Monday's always seem slower...slower to get up, slower to get morning animal chores done, slower paced. Maybe its coming off of the weekend being sick but mostly they always seem slower paced.
Today the kids studied pigeons. Excited that his pigeon laid its first egg, our son measured the circumference of his pigeon egg, a bantam chicken egg and a regular sized chicken egg. Together we read from a few pigeon books the kids had gotten from the library, studied from 4H forms online, and watched a few youtube videos on different breeds and 4H groups. We discussed plans to build a pigeon 'loft'. After pigeon studies we baked some sugar cookies right before lunch then spent the afternoon on a few errands, then back home for some afternoon reading and quiet time before dinner. A good slow Monday.
The weekends main theme: REST. We were all under the weather still. Sniffles, head colds, sore throats, body aches. Saturday we all slept off and on, on the couches and in bed. Although hubbie had to work that eve he spent the day attempting to fix our internet problems and fix our washing machine that just went out. I love this man- he can fix nearly everything and if he doesn't know how, he'll find out. So while we all slept, watched movies and slept some more he worked. Added to his to-do list, he believes the washer is beyond repair and the internet techs should be visiting us tomorrow. He did get all of us outside for a few minutes to check out the flower that finally bloomed on our front yard cactus-very pretty. Our son felt better come the afternoon and tried on his steal of a halloween costume, $5.00! Oh yeah, great deal! And most importantly he's happy. Sunday brought more rest, work for momma and a mid day movie of Star Wars with dad. Now as the sun sets, the kids bathe and are ready for bed early I think I'm not far behind them with a headache and sore throat that are begging for the bed as well.
Hopefully Monday will bring our family feeling better and ready to take on the week.
With her 4H record book due, even though we've all felt under the weather, our daughter spent nearly 3 hours completing it, nearly all on her own with only my help when she got tired on reading off a few calculations. I'm proud of her, another 4H year accomplished. While she worked away on her book, our son sat down for some computer math then he and I read together- he loves when he reads a page then I'll read a page and its neither one of us reading an entire book- we got a blanket and snuggle close and each hold a side of the book- the closeness is so nice. I cherish it knowing that at 8 years old...turning 9 next year the amount of snuggling just may decrease, I'll take it while I can.
Being silly while waiting patiently for Momma.
Jordan's picks on library books this week...we started off with the Further Tale of Peter Rabbit.
Breaded Oven Baked Zucchini with Lemon and Caper Pasta for dinner.
Yesterday being that the 4H book was done, it was time to take a drive to turn it in at the office. Being over an hour away, we decided it was the perfect time to thrift shop, have lunch and picnic at the park. Our day would have been longer if it weren't for head cold headaches, sore ears and sore throats. Our son slept in the car on the way up and our daughter slept in the car on the way back- I slept on the couch when we got home- rest is definitely what our bodies need. This weekend will be filled with just that...Rest.
A Friday ritual. A single photo - no
words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special,
extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If
you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the
comments for all to find and see.
Yesterday we spent the morning paying tribute to our animals that have passed. The kids raked the leaves that had fallen onto the graves. We plan to go back in the next few days and pull the weeds. They shared what they missed about them, what they loved about them- we talked about life and death. Read some verses out of the bible. They colored wooden crosses and our son got out a small vase and put a flower in it. It was a peaceful morning.
After our quiet morning out doors we gathered our books that were due, grabbed some in and out for lunch and headed to the park. We all played tennis and ate then headed to the library.
Books picked up ranged from:
Keeping and Caring for Pigeons, Tennis Rules, Halloween Crafts Books, a Multiplication Math book, Tree and Leaf Categorization Book and some fun readers.
Today with Dad at home, his day off, we opted for a Science day. A dry ice video recommended on a family blog I ran across...then outside to conduct the exploding experiment and back inside to create a bubble with dry ice....the kids had a lot of FUN!! It was MUCH louder than we all expected!!
Took a video of our bottle blowing up then exploding but the file won't upload, of course when it actually exploded I jerked to move away and the camera went all over, not really videoing the bottle anyways!
Here is what was left below of the bottle...
Fun day with Science...lunch was eaten and now everyone is quietly playing and reading. Getting together with friends for s'mores after dinner tonight is the perfect end to a great day.
"Officially" we started our new school year today. We got our animal chores done a bit earlier so we could all sit down together by 9am. A tradition that worked well last year was that every morning we have a 'family meeting' of sorts to chat about what everyone's interests are, goals are, for the week, for the year, talk about what's working, what's not, talk about any help anyone needs, guidance, support- just to talk. We started the day in a prayer then our family talk. The kids made lists of their weekly goals and our daughter made a list of her goals for the year.
After we chatted our daughter went to work on her cavy website that she hasn't updated in a few months and poked around with the website builder and did some research on formatting websites and mapped out what new information she wanted on the site. After she completed some updates, added pictures and descriptions and brainstormed she came outside to read and study her cavy and rabbit book.
Our son's top priority was 'exploding' something! Why not start the year off with a traditional volcano!
We opted for this to be an outdoor project! :) We watched a science video even though we've done this experiment before then headed to the yard...
He wanted to use the hole and the actual volcano.
As he experimented he told me exactly what was happening with the chemicals. Neat to hear him explain in his own words what was going on.
He decided the volcano had a better effect than the bubbling hole!
After a bit of backyard science, our son headed to do some refresher math problems from last year as our daughter and I looked at a few websites I had previously found for math for her as well as talked about her goals in math for this year.
Another Science experiment while Sister baked everyone chocolate chip muffins....
An 'underwater' volcano/lava flow...water, oil, food coloring, added some salt to check out the bubbling! He made hypothesis before experimenting then got excited when he learned that the oil stayed on the top!
A muffin snack along with two rounds of UNO card game and our daughter was back online researching tennis court dimensions and going outside to map out where our 'home' court would be. She also looked at famous tennis players and the 'rules' for tennis. Both kids documented what they did for the morning then it was a quick lunch before I had to do a work training online.
The afternoon brings a few errands to the grocery store and the feed store for animal food....then a quiet dinner at home with 'dad'.
Everyone was tired today but the day still went well. Beauty of homeschooling is that you can go with the flow. We had a short morning for our first day as we ease into the year. Feeling so blessed to be at home with my children.
