School Week 10 & 11 2010

It's been two weeks since I blogged anything about school... we are still here and we are still at it with school!
I haven't been feeling very good... abdominal pain, tiredness... we've been doing school at all times of the day when I feel up to it.
Last week we rowed the books Arabella(A8) and The Ugly Duckling(X6). This week we are rowing Grass Sandals(A8) and Truman's Aunt Farm(X6). We are on lesson 3 of Zoology 1, having finished all of the insects lessons. We are also moving right along with math, A8 has three more lessons of Beta left, after that we start Gamma!

We've been doing school on the couch, in bed.. where ever seems more convenient for me! I'm having some test done tomorrow at the hospital to determine what's causing the pain... My Dr seems to think it's my gall bladder.... we'll see.

School Week 9 2010

This week A8 is rowing the FIAR book Mailing May. X6 was to learn about Columbus since Monday was Columbus day. Well, after a tough Saturday night were X6 ended up in the ER (croup) and now me getting his cold, its been difficult getting stuff done for the last couple of days.

I've been able to do school with A8, the thing is after we are done I'm just too physically exhausted to do anything with him. My throat is in pain after reading the FIAR and science book. I've been giving him activity sheets but no reading and no math. . .

I'm not stressing too much since math is 30 lessons and we have 36 weeks of school. I will be able to make it up... as for Columbus... there is always next year to learn about him:)

School Week 8 2010

This week A8 is rowing the book Higgins Bend, Song and Dance. This is a great and funny book about a fisherman's obsession with Oscar... a catfish!

X6 is rowing the book Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel... the kids love this book!!

It's been raining here everyday, which doesn't give us any chance to go outside for our nature studies, but after this past weekend we are natured out.. ha ha!!

We are moving right along with school... both kids are doing a very good job!

Nature Study Club Post 5

On Friday we had our fifth nature study club, inside our house!! That was the morning we discovered our Monarch butterfly had come out of her chrysalis! The day before the chrysalis looked like this....As you can see, the chrysalis is now looking clear and we can see the butterfly's wings through it! We knew it wouldn't be long before she would be coming out... we had no idea just how fast that was going to happened.

Early the next morning she was out.. DH did not notice anything unusual so this must have happened between 7 - 8 am. I was up at 8 but did not go into the living room, where we had the habitat, A8 on the other hand went straight to it and that's when she saw this...We spent the WHOLE morning just looking at her... taking lots of pics! A8 was convinced she was a girl ( we later found out she was not!) so she called her Crissy!

She was so beautiful! She had no problems letting us hold her. She did not fly or eat at anytime. Later in the day she started to flex her wingsThat's when we noticed she was actually a he.. ha ha!!! Yep, those two black dots at the end of the wings means Crissy is a male butterfly.. so he is Chris after all...

After he started to flex his wings we knew it was time to let him go... we have birds in our house and we were concerned that he would fly right into the cage and the birds, not knowing any better would have him for a snack :)

We went outside when it was nice and warm. He flew into a bush and came right back to A8's hair.. A8 took it as a sign that he wanted to come back to us.. noooo... I told her, he just needs more practice.. the second time he flew even higher to one of the trees in the backyard... from there he kept going into the nursery. He got better and better at it.

From what we've learned about Monarch butterflies, he will be migrating to Mexico and then come back in the spring to mate and then die.Thank you Chris caterpillar and Chris butterfly for sharing your complete metamorphosis with us! Thank you Zoology 1 lesson 14 for all the info we needed... We cannot wait to see Toni the caterpillar as a beautiful Toni butterfly in the spring, since it's pretty obvious she will be overwintering.... You are next!