'17/18 Week 32 through 36

 

      The last weeks of our school year -- the whole month of May -- was a big blur of ... everything. Somehow this year, all after school activities lasted longer than in previous years, and all of them decided to have their grand finales one after another. It was exhausting, but we made it. Our last days of school fell on the first days of June which is a perfect timing as the pools in town opened up the same time and the library summer programs started up. 
      Although our school work is done, we will not be relaxing too much this summer. Andrew is volunteering at the library events and participating in church youth group activities. Also, our taekwondo classes continue throughout summer, and there is a art camp coming in July. But it does feel good to slow down a little and smell the rare flowers that manage withstand this summer heat. 
      Here comes the picture overload of many, but not all, the things we did in May.

Science. Saara built another type of working compass.

Playing detectives. One way to find out the make of a fabric swatch is to burn it. The color of the flame, the charred remains, the duration of burning -- all this information can give us clues.

Time to pick dewberries!

Science. Saara made a telegraph machine. 

LA. Brainstorming for an essay about heroes.

Prickly cactus

We did not have time to find out what kind of moth it was.

King snake strangling a copperhead in our back yard. 

Just one photo from this year's choir concert. It was beautiful as ever and the kids did a fantastic job. 

The king snake did strangle the copperhead to death and left the body behind. As we had a fresh kill on our hands, I found it a prime opportunity to have a impromptu science class. We dissected the dead snake.  

The heart of the killer.

The liver.

Lots of intestines.

That looked like gallbladder.

Just one photo from Saara's ballet recital this year. 

LA. Working on the last book report this year.

Box Day! Barely done with these grades, we already received all of our materials for the next school year.

'17

Box Day!

We ordered and received our Sonlight materials for next year pretty early this time. As I am deviating from the history curriculum next year, I wanted to have plenty of time to compile my own materials. 
For the 5th grade, Sonlight offers studies of the Asian countries which, I am sure is very interesting. A lot of the read-aloud and reading practice books are written or set in Asia. I am looking forward to reading them all. However, after finishing the two year introduction into the American history, I considered teaching Andrew the history of our home state instead. Visiting the Capitol and the Story of Texas exhibition were a great inspiration and confirmation that changing the curriculum up a bit was a right decision.

Box Day 2015

The materials arrived this week! As usual, we spent a lot of time just looking through all the new stuff. Now, a few days later, all the books have been neatly put onto shelves ready for the new school year, the schedule has been divided into weeks, and first six weeks are ready to be used. I am getting excited! Very excited!

Box Day 2014

Oh, what a happy day! Our school materials were delivered to us this morning. The children tore into the box and squealed with delight. Andrew skimmed through the books, but stopped short at his new Bible. He loves it so much, I think, he will sleep with it tonight.

I will be reading the teaching tips tonight. Thankfully, Sonlight makes it easy on teachers by having everything super organized. I am pretty confident, we will be able to start our 2014/2015 school year on Monday.

Box Day 2013

Last week end was significant for the simple fact that we ordered next year's materials from Sonlight and according to the shipping information today was supposed to be the 'expected delivery' day or in other words - THE BOX DAY! The box was delivered early indeed. Right around the time I was reading 'Mr. Popper's Penguins'. The box had to wait until all of our school work was done and then I let them loose. 

Freshly delivered. Andrew was very eager to help me carry the box inside.

After school work was done. It took quite some pushing to move the box to the living room.

A silent chaos. For 30 minutes the house was so quiet you could hear a pin drop ( or a page turned)

 I tried to capture the excitement of the children on video, but they were so much faster than me with my camera. I missed the loudest squealing right when they opened the box. I could not get a good straight video either because both kids were so excited and kept asking me questions and showing me all the new materials. I was happy for them. Here are just a couple of moments I did manage to record: 

Box Day 2012!

We got our materials today! Both children dug into the box with books and marveled at almost every one of them. Saara is super excited that she has her own school books now. 

Mom's and Dad's first task now is to find a bigger bookshelf.