Our Homeschool Blog

You’re Invited: Animal Explorers Edmodo Group

debbieag — Mon, 16 May 2011 22:02:25 +0000

Celebrating Easter with Kiki

debbieag — Wed, 11 May 2011 21:00:56 +0000

On April 24, 2011, we got to show Kiki, our Australian visitor, how we celebrate Easter. Here she is posing with some colored eggs.

We’ve also created a Popplet about how we (and others in the United States) celebrate Easter.

Please visit James’ blog to hear what he has to say about how we celebrate Easter. Maggie has also written a post on her blog as well. They would enjoy getting comments.

Do you have any special Easter traditions?

Patriot’s Day Holiday

debbieag — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 08:56:34 +0000

Today, we learned more about the American Revolutionary War because it is a Massachusetts state holiday called Patriot’s Day. The holiday marks the date of the first battles of the American Revolution which began on April 19, 1775. These battles were in Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. The American colonists from Britian began their fight for independence from British rule. The war ended in 1781. The United States signed a Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 (The 4th of July is a major holiday in the USA), but was not “officially’ recognized as independent until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

KiKi has arrived!

debbieag — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 02:19:31 +0000

After our hike to Moore State Park, we came home to find a package from Australia! We have been waiting for our “exchange student” (aka Travel Buddy) since we sent Rocket off to Muswellbrook, Australia last month.

We are so happy Kiki the Koala is finally here. We can tell KiKi’s family cares about her a lot. They made her a beautifully painted travel box which included a pillow and a blanket. She came with a passport and a journal. The journal had some entries to teach us about Koalas. We are going to journal her visit with us so her family can learn about the USA. We were delighted to find some souvenirs in the box for us including an Australian flag, postcards, coins, bookmarks, tattoos, a wombat puzzle,and notecards.

Australia Close Up

Moore State Park

debbieag — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:29:08 +0000

Things are beginning to warm up so we took advantage of the nice weather we had yesterday and visited one of our favorite spots for hiking, Moore State Park. The park has several trails which surround Turkey Hill Brook. The energy produced from the waterfalls was once used to power several mills in the 1700s. We took our cameras and have uploaded our favorite photos to our blogs. Be sure to visit James, Maggie, and Delia to see their photos from our hike.

Skype with Conneaut, Ohio

debbieag — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:44:15 +0000

On March 14, we got a chance to Skype with Mrs. Tisch’s class in Conneaut, Ohio. We discussed the differences between our homeschool and their public school. My children made their very first Venn Diagrams to organize the information. Find out more by visiting the blogs of my students: James, Maggie & Delia.

Skype with B4 in New Zealand

debbieag — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:22:42 +0000

On Thursday afternoon, we had the pleasure of Skyping with B4, Mrs. McKenzie’s class, in New Zealand. We found it interesting that it was actually Friday morning in New Zealand.

The topic of discussion was about our favorite foods. The children in B4 took turns sharing the contents of their lunch boxes. We discovered that we ate many of the same foods. We also learned about a new flavor of ice cream called Hokey Pokey which consists of vanilla ice cream with bits of crunchy toffee.

We discussed gardening and the types of flowers and vegetables that we grow. Since it is autumn in New Zealand, they are enjoying a fine harvest of grapes. We are, of course, still waiting for the snow to melt and the weather to get a bit warmer before we can plant in the garden. This year, we will work on better protection from woodchucks!

We also talked about sports and learned that Rugby is very popular in New Zealand although it is not popular here in the United States. We were surprised to find that many of the students in B4 were also learning karate.

We were also fortunate enough to meet Quicksilver. Quicksilver is their class mascot and is a Kea bird.

Be sure to take a look at the blog posts from Maggie, James, and Delia about what they learned.

Rocket’s First Adventure

debbieag — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 06:58:33 +0000

On March 1, 2011, we sent Rocket on his first adventure to visit with a homeschooling family in Australia. Here is a short video of the children getting him ready for his long voyage.

Meet Rocket!

debbieag — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 06:25:59 +0000

Meet our class mascot! Rocket is a chimpanzee (not to be confused with a monkey – See this funny YouTube Monkey song).

Robert Goddard, the Father of Modern Rocketry, is famous for the first successful launch of a liquid-fueled rocket from our town. Since chimpanzees had been used in space exploration in the 1960s by NASA, we decided to pick a chimp for our mascot.

Rocket is excited about traveling the world and learning about new people, places, and cultures. Our plan is to send him to visit classrooms all over the world.

Here are some photos of Maggie & James preparing for Rocket’s adventures.

Maggie works at the sewing machine to convert a patriotic towel into a travel bag as Rocket supervises her work.

Meanwhile, James calculates the dimensions for Rocket’s passport photo.

We decided that sewing the passport together would work better than staples so James tries his hand at the sewing machine while Rocket offers him words of encouragement.

Stay tuned to find out where Rocket is going to visit!

Angry Bird – Creative Writing Exercise

debbieag — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 20:39:38 +0000

We were sitting at the table eating lunch when James was inspired to write a creative story about his newly acquired Angry Bird stuffed toy. Delia and Margaret were eager to help with the story and I asked them to either take photos or create a drawing to go with the story.