Swimming

The kids are back in swim lessons, filling up two evenings a week! Holly has really missed our small break from swimming and Hudson has finally aged into being in his own class -- perfect timing to start back up. Each are finding their way in their lessons. Hudson is building up courage and confidence with his instructors and Holly is working on getting her strength and endurance back up to her tested level. Best of all, they are having fun with it!

Mushroom Farm

Earlier this month we visited an organic mushroom farmer with our Nature Club. This small farm, Provision Mushrooms, was such a joy to visit. They did a wonderful job with our kiddos and their various ages. Everything was hands on and all questions were answered well! The kids learned how mushroom grow (pretty sterile conditions, who knew?) and the process - then they proceeded to start their own mushroom kits of blue oyster mushrooms. Our kit is doing really well!! The kids had a great time and we learned Hudson likes enoke mushrooms - Yay!!

 

Blog Blurp

Sorry we haven't had much activity here -- my computer I use for blogging is really acting up and simply shuts down in the middle of a simple activity... making it very difficult to blog right now. We are here, we are learning, exploring and getting into all kinds of good stuff - I am just having a hard time sharing it. We'll keep trying but until my computer is looked at, it will be slow going. Sorry!!

Chalked Buildings

This week we are learning about India and with this I decided to do an art project that was inspired by this unit, while not exact it was simply an inspiration. The colors are beautiful, the architecture is appropriate and the use of chalk is always messy fun!

We used The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas as our lesson guide, Domed Buildings. Holly drew our her buildings as basic squares first and then she added the details. We have been working on not 'over detailing' our projects... however, she seems to still enjoy the details and often needs to make adjustments throughout to compensate for too much detail work. A lesson on it's own I suppose! After the details she chose a color, bright pallet of colors from our chalk and started to work, coloring and then blending. The final results are simply beautiful!! She did a fantastic job! (I'll admit I couldn't pass this one up - chalk, color... to much fun) Her art work is with a warm yellow sky and mine is with a soft blue sky.

New Year!

The holidays have been wonderful to our family! We enjoyed many great outings, activities and quiet moments together. With the closing of the holiday season I thought I would share a few items we enjoyed before we head into the new year with school! While on vacation Holly enjoyed the Pacific Northwest Ballet's Nutcracker, Seattle Children's Theater's production of Wizard of Oz, a family trip to Leavenworth, her first Christmas Choir Concert with Tacoma Youth Chorus, the new Olympia Children's Museum and many fun times with friends. Many firsts this month and much enjoyment!

Life Is Good!

My husband pointed out to me that I had not been blogging lately... which I did know! We have been so wonderfully busy with so many various activities and as we head into the holiday season I know it becomes even harder to stay on track. But, I did want to share school is happening and we are having a great time!!

Our days have been filled with a lot of lessons, hands on learning, lapbooking, cooking, experiments, Camp Fire, crafting, play, celebrations, reading like crazy, choir, art, music, library time, outings and friends! We have enjoyed field trips to a coffee roasting plant, Rainforest Cafe, concert, The Nutcracker performance in Seattle, kids museum, nature trails, drum circle, parades, and more. A very good time indeed!!

I will be back to post soon and share more! In the mean time, enjoy a couple photos of the kiddos during our drum circle visit -- which we will be doing once again soon!

Skeleton Leaves

We met with some friends from our Nature Club for a fun experiment of creating Skeleton Leaves. A wonderful friend guided us through the project perfectly!! I know there are different ways to accomplish this activity, however this set of directions is very similar to how we created them -- we did a final step however of soaking them in pure bleach for about 5 minutes to whiten them, rinsing in cold water when done and patting them dry. Directions: How To Make Skeleton Leaves. It was fun!!!

They turned out beautifully!!