Every Day Stuff

 Logan, "I don't ever want to go to school, cause that would take away from my reading time."

When Logan was a baby, we received an offer in the mail for a free 'Top Secret Adventure' from Highlights.  So we cashed in on it and set the adventure kit aside.  As I was FINALLY unpacking our school closet this week (it needed doors before I was willing to empty those boxes) I came across the kit and realized that the kids were finally old enough for it!  Woohoo!  They were quite excited.

The first part was an envelope containing a puzzle that revealed their 'mission'.

Then they were able to open the case file.  It included a world map, cards of the suspects, a guide to Greece, and a book of puzzles/ research questions that would help them solve the mystery.

They worked at it for hours, Annie on one page, Logan on another.  In this picture I think Annie was decoding something, and Logan was answering research questions.  I've decided that I'd be willing to have more of these kits, but I'd never pay full price for them.

One afternoon I realized I hadn't heard Alex in a while so I went looking for him.  He was in the bathtub!  Funny guy.  If it weren't for the fact that he constantly plays in water, I would have let him stay there with the books.  I didn't want to run that risk with our 'water boy'.  

I've already shared this picture on our other blog, but this beautiful baby has caught the book love disease.  She is constantly flipping through books (and occasionally tearing them too) and has a favorite shelf to unload.  We've moved the more sturdy books to that shelf now.

 

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful

Homeschool Perk:  When the weather is miserable we don't have to go anywhere.  Hooray!  

Another Homeschool Perk:  When the weather is worse than miserable we don't have to deal with cancelled school days and then have make up days when the weather is nice.

This has been such a cold winter for everyone it seems.  We've had an amazing amount of negative temperatures, and few days that were 'warm' enough to play in the snow.  I really have been grateful that we've been able to stay in so much.  The kids have gone out to play whenever they could, and have especially enjoyed the snow pile that the snow plow has made at the top of our driveway.  They are out there at this very moment. 

Most of the time these kids have been reading.  Annie reads to Alex and Logan reads on his own.  I have to wait for the kids to finish a chapter or story before we can begin school each morning.  Actually, I have to wait for them to finish a chapter or story before we do ANYTHING.  It's glorious.

 Apparently science fun is the only thing we do that is picture worthy, so I have some more photos.  (I can only take so many pictures of us reading.)  One day we did some experimenting with magnets.  There is a magnet on the end of the ruler, and each of the 'boats' have a paper clip attached to them.  The challenge was to move the boats with the magnet.

We also built a magnetic car.  We put a magnet inside it, and experimented with pushing or pulling it based on which pole (negative or positive) was facing out.

In other happy homeschooling news we're now doing penpal letters with other kids from different places.  We set this up through an online group I'm part of.  Annie is writing a little girl in Arizona and Logan is writing two boys, one in Texas and one in Canada.  They are having so much fun with it.