Skip to main content

Weekly Wrap-Up ~ On the Farm

I heard that our local zoo was going to have a FarmFest event this past weekend, so we decided to make a unit of it!

I prepared a lapbook/notebook for Eli and Brynne to complete.


The barn door opened to reveal their farm animals.


Inside the notebook were several farm-related activities to complete. (I like how Brynne added a squigly piggy tail to her dot-to-dot.)


We read lots of books from the library about farm life: jobs on the farm, animals, equipment and foods.


Then today we enjoyed a field trip to FarmFest.

The structure of the event catered to Eli's best way of learning and staying focused: They gave each of the kids a passport to use to get a stamp at each station they visited. When it was complete they got a prize.


We watched wood carving, weaving and chain saw carving demonstrations.




We watched Lexie the cow being milked.


Eli and Brynne called me to dinner a snack with iron-worked triangles.


We stopped for a bit to create a mosaic piece.



And, of course, we stopped by to see the prairie dogs and penguins, a couple of our favorites.



Brynne took a few minutes to brush Rebel the goat. He is a miniature and won't get any bigger than this.


It was a hot day! Even the goats had a special ice cream treat to enjoy.


We took the train back to the entrance and called it a day. It was such a fun time! Eli (my homebody) was really not wanting to go. But, he was all smiles and said he had a great time!!

It was not only a very fun day, but it was educational as well. The docents were on hand with lots of demonstrations about various things. We learned about how to be a responsible pet owner and about the Nature Exchange (where the kids can exchange items they find in nature for prizes).

We will be ending our study of the farm this next week by taking a trip to the blueberry farm to pick blueberries. Then we are going to use them in a recipe that Eli has named "Blueberry Biscuit Yummies." I'm going to make a picture recipe and let them make these themselves. It should be fun!

This week we also visited the library and got our second sticker of the four that are required for the "big prize". Eli and Brynne have each independently read over 10 books this summer so far.

See what summer school is looking like for others at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Comments

Post a Comment

We all know that in this crazy world of homeschooling, we need all the (adult) support we can get. Please leave a comment if you so wish!

Popular posts from this blog

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.

America: The Story of Us ~ Episodes 8 "Boom" and 9 "Bust" Lesson Plans

Only two more units to go, and I will wrap them both up in this post. (Well there are actually five left, but I only completed lesson plans through the next two.) This was as far as we were able to get in the series this year. We were at the end of our school year and Dawson was ready to move on to his unit-of-choice: knights. The next two units in the America: The Story of Us series were Episode 8: Boom and Episode 9: Bust , or better known as The Roaring 20's and The Great Depression. We spent three weeks combined on these two units. Our book for both units was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had never read this book before and I thought it was an excellent portrayal of the good and bad of the 20's. The symbolism was astonishing and meaty, and I recommend having your student do an essay on the symbolism in the piece. I wish I would have done that with Dawson. We watched both Episodes 8 and 9, did the discussion questions/video quiz fo