Ladybug Letters!

The weather here at the Good Old Days Farm has been a bit too chilly to do much out side... So we've brought the outside in, with our new game.  (Kinda sorta.)  A while back we got creative with some egg cartons, paint and stickers.  The ladybugs are just two buttons glued together.  Inside each compartment is a different letter.  (Except we had to put "c" and "k" together and skip "y"... since it makes 3 different sounds... in order to put a 26 letter alphabet in 24 spaces).  We put the ladybug in the egg carton, close it, shake and open again... Then the little farmhands have to say what sounds is made by whatever letter the ladybug is sitting on.

This game is so much fun if you happen to be a little Farmhand who is learning how to read!  It is one of the suggestions in "Happy Phonics" ... a learn-to-read program that uses cardstock games to teach little ones how to read.  My little farmgirl loves workbooks and will actually complain to Papa the Farmer if I don't let her have enough workbook time... But, I like the games best! And even little workbook-girl has to admit that these games are fun! Diane, at Love To Learn has done a wonderful job of putting together a step-by-step reading program based on non-competitive games.  After all, what parent child doesn't like to play games? 

And by the way, if you put numbers instead of letters in each compartment, Voila!  Instant adding, subtracting or multiplying game!

What Is It? Answers!

As promised, here are the answers to the “What Is It?” pictures that my friend Jennifer Range took at the Dallas Children’s Aquarium  when we went together last week:

What is it? (A) was a lionfish!


What is it?  (B) was a starfish!


What is it? (C) was a sea jelly!

Did you guess any of them correctly?

Wait! That’s Not The Farm!

No, today you won’t be seeing farm pictures because I have a special treat for you… and it involves lots of eye-candy, compliments of my very talented friend Jennifer Range.  But first, can you guess what these are pictures of?
What is it? (A):

What is it?  (B):

What is it? (C):

Hint:  These pictures are not of anything you might find here at the Good Old Days Farm! 
Over the past 6 years my friend Jennifer and I have taken turns (it seems!) having babies.  Yesterday we got the crazy idea that it would be fun to take 6 children age 6 and under to the Dallas Acquarium:

There they are!  Yay for 8 passenger vans.  We piled all the car seats into one van and off we went!  The Children's Acquarium at Fair Park was recently renovated and is having a free “sneak preview today and tomorrow” so check it out if you’re in the area!
Jennifer is graciously allowing me to share some of the things we saw, through her camera lens.  We saw lots and lots of fish, of course:

My personal favorite was the “Look Down” fish.  It is a pretty silver color and has a flat profile:

Seahorses!  (Do you see this one hiding behind the rock?)

A big sea turtle:

We got to see how seaweed grows.  Seaweed happens to be a favorite food for the little farmhands and I!  We make vegetarian “sushi” rolls!  Mmmm!  (This is kelp):

We got to see what happens to the fish each time a wave crashes against the top of the ocean:

This exhibit taught us all about the tentacles of the octopus:

And this was one of the little farmhands’ favorite exhibits.  When you turn the wheel you see a little baby turtle being born out if its shell!  This was a big hit amongst the little people!

And we even got to watch the zookeepers feed the albino alligators!  (Who spit out their vitamin pills after the zookeeper left, by the way!)


The most significant change at the aquarium is the addition of “Stingray Bay” where visitors can pet the stingrays!  Anyone can pet the stringrays and after this weekend it will cost $2 to feed the stingrays, but yesterday they let us all help feed the stingrays for free.  Everyone (including the babies) got in on the action:



All in all, it was a very fun day at the aquarium! 

Many thanks to Jennifer Range for her contributing her photographic talent to today’s post.  Please do not copy or use her images without first obtaining written permission from Jennifer (Contact us to be put in touch with her!)


PS – The answers to today’s “What is it?” Quiz will appear in the NEXT blog post!  Stay tuned!

Sweet Little Pumpkins made by my sweet little pumpkins!

Isn’t this the cutest little fall pumpkin decoration you ever saw? 

My little farmhands made it!  And it’s so easy that your sweet little pumpkin can make one too… as long as you have extra toilet paper around that is…

That’s right!  I belong to a really great group of mommy friends and one of the ladies showed us how to make this pumpkin out of toilet paper!  (Thanks, Candice!)  Here’s how you do it:

First, lay a large orange square of fabric out and place the roll of toilet paper in the middle.  (Note:  if the fabric is about 18” you can make 4 squares with 1 yard.  Also, the double rolls of toilet paper make a cuter, fuller pumpkin than regular rolls, but regular rolls will work fine if that’s what you have.)

Next, tuck the fabric into the hole in the toilet paper roll.  Tuck it far down so you can get all the fabric in there.

Next, lay a scrap of brown or green fabric across the top.  This will be a “leaf”.
Now you’re ready to make the stem!  Take a brown paper  lunch bag and cut it in half lengthwise like this:
Now take one half and just sort of crumple and twist so it looks like this.  Then fold it in half:
Then put the “stem” into the hole!
And now you have a great fall addition for either your kitchen or your bathroom!


(It just occurred to me that this craft might not have been my friend’s original idea.  If not and you know the original source, please leave a comment so I can give credit where credit is due!)

Volcano-Mania!

Recently one of the little farmhands had a birthday.  As part of the festivities, we watched a National Geographic video about volcanoes.  (Ok, you might think that is strange, but when you have a lot of testosterone flowing through a very tiny body… well, volcano videos are a big deal!)

Well, the volcano bug has bitten!  We love volcanoes!  I mean, is there anything better than an exploding mountain the birthday boy has decided that life will not be complete unless he can grow up to fly a helicopter so that he can look down into volcanoes, and maybe climb down a few, too.  (Mama is not exactly happy about this ambition!)

Now in case you’ve never seen a volcano close up, the little farmhands have painted one for you:



Then a week or so after the birthday Papa the Farmer scored this at the thrift store:


$5 for a reusable volcano lab.  We prefer to call it “Mount Saint Helens.” 

It comes with a plastic cone and some plaster to make the volcano:


Here you can see we are painting it green for trees and that bit of blue on the far left is “Spirit Lake.”    We added white paint at the top to represent snow. (Yes, some volcanoes have snow at the top – how strange is that?!)  We put baking soda in that space at the top and hooked up a little tube to start pumping in the vinegar…

It started to bubble…

And bubble!

Here are some pictures of our little students seriously studying the eruption:

    

   

Wow!  Did you see that?

Homeschooling 101

Over the course of the summer, we have been gearing up to begin homeschooling!  I have a degree in teaching, so I thought this would be pretty easy, right?  Wrong.  I forgot one key thing:  Homeschools have no janitor!  Actually, there is a janitor… but I’m it!  When you teach in a classroom, if there is a spill (or worse yet, if someone wets their pants or throws up), you press the little button on the public address system and the janitor comes and cleans it up.  But when there is a messy event in a homeschool there’s no little button to push and no janitor to come running.  So, between janitorial work, cooking, laundry, diapers, all the other things a mother has to do AND figuring out how to balance all this with teaching…I haven’t had time to update the farm blog.  In fact, to be honest with you, after the first week of homeschooling I took a 3 week vacation.  I didn’t go anywhere, but I spent that time rearranging my life and decluttering my house so that my days would be more efficient.  But now I think I’m on a roll and expect to have more time to think about the farm.


I get a lot of comments from people that our decision to drop-out of city life and take up farming is pretty unconventional… and I say that’s a pretty reasonable statement to make!  Well, our school is pretty unconventional too!  Yes, we are using curriculum to teach reading, writing, grammar and math.  Once in a while, I will pop onto the blog with something to say about one of those curriculums.  What I like most about our homeschool is that we are learning from what is right here around us!  Nature!  Nature is science and it is full of opportunities for experiments, drawing, investigating, writing, thinking, creating….



As a little sampling of some of what we are doing, I want to mention a wonderful set of books I found at the library called “Let’s Read and Find Out Science.”  They are meant for young children (grades 1 and 2) but they are so full of good information!  I am learning almost as much as the children.  (I say “almost as much” because inevitably they remind me of things in the books a few days after I have forgotten.)  One night we read the book “The Big Dipper” from the “Let’s Read and Find Out Science” series.  A few minutes after reading the book, we went outside to lay out on the hill and look at the stars.  Immediately, my 5 year old was able to spot the big dipper!  And it took her only a moment longer to find the little dipper!  Now, I’m impressed.  I know a lot of adults who can’t do that!  The book explains the secret and the next day we did some artwork to help us remember:



Do you see it?  Once you find the big dipper, you trace an imaginary line between the two stars on the far side of the dipper and extend that line to the nearest bright star.  That is the North Star.  And once you’ve found the North Star, Voila!  You have the Little Dipper in sight!