My Deep Dark Gardening Secret

It's good to step out of your comfort zone, right? This is what I'm telling myself as I embark on the Garden Challenge, hosted by The Homeschool Village for the next two months. I have NEVER gardened - I garden vicariously through my husband, who has always been the one to keep our raised beds going. I'm very good with houseplants and potted plants on our deck, but beyond that I'm quite inept - or maybe it's that I've never tried. I'm also not one of those supermoms who homeschools, cooks, cleans, gardens - just not my forte. I'm confessing here in front of the whole blogosphere - MY NAME IS MARY AND I HAVE NEVER GARDENED!

I grew up in south Florida, just a few blocks from the beach, so we didn't really "garden". (I can identify lots of marine life and seashells, though.) My husband, however, comes from a family of gardeners, and we've always had raised beds in the two homes where we've lived. Currently we are on two acres and have a huge backyard and a large raised bed.

This spring, the garden is tilled and looking quite lonely. My sweet husband works long hours and on the weekends devotes much of his time to my son's baseball team and church commitments. The rest of yard has lots of nice landscaping that requires pruning, mowing, etc... It's a big job. He has declared he will not be planting a garden this year. What?!?! Who's going to do it? If it's going to be done it looks like it's up to the children and I, and frankly I'm very nervous.

Here's what I'm starting with; a large raised bed just next to the swing set. We have grown zucchini (I have a great zucchini bread recipe from years of them from our garden) , yellow squash, peppers, tomatoes, and lots of mint (which never dies - comes back every year) with much success in the past. We even did wildflowers and sunflowers one year, which was fun. Last year the deer got at the garden, so I know we need some way to keep the critters out. I'm so clueless.

I thought it might be easier to container garden up on our deck - I already have this out there because Southern Living Magazine had a great article about making your own strawberry containers. See? I did that.

I've also been thinking maybe we should just do a mini garden unit and container garden and also grow beans and corn with our Tops Science kit from Sonlight. Maybe this is a good place for a novice such as myself to start. I pulled out the kit and we've also read our favorite gardening books, Inch by Inch: The Garden Song (I can sing you a song about gardening, doesn't that count for something?) and The Trellis and the Seed (this is such a lovely book about faith and a seed by Jan Karon - perfect for all ages).

If you any advice for me I'd really appreciate it. I'm going to explore some links -- and this post from Susan at Prairie Lily Arts called "Just Dig In" really looks helpful, too. I'm telling myself that whatever my children and I do together will be meaningful, and certainly more than they would be getting in the public school.

For now, I'll leave you with this awesome John Denver/The Muppets video of "Inch by Inch: The Garden Song" - it's a lovely book, so look for it at your library or on Amazon - it would be a great addition to your library. Share this video with your little ones - it's so precious.

Do You Need Structed Physical Education?

Over the past several weeks my children and I have been trying a new homeschool PE curriculum, put out by Family Time Fitness. I have been given this curriculum to review by The Homeschool Village - hop over to their website to link to other reviewers and to participate in a giveaway!

Our physical education to this point has consisted of many different things (we are members of our local YMCA and the each of the children also play an organized sport), and we always have "outside" time at home. It has been good for us to have a structured PE time, which this curriculum has provided.

About the Fitness 4 Homeschool Physical Education Curriculum:

It is essentially an entire physical fitness curriculum sent to you, which includes 260 physical activity lessons, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. The lesson are emailed to you 20 at a time each month. The lessons are designed to be completed indoors our outdoors, and should take 30-45 minutes. Each lesson consists of a warm-up, activity, and cool-down.

The curriculum also comes with an introduction/instructions for parents, as well as detailed explanations of all of the exercises. Most of the exercises and activities also are demonstrated with Youtube videos. You also receive a daily motivational email, and a monthly tracking and assessment chart.

According to the introduction for parents,

"The Family Time Fitness movement education program stresses the development of physical fitness, systemic exercises, play, and games. The goals of the program are to improve health, promote a sense of well-being, develop sensory motor skills, and enhance self and social awareness."

Our impressions:

It has been a huge hit with the children! The lessons are easy to follow and the videos are highly instructional. It's interesting to watch my children's reactions as they watch other children on the videos. For example, my son was discouraged with jumping rope and claimed he was "too little" for that skill. As he watched the video, he saw children his own age jumping and having trouble, too. That made him feel better, and now he tries and realizes he's not supposed to be perfect! The videos are very short (usually no longer than 30 sec.) and are accompanied by a nice variety of music. Most everything you need for the lessons are things you would already have, but here is a list of the recommended equipment:

• bean bags
• jump rope
• hula hoops
• playground balls
• foam balls (blow up beach balls)
• cones (or even a box or bucket)
• measuring tape
• stop watch
• exercise mat (optional)
  

We have completed lessons outdoors, but on a day last week when it was raining we did some of the activities inside. Most days we wind up spending about an hour outside, because somehow my nine year old figures out ways to extend the lesson. Instead of printing the lessons, I have just saved them on my phone and then the lessons are right in my pocket! We watch the videos at the computer first and talk about the lesson, then head outside to actually have "PE". *Note: I read the lessons from the email on my phone. In this format the videos would not play on an iPhone - but if you open the .pdf attachment in iBooks there are NO PROBLEMS. Jeremiah Knopp, of Family Time Fitness, fixed my problem within an hour after I emailed him about the problem. A+ for customer service!

While there are enough lessons for every day of the week, we have been completing 2-3 lessons each week. The activities from the lessons give my children ideas for outside free-play, and I've observed them teaching their neighbor friends or co-op buddies some of the games, too.

Here's a picture of Miss B playing "Jump the River" in the very first lesson:

At a cost of $57 (the website says it normally retails for $199.99) you get a full year of PE lessons. If you're looking for a highly structured PE curriculum that covers a comprehensive area of physical skills, then the curriculum from Family Time Fitness is for you. Visit their website to learn more about the curriculum ~ I've also found them to be very helpful and easy to reach via FB, Twitter, and email.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the program is that it gets my children and I moving and exercising together! It is impossible not to have fun while doing the lessons, and I know some of my neighbors get a chuckle seeing me do the activities with my children outside -- I don't see many moms out there galloping and skipping up and down the driveway with their children in the middle of the day (too bad, isn't it?) ! The curriculum helps promote an active, healthy lifestyle - and shouldn't that be one of the TOP goals of our homeschool?

*Please note that I have been provided a complimentary copy of this resource by The Homeschool Village specifically for review purposes. If you visit The Homeschool Village you can also read others' thoughts about this PE curriculum and enter in A GIVEAWAY!

Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett - Our Review for The Homeschool Village

I had always heard so much about Amanda Bennet's unit studies and have been wanting to try them. Over the past month we have had the chance to preview two of the units, one complimentary copy given to us through The Homeschool Village, and the other I purchased (because I liked the first so much!). We have been working our way through Astonishing Animals and Sunny Seashells. This post contains our thoughts about the unit studies and will hopefully answer questions you may have about them!

To preface this review, I found it quite helpful to read Unit Study Basics at Amanda Bennett's blog before I started. She is a wealth of information! I also got some advice from Tristan (@Our Busy Homeschool) and she offered me some very concrete and practical tips. We reviewed a Download N Go ebook. Amanda Bennett also offers unit study adventures (a 4 week study) for children grades K-12.

The Download N Go ebooks are unit studies (designed for children grades K-4) that bring unit study and lapbooking together. The ebooks are availabe for easy download and generally are around $7, although I've been seeing a lot of them on sale recently. (You can also enter for a chance to win one at The Homeschool Village today!) The bang for your buck is amazing! I used them with a six and nine year old, each child working at their own pace.

Each PDF file ebook contains:

• Five days worth of internet linked lessons about the topic. There are videos, coloring, question and answers, map work, matching activities, journaling, vocabulary, spelling, Bible verses, poetry, and many other activites included in each unit study.
• A section of lapbook elements at the end of each study, so when your are finished with the study (or you can do them concurrently) your children can make a beautiful lapbook to go along with the topic of study.
• A list of suggested resources/books to go along with the topic.
  
• Suggestions for you, the teacher, to guide you and your students through the study.
• Fun Family Ideas at the end of the study to extend learning.
• A very cute certificate of completion to include with your child's finished product.
  

How we used the ebooks:

• I downloaded the unit study onto my computer (I'm working on an iMac). It automatically went into my downloads folder, but I will keep a separate "unit studies" folder as we do more of these. I also emailed the file to myself, and then used it on my iPad (this was AWESOME!!) and opened it in iBooks. For us, this was the way to go, but we also did them on our desktop computer. (*note - some of the images in the study did not show up on the iPad, so it was good my children had printed copies in front of the, too. All links, however, were fully functional.)
  
• I always keep lots of three pronged/2 pocket folders on hand. I printed the sections of the ebook I thought we would use and made a folder for each child. There are approximately 4 double-sided pages for each day, so it's a lot of ink to use. I printed in black and white, double-sided, and left out pages I didn't think were important to print.
• I went through the book list and reserved several of the books from our library; this was the best thing to do, because my children had these books around for free reading. The book choices were excellent. To me, this was one of the best things about the unit study!
• At first we all sat around the computer - the children had their folders and recorded answers while I navigated the links and the ebook. My nine year old is perfectly capable of running it herself, so she can work on the study independently!
• When I discovered we could put the unit studies on our iPad, we sat on the sofa and went through the study that way -- very cool, and in my opinion it was easier to navigate that way.
• We always had lots of crayons, colored pencils, and pens on hand because sometimes it calls for mapwork in color. And, it's just more fun to have fancy office supplies on hand.
  

The kids' favorite area to work on their unit studies... in our music room by the large bookshelf - enough room for them to lay together and work in their folders!

Our thoughts about the unit studies:

• We loved the format! Having EVERYTHING ready for you (right down to the supplementary book list) was invaluable. It took us about two weeks to complete a unit study - five days worth of activities - we didn't do unit study work each day.
  
• The way Amanda Bennett has included so many other subjects in a unit study is amazing to me. The geography component was particularly impressive to me (and I know she is now partnering with National Geographic Maps).
  
• Having the lapbook components to print is wonderful! Once we finished the unit study I printed some lapbook elements for my children and just let them have fun. The instructions were very clear, which made it a great independent activity. They knew all of the information and had such a sense of accomplishment!
  
• Older children (I think 8 and up) can run the computer themselves for the activities, but I enjoyed doing that part because I was learning, too! If you have several children, I could see children working together on a unit study while mom is helping another child with something else.
  
• We didn't do everything in the unit studies - I think they are designed so you can pick and choose. Some of the activities were clearly too difficult for my youngest, so I enjoyed the freedom to tailor it for each of my children. They also contain A LOT of information and could take a long time if you do everything!
  

In short, I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND these unit studies, and we will be using many more in the future. Let your child take a look at all of the titles available and have them choose what they'd like to learn about. I think you'll be glad you did! To quote my nine year old daughter "I love these unit studies because you learn SO MUCH STUFF and it's fun and educational!"

*Please note that I have been provided a complimentary copy of this resource by The Homeschool Village specifically for review purposes. If you visit The Homeschool Village you can also read others' thoughts about the Download N Go Unit Studies AND A GIVEAWAY!