Recap and Review

We have had a lot of great stuff going on in the past month.  We finished a unit on chemistry, and a unit on the Inuit.  We started classes at McWeeds this past week, and it was great.  We are looking forward to great classes over the next several weeks.  Tomorrow we start monthly classes at Mystic Aquarium, and Tuesday we start them at Mystic Seaport.  We did Seaport classes last year, and they are phenomenal.  The kids are super excited.  I am just excited to be getting out of the house and doing stuff again.

The kids did a few sessions of ice skating, and are starting to really enjoy it.  I will be looking into finding reasonably priced classes or lessons.

And this is what it looked like outside the first day we were supposed to start classes.  So glad it is starting to melt and we can see some grass.  To celebrate we have been planting seeds and we made a terrarium in a giant jar.

It adds a beautiful element to our school room.  And the kids learned a lot about plant requirements and ecosystems.

We had a great field trip for Homeschool Day at The Connecticut Historical Society.  The prices are low and the classes are fantastic and really hands on.  The museum is small but great, really interactive and interesting.

We finished our Magic School Bus Human Body kit, did lots of painting and artsy craftsy stuff.  We made Valentines and did cooking and baking lessons.  We watched a lot of Liberty's Kids, worked on a dinosaur unit, worked in our Star Wars workbooks, studied Mesopotamia, physics, and square roots and square numbers.  We did a unit on rocks and minerals, did geography, studied the periodic table, and learned all about the number pi.  We also started playing Settlers of Catan with the geeklings.

We also saw an amazing glass blowing demonstration.  Which prompted CJ to state that he wants to go to RISD, and study glass blowing, since it is beautiful art and studying thermodynamics at the same time!

We finished a unit on Pompeii, and the kids have shown a lot of interest in studying things on their own.  They have been doing their own research in their books on topics that interest them as well as showing a lot more effort in their work.

We are very grateful for our network of families in the Southeastern CT Homeschool group.  We have had such great field trip and playdate opportunities, great parties, and a lot of support.  It has made a huge difference in our homeschool journey.  We had a curriculum swap, and it was fantastic to share ideas and materials with each other.  I am excited to start our spring schedule.  My favorite part of our spring plans is to start hiking with some friends, and then to start some cooking classes utilizing Alton Brown videos on Netflix.  Getting into the air and then into the mud, it will be amazing after the cooped up horrible winter we have endured.  Our homeschool group will be planning field trips to the Dinosaur State Park, and nature centers.  We can't wait for spring!!

Vacation

The last week of February we took our first real vacation that the kids will remember.  Usually we just see how many educational day trips we can cram into a week, or do something fun like clean the basement for vacation.  Not this time I tell you, I needed some warmth, and a few days without cleaning, cooking, or planning.  We went to Great Wolf Lodge in Fitchburg MA.  Water park, arcade, ropes course, and magiquest.  It was AMAZING!!!  We had such a great three days, and I never shivered once, even when in the hot tub in the snow.  It has made us all more patient with each other at home to have had some great family time together.  And I was surprised at the price, it was expensive, yes, but less so than I thought, and we were lucky enough to find a groupon.  Woohoo!  We went to Newbury comics on our way up, and brought new books and graphic novels for all of us to read while there, because we are that nerdy, and we spend hours just reading quietly.  And we saved a little money by bringing stuff to have breakfast and lunch in the room.  There are fridges, coffee makers, and microwaves in each room so that was pretty easy.  We only ate one meal a day at the Lodge, and that was at the buffet meal each night.  We spent a ton of time in our bathing suits on the water slides and laughing like crazy.  Now we all want to make it a yearly vacation.  I am so on board with that.

 View from our room.  See that giant funnel thing?  Most terifying water slide I have ever been on, especially as we did it at night and it was pitch dark.   Eeek, I still shake when I think of it.

 Ropes course.  In case anyone wonders, no I did NOT go up there.  No way.

And the kiddos being knighted for completing their Magiquests, it is like my first LARPing for kids.  We all had a blast.  The pictures don't do it justice, mostly since I didn't take too many pictures.  I was too busy having fun with my family.

Solar System Study

The kids are incredibly interested in outer space so we study it in many ways.  First we visit the planetarium at Mystic Seaport often.  (Treworgy Planetarium)  We even planned a field trip there late last year for our Southeastern CT Homeschoolers group and everyone enjoyed it.  The kids at this point can identify constellations and asterisms before the presenter even mentions them.  They love sitting outside at night and studying the stars and planets.  To further their love and interest in this we have put up a scale solar system on the ceiling.  Along with some not to scale constellations.  All the planets and stars glow in the dark so we have spent many a snowy evening just laying on our backs studying the glowing features of the night sky.  We even bought them a calendar for the school room that has glow in the dark constellations.  We also have a bin of space toys and books that they use all the time.

 This was how we got the constellations up on the ceiling.  It was a little nuts with both of us on stools taping papers together and to the ceiling.  But our hard work means that they are as accurate as can be :)

 This lovely calendar has a different contellation every month with a lot of great information.

This is poor Pluto alone in the kitchen.  In order to put the planets to scale Pluto didn't fit into the school room.

We are looking forward to studying more about the solar system and universe this year, going to more planetarium shows, studying images from the Hubble telescope, and watching all of Cosmos.  Any great book, show, or activity suggestions for studying the cosmos?

January Recap

We have had a fun and fulfilling January.  We had a blast at our Winter Southeastern CT Homeschoolers party, where the kids all exchanged the cutest valentines, decorated t shirts, played up a storm, and ate like linebackers.  The kids learned to ice skate, which I unfortunately do not have pictures, as we were on the ice helping them.  We unearthed rubber fossils in a kit, grew prehistoric water animals, are studying Pompeii and volcanoes, the Mayflower, watching Liberty's Kids learning about the American Revolution, done a ton of painting, crafting, clay and play dough work, made bread, cookies, muffins, and eggs.  The kids made three dinners almost without help.  The kids have loved their Star Wars workbooks, playing with slime, and reading everything.  We have studied geography, physics, chemistry, algebra, and geometry.  CJ is loving piano even though the weather has kept us from several lessons :)  We have learned about the metric system, animal classification, Martin Luther King Jr, Presidents' Day, human body, spelling, writing, technology, building, and composers.  We studied the water cycle in more depth, and really studied snow and winter weather.  We studied the rock cycle and dinosaurs.  The other day they were doing a Human Body crossword from a coloring book, and didn't know an answer, so they took out all their human body books and searched for the answer using the index and table of contents.  I was crazy proud of them.  The kids did a demolition lab kit with their Daddy, and today they made an igloo out of sugar cubes and studied about the Inuit people.  Tomorrow we will try and build a snow igloo in the yard, and learn about the Aleut people and the Aleutian Islands.  We will make snow ice cream, make and paint with snow paint, do a salt and watercolor painting, make borax solution pipe cleaner snowflakes, make inukshuks, an important monument type of the Inuit people, and do a lapbook about Arctic peoples.  We will also do some more blizzard baking, as we did some during THE BLIZZARD, and are expecting another storm tomorrow.  Today during the Superbowl we even did some mental math converting yards to feet, and practicing other math skills.  I have been focusing on decluttering and cleaning the entire house while letting the kids follow their school interests with limited input from me.  I have noticed a lot more creativity coming from CJ, and Eliza is in her glory being allowed to create as much as she likes.  I have also started planning the lessons I will be responsible for when we begin our McWeeds classes in March.  We are all excited to start classes, and for there to be some sun and spring in the air :)  We keep trying to get to the aquarium but it has been too cold and snowy to go.  Hopefully this week we will go, in addition to more ice skating.  I hope I can get some pictures this time to share! Stay safe and warm, and enjoy your snowy journey.