A Net in Time

Curriculum and book reviews, faith, homeschooling and more!

Download N Go

Winter Wonders

By 2 Comments


We started working on the Winter Wonders unit study/lap book from DownLoad N Go.

We actually completed all of this unit study and I was certain that I had posted on what we had done for days 3-5 but alas, I cannot locate it, or maybe the computer glitched or something. Anyways, day one and two are here. 🙂 Day 3-5 are in hinterland.. but they inspired us to do make this bird feeder which is here. 🙂 Day 3-5 consisted of lots of drawing, nature walks, examining snow and what not.

Now what can I tell you about downloadngo unit study/lap books? They are super easy to do. They come loaded with links, videos (embedded youtube for safety), suggested reading, lap book activities and materials and much more. They are NOT highly indepth, they are overviews of studies. Going in depth of course, is not an issue since lots of reading materials are suggested.


This particular unit had tons of drawing which an art minded lad thoroughly enjoyed AND…. it had BUNNIES!!!!!!!!!!! We studied the snowshoe hare. We did it more in-depth than the unit called for but my boy and bunnies…what can say.. he LIKES THEM. 🙂 He found it fascinating watching the videos of them… and there lies my one complaint about this study. Putting a video of an artic hare in with the study on snowshoe hares is just a trifle confusing…similar colour and adaptive abilities but DIFFERENT animal. One is bigger than the other, and they have somewhat different behaviours and locales. An update: my comment re the artic hare was noted by one of the powers that be and they acted on it immediately. No more artic hare video in the study on the snowshoe hare. How’s that for proactive service? I thought it was very cool. 🙂


Each day we study something different.

Day 1: What Is Winter?
Day 2: Science Secrets of Winter
Day 3: People and Places of Winter
Day 4: Time for Tips and Treasures of Winter
Day 5: Goodies and Gadgets of Winter

I find it funny that he often talks about the bird thieves .. the sparrows and blue jays of the world. And how the squirrels can be bad squirrels stealing the birds food.
j -“Do you think mommy that they are playing tricks on the birds”?
m -“Yes, buddy, I’m sure that’s what they are doing. Silly squirrels, silly birds… why can’t they just share”?
j -“They should all be friends mommy, and not steal from each other.”One of the things that I liked in this study was taking nature walks. We went to a local park and on a 30 minute walk found turkey footprints, rabbit footprints, and deer footprints as well as lots of people footprints. We watched birds at a bird feeder…one very pretty grey and red one was there. Don’t know what kind it was, and lots of sparrows and chickadees. We spent time outside tobaggoning and examining snow. We even froze some to see if it would change in the freezer – it didn’t expect when we took some out and it melted a little bit, but it still tasted like snow.

To find this unit go to Download N Go where you will find it here, listed for $7.95. 🙂

You can read more reviews here. And if you want to read more about Amanda Bennet the creator, you can go here. 🙂

I received this study in return for my fair and honest review. This so far has been our most enjoyed study from DownLoad N Go. It was just FUN. 🙂
.

Bird Feeders

By Leave a Comment

as part of the winter wonders unit study we made a bird feeder,
My lad being the boy that he is, decided that making a simply bird feeder was NOT what he wanted to do. He wanted to make a bunny hotel.

so we put three pop bottles side by side and attached them together using a long branch. and then tied it all together using an old shoelace.

We put individual sticks and bird feed holes in each one as well.

We got ideas from these sites: How Stuff Works. Ehow. Helium. Home For Wild Birds.

The young one is curious about how long it will take before the squirrels become thieves and chortles with anticipation. I’m merely curious about how long it will take the local blue jays, sparrows and chickadees to arrive. Time will tell.

Father and son left afterwards to go tobaggoning at the local hill. Hoping they have fun while I enjoy a quiet house for at least an hour. 🙂

Winter Wonders and Lego

By Leave a Comment




Today we learned about deciduous trees and Evergreen trees. Snow and ice and Lego and patience. 🙂

We started working on the Winter Wonders unit study/lap book from DownLoadNGo. You can also get it from The Old Schoolhouse store, where you will find it here for $7.95. We did day one and day two. Not all of it, but most of it. It was actually fun. I made Justin write out the words that he could. He’s very good at copying letters just as I write them… So I’m TRYING to be neater in my writing! Sometimes I think that’s a lost cause though.

Day one consisted of learning about Seasons.
Day two consisted of learning about Snowflakes. 🙂

and yes, it was a bit more involved than that, but basically that’s what we focused on. 🙂 AND since it is winter here, we went tobogganing on the SNOW! 🙂 We had a WHOLE lot of fun tobogganing, other children were out in the hill too which of course made it all the better. I’ve decided I need to lose some weight so I fit into my splash pants again. 🙂

We are hoping tomorrow to go visit the London’s Children’s museum in the late morning, early afternoon, but in the morning I want to see about getting the lad to paint with ice cubes. See if it’s possible to do that as an experiment. Should be interesting. It was suggested as a fun activity through the DNG study. Found it here.


OH! How did the lego fit into all of this? the Lad got lego for Christmas. I wanted something bigger to keep it in so I bought some bins on Monday and today we sorted them out and played and talked. it was a good time to go over again what we learned during the study. We had some fun figuring out what evergreens are called. I said.. Are they called everblacks? NO!!!! was the laughter back to me.. they are evergreens mommy! they are green not black! 🙂 It was a good moment. We sorted and talked and played, and then went outside and played some more. We also had some of Dad’s fresh made bread…YUMMY!

Creation Camouflage – DNG Review and Contest

By Leave a Comment

Ah…animal lovers…here we come. DownLoadNGo has a unit study/lap book on Critters and how they hide. 🙂 Creation Camouflage available now. 🙂 Creation Camouflage was the review of the week for DownLoadNGo. Given that it is the Christmas Season, we had five days of an incredible amount of snow falling with needing the help clear it, we only brouched two days of this study. Day one and day four. All told we got about four feet of snow, which compacted down to 2-3 feet. It was heavy sloughing for a while. Download N Go studies are 5 day – complete unit studies. All you have to do is “download n Go”. There is no prep work needed!! They have lap book elements so it’s easy to turn your work into a lap book. Lots of graphics, lots of links, lots of information, and a really good book list which you can use or not.

Each day has a particular focus.

Day 1: Hiding in Plain Sight
Day 2: Getting to Know the Rain Forest
Day 3: What Is in the Desert?
Day 4: Hiding in the Ocean
Day 5: Cool Things About the Tundra

My lad was absolutely fascinated to learn that hunters and the hunted can use the same way to hide! Tigers can use stripes so what they are looking forward can’t see them, and at the same time what they are looking using stripes so they can’t be seen! Absolutely amazing for him to learn this. Having a bunny with a white coat on white snow was a good way for the bunny to hide…but I can still see him mommy. Showing him a brown bunny on snow made it really clear to him which one was easier to see. For a boy who likes bunnies and cats VERY much this section really worked for him.
🙂 I was able to remind the lad how we found the Cicada shell on the bike in the backyard and on the tree bark and which ones were easier to see, and how we found one still alive that had just crawled out and how it was able to cling to the bark and when we were farther away from it how hard it was to see it.

And how can one hide in the ocean? “It’s just water mommy.” He learned that in the ocean there is much more than water. There are plants and rocks and coral…. and all the fish can use those things to hide in. Learning about how a squid hides was hard for him to really get a grasp on until we played a computer game called Animal Genius from Scholastic. On that is a game where the octopus has to hide from a fish by using his ink! That was FUNNY and it worked “HE GOT AWAY MOMMY!”. was hollered with great excitement!
What my lad likes about these studies is he has lots of opportunities to draw things. He doesn’t always like what he’s asked to draw, but often he can encouraged to do so, or we find a new way to do things (aka can you trace over top of this drawing?). I love the fact that there are so many links included that finding different ways of doing an exercise isn’t very difficult at all.

Creation Camouflage will be on sale from Dec 13-18 for $5.95 at DownLoadNGo.
You can read other reviews here. And did you know that DownLoadNGo has a blog? Yep, you can find it right here. 🙂 Catch all the latest news.

Oh and Guess What? I’ve been allowed to offer up ONE copy of this study for you! Isn’t that cool? Leave me a comment by December 23rd with your favourite camouflaging animal. Tell me what makes the animal interesting. 🙂

There’s a contest up at DownLoadNGo...but I think it may be over by the time I get this posted. 🙁 Sorry about that.

As part of the DownLoadNGo Review Team I received a copy of for my free and honest review. I liked it and hope to finish it in the new year with my eager animal lover son.

Christmas Bureau

By Leave a Comment

Today we helped out at the Huron County Christmas Bureau.

We were there for about 2 hours. Justin did a fabulous job helping sort mittens, hats, socks, slippers and underwear. he had FUN ripping off price tags and then sticking them in mommy’s pocket to take home to play with later. he walked around with another lad (looked about 6-7) collecting garbage. He was a very busy, very helpful boy and at the two hour mark said “MOMMY, Can we go home now?” Figuring he had done an excellent job and knowing that I had said we’d be there 1-2 hours I was happy to take him home (after we did some shopping first).

I see volunteer work as an important part of schooling and life and was absolutely delighted that he was allowed to come and help out. It’s good to develop a servant’s heart in a person. It really is.

Anyways… What else did we do?

Oh, this morning we did day one of the Creative Camouflage unit study from DownLoadNGo.
The lad found part of it interesting, but he was more interested in being able to do “other stuff”. So we worked on it together. He found it interesting that zebras used stripes like tigers do. He found the walking stick insect just TOO confusing. Walking sticks are used by old people to walk around with, they AREN”T INSECTS MOMMY! BUT he did find it fascinating that they are observed in order to help build robotic times. I enjoyed the study, but think easier studies are more fun for the lad overall. 🙂

And tonight before bed we finished off part of the Currclick Trains mini lapbook. There was a section there for counting that the lad hadn’t finished off yet. It gave him good practice remembering how to write out the different numbers from 1-10.

What we Learned today – November 30

By 1 Comment

Expedition Australia, Day Two. We continued this study today. There was lots of drawing to do today, which my lad just thoroughly enjoyed. Even though he would much rather draw what HE wants to draw, he also tries hard to draw what he’s asked to draw as well.

We learned about telling time, about working with a thermometer, learned a few fascinating facts about a Thorny Devil (an animal from Australia that gets water from crevasses in it’s skin, and only eats ants). It was NOT our animal of the day, but it was never the less a very fascinating animal.

We did a couple of crafts, did the lapbooking exercises (not all, but most), and just had fun visiting Australia on the computer. This unit study is also available directly from DownloadNGo.

After we did that, we worked outside for a bit…the lad was out for 20 minutes before “mommy, my hands are frozen”. so in he went and entertained himself while I finished cleaning up the backyard. It was a job that kept me busy for a good hour and a bit. I was frozen when I finally got back in, the lad was helpful by getting me the things I needed to keep the house from being a total mess with mucky boots and wet times coming in and being put in the garage to dry off before being put away for the winter.

Yesterday while in London I stopped at a lady’s house who was selling some homeschool stuff. I get a Jump Start animal Adventure CD from her. The lad and I had fun playing with it until he got his confidence up that he could play it well, and then I got supper going and some laundry on the way while he played. He learned about different animals and had fun while doing so. It was worth the $2 asking price. 🙂

We have started reading a book at night after supper. We try to read it as a family as much as possible. I picked one at random, but we might start being more deliberate about the books that we choose in the future. We are reading “The Secret of the Hidden Cave” by Bettilu Davies. We are up to Chapter 10 now, another 7 days and we’ll have a new book to read.

and tiggers are wonderful things….

By Leave a Comment

Or in the eyes of one Five year old lad…NOT! Tiggers are NOT wonderful things. Tiggers get frowns thrown at them. 🙂

Today we did day five of the terrific tigers unit study. You can buy it from download N go right here. 🙂 OR from the Old Schoolhouse.

We had some fun doing the study today.

We learned about people stripes (finger prints) and we learned about pug marks. And that people have footprints (not pugmarks) and they like tigers, our footprints are different. We put our feet in water and stood on a piece of paper. We learned how they are the same, and how they are different. Just like every tiger’s stripes are different, so are every person’s finger prints different.

VERY fascinating. We managed two different ways of getting our finger prints. One was by using a fingerprint from one of the child ID places, and the other by taking pencil, rubbing it on some paper, rubbing our finger over the pencil marks and then taking a piece of tape to preserve the pencil rubbing off our fingers. The lad thought this was very cool.

We had a brief look at the Indochinese tiger today. and completely skipped the “tiggers” part of the study. That was just not a good thing. and Silly Odin… putting his head under the water! Doesn’t he know that tigers don’t like getting their heads wet!

A good study today, though a bit of a challenge at times to keep a lad’s focus on continuing the study…MUCH too intriguing to get finger and foot prints. 🙂