Second grade

We are in our second week of second grade and so far it is going awesome! It is so hard to believe that we have made it to second grade already. here is a picture of her first day of school.

We are studying geography and learning about the people, places, and animals around the world starting with China. We are also learning about how to be a good naturalist and some basic information on how to observe and learn in the scientific world.

                                          Working on geography.

                                           Painting her paper mache globe.

                                          Completed globe, the balloon deflated a bit
                                           but it doesn't look to bad.

She has also been very busy picking the blackberries from our yard. Today she made a blackberry pie.

We are off to a good start this year and looking forward to all the fun and great learning that is still ahead of us.

I find it totally hard to believe that it is almost time to start school again. We are excited about some of the things that we are going to learn this year. We are going to focus on being a good naturalist and learn different scientific methods of researching the natural world for science. For geography we are taking a trip around the world and are going to explore people, places, and animals. We are going to read some good books starting with "The Wizard of Oz" and in December we are going to head up to Seattle Children's Theater and watch the play. Of course we will have lots of fun activities with our friends from Homeschool group and Campfire kids. It is going to be an awesome learning time.

Summer

Well here it is the end of July and so far we have had a pretty good summer. Lots of warm weather for the kids to play outside in and some pretty impressive thunderstorms (not normal for around here). I did not take the picture but it is taken from the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

We had an awesome Independence Day with lots of fireworks to celebrate. We only had one small fire and a few minor burns. :)

We had a chance to visit family.

And some of us soaked up lots of sun and grew up.

It has been a great summer so far!

Summer Camp

Aly had a great time at Camp Fire Kids Day Camp! She got to spend time with her friends and learn new songs and skills. She is already asking when it will be time for next year's camp. She also really like having her hair dyed blue for crazy hair day.

Since we had extra dye we did her cousins' hair to. :) It is finally starting to wash out several weeks later.

Promotion

Well we have officially made it through first grade as a homeschool family! Last night the homeschool group had a moving up ceremony that was awesome. Aly even got up and talked about her diorama that we made.

I made a special certificate to give her that said that she completed first grade.

We are moving on to some fun summer time activities and plan to start school again around September 4th. Of course since learning never really stops we will do all kinds of fun learning things over the summer.

We had a great year and can't wait for the next one!

New Family Member

Aly is constantly talking about wanting to sell something. I think that she was born with the spirit of a business woman. We have decided that raising rabbits may be a good place to start. We brought home her first investment today. lol. He is about 6 weeks old in this picture and even though he is black now he will be a beautiful silver/gray color when he is grown. We are going to attend our first 4H meeting in a week and get her started on the right track. She is thrilled with him and has named him Hopper.

Summer play

It was a beautiful sunny day today and we spent a lot of time outside. Almost got to have a thunderstorm even but it changed directions before it made it to us. We saw a couple of flashes of lightning and heard some thunder in the distance but that is about it.

Now she is all clean and jammied and ready for bed. :) Well, maybe ready for bed, she looks pretty bright eyed in this picture. lol

Camp Fire

I almost forgot to talk about all of the fun stuff we do at Camp Fire Kids! I don't have many pictures but here are few from making pretzels at Auntie Anne's.

She also had her first experience at roller skating with Camp Fire!

The skating rink had these cool things for kids to hold on to to help them stay on their feet. She had so much fun that she decided that she wanted a skating birthday party.

I just have to do this. :)

As I looked back at our very sparse blog over the year I can't help but post pictures of how much she has changed over the past 9 months. I think you will agree with me that the little girls look is fading away.

                                                 October 2011

                                                      August 2011

                                                      May 2012

Wrapping up

The end of first grade is coming quick. I can't believe that soon she will be a second grader. She is so smart and spends so much time learning the things she is interested in that I know our summer is going to be full of learning experiences that will be outside of our little classroom table. We are looking forward to camping, hiking. Camp Fire Day Camp with our Camp Fire friends, swimming, lazy days of reading, and play dates at many different parks.

We will explore nature and continue to learn. Looking forward to summer and the great adventures it will bring.

                                   HAPPY SUMMER!

For the love of a little girl.

Shortly after Aly received Kit we decided Kit needed some furniture. The furniture for Kit from American Girl is something that I am sure we will add to our collection eventually but in the meantime I decided we could make our own. I used the dolls box to make the couch and her bed is a pallet that Aly keeps by her pillow.

As you can see they might not be fancy but she loves them.

And of course we just had to have some matching clothes.

Yep. Kit has definitely been a great addition to our family. She has been excited to study about the depression and probably knows more about it than I do.

Exciting Day!

Aly had a very exciting day on May 1st when she got a really big surprise! She had been wanting an American Girl doll and she had definitely earned a special reward. I told her we were going to do something special and it was a surprise. We drove to Lynnwood to the mall. She was not so terribly excited about going shopping and told me she was hoping for a trip to the circus or a carnival. I had her look up at the store we were at and she was sooo excited. After a quick stop in the very pink restroom we were off to explore the store.

We took a quick trip around the store and she asked if she could get her doll now so we could go home and play with it. She chose Kit, one of the historical dolls that is from the Great Depression.

It was very windy outside.

We drove 90 minutes each way for a 10 minutes shopping trip that was worth every minute. :) Kit has become her constant companion and playmate.

Birthday

It is so hard to believe that Aly is seven years old! It has been fun to watch her grow and change. I am starting to see the young lady that she is going to become. for her birthday she decided on a skating party and was so excited to have her friends come.

Even Matty did some roller skating. :)

Yay it's done!

Well we decided that our igloo project was just a little to big for our tiny space so we started over and did it as a diorama. Carin made us some clay figures to paint and we made a smaller igloo and we have completed our igloo study. We both learned a lot and had fun doing it.

Igloos, Inuits, and Polar Bears

Aly has really been interested in igloos so we decided to make a couple and create an Inuit village. While we are making them and creating our village we have been studying about the Inuits and their way of life. We have learned that they live in the north mostly above the Arctic Circle which is an imaginary line that goes around the Arctic Ocean. Parts of Alaska are inside the Arctic Circle and so is most of Greenland.
Here is a picture of our first igloo. We will add to this as we get things completed and as we learn more.

This igloo is made from sugar cubes and frosting.

Temperate Deciduous Forest

We have been learning all about the different kinds of forests and focusing on the TDF (Temperate Deciduous Forest). While we were studying this Aly created a painting of some birch trees which are deciduous trees.

We are going to be finishing up a birds nest and we will add it later.

Sick kid

Well having a sick kiddo can really change your plans. :( She has spent the last 3 days reading and watching tv. Bronchitis for certain, possible pneumonia. Poor baby. But tomorrow is a new day and we will take it from there.

Update

Wow! It has been a really long time since I updated this. :) We nearing the end of our first year homeschooling. Time has went by really fast! Aly turns 7 in less than a month and I feel like this year of homeschooling has really given me a chance to get to  know her. She is a natural born learner and we are going to take advantage of that and move into a more unschool type of learning environment.

We have made some great friends over the lat few months and have done some really fun activities like this trip to Point Defiance Zoo.

We are starting some new activities tomorrow which will involve igloos and seals and dog sleds. Hopefully I will remember to update. :)

New Year

So I have not been very good keeping things updated since October. It seems like we are always busy doing something. Aly and I both hope you have a great new year and we hope you are looking forward to lots of exciting things in 2012 just like we are!