Fire Dog Fun

Getting Ready for the Fire Station Tour!

Next week we will be going to tour the fire station! The kids have been super excited! I found a preschool pack for Zoe with firefighters and she has enjoyed that this week! We also talked about having 2 ways to get out, where we would meet, and what to do if there is ever a fire. 

We made dalmatian pudding! It was delicious! 

We also made a firetruck with footprints! 

Ellison's tiny firetruck footprint

This is Zoe's with her added art and name

Cian's with his added art

Grace's picture

It's Milking Time

Farm Trip for "F" Week

During Letter "F" week it worked out perfectly that we got the opportunity to attend a Farm Field Trip!

This was a field trip to a dairy farm to see how they milk cows and make cheese there too!!

Zoe standing where they milk the cows!

I was really excited for the kids to get to attend this field trip! I remember when I was a kid and would go stay with my aunt and uncle during some summers and we'd get to go to my uncle's parent's farm! I actually remember "helping" milk the cows and how cool it was to see the process of the getting the cows to come in, hooking up the milking machine, the milk tank etc.. etc..

I think the kids had a great time! 

Well, the oldest three enjoyed the tour,

 Ellie slept through the tour! 

After seeing where they milk the cows, the kids got to see the calves:

Zoe and a calf

The kids were really excited to sample the cheese they made there:

They knew they were going to get to try the cheese, but they didn't know they were going to get ICE CREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ellie woke up for the food!

"E" is exciting!!!

Last week we were on letter "E" and it happened to match up with some    EXCITING   Events!!

Besides the activities from her Letter of the Week curriculum, I try to add in some fun activities and foods for Zoe's weeks that match her letter theme. 

We went to a petting zoo and they actually had an EMU!

With Zoe's big sister Grace

We used ELBOW macaroni!

Here it is in YUMMY homemade elbow macaroni and cheese:

Here it is in (not so yummy) glue!

Besides the E.L. Fudge cookies, we were really struggling to come up with "E" snacks...... until......

we found it at the fall festival we went to:

ELEPHANT EARS!!!!!

Becoming Butterflies

If you saw our blog, "C is for Caterpillar," you saw that the kids were excited to watch the metamorphosis process! Well, we have butterflies!!! Here are the pictures!!

It did not take long for those little eaters to get fat!

The kids were SO excited because it said in the information sheet that there are 5 caterpillars and they guarantee that 3 of the 5 will survive. We got SIX caterpillars and all 6 survived! 

Our 6 pupa- one's on the back

"Look MOM! We have a butterfly!!!" 

Close up of one of the 6 butterflies

The kids named their butterflies:

Grace named her two butterflies Flitter and Glitter.

Cian named his Max and Sam.

Zoe named hers Rachel and Rainbow Dash.

Getting ready to release the butterflies

Releasing the butterflies:

 If you look closely you can see the butterflies fly out!
In the first picture below, it is right above the butterfly bag. The 2nd picture it is straight above the bag even with the white edge of the house.

Watching them fly away

That tiny spot in the sky is one of the butterflies

ALSO-

Here is their caterpillar art projects!

    

Duh Dun, Duh Dun, Duh Dun

YEP. Sharks! 

We took a field trip to see and touch SHARKS!

Sharks and stingrays to be exact!

Okay, so it was not actually the man-eating great white shark.

And the stingrays had no stingers.

 BUT, the kids still got to touch sharks and stingrays!!!

Cian touching the shark!

One of the stingrays

Cian has been dying to see this exhibit! He just LOVES sharks!! This has been his favorite field trip by far!!

Cian and the stingray

Grace waiting to feed the stingray

Zoe touching the shark

Grace touching the stingray

14 o'clock

So I've decided, there are just not enough hours in the day! I'd like to add 2 hours a day. However, if I had two hours more I'm sure I'd fill them up with more things to do!

It's been forever since my last blog entry! I've got 3 field trips to post about and tons more I want to say! I think this weekend might be a blog marathon, lol!

Today, we went on a field trip to a dairy farm. It was a bit of a drive so I had the kiddos do some "car-schooling," but they got a day off from the work with mom subjects. It was a nice fit for a Friday! (Those pics to follow in another post.)

We've been doing quite a bit of driving lately! Hence, needing a couple extra hours! Oh well, can't get everything we wish for! I do think 14 o'clock has a nice ring to it though. Bummer!

Here are some of the things keeping us busy besides our daily subjects:

I have helped to start a homeschool gymnastics and trampoline PE class, the kids have gone twice now and LOVE it!!! I love that it is for all ages, so I don't have to sit around all evening somewhere waiting for one class with one kid, then another class for another, and so on!

Grace is taking two dance classes. Zoe is taking one. Of course they are different nights.

Grace is doing Girl Scouts this year.

Grace is in a free art class that meets once a week, but it also is in another town.

Grace and Cian have begun Spanish lessons with a bilingual mom who teaches homeschool kids when her kiddos are at school. It's also in another town, but luckily the same town and same day as the art!

Grace and Cian are also doing a nature science class monthly. It is put on monthly by a nature park/center about 25/30 minutes from us.

Soccer for Cian is on a pause. It is nice to have my Saturday mornings back for a few weeks! Grace and Cian both want to do indoor this winter though! Of course, Brian's soccer is still going, going, going. When we looked on the calendar, I think there are 3 total days in all of October that he doesn't have a game!

Field trips, field trips, field trips (PICS TO FOLLOW!)

It also seems we have had lots of odds and ends of appointments, and you guessed it, in another town. It's about a 45-60 minute drive from my front door to our old town where we lived. We have decided it is close enough to keep our pediatrician, dentist and pediatric dentist. We seem to have something every week.

Thank goodness we homeschool and can do all these things that we want to do and work them around our schedule or work our schooling around what we want to do! It has been such a blessing to have such freedom with our scheduling. Ironically though, we are definitely hardly ever HOME a full day now that I am HOME SCHOOLING. Go figure, but I wouldn't change it for the world!