The last leg of Suzi's kindergarten year, in pictures

Other than our big field trips, here's a little of what we did in the last several months of kindergarten.  Not really that interesting, but I thought I'd put it on here just to have it documented in addition to our plan book and notebook full of sample work.

Well, this actually is interesting.  One night in February, we took Suzi and Ivey to see ArcAttack, a wonderful bunch of geeks who put on fabulous, educational shows with their Singing Tesla Coils.  It was incredible.  They actually had a guy on stage playing the electric guitar between the coils, protected by a Faraday cage suit.  Big bolts of lightning were practically touching him!  Then they brought out a Faraday cage the size of a small elevator and invited audience members (mostly elementary-aged kids!) to dance inside the cage to music from the Singing Tesla Coils.  Suzi didn't want to do it, but we did get to see some friends try it out!  I was sad when it was over.  I also can't believe I didn't get any pictures.  I did buy this awesome quarter though (for me, not Suzi; don't judge me).  You should definitely take a minute to look at pictures and watch a few of their videos, especially this one of the Doctor Who theme song.  They played the Doctor Who song when we went to see them too, and it made my night.  Loved them.  I so hope we get to see them again someday.

And now all the rest of this is going to seem quite boring.

Handwriting gets practiced in various ways, and it usually comes out better when it's a meaningful project and not just random copywork.

Or when Suzi has dictated what she is to write herself.

I surprised the girls with some water marbles one morning.  They are so much fun, and watching them gradually dry out made for an interesting discussion of evaporation.  However, I was disappointed to find that for us, water marbles are a single-use product.  They kept bursting, and many of the ones that lasted turned pink with mildew before they dried completely.  Yuck.

Homeschool skate!  This one was in March, but the last one of the year was in April.  Jordan even came with us to the last one.  We are going to have to head to the rink some this summer, just as a family outing.

"Randy and Grandma," by Suzi.  Randy was my mom's childhood dog.  Most of Suzi's writing is done incidentally as a part of one of her own projects.  One of my main goals for the end of our kindergarten year was to get her away from constantly asking "how do you spell...?" in favor of writing most words phonetically if she doesn't know how to spell them.  She's been doing well with that, and I'm sure her writing will really take off in first grade.

At Easter time, we blew out several duck eggs and the girls decorated theirs with Sharpie markers.  We talked about the Ukrainian tradition of pysanky.

We went to the zoo for Robert's birthday--not our regular little zoo, but the much larger Riverbanks.  That was a fun little field trip!

And that's about it!  There's one more big field trip I need to post about, but I'll have to do that a little later.  Robert wants some attention.

Walnut Grove Plantation - our last day of kindergarten

I really meant to post this a month ago, but it's so hard to find any time to blog!  Our last day was Friday, May 10, and it was not only our last day but also a field trip day!  We found a wonderful homeschool field trip group online, signed up for this trip, and spent the morning touring Walnut Grove Plantation with lots of other homeschooling families.  Jordan took the day off work to go with us, and it was wonderful.  I think we all learned a lot, and it also got me fired up for teaching history when we start first grade.  The plantation was established around 1765 by Charles and Mary Moore, who immigrated from Ireland.  Here are some photos from our tour.

The Moore family had ten children.  Their house would have been considered a mansion at the time, but was not much bigger than our house, which feels crowded some days with only three kids.  There was a little master bedroom downstairs, much smaller than ours, which they would have shared with their babies and toddlers.  Upstairs there was a large, open "dormitory" (pictured above) where six or so older kids would have slept.  There were also two rooms where the older daughters would have stayed for a while before getting married and moving out, but it was hard to get a good photo of those because the stairs and hallway were so tight.

The other side of the dormitory

Here's a close-up of the ropes that the mattresses rested on, which had to be tightened regularly.

Dining room.  Very small, especially for so many people.

This is the kitchen, which was in a separate building close to the main house.  This way, if there were a kitchen fire that got out of control, it wouldn't take down the entire home.

This sleeping loft is also in the kitchen building.  If I remember correctly, our tour guide told us that when they first arrived here they built and lived in this building, and slept here, before and while the main house was built.

This is part of the school room where the Moore children and other area kids were taught.

Reason #1 why I LOVE homeschool field trips:  Families stick together and enjoy some time with each other!

There was a butter churning demonstration in the picnic shelter.

They took turns shaking the cream in a jar in addition to trying the traditional churn.

Mmm!  Buttah.

 I love how Robert is reaching for the butter with his tongue in this picture!  That's my little butter-lovin' baby!

They had a neat little gift shop, along with some interesting antique displays.  Got some neat stuff for next year's history!

After lunch, we went to look at the little doctor's office.  Would have been more interesting if Robert hadn't been melting down, but that's what you get after lunch.

 We also walked down to the cemetery and back up the short nature trail.

It makes me so happy when Jordan takes the day off and joins us on a field trip!

I tried to get a nice photo of my family in front of the house, but the sun was in their eyes.

This was the best field trip and we'll definitely be going back!

At the end of day 115

Since my last post, we've passed our halfway point of 90 days and completed our mid-year checklist with the homeschool association!  Here are some photos of this and that, ranging from mid-December to early February.  It just takes forever to upload these photos and post--especially when Robert is climbing all over me and slamming my laptop shut!

We went to see The Nutcracker with friends.  This is one of my favorite nights of the year!

Robert had to sit this one out at home with Daddy.  It was a girls' night out.

Ivey is an awesome big sister.

 

This is what Robert does during homeschool skate, which we've attended several times.

That, and hang out with his friends.  They look like two little old men on a park bench to me.

Ivey got a Sneaky Snacky Squirrel game for Christmas.  Great fine motor!

Just a little Christmas suncatcher painting.

Suzi caught a cricket in her bug box, so we talked about how to tell if it was a boy or a girl, and gave it some fruit and water on a cotton ball.  We let it go a little later.

We finally got to see Kiko at the zoo!  Here's the whole family--Kiko, Autumn, and Walter.

On snow day for ATBAB, Mrs. Megan helped the kids make marshmallow snowmen.

Yum!

We counted small marshmallows on our 100th day of homeschooling.

And then Suzi shared them.

On our best days, there's a lot of this.

Lots of dress-up and a little fort building.

And taking care of "babbies."

I ordered some color paddles recently for the kids to play with.  It's a fun, mess-free way for them to try color blending.

This is the written work for one chapter of Life of Fred:  Apples.  Suzi loves reading stories about Fred!  I'd decided to stop doing formal math for a little while because I could tell some of the questions were frustrating her, but then she begged me to start back again.  I have to help her figure some of it out and tell her how to spell things, but she has powered through and is doing well with it.  The big things we are working on right now with Fred are counting by fives and beginning subtraction.  Her handwriting is usually a little neater than this.  I think she's mostly interested in putting down the answers so she can move on to the next chapter.  She frequently asks to do the next one immediately.  One thing I love about Fred is that there's not only math, but also other subjects such as history and science sprinkled in the stories.  It's both unbelievable and a relief to me that these books go up through calculus!

I may do another post later listing our favorite things we've done that we don't have pictures of.  Some things just don't make for very interesting pictures, and I frequently forget to take them.  Oh well.  We are covering the subjects, having fun, and (mostly) loving our days together during this difficult first official year with a toddler in the mix!