Stopping to Smell the Daffodils: March 31 - April 6

In My Life This Week

A sense of accomplishment and ease! With the ducks arrival, our days have been FILLED with getting to know them and easing them into a comfortable, happy co-existence with the hens. Now, the hens and ducks aren't EXACTLY buddies after a week, but they tolerate each other and go about their "business". We've now established a new routine of taking care of the animals that is quick, efficient and thorough! Phew!

Cook'n in the Kitchen!

Did you miss my post on our tea time with poetry? Click here to see some WONDERFUL recipes for refreshing tea sandwiches, sweet cake and gingerbread scones!

Oh, and we did have a Bento picnic lunch at the farm on Wednesday before hitting the trails.

Broccoli, Green Pepper and Celery Sticks, Ketchup, Oatmeal
Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pears, and Homemade Corn
Dog Muffins

Homeschool Happenings

We learned that April is National Poetry Month and read, copied and memorized poems, demonstrated pronouns (like this, these, that, and those), worked on vocab words grisly and grizzly, built CVC words using Boggle Jr., diagrammed sentences, corrected punctuation and capitalization, combined sentences, found adjectives and adverbs, and sounded out double-vowel words.

Balsam Fir Practicing CVC Words

We solved Math subtraction facts, used calculators for comparison shopping, puzzled through more Crypto Mind Benders: Famous Quotations, counted ACTUAL coins, keeping the money if it was corrected counted, worked through partial dividends, averaged figures, practiced numerical order, and implied ratios.

We explored carbon dioxide reactions by combining baking soda and vinegar to launch a rocket, drew diagrams of severe storms and how they form (like hurricanes and tornadoes), learned about weather forecasting, compared nonliving things and living things, and created a poster of the digestive system.

Digestive System Posters from Scholastic

Baking Soda/Vinegar Rocket Ready to Go

No Action Shots, But a Splat! LOL

Did you know that our Sugar Maple was diagnosed with asthma in December? Oh, my what a scary experience! (I think I have a few gray hairs from that weekend!) So, this week we learned about asthma and supporting our girl.

We read some wonderful Easter books, Petook: An Easter Story, a sweet story about a rooster, hen and their chick, and The Easter Egg, a beautifully illustrated book about a rabbit hoping to make the most beautiful Easter egg, and continued on with our read aloud, The Phantom Tollbooth, a witty word-play story about a boy named Milo and his adventures in Dictionopolis. (Never read The Phantom Tollbooth? You should!) We watched "Into the Woods", a play of fairy tales, humor and LOTS of catchy songs, and "Rango" and  on Netflix.

We grudgingly STARTED organizing and cleaning up the playroom after Hurricane Kid hit, finished raking the winter debris off the yard and swept the dirt off the tarred driveway.

We traipsed through the woods, playing in imaginary lands, rode bikes up and down the dirt road, stopping to put on loose tire chains, shot baskets in the hoop, flipped over-end in the hammock, rescued a boot from the mud mire by the brook with shovels, milked a cow, and had oh-so-bumpy rides on the neighbor's ATV.

Helpful Homeschool Hint

Have you seen The Grammar Revolution? It's this neat website that teaches DIAGRAMMING SENTENCES, parts of speech and other PROPER GRAMMAR concepts. And we ALL just LOVE diagramming sentences, right? ((wink)) Favorite NEW resource this week!

Extra! Extra!

❀ Friend Time With the Neighbor Boys ❀ Sugar Maple's SPRING Birthday Party and Friend Sleepover ❀ Cub Scouts ❀ Boy Scouts ❀ Clarinet/Band ❀ Movie Night at the Library ❀ Cows on the Farm ❀ Oak Hill Trail ❀

Sunny Daffodils

Balsam Fir 

Sugar Maple

Hmm...Ponderings

Are these new colored reading strips going to HELP Balsam Fir with his visual tracking? or are they going to be a BIG distraction? Only time will tell!

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