weekly wrap-up #21, winter #9

Winter weather has kept us indoors all week again. If it wasn't snowing, it was raining. If it wasn't raining, it was sleeting. If it wasn't doing any of those, the wind was whipping the wind chill well into the negative digits. I went out to the barn as little as I could get away with. It was just one of those weeks. My poor parents had a heck of a time with basement flooding, so we spent a bit of time up at their house bailing them out, in addition to our normal weekly stuff.

But that didn't stop us from having all sorts of fun, especially with our new Adventure Circle, "Bear Hunt", which was an outrageous success with both boys. They begged to do it every day, and on the couple of days we didn't, they did it on their own during their free play time anyway. The theme went really nicely with our curriculum story this week, which was "Masha and the Bear", a Russian fairy tale (modified by Enki Education to better meet the needs of the young child) about a little girl who tricks a bear (who was holding her hostage) into returning her to her grandparents. It was also a big hit with the kids. Contrary to our crummy rotten weather, it was one of those weeks where everything just seemed to click along nicely for us.

Since the rest of the week was going so well, I decided to finally bring wet-on-wet watercolor painting into our weekly rhythm. Another outrageous success! Both kids sunk into the artistic experience, and I felt like I overcame a major hurdle (my own lack of confidence in working with this media).



We could have named this "Our Week of the Museums". We had our usual Monday Homeschool classes, with the added bonus of a free preview for a great spring class about what goes on behind the scenes at the museum, that both kids now want to sign up for. On Thursday we hooked up with some homeschooling pals at Imagine Nation (J above in one of their play structures), and also went over to our local children's museum for J's class about Valentine's Day. And on Friday we hooked up with even more homeschooling friends at the Springfield Science Museum.

And as if that wasn't enough, we went back to the Springfield Science Museum today for a planetarium show, with The Map Man in tow. The boys had a great time both at the show, and showing their Dad around their favorite exhibits, like this one where they have to identify various native wildlife by their songs.

Family Story Time this week included In The Snow: Who's Been Here? by Lindsay Barrett George; A Little House Birthday, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, illustrated by Doris Ettlinger (one of our favored My First Little House books); and Snowballs by Lois Ehlert.