As luck would have it Living Social did a special on tickets to the Scripps Birch Aquarium before my mother was due in town to visit. We had been studying habitats, and I had planned a whole ocean / tide pool mini field trip for the Friday that she would be here. We did get our required work done, but it was difficult for Kelsey since she wanted to play and visit with her Mema as her sister was doing... pretty much 3 feet from her while she sat patiently at her desk with her math work sitting in front of her. Needless to say we fought the good fight to keep the attention on our work, but alas, we gave in. This is a downfall to home-schooling, but even so. It is minimal.
Ah, but... the best laid plans of mice and men.....
So here are some pictures from our adventure.
The first few pictures are of the Thursday before my mom came out.
They love our hundred chart games. Keira is working on letters. We got her a little dollar store workbook so that she could feel part of the "class" with "work" to do.
Reviewing our even numbers.
She desperately wanted to wear her Chinese dress.....
but then she got hot, and decided on something more practical.
Discovering lines of symmetry, and the difference between infinite symmetry lines on a circle and those on triangles, squares, and rectangles.
Fun with reading comprehension and fables.
Colonial sign for history. Kelsey chose to be a blacksmith so that she could make horse shoes for ponies.
The photos from that Friday. My mom had come in late Thursday night. We worked through the morning and then headed to the aquarium that afternoon.. Here are our pictures from that adventure.
I had all these plans to make it a very educational mini field trip, but I felt bad for her after how the day had already went, so I tried to let her just explore things on her own and just be a kid.
The next week, we had conferences. There is nothing and yet so much to report. She is doing very well. Our teacher was very impressed with Kelsey's hard work. We turned in our samples for accountability, and talked about all our work and our projects. Kelsey showed the things she was proud of most, which was her rain forest book. We received some more material to work with, and said our goodbyes.
The bigger thing to report is that she suddenly turned on these past weeks. It is like someone flicked on the switch, and now she is incessantly inquisitive about everything, ALL the time, all hours of the day and night. It is both wonderful and exhausting. We have had long conversations about how electricity and plumbing works, how a satellite works, why we can't see space, both the infinite vast sky of stars and planets, and the the space between two objects. This is just the tip of it. The questions cover everything you could imagine. She has already started questioning how it is physically possible for Santa to go to each home every night, how Rudolph must be very old, and wouldn't Santa need new reindeer, as well as the usual - we haven't ever SEEN him questions ect... I just tell her magic.
Our new packet only seems to spark more interest. She is learning about physics, and her love for science, which has always been there is blossoming. She looks forward to experiments, demonstrations, and googling all her questions. It was only weeks ago that most things went over her head and she lived in the clouds, she is now ever present and interested in everything around her. It is really neat to see. She is proud of herself, she is taking chances, and she is not afraid to be wrong anymore. She has given me many opportunities to be proud of her, but mostly I am just so happy she has such a want for answers, and has really grown her confidence. It is just perfect.
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