You would think I would be able to at least manage to post once a month but alas, here we are again where I missed a whole month. It was a jam packed month to say the least! I know the month of May is traditionally very busy for most people with school ending. I thought that with us home schooling it would make it a little more laid back but that was not to be the case! It was a lot of fun though and well worth it.
After studying famine, the water cycle, water life, and then plants it only made sense that our next unit was on animals. This was our last unit of this school year and it was a great one to end the year on as it was of course fun and something the kids are very interested in. We of course talked about the benefits of animals to man, the benefits of man to animals, and how animals help each other and interact. We studied mammals, reptiles, amphibians and birds. My kids are blessed that they actually have a lot of exposure to animals on a daily basis so they already had a very good base for the studies. We have horses, dogs and cats currently but have also had rabbits and chinchillas in the past. We have family members who have had other pets as well. Living out on the country in West Texas we also see plenty of wild critters including snakes, lizards, prairie dogs, rabbits, gophers, owls and all sorts of birds. Coming from Colorado they are already very used to seeing deer, elk, skunks, squirrels, chipmunks, and even a mountain lion or two. We also have a lot of farm and ranch friends so cattle, pigs, donkeys, chickens, goats, as well as many others are part of the kids' lives often. They loved learning more about these animals we have seen as well as many others that we have yet to see in person. We had fun looking up all sorts of information about animals in books and doing a lot of comparison.
We wanted to celebrate completing our first year of home schooling. Other schools often have large end of the year parties and we wanted to as well so together with the help of a few other local moms, we planned an end of the year party for a bunch of area home schooling kids. We had it at a large local park and we rented the party house they have there. Everybody brought their own lunches but we all brought snacks to share. We also had the playground as well as a lot of toys and bikes people brought. To round it out we brought a pinata which was fun! I only got a few pictures but I don't want to share them with other peoples' kids in them. It was really a fun time though!
At the end of the month we also went on a group field trip with the group out of Lubbock. We toured a tamale factory in Lubbock and it was so neat! We were able to learn how they made the tamales from start to finish. The kids were really interested. At the end of the tour they gave us some free samples and because of how careful they are in their factory with allergens, Daniel was even able to have some! Then it was so cool because we went to a local grocery store and were able to buy the same brand right off the shelf so the kids could see it really from start to finish. It was a great time and the tamales were pretty good as well.
When you add soccer starting, a trip to see Grandma who had back surgery, more gardening and end of the year Cub Scout events we kept busy. This is going to have to be a post with no pictures though as they are all saved in another device. I am happy to say though that we survived the first year home schooling and both boys passed to the next grade!
No comments:
Post a Comment