Whirlwind of Educational Activities Last Week

Tuesday morning Esme and went to her first marionette show. The puppeteers performed Cinderella and were lit up so that the audience could see the show and how they make the marionettes move.

Friday, the most exciting day, we took our first family trip to the Boston Museum of Science. We decided this would be the perfect way to end our Human Body unit and segue into our dinosaur unit. Even though we've really been studying dinosaurs all year, it will be official for the next few weeks. The museum was WONDERFUL!! Our family universally agreed that it was a fabulous trip. Esme particularly enjoyed the senses room and of course the dinosaur section. She also liked the classification room and the anatomy room. She was disappointed that we didn't get to see every singe exhibit, but we have assured her that we will go again very soon!

Saturday Esme and I attended an all-day Earth Day celebration with Girl Scouts. Esme made her own applesauce over a campfire, cleaned up a campsite, made her own paper, went on a hike, explored wetland muck for life, made lip balm, sang Native American folk songs, beat a drum, and had a yoga session with a professional instructor.

Although Sunday wasn't an official homeschooling day, we did get a chance to spend some time at the beach and explore some things we don't see around our town every day. We waded in salt water and searched for hermit crabs with Esme's cousin, Dylan. Esme and Ethan made a great sand castle, and later we climbed on some very cool weather-beaten rocks.

Today Esme had her regular Girl Scout meeting and had her first TBall practice. It has been a whirlwind, but wonderful!

Our Aquarium Visit

We visited the Aquarium to celebrate the end of our ocean unit! It was a wonderful and very satisfying experience to watch Esme move through the exhibits and see all the different animals she'd learned about. Her favorite part was touching the starfish. We had a book from the library about Starfish that we must have read fifty times, because she loved it so much. I think what caught

her attention and held her rapt the longest was the Beluga whales. We stopped and watched them on our way in and went outside again to watch their feeding. It is amazing how close they swim to where you're standing. She also really enjoyed the penguins and sea lions, as well as the florescent fish, clown fish, octopus (which she named Ursula), and a moray eel which Ethan and I both found disturbing. It was great to see how much she's really learned, and see her make the connections between the books we've read and the real live animals.

Paper Plate Sea Creatures

Two of Esme's recent projects - making a paper plate sea jelly helped Esme learn their two main parts - a bell and tentacles. We made the crab after reading A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle. In the story the crab uses all different ocean life to decorate his home. We let Esme choose any materials available in our craft area and she really made it a mixed media project with crayons, glitter, stickers, foil tape, rick rack, etc. I was very amused she chose to decorate it with vegetable stickers!!

Fantasy, Folk Tales, and Myths

It is hard for me to believe that we are in the last week of our second unit already. We've been studying the ocean for several weeks and have covered sand, water, and tons of animals. We are devoting this week to magical ocean stories. Our book of the week is Mermaid Dreams and we're also reading The Fisherman's Wife, Atlantis, and two Russian folk takes relating to the sea. Words of the week are is and see.

Next week we'll take a few days to explore Valentine's Day and then we'll be on to our next full unit!

Hermit Crabs

Esme read A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle this week and then made this scrapbook page about her memories of seeing hermit crabs this summer. Scrapbooking is a great way to reinforce her lessons, teach her about different kinds of media, and encourage her creativity!

Shells, Crabs, and More

This week we're studying shells and the animals that live in them. We'll also continue looking at 3-D shapes, working on fine motor skill development, and of course do lots of reading! Our book of the week is Seashells by the Seashore and our words of the week are we and two.

Vacation is over - we're back in school!

We've recovered from our vacations and we're happily moving on with our ocean unit! We're finishing up mammals and moving on to sharks and more fish. Our book of the week is The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark. We are reviewing some previous words of the week just to be sure she had all the words we've done down. This week she'll also be learning about the three-dimensional shapes, sounding out words, and sponge painting.

Learning about Mammals

Esme has been very interested in learning about ocean mammals. We concentrated on whales and dolphins, and used Counting Fish. We've been using Beanie Babies to sort mammals and other types of animals.

We're still here!!

Yes we are still here and homeschooling! Esme was quite sick so we took a little time off for recovery and celebrating Thanksgiving, but we are back and learning all kinds of new things! Esme is in her second week of learning about the Ocean. The first week we did an overview of oceans. Along with our usual language and math studies we compared ocean water to tap water, and read Atlantic, a book about oceans written from an ocean's perspective. This week we are concentrating on fish and our book of the week is Big Al. We are doing a sight word review to make sure Esme has a good grasp on the ones we've done so far. We spent a few weeks really working on fine motor skills so now we are branching out into writing again along with the focus on further developing those skills. Thanks to everyone who has and continues to support us in homeschooling, and check back for more frequent updates!