Can we start school tomorrow?

Everyone woke up feeling much better today.  No fevers, more energy and appetites returned.

The negative - with the disruption of our trip and not being able to play with friends since they were sick - the kids were bored.  We ran a few errands to get out of the house but they were still bored.

Finally, in the afternoon, the question came - "Can we start school tomorrow?"

I was surprised but not all the shocked.  Even though the kids complain some days about doing school they still like the routine of having something to do and learning.  Since we hadn't been doing school for a couple weeks they were ready to get back to it.  With a few days of having some prep time I was ready to start school - my plans were made, the materials were ready, school supplies purchased and labeled and the classroom had been cleaned for a new year.

In the late afternoon, the girls did a free online book club.  The woman is going through the Magic Tree House books so we have already read them so it was easy to just show up online and participate.  We learned about Native Americans and bison.  The girls also decided they wanted to do the next book.  So we pulled it out and started rereading it.  The woman has several activities to do with the book.

I told the kids we would start school the next day - 2 days earlier then planned.  They were excited.

2 More Teeth Out

Cairn had 2 more baby teeth pulled today to make room for her permanent teeth.  She struggled immediately afterwards but by Book Club time she was fine.

Before the teeth were pulled.

We dropped Cairn at Book Club and then Skylar, Andrew and I headed to the park to play.  I can't believe how mild this winter has been.  Loving it!!  Summer will be dry and hot though.

Museum and Book Club

Today, we were up and ready to head out the door with N and C to hit the Museum of Nature and Science.  We got there by 9:15 AM, ready for some slow, not to many people yet time in the museum.  It didn't turn out that way.  As we were pulling into the parking lot I saw a school bus leaving - really lots of kids already? We got inside and yep - there were lots of day camp kids in their all the same color shirts all over the museum.  OH well.

Since I had 5 kids with me they each picked an exhibit in the museum they wanted to see.  The plan was to see Space (Skylar's), Gems and Minerals (Cairn), Discovery Room (C), Health Expedition (N) and the Dinosaurs (Andrew).

We headed to Space first.

 Shortly, after we got inside the exhibit, N was running around like crazy, not really looking at anything.  I told him that I expected him to learn a lot of things today.  He gave me the "Sigh" and I said, "Don't worry it will be easy."  Off he ran.  A couple minutes later, he came back and asked me what is a meteor and I said let's find someone to ask.  The first guy we found didn't know - that didn't help me at all so we found a kiosk that was describing meteors and meteorites.  He asked away and found out the difference.  He thought that was pretty neat.

 All the kids learning about Spectroscopy - heat helps bend the lights.

 Before we left the exhibit, I had the kids sit down and draw something they had learned or something they wanted to remember.  Cairn drew the Mars Canal because she learned that scientists believe that water used to be on Mars.  N drew a meteor, while he was drawing he asked me if meteorites are called meteorites if they land on another planet.  We walked back to the Meteor kiosk and asked - yep, they are still called meteorites.  Did you know that Saturn is just gases?  Scientists don't think that there is much of anything solid in Saturn.  I didn't - N did and the kiosk lady did - I was corrected.  N thought that was the neatest thing that he knew something that I didn't know.  C drew Earth with yellow stars.  I asked her if all stars are yellow.  She said yes so off we went to find someone to ask.  We found a man who told us that stars are different colors based on their temperature.  C found that very interesting.  Skylar drew the Big Dipper and Andrew drew spectroscopy lights.

 Next, we headed to Gems and Minerals.  N told me that diamonds can be lots of different colors so off we went to find out.  Diamonds occur in a variety of colors — steel gray, white, blue, yellow, orange, red, green, pink to purple, brown, and black, virtually in every color of the rainbow.

Everyone else wanted to find out the difference between a gem and a mineral.

 After the gem exhibit, we went to the Discovery Room to play.  First, the kids learned about water displacement, Andrew played with the magnets and learned about north and south poles.

 Skylar and C went off to build.

 Then Andrew and N went digging for fossils.

 Then the 3 of them went building with the big blocks.

 The girls kept building.

 After the Discovery Room we went to the Exhibition Health where the kids learned how their bodies worked.  We actually went through pretty fast - everyone was getting hungry for lunch.

So we took a break from learning to eat some lunch.

 Then we headed outside to complete some of our drawings.  N worked really hard on each of his drawings.  He made sure to label where he was, what he drew and what he learned.

 Finally, we made it to the dinosaurs.  Andrew was thrilled.  He loved looking at all the bones.  We learned about a couple of injuries on some of the dinosaurs.  We had never noticed the injuries before.  The scientists have speculated what happened but of course we will never know.

 After the dinosaurs, we went to show N and C some of the hidden elves and we drew some more pictures.

Finally, we headed home for 10 minutes before we had to leave to take Cairn to book club.  N and C went with us to hang out at the library.  I don't think they have spent much time at the library, they didn't really know what to do.  They quickly grew bored.  Skylar and Andrew were doing their usual - playing computer games and reading books.  They love the hour of hanging out in the library without being rushed anywhere.

After the library, we took N and C home, I told their stepsister to keep them home until 6 PM so my kids could have dinner and a break from all the action.  At exactly 6 PM, the doorbell rang and we were back outside playing with N and C.  Dad took them to the park while I stayed home and worked.

A busy but fun day.