Pumpkin Farm Field Trip

Today, we went on a field trip with some other homeschooling families to Bob's Corn and Pumpkin Farm. First, we took a tractor to the corn maze, where the kids had to find five color markers and color their fingers. Then, we got back in the tractor and rode over to the big pumpkin field full of little pumpkins. The kids got to each pick out a pumpkin to bring home. Finally, we rode back to the beginning and they ended the trip with a fun ride in a cow train (cow cars pulled by a fast tractor), which the kids couldn't stop talking about afterward. We didn't necessarily learn very much, but had tons of fun!

A fun tire swing.

In the corn maze.

They were just running through the pumpkin patch having fun before they realized they actually got to take one home.

The favorite attraction: The cow train.

Reptile Zoo and Withdrawing from CVA

We went to the Reptile Zoo on Monday, which was a blast. But more about that later. First, the big news of the week is that we withdrew Skyla from CVA yesterday and signed her up for a really neat public alternative learning program at Sky Valley Education Center in Monroe (20 minute drive).

The way Sky Valley works, Skyla gets 7 "credits" to choose from a huge variety of classes, which are each worth usually 1 "credit". The school year for them started three weeks ago, so there weren't a ton of open classes, but there were enough for her to get signed up for four. So on Fridays, Skyla has:

• Math In Many Ways: They play math games and have hands on activities to supplement the math curriculum at home.
• US & World Geography: Reading maps and learning about countries and states. Today, they went outside and drew a map of the school.
• Dramatic Fun & Games: Skyla's favorite class so far.
• Art Exploration 2D/3D: They have been making paper mache masks. Luckily, the teacher had an extra that had been made, so Skyla was able to join in today and paint one.

Skyla had tons and tons of fun at her classes today and is really excited for next Friday.

Now on to the Reptile Zoo visit. We went on Columbus Day, so Chris had the day off and was able to come along. There were so many snakes, lizards, alligators, and turtles to view, along with several types of bugs. Penton's favorite part was the alligator in the water and Skyla's favorite part was holding the rosy boa.

Skyla holding a rosy boa. Penton wasn't the biggest fan of holding one.

Feeling a tortoise's shell.

The snake came over to inspect Skyla's finger.

"An alligator goes 'chomp!'"

Pete and Re-Pete, the two-headed turtle (yep, that's really two heads you see coming out of one shell!)

One of Penton's favorite parts was being able to read what the reptiles ate and when they were awake using the profile pictures.

First Spelling List & some Joan Miro

Skyla completed her first spelling sheet with short a's. She got the hang of spelling pretty quickly and we've been able to skip a lot of steps and move on to short i's and short o's right away.

We also learned about another artist, Joan Miro, who was from Spain. He was a surrealist, which is a very hard term for a kindergartner to remember, apparently. He would often start pictures by blobbing paint onto a canvas and then adding eyes and a tail or whatnot and going from there. His style was right up Skyla's alley, and she had a great time doing the abstract art collage for this week's lesson.

Degas and a New Whiteboard

This weeks' Meet the Masters course was about Edgar Degas, a French Impressionist. We learned he liked to paint dancers and horses.

We also learned that ballerinas, during his time, wore different colored ribbons around their waists to show their dancing level (kind of like martial artists and their belt colors). So the art project was to do chalk stains on a drawing of a dancer's ribbon.

First, we flipped a line drawing of a bow upside down and copied it that way, to help activate our right brain and deactivate our left brain. We then rubbed a piece of chalk on a scrap paper until chalk dust piled up, wrapped a tissue around our paper to gather the dust, and rubbed this dust onto the drawing to create a "stain". It was neat trying out such a different technique than anything Skyla or Penton have every really tried before.

Gathering chalk dust with her finger wrapped in tissue.

Rubbing the chalk onto his paper.

Our final products.

 We also finally got a large whiteboard in the school room. Once the kids found out they were allowed to draw on it, it has been covered by people and bubbles and animals and treasures and whatever else the kids can dream up.

The red marker is Penton's and the blue marker is Skyla's.

Experiments in Molecular Gastronomy

For science, we did a little molecular gastronomy experiment with lemon juice, water, and Soy lecithin (sounds fancy, doesn't it). Skyla did everything herself, except measure out the water and lemon juice and open the packet of soy lecithin. After mixing, she ended up with a lemon foam that could be scooped out and maintained its foamy shape for a few hours.

Pouring in 2/3 cup lemon juice

Add soy lecithin powder

Mix with an immersion blender to get a layer of foam

Skyla tries the final product. It tasted very much like a lemon had been turned into foam--quite sour!

Skyla likes lemon juice on sliced bananas, so this was a great mess-free way to add the lemon juice.

   

Learning about Mary Cassatt

Art: This week's art lesson was about Mary Cassatt, an American artist from the early 1900s. She liked to make portraits of people in hats, so the art project was to decorate paper with oil pastels and cut out a hat shape. We mounted the hat on black paper and decorated it. Skyla then wanted to make a shirt with Pikachu (a pokemon) on the front. Learning about Mary Cassatt's life and doing the art project ate up the majority of the school day.

Math: Practiced the Yellow is the Sun song (see previous post) and practiced writing numbers correctly.

English: Read the Bob book "Muff and Ruff" and practiced separating individual sounds in words for spelling.

Social Studies & Geography: Did a few workbook pages. I ended up ordering the pdfs of the workbooks myself, since CVA still hasn't sent anything. Skyla really enjoys doing workbook pages and coloring stuff in.

Yellow is the Sun