Our Earth Day Week

Last weekend was Earth Day, so we met up with friends at OSH for a kids' planting event.

The girls got to plant cute little tomato seedlings.

And decorate sticks to differentiate whose was whose.  Katie's plant took a spill before we even left the store, but I'm hopeful it will survive.

After planting the seedlings, we wandered around for a bit and picked up a few new plants for the front porch.  I'm not much of a gardener, so it was looking pretty grim again.  It was time to spruce it up a little.

Hannah colored a mermaid coloring page from Kidorable that matched her mermaid outfit!

I did some placement testing with Jack a while back and discovered some gaps in his knowledge in Math and English, so we're using a few PACEs (from www.schooloftomorrow.com) to address those holes as we get ready to wrap up our school year.  One of the reasons I like this is because he's scoring his own math and correcting his errors.

Miss Hannah drew a picture with our Kwik Stix of the billeting quarters we stayed at on the Marine base in San Diego.  I've talked before about how much we love Kwik Stix and Thin Stix, and now they're newly available at ToysRUs.com!  So convenient for those last minute birthday party gifts.

Miss Katie has finished Jolly Grammar!  She actually started the 4 book Jolly Literacy program last summer, so it took her right about a school year to do it.  This was a great fit for her, and I feel she really learned a lot from it.  She started the program basically knowing all her letters, and she's reading well now.

In honor of Earth Day, we did a craft.  I had the kids draw continent-ish shapes in black oil pastel on coffee filters.  Then they used liquid watercolors to color the land green and the water blue.

The next day (after the paint had dried) we used glue sticks to attach them to black construction paper, and silver sharpie to draw stars around their planets.  They copied a Bible verse about creation in cursive, and glued that to hang underneath the picture.  

We went to see Born In China, the Disney Nature Earth Day movie release for this year, with another homeschool family.  I've been calling it "the panda movie," but it was also about cranes, monkeys, and snow leopards.  Two movies in the theater in 2 weeks time is just crazy for me.  Prior to Beauty & the Beast, the last movie I saw in the theater was Narnia.  The first one.

Brianna is wearing glasses now.  Seeing the board at school is a good thing.

And Hannah has turned 10!  (We seem to have a problem with candles.  I should just buy half a dozen boxes next time I'm at the store.)

Buddy and Grandpagino sent a gift.  What is it?

It's a Boogie Board!  This will be great for car trips.

Several people have already taken turns drawing with it.  It's a little like the old fashioned Magna Doodle, only much more precise.

Hannah smashed the screen of her Leap Pad a while back when she kneeled on it with her prosthetic, not realizing it was there.  I thought about getting her another Leap Pad, but decided that 10 is kind of too old for that.  So we went with the pink kids version Kindle Fire.  Hopefully this one won't get left on the floor.

She likes all the game apps and things the can explore on it.  I like the extensive Parental Controls I have set up on it, and the No Questions Asked warranty against breakage.  Just in case.

In science this week, we pulled out the Fly With Me science kit again from Academics in a Box Inc.  This time, the kids used rubber bands and a propeller to create a helicopter that flew.

Only 5 weeks of school left!  I'm looking forward to summer, but I know in the fall I'll miss our time learning together.


This post may be linked up at these linky parties.

Thanks for clicking for us!