The Picket Project (Post 5)

Each time I make one of these posts, it blows my mind how much Picket has changed since the last time I posted. Even from day to day, the amount she has grown is noticeable.

Picket is now roughly 6 weeks old.  While she is still drinking goats milk three times a day, she has also been eating solid foods and making the transition really well.  She gets a mixture of hay (mostly orchard and timothy) and rabbit blend (which has dehydrated fruits and pellets in it) as well as fresh veggies that I cut up for her. So far, she loves broccoli, grape tomatoes and watermelon rind the best.  We've also been giving her fresh sage from the back yard, as we know it does not have any chemicals on it.

Picket enjoying her milk breakfast first thing in the morning

Unfortunately, we did have a bit of an issue with the bunny hutch.  Unbeknownst to us, there was a sharp corner of chicken wire sticking out and of all of the the chicken wire, Picket decided to rub her nose against that particular piece, resulting in a fairly bad laceration on her nose.   We were able to treat the nose and avoided an infection and while the nose has healed nicely, she will have a cosmetic issue (Know anyone who does rhinoplasty on rabbits???)

Picket's nose in the process of healing

All chicken wire on the hutch is now covered temporarily with heavy duty industrial tape (think Duct Tape only stronger and thicker) and I will eventually buy 1x2s or some molding to cover the edges of the chicken wire.  I'm also considering replacing the thin gauge chicken wire all together with a thicker, possibly coated, chicken.  For the time being, the tape is working fine as she is not biting or chewing on it (yet!).

Getting kisses. Nose healed but with a scare.

 At 6 weeks old, Picket is still a huge cuddle bunny.  After a good 20 minutes of running around "binkying" and going bunny rolls, she still climbs on mom to take a bit of a rest. 

 She still has a fascination with the window and enjoys pacing back and forth on the window sill.  However, the outside seems to scare her - if I open the window, she will avoid the opened area completely and will only pace to the edge of the window itself but no further.  So long as the window is closed, she will pace the entire length of the sill.

However, she dislikes when I close the window blinds to keep her from the window during the hottest part of the day.  Our window faces the sun during those times and we noticed she got extremely hot in the window.  So, no more window time during 1pm-4pm.  

However, the more time goes on, the more it's looking like a release is not going to happen.  We were told that hares were unsocial, that they wouldn't bond with humans and that she would not want to be touched, held, ect.  Basically, we were told she would be a big butthead.  The opposite seems to be true. Maybe it's because she was so young when I found her in the road that day, or maybe she's just an expection to the rule, but Picket shows no sign of wanting to be in the wild.

I've been asked by many people if we are planning on keeping her and my answer is that's up to Picket and what she wants.  For now, she seems to be very happy where she's at and she can stay as long as she wants.   

Silverdale Press (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Each year, our country celebrates various National Holidays with barbecues, fireworks, and huge turkey dinners.  We might know what many of these holidays represent but do you know how these holidays became National holidays or why they are celebrated on a specific day of the week rather than on a particular date on the calendar?

The last few weeks, Ashleigh and Garrett have been learning about two of these holidays, Veterans Day and Labor Day, two of the unit studies from the White House Holidays Unit Studies from Silverdale Press LLC.

About Silverdale Press LLC and the White House Holidays Unit Studies

Founded by homeschooling parents of four Joshua and Jill Hummer, Silverdale Press was created to provide curriculum consisting of unit studies, writing curriculum and social studies curriculum for all grades and ages.

The White House Holidays Unit Studies series is a collection of six individual study units for grades K-12 to teach the history of our national holidays. Currently, units are created to cover Labor Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentines Day, and Martin Luther King Jr Day.

Written by Jill  Hummer, each unit study is broken into individual lessons that can be do over the course of a weeks time.  Some unit studies, such as the Veterans Day unit study are fairly short, consisting of 3 lessons while larger unit studies, such as the unit Study on Martin Luther King Jr and Thanksgiving, are longer in length and are 5 lessons. 

Each study contains options for different grade levels that include activities gears for different grade levels.  Lessons are broken down for either students grade K-6th or for grades 7-12th, with the younger grade levels receiving a more abbreviated, condensed reading lesson while older students are presented with more detailed information. Activities and questions are also adjusted for learning levels to allow for different learning outcomes.

Each of the individual unit studies are a downloadable PDF format allowing for easy of printing for multiple students.  Files are between 49 and 78 pages, depending on the length of the study, but again, this includes both the K-6th and 7th-12th grade studies.  A Teacher's Answer Key is also provided.

How We Used It

While we were given PDF for all six units, for this review period the kids and I decided to focus on the Veterans Day and the Labor Day Studies. Both of these studies consisted of three lessons a piece, allowing us to work on the two of them over the course of the last six weeks. Since Ash and Garrett are both 4th graders, it was easy for me to just print the lessons we needed for the K-6th level, staple them together and then punch them to fit into our daily notebook.

Since Memorial Day was coming quickly, we decided to work through the Veteran's Day unit as our introduction to Silverdale Press's Unit Studies, since we were completely unfamiliar with this company prior to this review.   This Unit Study consisted of three lessons and all together was 49

pages in length.  Since we were working just with the K-6th lessons, we only needed to print out pages 1-27, which included the title page, the introduction and how to use pages, and a table of contents. Printing front and back, this unit study only required 14 pages of paper.

The Veteran's Day unit introduced the kids to the story of Armistice day and the United States involvement in World War 1 and the events that led to that involvement.  They learned about who the major players in the Great War was and which countries were considered the Central Powers and which countries comprised the Allies.  It also covered the actions that President Woodrow Wilson and the American troops took in order to bring the end of the war that led to the signing of the Armistice on Nov 11th, 1918.

Each unit study includes a few various activities for students to get more "hands on" with their learning.  For the hands on activity for Veterans Day, the students read the poem "In Flanders Fields" and learned about the significance of the Red Poppy for Veterans affairs.  So we all made poppies together. Even Alyssa came in to join us for making poppies.

Lesson 2 concentrated on the the fact that during the Great War, Americans at home made sacrificed in order to help feed and cloth the soldiers abroad through paying higher taxes and by "Hooverizing" their dinners.  The children learned about who Herbert Hoover was and what types of recommendations he came up with in order to help people to not waste food by creating War Gardens, cleaning their plates at every meal, eating meatless meals and eating corn at every meal.

For the end of lesson 2, the kids decided they would try a "Hooverized" meal.  They selected a twice baked broccoli and cheese stuffed potato with a salad and of course, corn.  No meat in site and we made sure to clean our plates. (I was told afterwards I broke the rule with it not being wheatless - the kids checked the ingredients on my croutons!!)

Lesson Three tied everything together as we learned how Dwight Eisenhower, a beloved military hero, became President and eventually changes Armistice Day to Veterans day as a way to show thanks to ALL of Americas veterans.

For the activity on lesson 3, the kids were asked to do a few various activities, such as listen to Taps, Pray for peace for those serving, display a flag in our yard, wear a poppy on Veterans Day, or plant poppy seeds.  We actually did a number of these activities - although we wore our poppies for Memorial Day (we will save them to wear again in November for Veterans Day).

Overall, we really enjoyed this unit study and even Mom learned a lot from it.

For our second unit study, ,we opted for the Labor Day Unit Study.  This study was also three lessons

long. In it's entirety the unit study is 53 pages in length. Since we were only using the K-6th grade lessons, we printed out the first 23 pages which again, includes the title page, introduction, how to use page and table of contents.

For this unit, the kids learned about the horrible working conditions of the American worker (particularly those recently immigrated to America) in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The kids were shocked to learn that even children younger then they are were required to work in order to help support the family.  The lesson discussed the living conditions in tenements and about sweatshops and how Eleanor Roosevelt, long before becoming the First Lady, would work to help change the dangerous working conditions for women and children.

For this particular lesson, the activity asked the kids to look at several pictures, taken from the collection of the Library of Congress, that showed families working at various activities and then answer questions as to what they observe and what they thought of the situation.  My kids thought that most of them looked more like the children helping the parents in normal household activities, such as shelling peas or hemming a bedsheet. It wasn't until I explained to them that the peas were not going to be use for that families dinner or on their bed and that they were being paid mere pennies each to do the work, kids included, that they really understood what was happening in the pictures.  They thought it was very sad that the kids probably didn't get to play since they were always having to work (the reading mentioned many times they dropped from exhaustion as they worked so much).

For Lesson 2, the kids learned about the first Labor Day parade and about unions.  I'll be honest, they didn't seem to pay much attention to this particular part of the lesson and Ashleigh was confused why Peter McGuire and Matthew Maguire weren't related since they had the same last name, even if it was spelled differently.  I think with the fact that she was so puzzled by that particular tidbit that she couldn't concentrate on anything else with that lesson.

The activity that went with lesson 2 was another activity in regards to observation.  The kids were provided with an editorial picture that depicted the first Labor Day Parade and to pay attention to the various writings on the posters and banners.  This was hard for them using the printout and we had to pull it up on the computer and magnify it about 250% to be able to read the various signs.

The final lesson for Labor day discussed the Pullman Railroad strike and how President Grover Cleveland created the holiday that we know today as Labor Day.  Since Garrett enjoys trains, this part of the lesson seemed to interest him the most.  So, instead of doing the activity for lesson 3 (to create a poster to tell how Labor Day became a holiday), we found a few videos to watch - one about Pullman railroad cars and a few others about the Pullman Railroad Strike itself.

While we didn't enjoy this one quite as much as we enjoyed the Veteran's day Unit Study, we still found it to be educational and everyone (including mom) walked away knowing a great deal more than when we started it.

We still have four more unit studies that we will work through over the course of the next few months.  I'm particularly looking forward to both the Christmas and the Valentines Day studies as I think the kids will really enjoy those and I also look forward to the Martin Luther King Jr study as well, although it might not be as interesting to the kids.   I also enjoy the fact that even once we are finished with all six unit studies, I can put them away and then revisit them in a few years using the higher grade level lessons. 

For more information about Silverdale Press LLC, visit their website.  You can also find them on the following social media sites:

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/SilverdalePress/   Tag: @SilverdalePress
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/silverdalepress    Tag: @SilverdalePress    
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/silverdalepress/  


And don't forget to click the banner below to read more reviews from the members of the Crew.  In addition to those of us who reviewed the  White House Holiday Unit Studies, other members of the Crew reviewed Persuasive Writing & Classical Rhetoric: Practicing the Habits of Great Writers  , a writing curriculum for ages 14-18.   

Weekend Meal Planning

It's payday and that means making plans for groceries til the end of the month, or at least til the 29th when we get paid again and I can go grocery shopping that following Saturday for the first part of July.. 

I'm actually trying to keep the food bill down a bit this time around and make cheaper meals.  I'll be buying tires for my car on Saturday and my husband is going to be on vacation next week, so we will be on the road a bit more than usually going to the Natural Science Museum, the bowling alley and to the Wild Cat Sanctuary.  So, the trade off for having some fun is a few cheaper meals like Lentil Soup and Nachos.

Saturday (6/16) -Pizza Night

Sunday (6/17) - Kentucky Hot Brown Grilled Cheese with sun chips

Monday (6/18) - Lentil Soup

Tuesday (6/19) - Taco Baked Penne Pasta

Wednesday (6/20) - Buffalo chicken Bites with French Fries and Veggies

Thursday (6/21) - One pot Creamy garlic noodles with Salad

Friday (6/22) -Bowling Night (Burgers at the Alley)

Saturday (6/23) - Hummus and Chicken Wraps

Sunday (6/24) -Ground Turkey Sweet Potato Skillet

Monday (6/25) -Slow Simmered Black Eyed Peas with Greens

Tuesday (6/26) - Nacho Night

Wednesday (6/27) - Beef and Broccoli Ramen

Thursday (6/28) - Beef Kofta Meatballs with Roasted Vegetables

Friday (6/29) – Hamburger Soup with Bread

ARTistic Pursuits (A Homeschool Crew Review)

Art is a huge hit in this house.  Dad is very talented in the art department, even having had a piece that he created in high school being displayed in a local museum in his home town.  I was fairly artistic in my own right.  My oldest daughter also loves to draw and create her own characters and artistic pieces. So it was no surprise that Ashleigh would also display some talent as well.  

As a homeschool parent, I enjoy being able to not only encourage but also nurture and help develop her natural talents as much as possible.  When we were given the opportunity to review the latest release from ARTistic Pursuits Inc. to use with Ashleigh, there wasn't any hesitation.  This was a company that we were already very familiar with so we were very excited to review Art of the Ancients, which is Volume Two of the ARTistic Pursuits Art Instruction Books with DVD and Blu-Ray series. 

Designed and written by homeschooling mom Brenda Ellis, ARTistic Pursuits uses the theory that all children can learn artistic concepts and put them to use on paper.  Starting with the most basic of these concepts in early instructional books, students progress each year until they are studying these concepts on a much deeper level of technique and application.  Students are introduced early on to various mediums such as pastels, modeling clay, watercolor crayons, and paints while they learn tips and techniques that will carry them through a lifetime of artistic pursuits. 

Art of the Ancients is book 2 in the ARTistic Pursuits Art Instruction Books with DVD and Blu-Ray series.  These are newly released hardback books, written by Brenda Ellis,  that are written for grades K-3. Each of  64 page books in the six book series (a seventh book is currently in the works) features 18 lessons, 12 of which are written in text format in the book and 6 of which are found the accompanying DVD/Blu-Ray disks (both disks are found in the front of the book, giving you the option of which format you want to use). 

Video lessons are hosted by Ariel Holcomb.  Holecomb introduced the lesson topics to build interest in the lesson while Brenda Ellis teaches the student how to handle art media as well as introduce techniques that work well for young children. 

How We Used It

For our review, we chose to start with Book 2 of the new series, which focuses on the artwork of the cultures that developed along the Mediterranean sea and it's surrounding areas.  From European Cave Drawings to the Grecian Pillars to learning about artwork in tombs with the Etruscan Wall Paintings, the 18 lessons provide a wide variety of both art history as well as an introduction to various art mediums for students to learn about.    A Table of Contents as well as a Materials list is provided in the front of the book to make planning easier. 

While this particular series is aimed for students grades K-3 and Ashleigh is technically 4th grade, the lessons were still very useful for Ashleigh.  The lessons are very short - less than 10 minutes each for the video lessons and 1 to 3 pages for the book lessons. 

For our review, we decided to start with Lesson 1, which was a video lesson that demonstrated using soft pastels.  We worked on one art lesson per week, although, had Ashleigh been left to her own, she would have completed the book within a day or two.

Ashleigh watching Lesson 1 

For this lesson, students are asked to use pastels to create a picture of an object with wheels, whether from a picture of a toy.  Ashleigh decided to attempt a picture of her RC toy Challenger. 

With Lesson 2, Ashleigh learned about Art in Caves and the Lascaux Cave in France. 

After reading the lesson and doing a bit of our own research on the caves via YouTube, Ashleigh then worked on her own version of cave drawings using soft pastels.  

For Lessons 3 and 4, Ashleigh began working with self hardening clay.  Lesson 3 was another video lesson covering how to make figures from clay slabs while Lesson 4 taught about the human statues found by archaeologists while excavating Jericho.

 She was then asked to create her own clay figure.  She claims this was her statue of me LOL

For our last lesson for this review period, we revisited the Minoan Fresco paintings.  We had previously learned about the Minoan palace of Knossos and the frescos that are still visible there.  She was really thrilled when the lesson featured the fresco of Bull Jumping that had been found in Knossos.

Since the lesson focused on the Bull Jumping fresco, the lesson's assignment was for Ashleigh to draw a realistic animal using soft pastels.   Are you seeing a theme with her choice in subject?  She loves her rats.

We have really enjoyed working with the lessons in this book each week and it has quickly become one of Ashleigh's favorite subjects each week.  We will continue to work through the book and I can't wait to see how her techniques change as she completes each of Brenda Ellis's video lessons.

For more information on ARTistic Pursuits Inc. and the wide range of Art curriculum available for all grades and skill levels, be sure to visit their website.  You can also find them on the following social media sites:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtisticPursuitsInc 
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/ARTisticPursui1

And be sure to click the banner below to read reviews by other crew members on the first four books from this series. 

The Picket Project (Post 4)

It's the 10th of May and Picket has now been in our lives for a month and what an impact she has made on our lives in that month.  It amazes me that we have been granted the opportunity to help care for this creature and each day she is here with us is a blessing to us all.

Picket is still drinking goats milk and growing like a weed on it.  We no longer bother with a pippette and have resorted to allowing her to just drink out of a measuring cup.  She drinks roughly 1/2 a cup of goats milk three times a day.  However, once we finished her initial dosings of Bene-Bac, we did begin her on solid foods and offering fresh water.  She has been given a good amount of both Timothy and Orchard hay, along with Alfalfa treats but she really seems to like fresh broccoli and bananas more than anything.  She's also nibbled on apples but she doesn't seem that thrilled with them.  She does enjoy dried sweet potatoes quite a bit as well.

Also, our cat carrier was getting a bit too small for her, especially if we wanted her to be able to stretch her legs out, so we did spend a bit of money and bought a hutch for her to reside in.  This was well worth the money, even if it's temporary, as she seems much happier.

However, she would much rather be allowed to just sit in our windowsill at night.  

Or, if she's not int the windowsill, she's enjoying spending time with us snuggling on our bed..  We've learned to move our bedding off the bed and lay cheap plastic shower curtain liner with a small blanket on the bed so that she can be given free rein without worrying about bunny "accidents".. Both can be tossed into the washer machine as needed.

But without a doubt, her favorite spot is still right on my chest..  

Or curled up on our laps so she can take a snooze.

We have been told by many people who have had experience with hares that they are very standoffish and do not like to be cuddled or petted except on rare occasions.  As of now, she still enjoys being handled and will jump up on our laps or into our arms for attention.  If you ignore her, she will sit up on her hind legs and scratch at you with her front paws to get your attention. 

She loves to be held, so long as you make sure her rump is supported.. 

While she's always had big ears, they have grown significantly over the last few weeks.  The thicker fur that was initially on the back of them thinned out and eventually fell out, and her curled ears unfurled leaving behind a very fine fur over very leathery, heavily veined satellite dishes.  She LOVES to have her ears rubbed and will often fall asleep on your lap if you gently rub her ears down her back.

We understand that she's only ours for a short time.  But let me tell you, being this close to a wild animal is a pretty neat experience.