It's a Bug Life

It's safe to say that at our house we like bugs. 

Leonardo with his pet moth.

The kids are always excited to preserve the big catface spiders they find around our house and Mom is starting an awesome new project at work with worms. 

Vermicomposting beginning.

So we used bugs to reach a few of our school goals this week. 

We found some awesome preserved bugs in glass and the kids had to identify which bugs were which with the description that came with them. Astor even practiced his writing skills and drew the bug all on his own. Then we made an art science project out if it. Each of the kids had a lump of clay to start with and a bug to model it after. 

The clay was a big hit and the kids are excited to let them dry and paint them. Next up: Identifying bug heads and researching vermiculture with Mom.

In other news this week: Astor has been trying to read Zoey Sassafras, a stretch for him, but he's up for the challenge! Also, he lost a tooth and has been learning about different states that are on the quarters the tooth fairy gave him...

Ada has been teaching Nahuel how to use her animation tools and using the modeling clay to practice characters for her first short animated film. 

Leonardo has been doing lots of bug puzzles, geometric looms, and building abstractly with the fraction tiles.

Nahuel has been practicing some new songs on the piano and learning about different parts of the earths crust and innards. 

Gently Giants

This week we've begun the long awaited journey of talking about genetics. Key learning words for this week have been allele, chromosomes, dominant, gene, traits, and heredity.  We had a bit of a celebration in store as Astor had his 7th birthday. He has been obsessing about animals lately, planning an animal rescue mission with his cousin. He asked if we could go see the gentle giants at Young Living's farm in Mona, Utah for is birthday. It was arranged and fit perfectly with our science lessons this week. There was a lively discussion about where we get our different traits from with an object lesson. Astor received as a gift, a pair of horses with a surprise foal inside and we talked about how the foal has some things from the father and some things from the mother and it introduced our birthday activity perfectly. 

Young Living's horses are nothing short of entrancing...We went to the show barn and made friends with a few gentle beasts. These Percherons are aptly called the gentle giants because they are just that. Easily taller than my 5 foot 7 inches at the rear, 7 feet tall at their heads, incredibly gentle and curious. 

The Percherons were by far the most fun, as we've never seen anything like that big of an animal to be up close and personal with. But we also visited  the Fresian barn, saw some gorgeous Andalusians, and made friends with Petey the pony. It was a perfect opportunity to see what strictly bred horses are like ant talk about the different traits. At first glance the Fresians and Percherons look alike, but their bred traits are very different from eachother. The massive feet, well, massive everything, of the Percherons is unique to them as much as the Fresians arching neck muscles and slender yet strong gracefulness. We were ale to compare and have a plentiful supply of future observation at our fingertips. 

Other things that happened this week were:

Ada got her first piece of magical mail corresepondence and has responded in kind...

Nahuel continued helping Papa fix up the car and learned all sorts of things about using tools and friction...

Leonardo has been waiting to learn about volcanoes and finally got the chance...

Astor got lots of animal toys for his birthday; horses, a big beautiful shark, and a wolf with a wolf book and is making marvelou
s progress with reading...

Little Tree and Elbow Grease

Our school has a name. It's the same name we've given our home and life and everything we hope to accomplish. And even though we don't know the future, we love our little homeschool! Palenque is our name. It means a holding post. It's where a horse is broken and trained. And to our kids it means that we throw ourselves into life for them. We create our home as a reflexion of what we want to grow into.    

    

We've been making some heavy changes to our homeschool routine (and life!) and for a while there, we weren't really sure how it was going to end up. But we've had a very successful transition to a completely new way of life. One where Mom goes to work and Papa stays home. The kids have been enjoying having so much time with him and the many things he has to offer that are completely different from Mom. This week we finished reading The Education of Little Tree. And I wasn't there to hear how it went, so don't spoil it for me, I'll catch up over the weekend...But the kids loved it. And that's enough for me. 

One thing that Papa has to offer is his knack for mechanical things. This isn't the first time he's brought the kids out and under the hood. This week, though, each of the kids got a turn under the car. Each performed a different task related to changing the oil. 

     

Nahuel was in charge of removing the plug to let the oil drain.

  

Ada took charge of changing the filter.

 

Leonardo put the plug back in. 

 

Astor primed the oil filter and installed it under the car.

Each of the kids took pride in their part and learned the methodical care that is taken when performing an important job. 

Some other things that took place this week were: 

Nahuel finished building the table for his model trains to go on and has started designing the rails.

Astor made an awesome pinball machine with this months Kiwicrate.

Leonardo got a new workbook for practicing his letters and did lots of math puzzles.

Ada has been plugging away at math, math, and lots of math as well as fine tuning her aquarium writing assignment.

Sloths, Penguins, Fish.

Cutting to the chase, we did something fun this week! 

We've been waiting for a long time to go to the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium. I had my reservations, being that we're a land locked, desert mountain state. But was thoroughly convinced that it's well worth the visit. We all got so much from it but one detail won me over. One of the aquarium 'guides', for lack of a better term, explained that one of the Aquariums goals is to teach about not only aquatic life, but ecosystems. She added that all ecosystems revolve around their water sources, making it appropriate to teach about all of 

the ecosystems throughout the world. 

While I was enthralled with the 2 toed sloth, the kids were entranced by the swimming penguins. 

Each of the kids was assigned to choose an animal to write about or draw over the next few days. Ada has been talking in co-op about writing focused paragraphs and different forms of adding details and information to a piece of writing. So this fits in well with her assignment. Nahuel on the other hand, will be asked to either write a poem about an animal, or use one in the introduction to a story. To say 

the least, there's so much more 

than science that will come out of our visit.