Work Plans for the Week of August 31, 2015: Field Trips!

The kids and I had a fabulous Project Week last week--they read and drew and played outside and rediscovered their racetrack sets, and we went to parks and playgroups and out for ice cream and to the Children's Museum:

We attended the preview of the museum's newest exhibit, Sacred Journeys, which explores the sacred sites of the world's religions. It was a wonderful exhibit! The Children's Museum especially loves to host exhibits that unpack the STEM and liberal arts enrichment behind children's pop culture interests--their next exhibit is on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--but *I* love these types of exhibits, the ones that allow children to explore a complicated subject in a child-friendly way, the best.

My Master's in Library Science includes an emphasis in Special Collections, and I worked for years in a special collections library on campus, so I dragged the children all around this exhibit to show them how to tell the difference between vellum, handmade paper, and factory-made paper.

DIY stained glass--the kids were fascinated by this, and we have everything that we need to make our own version here at home. Something else for my to-do list!

Little did the children know, but the museum's Anne Frank exhibit was actually part of our World War 2 unit study lesson plans--mwa-ha-ha!

Typical homeschoolers, the kids really only like interactive exhibits when they're otherwise empty, as ScienceWorks was on this afternoon. They played contentedly for ages here.

Although we're back to our regular school day this week, it'll be pretty well broken up by two full-day field trips, leaving us with only three days for work plans, and a short week next week, as well!

Memory work for this week includes more Mango Languages Hawaiian, 1940 events of World War 2, and facts about Christopher Columbus. Books of the Day include non-fiction picture books about caves (we watched an EPIC documentary on cave diving last week!), a random picture book history of Vikings, and a couple more books about butterflies--we finally saw a monarch yesterday, fluttering around Syd's Mexican sunflower in Will's butterfly garden. A homeschool win!

And here's the rest of our week!

MONDAY: In Math Mammoth this week, Will is continuing her study of line graphs, which she likes and finds easy, and Syd is applying her study of place value to a review of adding and subtracting with large numbers--she can do it, but she's going to hate it. Math may be very tantrum-filled this week.

In preparation for our field trip to Louisville tomorrow to tour replicas of the Nina and Pinta with one of our homeschool groups, I found a workbook for the children that provides a good overview of Christopher Columbus--it's lengthy, though, so for our fourth schoolwork slot I'm only asking the children to play a couple of games of Battleship. It's always good to stay familiar with coordinate grids!

We've got our weekly volunteer gig with the food pantry this afternoon, and then an afternoon trip to the library.

TUESDAY: Field trip to Louisville! We'll tour the Nina and Pinta replicas in the morning, have a picnic lunch, and then spend a few hours at the Kentucky Science Center before we have to head back home for Robotics Club.

WEDNESDAY: We're on to 1940 in our World War 2 unit study; the kids will put these timeline figures on the timeline that they're building in their World War 2 notebooks, and then later this week Matt will give us a more detailed lecture on the events of 1940. The kids will have their monthly Magic Tree House Club meeting (this month's book is Leprechaun in Late Winter), and then we'll hustle into the car to take Syd to her first ballet class of the semester--she's advanced enough now to have classes TWO times a week! I imagine that this is the year that less-dedicated students will begin to drop the program, and so I'm interested to see if Syd's interest will continue as the commitment increases.

THURSDAY: I've actually got a few more badge activities set up for the kids to do, but I just finished getting all their badge books and checklists printed out for them, so I thought I'd give them a chance to organize everything to their liking, record what they've already completed in their new checklists, and see if anything else strikes their interest. Next week, however, we'll still likely find ourselves working with how-to-draw books and stamping metal dog tags for our Girl Scout activity.

I printed out a very extensive tadpole identification guide for our home library, and I'll be giving the children the job of using it to identify the species of tadpole that we're currently hosting. Most of them have finished their metamorphosis into frogs and been duly deposited at our creek by now, and I sure wish that the rest of these tadpoles would just hurry up so I can have that counter space back! I need to put jars of decomposing fruit for the children to sketch there!

Although Will would prefer being dropped at the library to doing a project with me during Syd's ballet classes, Syd loves nothing more than to do something together while Will's at her horseback riding lesson. We might work on a plaque for her room, or on a birthday present for her father.

FRIDAY: Field trip to the Indianapolis Zoo! The kids LOVE zoos, and it's been a while since we've been to this one, so it's going to be a great day.

As for my week, I need to make some reservations for our Hawaii vacation this week (Mauna Kea is open again, so our tour is back on!), buy LEGO plates for a DIY project, hang the curtains that Syd's been longing for around her bunk bed, get the fall garden going, and get our Girl Scout troop set up for the new year, among other tasks. I think that we'll all have plenty to do to fill our days!