Summer activities

We have officially started the next year of school work this week.  We are starting slow (1/2 days and no Fridays through August).  We've had fun so far. 

I wanted to fill everyone in on our summer activities.  We took a vacation to Tennessee where we hiked in the Smoky Mtn. Nat'l Park.  Ever since we rowed The Salamander Room last summer, Alex has been wanting to find a salamander.  He found his first one while in TN (actually found a total of 4).  We also saw several Swallowtail Butterflies and the caterpillar that will change into a Swallowtail butterfly. (I took pictures of all these things, but right now are in the process of changing computers and the pictures haven't been moved to the new one yet.  Will try to post pictures later.)

We spent a week in July doing the Olympic lapbook from homeschoolshare.  I wanted to do it before the Olympics started and finish a few books up in August during the Olympics.  We left a place for our family olympics, but have not had the opportunity to hold it yet.  Will try to get pictures when we do that to post also.

After hearing a library program about Monarch butterflies, we have tried our hand at raising a caterpillar to a butterfly.  Monarch caterpillars only eat milkweed - when we walk a local walkway, there are lots of milkweed plants.  We started out looking for the Monarch eggs, and thought we found one, but it never hatched.  A couple weeks ago, we found a small caterpillar, so we brought it home.  It molted one time and grew quite a bit.  After it escaped and was put back into it's cage, it died a couple days later.  Last night, we found another caterpillar (this one smaller than the last one was when we found it.)  We are going to try it again.  I have pictures of the first caterpillar, so will try to get them on later.

This week, for school, we began our Bible lessons using the Ten Boys Who... series.  The stories are a little long and hard to keep Nicolas's interest, but ties everything together in the small devotional part at the end.  We read about Brother Andrew, John Newton, Billy Graham and Eric Liddell this week.  Alex began his Evan Moor Moving West History Pockets and seems to enjoy them.  He is doing them (mostly) independently while I work with Nicolas's reading.  We also started our Apologia Zoology I book this week.  It's been fun - filled with experiments that keep the boys busy.  I don't mind doing the experiments if I already have the materials ready.  I will have to make sure to look ahead throughout the rest of the school year to have the right materials on hand when we need them.  Besides that, it's just been math and language arts/reading time.

We start co-op next week, so will have a little more to do and by September I want to have some electives thrown in to keep them a little more busy during the day (computer/typing, sign language, art, music, etc.)  I will also begin larger books for our read alouds.

Keep a watch for the pictures later.