Some Important Changes

Hello All!  It has been a really LONG time.

I am at the limit for free blogging on WordPress.  Since I no longer have the time to keep this going and it doesn’t benefit me to pay for WordPress to blog, I am stepping down.   The blog will remain open for anyone to view and glean any goodies from it. 😀  I will also continue to answer any questions.    I have gotten a lot of emails regarding Biology and Physical Science lately.  I hope that I have kept up with them.

I have gotten a lot of emails regarding Biology and Physical Science lately.  I hope that I have kept up with them. That has brought to my mind that many still like the information and find it helpful.  A few years ago I started a science page on Facebook.  It went nowhere because I did not advertise and I was doing the blog.  I didn’t want to do both.  Would it be helpful, if I offered the Facebook page as a place to join and help each other?  Please let me know.  Of course, there will be rules. Always rules!!

Also, I no longer have the Etsy shop open for my little quizzes and whatever else is in there.  I had fully intended to add more but didn’t get to it.  Anyhoo, Etsy now requires payment through charge cards options and I just didn’t want to mess with that.  If anyone is interested in my Etsy shop items, please let me know and I will send you an invoice, when payment is received I will send the pdf to you.

For the “sample” quizzes on the blog, I have lifted the password.  They are now available to all.  I did enjoy getting the emails for the password.  That made me feel good.  LOL  These quizzes are not perfect and I do not have quizzes for all 16 modules.   The paid for ones cover all modules, plus an extra one.

Any helpful suggestions with me continue to help people, please speak out.  This year I am stepping away from Apologia and doing Friendly Chemistry.

Happy Homeschool!

What I have been doing…

It has been over a month since my last post.  Today we will be starting Module 4 in Biology and I have one new student.  That makes a whopping total of FOUR.  LOL  Love having a small class. 😀

Besides schooling, the playground wall is what keeps me busy.  Last week I had to go there four days.  Monday we prepped the third wall to be sketched and continued painting the first wall.  Wednesday we sketched the third wall and discovered we made a HUGE mistake with the grid.  Took another hour erasing what we sketched and fixed the grid.  Thursday we resketched and continued painting the first wall.  Thanks to my super awesome Mother-In-Law, Jan, the third was sketched in just a couple of hours on Thursday.  She was also the one to figure out what was wrong with our grid.  🙂

Saturday was Volunteer Day!

Joanna, Nicholas (volunteer), and I arrived bright and early; a few hours before the volunteers arrive.   Joanna mixes paints, fixes our sketch mistakes, and does touch ups.

This day we had 15 volunteers.

Some were friends from another County.

Some were from the Navy and the Army.

Some were employees of the Salvation Army and United Way.

We have enjoyed working on the playground wall and meeting all the volunteers. This project could not have been done without the volunteers help.  It is hard work, especially with the hot sun and no shade.  Lots of water and sunscreen are needed!  It is well worth it.  🙂  Hopefully, this will all be done in about a month.

A Playground Wall

The Salvation Army asked participants to design a mural for their playground wall.   Joanna entered two designs. One of them was selected and they asked her to design the other two walls.  Around 1,300 square feet of wall!  It tells a story of transition and hope.

The first step was to grid the wall.  We are thankful Joanna’s art teachers, Children’s Art Classes, were there to help.

Next step Joanna and I sketched out her work.  It was sunny and hot that day.

Step 2:  Time to paint!  Mixing and mixing and mixing of paint to get the colors just right.

Lots of wonderful volunteers showed up.  The girl sitting down was a huge help in mixing the colors.

More mixing of paints.  The lovely lady below, sitting with Joanna, is a co-worker of my husband.  She saw the story in the Salvation Army newsletter and volunteered herself and brought the smiling faces you see above.  🙂

Young volunteers!

Looking good!

Friends, co-workers, Salvation Army workers, art students, and residents came out to help.  The time went quickly and all had fun.

One more day and this wall will be done!  Then on to the next wall.

2016 – 2017 HS Biology Schedule

Here it is!  This is my final Biology schedule, since this will be my last year teaching this subject.  I am happy about that.

Click here for the schedule –> 2016-2017 Schedule
Click here for the Field Journal information –>  Field Nature Journal

The schedule is different this year:

1.  In a  few of the modules, especially Module 1, I moved the reading schedule around. This was due to areas I want read prior to coming to class.  Some of the material needed to be read in order to do the experiment on a set day.
2.  I also removed Module 9 from the schedule and gave Module 6 and 7 three weeks each.
3. Module 16 was moved to after Module 13 and Modules 14-15 were moved to the end of the year.  I do not like having to go back to the animals after studying flowers.  I just want it done all at once.

Activities have changed:

Biggest change is lab sketches.  All sketches will be done in a Field Journal.  I bought three Canson Sketch Books at Michael’s when they had their 50% off one item coupon.  This is the book that all sketches will be done in.  The lab write up will have a “see page # in field journal” writing where the sketch should be.

The nature journal “textbook” we will be working from is The Laws guide to Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws.

The reason for this change is because I will only have two students and we will have plenty of time to stop and enjoy God’s creation.  I want us to slow down and really observe our surroundings.  The other reason is because one student is an artist and she wants to be a scientist.  🙂  My other student is not an artist, so she will probably just draw pencil stick figures.  This student is my youngest daughter.  Yes, she was in my class two years ago, but she didn’t do her work, so…..  yeah, round two coming up!

Second change is no Insect Board!  My daughter has already done it and the other young lady gets the hives just thinking about killing and pinning an insect. So….we (read that as I) will catch bugs to observe and they will be sketched in the journal.

Third change is, we are going fishing for a fish to dissect.  Since my all time favorite company cannot send a fish to my home, we will get it from the wilds of someones neighborhood pond.  Actually, my student will just step outside her backdoor and catch one for us. 😀

I am so looking forward to this year.  I know I will be able to share some of my students sketches; mine might not be worth showing. LOL

When I get my final list of supplies we are using, I’ll post them.

Any questions? 😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes! I am still here.

Shocking I know!  :O

Last year was a little on the crazy side for me.  I won’t go into much detail, but I am no longer facilitating at two C0-ops or running a Co-op.  Yep, we closed our homeschool co-op due to a, strange to me, shift in homeschooling.  Enough of that, let’s get back to some good news. 🙂

I will be teaching Biology to two students at my home for the 2016-2017 school year.  I am so excited about this, because I am mixing things up!   This year we will work heavily in a Field Journal and using Nature Drawing and Journaling by John Muir Laws to inspire us.  I also have several nice Field Trips in the works.

This weekend,  I will be posting my 2016-2017 Biology Schedule along with the Field Journal Schedule.  In the meantime, I wanted to remind everyone that my schedules are only in a pdf format.  If you want the editable form that I use, please visit www.donnayoung.org .  This website is now a subscription site and well worth it!  There is a TON of good homeschooling goodness in there and Donna is always quick to reply to questions or if you need help on her website.  So, splurge and sign up on her site.

I do not get any payment for mentioning these websites.  😀

The quizzes for biology on this blog are still free, but you must email me for the password.  However; if you want a a full set of quizzes, all corrected and sent as a download, please visit my Etsy Shop.  They are $8.00 for  a set of 16 and answers.

Hope everyone out there is doing well and still remembers me. LOL

Have a super day!

 

Love Post-it Notes!

Just finished printing a few extra Biology Post-it Notes for my class.  Always a fun way to write a note to students. 🙂

I used Sticky Note Printing Template  and added clip-art from Word.  Of course my name is always done in Chiller font.

I also printed on Post-It notes for my daughter’s math book.  You can find the blog post here.

Have you printed on Post-it Notes yet?

Module 1 – Physical Science

At the end of July and the first two weeks of August, the family went to Wisconsin for a vacation.  During that time, I missed the Kick Off Party at the co-op.  First time in nine years!   Then on the way home, I got sick and had to miss THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS!  Ug…first time in nine years.

The photos you see here today are not mine.  Thanks to  Jen Mauser at A Knitterary Life for stepping in on the first day of class and for taking pictures.

Experiment 1.1   Atoms and Molecules

The kids like this experiment because there are bubbles and change of color.  🙂

They used black electrical tape to attach the exposed copper wires to the battery.

Both terminals needed their own wires.

I have no photos of the actual experiment in progress, but here is a lovely sketch of what happened.  The sketch is not required, but some of the students love to do the sketches anyway.

You can see in the sketch how the wires were attached to the battery, change of color on one of the wire ends in the water, change of color in the water, and the bubbles.  I call this an awesome sketch!  To top off all this awesomeness, there are LABELS!

The students learned the electrical current through the water caused some of water molecules to break down into oxygen and hydrogen.  These two are gasses causing the bubbles.

The copper wire on the positive terminal interacted with the water molecules and baking soda molecules causing the copper wire to turn a blueish color.  The blueish/greenish color you see is called Hydroxycarbonate.

Hope you enjoyed this experiment as much as my students did.  Wish I had been there!

Physical Science and Biology for 2015-2016 School Year.

I have been busy working on homeschooly stuff in my home and outside my home.  Time flies when you are busy and now I am going on vacation before school actually begins!

This year I will be facilitating Physical Science at my own co-op and Biology at another co-op.  I know, crazy.

You can find my 2015  Physical Science (Apologia) schedule here.

You can find my 2015 Biology Science (Apologia) schedule here.

If you need Biology Quizzes, Cell Certificates, Edible Cell Project, and/or Felt Cell pattern, please visit my Etsy Shop.

Appliejuice Etsy Shop   I am really hoping to add more things soon!  Thank you to all who have purchased from me.  I so appreciate it!  Please share my shop and also let me know if you have any questions.

Stay tuned for exciting activities in 2015-2016 school year. 🙂

Florida Sunrise

My daughter needed a few thousand sunrise photos for her photography class, so this morning at 5:45am we headed out.

We got there shortly before the sun peaked over the horizon.

It didn’t take too long before it got really interesting.

After awhile, we head back home, but made a few stops for more photos along the way.

It was a gorgeous morning.  Would love to do this more often.

Things to see.

A field trip to GTM Research Reserves, Guana Tolomato Matanzas national Estuarine Research Reserve, Guana River State Park, or GTM, …whatever…. 😯  is always an educational one, even if you are there just for a visit and not a class trip.

The co-op’s students, parents, and I went hiking down the yellow trail on this GTM Reserach Reserve Trail Map.  One mile in and one mile out. Easy-peasy.

Before we even got on the trail the students found their first specimen to record.

A Squirrel Treefrog.   Can you see where it was found?  Thankfully everyone brought bottled water, because no one wanted to drink out of this faucet.

Along the trail to the river we found:

White-topped Sedge, a Florida native plant.  Thanks to my MIL for identifying them for me!

Alligators sunning along the water’s edge.  I don’t blame them.  It was a beautiful day!

Other things found along the trail, but no photos taken:  birds nests, spiders, snakes, bugs, bugs, and bugs.   Thistles and lots of different trees.

Once at the river, we found:

Raccoon Tracks

Cannonball Jellyfish.  Gives a slight sting and is edible, but you have to prepare it properly.  Lunch anyone?

Lots of dead trees.  These are near the water’s edge and have long since died.  I really do like the looks of old tangled tree roots.  To me, it is art.  😀

This time around we found only one Horseshoe Crab  and this one was the largest I have seen.  The tail measure roughly 11 inches and the body was 14 inches.  It’s dead. Just so you know.

Muck.  I have no idea what this aquatic grass is called.

Back to the trail head, my daughter took this shot of a caterpillar.  I have no idea what it will turn into, moth or butterfly.

So there is just a sample of what we saw.  What have you seen lately?