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What else has been going on around here…
- We Made It! December 22, 2025
- We Make Do, So Can You! November 2, 2025
- Twice in 3 Days October 31, 2025
- Processing Day October 26, 2025
- Raspberry Saskatoon Mead October 18, 2025
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Category Archives: Homeschool
We started this lap book the first week in February. For this session we watched copious amounts of YouTube videos about desert biomes. Lesson enrichment included crafts like mask making and sand art. And we planned to prepare some prickly pear cactus to eat, if we could have found some locally. We incorporated lessons about sand and silica and glass as well. So this module was heavy on the crafting and very hands on.
Since my kiddos were sick during this beginning of this lesson plan, we relied more heavily on videos. Even when your sick you can still watch a video. 👍🏼
We also spent a fair amount of time discussing sand. What is sand made of? We learned that sand is mostly rock particles but can also contain glass, bone, shell or coral fragments and more commonly in today’s age, plastic particles. (Of course this includes beach sand in addition to desert sand.)
So after a series of sand composition, construction use (desert sand does not work well for construction purposes) and magnetic sand experiment videos we made some sand art!
There were lots of writing practice sheets, some math and endless desert fact sheets! Lap books are a lot of fun.
Apparently it’s too much to ask of these northern grocery stores to stock cactus in the fresh produce dept. So we’re going to have to be satisfied with pickled nopalitos. Which the entire family approves of, to some degree.
And that’s it for another fascinating study of our amazing planet’s diversity. What’s up next? Good question.
Lil Bit and Lil Mister have been working on a Rainforest Lap Book lately. We’ve watched lots of YouTube videos about rainforest facts: animals, vegetation, and conservation.
They’ve colored and pasted their bits and pieces together to create an informative little folder. And today we topped it off with making rainforest gum from scratch.
I like having them do lap books because they can take as little or as much time as they (or I) like creating and gathering information. It’s hands on so better for their learning style. Having something that they make to eat or drink is always fun. Experiential learning, tasting their lesson.
They also learned about medicine that comes from the rainforests of the world like quinine. So they got to sip some tonic water to taste it! Not exactly their next favorite beverage.
Next on the list is a desert lap book. Woo hoo, more fun times. And I think we’ll get some cactus to cook and eat.
Our homeschool group hosted the second annual holiday/winter party craft show today. Three of my kiddos were inspired to create goods to sell. A great learning opportunity.
The oldest had her stickers and digital art, of course. But this year she added some graphic acrylic charms and jewelry. The Alaska shaped keychains were popular!
Lil Bit got in on the action by creating some jewelry too. She had an array of earrings, bracelets and zipper pulls. She made the first sale with a nice pair of earrings!
Little Mister spent his time creating fridge magnet clips and snowmen magnets. They were very popular! He got very creative when designing these clips. I was quite impressed with his style.
They two girls manned the booth and handled the transactions. They had to keep a record of who sold what so they could rightfully divide the profits up at the end of the day.
They each were pretty happy with their earnings. Thing 1 needs to get her shop going so she can sell her inventory!!
All of that learning plus they got to see some friends and celebrate our STUCO sponsored food drive for the local food bank. Raising 615 pounds of food in total! WTG IDEA!!
This year marks 8 decades since the attack on Pearl Harbor. There are very few veterans of that era left. It’s up to the rest of us to teach their story to the next generation.
All history is important. It explains the how and why we got to where we are now. It allows us to take pride in our good deeds and more importantly, to learn from our mistakes. If we don’t teach a full history then we do ourselves, those who came before us and those yet to come a grave disservice.
This week we’ll be talking about WWII, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and many other details of that dark time. With one history buff in the household who loves this topic I’m sure we’ll be in for a lot of enlightenment!
This part of history is personal to us. My Grandfather served during this conflict. He was injured severely. By G-d’s Grace he recovered but the scars remained throughout his life.
When I was in Hawaii many years ago, I took the opportunity to visit the Pearl Harbor National Memorial and Pacific Historic Parks in Honolulu. It was very somber. There were people of all nationalities there, including Japanese. We are all connected to this history. The park has adopted the theme for this year’s commemoration: Valor, Sacrifice, and Peace.
Here are some resources for learning about Pearl Harbour.
Share your thoughts, links or resources in the comments.
Alaska on my mind... 