Forest Park

2021-22 School Year–Week Thirty

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!

Just nine days left in the 2021-22 School Year!

2021-22 School Year–Outdoors Week!

I decided on a whim that this should be “Outdoors Week.” In addition to reading Little Women under the tree in our front yard, we participated only in activities that could be done outdoors, and I even came up with themes for each day!

Monday was “History and Nature.” We visited historic Concordia Cemetery in St. Louis and found C.F.W. Walther’s mausoleum. We also learned about his life and contributions to the Lutheran church in America.

Tuesday was “Art and Nature.” We went back into the city to walk around the Missouri Botanical Garden and Forest Park, and sketch some of the beautiful things we saw:

Wednesday was “Fitness and Nature.” We finally got back to the tennis court for the first time since before the pandemic began, and we also did a fitness course on a local walking trail.

Thursday was “Exploration and Nature.” We took a five-mile walk down some trails we’ve never used before, and also tried to identify some of the trees we saw along the way based on their leaves, pods, and nuts.

And today we took it easy, and ended the week by watching Little Women (the Winona Ryder version, because it’s my favorite), since we finally finished the book. We’ll get back to our regular work next week, but this was a really fun way to spend the first week of November!

Reformation Day/Halloween 2021

Today was the rare occasion where Reformation Day/Halloween actually falls on a Sunday. We started the day at church, where we enjoyed some especially amazing music featuring hymns written by Martin Luther:

We went for a short walk in Forest Park after the service, where we enjoyed the beautiful fall colors (in spite of the wind):

I was so excited to pick up a box of Monster Mash cereal for the Fab Five for breakfast!

This afternoon, we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas for the first time, as well as It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. For dinner, I made potato-parsnip soup, cheese and jam turnovers, and butterbeer…it was the perfect meal for today!

Dessert was the Jell-O Halloween Special, as advertised by Harlow Wilcox in the 1940s…”Looks like a dish of sunshine all dressed up, doesn’t it?”

I chose my costume in Animal Crossing: New Horizons with great care…I’m a hot dog!

I tracked down the Czar of Halloween right away.

I think my neighbors enjoyed the festivities, too!

This was a busier Halloween than most for us, and it was a very fun day!

2021-22 School Year–Week Six

Fall is finally here and this was a beautiful week for school! On Tuesday, we enjoyed a cool (albeit rainy) walk around Forest Park and the St. Louis Zoo:

Ladybug learned about complementary and supplementary angles in geometry this week. In her study of comparative religions, she traveled to the Far East, where she read about Shintoism, Confucianism, and Taoism. She started learning about ecology in biology. We finished the first book of Little Women, and made a bunch of new recipes from The Little Women Cookbook: Meg’s chicken and macaroni soup (plus more maple-cornmeal drop biscuits), oatmeal porridge with apples, cinnamon, and maple syrup, Meg’s macaroni and cheese, vanilla butter cookies with Mr. Bhaer’s chocolate drops, Hannah’s smoked sausage and potato “mess” and Meg’s currant jelly sauce:

Chickadee worked on rounding in math, including rounding money. She started learning about pinnipeds in science…so far, we’ve learned how to identify a true seal. We worked on diagramming adverbs in grammar. We finished our first trip around the world, and made three new recipes…a meat pie which was surprisingly well-received, plus damper bread, both from Australia, and a blueberry crumble with “snowballs” (vanilla ice cream) from Canada:

Since the weather was so nice, we spent some extra time doing our school work outside this week…I especially enjoyed reading Little Women under the tree in our yard!

It’s supposed to warm back up, so I guess next week won’t be quite as pleasant as this one was, but more beautiful fall days are on the way!

A Masked King

Since we’ve stayed home for so much of the last 15 months, I haven’t had the chance to see many of the masked statues in and around St. Louis. I did finally catch a glimpse of King Louis IX in a St. Louis city flag mask when Bunny and I went to the Art Museum last week, though!

The Top Five–Photos of 2019

Time to take a look back at my five favorite photos from 2019! Notable this year is that a lot of my pictures were taken (or cropped) in “square” mode, since I’m using Instagram more than ever.

First, a picture from early in the year, when we enjoyed a snowy day in the Japanese Garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden:

Another winter picture, this time of two snow leopards at Brookfield Zoo in Chicago:

A spring photo featuring cherry blossoms in the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Japanese Garden:

The Red Arrows in flight!

Fall at Forest Park’s Pagoda Circle:

And an honorable mention…a photo taken at the holiday flower and train show at the Missouri Botanical Garden just a few days ago!

Obviously, I have my favorite places to take pictures, but I like that I’m constantly finding new ways to highlight them!

2019-20 School Year–Week Ten

We’re definitely over a quarter of the way through the school year now…how is that even possible?!?

Turkey’s and Bunny’s study of the Augsburg Confession this week focused on the Sacraments…I was very impressed that it very clearly stated that absolution is the third Sacrament, something I’ve taught at home from the very beginning, but an idea with which some Lutherans are uncomfortable. They continued to work on proving trigonometric identities in pre-calculus. In physics, they finished the chapter on parabolic motion and range. They started a chapter on the senses in health. We had some very good conversations based on the cantos they read in “The Paradiso.”

Ladybug reviewed ratios in math. She practiced finding the mechanical advantage for the various simple machines she learned about in science last week. In writing she read “The Open Window” so she could analyze the plot line. She learned about Charles I and the English Civil Wars, Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum, and Charles II the 1660 Restoration in history.

Chickadee practiced regrouping tens in math. She finished the Old Testament portion of her read-alouds from The Beginner’s Bible. She also finished the first of three Explode the Code books for second grade. We read more stories from Tales from Beatrix Potter, some of which I had never heard of before! She finished her study of Venus in science by learning about its phases.

Since we worked so hard this week, I decided that today should be a field trip day, so we headed to Forest Park, where the fall color is reaching its peak:

The true destination for our field trip was the St. Louis Art Museum, where we toured the new “Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt” exhibit, which is on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

One of the best parts of the special exhibits at the St. Louis Art Museum is the Explore Lab, which adds a hands-on component to the event:

Here’s a glimpse at some of the children’s artwork:

After we finished at the art museum (and walked around Forest Park a bit more), we stopped by the Missouri History Museum to see what is admittedly a very small, but very meaningful exhibit about the St. Louis Blues Stanley Cup Championship:

This was a very fun and relaxing way to end a busy week!