Weekly Wrap-Up

It’s time for the Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Kris @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. 

This week’s Wrap-Up is part this week and part last week.  As I just posted about our field trip last week because I was just feeling lazy.  This offended my student, who feels that everyone should know what she’s been up too.

So here are the highlights…

Science

We are still studying birds.  Our “What food do birds prefer?”  ended.  The birds in our yard prefer sunflower seeds to mixed seed, but they will eat whatever’s available to them.

Here’s some of the birds that visited us.

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Now we’ve moved on to a bird bath experiment.  What do bird prefer? High or Low?  So far they prefer not to come near ours.

We did some experiments about how birds slow themselves down and waterproof their feathers.

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Social Studies

We’ve been working our way through the Gold Rush and have begun to work our way to the events leading up to the Civil War. 

She finished reading Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman.  And we finished her first pocket in our History Pockets: The American Civil War.  We’re now on pocket two.

 

We also had a field trip to the Jamestown Settlement for homeschool days.  It as a nice review of what we studied last year.  And I got an awesome picture of the musket demonstration.  Check out our day HERE.  

Extras

She’s been continuing to work with lines in How to Teach Art to Children.  One day she had to create a drawing using two lines going in the same direction.  Here you see her beach scene, a walking stick, the sun & moon, and a pyramid scene.

Then she had to create a maze by curving lines around torn pieces of paper.  She found this one a little tricky.

She’s also continuing to enjoy our study of Mary Cassatt.  Our weekly picture study notebooking page is the only time she doesn’t gripe about writing. LOL

Lastly, she had her first soccer game of the season and the Yellow Bumblebees won!!  Mackenzie even scored a goal!

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Homeschool Days at Jamestown Settlement

We had a fun field trip on Wednesday to Jamestown Settlement.  While it was a “review” for us, as we studied this time period last year, it was too good a deal to pass up.  Plus it was a fun time with friends.

We participated in a 2-hour guided tour of the settlement and a one hour class on the cultures in the area.

First we studied the Powhatan culture. 

We got to see a Powhatan dance circle, with the ornate carvings.  Historians don’t really know exactly what the tribe did here but it’s fun to imagine.

We got to check out a traditional Powhatan dwelling, inside and out.  I’d like to tell you what it’s called but I can’t remember. LOL

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We learned about what life as a Powhatan child was like.  What they wore (NOTHING!), their hair styles (BALD!), some of their chores and training (started at age 3 and included many things, like scraping hides.)

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We got to board a replica of the Susan Constant.

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Visit with re-enactors

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Try our hand at making a canoe Powhatan-style, with fire and shells.

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We got to check out a colonial fort.

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They got to try on some “soldier gear.”

Lastly, we saw a musket demonstration.  That guy had the best job. LOL

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On his second shot, I got the picture I was striving for…Fire in the Hole!!!

Tot School

Kayleigh is 31 months old

It was a crazy busy week this week. We actually only did one day of official Tot School this week. Kayleigh started back up at the Little Gym, Mackenzie started piano, we went on a field trip to the aquarium, the weather was gorgeous Friday so we spent the day at the park, and lastly soccer started again. Shew!!

Our letter this week was E so we did things involving elephants and eggs. And since we only got in one day this week, we’ll be doing E again next week. LOL

Our first tray was a “Feed the Elephant” counting game that I made. I taped the elephant to an empty cracker box and cut a slit near his mouth. Then we drew a number and fed the elephant that correct number of peanuts. She loved the “feeding” but didn’t really care about the counting. Typical. You can download the game Here.

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We did a small spaces activity using some fake autumn flowers. She usually loves small spaces activities but she was to distracted by the flowers to want to stick them in the container very much. She just wanted to carry them around. LOL

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She practiced her fine motor skills by using her tongs to move pom poms into an ice cube tray. I probably should have switched our summer tray for our autumn one. LOL

We have a new sensory bin for the month of September. It has fake autumn leaves, little gourds and pumpkins, some more of our fake autumn flowers, and 2 autumn dishes. Both girls loved this! Then decided to play store with it so I gave them our Bucket Balance, a foam block for flower arranging, and some empty brown craft bags for packing up “purchases.” Kayleigh LOVED playing with the balance.

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In honor of E, we played with our Hide'N Squeak Eggs. She matched all the shapes to their proper holes without me having to beg her. =o) So I decided to point that each chick had different eyes and that they matched the eyes on the shells. This intrigued her. She had fun making sure that all the chicks got “the wight eyes!”

And that was it for Tot School Activities. If you’d like to see her trip to the aquarium, click HERE. She particularly enjoyed the stingray touch tank. In her own fashion, of course. LOL

And she had her first day of Soccer Tots. That went exactly as expected. She did her one obligatory kick and then cried the rest of the time. Until snack was brought out. Then she was all smiles and quite the joiner. LOL

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Check out what the other tot's are up to by clicking the Tot School Button at the top of the page.

Not-Back-to-School Celebration

Tuesday of this week marked the first day of public schools in our area.  As is our tradition, we take the day off and enjoy some fun with friends at one of the many museums that we have been avoiding for the last few months due to summer crowds. 

We planned to go out and enjoy lunch and visit the Chrysler Museum of Art .  The day did go exactly as planned but we managed to have fun.

Lunch turned out to be a “leisurely lunch.”  We wound up sitting at the restaurant for almost two hours.  Sadly, it was because of incredibly slow service but we enjoyed the food.  Once it arrived that is. LOL

  Clearly some of us handled  the waiting better than others. LOL

Then it was off to the museum.

You might be asking yourself, “What kind of art museum has a tank full of sea lions in front of their building?”  None that I know of.    We drove all the way out there only to find out that it was closed.  Who closes a museum on a Tuesday?  It’s so random!

So we drove all the way back to “the beach” and hit the Virginia Marine Science Center instead. 

This was a bitter pill for us adults to swallow. It’s not our favorite place.  They’ve done a lot of things over the years that I don’t like.  Most recently, the $25,000,000 redo. 

I like the idea of the redo but I didn’t like going in there only to find that half of the stuff was broken and that there is now a “traffic flow” problem because you have to follow the route dictated by the museum. 

I won’t even go into the number of trees they kill a day for their ridiculous ticket policy or the fact that the otters, my favorite, are never on display when I show up.  Sniff, my otters were missing again.  They must have the cleanest tank in the world.

But we had passes, which are officially the last dime this place will make off of me, so we went.

I do have to say, it’s so much nicer there without the crowds.  The little tunnels they jam you through are much easier to deal with when there isn’t anyone else in there.  :o)

So here are the highlights.  I’m not sure how much the children learned during this trip because I kept making them pose for pictures.  It’s what I do.  lol

Kayleigh did enjoy her own personal water-table the stingray touch pool.  Although never touched a sting ray,  she did manage to soak herself before I dragged her away.