Thanksgiving School and Playground

It's that time of year when I am especially glad to be homeschooling as we switch from our usual schoolwork to school that focuses on the season. This week we are doing "Thanksgiving school"- learning about the holiday and the history but having the most fun with Thanksgiving food science: cranberry structures, popcorn popping experiments and making butter from cream.

And we are taking advantage of the warm-ish weather to spend as much time outside as we can!

Fun Photos

A Week of Weather

This week we finished up our "pre-holiday" school with a mini-unit on the Earth and weather. 

MiniM.E. learned all the continents and oceans and we made models of the inside of the Earth.

We made water cycles in bags:

We made cloud paint:

By far the best activity was clouds in cups:

Now on to a week of Thanksgiving studies, a week of break, and MiniM.E.'s favorite time of year: Christmas School!

Hello November!

Good start to the month. Wednesday between LittleL.G.'s dance class and MiniM.E.'s class there was Dia de los Muertos cookie decorating in the library. MiniM.E. was excited to have some background knowledge about the holiday.

Thursday we decided to swing by the renovated West Side Rec and couldn't have been more impressed. We were worried about missing our favorite "merry go round" but they really improved the place! It even has a zip line!

Friday we went to Wilton Wildlife for a cool and rainy storytime on the road. It definitely required post-event ice cream.

learning the skeleton dance

Yesterday we had ice skating and went back to Wilton Wildlife for a nature walk and craft, then today we went up to the World Awareness Children's Museum for their Day of the Dead celebration.

rowing

So Much Halloween

Halloween started on Saturday for us when we took our costumes on a test drive downtown to Saratoga's Fall Festival.

It has been a yearly tradition and we were lucky to have beautiful weather this year.

The girls had their faces painted:

And wore their costumes. Even BabySlimJim happily dressed up. 

There was a concert on Beekman Street we stopped at first.

 

And we had to hit up the pumpkin rolling!

It was a big day to start the Halloween festivities!

Monday we finished up our Day of the Dead unit in school.

Then we carved pumpkins.

 The girls drew their designs and we helped cut.

 On Halloween we did some fun and festive science projects

 

 

And went trick or treating with our neighbors. I think this is the first year both girls really enjoyed trick or treating, staying out til almost 7:30 even though it was chilly!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!