Fall Flowers

Our first red leaf of the season!

Fall is upon us, the leaves are starting to change!   I love fall!  It honestly is one of my favorite seasons.  Ok I love all the seasons, just differently.  Normally fall comes and goes. I generally do not decorate for any of the seasons but this year I decided I wanted flowers.  So off to the store I went and found me some beautiful mums.  The best thing about these flowers is that they will return every year! YAY!  I love how God created some flowers to be planted yearly and others that would regrow every year. 

Science Fun

My kids love science!  The last few weeks we have been studying vertebrates & invertebrates.  For each unit they have had to complete them with a project.   Here are their results:

African Bull Frog

Goliath Beetle

Whip Scorpion

Orca Whale

Arctic and Red Fox

Medusa Jellyfish

Zoo Fun

Today we surprised the kids and took them to the Louisville Zoo for a field trip.  They have been learning about vertebrates/invertebrates and habitats. What a better way to learn than to go see their favorite animals!  I am so tired so just going to post a few pictures.  The blog picture at the top is from today as well.

My goofs!

This is how you wear them out!

Let's go Fly a Kite

Chores

I AM SO LOVING CHORES!    No seriously I am loving what we have started here at home.  Generally we have a cleaning day which usually ends up being Saturdays, where we all help clean up the house of the little messes that have gathered through the house.  Generally I would run the vacume daily, sweep and do the kitchen duties daily with the larger projects of dusting, bathroom cleaning, mopping left for Sat. Well last week I decided no more of this MOM DOING EVERYTHING and getting frustrated, repeating myself and then getting to a point where I was yelling at the kids to do stuff.  So we have started a chore list.  It is rather simple:

Loading Dishes

Garbage Removal

Vacuuming

Unloading Dishes

Just four simple tasks and each child has been given that chore for the week.  This week they switch and this will continue from now on.  What a difference it has been for me.  Home schooling the kids, focusing on exercising and getting healthy, Mom stuff, wife stuff and just daily living has been wearing me down.  Having the kids help has been such a blessing.  Not just to me but to their dad as well.  Plus the kids are learning valuable tools...house keeping, time management,  and responsibility.  They are earning extra computer time and what they don't know is that if they can do their chore daily without complaints or  asking them repeatedly to do it we plan to reward them with a trip to the movies once a month. There is nothing wrong with them doing chores and it is teaching them so much.  This week has been so wonderful!  They have taken pride in doing their chosen chore!  I hope it continues this week and so forth!

Apple Art

We have been learning about John Chapman also known as Johnny Appleseed, the myths and the facts.  To add some fun today we had art class.  Painting arms, using fingers to make apples on our trees and painted with apples. The kids tried 5 different types of apples and used them to paint with.  Learning which they liked the best to eat as well as learning which were the best to make apple star prints. 

In a few weeks we will make a trip out to a local apple orchard.  Some where they have never been to, me either for that matter.  It should be lots of fun!

 As you can tell the kids had a ball making their paintings!  I enjoyed it too!

Gardening as a Lesson

     Yesterday for school we took the kids outside and taught them about gardening.  Actually we put them to work.  Part of gardening and having a nice yard is the maintenance of the shrubs and bushes.  We had let them get way out of control so I decided to cut lessons short and take advantage of the nice weather we are having.  So out we went.  While I was cutting the shrubs back the kids were gathering the branches and putting them into a pile.  Our yard loos so much better and is now ready for the fall and winter seasons.

While we were cleaning up the yard, what was a lesson on gardening turned into a lesson on insects again. We found numerous spiders of all kinds, a few praying mantises, a cocoon, a termite mess and red ants.  The kids had a blast looking at them.  We put the cocoon into a jar and we are hoping the moth or butterfly will come out. They had a grand time playing with the praying mantises.

  The two little fellas below are Bear and Charlie.  They are our neighbor's dogs.  They are the sweetest pups I know.  They came to help too.  Although I think they were more of a distraction than they were help.  But we love them anyway!

Bear

Charlie

  We got a lot accomplished in a small amount of time.  Plus I got a great workout. We all agreed that next time we will cut the bushes back in the spring and again at the end of the summer so it won't be such a large. 

 Speaking of workout...have I shared that I am on a new weight loss journey?  This is one I have to succeed at.  I can not give up and I plan to share about those struggles on my other blog Broken Potterie.  I generally write about things God has spoken to me about and I still will do that but I need to journal what I am feeling and how I feel about this journey so go over there and check it out.  Although to be hones tat the writing of this I have not written anything as of yet but I will be!