You know you're a homeschooler when...

[MamaSheep]

Your child's pet (triops) dies, and your first reaction is, "Cool! I'll get the microscope!"

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.

.

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And your child's reaction is, "Can we dissect it, Mom? PLEEEEEASE?"

[sparrow]

Yep. At our house last week it was, "Ewww, there's a tick on your shirt." "Get it off me! Kill it! But be careful. I want to look at it under the microscope!" :lol:

[ChristusG]

LOL!! That is great!!

[bairnmama]

:lol: Those are great! How about when a giant spider the size of a saucer walks across the living room floor and your kids want to catch it and keep it instead of squishing it?! We live in an old farmhouse between 2 very large fields and get lots of critters inside.

[Terabith]

:lol: Those are great! How about when a giant spider the size of a saucer walks across the living room floor and your kids want to catch it and keep it instead of squishing it?! We live in an old farmhouse between 2 very large fields and get lots of critters inside.

 

Okay, we're taking your name off of the possible hosts of the WTM board party! :D

[twilkin]

I don't do spiders not even for the sake of education.

[Lara in Colo]

When the children start a study of all the lady bugs to see if they are the rare 9 spotted ones.

When a walk ends up being a study of "what animal died here" with bone collection and reassembly.

When the back yard has teepees in it.

 

Lara

[Closeacademy]

Dh catches a mess of fish and they watch him intently as he filets each one and have him point out all the body parts, hoping to see egg sacs. And then asking him to cut open their heads so they can examine the brains. These are girls that are considered to be prissy by most.:001_smile:

[Guest mrsjamiesouth]

My oldest son brought home 2 baby rabbits (wild ones) that he caught bare-handed! He informed me that one was a male and one a female after looking underneath. :lol: He wanted to keep them and study them.

[bairnmama]

Just remembered this one... please don't read if you're squeemish about animals and/or hunting.

 

 

 

 

Their dad is a deer hunter and they were helping him clean one when the lungs were found to be intact... no holes. He cut them out still attached to the windpipe and said, "Watch, this is how your lungs work." He proceeded to blow into the wind pipe to make the lungs expand and deflate. The kids inisisted he do it again so I could see, too.

[mrsrevmeg]

I refuse to buy food in dented cans because of the fear of giving my family botulism. Yet, for the sake of Science my oldest son grew some in glasses on our kitchen counter. :ack2:

[lollie010]

Just remembered this one... please don't read if you're squeemish about animals and/or hunting.

 

 

 

 

Their dad is a deer hunter and they were helping him clean one when the lungs were found to be intact... no holes. He cut them out still attached to the windpipe and said, "Watch, this is how your lungs work." He proceeded to blow into the wind pipe to make the lungs expand and deflate. The kids inisisted he do it again so I could see, too.

 

We have a WINNER!!!

[mollies73]

...your ds asks for a break from schoolwork so he can read a biography on Rosa Parks.

[Dmmetler]

When, after your 5 yr old's backyard wading pool gets water in it due to rain, she asks you not to drain what is now mosquito club med because "I'm watching the life cycles!!!". And you discover that, sure enough, she's drawn notes about it.

[MamaSheep]

Hee hee....I just knew this would be fun.

[twilkin]

When, just for fun, you invite all their friends over for a shark dissecting party. For a special treat throw in a pregnant shark!

[Terabith]

When, just for fun, you invite all their friends over for a shark dissecting party. For a special treat throw in a pregnant shark!

 

Where do you get these sharks, pregnant or not?

 

I'm wondering about this as a birthday party activity....

[twilkin]

Or, when you have to wade out in the swamp to get your dd who is perched 20ft. above the water on a fallen tree doing her schoolwork.

[twilkin]

Or, where else could your dd use the top side of a horse's rump as a desk for books?

[twilkin]

We got our sharks from Bio Corporation for about $3 a shark. They were sharks that had the dye injections that leaked but the kids had a great time. The pregnant shark was more like $25 or so. We got online and watched some dissections first which helped us identify organs and how to cut. We had kids from 17 on down to 3 years old and they all had a blast. Even the ones we thought might pass out or be squeemish ended up having fun. It's worth it to get the pregnant one for at least one child, say the B-Day child, because it is so cool.

[twilkin]

 

http://www.biologyproducts.com/specimen.cfm Here's the link to their site.

[plansrme]

Where do you get these sharks, pregnant or not?

 

I'm wondering about this as a birthday party activity....

 

I don't know about Deer Lungs being a clear winner. I think inviting the birthday guests to dissect sharks is going to give Deer Lungs a run for its money. (But can my kids get on the invitation list?)

 

Terri

[cjbeach]

I don't know about Deer Lungs being a clear winner. I think inviting the birthday guests to dissect sharks is going to give Deer Lungs a run for its money. (But can my kids get on the invitation list?)

 

Terri

ditto. My kids would be all over this party.

WTG mom and dad on probably the coolest bday party I've heard of (is this the cooler spinoff of those Mad Science parties?;))

I have to do this... I have to go check out the website where you ordered LOL. :lol:

[Terabith]

Sigh. My girly girl dd says that is NOT what she wants for her party. Princess-unicorn-shark dissection is not flying.

 

Will have to work on my younger one.

[twilkin]

Maybe she will go for a princess/baby shark hunt instead? It's all about presentation. LOL

[bookfiend]

When tadpoles are developing in the dinning room and an ant farm resides on the kitchen counter.

Edited May 9, 2010 by bookfiend

[fairfarmhand]

when your kids drag a cow skeleton piece by piece into the driveway to reassemble the crazy thing.

[springmama]

When you hire a naturalist to be the "entertainment" for your kids birthday party.

[KC in KS]

True story! Just last night, as a matter of fact.

 

DD has been trying to figure out the difference between a predator and a scavenger. I figured it was a great illustration for her.

 

It must've been a hungry bird. It let us sit there, just one lane away, for several minutes, until a motorcycle pulled up behind us and scared it off.

[Dmmetler]

Maybe a Mermaid/Shark party?

[ChrissySC]

Too funny! I know we homeschool when I look at my backyard.

 

I have more holes than the all the roads in the state. I have a 9yo that swears she will be an archeaologist. I have rocks in boxes in the kitchen. Unfortunately, I have bones from previous owners' pets - and perhaps some of our own. We have all types of experiments happening in the yard. I chose not to ask. I'm not allowed to start the pool because of the frog investigation, one named George.

 

I will have to put my foot down on the pool. It is getting hot!

[cani e porci]

I realized I'd crossed the line when I found a skeletonized frog behind some garden pots when I was doing my spring clean up last month. The skin on the bottom of the body is gone and you can see all the bones held together by dried skin -- even the tiny bones in the toes. I called the kids to see and we brought it in the house.

 

As we were looking for a container, I remembered that we'd found a dried-out, partially skeletonized grass snake two years before, so I hauled that out of the silverware drawer to compare and contrast. Yes, it had been in the back of the drawer for about two years under old sippy cup lids.

[scubamama]

...when your rural letter carrier gingerly sets the package marked, "CAUTION EXPLOSIVES!" on the porch and hollers to get your attention (I was hanging the washing). Before you can get to him your 7yo son beats you and yells,"Cool!!! The curriculum is here Mom!!!!!"

The guys here like to make fireworks etc...4th of July is a big shindig at our house (or used to be until we moved to SoCal)

 

scubamama

[Dandelion]

Too funny! I know we homeschool when I look at my backyard.

 

I have more holes than the all the roads in the state. I have a 9yo that swears she will be an archeaologist. I have rocks in boxes in the kitchen. Unfortunately, I have bones from previous owners' pets - and perhaps some of our own. We have all types of experiments happening in the yard. I chose not to ask. I'm not allowed to start the pool because of the frog investigation, one named George.

 

I will have to put my foot down on the pool. It is getting hot!

 

This sounds like our backyard (minus the pool)!! DS6 has a 5 foot deep hole behind our barn where he's been "excavating" for over a year now. This is in addition to tons of smaller holes all over our property.

 

So, you know you're a homeschooler...

 

-When your backyard looks like a dig site.

-When you open the oven and see baking pans filled with rocks.

-When you never have vinegar or baking soda when you need them (but you always just bought them yesterday).

-When your barn looks like a giant Rube Goldberg contraption.

 

Twice this past week, DS filled some of my baking pans with rocks and had me bake them in the oven (part of some experiment - I don't even ask for too many details anymore, I just do it). I was just happy that I was able to talk him down from setting the oven to 500 degrees to a more reasonable 375 degrees.

 

We constantly have experiments "in process" (vinegar and baking soda are his favorites - we probably go through one bottle and box per week and I never have either when I need them for a recipe). I'm always finding mixtures everywhere and have no idea what they are.

 

Luckily, we have a large barn (hoping to get horses some day but it's empty right now). We've set up a workshop for him out there and that's where he spends hours tinkering, inventing, etc. It currently contains a plethora of old electronic equipment in various stages of "deconstruction" and being reassembled into new inventions, several home-made pulley systems hanging from the ceiling, and a bunch of other junk...uhhhh, treasures.

 

I love how his mind works, but the "up-keep" wears on me sometimes... :blink:

Edited May 10, 2010 by Dandelion

[MamaSheep]

Maybe a Mermaid/Shark party?

 

This makes me giggle. We learned at the aquarium the other day that shark eggs are also called "mermaid purses" because after the baby shark breaks out they look like little purses when they wash up on the shore.

[coffeefreak]

When you spend your Birthday buying next year's curriculum with your Birthday money! :party:

[Corraleno]

... when you hear a scream from the bathroom and realize your guest just looked in the under-sink cabinet for spare toilet paper and found the mealworm breeding colony instead.

 

... when you open the plastic yogurt container at the back of the fridge and discover it's home to a freaky looking insect, which DS put there to "slow down it's metabolism" so he could take photos with his digital microscope.

 

... when your son tells his grandparents he's not sure he wants to go in the ocean right now because he's "a cnidarian magnet."

 

... when your 7 yo hands you a pencil along with a home-made Mother's Day card ~ and you discover it includes a fill-in-the-blank section on the back. :lol:

 

Jackie

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Everytime I pass a music section and see the label Latin, I get excited, then disappointed, when I realize that no, the store hasn't added a new special section on Latin language CDs.

 

Gets me every single time. You'd think I'd learn.

[Dmmetler]

When your 5 yr old tells a waitress that her toy dragon is named George II and that he lived in Pompeii until the volcano erupted, but now he lives with her and is teaching her Latin-and proceeds to make "George" talk in Latin.

[RoughCollie]

When someone whose child is in PS complains about how he isn't learning anything in X class, and I automatically say, "That's no problem. You can teach it to him yourself (or he can teach it to himself, depending on the situation)."

 

I get strange looks every time, as though I am deranged, even though I follow-up with suggestions of how to do it.

 

***

I should have known what I was getting into when my 5 year old boys decided to mud plaster the guest bathroom after we had spent a lot of time learning about different types of housing through the ages.

 

Our preacher and his pregnant wife were visiting. I sterilized that bathroom before they arrived, since I figured she would have to use it and she was pregnant.

 

She used it and never said a word. I went in there right after they left and every wall surface was covered with mud, artfully applied. The mud was from the kids' mud hole in the back yard.

[RoughCollie]

When you spend your Birthday buying next year's curriculum with your Birthday money! :party:

 

My DH gave me an Amazon gift certificate for Mother's Day. I immediately started thinking of which books I want to buy for homeschool.

[coffeefreak]

My DH gave me an Amazon gift certificate for Mother's Day. I immediately started thinking of which books I want to buy for homeschool.

 

:drool:

 

I just found out my youngest has over $30 in Barnes and Nobel gift cards! She got them for Christmas. I'm totally coveting them:lol:

[coffeefreak]

When someone whose child is in PS complains about how he isn't learning anything in X class, and I automatically say, "That's no problem. You can teach it to him yourself (or he can teach it to himself, depending on the situation)."

 

I get strange looks every time, as though I am deranged, even though I follow-up with suggestions of how to do it.

 

***

I should have known what I was getting into when my 5 year old boys decided to mud plaster the guest bathroom after we had spent a lot of time learning about different types of housing through the ages.

 

Our preacher and his pregnant wife were visiting. I sterilized that bathroom before they arrived, since I figured she would have to use it and she was pregnant.

 

She used it and never said a word. I went in there right after they left and every wall surface was covered with mud, artfully applied. The mud was from the kids' mud hole in the back yard.

 

:smilielol5:

[Mommee & Baba]

LOL:lol:

[KrissiK]

You know you're a homeschooler when...

Your boys don't run outside playing cops & robbers or cowboys & indians but.... Greeks & Trojans!:D