St. Louis Science Center

2016-17 School Year–Spring Break

I lied.

We were going to have our spring break during Holy Week. That’s been my plan for months. But I just couldn’t take it anymore. Between the holiday (St. Patrick’s Day), two birthdays (Turkey’s and Chickadee’s), and the lingering cold we’ve dealt with over the last week or two, I needed a break!

The week wasn’t a total loss, however. We went out three of the days, on different field trips. We visited the Missouri Botanical Garden on Monday to see the cherry blossoms, and also saw some sculptures we’ve never noticed before, did some animal observation, and noted some of the Latin names of different plants, and figured out what they meant. On Chickadee’s birthday, we went to the St. Louis Science Center and saw the Omnimax film, Extreme Weather, took in a star show, and visited a few of the other exhibits. And yesterday we took a walk through the newest exhibit at the Missouri History Museum, “#1 in Civil Rights,” which is fantastic…we’ll definitely be going back!

We also did a few math lessons this week, but I had planned that we would do that regardless of when we took our vacation. Fortunately, they were easy lessons, so they didn’t even take up too much time!

Back to work next week. I’m sure come Holy Week, I’ll be regretting my choice of vacation weeks, but for now, I really appreciated the time off!

Five!

As hard as it is for me to believe (do I start every birthday post that way?), Chickadee turned five today. These five years have gone by faster than any others in my life!

We spent the day at the St. Louis Science Center, or, as Chickadee calls it, the “Monster Museum.” We saw all her favorite exhibits, went to the star show, and saw our very first Omnimax film…Extreme Weather. And Chickadee and I even wore our matching Pinup Girl Clothing outfits, which feature her favorite animal: the elephant, in a fun Mary Blair print!

When we got home, it was present time. She received two Frozen Lego sets, which she loves, but the biggest hit was the Batcave, complete with a Batmobile, and some characters to play with!

She asked for a cake with a flower on it, which was super easy for me to decorate. The cake got pinker and pinker as the week went on. It started with pink frosting, then she wanted a strawberry cake, and then pink candles, and we even got strawberry ice cream to go with it. I’m pretty sure it’s the pinkest cake I’ve ever made!

Happy Birthday Chickadee!

Sixty Months

Dolly spent the day at the St. Louis Science Center with us, to celebrate Chickadee’s birthday:

I think this is the last intentional monthly Dolly photo I’ll take with Chickadee…but you never know when she might make a cameo appearance!

2016-17 School Year–Week Twenty-Three

Well, February is finally over, so there is that!

It was still a long week. We learned about Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. More quadratic equations and fractions in math. Turkey and Bunny have continued to write about historical events in writing, and Ladybug has been learning how to diagram sentences that contain a direct address. Some basic physics in science, as well as more mollusks. Nearing the end of Treasure Island, and continuing to read through Greek Myths. WWII and the Holocaust in history. We had a field trip day on Thursday, and visited the Missouri Botanical Garden, the St. Louis Science Center (to see some props they have on display from the Harry Potter movies), and the Butterfly House at Faust Park, so that was a fun day (butterfly photo courtesy of Turkey).

I wish we had time for a break. Easter is pretty late this year, and Holy Week, which is our normal week for spring vacation is feeling like it’s forever and a day from now. But we’ll keep at it, I suppose, unless I get really desperate for a vacation!

Chickadee Thursday

Today was field trip day!

We had a nice long walk around the Missouri Botanical Garden, and saw a lot of pretty early spring flowers:

We stopped at the St. Louis Science Center, just to see a few props they had on display from the Harry Potter movies:

And we visited the Butterfly House at Faust Park:

Chickadee used to be afraid to go in there…she did great today, but she still got a little nervous any time a butterfly got too close!

It was a fun way to spend a Thursday in early March!

2016-17 School Year–Week Eighteen

Happy National Lutheran Schools Week!

To be honest, we didn’t really do anything to celebrate, because even though I’ve been doing this for many years now, I’ve never really found a good way to incorporate Lutheran Schools week into our homeschool. I do like at least noting it every year when it comes up, though!

We began our new study of One God, Many Gods in religion. So far, we’ve only reviewed basic beliefs that are common to all Christians, and gone through the first chapter about non-Christians, which focuses on Judaism. We also marked the commemoration days for Timothy, Titus, and the Conversion of Saint Paul this week.

In math, Turkey and Bunny worked with complex fractions and complex rational expressions. This is all in preparation for next week’s lessons, which focus on the thing I’ve been dreading since the day we decided to homeschool, almost nine years ago…quadratic equations. I hope we all survive! Ladybug has been working on time zones, logical reasoning and basic geometry terms, which seems very simple in comparison!

Our history studies finally took us to the beginning of WWI. We learned about trouble in Persia and a mess in the Balkans. We came upon our first reference to Winston Churchill, and saw the creation of what would become British Petroleum. This is such an interesting time to study, because so many big things happened, and yet, it really didn’t take place that long ago!

Turkey and Bunny left the world of writing about historical events to analyze poetry in their writing course. Ladybug is continuing to diagram very complicated sentences, including ones that have adverbs on top of adverbs. Chickadee is still working on learning the alphabet, which sounds a lot easier than it is!

Ladybug finished learning about sharks and rays in science. We were very appalled to learn about lampreys and hagfish…especially since science is right after lunch! Turkey and Bunny also finished their chapter in science…next week, they start learning about weather.

Today, we took the day off of our regular lessons and went to the St. Louis Science Center with Moose, who also had the day off from his school. We spent about four hours there, which I think was a new record for us, and checked out pretty much every exhibit, including the really cool new MathAlive! exhibit that just opened this week, the fairly new outdoor GROW exhibit, and everything we could possibly see in the planetarium, including a star show about the constellations. It was a very fun day filled with hands-on learning, which is always the best kind!

Next week will be a very big week for us, as we deal with quadratic equations, and really dive into WWI. I am both dreading and looking forward to it!