Almost a 7th Grader!

We were outside the other day and had a little impromptu photo shoot, you can tell it was not planned since there is green paint on Z's arms...oh well! :) She's a busy girl, which is a good thing!

She is so excited for this year of school...we've been counting down the days until we officially start in on schoolwork. We are thinking up some fun new back-to-school traditions since this is our first year of homeschooling, one of which is this little All About Me questionnaire which I had Z fill out below...

7th Grade Questionnaire 

Answers typed out by Zoey

My favorite food: Pickles, Mac & Cheese, Plain Salads With Olives, Cake, And Buttered Noodels.

Foods I'd rather avoid: Baked Beans, Lasagna, And Fish.

My favorite things to learn: I Love Science (Especially Herbal Science), Drama (Acting Tips), Dance, Writing, And Grammar. 

My favorite color: Bubblegum Pink & Tye-Dye!

My best friends are: Noley, Gracie, Ava, Leah, Hannah, Ruby, Kristina, and Katherine.

My favorite games to play: I Like Playing With My Barbie Dolls (I Usually Pretend They Are On Spy Missions), Playing With American Girl Dolls, I Like Playing Clue (The Harry Potter Version), Playing With Stuffed Animals, I LOVE Building With Legos, Playing Fairy Games And Building Fairy Houses, And The Board Game WildCraft! 

When I have free time I like to: Sew, Play With My Dog (His Name Is Leo, He Is An Adorable Cocker Spaniel, And Enjoy The Outdoors! 

My favorite books are: All The Harry Potter Books (I Have Read Them ALL Like 15 Times!), The Homeschool Liberation League, Nancy Drew, Little House In The Big Woods, Don't Stay Up Late, Moon Runner, And A Midsummer Nights Dream (The Play Version). 

My favorite movies and TV shows are: Boy Meets World, Gilmore Girls, Full House, Arthur, Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer, All The Harry Potter Movies (Except The 4th A.K.A The Goblet Of Fire), And Aquamarine! 

My favorite holiday(s) are: Christmas, Valentines Day, and Thanksgiving! 

Things I do well: Acting, Dance, Drawing, Science, Writing, Hair-styling, And Reading.

Things I need to practice more: Singing And Playing The Recorder! 

My favorite place to go: Downtown Minocqua! 

My favorite family activities: Hiking, Sledding, And Playing With Our Dog, Leo! 

My favorite thing about home: It's Cozy And Looks Like A Ginger Bread House! 

My favorite things to do outside: Practice Gymnastics, Adventure In The Woods, Collect Herbs, Play With Our Dog Leo, Bike, Run, And Walk Down To The Creek. 

My favorite chore: Shaking Our Echinacea Tincture! 

My least favorite chore: Cleaning Up Toys! 

My favorite song: I Don't Really Have One But I Like The Oldies! 

What I want to be when I grow up: Actress, Fashion Designer, Herbologist, Doctor, Dancer, And A Hairstylist! 

A place I want to visit: London. 

My favorite part of last year: The Weekends And Being In The Play Frog Spell! 

Something sad that happened last year: I Never Had An Actual Science Class.

When I get up in the morning I like to: Check My E-Mail. 

My favorite part of each day is: Going Down To Our "School Room" And Looking At ALL The Cool Books I Will Be Reading This Coming School Year (It's My First Year Homeschooled!)  

My favorite drink: Tea Or Pink Milk!

My favorite sport: Dance!!!

Something new I'd like to learn this year: How The Human Brain Works! 

And a picture of Z in her favorite tree...a photo request from her.

I have a feeling it's going to be a GREAT year!

The Magic School Bus Human Body Lab Skeleton

A while back some of the Magic School Bus science kits were on sale on Zulily and I snatched up those that had to do with our science theme this year (anatomy, health, germs, body systems, etc.) and one of them that I got was the Human Body Lab kit which has included in it, a plastic mold of the human skeleton for you to put together and use as reference for study purposes. Since we're getting ready for our year to start and we have a little science station in our school room, I had Zoey put it together the other day so we can have it out and ready.

These kits are geared for kids ages 8-12 and I will say that for some of these pieces I had to help push them together...they were tough! I guess that's good though as it means that hopefully our skeleton will stay together for most of our learning. I was honestly surprised at how durable it was.

Here it is up on our manipulative wall space for science. I have clings to label all the body system parts for later in the year, I got the clings from Educents.

And of course Zoey with her Mr. Bones! He's a pretty nice size and scale don't you think? In addition to this activity there are several others in the kit for Z to do later here once school starts. We have to pace ourselves.

We are counting down the days until the first day...September 1st for us. Is it strange that we're excited?

Afternoon Exploring

The temps were so much cooler today, it's been either hot and humid or rainy for the past several weeks it seems and today, finally, we were dry and in the 60's! Z and I took advantage of the lack of mosquitoes and cooler temperature and went exploring.

We ventured to a new'ish (to us) lake that's actually not too far away from us and did a bit of walking around. We discovered lots of plants, interesting trees and tons of mushrooms and fungi growth.

We even saw a lone loon on the lake and on the way to our destination while traveling in the car a fisher crossed in front of us on the road.

Such a perfect afternoon. It feels a bit strange to have all the "back-to-school" hub-bub happening all around us and knowing that we will not be going back but actually staying home this year! I find the panic rising up every once in awhile that we're forgetting something or that I have to prepare for another crazy year of running around packing lunches, making sure the alarm is set, school clothes shopping, etc. This school year is pretty relaxed going in...hope this feeling sticks!

Already Changing Things Up - Weekly Assignments

We haven't even officially started homeschooling yet and I'm already switching things up a bit. I am told that this is alright...so I'm going with that!  ;)

Originally I had thought that I would go this route for sharing Z's weekly assignments with her but when I got started in on actually trying to implement that plan, I discovered I would be using a ton of post-it-notes and would have to write pretty tiny on them to fit all our plans on them and they would lose their stickiness and I just didn't like it. So...we're trying this instead...

I got binder dividers that have pockets and labeled each one with  a day of the week and added one at the end for Misc. for additional long-term assignments, projects, etc. I then printed off some assignment planner sheets that I found online (I pinned them to my School & Learning Pinterest album if you're interested) and stuck one in front of each day divider.

In the pockets of each day divider I'll put in any worksheets or other loose papers Z may need for that day's work so that she can keep track of everything.

I think this plan is going to work out for us both! My goal will be to fill up her weekly assignment binder every Sunday so that she's ready to go on Monday for the whole week. She likes that she will know what's coming up so she can plan her days accordingly and I like that she will have to manage her time and that I will be able to keep all of her planner sheets for the year showing what it is that she's done throughout the week, we'll just need to remember to date them!

A Visit to the Zoo!

Our official "summer" is winding down here, it's been a busy one! Z and I were able to carve a bit of time out last week to visit our local zoo. We are lucky to have this so close to home. It's sometimes easy to forget about it and not take the time to make a point to stop. I'm glad that we did, there were several more additions in the way of animals and a whole other part to the zoo that we had yet to see, which made it all the more fun!

I'm glad that I have a kiddo that isn't "too old" for things like visits to the zoo! 

It was such a great afternoon...time well spent!

Weekly Assignments

I've been looking at printables galore on Pinterest and on other homeschooling blogs and I just haven't been able to find something that I thought would work well for Z regarding a daily list of tasks to help her stay on track. I didn't want to use all that paper either (a sheet day!) and have to have her fill out a "to do" list every day, or for me to have to! Since I'm still going to be working outside of the home our schedule for homeschooling is going to be a bit creative on those days that I work. I finally realized that it would be so much better if she knew at the start of each week exactly what it is that she is to do for the whole week. She can then manage her time accordingly (a skill she will need to have anyways) and plan what to do when, for the most part (I'm going to be a stickler on some things, like math, I'm guessing!) on her own. We can both plan, at a glance, when we will have time to do the more in depth projects as well. 

I decided on this super simple way to make our weekly assignment plan...I simply put her main subjects (printed from the computer) into a plastic sleeve and into a binder and I'll just stick post-it-notes under each subject every week, switching them out as needed...super slick if you ask me! Our other category will be for things we don't have every day such as Spanish, cooking, unit studies, etc.

Our "School" Room

It's kind of funny, we moved into this house a little over two years ago now and had yet to do anything creative with the basement. It was pretty much finished off, a bit cold in temperature and hard feeling with the concrete floors but the lighting was great and the space was pretty much amazing speaking size-wise. For awhile my husband had his exercise bike down here, we had an extra single bed, then he moved a desk down here but he never really used it. It's been a ho-hum space to say the least. Fast forward to this past January when we started talking about homeschooling. I slowly started re-inventing the space with the idea that we may be homeschooling down the road...I wanted to see if I could create a space that would be fun and inviting. With minimal cost, (the only items I purchased for the space were the rugs, chalkboard, plastic bins and one of the bookcases) I am happy to report that I was able to put this together for our school room this year without breaking the bank! The couch we got from our local thrift shop and it's different variations of brown stripes and made of scratchy 70's material, but covering it up with a grey comforter makes it look so much better, I added some bright pillows and it's a nice place to relax now.

I used to teach a Montessori preschool so I do have things arranged a little like they were at our school simply in the way of having little "stations" set up. I really like having a space set aside for reading and relaxing, a place for all of her literature and "school" workbooks to be kept, a science station and bookcase, as well as an art area. I have additional supplies kept in an adjacent room off the school room on a shelf and we'll bring them out as we need them throughout the year. The pull-down chalkboard map was something I had when I was growing up, my dad still had it and I was thrilled that he gave it to me to use since we are studying world geography this year! The back side of this is a map of the united states.

Here is a shot of our science area...

and our art area.

This is her bookcase for literature, language arts and history...

And here is a shot of our room from a different view...

Our science bookcase...

And Z wanted to have a place for things in progress or for stashing things she uses on a regular basis. I toyed with the idea of purchasing an actual locker but for $100 I just couldn't justify it! I opted to pick up these plastic crates from Wal-Mart instead. They were $3.97 each so the price wasn't bad at all. We stacked them up and then I put a screw through the top one going into the wall so it won't wobble. It works!

Here is a shot of my craft/office space. We'll see how much crafty stuff I get done this year while homeschooling! Not setting my expectations very high right off the bat so that I won't be disappointed.

And last but not least, here is a picture or our traditional black chalkboard. Zoey wanted one so badly and I actually found this one on Pottery Barn's website on sale months ago. It's really nice quality, I'm glad I splurged. As you can see, it's already getting some use.

It makes my heart happy that Z is so excited about homeschooling! I hope you enjoyed our little school room tour!

Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

We had some rhubarb and I've been craving it so we ended up making a rhubarb cake here this week. It's been pretty hot and humid but somehow we were able to squeeze this in on a day that wasn't all that bad, (we have no air conditioning so having the oven on really heats up the house!).

Z enjoys helping out in the kitchen and trying new recipes just like me so she was all for this project.

Here is the recipe we used in case you are interested...

Ingredients

• 1 package Pamela's Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake Mix (or any yellow cake mix)
• 3 cups diced rhubarb 

• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 pint whipping cream

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan. 
3. Prepare cake mix according to the package directions. 
4. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. In a medium bowl, mix together the rhubarb and sugar. 
6. Spoon the rhubarb mixture over the cake batter. 
7. Drizzle the whipping cream over the top of the rhubarb.
8. Bake 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. 
9. Let cake cool completely before turning it out onto a serving dish.
10. 
    

It was pretty simple considering it called for a ready-made cake mix and it ended up being delicious! Super moist. The best part was the gooey bottom. Yum! I didn't even have a scoop of vanilla ice cream with mine because it was so good on it's own.

The picture of the finished cake doesn't look amazing, but let me tell you...it was!

Getting Excited!

This will be our first year homeschooling...it's no secret that I'm wavering between being extremely thrilled to be starting on this journey with my daughter and being completely and utterly terrified that we are crazy, too late and going to mess up our child's future big time!! Ack! Seriously though, we're feeling pretty darn ready to DO THIS! All of our books are here (most purchased from Thrift Books) for our planned curriculum. I'm going into this with the idea that some things will probably not go as planned and I need to be okay with that. We're using Build Your Library's Grade 7: A Year of World Geography curriculum for History which will be great for Zoey as she's had minimal map work up to this point and the literature she'll be covering (see above) is top notch! She is truly so pumped to get started! We're incorporating lots of additional things into the mix to tie it all together too, learning about world religions, culture, arts, etc. So fun! *Side-note - Since it's an election year, in October I want to have a mini break-out unit on the election process since it will be more meaningful with what will be going on...or perhaps "meaningful" isn't the correct word considering how you may or may not feel about the given candidates.

For science this year Zoey wanted to learn about the human body so anatomy it is! I found Guest Hollow's Anatomy curriculum and it looked like fun. After reading some reviews and asking around it seems that it's been a hit for those that went with it. We..can't..wait to start this study! The books are quite a mixed bag - from silly to serious, with lots of experiments and hands on activities throughout. We also have a cow eye, sheep heart, kidney and brain awaiting us in the basement for when we're ready for dissection! In addition to basic human anatomy and all that entails, health and nutrition is thrown in throughout as well which I appreciate since she didn't get a health class last year at the public charter that she attended. *This summer we've been pursuing some things on plant identification and herbs and we will try and continue that a bit throughout the school year since that is of interest to Zoey at this point in time too. Zoey is a science kid so the reality of our taking on additional learning opportunities as they arise, experiments, field trips relating to other areas in science is pretty much expected. I'm leaving things open in that way so we can follow any rabbit trails that may come our way. 

To see a more comprehensive list of what we are using for our curriculum this year check out my full listing here. I'm trying to keep things up to date now that we're getting close to the big first day!