And another week is gone!

This week, like all of our weeks more recently, has zoomed by!  I am yet to do a general overview of our homeschooling, so I figured I would now.  On most days we do our official home school starting at 9.  We start with a prayer and then work on memorizing.  So far Teah has our address down and the first 3, almost 4, articles of faith.   Xander is definitely picking some of it up too and will sometimes chime in when Teah gets stuck.  After that Teahs does a little math work, handwriting, and reading/phonics work.  We have usually finished this daily core work by 10.  Xander participates when he wants to with his own little activities or he just plays.  The rest of the day is more flexible and filled with things like coloring, painting, music, playing outside, puzzles, trains, blocks, playdough, reading, free play etc. depending on whatever else we have going on.  Tuesdays we actually start our day a bit earlier as the kids have a coop at 9:30 where they have a Spanish class, reading corner, and a drama class. I tutor math while there.  Once we finish there we head to our science coop and usually don't get home around 3:30.  On Wednesday we just started attending the bilingual story time at the library, so we will see how we like that.  Thursday we have a craft group we go to and Fridays we have our field trips.  The kids have also just started doing a Maori cultural time with Manu a couple nights a week.  Saturdays are generally just as busy with one thing or another.

Adding in an infant, my tutoring and Manu being bishop, it literally feels like we are always on the run.  Part of me is definitely fighting against the busyness that has overtaken our lives and makes me wonder if I am crazy for doing this.  On the reverse side however, I am seeing so much good coming from what we are doing.  I find it encourages me to do a lot more with the kids rather than just being the one telling them what they need to be doing or need to stop doing.  I have noticed it has improved my relationship with them, especially Teah.  Furthermore, Teah and Xander seem to fight less and I am gaining priceless experience on how my kids learn and what methods they respond best to.   So although our house seems to be a bit messier as of late and I keep wondering if I need to remove one or two things from our schedule, I certainly cannot say I regret choosing to homeschool for kindergarden.  Of course I keep contemplating putting the kids in an activity class like gymnastics or swimming, because we can do it  :)

And here are a couple of pictures for this weeks science coop.  We made natural water colors using carrots, purple cabbage, tumeric, chili powder and acai berry tea bags.  Just as a side note, one of the sights I look at online said you should freeze the fruits or vegetables first, which I did not do for my original trials, but did for the coop.  Having done both, if you are going to do this, I would not recommend freezing, as the original ones I did seemed to come out better, especially the carrots.




The kids also did some black marker chromatography.

Our field trip this friday was to Hueco Tanks where the kids got to go on a tour and be shown some of the plant life, bugs and rock art that could be found there.  Our tour guide's name was Bob White.  He was great with the kids and had an awesome accent from the Carolinas.  Before we headed out he had all the kids feel the leaf of the buffalo gourd and explained that it felt like the top of a cow's tongue.  Then he showed them the gourds and said that he has been told that it is the most bitter thing that grows on earth.  He also said he figured he would take their word for it and had never tried it.  Us moms however were a bit more curious and did end up trying a tiny taste.  The best description I can give is that it tastes like getting bug spray, sunscreen, and something else with a comparable taste in your mouth at the same time.  So I am not sure if it really is the most bitter thing that grows on the planet, but I am sure it tastes pretty awful.


Then we all headed out for the guided hike.

 He picked up one of these beetles and let any of the kids interested hold it.  Only Xander and the little girl you see in the pictures with the pink hat were interested.

He then took the kids to an area that had lots of writing on the walls, including old drawings from a variety of time periods as well as much more recent graffiti. Interestingly, however, some of the names that were carved or written in the rock were from the 1800's from the time period when the stage coaches would come through.  Apparently there is a long history in both the hispanic and anglo cultures of "graffiti."  Another interesting fact is that after a rock has had paint on it for two years, both current and ancient paints, it has permanently bonded to the rock.  At that point the only way to remove it is to remove part of the surface of the rock.  Because of the large amount of graffiti and damage that has been done to old pictographs, hueco tanks is now highly protected and the majority of the area can only be visited by guided tour.

Here is the tour guide showing the children a black and yellow locust with red under its wings.

Then we stopped and looked at a pictograph that told the story of a tribe besieged in the area for 10 days before they were able to escape.

 You can sort of see the paintings behind the guide.

 Here is our group in a little area that was great for climbing around.  Because Monday is Columbus day, Friday was a training holiday for military.  Manu took the day off and other husbands had the day off too, so some of the dads got to join in on the fun.

 We took a couple of family pics.

This one is among my favorite pictures of Marama.

Unfortunately it was so far away that if you try to get a close up it is grainy . . . I mean artistic.

And here are the kids looking at the iridescent pools.

Oh wait no that is just the light coming through a slit in the rocks above.

Me waiting for the kids and Manu as they climb around.

After finishing our tour, we enjoyed a picnic lunch and climbed around on the rocks a bit more.  When we got home Xander had a 10 minute tantrum because he wanted to climb more!