Catching Up

The time has come to start planning for the remainder of our school year!  To date we have 67 of 175 (technical) school days recorded.  I had hoped to reach our half-way point by the end of 2010 but I must admit that I am still fairly pleased with all that we have accomplished so far this academic year.  

To date we have taken field trips to the Maine State Museum, a local history museum, a children’s science museum, the site of the historical Katahdin Iron Works, Multiple Horse Farms, White Mountains, NH, Apple Orchards, the Nutcracker Ballet with backstage education, and others. 

J6 also attends a group co-op every other week where Maine studies have been the topic to date.
Recent crafts and activities have included, baking for the holidays, creating advent chains, Jesse tree advent, holiday crafts at co-op, attending co-op Christmas party, completed 2nd year Sparkies handbook on Dec 9th, construction days with daddy (measured boards, angles, etc), made homemade paper, made a lap book with Blueberries for Sal, researched the country of Nicaragua and chose Sharon Torez from Compassion International to add to our prayer list, lessons on trees from a professional logger (identified trees by their bark, leaves, etc), fire safety with fireman Rick, lessons on emergency contacts, Fall Festival (which included pony rides, big kahuna slide, hay rides, bouncy house, face painting and more) J6 and A1 came in first place at the cookie baking contest with Iced Maple Cookies, memorized the books of the New and Old Testament, verbal presentations on the topics of Katahdin Iron Works and Maine State Flowers, exploring the woods to track deer, made homemade applesauce, entered an art contest on water safety, learned about native Americans, threw original spears, science experiments (moving air, testing air, heavy newspaper, upside down trick, collapsing carton, pumping up, disappearing dent, jumping coin, getting colder, rising air), lap books on pyramids and mummies.  Most recently J6, A4, J1, my husband, and myself all participated in a play at our church of the first Christmas as sheep, shepherds, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. 


Looking at the list of our accomplishments thus far gives me a slight boost of excitement and steam as we look forward to the upcoming remainder of this academic year.

Next on the agenda: plan our 3rd quarter syllabus and goals.