Spring Break!

I can hardly believe that it is already March!  Where has this year gone?  It seems so quick for some reason.  Christopher is home for a week from school and his siblings are so excited to have him here.  They are busy trying to plan all of the fun things that they can squeeze into the week!  LOL  Its always wonderful to have him here.

I'll post more about our week - probably at the end of the week (or later given my track record lately).  I'm hoping to play a little catch up this week on the blog so I'm not posting cold weather things when its turning warm.  We'll see.

This post is just a random assortment of some things we have been doing over the last month.

Dinner after spending some time with the book The Story About Ping which takes place in China.  Fun eating new/different foods and in an unusual way.

Eliana doesn't realize how fortunate she is to have a big sister who is willing to fix her hair in such pretty ways - and dress her up cute too!

I bought more clay after the boys had so much fun with it at co-op.  Great entertainment and nice to have the electronics off.

Finally got the princess to work on her craft from Before co-op.  Its an adorable snowman!  She just did NOT want to make it while we were there.

I knew that she would enjoy glueing and sticking and not sure why she doesn't want to work in that environment.

A new haircut.  Looking handsome!

Fun foods for the Super Bowl.  (Yes, I'm that far behind)

We have had a variety of medical appointments in the last month or so - and more to come.  Its just NOT fun at all with Eliana.  She is scared and uncooperative.  We are fortunate to have a great team of medical professionals who are very patient with her.  This is before going to see the dentist.  Thankfully her teeth look great and there is no need for any further work!

The boys are enjoying doing more cooking and like when they can be independent.  Their favorite thing to make is nachos.  Yes, not a huge amount of cooking, but it make everyone happy.

We went to the consignment sale this month and found mostly things for the girls.  Yes, girls.  Rebecca found a lot of things this year!  I even found a new skirt.  :-)  And not surprising, Eliana was the big winner.  She is the one who needed the most as she has had a growth spurt.  The boys have a lot of things that still fit them well.  I ended up earning at lot this year too which is encouraging since it is a lot of work to get things ready.  I try to price things to sell and think that has worked well for me.

Whenever it is sunny or nice, this is where my boys like to hang out.  Christopher introduced them to the Eno life and they have embraced it fully.

I'm having fun with my new phone.  This is one of the apps that turned a photo into a card.  Just fun!

We are enjoying a fun week and I'll play more catch up in a what's going on post like this soon!  Hope your week is going well too.

Blessings

Leslie

Marbles

One of our cold winter outings was a split field trip.  We don't do this often, but this one worked out beautifully.  We chose 2 outings both in downtown Raleigh.  The older kids (10 and up) went to Artspace.  They toured the facilities and then had an opportunity to create their own batik art.  I have no pictures from this outing though since I wasn't there.

We were blessed from the start with this day by having free parking!  I decided to park close to limit our walking and was willing to pay for it.  They were having problems though with the pay machine so we all parked free!  

The younger children went to Marbles children's museum.  What a fabulous place to play!  There are soooo many fun areas to explore.  Most of the museum is set up in themes such as this place near the grocery store.  

This was a stage where the children could put on their own performances.  There were costumes to wear and seating out front for the audience.  

Upstairs we spent quite a bit of time in Moneypalooza.  Isn't my little girl getting big?  (She thinks she is big and independent too!)

Inside there is a lemonade stand where you can sell and also help to make the lemonade.  There are all of these fun balls to work with too!

This contraption takes them up to the second level.  The boys work to quickly load it up.

You can also  carry buckets of balls upstairs to dump them into one of the chutes or catch them coming out.

I think my favorite are in here is the pizza parlor.  They have adorable felt pieces to use for making your own pizza and an oven to cook them in.  Daniel and Kyle had a blast playing together all morning!

TIme to deliver a pizza.  It can be delivered by bicycle.

Or hand delivered.

Also upstairs is a sports/games area including balls, skating/hockey, soccer and more!  I love how they have made fun areas for small and larger children too!

Muscle workout for these strong guys!

This is a neat chair that you can raise while sitting on it while using your arms to pull on a rope.

Balancing is fun too!

Woo hoo!  Look at my strong girl!   I love seeing her pretending more and more!  

Also upstairs is a building and construction area.  Eliana didn't want to stay here too long.  Honestly, I spent much of my day running after her.  We are working on that, but at the moment she does just bolt at times.  

Daniel liked building some cars to race on this track.

Back downstairs again and the guys had fun in the laboratory.  (I love the dress up clothes!  Who gets tired of dressing up?  And its not just fun for girls either!)

There is also a pirate ship you can board and swab the decks or serve as a lookout.  There is even a plank to force someone to walk if needed.

Oh, and the water play area.  This just delighted Eliana!  I'm glad that they had these aprons to wear as she would have been drenched otherwise.

She loved scooping and pouring and watching the water.  I need to do more of this in the cold months.  This kept her happy for quite some time.

Can't you just see that she is enthralled?

Playing a little ball just before we left.  The things they are sitting on have wheels and slide around.  Neat way to make this game more challenging and also get more exercise.

We went out to lunch afterwords with some friends.  We chose Mellow Mushroom since they have gluten free options.  (And really yummy pizza!)

It was a fun ending to our day and a great time with friends.

We love our field trip days!  I think hands-on time of learning is some of the best!  I'm thankful we are close to so many neat things to explore!

Blessings
Leslie

Sparky Award

So proud of Daniel for earning the Sparky Award!  This is his 3rd year as a Spark and he has worked through all of the books and all of the review and extra credit books too.  

He has been very motivated to earn this award!  He has memorized over 150 verses as a Spark!

Way to go Daniel.  I'm proud of you!

More than the awards though, I pray that God's word will always be hidden deep in your heart.  Its a treasure that can never be taken away!

Blessings
Leslie

Beyond FIAR Co-op: The Saturdays #2

We had a fun day on our second meeting of The Saturdays.  This is such a fun book!  

We started with a devotion and read this Seuss story.  A fun story in which the lesson is that you must learn to face problems and not run away from them.  

We had a two-part lesson.  The first was on Science Fairs.  We are planning to have a science fair with our group as a part of our study of Neil Armstrong (next book).  This lesson was to help them prepare and be able to work in advance.  (Nothing like some notice so that they will have several months to prepare.)

We discussed the steps of the scientific method.  I read a story to them of a girl working through these steps in doing an experiment and what she learned along the way.  There are lots of great sites with information on science fairs.

Here are free posters on the Scientific Method.

Here is a site with lots of different science fair projects by grade level.

We watched this video on Science Fairs.  How to Prepare for a Science Fair.

Next, we put into practice some of the steps of the scientific method.  We applied these to learning about static electricity.  We first talked about "What is static electricity".  I went over the charges of atoms and what happens when the charge is changed.  For example, why does your hair stand up after you have taken off a knit or wool hat?  When you pull off the hat, electrons (negative charge) move from your hair to your hat.  Now your hairs each have a positive charge.  Things with the same charge repel each other so the hairs try to move away from each other.  The farthest that they can get is to stand up and move away from all the other hairs.

The children were divided into 3 groups and given a baggie with objects in it to conduct an experiment on static electricity.  They were told to come up with a question.  Form a hypothesis on what they thought would happen.  Test the hypothesis.  Analyze the data.  Draw a conclusion and share their findings with the group.

Group 1:  salt, pepper, comb, wool or hair

Group 2:  comb, wool or hair, and tissue paper of different sizes.

Group 3:  2 balloons, aluminum can, wool or hair

Group 1 was trying to magically separate salt from pepper using static electricity.  Read more here.

Group 2 was trying to charge the comb so that it picked up pieces of paper.   More here.

Group 3 found that they could use a charged balloon to move an aluminum can.  This was a fun one!

The next part of our co-op focused on the olfactory system.  They learned about how this works in humans and various animals.

The animal facts were fascinating.  I never cease to be amazed at all that God has done in creation!

Then it was time to put their olfactory system to the test!  They started by selecting some scented wax.

Each student chose a different piece and tried to identify the scent.

Next, each was given a chart with 12 spaces.  They then smelled from 12 different containers.

As they smelled, they were to record what they thought each smell came from.

Some were easy.

Others were quite hard.

And when we finished, it was time to feast.  We chose to have foods that were listed as some of the smells from the streets of New York City.  We had a baked potato bar with lots of toppings, hamburgers also with lots of toppings, doughnuts, brownies and a variety of juices.  Yummy!

A fun and informative day.  I love our time with this group!

Blessings
Leslie