Do Homeschoolers Get Snow Days?

-35 Degrees below zero?!  Even this native Minnesotan had to bunker down and stay home for a few days!  Public schools were cancelled for two days.  When the girls heard about it, they wondered, "do homeschoolers get snow days?"  Well, sort of.  How's that for an answer?

Monday was the day of the extreme cold.  In fact, some parts of Minnesota were as cold as parts of Mars.  ;)  Two Cowgirls Homeschool Academy went ahead with school as usual, much to my girls' dismay.  Our play group was cancelled, so we did an extra science lesson on Monday so we'd be ahead of the game.

Elise only wanted to do "Lego school," so here it is.  Thank you Pinterest for the idea ;)

Tuesday we were stir crazy, so after morning classes, we called the cousins and went out to Nickelodeon Universe.  It was so fun!  Bud surprised the girls by showing up at the park.  I'm so glad he came out because he encouraged Millie to go on rides that she wouldn't go on without him (the log chute and roller coaster).

A brief trip to the American Girl store to check out Isabelle, the girl of the year

Thursday it was finally starting to warm up, and fortunately for us, a family cancelled for the morning class at Silverwood.  We were able to go out for quinzhee building and a lesson about survival gear.  It was "warmer" but still frigid.  It was nice to get some fresh air, despite almost freezing our little toes off.

Thursday afternoon was "business as usual," with a history and science lesson.

Fun with geoboards

Feeling sound waves

Friday was girl scouts!  Millie started working on her drawing badge, and Elise earned her Daisy center and one petal.

Millie's officially a Junior

Elise received her Daisy pin

The girls all made a "melty the snowman" craft

Melty in sunglasses

Princess Melty

The Daisys and Brownies learned about Giuseppe Arcimboldo

New Year, New Ideas

 Wow, our Christmas break was so fantastic!  It was low key, relaxing, and I did a lot of thinking and planning (two of my favorite things to do!).




Our schedule is going to be quite different now.  Here's how it'll go:

Monday - 3 R's in the morning, playgroup in the afternoon
Tuesday - 3 R's in the morning, Elise will have Doodle Bugs in the afternoon (nature study, art, etc).  Millie will use that time to work on school, play with friends, or do projects I have set up for her.
Wednesday - 3 R's and science
Thursday - 3 R's and history
Friday - 3 R's and 1.5 hour kids choice learning activity, and 1.5 hours moms choice learning activity.

Of course, we'll be flexible if things come up, but I find I work better if I have a schedule.  I think my stress from the first half of the school year came from not having one.  No worries though, I have every day planned out from now until the end of the school year :)  It makes me happy.

Friday is a big change for us, and the part I'm most excited about!  I asked the girls a few days ago what they'd like to learn about.  Millie said art, and Elise said brains.  After doing a little planning, I put together our Friday day of exploratory fun!

We started out with art.  I went to this site, which I found on Pinterest.  We did One Point Perspective drawings.  It was so fun, they turned out great! Here they are:

Millie age 9

Elise age 5

After that, we watched a video about brains, and then Elise made a model of a brain out of play-doh.

During "moms choice" time, I had Millie work on her jewelry badge for Girl Scouts.  She watched a video to learn about jewelers tools, and a video about an artist that overcame obstacles in her life to do what she dreamed of doing (making jewelry for a living). Then she made a hair clip out of mini orgami, and made beads out of polymer clay to put on a bracelet.  She'll do a couple more projects before earning her first badge!

Christmas break was super refreshing and badly needed, but I'm so glad to be back at school with a new plan!  

Christmas '13

Bad photographer!  I barely took any pictures this Christmas, and the ones I did take, were on my camera phone.  Here's some of the fun we had this season:

Set up the Christmas Village (sort of).  The girls spent hours playing with it.

We went and saw Frozen.  It was Elise's first time in a theater!  They loved the movie.

Decorated snowman and gingerbread cookies at Girl Scouts

We went bell ringing with friends.

Went to a play (Jingle Bells Batman Smells) with friends.

Went to The Landing.  Saw Santa, reindeer, and learned how other cultures celebrated the season in the 1850's.

Kick sledding.

Ready and waiting for Santa!

We took a looooong break from school this year!  It was fantastic!  The best part of all was getting to celebrate with our families on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Everyone is in good health, and we have so much to be thankful for!  Lots of great memories created :)

Advent Study - Celebrating With Family

Today we continued our Wee Folk Art Advent Study!  We're going a little bit out of order, but that's OK, right?!

Today's focus was about celebrating with family, and the comforts of home.  We read Christmas In The Big Woods.  Millie recently re-read Little House in the Big Woods, so it was fun for her to see the picture book version, and make comparisons.

Just like Ma Ingalls, I made gingerbread boy pancakes (just regular pancake batter, dumped onto the griddle in the shape of gingerbread boys).  The girls thought this was really cute!







Then, we talked about what our favorite "comforts of home" are around the Christmas season.  They drew pictures of their ideas with the fabric crayons, and we transferred the pictures onto a quilt square.  Now they have two quilt squares ready to go!



The other activity suggested in the study was to make gingerbread houses.  I decided not to do this because the girls did this at 4-H last Friday.  They had so much fun building a HUGE gingerbread house, complete with furniture, Santa, and a Christmas tree.  They won "best use of materials."  Good job kids!

Click here to find out what we did for our Angel Study!

Advent Study - Angels

Now that Thanksgiving is over, our Christmas celebration is is full swing!  We do so many fun things during the month of December, that the kids really get to appreciate the "Christmas spirit" for a full 25 days (not just on Christmas Eve and Christmas day).  In fact, when I asked Millie what her favorite part about Christmas is, she responded with "the feeling I get in my heart during the Christmas season."  I love it!

This year, we're doing the Wee Folk Art Advent Celebration.  It kicked off with an "angels" study.  So, that's what we did yesterday and today.  We made a few changes to fit our needs (well, to fit our supply closet, really).

Here's what we did:

In the morning the girls got a note in their advent quilt saying that school was cancelled for the day, and that we'd spend the day doing angel crafts instead.  I had a bag on the table with our supplies in it, for them to look through while I slept in.

The first thing we did was read The Littlest Angel.  I'll be honest, we didn't really like this story.  It was about a four year old that died, and became an angel.  He didn't fit in in heaven, and was lonely, dirty, and annoying.  I guess I don't believe anyone that goes to heaven would be lonely :(  While I read, I gave the girls a challenge to build something with the theme "angel" out of Legos.  Elise didn't participate, but Millie made this cool angel sculpture.




Afterwards, we made wool roving angels.  I bought this roving from Amazon, and found that it was enough to make two angels.

I didn't originally think it'd be enough to make two angels, so I picked up some additional roving at the farm.  Since we didn't need it, Millie tried her hand at wool dying with tea.  Next up:  wool dying with coffee.

Then, the girls used fabric crayons and drew pictures of angels that we then transferred onto quilt squares.  By the end of this study, they'll each have 4 quilt squares that they can sew together to make a little blankie for themselves.  Since Millie drew her angel with a harp, we decided to listen to some harp music while we colored.

We ran out of time, but the next day we made angel bites.  They smell so good while "cooking."  Here's the recipe:

Angel Bites

2 egg whites, room temperature

1/2 t. cream of tarter

2/3 c. super fine sugar

1 t. vanilla

1 c. chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350.

Beat the egg whites until foamy.  Add half of the sugar, a little at a time.  Then, add the vanilla and the rest of the sugar.  Beat until stiff (this will take a long time.  Don't give up!). Fold in the chocolate chips.  Drop 1 t. at a time onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Place in the oven, turn the oven off, and let them sit in there UNDISTURBED for at least 6 hours.  

Enjoy!

And just for fun, here's a picture of the girls meeting with Santa last weekend.  Elise wants a barbie castle and a car for her stuffed animals, and Millie wants a mermaid tail and a puppy.

Check out other holiday craftiness, here!

A Perfect Homeschool Day

Since I've been so absorbed in keeping my sanity for the past few months, I haven't blogged about our day to day schooling, which is really too bad!  Even though I've been uncomfortable with things since school started, I must say that the girls have been learning a lot, having a lot of fun, developing great friendships, and digging into subjects that they love (history and science).

Here's a sample of a (very rare) stay at home day.

We started out the day learning about science.  We're talking about brains right now.  We already read a few books about them.  Now we're digging a little deeper by learning about Phineas Gage, making model brains, and watching brain surgery!  We didn't go as far as to do a dissection, which was on the schedule originally.  I just can't do it.  Watching a video of a little girl cutting a brain with a butter knife on youtube almost did us in.  Barrrrf.  Here's the link for those awesome brain helmets ;)

After our science fun, we got down to the nitty-gritty.  Millie did a spelling test, math drills, and a typing lesson on the computer, and a math lesson.  Elise did some math and reading in our newly formed "Kindergarten Corner".  It's a special place for her do do her work, where we can set up a little station that doesn't need to be taken down each day.  She loves it!

After lunch we did a history lesson, where we learned about Nicola Tesla, read about the West, and baked cowboy cookies.

At this point, we all needed a big break, so we walked to the Children's Museum for a little art and energy-burning session, only to find out our membership expired.  Sad!  At least it was a gorgeous day for a walk.  So nice!  I didn't even need a coat :)

Before we called it a day, we read Woody, Hazel and Little Pip by Elsa Beskow and did a felt craft that I've been meaning to do for about a month and a half.  This was our final Autumn activity that I really wanted to do before moving onto the next season.  Now we're ready to move on to Thanksgiving "stuff"!  Gobble gobble.

What next?  A nap for me!  I'm exhausted after a long but very fulfilling day!

The Best Advise EVER.

This has been a really trying year for me.  Not because anything "wrong" has happened, but because I'm less organized than I usually am, I overbooked our schedule, and I'm having a hard time adjusting to teaching two kids at two completely different levels.

Public school has been calling my name.  I was 70% sure I'd put the kids back in school next year.  It's not what I really want, but like I said, this year is really taking its toll on me.  I'm sure I'm not alone.  It really helps to have the support from other homeschool moms!!  Here's how a friend (you know who you are!) answered my request for advise:

"Your kids should be doing more house work.  Structure time, not content.  Throw out your curriculum.  When you need a break, send the kids to their room and have a glass of wine.  Schedule regular project time daily where they get to do what they want.  Require that they pick it up when they're done.  Make Millie do her own laundry.  Have her cook dinner once a week.  This will make her feel worth while and release you.  Drink wine while she cooks.  Make sure you spend an hour a day doing something for YOU.  This will make you happy and set a good example for them.  Send them to their room when you are stressed, even if they're not in trouble.  For at least an hour.  The results are sweet.  Kids need more alone time to process life than we give them."

Those text messages seriously saved me from a nervous breakdown.  And, I'm glad other moms appreciate wine as much as I do!  :)

Anywhoo, things are better around here.  I still haven't implemented everything she advised me to do, but I'm getting there.  As time goes on, our schedule is clearing up, and I'm able to make some changes.  It feels great!

Here's what we've been up to the past few weeks:

Lots of science projects 

Visited the Russian Museum of Art.  Fascinating!  Who is that kid with us?  That's Maddie!  We babysat her for 10 days.

Lots of outdoor play

Science museum visit

Celebrated Halloween with friends

Went to the MN zoo

Elise continues to love her Doodle Bugs class!

They took a water power class at the Mill City Museum

Millie got her first job cat sitting.