weekly wrap-up, week #23, winter #11

The collies take a romp during the snowstorm yesterday. The kids followed suit shortly thereafter, and wound up spending quite a bit of time playing in the snow (and snuggling with our new lambs) yesterday afternoon.

This week our rhythms were a bit thrown off by too many outside activities. So we only did our Bear Hunt adventure circle and our curriculum story (The Boy Who Loved Bears, which is a Pawnee Tale that I adapted to better meet the needs of young children) once during the week. We'll use the same materials next week as well to finish up our winter semester. But too much learning happened this week to consider it a vacation week! And our basic daily rhythms were the same as always, just a lot of extra opportunities thrown in.

For example, our trip to Imagine Nation in Bristol. Last time we were there, we underestimated how long it would take us to drive there, so we left earlier this week. But it meant skipping our usual "school work" -- a good trade, though, the kids found plenty of other educational opportunities. Like in this photo, where they are experimenting with using hair dryers to keep ping-pong balls suspended in the air.

We also went to the local children's museum on Monday for the homeschool classes, and on Thursday afternoon for a class J took on Marine Mammals. While J was in class, Zoo Boy and I sat in on a program about animals for a Girl Scout troup. The educator knows Zoo Boy, so included him in all the interactive parts, too. The Girl Scouts didn't seem to mind.

And we went to our favorite park/nature center with our homeschooling buddies on Friday. The kids took turns pushing each other around the facility in a small cart (pictured), did some puzzles, read some books, and spent a large amount of time with active pretend play in the giant tree house and stone wall tunnel. It's so nice to have great indoor spaces like this for them to be active on days that are a bitterly cold as Friday was. But we're still looking forward to being able to do more outdoors once spring comes.

On the farm, we had our first lambs of the season born. Here they are, a whole day old, hanging out with their mom (on the right), and another ewe from the flock who doesn't look nearly pregnant enough. I'm not sure if she's only carrying one lamb, or maybe just missed getting bred somehow. Only time will tell!

And finally, a peek at the 'keet babies! We've named them -- given our fruit theme it wasn't hard -- they will all be blue, so they are Blueberry, Raspberry, and Huckleberry. Their feathers are really starting to come in, and their eyes opened, so they are looking more like little birds and less like little aliens. We just started holding them yesterday so that they will be hand-tamed and willing to sit on our fingers/shoulders. I don't think most parakeet breeders do that (our adults are not tame), but it will make for a much nicer relationship with their new owners if they are already people-friendly when they go to their new homes. Besides, it's fun for us to handle them!

Books read at this week's Family Story Time: It's Snowing! by Olivier Dunrea (a wonderfully simple book about a mama and baby enjoying a snowstorm -- perfect for this week's very snowy weather!); Welcome to the Ice House, by Jane Yolen (one of my favorite books by her), illustrated (gorgeously!) by Laura Regan; and the Three Snow Bears, by my personal favorite children's author, Jan Brett.

One more week of Winter semester, and then it'll be right on to Spring! Because, you know, it WILL be Spring, eventually....the lambs say so!