The Week in Short

Nothing profound or incredible happened this week, besides our oldest turning twelve.

My battery died... again... so Tuesday's morning school included watching the AAA battery service do his thang.

I used my guinea pigs, I mean, children, to test out my first academy art lesson plan. Yes, I'm teaching art at our homeschool academy. Why, you might ask? Because there was no one else. That's right, folks, they were desperate. But what can one not do thanks to Pinterest and the library?

Our first lesson was using chalk pastels and having fun with color. We used pastels to fill out a color wheel and learned what complementary, analogous, and tertiary colors are.

This was the Pinterest project.

Nailed it!

This was Simon's. Somehow his tree became a picture of him and a dinosaur fossil climbing a tree.

After that art lesson we began our reading lesson. I hadn't finished the lesson from the day before, so we had some catching up. Simon sat near us, sat on my lap, played with the papers, made constant noises with his lips and finally I brought out the wooden train set and peace arrived!

Then Kaeley turned twelve! A dear friend of ours bought the family doughnuts and made her day.

 

I snagged a good deal on some Magic Erasers. I did not, however, know that I was purchasing like a hundred knock-offs from China. Any one need some cleaning supplies?

And, after two months of being away from home, we visited our beloved Amy's Farm. Here's Simon sliding down a compost heap. 

The kids helped me pick radishes and gave the runts to the cow.

Farmer Henry retrieved a dead hornets nest from the rafters for the ever inquisitive Nathan.

This is what the nest looked like.

The little papery bubbles could be torn off to reveal a growing hornet. The children would pop off a cover and squeal with shivers with each pop, but they continued until all the zombie bees were visible.

We now have the nest resting near our dining room table. This was Nathan's idea. It gives him the creeps.