Homeschool Discoveries

Do you ever have those weeks where you waaaay over estimate what you can accomplish? Capped off by a day where you pack in waaaay too much activity?  That was my day yesterday and my week in general.   We still had a great time.  But I did figure out that just because we decided by the end of last week to take a break from new math and spelling lessons for several weeks, that doesn’t mean we can expect to  play a bunch of educational games and spend a bunch of time on a new unit study and practice for standardize testing and plan some special outings (in a week when we also have our co-op)…and expect to actually get that all done.  Lesson learned!

Our frenetic day on Friday wasn’t originally planned that way.  I started my week thinking that baby J had a pediatrician appointment on Wednesday, and that after the appointment my mom would meet up with us to go to the Sea Life aquarium at the Mall of America to take advantage of their special homeschool discount week.  Then on Tuesday I discovered the appointment was really on Friday, and my mom let me know that her schedule changed and Friday would be a better day for her to come too.  Meanwhile, I had previously signed up for a Friday time slot to bring a meal to a family from our church who recently had a new baby.  And Miss M was having an early birthday sleep-over with her two best friends starting after dinner on Friday.  Yep, I was crazy agreeing too all that action in one day!  But we survived and a good time was had by all.  🙂

The Sea Life Aquarium was fun, and probably at least a little bit educational:

My favorite part was the bright blue frogs.   That and watching baby J watch the jelly fish! After lunch at the mall, we spent the afternoon in the kitchen cooking up a storm — a double-sized dinner and treats for the slumber party:

 That’s a heart-shaped red-velvet cake, homemade berry “sorbet” (from a magazine recipe that Miss M really wanted to try), and a strawberry Jello with strawberry puree and pineapple.  I think I must have had too much puree in the Jello, however, because it didn’t hold the shape of the mold at all!

Miss M’s actual birthday is a week from Monday, but this was the best date for the sleep over.  The girls stayed up until almost midnight, then were up by 7:15 or so on Saturday for raspberry waffles and lots of crafting and playing before heading home.  I was pretty exhausted by the time they left!

Here are a few other highlights from the rest of our week:

1.  Monday turned out to be our only day for game playing. Miss M and I played more Multiplication Memory in the morning, while in the afternoon Mr E and Miss M (and Miss J, Miss M’s best friend from across the street) humored me by playing Phonogram Hopscotch when they really just wanted to be riding bikes and scooters up and down the sidewalk.

2.  Happy Baby J hanging out outside on Monday, watching the big kids ride bikes/scooters and play hopscotch.

3.  Mr E did a bit of reading and math this week, mostly on Monday and Tuesday.   Here he is on Tuesday showing Mr. K how to make the stairs on the abacus.  Mr. K wore the bee costume all afternoon that day.  🙂  Tuesday was a big day for Miss M and I to work on test prep (we have standardized testing next week — it’s a requirement in MN).  She learned the difficult lesson that if you do a four digit subtraction problem and get an answer that is not among the choices listed, it really is the student who is wrong, not the test booklet.  A tough lesson for a 2nd grader to come to grips with.  At least it was tough for my 2nd grader who is not used to multiple choice tests!

4. We have a Family Science Night nature walk on Wednesday night to discuss flowers and other plants and how they adapt to their environment.  With our schedule freed up during the day on Wednesday from our initial plans of appointment and aquarium, we were able to accept an invite from friends visiting from out-of-town for an early lunch meet-up at Ikea.  Between that and a much-needed grocery store trip…it turned out not to be a big school day for us!

5. Thursday afternoon was our second-to-last co-op meeting of the year.  Miss M has been preparing for the geography challenge since January, and she passed!  Students at our co-op are rewarded with $5 if they complete the geography challenge for their grade.  Miss M proved she could locate all 50 US states on the map to earn her five bucks.

6. & 7.  Sprinkled in throughout the rest of our busy week was our new “delight directed” unit study on flight.  We took a trip to the big library downtown last Saturday and found many books on flight.  Miss M wanted to focus primarily on famous early pilots, so we came home with picture book biographies on fliers like Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Erhart,  The Wright Brothers, and more.  Miss M read several on her own, I read one out loud to all the kids, and read a couple of the shorter ones to the boys that Miss M had read herself.  Miss M also got a bit of a start on a lapbook about early flight and famous fliers.   The kids were so excited to tell everyone this week that they “know stuff about a bunch of famous pilots” as Mr. E likes to say.  Our study will continue for the next couple weeks.

Have a wonderful Mother’s Day!

I’m linking up with Collage Friday @ Homegrown Learners and the Weekly Wrap-up @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.