Growing Geniuses

Something that we love to learn about is animals- we love being around animals, reading about animals, watching movies about animals- all of it! We especially love talking about animals that are "rare" like snow leopards, penguins, and turtles. We learned that these types of animals are endangered and completed an awesomely fun-tastic inquiry and project-based learning series on them! The actual project-based learning came from one of our mom's favorite sites- Teachers Pay Teachers. ( https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Endangered-Species-Expert-Project-Based-Learning-1300028 ). This one was created by Core Inspiration- a company that specializes in having teachers develop project-based learning activities that align with "Core Skills." In this unit we had to complete the following activities: Become an Expert Write a Book Write a Poem Create a Collage Create a Potanimal We will be showing you our creations from this unit over the next couple o...

We finally get to update everyone on stuff we have been doing! It has been a few weeks because of vacation and general summer stuff, so this post will just cover one of the things we have been doing- cooking classes! We do our classes through a program called Raddish ( https://www.raddishkids.com/ ). They send us a kit in the mail each month, with three recipes at least, aprons, kitchen tools, patches, and extra activities. Our parents can also download additional homeschool materials that include science, math, geography lessons that go with the recipes we do. This month's theme was "Summer Pool Party." Our recipes included: Cool as a Cucumber Cups BBQ Chicken Flatbread Triple Berry Ice Cream Pie and a bonus- Sunshine Party Punch We learned how to mince, do some different knife work, make dough and pie crust from scratch (versus out of a can or bought at the store), and how to make a compote. Here is the process in pictures! FIRST UP- COOL AS A CUCUMBER CUP...

Easing into the homeschool format now- this is our first week of doing full on homeschooling so our inquiry is a bit, well, lame to start! Mom and dad wanted us to learn why we needed to include self-care and house cleaning in our homeschool schedule, so they made the first inquiry about it. We ended up coming up with some pretty interesting questions, and questions that might even be inquiries later on. We did quite a bit of research- Jovie focusing in on care for our surroundings, including recycling and care for the earth; Zekiah zoning in on more technical details of care for ourselves (even finding out the names of the different layers of our teeth!). No projects connected with this inquiry- though we are SO looking forward to doing more project-based learning in the next week (when we get to learn about endangered animals- a passion for both of us!). Here is a look at what the inquiry ended us at the end of the week: BIG TAKEAWAYS THIS INQUIRY In the end we basic...

Every week we have an inquiry that we follow to do research on, to apply skills to, and to complete projects about. Our very first Inquiry was completed before we were even done with regular schooling- to prepare for homeschooling. Inquiry: What is Homeschooling About We thought about many things and eventually came up with a list of facts, ideas, and questions. We then took several weeks to investigate the questions and find out answers. Here is what our inquiry brainstorm looks like: The Eyeball is what we know for sure, what the facts are, what we SEE . The Lightbulb is what we THINK the answer is. The Question Mark is what we have QUESTIONS about. If we come up with questions that don't really go with the inquiry, we put those on the WONDER WALL: We hope that we can answer all the questions that we put on there throughout the year! Big Take Aways This Inquiry We won't have grades or standardized tests in our homeschool We are looking forwa...

Welcome to our Blog! We have been BEGGING our parents to be homeschooled for the past two years and they finally agreed! Of course, knowing our parents, they decided to do homeschooling differently than everyone else- we love it because we get to do learning games online, projects, inquiries, and learn about the things WE care about. It also means that we need a place to "show off" what we are learning. We invite you to be our audience as we present our projects, process, and final products. Join us on our journey!!! (PS- these first blog posts will probably be written by our parents until we get the hang of this whole blogging thing...so if the tone changes mid-way through the blog, that's why!)