Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with our First Busch Gardens Trip of the Season

Ahhh! Spring and, finally, spring-like weather, are here.  And spring at our house means one thing.  Weekly trips to Busch Gardens.   It's been open for almost a month but this crazy weather has put off our first visit.

But finally we made it.  We try to go every week or two until public school lets out.  Then we avoid it all summer until school is back in session and enjoy beautiful fall days there.  It's open on Fridays and that makes it perfect for home schoolers like us.  We enjoy perfect weather and no crowds.  The perks for home schoolers just keep on coming.

Here are the highlights of our day.

The Gang minus Kayleigh

BFFs

Home schoolers are weird. LOL

Whoooo!!

Kayleigh's very first roller coaster ride.  Mackenzie ditched her bff because she wanted to ride on the same train as Kayleigh.

Her BFF's first time on Apollo's Chariot

They seem to think it's fun

Signs of spring from our glorious Creator

Woot!  Saved me a trip to the mall.

We did do school the rest of the week.  We're still studying WW2.  Mackenzie got her worst "grade" ever.  A 73% on a math test.  I think she'll start checking her work now because that crushed her.  LOL

We finally were able to finish our first lesson on insects because the weather decided to cooperate.  We were able to find some insects to experiment with.  The second experiment was really...something.  It was called the Lazarus Experiment.

We were supposed to find an insect.  Hold it under water for 3 minutes, or until you think it's dead.  (I know, right?)  Then lay it on a paper towel and cover it with table salt, then gently blow it off.  Wait for 5-10 minutes.  The insect should "come back to life" and crawl away.  Should, she says.

It doesn't drown because it can close the spiracles in it's abdomen.  Which is helpful to little creatures stuck out in big rains.  When they're dry enough they can open their spiracles and go on their merry way.  The salt speeds up the drying process.

So we caught this guy.  We called him Lazarus.

We attempted to drown him.  It's unnerving.

Lazarus wasn't having it.  He was under for over 8 minutes and just kept crawling around like it was a party.  We kept chasing him with the spoon.   He refused to "die".  So we set him free.  We're not sure if we're willing to attempt this again, although we are curious.

Be sure to pop over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers to check out other wrap-ups.

Tot School: The One Filled with Incidents of Various Natures

Kayleigh is 37 months old

Tot School was sporadic this week.   It started with a social studies lesson on hospitals.

Kayleigh split her chin while walking in tights on our wood floors.  One more reason why I LOATHE wood floors.  (Except in the kitchen or dining areas where children don't generally play.)  At any rate, down she went.  I ran her to the neighbors first to see if I really needed to take her in.  Having a nurse and a police officer next door is sooo handy.  They thought she could use a stitch or two or maybe some glue.  So we went.  It was beyond busy.  Filled with people with fevers and pukies.  Just who I wanted to hang around with for 4 hours.  I happy to report that none of us came down with the "plague" from being in such close quarters.   And no stitches.  Just glue.  Which she peeled off about 68 hours later.  Typical Kayleigh.   And yes, I took photos of the ordeal.  It's for my Project Life and for my hubby who's in Germany.  Mostly for my Project Life. LO

These guys were much better then the soldiers that were working on Humpty Dumpty.  

We had our cheer/basketball ice cream social because that's finally over.  Here's Kayleigh getting her medal for "playing"  with the Basketball Buddies.   By playing I mean avoiding basketball and hiding until it was time for snack.

We did a few more L activities because she wanted to "teach" her baby. LOL   Baby learned about patterning using the ladybug activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  

Baby also learned how to order ladybugs by size.  These were also from COAH.   If you haven't checked out her Letter of the Week program you should.  It's full of fabulous, hands-on activities to introduce letters.  And very adaptable for different ages and abilities.  It was worth every one of the 1,000 pennies that I paid.  And we'll be reusing everything for the next couple of years.  

We also played The Ladybug Game again.  It was created by a first grader.  She must be really smart.

If I were the clever sort, I would've had her make her L page for her ABC book.  I'll add that to next week. LOL

We just got these Pop-Arty Beads and they were a HUGE hit with both girls.  I got them mainly as a fine motor activity for Kayleigh but Mackenzie is nuts about them.  I didn't thing she'd be that into them. Kayleigh still struggles a bit with them but she likes them anyway.  

Eventually we moved on to Mm.  For one day anyhow.  All of these activities came from COAH.  

We laced M&Ms

We sorted M&Ms

She was excited to hear she could finally eat some

We "built" with M&Ms

We practiced ordering things by size with "M&Ms"

We sorted big M and little m

We are not done with M.  Not only do we like working with letters that involve candy, COAH also has some cute monkey stuff that we want to try and I came up with a really cute book for her to make.  I'll share it with you next week.

We tried out Kayleigh's new Grasshopper Prep Kit: Getting Our Hands Ready.   I've been eyeing it, not willing to pay the price, then I got a really good coupon to Barnes & Noble so I went for it.  I'm glad I did because she loves it.  This particular kit is meant for helping a child get ready for early writing and grasping.  Kayleigh has asked to use it every day.

Feeding Mr. Crunch his bugs.  You have to squeeze Mr. Crunch's mouth open and that builds strong fingers.

The play dough stamps help the child work on their pincher grasp.

We rounded out our week with Mega Blocks.  I wasn't allowed to build because I wanted to get her hair out of her face with a "pretty." 

This last photo is the most important.  1)  It shows her sleeping during naptime.  She hasn't been very good about sleeping then.  She most plays and jumps and drives me crazy for the remainder of the day because she's exhausted.  2)  If you look closely at the rails and headboard, you'll notice white marks along edge.  Those are not decorative stripes.  Those are teeth marks.  Kayleighs.  No, I'm not kidding.   Sigh...

Be sure to click the Tot School button at the top of the page to see what the other tot's are gnawing  learning. 

Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with the Symphony

It was a busier week than normal but a good one.  We accomplished everything that I had planned and had time for a field trip.

For me, the best part of the week was the fact that basketball and cheer are officially over!  We had our banquet over the weekend.  I am happy to have freed up 6+ hours of our week.

Here Mack and I are with her cheer trophy.  I have pictures of her getting her basketball medal as well. But they're on my camera and I haven't downloaded anything yet. LOL  My friend took these for me while I handled my "coaching duties."

History is getting a bit intense.  We have started World War 2.  Such an ugly period for mankind.   The internet links in The World Wars have been really informative for this time period.   And Mackenzie was shocked to learn that our beloved country had even more skeletons in the closet when we talked about the treatment of the Japanese-Americans.  

We finished Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry  and  the whole book was very moving, the ending in particular.  Mackenzie still can't wrap her mind around the idea of treating people badly based on appearance.  

Our new read aloud is The Winged Watchman.  This book take place in Nazi-occupied Holland during WW2.  At first, I wasn't sure how this was going to go.  The first chapter had a lot of descriptions about windmills and the like. Snooze.  But here we are on chapter 6 and I don't know what I was worried about.  It is good. Very good.   Mackenzie was begging me to read more.  

We are sooo close to being done with MUS Delta, First Language Lessons, and Writing With Ease that I'm a little giddy.   The end is in sight!  And now that I think about it, handwriting is about done too.  

Science might never be finished.  Not our fault.  That honor lies with Mother Nature.  We're finished with the bird sections in Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and our ready to move onto insects.   Unfortunately, the weather has been so terrible that we can't find any insects to study.  Sigh...

In other news, Mackenzie had a field trip to the symphony.  I didn't go.  It was my toddlers day at baby gym and I didn't want her to miss it.  It's the one hour a week that is for her.  She gets to be with kids her own age and do things that are fun for her.  So I sent Mackenzie off with some friends.  They sent her back with pictures.  They even got to take one with the conductor.

Everyone said the show was fabulous!  It was a performance for kids so there was a lot of music that they knew and they did a lot of silly things.

Love the conductors Indiana Jones hat during the Indian Jones theme song.

Hello Mr. Conductor!

And that was our week.  Be sure to pop over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschooler to see what other families have been up too.