Color Class~ Week 1

Our first Co-Op event was put on my mom! She is doing a color concept course for kids 5th grade and under her basement art studio! Our first class the other day was a huge success! The kids learned about primary colors and how they are the the basis of all colors in the color wheel! We also talked about how certain color stand out more then others in a painting, and about patterns. The kids then had time to paint a repeating pattern picture using Primary Colors! They turned out really well and everyone had a great time! We will be having our color class once a week for 8 weeks. Here are the pictures from our first class!

Here is our art studio all ready for work! :)

We first had a teaching session....

....then everyone got to work!

Here is Bunny (my 5 year old) working!

The goal was to paint the same primary color pattern in all 8 squares on the paper.

Here are the finished painting! They turned our really well!

Even our smallest artist got a chance to work! They worked with bingo painters for the first part of the class!

Here is Pup (my 2 year old). She is really proud of her work!

So is her friend!

Even the baby had fun!

After the bigger kids had finished, the little ones were invited to paint too!



All in all this was such a HUGE success! The ids loved it and I really think that they learned alot! We cant wait till next week! See you then! Happy Schooling!

Welcome to our new Blog and Group Plan!!!!



Well everyone, here it is!!!! The new and improved HOPE in the Home blog site! I am really excited to be using this space to keep track our fun events and to showcase the work that our kids do! We are all here to educate our kids and doing it together is the best way! :) So with that being said, HOPE is moving toward a more Co-Op style group! The goal is to share the skills and information that we know well with everyone in the group so we can all learn the most we can! It is such a great way to really expose our kids to a variety of subjects that we as parents may not know much about personally. So I really want to encourage you all to dig deep and if there is something that you are really good at or that you have a speciality in, I really encourage you to think about how you can share that with the group! If you are a part of the group, then you could set up a class or a project that we can do together. If you are one of our really great readers, then we would LOVE to have you as a guest blogger! So if you know alot about a subject or are passionate about something, contact me and we can host you as a guest blogger! My email information is on our contact page at the top!
So that is what we are hoping to achieve in the HOPE in the Home blog space! Here's to a great school year and to all of you who educate!!!!! Happy Schooling!

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!