A (Two?) Week Review in Pictures...

It has been a busy couple of weeks... lots of learning from life!

Driving the RC police car around (yes, it has working lights and sirens)

Crafting paper bouquets from sparkly construction paper

Building a house all on his own (even I couldn't understand the directions)

Being my chef's assistant

More kitchen assistance

And they made brownies themselves (from a packaged mix, but still by themselves)

We checked out a cool museum exhibit called Mad Science

The art installations almost all had moving parts

We went to a glass fusing studio to make ornaments

The kids were impressed with how hot the kiln has to be to fuse the glass, and how long the process takes

We checked out the view from the Golden Gate Bridge after attending a children's symphony. At the symphony, they played one of my children's favorite pieces, Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King from the play Peer Gynt.

We went under the bridge too, where it was a little dark and mysterious, and very noisy

We also attended a homeschool day at another local museum. Here the kids are checking out worms.

Making plaster casts of animal prints

Listening to bird calls

Checking out leaves close-up

In addition to all this activity, we went roller skating with friends, and visited the library for a bilingual storytelling with music. We read from The Saturdays, read some Greek myths, and the kids curled up together in the big chair, laughing hysterically at a book about poop. Cyrus read about Thomas Edison, and continued reading from The Marvelous Land of Oz. I read to Cassia from the Blue Fairy Book. They watched a couple of videos on the human body, and played physics games on the computer-- Crayon Physics and Construction Fall. Cassia has been using Click'N Read Phonics for a few lessons, and is sounding out signs, words on trucks, etc... FINALLY!

We also got the house a lot cleaner, which gave me time to make homemade playdough. I've noticed I am much more motivated when my house is clean! We scented the playdough with Chinese 5 Spice, and Cassia colored it pale green with food coloring. As I type this, they're making various animals and geometric shapes with the dough.

We have a lot coming up in the next few weeks as well. Thanksgiving, of course. Plus we have tickets to see a full length stage production of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. A lovely friend is sending me Oak Meadow 2, on loan, to see if I can incoporate some of it for Cassia. I am searching out a copy of Oak Meadow 4 for Cyrus too, since I think he'd love the science and art, and probably the history too.

I'm in the process of finding, and making, more math games for them as well. The book Homeschool Your Child for Free has lots of good hands-on ideas. And I am trying to make good use of Freely Educate... we're going to take the virtual tour of the First Thanksgiving, and some virtual tours from the National Museum of American History. I also want us to get back to watching our free American history dvds. And we have a pile, or two, of library books to read through. We're officially almost unschooling through December, then in January will reassess and see where we're headed next!