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| The world’s happiest boy was very, very sad this week. |
Seuss needed lots of hugs this week, so homeschoolin’ was a little tricky. We had multiple nights of interrupted sleep due to illness and everyone was tired and crabby (self included). I had little time to plan our week, and any project we started was frequently interrupted by my sad little Seuss. We had two days of being stuck inside the entire day and we watched more television this week than any other week in the last six-plus years. Still, when I looked back on my journal and photos, I smiled. We were able to squeeze in a lot of learning during this first official “off” week.
This mama is still overtired, though, so I don’t have the wherewithal to write a coherent blog post. Instead, I present to you our “off” week in photos:
| Garden stakes from Nana. |
| Garden stakes from Nana. |
| Pet rocks. |
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| Sculpture of a starfish about to eat a mussel (mussel not finished). We saw this happen in a documentary that we watched several weeks ago so it was neat to see he was still thinking about it. |
| “Autumn Whimsy” This is Leo’s first abstract piece, which he entered in a local art show. We enjoyed the show opening one evening this week. |
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| “Night of the Blue Moon” We will be writing a story to go with this piece! |
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| Box Man. |
| Leo made this piece after watching Liberty’s Kids. |
| Turtle observing. |
| “I think they are mating, T!” |
| We visited one of our favorite farms. Here, Leo studies the eggplant varieties. |
| Terrible photo but our furry friend had a vet appointment this week and both the vet tech and our veterinarian answered every single one of Leo’s questions! |
| Frog catchin’ |
| Frogs, turtles, bugs, and mud. |
| We observed a hot air balloon from the moment it was unloaded from the truck until it was in the air! |
| You should just see my counter! So many experiments this week! |
| Building on our composting/recycling experiment from last week, we learned more about decomposition. |
| Terrible photo but this was the bunny high jump at the fair we went to over the weekend. This kids were enthralled! |
| Tree identification. |
| Trying to figure out, at the farm, which pumpkin is the type growing in our yard. |
| Buy local!! |
| Monitoring our very own pumpkins. |
| Falconry at the Fair. |
| We cleaned and dried all our summer shells and put them in a bin so that we can use our shell identification book whenever we wish. |
Music:
| Leo *loves* this book and we rediscovered it this week. And, yes, that is a Zac Brown Band CD. Dancing in the kitchen is one of our favorite witching hour activities! |
Writing:
| This was the menu when I dined at Leo’s Nine Helping Diner this week. The food was delish, and he also made us dinner and dessert! |
| In addition to journaling, Leo wrote to a couple of his pen pals this week. |
| He also recorded his various scientific experiments in his science journal. You should see my kitchen counter: experiments galore! |
| To celebrate Seuss feeling better, the boys and I went on a field trip while T was at school: WWII planes! |
| B-24 |
| Seuss watching Leo and thinking about climbing in, too. |
| It was hard to get Leo to leave this field trip! |
| P-51 |
| P-51 takes off! |
| These book lovers couldn’t resist purchasing the book that went with each of the three planes we saw. |
| Elsa’s castle. |
| This book is AMAZING. |
| This is an excavator sculpture that Leo made after reading “The Way Things Work” by David Macaulay. |
| One walk this week ended with horse-watching! |
| Super Seuss watches his big brother at gymnastics. |
| T and Leo are participating in a nature class for the next several weeks. They read a book, sing songs, go on a hike, and do a craft. This week’s theme was trees. |
| Salmon |
| Cookies |
| Watching Where on Earth is Carmen San Diego and finding all the locations on the globe. |
| One of the highlights of our week was receiving mail from Leo’s pen pal in TANZANIA! |
| We also received our first swap box this week and learned all about Georgia! |
Math:
| Mosaics and patterns |
| Leo does a lot of his math online (EPGY), but we also enjoy board games, cooking, and reading lots of math books. |
| Cuisinaire Rods |
| We watched a lot of TV (for us) this week, due to Seuss being so sad. Math, Geography, American History, and Music! Do you remember Donald in Mathmagic Land?? So great! |
| These are our current read alouds! |
| This is Leo’s equivalent to a stack of books on a nightstand. |
| This is Leo’s pile of books downstairs- Schizz found all of these at the dump this week. What’s better than a stack of free books?? |
| Is there anything sweeter than one child reading to the other? |
| There is a boy under this book! |
| Obsessed with fairies at the moment. |
| Reading to our furry friend. |
| Seuss being his fabulous, ferocious, Seuss! |
Sadly, there was less sediment in the tub than is typical for our family at this point in the season but everyone is happy and healthy today, the sun is shining, and we have completely unscheduled afternoon at our disposal. We’re off to make up for lost time! Have a wonderful rest-of-your-weekend, everyone!
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Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how.
They want to, and they know how.
~ John Holt
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