Weekly Wrap-Up: The Week We Went to Our Zoo Class

We had another fun and busy week.  We went hiking, attended a class at our local zoo and spent lots of time in the car driving to and from dentist and orthodontist appointments.   The weather was beautiful, once again, this week and we spent lots of time outdoors going for walks, taking bike rides, and enjoying our local parks.

Physical Education:  We went Letterboxing with our new group.  We were so excited to find that this one near where we live.

We also went for a nice walk/ nature hike one afternoon enjoying the balmy sunny weather and beautiful foliage.  We walked the river trail again this week and finally got to finish reading the book they had set along the trail that we started last week. We went on a bike ride together one afternoon and I marveled at how far Evan has come in his ability to ride in just this past few months.  He was standing up at times and even let go of his handlebars a time or two.

Language Arts:  The boys all did so great on their spelling tests again this past week and started on the next list.  They are really enjoying our curriculum.  We did a free write on Friday where I set the timer for 10 minutes and they had to just write for the entire time.  The older boys worked in their English and Grammar books while Evan worked in his word family book a couple of times.  All three boys worked in their cursive books.  We had a fun roll and write Halloween story starter to help get them started yesterday and working with Evan we wrote a three pages story!  Then Alec asked us all to play a few quick games of Ooga Booga.  We were laughing and having so much fun it was tough to pack it away for lunch.

Math:  All three boys worked on two more pages in their math workbooks each day as well as completing another two pages in Multiplication games.  We also played Memory one afternoon.

Lining up his matches

Science:  Evan read a few more books about parrots and added a few more facts to his board for the science fair.  He also read Listen to Our World and A Frog's Life. Alec read three more books on Ocelots and small cats.  We're quickly realizing that his board may be mostly pictures as we are not learning all that much about them!  Ian completed another solar powered vehicle and decided on which one he wants to use for his display at the fair.  He's been reading a book called Solar Power and is learning so much about the various energy cells used in solar panels.

Evan and Alec went to the 4-H Saturday science club and spent the day designing experiments themed around fair tales!  For fairy tale science they had to design a parachute to help Jack get away from the giant on top of the beanstalk quickly and safely.  They also had to try and design some stick/ wood house that the wolf would not be able to blow over for the three little pigs.  Lastly they had to devise a way for Little Red Riding Hood to get across the forest in a zip line without loosing any of her treats for grandma and without getting caught by the wolf.  They had a ton of materials to pick from and the only limit was their imaginations.

Alec's first parachute attempt dropped the poor Lego man like a stone 

Evan's first attempt at the zip line worked pretty good but wasn't very fast. 

The younger two boys also attended a class on animal classifications at the zoo.  They had a wonderful time learning all about how animals are classified into groups.  They got to pet a kangaroo skin, see a tarantula and pet a ferret.  We also spent a bit of time walking around the zoo when class was over.  We read about the various animals there and got to hear and see so many of them walking around, playing, and calling out. It was a gloriously sunny day and the animals were quite active.

Reading: Alec finished up A Dragon's Guide to the Care and Feeding of Humans, finished Welcome to Wonderland Home Sweet Motel, started reading The Golden Compass and began another Spirit Animals book.  Evan read The Day the Sheep Showed Up and The Great Race.  He also started listening to Magnus Chase on Cd.  Ian read The Falcon's Feathers this week and started listening to Divergent on Playaway.  We finished up the House of Hades and started listening to The Blood of Olympus.  We also read a few more pages in Demigods and Magicians.

Life skills:  Ian worked on the shed with my husband learning how to attach wood studs into concrete flooring.  He also worked with his grandfather over the weekend and helped with some winterizing.  He mowed the lawn for us on Monday and all three kids spent the week helping to vacuum, dust and clean the house.  They all switched chores and we added a few new jobs into the rotation- filling and emptying the dishwasher.  Evan pulled out the screwdrivers and worked on two of his remote control cars fixing the wheels and tinkering with how they work.

Art:  We did a bit of art this week since we were finally home a few days.  We made a multi- media painting of fall leaves and we all just LOVED how bright they turned out. I'll be writing up a quick guide on how we made them in the next few days.

We made some bat silhouette paintings too.

Socialization: The boys played at the park one afternoon with their cousins. They had a fun afternoon at the zoo making new friends and playing at the park next door.  They met quite a few new homeschoolers through their zoo class and seemed to hit it off well with many of them.  We even spent part of our afternoon walking around the zoo with a few of the other families.