Week 15 - Family Time, Money Math, Archery and Massachusetts

So we had a pretty busy week since my last post.  Lydia had riding lessons.  She is getting used to a new horse, since her normal riding horse cannot go to Quarter Horse Congress.  Faith has been presenting a few challenges to her.

All the kids had to go, since Joe's flight was cancelled the night before.  But Caty loves playing with all the kittens there.

 Then we picked up Daddy at home and headed to his sister's house to go out on their boat and play at the lake with them.

 It was a lot of fun!!

 

Even though it's not the ocean, I still enjoyed sitting on the beach watching the gentler waves come up on shore.

The next day we headed out for a family day in the Sandusky area.  A friend of mine had just been at this train museum a few days before.  I didn't even know the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum existed.  Since Brayden Loves trains, we thought this would be a great place to take them all.

It was super hot!!  But we enjoyed walking around and looking at all the exhibits they had to offer.

This is the bell from Abraham Lincoln's funeral train.  What a piece of history!!

 And then we took them to a smaller local indoor waterpark.  Joe and I were terribly upset with this hotel and waterpark, but the kids still had fun.

 They loved the bunk bed room.

Someone had a freshly emerged Monarch butterfly.  They were showing the girls.  Very nice family!

We had a lot of themed meals and snacks this week to go with our History and Geography study.

This week in Geography we learned about Massachusetts.  So We made cornbread (very much a staple in what we read about the Northeast region) and it's canned Clam chowder.  I didn't take the time to make homemade this week.  I was lazy...lol.  But the cornbread was homemade.

Caty does not eat clams.  Does not like them.  So she had cornbread and milk, which I always thought was a southern treat, but really is a famous Northeast treat also.

We also made wanna-be Wahlburgers.  When we went to Boston January, we ate at the famous Wahlburgers.  I watch their TV show all the time and love it. So we had giant burgers and tater tots in honor of our visit to Boston.  I even made a special spicy sauce for those that wanted it.

Caty made Toll House cookies because these chocolate chip cookies were created at the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts.

Lydia also made Boston Creme Pie.  It didn't turn out as well as we hoped.  We followed a new recipe.  It wasn't great.  Look forward to trying this again with another recipe.

In history we finished up our Native American study.  We learned about the Southwest Region and the Northwest Coast Region.

I let them build Pueblos in Minecraft.

And Lydia (With help for the frying only) made Fry bread, and we made Native American tacos.

Lydia loved these and so did everyone else.

 Our last cooking project was salmon patties for the Northwest Coast tribes.  They were very yummy.

Our project for the Northwest Coast Region was to make a totem pole.  We learned about the various animals used and their meanings.  We watched a video on these historic storyboards.

We have seen newly carved poles when we visited the Smithsonian Native American Museum in DC.  They are very large and amazing to see.  It would be great to visit this park to see their carved poles and the preserved ones also.

I got the idea for the activity from Thomas Elementary Blogspot.  They watch a video on totem poles also:

Next week we start explorers, starting with the Vikings.

Lydia is chugging along in her Chinese.  I am surprised how quickly she is picking up on the characters also.  Watch for our upcoming review on Middlebury Interactive.

Lydia did a review on money counting skills so we got out our Buy It Right game.  She likes playing this one.

Caty finished up working on her place value through the hundreds and also started working on 3 digit addition with no regrouping.  She is really good in math.  She was being silly and I had to get a picture.  The direction was to write the smallest number using the ones given.  She laughed and wrote a zero.  She is being silly girl lately, just like Joey, always seeking a laugh.

Lydia started back to archery this week.  She loves going to archery class.  She was even more excited to find out that two of her good friends are enrolled in the same class!!

This adorable puppy stays at the Gun Shop where we go to Archery.  I love this puppy, so sweet!  She curled and and took a nap while we were there.

Friday night we went to the local school's football game to watch my nephew march in the band.  So proud of him and all his hard work.

The whole family was there.  even Grandpa and Grandma.

The week just stayed busier.....Caty started back to horseriding this week.  She takes lesson the same time as Lydia.

And then we took them to the local Aviation school in Toledo for their Open House.  They were giving free plane rides.

We were not sure how they would react, but they all have been asking what it is like to fly since Joe flies so much for work.  This would be their first time in the air.

They all loved it.

Lydia took my cell phone up and took pictures on their flight.

Caty got off the plane and say it was like seeing art.

We also had a couple trips to the library for books.  Lydia is reading more and so is Joey.  Brayden is still fighting me on reading time.  So I have one or two assigned chapter books, usually school topics for Geography and History, and one fun books he gets to pick from the shelf.  I have been indulging his love of Minecraft Books.  This week he has been reading a book from the newest Minion movie.  I am going with whatever works for him right now.  Caty and I are chugging along on her Mensa books list, our goal is to finish it by May.  Lydia is struggling a bit with Black Stallion.  She gets distracted very easily, so I am behind helping her with her online book club.  But we are trying this week to catch that back up.

We are all exhausted after such a whirlwind week.  Very ready to start a much calmer week this upcoming week.

Hope everyone had a great week and see everyone next weekend for an update.

Linking up with other moms at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers....