Mom's Night Out

  Need a break from the day to day happenings of homeschooling?  Looking to make new friends and visit with cherished ones?  Need an encouraging word, support or just need to vent about your day?  Have a homeschooling, homesteading, or child rearing question?  Just need a laugh?
  If you answered yes to any of the above then you need to make some time to join us for a Mom's night out.  We meet one evening a month at the Prime Thyme in Kingwood, 7pm.  Most mom's order coffee/tea and dessert or an appetizer. Cost for this is normally $5-7. Of course you can also order a full meal if you'd like! We normally have the entire room to ourselves.
  This is not a formal meeting, just an evening to visit and refresh. So if you can't come right at 7, come late. We are normally there until 8:30 or 9:00. And if you can only stay a short time, that's okay too! Treat yourself to this once a month outing!! You deserve it! :)
   The next Mom's Night Out is April 13th!  See you there. For a map & directions click here

Learning and Teaching Opportunities

I've made many mistakes in the girls' home education. My biggest mistake so far is that I've confused and made a tangled up mess of opportunities. I've tried to change every learning experience into a teaching experience. For instance, the crayfish that they brought up from the creek led to a quick unit study on crayfish and their environment. Oh, and I can't forget the lecture on Native Americans when we visited the museum or the worksheets on aerodynamics after taking an airplane ride.

Did  you notice my mistake? I've already blurted it out, but maybe you need a little extra help like I did to see it. There is a difference, a major difference, between learning and teaching opportunities. The teaching opportunity is for me. I get to teach, but I equated that with them learning. They aren't the same. A learning opportunity is, well, it's anything and everything.

We learn from everything in life, and yes, I did use we because one never stops learning. Sometimes, what our children learn from an experience isn't what we would have liked them to learn. For instance, on a trip to the zoo, I had hoped for them to learn about some geography and animal science.  They learned about sea lion's mating habits and promptly forgot anything else I said that day.  I've always loved how appropriate the quote from Throwing Marshmallows blog is: "Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he's not interested it's like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” – Barbara Lamping

When I tried to tell them what they needed to learn, I rarely got the results that I was hoping for. We often shed tears, theirs and mine, when I tried that. Luckily for all of us, I learned the difference between these opportunities, and that while I can be an influence, I will never be able to control what they learned.

I've stopped trying to push my teaching into everything. When we planned a trip to Disney, I joined a homeschool group and got tons of educational links and extra learning. But luckily, I began to understand before this trip that they will learn no matter what. I don't need to turn a fun trip to Disney into a boring "school" trip. I've been rewarded many times over by my children's joy during our stay, and they don't even realize how much they learned.

I never imagined that we would learn both male and female African elephants have ivory tusks, or that you can grow brussel sprouts outside of soil through hydroponics. They got to see how the average home has progressed through the century and hear how Grandma's mom had an icebox just like the one on stage. They got to see examples of the architecture from many countries at Epcot and Animal Kingdom, and soar over the west coast on Soarin. They got to talk with other guests and find some as close as our home city, and some as far away as Ontario. (BTW, whoever asks  "What about socialization?" should spend some time with homeschooled children .) They saw a wild armadillo and more lizards than I care to admit.

I could go on and on about how much learning actually happened all without my planning for it.  I may offer some of those extra educational things I sought when we get  home to see if they are interested, but I'll be ok if they aren't. I know that they learned. Learning opportunities are everywhere. Trust that your child will learn and enjoy learning with them.

Cove Run Farm field trip with HIP

This has been canceled. Sorry for the inconvenience.

http://www.coverunfarmscornmaze.com/

HIP is putting together a day at the farm and corn maze. See the above link and our yahoo group;
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HIP-HomeschoolingInPreston/
for more information. Come join us for a day of fun!

For the love ...

There are days that I seem to watch the hours slowly tick by; longing for that magical hour of bedtime to arrive. Those are the days that conflicts are many, listening ears are on vacation, rules seem to be optional and peppermint tea is my friend. Those are the days I wonder as I lock myself in the cold bathroom, what am I doing wrong? Why are they like this? Am I a bad parent? Finally that magical hour creeps up. Bath time, story time and finally bedtime. I hear them upstairs fooling around. Did someone just jump off the bed or did they sneak an elephant upstairs? I yell up the stairs, reluctant to give up MY TIME. I choose to ignore the thumps, although I do pause to listen for crying, and continue my drifting into the internet world. As the last sip of peppermint tea goes down and my last photo downloaded, I realize the house is quiet. It is late, time for bed. I peak through the door of the now quiet room. I see a mountain of pillows, a fort made with the laundry basket, and books scattered. I sigh a heavy sigh, push the stuffed friends and trucks away from door so I can walk in. I'm tired. Then I turn and look at the bed. Tears well in my eyes, my heart flutters, and a strong love courses through me so completely that it numbs the days pain. And I know the answer to my questions.

Raising Butterflies

In late summer, if you look among the milkweed plants, you might be lucky enough to find a young striped caterpillar. The telltale signs are many chewed up leaves and lots of caterpillar waste. You will only find this type of caterpillar on milkweed plants. It is the preferred food, as it is a monarch butterfly caterpillar. They are easy to raise at home as long as you have a place to keep them safe and a good supply of fresh milkweed leaves to feed them. We placed ours in an old plastic peanut container with holes punched in the lid. Then we packed it with milkweed leaves. Then next day, the leaves were mostly gone and there was an abundant amount of caterpillar waste to clean out.

After about a week of feeding the caterpillars nonstop, we were delighted to find they had made their magnificent chrysalis.  The gold dots just glittered in the sunlight.

After another wait of about 2 weeks, we were able to see through the chrysalis.  Can you see the butterfly forming inside? So cool!

 Our hope was to see the butterfly actually emerge, but we were not so lucky.  Once the chrysalis becomes see through, you know the butterfly will be coming out that day.  Here you can see the wings still crumpled and folded.  When the butterfly emerges, its abdomen is swollen and its wings are very crumpled.  The Monarch will actually pump up its wings with the fluid from its abdomen.  It is sort of like watching one of those blow up bounce houses inflate. 

The Monarch cannot move around very well yet.  It will have to finish pumping up its wings and dry off a bit before being able to fly.  We placed ours on a bunch of weeds high up and in a sunny place.  It still had not flown away by sundown.   In the early morning it was still where we had left it.  Later that afternoon, it was gone.

Here are some facts/opinions about Monarchs as dictated to me by my daughter;
1. Monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed plants which makes them poisonous.
2. Caterpillars are fun to raise.  You get milkweed and you change it everyday so they have food to eat.  Have someone watch them while you clean out their cage.
3. When the caterpillars grow, they shed their skin and then eat it.
4. After they shed their skin 5 times, they turn into a pupa.  Monarch pupas are green with gold dots.
5. After 2 weeks they come out of the pupa as a butterfly.  It is all wet and has to dry its wings.
6. Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico in the fall.  Along the migration route butterflies lay their eggs.  The new butterflies will then continue the migration south.  Sometimes the great-great grandchildren will be the ones to complete the migration.

Meet & Greet

You're invited to come join the HIP crowd at
Brown's Park in Kingwood.
Friday October 8th
10:30am -12:30pm
New and seasoned homeschooling families of all kinds are
welcome to come share in the fun of our first HIP meeting!

*Meet and greet other homeschool families in the area.
*Swap some unwanted curriculum or toys for new things (We will be giving out some free educational books and toys we no longer use. Feel free to bring along some of yours to contribute if you like.)
*Learn about upcoming field trips and events planned by HIP.
*Let the kids join in some group games.
*Have some refreshments.
*Share your wisdom or ask questions.

Directions: Route 7 (Morgantown Street). Park is on the left side before entering Kingwood from the west or right side after just leaving Kingwood from the east. There are picnic tables in a covered pavilion a wooden castle climber, and swings. The bathroom probably will not be open.

For more info. visit, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HIP-HomeschoolingInPreston/