get to try a new on. If we dont the work become a boring and horrible thing, for us and the kids.

As summer approaches I also realize that I dont need to keep schooling, but i want to. I want to keep doing new things with the girls. Pirates! That one of the things that we are going to study. Dont ask why, but Carly insists that it is something she should know. So I guess that is another sign that after experiencing the wide world and it cultures for 5 weeks now ( i guess that is a long study for a 4 year old), we are off to Neverland!!!! lol Keeping the fire is hard, but maybe a little change is all we need! So Happy Summer Schooling! Make sure that as we move into the off season that we can find something that makes us all have fun and love the learning!!!!!