Good things come to homeschoolers who ask!

I have wanted to start a timeline for our history studies for some time now, but have struggled to find something that was just right. I didn't want something too big and cumbersome, or too cluttered. I didn't want something that had a very religious focus, and I wanted it to be attractive and oh yes, inexpensive. Really, that's not too much to ask, is it? I was beginning to think it was.

Patience is not my strongest virtue, but I am very glad I waited around. I asked about timelines on the WTM message boards and got several links to great free resources, including this one where I printed my pages: http://www.ourlosbanos.com/homeschool/history/timeline.html

Okay, so I had the pages... now how to lay them out? Well, I got the idea to put them in a 3 ring binder from www.simplycharlottemason.com. So I hole-punched away, but I still lacked figures. All of my searching online kept bringing up some that looked beautiful, but seemed rather expensive. I made my wish list and just kept hanging on until today, when I noticed someone else asking about timelines. And who should answer but the queen of free resources, with a handy link to her own blog? There she demonstrated how she made her own timeline and used the resources found here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Hannah_hs_helps/ .

Cue the angel choir!! My printer is busy as I type this, and I am excited to have found exactly what I need... without spending a lot of money! I don't mind some cutting, pasting, and laminating.

What we have been up to...

We did a nice long study on ocean life, which we actually are still working on. We just do a little here and there, and the girls are having tons of fun. My main resource has been a book called In the Ocean from Teacher Created Resources. Those teachers sure know what they're doing! LOL I got every single penny's worth out of this book. Remind me of that the next time I'm wandering the toy aisle with the girls.

So here are two of our habitat posters - I'm sure you can tell which one the girls glued together and which one I did. Looking at it now, my tide pool looks a little forlorn.

One of the girls' favorite activities from this ocean study is Ocean Bingo. The cards only have nine squares, so I make the girls fill their whole card before they get to call Bingo. They added a silly little twist to it - when they fill their cards, they then stuff all the fish crackers into their mouths. Davey calls it a toddler version of a drinking game.

We haven't done all the projects with this study yet, but we did make some barnacles and bumpy sea stars - you can tell they're proud of their work!

We're also starting the very basics in history. We'll be having a lot of fun with ancient history this year, but first Becca needs a little idea of what history is. So we did a little timeline of her life.

And I received my Living Learning science curriculum today - I've decided to capitalize on our ocean focus and kick it off with a study on whales. I'll keep it around the ocean and we'll do seals and penguins next. Then I'm thinking we'll do frogs - so I'm going to send off for a Grow-a-Frog kit!

At least I'm not getting an ant farm.