Weekly Wrap-Up (4 States, the Ocean, the Desert and Grandparents' house!)

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Last weekend, I had the amazing opportunity to go on a women's retreat with my church. Unfortunately that means another double-wrap-up week this week, but it was completely worth it! On top of an outstanding spiritual experience and bonding with so many wonderful women I now call my friends, I also got to try my hand at rifle shooting, archery and horseback riding. This, my friends, is how girls should get away!

As for our homeschool weeks: 

Week one (Sep 30-Oct 4) consisted of our US Geography studies of New York and New Jersey and our Magic School Bus lesson on coral reefs. Now, just to clarify, we covered much more than that, but I didn't think ya'll would be too excited to see photos of my kiddos filling out their math textbooks or writing a paper. So, here are the highlights. For our State Food/Movie night, we ate Subway subs in honor of New York and Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies in honor of New Jersey.

For science, we got to make a wave in a bottle out of three simple ingredients: water, oil and food coloring. It's so simple! Just pour oil (We just used Canola oil) into a clear container and fill about 1/2 full. Mix the blue food coloring into the water and then fill the container with the water. Then the oh-so-important final step: screw the lid on - VERY tightly! When you slosh it back and forth, it almost looks like slow motion giving that calm effect of rocking waves. My little guy is keeping it in his room, and so far, there's no 'ocean' in my carpet. I'm thinking I may need to sneak that little number out of there before we have a crisis, though. LOL!

Week 2, Oct.7-11, took us to the great states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. Now we couldn't sample goodies from Pennsylvania without chowing down on some yummy Hershey chocolate and a delectable Philly Steak and Cheese sandwich. 

Since Delaware hosts an annual Pumpkin Festival, we ate pumpkin cupcakes from that Pinterest recipe using only 2 ingredients. Ok, sorry to burst the bubble, but I thought they came out really thick. I would have to add an egg or two to make it fluffier. Just my opinion! My sweets-deprived kids however, devour anything that sounds like it has sugar! So we slathered on some cream cheese frosting and they gobbled those babies right up!

Our Magic School Bus study of the desert included a fun activity making sand dunes. We poured a bag of sand (a souvenir from our recent vacation) into a shallow container and used a 'bendy' straw to blow the sand into heaps. Voila! Sand dune!  If you try this, you may want a slightly deeper container. When I tested it, no issues. In the hands of a 7-yr-old boy, however. Let's just say there was a lot of clean up on aisle one!

Our weather has been so beautiful, we decided to do our reading outside. We put the picnic blanket under a shade tree and snuggled in with our books only to find ourselves, moments later, swarmed with gnats! They were crawling on our books, our clothes, and I don't even want to think about how many were hosting a party in my hair! Yuck! My girls lasted about three minutes and went back inside. My son gave me those puppy eyes and really wanted to stay so I begrudgingly stayed out of guilt hung out there with him for as long as I could stand it (maybe 5 more minutes) Oh well, we tried!

October means 'school photos' around here so while the kids were playing outside, I snapped some practice shots. Not sure we're ready for the real thing, but we had fun anyway!

hammin' it up!

Beautiful!

At that age where she hates her picture taken, but she was being such a good sport!

Mr. Man feeling crafty on Wed night. He made his own robot buddy! We just had to put this pic in!

Friday, we packed our remaining schoolwork and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's cabin on the lake for a short visit. The kids got to go for a paddle boat ride, go fishing, lay in the hammock and just relax for an afternoon. That is until they got back to the car and their mean-ole-teacher made them get some more work done. Ah, the hardships of traveling with your teacher!

So how is your year going so far? What fun things have you experienced together? Leave me a comment below and share!