Who Owns the Sun?

Last week we rowed Who Owns the Sun? by Stacy Chbosky. This book is out of print and really expensive, but I think I paid $1 for it a few years ago at a library sale. Our copy is a bit beat up, but for a dollar, I'm good with that! This is a story about a boy who discovers that someone owns him and his family.

We went to a program at the library on Henry "Box" Brown, a slave who escaped to freedom by mailing himself north in a crate. We watched the DVD of Henry's Freedom Box and got to see a replica of the box he used.

At home, we also read Barefoot and Freedom Song and we watched the Reading Rainbow episode for Follow the Drinking Gourd, a FIAR book we rowed last year.

This week we're going to take a field trip to a Civil War battle site!

What She Said

{the extraordinary duplo tower}

I really can't say it any better than Kelle Hampton did, so I'm sending you there.

I love that my kids are learning to find the ordinary so extraordinary. On the way home last night, both of them thanked me for such a great evening. What did we do? We ate the cheap pizza buffet and went to a program at the library.

The big boys played chess.

The little kids played.

It was pretty ordinary, but it was great.

Very Last First Time

After spending a couple of weeks in Antarctica, we headed up north to the Arctic for Very Last First Time.

Good grief. After messing around and trying to get all of these books in one picture, it doesn't even show up right. Oh, well. These are a few of the go-alongs we used. Jack spotted the Growing Up Arctic DVD at the library and it turned out to be great! It also has a penguin segment on it.

We used printables from HSS. (Jack's favorite memory with me was when we went to see Monsters Vs. Aliens.)

Yes, that's SpongeBob.

We also made these cute polar bears!

Mr. Popper's Penguins

We recently finished up a unit on Mr. Popper's Penguins! This unit is free at Homeschool Share!

These two books are great, too!

One day we tried walking like a penguin with a penguin egg. It was pretty hard!

Sister wanted to try, too.

One of the kids' favorite things was freezing little plastic penguins and then putting them in the bathtub. Jack had completely forgotten about doing this before.

We had these cute penguins for tea time one week.

We went to the zoo and we also rented the movie of Mr. Popper's Penguins. I was prepared not to like the movie, but it was really good, even if it was nothing like the book.

The Omaha Zoo has an amazing aquarium, but we couldn't check out their penguin cam since it's closed for renovations.

Some other great places to visit:

Homeschool Share's Mr. Popper's Penguins Pinterest Board

Penguin Show & Tell at HSS

Candace's Mr. Popper's Penguins Post at HSS

Penguin Mini Unit Freebie from The Teacher Wife

Fun Friday: Staying Home

{Photo by Jack}

Today we stayed home. I am really trying to be home more. This week we stayed home three days out of five, which is much more than we have been home in ages. It was wonderful.

We had a rocky start around 4:30, but after a pre-dawn nap, the kids worked on their secret valentines.

We got all our school work done and still had time for playing outside.

And Legos.

We also pondered a great mystery of the universe: How is it possible for a toddler to pee a whole puddle on the floor, but have completely dry sweatpants? Yes, Alice has decided she is ready for underwear. Hopefully her abilities will catch up to her confidence soon.

We also had the time to make some spoonbread, which was a favorite food of James Monroe, this week's president.

Things will be picking up again soon, but it was so nice to have so many days at home this week!

{Read more thoughts about being out and about in my post at MetroFamily!}

Happy Groundhog Day!

We've been enjoying the Groundhog Day books we got at the library! Maybe you don't consider a rodent coming out of a fake stump to predict the weather with 30% accuracy a major holiday, but I find that fun things make winter a little less blah.

We made groundhogs out of hearts.

Groundhog snacks have to be the most labor intensive snacks around. I think the one on the right looks more like Wilford Brimley than a groundhog. (That's supposed to be snow around the "dirt"--in case you couldn't tell.)

They were tasty, though!

See groundhog snacks and activities on my Groundhog Day Pinterest board!

February 1, 2012

It looked a lot different out the school room window today than it did a year ago! (And did you notice that I was able to score three Groundhog Day books from the library?!)

We've been having beautiful weather! Yesterday we went to the playground after PE.

It was marvelous. (If you've ever been around Alice, you will recognize that hands on the hips is her default position.)

Like last year, we did stay home all day today. Alice made beds for her babies on the stairs.

Jack put together a new Lego set. I love the look on his face.

We kicked off Valentine's Day festivities with notes in the mailboxes and cupcakes for tea time.

Happy Wednesday!