Our Week in Review: Including Releasing Butterflies & Family Movie Night

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Welcome to another “Week in Review!” This is where I journal all of Nourishing My Scholars homeschool adventures for the week. It is my hope that you will find encouragement, humor, and a friend here. We may be a bit different, as there is no schedule, or formal curriculum. This means we are eclectic. We do whatever works for our two children and follow their interests. Pull up a cup of tea or coffee…coffee for me please…and enjoy! This week includes releasing butterflies that we raised from caterpillars, a family movie night, shark science, and all of the fun we have living on the farm!

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Releasing Butterflies

We decided to raise butterflies this summer. If you haven’t done this before, I highly recommend it! The children LOVED watching the process of metamorphosis over the course of several weeks. This week was our final week with our Painted Lady Butterflies. We had raised them since they were teeny tiny caterpillars, but now they were ready to take flight into the unknown. The children released them on a cool evening in the garden. I completely forgot to take video of the release, but I did manage a couple of photos. In the days that followed we saw our butterflies fluttering around the porch, barn and garden flowers!

Chickens

Our Silkie chicks are almost full grown! We got them in April when they were 4 weeks old. It’s my understand standing that you’ll know if they are male or female when they either crow or lay an egg…. Well, this week we got to witness Mr. John Snow crow for the first time. I’m actually quite thankful he crowed, because it would have been awkward to have a hen named John Snow! The Silkies are such a fun breed of chicken. They are very docile and are totally fine with the children holding them. Our other flock of chickens are Ameraucanas and they are about a month older than the Silkies. The males have been crowing for 3-4 weeks now. This week we discovered our first light blue eggs in their nesting boxes! Yay for fresh eggs!

Gardening

Our garden is producing like mad this week. We harvested our first cantaloupe…which the kids both gave two thumbs up…and our tomatoes started rolling in. We are picking two and a half baskets every couple of days. My sister and I canned our first batch. Can I just say that I LOVE to eat tomatoes, but I dread peeling all of them.

Goats

Our two Nigerian dwarf goats, Marilla & Anne, are getting sweeter and sweeter as the days go by. However, they are the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met! They turn their noses up at corn, watermelon, goat cookies (yes we made goat cookies) and blueberries….but you know what they absolutely love? Dry goat food and Silver Maple leaves!!! Are you kidding me? We made cookies especially for them and they refused to eat them. The kids liked the cookies. The dogs liked the cookies. The chickens LOVED the cookies. The goats? Nope.

Family Movie Night

The kids had the best idea. They wanted to have a Family Movie Night complete with pizza. We were happy to oblige as we thought this was a fantastic idea too! Papa brought home pizza and the kids chose the family movie: E.T.

It was so fun to relive our childhoods with a classic like E.T. with our own children. Watching the anticipation and excitement on their faces…knowing E.T. was about to pop out of the bushes and scare Elliot and knowing that it would also make our children jump the same way it did us as children…just perfect. Afterwards the kids declared Family Movie Night a complete success. I think this will become a weekly tradition. Do you have weekly traditions like Family Movie Night or Family Game Night?

Painting, Shark Science, & other Academics

We LOVE stories and I’m so glad I get to pass on my love of books to my kids. Our son is a big fan of Audible and has almost finished The Complete Collection of Sherlock Holmes. He also read “Imagine a Dragon”, “Ticks: Dangerous Hitchhikers” and “Did Dinosaurs Have Feather?” This week the children asked me to read aloud “The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor” while they painted pictures for their Papa. Our son has become obsessed with sharks lately and this book touched on them briefly. He is taking a free online Shark class through Cornell University. I watched a video with him on Chondrichthian phylogenetics and we read about the Chondrichthian Tree of Life this week. My brain felt like mush afterwards, but he loved it. Here is a free website if you want to learn more about the Chondrichthian Tree of Life….because, you might think sharks are cool too!

We are doing a small amount of Khan Academy each day. With small increments of math daily our son is making progress in early math. He is 90% done with it and will then begin 3rd grade math soon. Asynchronous much? This kid is learning about phylogenetics but has yet to reach 3rd grade math? Let me tell you, kids don’t always learn in the way or in the time frame we think they should. It’s OK mama! Just keep doing your best and give them plenty of opportunities to learn.

Trip to the Library

We made our weekly family trip to the library and scored some wonderful books. Our son loaded down on more Shark books and a few others like the Witch of Blackbird Pond. While our daughter chose books on Bats, Cheetahs, and Sleeping Beauty…it’s all about balance, Folks! Afterwards the kids tried to out do each other in a friendly Lego Tower building competition. Our daughter declared herself the winner, ha!

Freedom and Growth

It’s so easy to get caught up in the comparison traps that lay before us as parents and as homeschoolers. We often worry that we are not providing as many hands on opportunities as Opal Opportunity does for her kids. Or that our children aren’t where they are supposed to be academically like Acada Academia’s children…. Hugs mama. Don’t compare your journey to anyone else. Your homeschool journey is as unique as your kids and your family are. Homeschool provides you with a freedom to do what is best for your children and guess what? We are all going to grow and evolve along the way. This is not a stagnant gig, Folks. What works this year may not work next year. What your children need to thrive and blossom today may change with the seasons. Enjoy the freedom your homeschool provides, be it raising butterflies on a farm or learning about Chondrichthian Family trees.