Ladybug

First Day of School 2023

I decided to do something different this year, and start the new school year on a Friday, so we could spend a day doing only the fun, first-day-of-school stuff, and not worry about diving into the work until next week. Last night, I made sure the school room was ready to go…I made a few minor changes this year, but for the most part, our setup is the same as it has been:

I also got the Schultüte assembled:

After we look through our materials for the year, pictures are always a priority:

I decided we needed a fun outing to kick things off, so we drove all the way to Livingston, IL (about 40 minutes away) to the Twistee Treat Diner at The Pink Elephant for ice cream cones. It’s on Historic Route 66, and we’ve driven by it every time we’ve gone to Chicago, and I thought the time was finally right to check it out!

Would it even be the first day of school if we didn’t build a Lego set? I decided the Disney Villains Icons set would be a nice bridge from our fairy tale themed summer school…it’s a very clever set, and the girls let me build the Sleeping Beauty part. We’ll just ignore the hard time they gave me over the VHS tape build!

A (poison) apple for the teacher!

Ladybug requested a special dinner from Lilo and Stitch: The Official Cookbook. She really wanted to try the Pelekai Sweet and Sour Pork, and it was excellent! I also made a super decadent, super chocolatey cheesecake for dessert.

I really liked starting the school year this way…it was nice not to have to immediately get started on our actual work! I think we just might do it this way again next year (which will be Ladybug’s last first day of school with me)!

2022-23 School Year–Week Thirty-Two

That’s it for the 2022-23 school year! This was a pretty light week, focused on wrapping things up. Ladybug and Chickadee took their final tests and finished what they needed to in various books. We also had one last field trip…a visit to Grant’s Farm for Maifest. I thought this was a great way to end the year, especially since our Christmas School was focused on learning about Christmas in Germany, and Chickadee has so diligently studied German with Duolingo this year.

We ended the year the way we began…with a Disney-themed Lego set. This one is an art set of Minnie Mouse that is a companion to the piece we built back in August, and they actually connect to make one large picture!

In some ways, I don’t feel like I put in as much effort as I should have this my 15th year of homeschooling. It was a complicated year, schedule-wise, and I felt stretched pretty thin. I’m already looking forward to all of the things we’ll be doing next year, though, and hopefully I’ll make up for the lack of energy I had this year!

Sweet Sixteen

Today is Ladybug’s 16th birthday!

We did things a little differently this year since Moose has a band concert tonight. So let’s start with a look at her birthday dinner, which we actually had on her Birthday Eve! She chose two recipes from Destiny: The Official Cookbook…tortilla chicken soup with all the toppings, and “Coldheart,” a green smoothie with kiwis, banana, mango, avocado, and spinach:

For dessert, she turned to The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook, where she found a recipe for “Princess Pudding,” which was a type of lava cake:

She waited until this morning to open her presents. It was a very Stitch themed birthday!

Is it even a birthday in our house if there aren’t Legos?

Happy Sweet Sixteen Ladybug!

2022-23 School Year–Week Thirty

It’s been a busy week! On Wednesday, we took a field trip to see the new “Soccer City” exhibit at the Missouri History Museum. It was pretty cool (we even got to see some very recent history, because they had the ball that scored the first goal for St. Louis City SC on display!), and there were some fun, hands-on activities including foosball and a soccer video game that I was truly terrible at!

Even though our main purpose for driving into the city was touring that exhibit, the best part of the day was exploring the Anne O’C. Albrecht Nature Playscape in Forest Park for the first time (plus a brief stop at Turtle Park). It’s a great outdoor space, and while we were there, we got to see a few owls from the World Bird Sanctuary in Vally Park, which was really interesting.

The rest of the week wasn’t quite so exciting. Ladybug solved equations with three variables in algebra 2, which wasn’t as difficult as she was expecting. We started a chapter on kinetics in chemistry and she learned about reaction rates and rate orders. She read about William the Conqueror and the Norman Conquest in history (it was pretty exciting to learn about the first coronation at Westminster Abbey with the next coronation just over a week away!). In creative writing, she had to write a poem about a significant event (she chose COVID-19) within her lifetime. She started her last selection in literature, Everyman.

Chickadee continued to work with the metric system in math. We read more about dinosaurs in science, and I learned that Chickadee’s favorite dinosaur is the triceratops (mine is the maiasaura in case you were wondering). She started reviewing all of the poems she’s memorized this year (six of them!). We only have one chapter of Smoke on the Wind left.

Just two more weeks of school, and we’re hoping for two more field trips, too!

2022-23 School Year–Week Twenty-Nine

We’re trying to get in a lot of outdoor field trips before the end of the school year since the weather is so nice…this week, it was a visit to two playgrounds ranked among the best in the St. Louis area by St. Louis Magazine, plus an old family favorite: Queeny Park, Watson Trail Park, and Vlasis Park:

Of course, we also had our regular work (although it is beginning to wind down). In algebra 2, Ladybug figured age and boat/current problems. I thought we had wrapped up thermodynamics last week, but there was more fun with the application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In history, she read about the Great Schism and Leif Ericson’s exploration of North America…next week is the Norman Conquest! She read a sestina poem in creative writing and identified its rhyme scheme. In literature, she read a section of Robin Hood Ballads.

Chickadee worked with measurement conversions in math and had and introduction to the metric system. In science, we started a chapter about dinosaurs, learning a bit about how they’re named, and what makes a sauropod different from a theropod. She finished her history curriculum for the year, learning about the end of the Western Roman Empire and the contributions that Rome made to the world that we still see today. We continued reading Smoke on the Wind.

Only three weeks to go, and right now, I have a fun field trip planned for each week!

2022-23 School Year–Christmas School

Fröhliche Weihnachten!

This year’s Christmas School theme was Christmas in Germany (and Austria). Everything came together in an amazing fashion, so that we had lots of experiences, read lots of stories, did lots of baking, and made some cool crafts. But first, an ornament craft to remind us of our summer vacation…memory spheres:

Back to Christmas in Germany. We got to meet the Christkind (an angel who is often the present-bearer in Germany) when we were at Christmas Traditions in St. Charles, MO:

We made five different German Christmas cookies that we had never made before…Lebkuchen (German-style gingerbread), Vanillekipferl (vanilla crescents), Pfeffernusse (spice cookies), Kardamom Plaetzchen (chocolate dipped cardamon cookies), and Zimtsterne (cinnamon stars). We got to try some new baking techniques, which was a lot of fun, and the house has smelled amazing!

We also made five crafts inspired by Germany or of German origin…painted hearts inspired by Lebkuchenherzen (gingerbread hearts), a Weihnachtspyramide, ornaments inspired by the German flag and printed with words related to Advent, Fröbelstern (elaborately folded paper stars named for Friedrich Fröbel, the creator of the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg, Thuringia, Germany), and the German classic, Zwetschgenmännle (prune people).

Here’s a look at the Weihnachtspyramide in motion…I think it was our favorite craft!

We visited our town Christkindlmarket several times this month:

And we even got to attend a Weihnachtsgottesdienst (German Christmas service)!

It’s not often that Christmas School comes together this well, and provides us with so many fun opportunities…I really enjoyed it!

2022-23 School Year–Week Eleven

Ladybug learned how to complete the square in algebra 2. In chemistry, she learned the difference between chemical and physical changes and we did a few fun experiments to demonstrate the concepts. She read about the Americas in the 600s in history, which put us in the mood to visit Cahokia Mounds in a few weeks. She worked on rewriting selections in her own voice in writing. We also made a few more recipes from The Nightmare Before Christmas cookbook…The Mayor Chocolate Pretzel Spiderwebs, Mummy Boy Dogs, Oogie Boogie Bag of Bugs (roast Brussels sprouts with cranberries and pepitas and a balsamic glaze), and Christmas Town Gingerbread Snowflakes with Spiders.

Chickadee learned how to calculate simple exponents in math, and made more complex factor trees. She started the chapter on primates in science. In history, we read about the return of the Assyrians and Ashurbanipal and the library of Nineveh. She reviewed subject and object pronouns in grammar. We started the final chapter of Homer Price…it’s gone by very quickly!

On Thursday, we took a break from our regular schoolwork and used our Missouri Botanical membership to take a 5 mile hike around Shaw Nature Reserve. It’s the first time we’ve been there for anything other than Prairie Days, so it was really our first chance to explore the property. We especially liked the trail down to the Meremec River, but the whole place is beautiful, and we’d like to go back in the spring!

I can’t believe we’re headed toward November…it’s always one of my favorite months for school!

2022-23 School Year–Week Eight

We started the week with a rare Sunday field trip, to Grant’s Farm:

Ladybug learned how to identify the conjugates of a binomial in algebra 2. In chemistry, she read about single, double, and triple bonds to finish the fourth chapter. We finally finished Romeo and Juliet…she’s glad to be done with that (although we do still need to watch the movie)! She read about the High Kings of Britain, Niall of the Nine Hostages, and St. Patrick in history. In grammar, she started identifying appositive phrases. Now that it’s October, we set aside Recipes from the World of Tolkien for the time being, and made a dinner from The Nightmare Before Christmas Cookbook, featuring Vampire Brothers Bloody Party Punch, Snake and Spider Stew, (an albondigas or Mexican meatball soup with fettuccine “snakes”), and Oogie Boogie Meringues.

Chickadee made factor trees in math, and reviewed multiplying three-digit numbers. We finished reading Heidi and started Homer Price. In history, she learned about the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and the Hyksos. We read about hyenas, mongooses, and meerkats in science, finishing the chapter on Feliforms. She put everything together that she’s learned in grammar so far to diagram some complex sentences. We also did a little baking together this week, making s’mores cookies from the My Little Pony Baking Book:

And we ended the week with a field trip to the pumpkin patch:

We’re already almost a quarter of the way done with the school year…I can’t believe it!