Week 5

Our week was cut short by an extended field trip but I'll start with what we did for school this week.  Tons of pictures of our trip will be at the end!

Wednesday was our first day back and I had to go to all-day training on this Barton system we'll be starting with the boys:

Nathan started his moon unit.  He drew the different phases of the moon:

We also measured how far he could jump if he was on the moon!  You can kind of see Samuel in this picture--he was pretty wiped out with a cold this week but he didn't miss school.  I was more flexible about when we got his work done, though!

Hunter used some popcorn to work on fractions.  :)

We had a tepee disaster this week but we got it done.  Thanks Mom!  :)

Now, for our trip!  We had planned on going to the zoo for some time and decided on the St. Louis zoo because it had everyone's favorite animals (tiger, leopard, hippo and penguin).  We stopped in Hannibal on both ways to enjoy some of the fun it had to offer, as well.

This was the last stretch of the 244 steps to the lighthouse.  My legs burned the rest of the trip!!  

A great view of the Mississippi River.

A very fun toy train museum:

Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn statue:

Samuel left a coin on the railroad track on the way to St. Louis and we stopped to check on it on the way back.  :)

This is the area we stayed in.  I thought this sign was so interesting!!

Our hotel room--it was the perfect set up for us!

We went to Fitz's the first night and the kids had giant floats:

We had the saltwater pool to ourselves both nights so that was pretty fun for everyone!

Our zoo trip!!  We have tons of pictures!  There were definite ups and downs but, overall, we enjoyed it!

After our major disappointment on Monday, the goats cheered Samuel right up. Everyone loved petting them!!

This is Nathan's pirate "arrgh" face.  Ha!!

Carousel ride!!  Nathan cried when I put him on the penguin--too high!! So we sat in a seat together and he like that. 

Week 4

 We were able to get more work done this week, which was a relief!  Nathan finished up S for Sun and we did a lot of fun activities!

Matching capital and lowercase letters:

A homemade sundial, which was a huge hit with all the kids!!

Recognizing that when it's daytime on our side of the world, it's nighttime on the other side.

Building with Cuisenaire rods:

We had our 1st music lesson for Kindergarten, which is really just exposure to classical music.  It was a catchy tune and everyone had fun dancing to it.  :)

Hard to see but this was free time after morning lessons but all the boys were still building with geoboards from Samuel's math time:

Lily started a unit study on the Iowa State Fair at the homeschool building so we went out to lunch to celebrate.

On Wednesday, we were home all day and night for once so we decided it was a pajama day.  The older boys are not into wearing pajamas all day but this little guy got into the spirit!!  :)

Lily finished her biography she had been reading so next up is the adventure genre.  To kick it off, she had a scavenger hunt to find her book.  

Building wigwams for history:

These are the Jesus is the Light window posters we made for Bible.  This was a messy craft but they seemed to enjoy it.  

Finally, we had some science fun this week!  Samuel and Hunter ran around the room shaking an egg in a container, which of course broke the egg.  Lily and Nathan ran around shaking an egg in a container filled with water and the egg did not break!  This showed the importance of the fluid between our skull and brain.  Nathan was pretty upset his egg didn't break so I dumped the water out of his so he could enjoy breaking an egg.  

Next week is super busy again but things should start slowing down soon!!

Week 3

I think we did school this week.  It was a rough week with a lot of running around.  I had to move a few things to next week, which is fine.  I also didn't get a lot of pictures!

Nathan learning to write 'S' in the letter-sand-box:

Nathan pretending to sleep while I sing the song for this week.  Ha!  It cracks me up.

But, this was the best part of the week.  He painted a sun's rays in an orange-yellow pattern and it was, obviously, exhausting.  He was near tears by this point because of the strain.  :)

Bad picture but you can see the other 3 working in their science notebooks.  We got a lot of projects done and everyone did great!!

Samuel had some testing done this week and will start therapy next week to strengthen some vision and related skills.

Grocery shopping on Fridays is my favorite part of the week!

Our long week ended with a cousin sleepover!!

Week 2

Nathan had a great week finishing up our Creation Unit.  His finished book is in the picture below.  He proudly showed Brian each page.  :)  This week we will start letter units and the more "serious" work begins.  I hope he's still enthusiastic afterward!

 We finished up our mummified apple experiment this week.  The kids loved this!

We started learning about cells this week.  We drew them and then created edible cells by using jello and candy.  These pictures show how exciting this was!!  

In History, we read about Columbus and created ships:

 Samuel has been loving his math--it's all very hands on and he hasn't had to open a workbook yet.  He's getting the hang of tally marks here:

Samuel and I had a fun time watching the other 3 kids at gymnastics this week.  Everyone had a great time, except for the heat!!