Our Spring Break Week

Our Spring Break was a week earlier than Jack's will be.  We're winding down the "year" in our curriculum, so after the next two weeks, I'll be cobbling together random bits to get us through the rest of our 180 days.  It's nice that we've worked really hard, and accomplished a lot!  If we were going to be homeschooling again next year, I'd just start on Creation to the Greeks, the next year of My Father's World.  But since the kids are headed back to school next year, I don't want to purchase the materials I'd need to do that for only 7 weeks.  

This project was something different.  The girls used glue over a very simple ocean scene, to make a raised picture.  Then we wrapped the cardboard with foil, and used a q-tip to outline the glue bumps.  The colors were added with Sharpie.  

Origami shamrocks

Katie's "stick & ink" (toothpick & liquid watercolor) drawing.

I'll just take a picture of the bookmarks the girls colored...  Oh Grumman.  

For some reason, Grumman spends more time on Katie's desk than on Hannah's.  So I took this picture on Hannah's.  

I'm fascinated at how different these faux tie dye paintings turned out!  We used pan watercolors, and a wet on wet technique.  Hannah used very little paint on her brush, and achieved a pastel look.  

Since this week was Spring Break, we didn't do any math or scheduled learning, but we did do art, projects, and some St. Patrick's Day related things, such as acrostic poems, journaling, summarizing a reading passage, etc.  

Our household seems to function best when we stick to our routine, at least a little bit.  

My leprechauns, Shenanigans and Malarkey.

 

Clover!  

The good news is, we had some sunshine, so we could take pictures!  The bad news is, there was sun while we were taking pictures.  Sigh.  

We had corned beef and potatoes for dinner, of course, but I realized even my lunch was green.  

Jack in his St. Patrick's Day shirt.

Josiah made cupcakes for me to frost and rainbow-ify.

books, books, books

Sam got his driver's license yesterday!  No grinning DMV picture, as he's about 6 years too old for that.  

These didn't turn out as well as I had hoped they would.  Shamrock watercolor paintings with gold paint marker accents.  

Katie's St. Patrick

Katie's plate bunny

And a lousy picture of Grumman.  He snagged a pipe cleaner animal, and decided to combine two of his favorite things:  Pipe cleaners, and shoe smell.  I'd toss the pipe cleaner for him, and he'd bring it back to the shoes.  If we could combine rattle, shoe smell and pipe cleaner, I think he'd be ecstatic.  

I've been doing some thinking about what I want to do in the autumn when the kids head back to school, and I just completed the first training to be a volunteer ESL tutor through our library system.  I'm not 100% sure this is the road I'm heading down, but I wanted to at least explore the option.  I love books and literacy related causes, so this seems like a good fit.  As Josiah pointed out, I'd be helping other people become productive members of society.   

Our Week Before St. Patrick's Week

It's starting to look like St. Patrick's Day around here!  

The girls worked on sequin rainbows.

Grumman ran through Katie's rainbow before it was dry, and picked up a couple red sequins.  I replaced those for her, since she was downstairs when it happened.  

No study of Australia is complete without touching on kangaroos!  The girls did animal reports:  Hannah on kangaroos; Katie on Tasmanian devils.  

Hannah's mandala got bumped before I got a picture of it.  

I think this may be the first time we've used crayons all year.  Crayon and watercolor watering cans to celebrate spring.

I found it amusing that Grumman seems to be interested in the book Hate That Cat, a novel about poetry.  

Another of Hannah's projects, a firecracker from one of the Chinese New Year library books.  

It's always interesting to see what things are a challenge for which child.  I drew a picture of the necklace I wanted them to make on the white board.  No other instructions.  Just "make this necklace" with all the supplies provided.  One of them understood what I wanted and had no trouble.  One of them struggled and struggled.  (Meanwhile, the one who got it was having a hard time with a poetry lesson.)  

Our faux aboriginal art.  We used acrylic markers for the drawing part, and then made the dots using a q-tip and acrylic paint.  

I'm wishing I'd been more proactive about using this black art paper.  I have one more project planned with it.  With the kids going back to classroom school next year, I'm feeling compelled to "use up" as much of the homeschool and art type stuff that I can.  At the same time, I'm kicking myself for some of the things I got rid of last summer.  I let the gold foil origami paper and the regular origami paper go to the school rummage sale, and then we needed it this year.  

Grumman, watching intently while we had Rescuers Down Under playing.  

Books to keep!  Our adoption support group blessed families with a trip to the bookstore...

...and the chocolate shop!  It was nice to feel like we haven't been forgotten.  

Katie was working on the floor because she'd just cleaned all the glue off her table, and it wasn't dry yet.  I glanced at her and giggled a little.  That pose made it look like someone assembled her incorrectly.  

We've reached the octopus section of Swimming Creatures.  

New library books to sniff!  Yum!  

I managed to snag a couple St. Patrick's Day and Easter craft books, including a St. Patrick's origami book, to help use up that new pack of origami paper I had to buy.  

Hannah's Lines & Contours.  Looks like I didn't manage to get a picture of Katie's project from this art book.  She did stick art.  

We're taking next week as our Spring Break, since I didn't want to split a country in half, and we just finished up Australia.  We'll continue to do art and projects and read books, of course.  Hopefully, without the press of a full load of school work, we'll be able to get out and enjoy the fresh air.  The girls have been playing in the back yard more lately, with the weather getting so nice.  

A Rather Floral Week

The weather has teased up to almost 70* a few times, then goes back to 50s and clouds.  But it still feels like spring.  

Our neighborhood got a new Little Free Library, so I walked over and put some books in it.  I love seeing these, especially when I travel.  Books are meant to be shared.  

Coming back, I snapped a picture of a neighbor's daffodils because they made me smile.  They're one of my favorite flowers, but they're only around for such a short time.  

Our Australia themed art works this week.  I seem to be missing the kangaroos.  I'll try to get those next week.  

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Oops.  Works from last week, out of How to Draw Russia's Sights and Symbols.  Katie's is a statue on a bridge, and Hannah drew Lenin's Tomb.  

Our library books.  The girls did shark reports last week, and now they are working on reports on an Australian animal.  This is a challenge.  

Miss Adorable (Eli's girlfriend) brought over these beautiful flowers on my birthday.  

A quick selfie before Sam and I headed out to the nursery.  His gift to me was plants for the front porch.

On the right are my miracle snapdragons.  They're supposed to die off and come back each year.  Mine have just hung in there, surviving for more than a year now.  I planted some purple and pink snapdragons (hoping they'll be hearty, too) and some yellow marigolds.  

We also brought home this lovely lily, and then I used my Target gift card from Christmas to buy this pretty pot for it.  My grandmother had a thick patch of beautiful Calla lilies that survived my black thumb, so I have high hopes that this one may, too.  Every spring I want to make things grow.  Every summer, the Sacramento sun fries them.  

My dad sent me birthday flowers.  

Paul made my cake from scratch.  

Matilda at the park.  

Milestone this week!  She turned a year old in February, and just hit 5,000 miles.  

And yes, I said park.  Josiah's birthday gift to me was a picnic lunch (from our favorite burrito shop) and a walk by the lake.  Lake?  Hmm, it might be a pond.  Let me check.  No, the website says it's a lake.  At any rate, it's stocked with fish, and we saw several people fishing.  

The sunshine felt amazing, and the wildlife made me smile.  We've got to start getting out more!  

I have a silly habit.  I tend to buy cool stuff and then "save" it for a special occasion or special project.  Only... now I'm coming to The End; of homeschooling, of parenting, and I'm discovering that we never got to those special times, and never used the special stuff.  It's sad.  So this week, I pulled out the ShrinkFilm, and the girls made Australia ornaments.  

Unfortunately, it's been years since I used shrink film, and they folded in on themselves when they curled up.  I was able to save Hannah's, by working quickly with a couple of forks when we pulled them out, but Katie ended up redoing hers.  

Eventually, though, they both had lovely Australia ornaments.  

Or cat toys.  Oh Grumman.  

Perhaps we'll manage an Easter craft with the rest of the pack of shrink film.