hands on with animals

Friday is our field day so here we are at a what I call it a more hands-on zoo. We also saw many endangered animals.

riding the camel was a big hit with all the kids

This is the first parakeet that willingly landed on W's food stick
Another parakeet

love the expression on the boy's face watching the parakeet eating off W's stick

This was the best J can do, holding the food stick up for the bird

Feeding Llama;

exotic animal

Animals needs mental stimulation too.
Here is a spider monkey trying to figure out how to get snacks hidden inside some paper in toilet roll

The whole gang

Farm animal fun

As I was taking a picture of W and his friend petting the rabbit, unknown to me at the time, a goat was eating my shirt. Yet the whole time, I thought our little friend (3yrs) was tugging at me for me to hold her so she can see.

Mandrill was so fun to watchIce cream is a great way to end our time at the zoo.

Hello Monarch!

This is our home raised Monarch butterfly. We took it outside to give it freedom but it was not ready to fly away yet. So lucky for us, we might have another day or 2 to enjoy it.

This is a male butterfly because of the scent spots
(2 black dot on the lower part of it's wing)

We got 2 Monarch caterpillars courtesy of a homeschool friend who showed us the rope and gave us the caterpillar and the milkweed.


This was just when the butterfly is ready to come out. We saw it's orange wings through the black chrysalis.

This is so brave of J. To get a picture of her smiling having the butterfly on her is HUGE.

She's not one who's excited of holding any animals but only observing and studying them.

Next time we are hoping to find our own tiny monarch egg and watch it morph into a caterpillar and then a butterfly. To learn about raising your own monarch butterfly, click here.

Many faces of W

I like to captures different expressions so here is some recent snap shots of the "Many expressions of W" (all posed and acted).

Puppy eyes

upset

unhappy mad

silly
You better stop!
Thinking
zoned out
secret smile

Tickled happy

demure laugh

trying to contain himself

mad eyes

happy surprise

all teeth showing

delight

full of mischief

Paper basket and other recent pics

We worked together on weaving a paper basket. Click here for the tutorial. It was a little more challenging than I had expected for the kids. The weaving was the fairly easy part but folding crisp and exact line was a challenge. W learned a little measurement in the process. We'll probably try this again later and make a larger basket. Won't that be fun?

photo taken by J

Photo taken by J.
After we were done, armed with scissor, they went to cut some plants from the garden. Then J arranged this scene.

Some fun with bubbles. We have yet to make a large bubble wand.

Bubble made from warm water and little dry ice, then dipped in bubble mixture

The balloon animals proved to be very fun as all kinds of stories was made up on the ride in the car.

Little chess playing; both real and imagined games were played along with Pictionary and a brief encounter with Taboo.

Little dress up play.

Light school

I have decided to start "light school" this week. Really, it's jut getting up at more regular time, doing some work in the morning, and finishing up some stuff we didn't totally finish last school year.

So this morning after our bike ride to the playground, we started with math practice. We drew a big square filled with 99 squares in rows of 0-9, 10-19, etc. Then we took turns throwing 2 stones on 2 different squares of number. We had to figure if we had to add or subtract to get from the first # to the second # and by how much. Having the square really helped J/W esp. W who is not proficient at adding or subtracting #s beyond 10 like (12+20). But in this game, he could do it fairly well. So we'll be using working on this until he is. J also had little trouble, with problems like 43-24 where you can count back by 10 but then have to add. She was clear on 43-22 for example.




Anyway, it was good way for them to move around and throw some rocks.

Then we did little bit of grammar. J did one sentence of dictation while W copied the same sentence.

After that, since W need some practice cutting, we made some "magic window" cuttings. And that was about it.

Pink is made by J while yellow is made by W

This took us almost to lunch so we did some tiding up and have plenty of time for a nice afternoon of free play, reading, outside play or whatever we feel like.