My Take on Frozen Photography Assignment

Last week I assigned the kids a photography project - take a picture of their view of frozen.

They really surprised me with their pictures, not what you would expect!

Well since I rarely leave the house without my camera & one of my goals this year is to really learn how to use my camera in manual (so I can justify buying a really expensive & cute bag:), I photographed my kids photographing frozen

Here's what I captured...

They really loved this last picture. It reminded Allison of the fractals we had seen & also the Movie Frozen. What can I say, my kids are in the percentage of kids who are obsessed with the darn movie, what do you do?

Photography Assignment - Frozen

I have changed things up this semester in schooling! When I first started this adventure in schooling, I was really set in stone with the "by the book" learning. After a while I realized that it just wasn't meshing well with our flow as a family. We are all active, hands on, and creative people. My kids learn through creating. Active learning is what we do best. 

For the new year I gave them both an old camera, Allison was given our first ever DSLR (a pretty good camera that still takes great pictures) & Scotty was given the point and shoot. I gave them an assignment to photograph what frozen looks like. I bet you all thought they (or at least Allison) would have included one of Elsa or Anna, but to my surprise they came back with these beautiful photos! 

Allison's photo of frozen

Scotty's photo of frozen (never mind the strap, he's still learning :)

I have to say, that adding art in various forms, photography, painting, building, cooking, drawing, journaling, scrapbooking, writing, music, gardening, etc. really opens up a whole new learning environment. I give them the utensils and let them go for it! Amazing what they can come up with! Plus the kids are more into the assignments & love sharing their work with everyone!

Have you incorporated art into your schooling? What is your favorite

2014 Year End Part 2

Just in time for the New Year the last 6 months of Garden 118! 

I hope you all enjoy and have a safe and wonderful New Year!

I pray that next year will be full of new and exciting things!

2014 - What a Fun Year!

What a fun year this has been!

I, myself & all of us as a family accomplished so much this year and we are grateful to all of our friends and family who supported us through everything!

Here is a very small glimpse of the first 6 months of Garden 118 & our life here on our

suburban farm in 2014, enjoy!

Well there you have it the first 6 months we have spent working on getting Garden 118 up and running. A lot more has happened since June. I will update you all with the next 6 months later this week, there will be surprises, a glimpse of what is happening now, and where we are headed in the next year.

Thank you for stopping by & Happy  2015!

Christmas Crafts and Homemade Gifts

This year I have really focused on handmade gifts for our kids, family, and friends. I love getting creative. This year I tried a few new things and also made my usual food gifts (these do change every year but I always make some sort of food gift for everyone).

This year the kids and I did shrinky dinks and made some jewelry. I made the Eloise necklace for myself, a Frozen necklace for Allison and Emmett from The Lego Movie for Scotty as a zipper pull. We also made various charms and ornaments. This was very easy. We used #6 plastic, preheated the oven to 350* and baked for just a bit, they curl then lay flat and then they are done. Watch them carefully, you don't want to over cook them :)

The food gifts were fun! I made Italian Giardeniera, Dill Cheesy Crackers, and Chocolate Fudge. All really easy, the veggies took me only and hour after dinner one night and I ended up with 11 jars. The dill crackers are Cheez-its are coated with a mixture of dill and garlic powder and olive oil then baked slightly. Last we have fudge, everyone has there favorite and it always makes a ton! I also add some of my soap.

I didn't mess around with making my traditional soap since I packed most of the stuff away in the attic, but I found some melt & pour soap base (totally cheated here)that I really liked and just added some goodies to it. I created Coffee Vanilla, Lavender Flower, and Sweet Almond Oatmeal.

This is also a first this year. I made some earrings. I have kept all the rose ones for myself in various colors, but the dahlias were too big for my lobes so I am packaging them up and giving as gifts! They are so beautiful and I chose really brilliant colors so the earrings will brighten a dreary winter day.

Do you make your own gifts? What are your family favorites?  

Coral Reef Unit Study & Lapbook

We had been struggling with keeping Allison interested in the science curriculum that we were given which was Harcourt Science 1st grade. The book and worksheets were a lot of things we had already studied in kindergarten and over the summer. So taking advice from my friend Mrs. Moser, I decided to try unit studies!

This is our first attempt at a unit study. I chose to focus on a subject that she is really interested in and go from there.

I have to say it is a lot more work, finding the information, studying the information myself (so I know what I am talking about), and creating worksheets and projects. Lucky for me there is a lot of resources for homeschoolers on the web and I will share one here with you! 

Our subject for the last 2 weeks has been coral reefs. We started learning about coral reefs and what they were. This really beautiful and well put together lapbook on coral reefs is so fun to do!

It turned out wonderful. I helped her to cut and glue the pieces, but she was responsible for coloring and writing all the information about the types of coral, the fish, reptiles, and turtles that lived there, the types of reefs there are, and what they are made of. It is all provided on the website. You can fin the lapbook at Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus. 

After we finished the lapbook we decided to study more about oceans so we made a tide pool to study the rise and fall of ocean water. 

We also made an ocean in a jar. We filled the jar with sand from our vacation and shells we had collected. Then we filled them with water. This was a huge hit with the two of them and with me too! Everytime you shake the jar you find a new shell and you can see how ocean waves move the sand and shells around and toss them about.

A few close up of the inside of the bottle. It really is calming to sit and rock the water back and forth and see what appears next.

I also added a few episodes of the Magic School Bus. The first one we watched was about coral reefs and how they are made and they other was about mussels. Both were really fun and I have always loved Miss Frizzle & Liz!

This unit study was fun and Allison & Scotty really got into learning especially with the hands on activites. All around this was a really great start to our Science Unit Study curriculum!

Do you use lapbook or unit studies? What were some of your kids or your favorites?

Let me know by leaving me a comment!

So Many New Changes

I have to say a lot has happened in the last three months that it has felt like a whirl wind around here!

I must admit that I really didn't expect everything to happen all at once but God has a way of making things happen as he sees fit so I just go with the flow no matter the difficulties that may lie ahead, he will see us through them.

We were given the opportunity to school our children which has been a blessing, but WOW, there is a learning curve here! I am glad I have a great support group of friends & family.

We opened a business that I work part time for and am owner of (Scott's Glass & Fabrication). I absolutely love having a family business and we hope to make it successful enough so we can keep our people employed and to make enough to live & give.

I am also trying to get Garden 118 up & running again. I love sharing my little suburban farm and spending time with the families who come to stay a while. We are working on a few new projects around here including duckponics for non edible people plants. We have finished the grey water system just in time for the rainy season and I feel like I have put up a thousand jars of goodies for the winter!

Even though I am busy, I am so very blessed to have been given these opportunities. It does change so many things but as I have said, God leads the way he feels is best for us and never gives us more than we can handle!