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!
We might have finished school last week, but today was our final field trip of the 2021-22 school year…we visited the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station to round out Chickadee’s study of swimming creatures!
And just like that, the 2021-22 school year has come to an end! The week was mostly spending time outdoors (our daily walk is now at about four miles, even in the unpleasant heat we’ve been having!) and wrapping things up.
Ladybug took her final geometry exam (and got an “A”!). She finished the chapter on mammals in biology by reading about learned and innate behaviors, and various forms of conditioning. She also finished her astronomy course by learning about celestial navigation…she even used Google Earth to find the approximate coordinates of our house! We finished her study of religious writings by reading about the Book of Mormon. She read about Constantine in history. To conclude our study of Henry V, we watched The Hollow Crown, episode four.
Chickadee also finished up math by reviewing equations, fractions, and how to cross multiply and divide. We read about sponges in science (we do still have one field trip left related to her study of aquatic animals…stay tuned!). She reviewed all of the parts of speech she’s learned by diagramming some fairly long sentences. We wrapped up our study of US geography by learning about Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington D.C.
As always, we built a Lego set to celebrate the last day of school (and since Turkey and Bunny were home at an unusual time due to their finals schedule, they were able to lend a hand):
This was a different year for all of us, and it took some getting used to. I’m really glad we did some very different things this year instead of trying to force things to be “normal” (reading Little Women, especially outside under our tree when the weather was nice, and cooking together were my favorite moments of the school year), and even though things felt strange a lot of the time, as always, I’m sad to see the school year end!
After being probably the only people in the St. Louis area who hadn’t seen it, Chickadee and I ran into Tally, the inventory robot, at two different Schnucks in the last week!
We started this school week with a field trip to the St. Louis Zoo! This is basically a spring tradition (except in 2020, which we don’t talk about), and I really look forward to this particular zoo trip every year!
We were fortunate to get see a fairly young Somali Wild Ass with her mother while we were there…she’s so cute!
While we were in Forest Park, we also stopped to see the tulips on Art Hill, which is one of my favorite spring scenes in St. Louis!
Ladybug learned about trigonometric functions in geometry. She read about the different classes of arthropods in biology. After completing the play last week, we finished our discussion of Henry V…she just has to complete her final paper on the book. In history, she read about Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, and Tiberius. We discussed the Analects of Confucius in her study of religious texts. She learned about the asteroid belt and the different types of asteroids in astronomy.
Chickadee created line, bar, and pictographs in math. She learned how to diagram interjections in grammar. We read about jellyfish and sea anemones in science. She learned about Texas and Oklahoma in geography. We started reading a book about the White House…we probably won’t get to go on a tour on our trip this summer, but I figure we might see it from the outside, so she should know something about it!
Chickadee and I have been enjoying baking recipes from the My Little Pony Baking Book she received for Christmas. We’ve made at least one recipe from each chapter of the book at this point…here’s a look at everything we’ve tried so far:
Strawberry Cupcakes
Celebration Cinnamon Rolls
Piñata Cupcakes
Pony Poke Cake
Chocolate Dream Pie
Cupcake Cones
Peanut Butter Candy Cookies
Out-of-this-World Brownies
Chaos Cookies
Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars
Apple Fritter Bread
Purple Velvet Cake
The recipes in the book are delicious, but they’re also a lot of fun, and they all look amazing…we’re really looking forward to baking more of them!
Chickadee spent some time making herself a flower crown (possibly inspired by the one I wore for Easter), and I love how bright and colorful and perfect for spring it is!
Like her sisters and myself, Chickadee bought an early souvenir of our trip to Disney World when RockLove Jewelry had their Birthday Sale last month…her choice was Rey’s Kyber Crystal necklace, and she absolutely loves it!
