A Day In The Life of the Brown Bear Cubs...Random Pictures and a Video :)

I had the camera out a bit recently and thought I'd share some highlights...

LadyBear very proudly came up to me wearing all of this (I'm absolutely certain she chose these pieces and put them on by herself...this girl LOVES clothes).

And this sweet boy...I just love him so much.

He was very excited to see our garden peas are growing great so far!!

We even found a friend who agrees with us!

I am a bit concerned about this box as it is shaded from the sun by the fence, but I didn't notice that until after I planted everything in it and I'm hopeful it won't end up making THAT much of a difference.  Maybe as the season progresses, it will get more direct sun...

LadyBear found her first dandelion and was smitten...

Big brother showed her what to do with the "fuzzballs..."

And how to pick them...

Then, off they went to explore...I'm SO thankful we have this fence!!!

Then LittleBear decided to teach LadyBear how to slide.  The good news is she loves it...the other news is that she insists on sliding down backwards on her tummy.  What can you do, this girl marches to her own rhythm and I love her all the more for it :)

And here is a two minute excerpt from our day...I wish the camera battery hadn't died until after LittleBear was done with the book (he's reciting most of it from memory), but at least it's something!

Brown Family Garden 2014

 Our garden today...

Garden season has started here at the Brown household!!  The seeds have been ordered, dirt has been bought and mixed, new boxes have been built and just today, we had our first two sprouts show up.  Fun and exciting times!

This is what I started with a few weeks ago:

This year, I built two new boxes to house LittleBear's peas.  He loves peas and we've never been able to plant enough in the past, so this year I've got three different varieties going:  our normal favorite the Tall Telephone garden pea and two new kinds to try, Sugar Ann Snap Peas and the Improved Maestro garden pea.  Hopefully this year, we'll get enough for more than just LittleBear to eat :)

LittleBear mixing dirt!

He was beyond excited when I told him it was almost time to plant the peas.  My little boy who hates getting dirty jumped into a big pile of dirt and helped me mix it all up, then fill my new boxes.  He has been reminding me that they need to be watered and even showed LadyBear the proper way to water his new pea plants.  With Texas weather being all over the place lately, I'm a little nervous about what kind of harvest we'll get, but we had to try!!  Anyway, we'll see what we get...who knows.


LittleBear watering the peas...

Here are the other seeds I anticipate planting this year:
Black Beauty Zucchini
Lemon Basil
Sweet Genovese Basil
Black Plum Tomato  (*new variety for us to try)
Chadwick Cherry Tomato (*new variety for us to try)
Emerald Giant Sweet Pepper
Orange Bell Sweet Pepper
Hearts of Gold Melon (Hoodoo)...very similar to a cantaloupe
Honeydew Tam Dew Melon
Ananas D'Amerique A Chair Verte Melon (*new variety, which was a freebie pack of seeds included in my order)

LittleBear carefully planting his seeds...

Also, any day now, four new additions will be arriving to the Brown Family Garden.  I am now the proud owner of a Fuji Apple Tree, a Red Delicious Apple Tree and a Jubilee Blueberry bush and a Sharpblue Blueberry bush.  The apple trees are dwarf trees, which will grow to 8' or so and will be grown in large pots, so I can move them around the yard, if necessary.  They will take about 2 years to produce fruit, but I'm looking forward to that!!

Our first sprouts!!!

Fun Times at Crestwood Oaks Academy

The blog has been a bit quiet lately, but don't think that because the blog has been quiet, the house has been too!  We have been busy learning and I just haven't been able to get myself together enough to post after each home school unit we've been doing. 

So, I'm going to show you some highlights :)

We kicked off "O is for Octopus" week with a trip to the donut shop (O shaped snacks!), which thrilled two kids (& Mommy) to no end!

Working with Cuisenaire Rods:

 
Here is LittleBear learning about why the ink an octopus squirts when they are in danger is helpful to them.  You really can't see through it!

Then we moved on to "W is for Water" and learned about solids, liquids and gases.  Our solid was an ice cube, our liquid was water and our gas was peppermint oil in my diffuser:

Then we moved on to "I is for Insects" and started an ant farm!

as of 2/4, it looked like this (and they are STILL going)!

We also released some ladybugs into our garden where we have the ladybug house (using this tutorial) we built during "N is for Nest" week:

You can click on these pictures to see them larger, if you wish...



We finished up "I is for Insects" and ran around flying like bumblebees to "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Korsakov:

This week (G is for Goat), we have been talking about farm animals and while I don't have any super fun games to share, I did want to give you a peek into how LittleBear is doing with his reading.  He's getting there!  The words on this sheet were mostly new to him and he did great with them!  Here he is figuring them out on his own with a little help from LadyBear: