Dissecting Owl Pellets

As a first time homeschool mother with four children this year hasn't been all that I had hoped it would be. It has been an adjustment to get used to being the teacher everyday and trying to get things done with two little ones in the home still. Thankfully with homeschool we can be flexible. One of the things that we have enjoyed doing this year is dissecting owl pellets.

 Where we attend church we have owls and of course there is owl pellets everywhere. So we have been gathering them up and have plenty of them to dissect. Our oldest son loved doing this but our daughter was a little more along the lines of "yuck"!

 It is very interesting to pick apart the hair and feathers and carefully pull out all of the bones. We pulled up a chart and was able to identify some of the bones.

Life has been very busy and we have a lot going on that I will share in the future. It has been a rewarding year even though it has had some rough moments. I really am enjoying having the children home and being able to learn along with them.

gearing up for the school year

we are enjoying the last few days of our official summer break. our children are in for an entire new learning experience this year as we delve into the world of homeschool. i am nervous about teaching them in a way and some days i feel very unqualified but i believe that God has called me to be their teacher. today we started with some simple things like math and multiplication. our daughter is 10 and has always struggled in math. in public school there is no time for struggling students who don’t grasp a concept. my heart broke a little this morning when i realized that she doesn’t even fully know all of her facts. so how can she progress to harder math if she doesn’t know the simpler things now? public school passed her through 4th grade sending her straight for 5th grade unprepared. i hated math and know i think i know why. i never fully grasped the concept and things just kept getting harder. so we are starting with some basics and getting those well established before we move on. i want my children to love math but more importantly i want them to love learning. so we officially start school august 20 and i am excited to embark upon a wonderful world of learning doing the charlotte mason way of teaching. i am excited to watch my children’s world open up with all the new things that they learn. to celebrate the new year the children thought we needed a chalkboard and so i lovingly built and created this beauty for them and i am slowly watching my dining room evolve into the cutest little school room.

happy learning!