miscellaneous life and homeschooling moments

It was such a great feeling to finally post something on my blog again, so I'm going to do it again!  I have so many posts with pictures to post - making applesauce, going camping in October, fun times with cousins, a spontaneous trip to Homer Lake, etc.  But all of those involve sorting through hundreds of photos and choosing the best ones.  So, instead I just went through the last couple of months of pictures and chose a few that highlight some more mundane moments in our lives.  It gives you a little glimpse into some of the things we've been up to and a little bit of insight into what homeschooling life looks like for us.  (Blogger is super-updated since I last posted, so I'm having some trouble figuring out the formatting.  Hopefully this all looks okay.  It's midnight and I'm not up for doing a whole lot of editing.)

This started as an experiment I saw on Pinterest where you put an empty cup between a cup of blue water and a cup of yellow water and then connect the colored water to the empty cup with a paper towel and watch what happens.  After trying various color combos, Anya wanted to see if she could make the whole rainbow and wrap it around in a circle.  Why not? 

 

Seriously, it was beautiful.

Months before Halloween, we still had all this old candy from last Halloween.  So, we decided we needed to do some outdoor science and play with it.  We've done candy experiments before, but this was just a free-for-all of mixing candy, water, flour, baking soda, vinegar, cornstarch, etc.   I'm still shocked that nobody asked, not even once, if they could eat it.

 We ended up with some pretty nasty combinations.  And I've still got some of their "experiments" in my freezer.

Below we are doing some addition with dominoes.  Nora sometimes wants to join right in and sometimes just plays on her own.  It's all up to her.

One day we experimented with various fall painting techniques.

We did a mini-unit on states of matter and did some cool explorations to demonstrate that air takes up space.

As part of the same states of matter unit, we all came up with different ways of melting an ice cube (inside a plastic bag) and then recorded how long each one actually took.  We arranged them from shorter to longer.

 We decided to make volcanoes.

 I have videos of them erupting.  They weren't as cool as I had hoped, but it was still fun.

 One of the major benefits of homeschooling is the amount of time we all get to spend together. 

Beer bottling?  That's a normal part of homeschooling, right?

 Evan matching upper and lower case letters.

 Anya working on a scooter that she designed and constructed with Steve.  It is for her doll, Kit.

Here's a photo to show what our couch room usually looks like.  Stuff all over the floor, projects being built, abandoned, fought over, knocked down, reconstructed, traded, etc.

This is a panorama photo I took to show our "office" which should probably be renamed something to do with school since it's where we do a lot of school-ey type stuff.  I don't know how well you'll be able to see it on the blog.  Someday I hope to do a post about our homeschooling schedule, or lack thereof.

One of Evan's many career aspirations is to be an airplane pilot.  Here he made his own plane.  Right now he only has one passenger, but there was room for all five of us to take a ride.

Here's a new addition to our family (no, not the bearded Amish man on his iPhone), the telescope.  Steve found it on craigslist.  We have only used it a handful of times so far, but Anya and Evan are both super interested in space, so it is great to have.

Okay, no, here's a real photo of what our couch room looks like.  Spilling over into everything else.  We sure do love to build stuff.  But clean it up?  Not so much.

 

I recently ordered a couple extra baby dolls on eBay.  Seriously, we did NOT need extra, we already have many extra.  But Evan frequently wanted to play with his sisters and wanted to take their baby dolls.  Not just any doll, they all prefer the same style of doll.  So, I just couldn't take it anymore and found one on eBay for him.  He thought it was pretty cool.  And now when he wants to join in, he doesn't have to steal his baby.  The eBay auction actually came with two dolls and I said the other one was going to be "my baby" for when I wanted to play with them.  But Nora has pretty much owned it ever since, although she still calls it "mommy's baby."

M&M Counting book

Space craft are frequently built around here these days.  Here Evan drew his plan the night before because he didn't have time to build it and didn't want to forget.

Ready for take-off!

Nora has become suddenly interested in drawing.  She went from scribbling only occasionally to drawing faces, people, rainbows and trying to write letters.  She also learned to use scissors.  I wish I had taken a video or photo of the day she first learned.  She was so proud of herself and could NOT STOP CUTTING!!!

Nora's most favorite activity is still caring for her babies.  It is adorable.

 Ready for another launch.  I've got video of a few launches that I might be able to put up here sometime.

We took our first (why haven't we been here before?!) visit to Homer Lake.  I have tons of outdoor photos to sort and post, but for now, here's two from inside - building a large bird nest and playing the "Scat Game."

Evan and Nora frequently get up before Steve and I are up and ready, so they will often go downstairs and play together.  This particular morning, Anya was also up and when I came down they were all sitting on the couch and Anya was reading a Magic School Bus book to them.  Priceless.

Life isn't always science experiments and snuggling on the couch.  We have lots of boring moments, lots of fighting, and lots of cleaning up.  But we really are having a good time together and I hope you've enjoyed seeing a little bit of our lives.