Tuesday, April 5th was our last Native American Architecture class. The kids finished making accessories for the village, then set it up. They had hoped to do several longhouses, and have a Lenape village and a Haudenosaunee village, but the wigwams took longer than anticipated, and only half a longhouse got built, so they displayed them together... each child talked about what he/she built, and what they learned in the class.
Wednesday was a library day. Thursday we did some bird watching, enjoyed the spring sights in our garden, did some BrainPOP, read more library books, read some Tumblebooks online, and did our Illustration Friday project. Here's some of what we saw in our yard:
Friday was Science Class at SMLI, where the kids learned about marine animals, and even dissected a squid! Wish Mikro had a camera with him for that...
We had a quiet weekend at home, ran errands, enjoyed the sunshine, and played some basketball. Mikro and Kev did some circuit building, and talked about designing a robot.
Monday and Tuesday were academics at home. Lots of math, stories about Japan, some botany and some online stuff-- BrainPOP and Tumblebooks... Tuesday we were supposed to do an online science class, but I got a call from "Mommy's Sister Lilo" as Mikro calls one of my four sisters from other mothers, and miraculously she was free and we could get free by skipping the web class (which will be available as a replay), so we made hay while the sun shined (and shine it did, an awesome bright 75 degrees F day here!) and headed up to visit her, and enjoy her nearby park together. The park critters also took advantage of the spectacular day. We saw tons of birds and several frogs. Mikro attempted to catch one by jumping into the creek with his shoes on... Later I found his crocs in the back of my car. We took a long walk and enjoyed ourselves immensely. Finally, good weather and an opportunity to go be in nature! Seeing my dear friend was wonderful as well.
That evening, Kev showed Mikro a prototype for a robot arm, cobbled together from a bit of broken umbrella, a piece of a fighter jet, and his Arduino kit (and a box of Tic Tacs to hold the arm up so it would clear the plastic tray it sat on...)
Today we finished a huge pile of library books, dragged them back and read more there, then managed to come home netting out with one more library book than before. Good stuff found and enjoyed. And for National Library Week, Mikro got to make himself a bookmark, and color some spring coloring pages. My fine motor challenged kid did a great job coloring. There is real improvement happening, and best of all, he enjoyed it and kept wanting to do more. Before this year, he never wanted to color, paint, draw or write. Now he really has fun with all of them, especially drawing and painting.
