All birds have feathers, and birds are the only animals on Earth that have them. Feathers play many important roles in a birds life. They provide insulation and protection from the elements, and provide camouflage to protect birds from predators. They also play a role in flight. Feathers are pretty fascinating! In this post I share some simple activities and resources for learning about feathers with your kids. Feather Anatomy: Feathers are made of keratin, the same protein that gives our fingernails strength. All feathers have a central shaft called a rachis. Small filaments called barbs extend off the rachis, and even smaller filaments called barbules extend off of those. Barbules have hooklets which hook the barbules together like a zipper, creating a surface capable of withstanding the pressures of flight. Make A Feather Photo Collection: Take pictures of different types of feathers you find in your yard, neighborhood, and while on nature hikes. Compare the differen...

Nature hikes are one of my family's favorite activities. My kids love them, which is great because they're educational and it gets them up and moving. In this post I will share 4 reasons to incorporate nature hikes into your homeschool week. Learn About Local Plant And Animal Life: Nature Hikes are a great way to teach your children about the plants and trees that grow in your area. Check your local library or used book stores for a local plant ID book or just do a little online research and learn to identify local plant life. There's also a great app called iNaturalist that helps you identify plant and animal species. Many wild plants have nutritional and/or medicinal value and some are poisonous so being able to identify them is a great life skill to have. Bring your binoculars and watch for birds, insects, and other animals you might see on your hike. Then go home and do a little research and try to identify the species you saw. Learn About Geolo...

One of the things I'm most proud of this homeschool year, is how much my daughter's reading has improved. She moved from reading mostly simple children's picture books and EZ readers to reading whole chapter books!  In this post I share 6 great chapter book series for young girls, all approved by my daughter. Billie B. Brown The Billie B. Brown series by Sally Rippin was my daughter's very first favorite chapter book series. It's about a spunky little girl named Billie who likes soccer and hanging out with her best friend Jack. (Jack also has his own series if your looking for a fun early chapter book series for boys.) The language is pretty simple, the text size is big, and it has lots of cute illustrations, making it a great series for making the transition from picture books to chapter books. Fairy Ponies The Fairy Ponies series by Zanna Davidson is about a young girl named Holly who discovers a secret world full of ...

In this post I share some of my family's favorite homeschool resources. I usually put together my own curriculum, so I don't have any recommendations for full, boxed curriculum sets, but there are a lot of book series, science kits, websites, and other educational resources that we love and use often.  Fun-Schooling Journals The Fun-Schooling Journals from Thinking Tree are really cool. They offer journals for a wide variety of topics, and each journal is filled with writing and activity prompts related to that journal's topic. I like them because they offer a lot of room for students to choose how and what they're learning about each day. They offer some structure without too much rigidity. You can check out all their books here:  Fun-Schooling Bookstore Blossom and Root's Science and Nature Study Curriculum I was gifted Blossom and Root's 3rd grade science curriculum, "Wonders of the Animal Kingdom" last year by a friend. I really didn't expe...

We recently did a fun engineering activity building towers out of toothpicks and gumdrops. The kids loved it and spent a good portion of our morning building. While watching them, I came up with a simple hands on geometry lesson using the same materials. In this post I will share a fun hands on way to teach geometric shapes and the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. Toothpick Gumdrop Geometry: For this activity you will need: -Toothpicks -Gumdrops Using the toothpicks as sides and gumdrops to fasten them at the corners, have your child build some of the familiar 2D shapes like a square, a rectangle, a triangle, a trapezoid, and a parallelogram. You can also build some of the 2 D shapes with more sides like pentagons, hexagons, octagons, and decagons. Then try to build some of the 3D shapes like a cube, a rectangular prism, a triangular prism, and a pyramid. Extend The Learning: Learn more about geometric shapes...

I'm always surprised by how many concerned comments we get from well meaning strangers when my kids are barefoot in public. I know most of these people mean well, and are genuinely concerned, but their concern is misplaced. Going barefoot has many benefits and wearing shoes too often can actually be damaging. In this post I will share 5 ways going barefoot is beneficial for children (and adults too).  Proper Foot And Leg Development: Wearing shoes affects the way a person steps. It requires using different sets of muscles and using muscles differently than walking barefoot does. This can hinder proper development of the muscles of the legs and feet. Modern shoes are constricting. Over time they can actually change the shape of a person's feet. Shoes squish the bones of the feet together, affecting toe spread and arch. Flat feet are rare in places where shoes are seldom worn. Toe spread is also much wider in people who frequently go barefoot than in their shoe...

We love STEM activities in this house. My oldest is definitely a hands on learner so we try to incorporate a lot of hands on activities into our homeschool days.  In this post I will share instructions and resources for a really fun STEM activity we did recently: Aluminum Foil Boats! Learning About Boats And Buoyancy: Before we got started on our own boats we spent some time learning about boats and researching how boats float. Here are a few good resources we found: Why Do Ships Float?  from SciShow Kids How Do Boats Float?  from Fun Kids Inspiring Engineers  How Boats Float  from Boat Safe Kids I also did a quick Google Image search so we could look at pictures of different types and shapes of boats. Building And Testing Aluminum Foil Boats: Once we felt like we had a good understanding of what a boat needs to look like to float, I challenged my kids to design and build their own boats out of aluminum foil.  My 7 year old decided to...

I love art and craft activities that incorporate nature. In this post I will share instructions for a fun art activity we did recently: nature stamping! For this activity you will need: -White or light colored paper -Washable paints -Paint brush -Leaves, pine needles, and other pieces of nature -A cup of water for cleaning your paint brush First have your children search your yard or neighborhood for different leaves, pine needles, shells, pine cones, sticks, and any other pieces of nature you think might be fun to stamp with. Our favorite materials are leaves and sea shells. Apply a very light layer of paint to a leaf or other piece of nature with your paint brush. Carefully set it paint side down onto your paper, gently rub over it, then peel it up. You can also set a fresh unpainted leaf on your paper and carefully paint over and around it. Then carefully lift the leaf. Make a cool a design or just cover your page in nature stamps! If...