Trip to the Aquarium

spring breaks

We have been taking many little breaks over the last couple of weeks. With this beautiful spring weather to enjoy and so many birthday's to celebrate, we decided to continue our schooling into the summer. We are about to finish the First grade portion of our grammar book, and have covered all of the basic concepts in first grade math. So we will take a break from those subjects over the summer. History and science are his favorite subjects and will give his hungry little mind something to chew on this summer when it is too hot and mosquito invested to play in the back yard. We plan on returning to the UL literacy program this summer to help with reading fluency and also creative writing. It's such a great program and I hope that this year something will click and he will begin to LOVE reading for himself! As much as I love to read aloud to him I want him to have the tools to find information for himself, and not struggle.

I am so proud of all of the hard work he has done this year! With very little complaints and way too many distractions from his little brothers to overlook, he has exceeded my expectations and has been a wonderful example for his younger brother. Hopefully next year Emile will be ready to do the same and he can show little bit how it's done.

Highlights from our trip

We spent the early part of this week in the woods where we sat by a warm fire reading the Hobbit by night and canoeing in the beautiful spring sunshine by day. It was a quick trip, it almost feels like we never left, or like the whole thing may have been a crazy dream. Only I am tired and sore so I know I was there. The kids had a blast with their best buddies exploring the forests trails and hills. Life is so good!

My sweets

The other day I was able to spend some special time with my big three year old guy. He is quite a different person without his big brother. He'a so grown up when he is on his own. I guess he plays the baby card when Avery's around; he is still my baby after all.

We layed a beautiful quilt down on the grass that a dear friend made for us, and enjoyed the wonderful spring time weather all afternoon long. I listened to him tell tall tales like the one where his great grandfather fought a tiger and had a very long sword that could bring down the sun and the giant ate the tiger, and so on. He's got quite an imagination!

It's so good to slow it down. I vow to lay out our quilts more often and sit in the grass with bare feet and read slowly in the middle of the day.

Here's to slow days!

worm hunt

We are moving on the the lesson on worms in our science book. Today we spent the morning digging in one of our compost piles for worms to put in the newly constructed worm motel. The boys had a great time digging for the poor critters, some unfortunately are now two, if you know what I mean. Let's just say it's a good thing they know how to regenerate. Avery learned the parts of a worm by diagraming and sketching pictures using a real worm as his model. The boys together collected all of the necessary items to make a temporary home for the worm and then went out on their search. The rest of the week will be spent doing more experiments involving worms, and luckily all to our gardens benefit.

science art

In science Avery is studying Cnidarians- the phylum that includes jelly fish, coral and other primitive animals. Avery did research on the Internet learning all he could then he found pictures to add to his Animal Kingdom book along with the different facts he found interesting. As luck would have it he just so happened to have been working on a sculpture and a painting of a jelly fish in art class.

busy boys

My day was mostly spent in this kitchen. Baking, cooking, cleaning, crafting then cleaning again.

The boys made blueberry muffins this morning and this afternoon Emile helped make cheese straws. Tonight Avery snapped snap beans and entertained the baby while I made dinner. It feels so good to be productive as a family. Today, so I wouldn't feel like the little red hen, I made it a point to constantly direct the kids energy by giving them chores and other productive activities instead of letting them just play all day. They were so much more present, I felt like we were on the same wave length.

Just a few of our lessons today:

For science we finished his animal kingdom folder/book that he decorated and will fill with his lab sheets. In math we're counting money and learning the ones, tens and hundreds place. Grammar we reviewed parts of speech and diagramed sentences.

I found this great web site for spelling that Avery loves.

http://www.spellingcity.com/

Check out this great idea. I'm loving her idea of workboxes.
http://homegrownmom.com/workboxes/workboxes/512