Back to School

Ah, back to school time. It is one of my favorite times of the year...normally. Clothes shopping, school supply shopping, curriculum planning, clean desks and the excitement of a new school year always have me feeling happy. Going into this year we had one giant variable hanging over our heads that made starting off a new school year very difficult, the impending birth of miss Mary. 

I planned to start school on the 28th, same as the public school kids, however, when I was still pregnant on the 20th with no signs of delivering soon, I made a judgement call to start on the 21st so we could at least get a week of school done before her arrival. I am not going to lie the first month of homeschool was rough! The weather was gorgeous, Brandon was home, there was a new baby around and so many more distractions. We are finally back on track and slowly catching up to where we need to be. The great thing about homeschool is I have until August 28th of next year to finish up this years work:)  Anyways, flash back to back to school 2017-2018

Samuel will be attending preschool at Sunny patch which meant he got a backpack!! He REALLY wanted a skylanders one so Amazon to the rescue. I have never seen a kid so excited over something!

 Annie and Benjamin had both outgrown their shoes. These two are constantly on the go so we headed to See Dick Run to get their shoes from our favorite shoe expert. 

 My 3 school age kids looking so stylish

Elias- 9 years old

4th grade

want to be a LEGO engineer

 Annie- 7 years old

3rd grade

wants to be a dance coach and actor

 Benjamin- 5 years old

Kindergarten

wants to be a police officer or car fixer

Samuel- 4 years old

Preschool 

wants to be a Mcdonalds worker

The first week before Mary was born went well. We got to witness a Solar Eclipse and got a lot of great peaceful work in!

Here is to hoping the 2017-2018 ends as well as it began!

Turtle River Field Trip

In late September, another wonderful outdoor field trip opportunity came our way, this time out to Turtle River State Park. We headed out with a dozen other homeschool families to learn about animals and their habitats. It was great, and perfectly geared for my two older kids. We walked around the park on a guided tour making stops, doing activities and learning things. The weather was beautiful and when the trip was over, we ate a yummy sack lunch in the car on the way home. Sound lovely right? Well of course it didn't go smooth. I took 7 Eberhardts into the wilderness. Scroll through the pictures for a play by play of the gong show the field trip turned into it. 

 The first outdoor stop was digging up sludge from the river and sifting through for various bugs at various stages of life. Within 3 minutes of beginning Elias fell into the river. So here we are, 30 miles from home no extra socks and Elias is soaked. He is my little sensory boy do you think he'd slug around in wet socks or was able to wear shoes with out socks? No , no he wasn't. I took a scarf that we ended up not needing dried his inserts off( made of plastic whooo hooo for quick drying) and gave him my socks. Problem solved. 

 While the kids were sifting through all the goop, the bugs became a HUGE problem. We started early in the morning but by 10:30 they were a buzzing. I went back to the car( for the 3rd time after the sock debacle) and dug out the jumbo can of super duper bug spray. 90% of the families also used it because the bugs were just that bad! Finally, all were able to enjoy station 1....oops Nicholas lost his binny and was not happy about it. After walking around deeply wooded area, I found it. OK now we can enjoy the group. Oh, wait station 1 is done. Time to move along to station 2.

 Before we moved to station 2, Nicholas pooped, Benjamin was hungry and I needed to unload some gear we no longer needed to wear since it was heating up. Benjamin and I almost lost the group but we caught up in time to learn about different animals and their pelts. 

 While learning about said animals, every child I gave birth to needed something. Nicholas pooped AGAIN, Samuel was tired Benjamin was hungry Elias feet felt funny and Annie was bored. Brandon took Nicholas back to the car, Elias sucked it up, we started talking about something else and Annie was fine and I took turns carrying Benjamin and Samuel in the backpack, since Nicholas wanted to crawl around in the woods and poop all day.

 By the time Brandon caught up with us using his super tracker skills, we were learning about the food chain. The younger kids enjoyed this activity but were fading in interest. We decided that after this station, Brandon would take the little kids back to the car and I would carry on with the older two. This ended up being a great idea for all involved. I think they walked around and ate a lot of our sack lunch snacks, but they were free to roam without distracting the group so all was well. 

We did a few more bug catching, observation learning about wild life stations and finally headed back up to the cars. The kids really enjoyed it but it was very clear to me, we are not outdoor people! 

We are food people thought! We dug into the truck to get our lunches as swarms of bees kept flying in the van. We had to open the door about 100 times to shoo one out. We finally were able to be bee free and enjoyed our lunches on the long car ride home. It was a beautiful, educational and crazy day!

Pumpkin Patch Part 1

 Our adventures with the homeschool field trip co-op group continued! This time, we headed out to the pumpkin patch for some out door fun. We have done the pumpkin patch for several years and I never miss an opportunity to go as part as a small group rather than on a busy week day. It is so nice to be able to wander around and enjoy all of the attractions. We started off by playing the games in the front, snapping some pictures then wandering in the back for the maze, giant pile o corn kernel playing, goats and pumpkin bowling.We enjoyed a quick tractor ride and ended our visit with the walk around the spookly trail. The kids had a lot of fun and so did I! Never a disappointment.

This last picture of Nicholas is my favorite. As soon as the tractor started moving, he clung on to Brandon and made the best faces. He was not at all sure about what was going on. It was a pretty funny sight to see. 

Stay tuned for part 2 when I revisted the pumpkin patch with Benjamins preschool class. 

Field Trip Fun

Last year we joined a home school field trip co-op. I thought it would be a great way to meet some other homeschool families as well as learn some new things. We had a lot of fun last year, so much so we decided to join the co-op again this year! Our first field trip was to the University of North Dakota's ceramics department. I thought we would play with clay and be on our merry way. I was not expecting to be able to fire our projects for keeps. Once we found this out, each of the kids decided to work on projects for Uncle Jordan since his birthday was a month away( Lucky Uncle). Annie made a really great Finn, Benjamin made a lizard thingy and Elias made a pokemon. After the projects were dried and fired, we painted them and uncle Jordan now gets to enjoy them year round as they are proudly displayed for all to see at his home. 

 Samuel and Nicholas were too young to attend this field trip. Brandon put Nicholas down for a nap and proceeded to use EVERY SINGLE DUPLO we had in the house to make a giant creation with Sammy. Samuel was SO proud of his project he couldn't wait to show up what they had done.

 My future artists....or not. Fun none the less!

End of the Year Field Trips

We joined a homeschool field trip co-op this year, and through it were able to attend a few very fun field trips! As the year wrapped up, we snuck in two more field trips;one to the Fargo Art Museum and one to the Humane Society. I'll start with the Art Museum.
We signed up to go tour the Art Museum in Fargo. We are not very artsy people so I thought this was a good way to expose the kids to some. We made the trek all the way to Fargo and while it was a fun field trip, we are still not art people. I just don't get it. Take a look at my pictures below to see why

 OK, this one was actually cool. It looked random but upon further study, it was a dejected cowboy. Kinda cool but everything else....

 This is 4 photographs of a hairy dude doing lawn work...seriously..thats what it was

 Framed photograph of a tire in a walmart cart in a Target parking lot...I just don't get it

 Windshields that were smashed and hung on the wall. All these pieces were in the "Top 40" room. This means that the curator of the museum thought these were in the top 40 pieces that had been donated...I . DON'T GET IT!! I will say, I have been to the Smithsonian Art Museum and there are some truly beautiful paintings a sculptures and such. Modern art, just goes so over my head.

 Cute fella

 The kids got to do an art project after the tour. They had fun using clay to make stamps.

The last field trip we went on this year was the human society. Elias LOVES animals and he had a really great time being there. He only asked about 100 times if we could adopt one, the answer is still no. I think when the kids are old enough, we will definitely volunteer out there, Elias and Annie both wanted too now, but aren't old enough.

 Kids listening to the instructions of how to give the dogs treats

 At the end, the kids got to play with one cat and one dog, they thought it was pretty cool. There was also a snake there. Thankfully, the snake stayed in the cage!

All in all, we attended 6 or so field trips this year. I can't wait to see what trips next year's coop brings.