Live and Learn Farm

An Insect Like Myself

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This one might be a tough question: What would I do if I were an insect? I imagine a lot of people haven’t even thought about it, and neither had I. It took a bit of time to come up with an insect like myself. How does someone liken themselves to an insect in the first place? After thinking about it, I decided I would probably be an ant. I know this sounds a little weird, but in an odd way, I have a lot in common with an ant… all of which I will cover in the paragraphs to come.

An Insect like Myself

First of all, ants are just kinda cool. They have big, vicious, mandibles which sometimes contain certain chemicals that irritates our skin and body. Okay, maybe that part isn’t like me… But this part is… They build highly intricate colonies commonly known as “ant hills”, and I myself love to build stuff as well. I’m not claustrophobic, and actually like small, dim places. This pretty much sums up an ant hill, and I don’t think i would mind living in one much.

A fun fact that I found intriguing about ants is they learn differently from other insects. Most insects learn via imitation, but ants actually possess the ability to “Tutor” younger and less experienced ants, similar to how I tutor my brothers in our American History course, Paths of Exploration. They can also sense when the student ant needs a break, and slows down to let them catch up. On the other hand, when an ant is speeding up behind the tutor ant, they speeds up as well. They also possess the ability to choose what job they do in the colony, so long as it’s the one they’re best at. If a large group of ants are cut off from a food supply for some amount of time, they will actually stop searching and strictly guard and tend the nest.

Here’s another quick and fun fact.  One ant, known as the Pharaoh Ant, actually makes it’s nest inside of a sheet of paper. Believe it or not, It’s about the size of the head of a pen!

On the scientific side, my taxonomy would be completely different from that of a human. My new taxonomy would be as follows: Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Arthropoda, Class Insecta, Order Hymenoptera, and Family Formicidae. All organisms within this taxonomy are classified as ants. This is very different from that of a normal human, which ends up in Family Hominidae.  

Although ants can be very interesting, they’re more often than not, considered pests. This is mostly because of their painful sting, but there are other things about them that are undesirable. Something I suspect almost everyone knows about is that ants are attracted to food. If you have a lot of ants in your area then you’re very familiar with this.  To prevent ants from getting your food, simply put it in a plastic bag when your done with it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this somewhat odd post, and in the process learned a little bit more about ants, how they think, and that in general they’re worth the trouble they sometimes cause.

If you are a tween / teen and like to write, join us for the Middle / High School Creative Writing linkup each Monday!

Middle and High School Linkup for Students and Moms!

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Middle and High School LinkUp #5

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Welcome back to the Middle and High School (tweens, teens & Moms) Creative Writing LinkUp!  We are so excited to have a linkup for our children to have a creative writing outlet! And a place for us moms to have a place to sometimes share middle school and high school homeschool articles we write.  We have had some extremely successful writing prompts and some that have been more challenging! As we move into our second month, I am looking forward to seeing how our children’s writing is progressing!

The co-hosts for this middle and high school linkup are:

Amy at Homeschool Encouragement

Clara at Clara’s Blue Moon (teen co-host)

DaLynn at Holy Splendor

Jennifer at Royal Little Lambs

Laura at Day by Day in Our World

Trish at Live and Learn Farm

Wendy at Homeschooling Blessings

Middle and High School Linkup for Students and Moms!

guidelines for the linkup:

  • The link-up will be open Monday through Friday.
  • Please link directly to the url of your post (permalink).
  • Please check back and visit at least one of student’s submissions and leave a comment for them.  Our job is to encourage writing, their Mom (or Dad) will take care of the critique :-)
  • If you don’t mind, please place the button and code in your blog post so others can find out about the linkup also!
  • That’s it!

and now it’s time for the link up!

Our linkup is steadily growing, with new student-writers finding out about us each week.  Last week was a more challenging topic “What if I were President of the United States“, so we had fewer articles.  But the ones that participated were great.  Please be sure to check out their articles and leave encouraging words for them!  If you are interested in joining us, linkup your article below. If you want to co-host, email me and let me know.  Our focus for the co-hosting is for only moms of the teens, or the teens themselves to co-host.

Next week’s topic will be pretty open-ended! Sometimes it is harder to write with a writing prompt than it is to just write. Maybe a more open ended writing prompt will help. “In 20 years….“ Take it any direction you want.

This week’s topic is If you were an insect, what kind would you be and why?  These should be interesting posts!


Almost Montessori Nest & Stack Cubes

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One of the concepts that I found to be uniquely Montessori is to teach visual perception of dimension at a very early age.  It is important to help our children develop their visual perception skills because it is this skill that helps our children relate to their visual world. Our ability to process what we see is critical in every day life, and in learning.  What our eyes take in, our brain interprets;  and this interpretation creates a picture that renders meaning.  From that meaning our brains created, we then make action plans. An example would be, when you see stairs ahead, you prepare yourself to either step down or up, based on your ability to determine which direction the steps are going.  We interpret our world in a way that aids us in organizing the objects and space around us. So developing this skill early will not only help their motor skills, it will help our children with their ability to read, write and build things.  Because all these abilities are based on an understanding of how things go together, including symbols such as numbers and letters. Today’s item: Almost Montessori Nest & Stack Cubes. Nest and stack cylinders

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There are two sets of these.  The first set are cubes, which are 56% off with 5 stars.

Montessori Nest and Stack Cylinders

And this set are cylinders and these are 63% off!

In my mind, these are similar to the knobbed cyclinder work that is a traditional Montessori work, even though these do not have knobs.  It does have the base which will help children determine which item will go where, because the base has only one cut out that fits each piece.

Below are lessons on how to present the traditional work, knobbed cylinders, that you will need to adapt to use with these.

Wikisori has a video of the presentation, directions for the presentation and extensions.

Montessori World has a great written presentation for this material including vocabulary that will help children define these pieces.

Disclosure

Some fantastic “Strike the Imagination” books and games are below.


I hope this article will be a blessing to you and your homeschool!

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You Have Been Elected President

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Hello, this is my fourth post on our Middle and High school linkup! I always wondered what it would be like to be president. I think this will be a very fun subject! But, like the last post, it is a harder subject to write about also.

White House Floor Plan

As I read the text on the screen of my email, ” Hello Blake, you have been elected president, please come to Washington, DC as soon as possible.” I sat there and thought “Why me, I didn’t even run for president?”  I packed a suitcase full of the items that I needed for the trip. When I opened my front door there was a limo sitting there in front of my house. One of the men stepped out and said “Hello Mr. President we are here to take you to DC”. I got in the limo and we drove away.

We drove for what seemed like years, but when we got there we were making our way to the White House when suddenly I hear a loud THUD and the car made a sound and stopped. The two men got out and one of them said ” Sir, I believe the car is busted.” I saw one of the men whip out a phone and dial the director of the Secret Service to relocate us.  When they arrived, we got in the helicopter they came in and they flew us to the White House.

I started adjusting to my new environment and making my office  and getting used to having a ton of work. At first it was exciting, I had a lot of fun doing all of the things I did. But what I disliked were all the meetings.  I would rather be looking around the White House and other things. My favorite part was when I got to eat, play, and do almost anything I wanted. But after a while, looking around the White House got boring too.  And all the other things were getting kind of boring.

One day my intern showed me the entrance way to the secret rooms below the White House… this was cool! He was a younger person, 14 at the most! He pulled a vase forward and the wall opened! Inside I could see steps that  lead us down.  The pathway was lit by small lamps when we got to bottom door, my intern stopped. I  asked him why didn’t he want to go in.  He said quietly “I don’t know why, but there is something about those rooms that I don’t trust” I told him ” If you’re not coming, tell me please, because I want to go in.” “Fine”  he said with a sigh, “let’s go”.

You have been elected

We opened the door and entered…there was a maze of walls at the other end of the room.  Immediately in front of us there was a small table with two of my cabinet members sitting at it eating. They seemed a little odd though.  They said  the maze goes on forever, of course, they didn’t mean it literally.  We made our way through the maze and on the other side, we found three doors.  Each one had a name on it, the 1st said [Warzone] the 2nd said [Armory] and the 3rd [Training]. I’m thinking… military training in the White House?  We went into training and saw many more members of my cabinet there with guns, Nerf guns that is…  shooting at targets.  We exited the room and went in the door for the armory.  There we found tons of Nerf guns of all sizes and shapes. We grabbed two of them, I grabbed a mega pistol and he grabbed a Lumitron.

Disclosure

We headed to the warzone.  We entered cautiously and I barely missed being struck with a vortex bullet as it whizzed by me.  I whipped out my mega pistol and headed into the mix.  All of my cabinet members were here having fun with Nerf guns. From that day on we always went down there and played with my other cabinet members during lunch.  Sometimes, if we didn’t have a bunch of meetings  we would even stay down there almost a whole day. My cabinet members became friends and it made us work as a team even more.

I had so much fun in the secret rooms but unfortunately my term as President came to an end. When my term as President was over my intern wanted to go to TN with me because he was so loyal to me.  I told him he should go back to his family.  I figured out his family lived in DC and he had visiting them regularly. I was glad. I  sadly left my friend and returned to Tennessee and my life went on normally.  I will never forget my intern, he has become one of my best friends.

Thank you for reading my post! I hope you enjoyed it. I also look forward to the next linkup!  The topic for it is “What if I were an Insect… what would I be and why.”

There Has Been a Misunderstanding

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“Sir, there has been a misunderstanding, I am not the President!” I say to the well-dressed man who just addressed me as the President. “No, Mr President, the people just decided there should be a teenage President with an assistant to help him with the job. We had a computer randomly choose someone as President, and you were chosen,” the man said. “But I don’t think I have the qualities to be the President!” I say. “Maybe not, but that is the reason I am here. I was appointed to be the assistant of whoever was chosen.” he said.

If I were president

Soon after we finished our talk, he led me out to his car, a long, black limousine. After getting seated and situated, we start our drive to the airport. When we arrive I spot a sleek airplane from the window of my car. My assistant said that is what we will be using to get to Washington, DC. The moment we enter the airport, two men start escorting me to the plane. Once on the plane, I am offered a meal, which I happily accept. My meal is chicken, covered in spices with a side of rice. The meal lasted the whole trip, because after I finished the meal, dessert was served… a snickerdoodle cake, my favorite. How did they know that, I wondered as I devoured the scrumptious slice of cake.

As soon as we arrived in DC, we got in another limo and were on our way to the White House! As we pulled out of the airport, two black cars surrounded us. One in the front and one in the back of the limo. My assistant saw me eyeing them and explained they are our escorts. After about 30 minutes of driving, we arrived at the White House gates.  The driver showed the gate manager his card, and once it was confirmed to be real, we were allowed in. When we pulled up to the entrance, I hesitated.  I was not sure if I wanted to go in… I mean being the president is not something I studied in school. My assistant noticed my reluctance. Sensing why I was worried, he said, “Don’t worry I will guide you through most of the work and hard decisions. I’ll give you the pros and cons on each situation and you get to choose how you want to handle it.” This comforts me tremendously, and at that moment, I decide to do the job as best I can.

My assistant takes me to my office where I find a suit my size is laying on my desk. He casually states “Your live interview is starting in 5 minutes, hurry up and get dressed.” “WHAT!?” I scream. “Don’t worry … you just have to read this to the press.” He hands me my speech and leaves so I can get dressed. In five minutes I find myself in front of a hundred or so people, with notebooks and taking my picture. Almost all of them are asking me questions, which my assistant deflects by asking everyone to quiet down so I can read my speech.

After the interview, work starts slowing down and getting less exciting … bills, papers, speeches, meetings, limo rides, flights, bills, papers, etc. Then, in what seems like only a week, I am shaking the hand of my assistant as he walks me outside and says “this limo will take you home Mr. President. I hope you enjoyed your time with us as much as I did.” After finishing our goodbyes, I get in the car and am driven home.

From then on, life gets back to normal.  Well, except for people saying “Wow! I can’t believe you were the President!” and things like that. Yeah, life was pretty normal until one day the phone rings… I immediately recognize the voice on the other end of the phone.  He says “Good afternoon Mr President, How are you? I hope you have enjoyed your time off…  but something has come up”… 

Hope you all enjoyed my post on if I were the president.  You never know, I might have a sequel to this!

See ya soon!

If I were President

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I’m sure everyone in this country has wanted, at least a bit, to be president. What if you got the chance?  Would you take it?  And if you did, what would you do in your new position? There are quite a few possibilities, way too many to cover here, so I’ll breeze through a few. Among them would be the following: What is America’s current position, and how would I fix it in my new position? And, most importantly, how I would help the people. So, here is what I would do if I were President.  

If I were President

Before I can show how I would make America “better”, I must first outline what America’s current state of being is. So basically, America is run by the President and solely the President. You may be thinking “What about the two other branches of government?” When America is in a state of emergency, the president has the ability to pass laws without having to go through Congress. America has been in this state for ages now (since WWII), and although I don’t know what’s going on behind the scene, I personally think that the emergency state should have been lifted quite some time ago. But the point is, it wasn’t, and we’re still in a “state of emergency”. This means anytime the President wants, he can pass a law without it going through Congress.  Not only is this dangerous, it could be abused, passing laws that have absolutely nothing to do with America’s current state of war. How I would rectify this is simple enough… I would just lift the state of emergency. This would return America to a system of checks and balances.

That would fix a big problem, but after that I would do a few more things which I think would make life better. First off, there would be better border control. People keep coming into America just so they can take advantage of the national benefits. I’m all for immigration, I just prefer the legal way.

A couple of other things that I would also like to change are, in a way, contradictory to each other. I would ban and outlaw all invasion of privacy of the people, such as spying on calls, email, and other aspects of life. A person’s life should be their business, not the government’s. At the exact same time, I would increase public security. Monuments, parks, court houses, town halls, and all places like that would be better controlled and monitored. There’s an unsaid rule, that when you leave your house you’re willingly giving up some privacy. I wouldn’t quite make it where you’re constantly being watched outside of your house, but places that are important and that a lot of people use should definitely have some form of protection.

Cyber Snooping

I would definitely designate a large portion of my term to helping out the people of this country. I would help make everyday life better, safer, and more free. Like I said above, I would outlaw all spying on a person’s personal life and matters. This includes email, phone calls, everything. I would also get in touch with car companies, and work with them on creating safer and more efficient cars, that will last longer and not break down as easily. And while I’m on the subject of cars, I would seriously consider motorcycle road laws. I don’t think I would outlaw them, just make people have to take a course on safety. I mean seriously, they’re bikes with motors strapped to them, does that seem even a little dangerous to anyone? But everyone has their opinion, so, once again, I wouldn’t outlaw them. To sum it all up, I’d make the road safer, in every way possible.

Finally, I would try my best to lower the taxation upon your average person. You have to be careful when toying with the economy, but I’m sure that the government has a bunch of wasteful spending. I would lower the spending so I could lower the taxes to keep someone from going totally broke, but still keep people paying what it takes to run the government. And as the conditions change, so would the taxation. So when the nation is doing good, I would lower the tax rate.

I hope if I ever actually run for President, you’ll vote for me!  

Almost Montessori World Oceans

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As I think through all of the fabulous materials and works we use to teach our children using the Montessori method, one of our favorites has always been the maps. Maybe because I love puzzles myself or because it is a really concrete way to see where we are in the world, I personally have always loved these works. We do spend a lot of time teaching about the continents, but only just recently have I started seeing puzzles that don’t focus on the continent and only focus on the oceans. And these are not available in the US yet or they are really expensive.  So I thought I would share how we taught this concept …. Almost Montessori World Oceans.

World Oceans

 

This World Map is not a traditional Montessori work, but has the same concepts as the foundation.  We use tactile works to teach abstract concepts.  This is a large fabric world map (56″x 33″) with reinforced grommets for hanging (we used it on the floor and hung it after we were finished with it), with labels.  We used this in conjunction with the free study from Montessori Etc of the World Oceans using three-part cards.

Montessori Etc World Oceans Nomenclature Free

Most of the time, world oceans are presented in conjunction with the study of Continents of the world. Below are various manuals and how they introduce this topic.

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Here is a great article on the scope and sequence of geography by Montessori Primary Guide.  It shows when to present what pieces, if you are following the traditional Montessori curriculum!

Here is Montessori Research and Development’s lesson the Continent Globe.  They are using the Continent Globe to introduce the continents and world oceans.

Here is North American Montessori Center (NAMC)’s manual lesson section on Oceans.

Here is another Montessori Album that provides a free lesson on World Oceans.  They are using World Map puzzles for this lesson.

I stumbled upon a fantastic strike the imagination work by Mama Papa Bubba Site.  It is Frozen Ocean Animal Rescue.  If my boys were younger, we would be doing this one for sure to strike their imagination.  I would probably wait until spring/summer to do it!!

For older students, here is a presentation by a Montessori Middle school teacher, Victor Young.  He presented Building an Ocean Legacy Through Ocean Literacy,  at the International Montessori Conference in August 2013. You can see his slides and here his presentation here.

Disclosure

Books that would be great to help strike your children’s imagination about the Ocean.

 


I hope this presentation was a blessing to you and your homeschool!

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Middle and High School LinkUp #4

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Welcome to the Middle and High School (tween, teen and Mom) Creative Writing Link Up!  We are so excited to have a linkup for our children to have a creative writing outlet! And a place for us moms to have a place to sometimes share middle school and high school homeschool articles we write. You can link up at any of the following co-host’s sites:

Amy at Homeschool Encouragement

Clara at Clara’s Blue Moon (teen co-host)

DaLynn at Holy Splendor

Jennifer at Royal Little Lambs

Laura at Day by Day in Our World

Trish at Live and Learn Farm

Wendy at Homeschooling Blessings

Middle and High School Linkup for Students and Moms!

Our linkup is steadily growing, with new student-writers finding out about us each week. We had seven students share their posts about being able to see through walls last week. It was so much fun reading (and watching) their stories and seeing how creative they were! Please be sure to check out their articles and leave encouraging words for them!  If you are interested in joining us, linkup your article below. If you want to co-host, email me and let me know.  Our focus for the co-hosting  is for only moms of the teens, or the teens themselves to co-host.

guidelines for the linkup:

  • The link-up will be open Monday through Friday.
  • Please link directly to the url of your post (permalink).
  • Please check back and visit at least one of student’s submissions and leave a comment for them.  Our job is to encourage writing, their Mom (or Dad) will take care of the critique :-)
  • If you don’t mind, please place the button and code in your blog post so others can find out about the linkup also!
  • That’s it!

and now it’s time for the link up!

The theme for this week’s linkup is “What if I were President of the United States“.  You can linkup your post anytime before Friday night this week. The topic for our next Linkup on Monday, 2/3 will be “If you were an insect, what kind would you be and why?”


Almost Montessori Fraction Circles

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Today I am presenting another product that follows the Montessori foundation and pedagogy of teaching, but is not a traditional Montessori Work. I created this series, Almost Montessori, as a way to help homeschoolers be able to benefit from a Montessori education without breaking the bank. Montessori materials are usually pretty expensive and this is my attempt to provide alternatives that maintain the core purpose and are Almost Montessori in their function.  So be watching for these posts! Today’s items that is in the “Almost Montessori” category is: Almost Montessori Fraction Circles.

Fraction Circles

Educational Insights Fraction Center

A puzzle and a conceptual fraction lesson, all rolled into fun; Includes: Game board, leveled puzzle cards (50), foam fraction pieces (65), guide, and solutions for every puzzle; Alert: CHOKING HAZARD – Small parts. Not for children under 3 yrs.

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These instructions are for the traditional Montessori work, so you will need to modify to fit your use if not using the Montessori materials.

Montessori Primary Guide has the Lesson and presentation for Fraction circles. And if you are visual, here is a video to help you see the fraction lesson in action.

Here is a lesson for older students for multiplying and dividing Fractions from NAMC. And here is a video of multiplying fractions for older students.  And here is a fraction division video for older students.


If this series is helpful to you, please share and help us get the word out about it!!

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I Have a Power

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I have a power, a power that many people desire. A power that places me in danger. If I could see through walls!The power to see through walls. At first I thought it was just going to be something fun, being able to flick on and off the ability. Then, when the black unmarked car followed me through the city, I knew I was in danger. And it’s not a total secret. My secret, the fact that I can see through walls, has been leaked. And It appears someone or something wants me, and I believe they’ve found me. I need to find people who will help me, maybe there are people like me and maybe there being hunted too.

So I start my quest, looking for people that will help me, or people like me. But where should I start? There is a whole world to search. So I’ll just start by strolling the stre- a black car floors it around the corner and straight at me! I start running, I then turn on my ability, to look into the car as I run. Four men, in black suits, are in the car. I then use my ability to spot an almost-invisible ally and dart down it. It was too narrow for the car to follow.  So when I reach the end of the alley, I jump on and over the wall. I think I lost them, when I see the black car at a stop waiting for me.

Suddenly, a blue car stops right in front of me. Three people are in the car, two about my age, and one about 25 who is at the wheel. “Get in, there’s not much time” says the driver. “Who are you?” I ask. “People just like you” says one of the teens. “as in you can see through things?” I ask. “Yes, now quick get in before they see you!” says the driver. So I get in the car and we floor it back the way they had come. “We work for the government trying to stop those people who were chasing you.” says the driver. “Who are those guys?” I ask. “Those people want to use our abilities for evil, like seeing the combination to a gold safe or things like that”. “I have an idea, lets follow them since they did not see me get in your car and see where they go. We can then contact the police and they can arrest them.” I say.

So we followed the black car, until they stopped at an old abandoned store. The men got out of their car and we stopped across the street at a coffee shop and watched. One of the men revealed a secret panel with buttons that was hidden on the wall by the abandoned store’s door. “A code lock!” said Keith, who had introduced himself while we followed the car. “This should be easy” said Luke. After the man clicked four buttons the door opened. “The code is 2962” says Katherine the driver. “Let’s phone the police” I said. But Katherine already had her phone out and was talking to them. She hangs up and says “they will be here in five minutes shall we stay and watch?” “Yes!” we all screamed. Those five minutes seemed like the longest ever. But then the police silently pull up and surround the building. After making sure there were no secret exits all thirty-five charged in.Fifteen minutes later the police come out with twenty men who were all brought to jail. After the people were arrested who were trying to hunt us down, we all settled down together like normal citizens and resign from our government work. We made a promise we would not use our abilities again, unless it was an emergency. 

I hope you all enjoyed my story: If I could see through walls!

See ya soon!