Monday seems to be a great science day for us. We get together with a science coop in the mornings, not every week, but not on a regular basis. For the past three weeks I was teaching an Archaeology unit for the coop and Im happy to be able to just be home on this Monday morning. I love teaching units, but it also is a huge drain on our regular lesson schedule. I end up using a lot of the time I could be putting into my own kids lessons in order to put together a unit of study for the group. Unfortunately it is usually the teacher's kids who gain the least out of a unit. So, while Im happy to contribute and wouldnt have it any other way, I do recognize that it is something you have to keep in balance and not allow my desire to support the coop to take away from my own family and our needs.
Anyway, today we will be getting together with a friend in the bosque to study the life cycle of frogs. We have done this several times before, but it is so much fun, and the kids love getting out in nature and exploring. M will enjoy it, she hasnt reallystudied this before and so it will be a first for her. The boys will have fun finding where the tadpoles are and figuring out which stage they are each at. M will have fun drawing what she sees and seeing her friends. O will hopefully just enjoy the trees, he is a tree fanatic and just loves to sit and watch them blow in the breeze.
We will picnic in the bosque before heading over to our science class at a local museum. the boy's classes are today. the love all the fast paces experiments and M and O enjoy exploring the rest of the museum with me and their friends.
My goals for today are...
clean up the house this morning (dishes, study, laundry)
get everyone a decent breakfast
pack a lunch
have the kids review their biology chapter
read the Tadpoles and Frogs book to M
Remember my camera
head out to the bosque (frogs, lunch)
head to Science class
home for some math
G2 work on his Harry Potter guide
M do some art work about the frogs and the bosque
O take a nap (haha)
Head out to Jazz for G1
home/dinner by 6:30pm (chicken potpie)
hang out and exhale!
Here goes.....
Well, we did quite well today. I did complete my list of things I wanted to get through and the kids had a wonderful time in the bosque. We were not able to find any tadpoles, the season is off, but the kids still were able to learn a lot about the lesson. The older boys obviously already know a lot about tadpoles and the life cycle of a frog. We used to have a small pond in our yard in VA and we always had a TON of little tadpoles and frogs in it. They loved exploring them and watching them develop throughout the summer. Anyway, M and her friend did a great job with their life cycle books and seemed to really understand the order of how things happen. So, I count that as a great outing and a fun way to get out in the bosque for a nice morning.
The great suprise for the day was Dad meeting us in the bosque for our picnic. It was nice seing him in the middle of the day and getting to share some of the fun with him. He works so much it is hard to get to see him like that. I guess it is a good thing that he likes peanut butter and jelly roll-ups! :-)
