Science - Apologia Zoology 2

Our science curriculum this year is Apologia Zoology 2 - Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day.  Micah & Lilly have their own notebook journal, but we study the text and do experiments together.
Throughout the year the kids will be adding sea creatures to their "ocean boxes" that they've just made.

Dolphin Tale 2

Veterinarians

We're going to be studying sea creatures this year for science, but this week we found a week-long study preparing us for the Dolphin Tale 2 movie.  Homeschoolmovieclub.com provided a fun curriculum for us.  The most fun day was pretending to be veterinarians.  The kids found all their 'sea creature' stuffed animals, categorized them, and then gave them check-ups.  Tomorrow we see the movie!

Grouping the 'fish' together with our 'melons'.

Learning about different 'marine' careers.

We're growing cotton

A couple of mystery plants started growing by the firepit.  I didn't recognize them, so I let them grow for a bit.  They started flowering, so I let them continue to grow.  The flowers changed colors, then turned into these hard ball-type things.
One day Lilly says "we're growing cotton".  Sure enough those ball-type things were opening and showing cotton.  We looked up the stages of a cotton plant and they look the same as these - which are from our plants.
Micah remembers us going to Schnepf Farms last year and picking some of the cotton that's in the field across the street.  The kids pulled out some of those seeds and planted them - for fun.  That must be how they got here.  Lilly loves to go out and "pick cotton".  She really wants to go through the steps (which we learned about last year) to make clothes from it.

Cleaning Lessons

The kids each have areas of cleaning that they are in charge of.  Micah gets the floors.  Lilly has an interest in doing the floors and will many times offer to help him.  This particular weekend I enjoyed stepping back and watching him give her "pointers" and give her areas to do.  He'd say "oh this is a good area, there are always some good spots here."

Ice Den - Homeschool Public Skate Days

Over the summer we attended a few of the Homeschool Public Skate days.  For $5. each we get free skate rental for 2 hours.  It's awesome!  We all liked it so much we've decided to attend as many dates as we can during the school year.
It's 2 times a month - first and third Friday from 11:45-1:45pm.  We noticed a huge different in attendance during the school year.  We practically have the entire rink to ourselves.  The kids are starting to do "tricks" and get quite comfortable on the ice.

Lilly's laptop

Our friend, Kelli, was done with her Samsung Netbook and passed it along to Lilly.  Lilly is enjoying it for some of her educational computer discs and a few online sites.

Dave's Wiffle-Ball Cannon

Dave saw this online and looked around to see if he had the items.  He was so excited to have us come over and test it out.  We used wiffle balls, tennis balls, and water balloons.  We shot them out, caught them, and adjusted the angle to get better distance.  It was fun!

More 1st graders

Lilly likes to bring some of her stuffed animals to school.  She REALLY likes the BIG EYES and got several new ones for kindergarten graduation and through the summer.  They joined us for the first day of school.

1st Day of School

Today was our official first day of school.

5th Grade

1st Grade

Eastside Group Camping - Labor Day Weekend

We were back at Dogtown Lake for another great camping trip.  This was our 2nd Eastside camping this summer - a new tradition.  It was a beautiful weekend and 30 degrees cooler than Phoenix.

Piano Lessons - Year 5 begins

Micah is continuing his piano lessons with Mrs. Amy Cline.  Today was his first day back, after the summer.  He is beginning year 5.  Lessons will be Tuesdays at 2pm.

New Gymnastics Season

Lilly continued her gymnastics classes through the summer, but now the fall season has begun (August 1st).  Class times, rosters, and schedules have changed.  At this time, Lilly will remain as a Petite Elite.  Her class days and times are:  Tuesday 9:30-11:30am and Saturday 9:30-11:30am.  The time frames were 1.5 hours and have increased to 2 hours.  Her Tuesday classmates have both moved out (another class and no gymnastics at all), so Lilly is the only one in the class.  This is a bittersweet situation - she has Coach Kristine all to herself (a private 2 hour lesson - wow!); but if no one else joins then they will eliminate the class from the schedule and we'll need to find an evening class.
During this month, Lilly and Coach are having a fabulous time!  Today, August 19th, Lilly got her first "rips" - she worked hard on the bars and when she was done had raw sores on her hands.  Coach got her cleaned up and wrapped up and then they moved on.

6th Annual Summer Camping with Gravel Family

This is our annual camping trip that began in 2006, when Micah turned 3 years old.  We've gone camping almost every summer since then during the month of August.  For 6 years of those years, the Gravel family has joined us.  The last two years we have camped at Dogtown Lake.  It's a beautiful place just west of Williams, Arizona.
Everything was terrific this year - company, weather, kayaking, biking, meals, and s'mores.  We were allowed to have campfires in the pit (which have been restricted the last few times we've camped).  All of the children have become quite independent.  Our family used our camping bunks and cots for the first time ... and were very comfortable sleeping.

DBacks Game

We got tickets for this game through the baseball camp Micah did in the spring.  We were on the first level in the foul zone.  One foul ball was caught by a man sitting three rows in front of us.  Our friends, Keith & Ryan Gravel, were also at this game and came down to visit with us for a little while.  Micah's sign was in honor of his birthday and Lilly lost her first tooth.  In the 9th inning, the game was tied 3 to 3.  The DBacks had bases loaded but we didn't pull it out.  We ended up losing in the 10th inning, but it was a fun game.