My little blog was just given some love on probably the most popular homeschool blog out there: Simple Homeschool! I made the Weekend Links! I’m going a little bonkers over here!!!!
Simple Homeschool

Dying.

He finally lost the tooth that has been wiggly since CA. Although Grampa just arrived back in PA, O will not be getting the Grampa+ Tooth Fairy loot. He will just have to try for the next one to fall out with more perfected timing😍💵💵😍

I’m not going to say we are in the clear but we are headed in the right direction. A week later and no one is fevered or throwing up or doing any other sickness related things.  Except for Emmy.  Now she is sniffling and being super sleepy.  Maybe a few rain days will do us some good.  Low key, quiet, solitary.  

Popped collar and tatted up arms. He is so adorable. My Little Roundy strikes again. He announced: My momma is INCREDIBLE!  Made my whole day!! 💓💓💯💘

I had a little clue these would be the songs but it was adorable to see them performed in a group! 

Today we drove over to Sewickley to visit the Fern Hollow Nature Center.  What was in store for the kids?  Spring Surprises. 

For two hours, all three kids went on a guided nature walk, identifying plants, animals and insects that show spring has arrived.  They made chromatography flowers and build birds nests. 

We are signed up for the next class, a herpetological nighttime walk and a fishing day. It is a very cool place and we are looking forward to returning in a few weeks!

This is what Emmy monster-whispered to me going up the stairs to get bedtime started. 

I was like-what?!?

“Follow the destruction, Jesse James.”

Come again, Em?

It’s what she has learned on Pokemon. 

In other Pokemon news, Olivia taught the older two how to play the card game today. We may have Pokemon fanatics on our hands. 

We recently started to use a new learning platform for science, a start up called Mystery Science.  It is an online curriculum that uses questions to lead us to understanding.  Today everyone joined in on the fun.  It was a lesson about states of matter and identifying properties of different materials.  The mystery question was:

Why are so many toys made out of plastic?

And the problem to solve involved getting candy to a friend at sleep away camp but choosing a type that would make it to Camp Too Hot safely.

So we learned about toys in the olden days which were made of wood.  Hard, had to be carved, took much to much time to make…

And then we considered how to make a lot of things that are exactly alike.  Like Popsicles.  Which led to a discussion about how we make Popsicles with water that can be poured into a mold and frozen.  

Well, if water can be liquid and change yo solid and vice versa, what other material can do that too?  Plastic and…candy.

So we did an experiment with hot water and candy.  Of course the kids loved it!  Added bonus-we talked about the widget factory😉

This was a great find!  So far really enjoy figuring out the challenges.  

Among many other things today, we attended a class at Phipps Conservatory today. Going there always makes me nostalgic for the two years I spent at Pitt. While we were underwhelmed with the class-save for Emmy who claimed to love it-everyone did love passing through the rooms of plants. The butterfly room just opened. We saw a brand new White Peacock butterfly and loved trying to touch the cacti. 

And yellow, in this case.

Let me explain.

We do a regularly, irregularly scheduled poetry teatime in the week.  It works best on Friday mornings for breakfast just because…captive audience and waffles.  But today we did an active poetry time, focused on the color yellow.

Everyone ran around hunting for yellow stuff, we displayed it on the table, read AYell for Yellow a few times, listed words that rhyme with yellow (fellow! Mellow! Hello!) and each kid wrote a poem.  

And then we ate Nilla wafers.

😉