field trip

2022-23 School Year–Week Four

This week has been more…complicated than I expected. It started out pretty well, with a day off on Monday so we could see Moose march in the town Labor Day parade. And then on Tuesday, we had a field trip day to the Missouri History Museum (for the first time in almost three years!), to see the new Coloring STL exhibit. We had a really great time…how often are you encouraged to color on the walls of a museum?!?

Even I made a small contribution, because I found something mid-century marvelous!

On Wednesday, we got back to our regular work. Ladybug reviewed radicals in algebra 2. She began Act III of Romeo and Juliet. She learned about mixtures and compounds in chemistry. In history, she read about Flavius Theodosius and the Roman Catholic Church. Her creative writing course had her rewriting sentences to make them more interesting and less repetitive. We continued reading The Fellowship of the Ring, and baked Barliman Butternut’s Blackberry Pie, which was delicious!

Chickadee reviewed calculating area and perimeter in math. In science, she continued learning about order Carnivora by starting a chapter on bears. In history, she read a brief history of the Jewish people, focusing on Abraham and Joseph. She learned how to add adjectives to a sentence diagram in grammar. We continued reading Heidi, and to my relief, we have almost reached the part where she gets to go home to the mountains.

On Thursday, our school day was interrupted by the developing news in the United Kingdom, and we spent most of our day watching the BBC. Today, I decided we should continue to focus on the life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, so we watched The King’s Speech and some of our royal documentaries. Hopefully, next week we’ll have a little more success staying on task!

2021-22 School Year–The Final Field Trip

The 2021-22 School Year officially ended a week ago, but yesterday, we took our final trip of the year…we visited the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station, something I promised Chickadee we would do after she finished her science course about swimming creatures. Since Bunny is done with finals, she was able to come along, too, so we had a full girls’ day out!

There were lots of hands-on opportunities…we even got nibbled by “Doctor Fish” and high-fived by sting rays!

It wasn’t too crowded when we arrived, so we had lots of good views and were able to take our time:

We walked around outside for a bit after we were done:

And we even went inside the Union Station hotel to take a look at their beautiful lobby:

This was a fun field trip, and a great way to wrap-up our school year!

2018-19 School Year–Week Thirty-Six

That’s a wrap on the 2018-19 school year!

Most of the real work was actually done last week. Turkey and Bunny finished Algebra 2 and did a good job on the final exam. They completed their study of the medieval world by learning about the Crusades. They also finished their study of Old English and Medieval Poetry, Prose, and Drama. In chemistry, they got to play around with pH paper and other indicators in their last experiment of the year, which was a lot of fun!

Ladybug also finished up math and had her final exam for the year, and she was very happy with her grade. She wrapped up her writing curriculum (minus one paper that we’re saving for summer school, because the topic fit). She also completed her equine science course by learning a bit more about horse behavior. Her final history lesson was on the sinking of the Spanish Armada.

Chickadee finished her spelling curriculum for the year…she’s really come a long way! She also took her final math test, and did a great job! She read Summer, which seemed appropriate, and Snow (just for fun), plus Little Bear.

Yesterday, we attended the final Missouri History Museum Homeschool Day of the year…and this time, it was held at Soldiers Memorial Military Museum, a place we hadn’t previously toured. We really enjoyed having an opportunity to learn about St. Louisans who served in various wars, as well as St. Louis’ contributions to those conflicts. There were some fun and educational craft projects, as well. It was an excellent field trip for the end of the year, especially so close to Memorial Day!

We enjoyed what seemed like a rare nice day with a walk around downtown St. Louis while we were out:

Today we wrapped up the loose strings of a few subjects (we finally finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird, Ladybug had her final history review, and Chickadee finished her handwriting curriculum), and built our annual end-of-the-school-year Lego set. This time, I chose the San Francisco skyline Lego Architecture model, which is one of the few we hadn’t yet built.

I asked my students a few questions to end the school year…What was your favorite book? What was your favorite subject? Who was the historical figure you enjoyed learning about the most? What was your favorite field trip? What subject are you most looking forward to next year? Here are their responses:

  • Turkey—The Planets: The Definitive Visual Guide to Our Solar System; Algebra 2; Robert the Fox; Chicago’s Field Museum; Pre-Calculus
  • Bunny—The Astronaut Wives Club; Literature; Rugila the Hun (Attila’s uncle); Chicago’s Field Museum; Literature
  • Ladybug—Misty of Chincoteague; Equine Science; Elizabeth I; Chicago’s Field Museum; Literature
  • Chickadee—Summer; reading; Mary I; Soldiers Memorial Military Museum; Astronomy

We’ll have some time off before we start this year’s summer school…we’re going to be (vicariously) traveling all around Europe with Rick Steves!

2018-19 School Year–Week Thirty-One

Another week closer to the end of the year, and we’ve been busy!

Turkey and Bunny worked on using equations to solve problems involving money and percents in math. They started the second chapter on thermodynamics in science, and learned about enthalpy and Hess’ Law. Their creative writing assignment allowed them to practice writing a submission for a college application in the form of a poem. They also began their study of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Ladybug started working with negative numbers in math…I was honestly surprised to discover that she hadn’t done that yet! She wrote a chronological narrative of the life of Julius Caesar. She read about the Renaissance in history. In science, she learned about the social relationships of horses.

Chickadee continued to work on reading whole books, including Little Bear. She is almost done Explode the Code for the year. In math she practiced measuring and revisited telling time.

We also managed to fit in the field trip I was hoping to go on this week…we visited the National Blues Museum in St. Louis for the first time! It was a small, but really cool place, with lots of information we’ve never encountered before, and quite a few hands-on displays. We even got to listen to a musician play while we were there!

After our tour of the museum, we decided to take a walk around St. Louis and enjoy the beautiful spring weather and throngs of happy Cardinals fans who were in town for the afternoon game:

We have another field trip planned for what is going to be a short week of school next week, and then just about four weeks of school left after Easter!

2018-19 School Year–Week Twenty

I know I’m late with last week’s wrap-up, but that’s because I wanted to share the cool learning experiences we had over the weekend, too! Briefly, as far as our regular subjects go, Turkey and Bunny learned about ratios in math (which tied in very nicely with their chemistry lessons), Ladybug read about Marco Polo and the Forbidden City in history, and Chickadee measured in centimeters. Oh, and there was other stuff, too, some of which was mostly the same as the week before.

On to the fun stuff! We were in the Chicago area over the weekend, so I planned some special field trips to places we hadn’t had the chance to visit yet. On Thursday, we went to the Brookfield Zoo, and had what may have been our best zoo experience ever. It was cold and a little bit snowy, but the animals were so active! We really enjoyed the chance to observe them in a way we never really have before!

On Friday, we went to the Lizzadro Museum of Lapidary Art, where we learned about rocks and gemstones, and how gemstones are cut. It was unlike anything we’ve ever done before, and we learned a lot!

Yesterday, we stopped at Chicago’s Field Museum on the way home from our trip north. We toured the Hall of Birds and the Hall of Gems. We also took a look at ancient Egypt. The highlight of the trip, though, was walking through the Halls of Evolving Planet and Hall of Dinosaurs on our way to see Chicago’s most famous resident…Sue the T. rex:

We drove through snow for about the last hour of our trip home, but fortunately, the clouds cleared in time for us to see the Super Blood Wolf Moon during the lunar eclipse:

So we had three regular days of school last week, and then a lot of fun field trip days and unique experiences…it was definitely a nice way to spend a school week in January!

2017-18 School Year–Week Eighteen+

I’m wrapping up two-ish weeks of school, and I’m late with it to boot! But when you see how busy we’ve been, I think you’ll see why!

The week of the 15th-19th was just INSANE! Moose had off school that Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and we always do some different things on that date, so while we had school, it wasn’t exactly our normal schedule. And then Moose’s school cancelled school Tuesday on account of cold (don’t even get me started…I enjoyed having him home, but I really think the schools in the St. Louis area have a different definition of cold than I do after having grown up in the Chicago suburbs!), so that wasn’t really a full day of school for us, because we wanted to hang out with him at least part of the day. We did have a normal day of school on Wednesday, but on Thursday, we hit the road dark and early to go to Chicago, where we did manage to cram a few educational activities/field trips (visits to the Adler Planetarium, the Chicago Botanic Garden, Legoland Discovery Center, and Wheaton College, to see the Perry Mastodon, which went perfectly with Ladybug’s science lessons from that week) into our weekend:

The last week wasn’t exactly standard, either. We had school on Monday, but we spent the day at the Missouri History Museum, where they were holding a “homeschool day” focusing on immigration to St. Louis. It was really interesting learning about some of the groups that settled in this area (particularly Bosnian and German immigrants), as well as what their journey might have been like, and what kind of cultural arts they brought to the area with them (we loved trying Bosnian “carpet” weaving and Scherenschnitte, which is German paper cutting). We even got to try our hand at a bit of translation!

After that, the week was more or less normal…except for the half-day we had on Friday, because Moose had another day off. Turkey, Bunny, and Ladybug all finished up chapters in their science texts. We finally got back to our literature studies of Heidi and Beowulf. Ladybug has been doing some simplified versions of the things Turkey and Bunny have been working on in geometry (volume, surface area, and drawing circles with a compass), while they have moved on to working with radicals. I never thought I’d say it, but I am so glad their curriculum for the last few years has been so demanding, because it made everything seem much easier this time through! And we tried to observe National Lutheran School Week as best we could, even though I have never really figured out how to incorporate it into our homeschool!

This week should (hopefully) be completely normal, and I’m hoping we get a lot accomplished to make up for some of the weirdness in our schedule since basically before Christmas!

2017-18 School Year–Week Eleven

We had another very productive week of school…I can’t believe we still haven’t had a fall break!

We put aside our regular religion lessons so we could focus on the Reformation this week. We’ve been learning about not just Martin Luther, but also Katharina von Bora. We’ve also looked at some prolific Lutheran hymn writers, and have been listening to a selection of Reformation music.

Ladybug has been working on averages in math. In addition to finding the average of four or five numbers, she also learned how to express a remainder as both a fraction and decimal, and round up from there where appropriate. Turkey and Bunny have been focusing on triangles, particularly equilateral and isosceles. They had big exam this week, and both did an excellent job! Chickadee has been working on reading the hour on both analog and digital clocks.

After covering the first three kingdoms in science, Turkey and Bunny are studying the chemistry of life. Before we get into the specifics of the cell, we’re first learning about the make-up of atoms. Ladybug has moved on to primates in her study of land animals. She has learned about the two sub-orders of Strepsirrhini and Haplorrhini so far, and will be learning about animals specific to each next.

Chickadee read her first little book this week! It’s the first in the Sonlight “Fun Tales” series: Pam. Yes, there were only four words in the story (and one of those was the plural form of another). But this is a big deal, and she’s so excited!

Ladybug finally made it to King Tut in history. Both she and Chickadee have been looking forward to this chapter, especially after touring the King Tut exhibit at the St. Louis Science Center. Before King Tut, we also read about Thutmose I and Hatshepsut. Turkey and Bunny learned about the end of the New Kingdom of Egypt. They also learned about the Rigveda in India.

Yesterday, we finally had our long-awaited P.E. field trip day that I’ve been promising. I found out that a park in Hazelwood, MO, opened a new Ninja Warrior training course last month, and the children have begging to go ever since. We were definitely not disappointed…there were over 10 obstacles, and they were pretty much just like you see on TV! We have a new appreciation for how hard the ninja warriors train, and for what a beating their hands take! While we were there, we also enjoyed the regular playground, the swings (just enough for all four children, and since no one else was at the park, they didn’t even have to take turns!), and a lovely walking path. We had a fantastic day outdoors, even if the children were definitely sore this morning!

I’m not sure how next week is going to look…Moose has a short week, and we have a big Reformation 500 event to attend. We’ll try to get at least a few days of school in, but we’ll see!

The Discovery of King Tut

Way back during the first week of school in August, we went to the St. Louis Science Center to tour a special exhibit currently on display: The Discovery of King Tut. The timing was perfect, as we’ve started back up with the ancients in history this year. Turkey, in particular, is really interested in ancient Egypt, and we were all really excited to go through it.

Even before the main section of the exhibit begins, there is a lot to look at, including a replica of the Rosetta Stone, and a model of Tut’s Tomb.

After that first room, there’s a short and very informational movie (Downton Abbey fans will want to keep an eye out for the appearance of Highclere Castle!), followed by the main bulk of the exhibit. You begin by viewing an accurate replica of the antechamber as it appeared upon its discovery:

The next part of the exhibit focuses on Tut’s burial chamber:

There’s also a look at the riches found in the treasury:

Followed by the many parts of the shrine:

After the individual vignettes, there are replicas of pretty much everything, including Tut’s childhood throne, canopic jars, games, makeup, jewelry…even a chariot! This allows you to really see what things looked like up close:

This exhibit may contain “only” replicas (over 1,000 in all!), but they are extraordinarily detailed, and really make you feel like you are touring Tut’s tomb. It’s a great opportunity to see a bit of history up close, and it’s in town through early January, so you have time left to walk in the footsteps of Howard Carter and see Tut’s tomb as it was when it was first discovered in 1922!

2017-18 School Year–Week One

The first week of the 2017-18 school year is already behind us! This year, I have two ninth graders, a fifth grader, and a Kindergartener!

We started on Tuesday, so it was a short, four-day week. And the first day of school is always mostly fun…finding out what’s in this year’s schultüte, handing out books and organizing desks, taking lots of pictures, and building a Lego set. The latter took several hours, as it is the largest Lego set (the Lego Ideas Saturn V), that we’ve ever built in school. It was a fun project that everyone got to help with (we intentionally started before Moose’s first day of school so he could participate), and was educational, thanks to the fantastic extra details in the instruction book.

On Wednesday, we had a pretty full day of school, beginning most of our subjects for the year, from high school geometry and biology to fifth grade math, spelling, and vocabulary, all the way down to reading Ramona the Pest out loud and Kindergarten handwriting. But then we took a break from our work on Thursday to go on our first field trip of the school year, to see The Discovery of King Tut at the St. Louis Science Center. It was a fantastic exhibit, full of extremely well done replicas from Tut’s tomb, and was also a great way to kick off our history studies for the year, as everyone is going to be studying ancient history in one way or another.

Today we finished off with another regular school day. The only subject we haven’t started yet is our various literature studies (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to start for Turkey and Bunny, and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for Ladybug), which we will add to our schedule next week. I’ll close with something new for this year…I chose a Bible verse to be our theme for the year for the first time ever, and I think our chosen verse of Philippians 4:8 is an especially good reminder with all the chaos in the world right now:

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

2016-17 School Year–Week Eleven

There is no denying it…this was a weird week of school!

Moose only had two days of school this week, between parent-teacher conferences and Veterans’ Day (plus, he celebrated his birthday this week…on one of the only two days he had to be at school!). I wanted to make the most of his time off, so we did things a little differently this week.

On Monday, I already had plans for a field trip. The Missouri History Museum had a homeschool day focusing on their latest exhibit: “Toys of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.” Since Ryan had the day off work, in addition to Moose being home, all seven of us went to the museum, and then had a picnic lunch in Forest Park, followed by our annual fall walk through the park. It was a really fun day!

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I decided that on the two days Moose was in school, we’d focus heavily on a few subjects, instead of doing our normal work across all the subjects. So we still had religion (there were a lot of church-year commemorations this week!), math (we got through six lessons in two days!), current events (there was really no way to avoid that this week!) and our study of the Constitution. In addition, Turkey and Bunny focused on writing, and Ladybug finished her written work for the chapter of science she finished last week. And yesterday, with both Moose and Ryan having the day off again, we spent the morning back in Forest Park, at the St. Louis Zoo.

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This was definitely an unusual week for us, but I think we all needed something a little unusual. Next week, we’ll also be doing things a little differently, but that’s been planned all along…it’s that time of year when we take a break from our regular history studies to focus on the First Thanksgiving, how Thanksgiving became a holiday, and how it changed over the years. Other than that, we’ll be doing our regular school work, though, so it will definitely be a more normal week!