Snow Week

Like everyone else in our region we have been covered with snow and have been house bound. Now being housebound for us is a little challenging, but not at all unusual, we do after all homeschool. However, not being able to go to an activity or our Co-Op (see link for pictures from our co-op) was tough. Like every one else we had cabin fever, however we still had school to do.
So in between movies, and crafts and work sheets and books, we try to do things in creative ways when it comes to school to make things interesting and keep the kids motivated.

This tent and tunnel came in handy and was used for lots of exploration especially when fending off space aliens.

We had friends come over and keep us company.

They were so cute.

This poor little guy was so sick this week, he couldn't play in the snow at all, not that he probably would have liked it being over his head but he might have been OK if he stood on top. However because he had been wheezing we put him on a nebulizer treatments and gave him some steroids he was much better. Took him to the doctor for a follow up since his nose seemed be a wreck from the sickness, turns out he had an ear infection, never once did he complain about it. He loves Kaleigh's old back pack and Michael thought it would be funny to put him in it. He thought it was hysterical.


We have been studying the 1700's for a while now, we read through the first book of Felicity and American Girl series book (the girls really enjoy these books) but we expanded on that idea and took it to this. First we made our own paper (a gift from my mom for birthday many years ago).

You have to take paper shred it and put it in the blender with water.

Then you put it in the box with water to strain and mix (I can't really explain it, but its sits on a wire thing).

Then you put it on a surface and squeeze the water out and push all the paper pulp together.

Last step is to try it between two other thicker papers and squeeze out the excess moisture.
This is the final result, its a little stiff but it's fun.
Then we put indian markings on them (I wish we would have had costumes) to get them to pretend they were the colonist who were disguised when they were throwing the tea over into the harbor at the Boston Tea Party.

They really liked this part.
However once the king decided to institute the Intolerable Acts they decided to write their Rights and Grievances.

Each of the girls wrote about how they have a right to play and how they have a right to be heard (I thought those were pretty good).

Then we explained how the revolution began and here they are reenacting the Battle of Bunker Hill. (We'll be going to Boston in May so we will get to really see some of these thing in person).

Michael and Jaden were the British soldiers and the girls were the American's.

This part was a really big hit.

We also did some scrabble because not only does that help with vocabulary and spelling but we had the girls add up the scores for math. Jordan loved the game, Kaleigh liked it too but she got a little squirmy mid way through but she hung in there.

We had more fun with monopoly (which always works for counting money) and crafts for valentine's day.

We had some rough moments and we could not wait to get out of the house over the weekend, we went to a wedding yesterday (very low key but nice none the less) and now we are getting back to our routine. I feel bad for the kids who have to walk to the bus stop in our neighborhood because there are no sidewalks clear, when they plowed they dumped the snow on the sidewalks so I'm praying for them that they don't get hurt in the process, but as for us school goes on at Cole Academy.