5th grade has been studying cells. Today she looked at skin cells from her hand. To prepare her slides, she scraped cells from the palms of her hands, from her finger tips and from under her nails. We placed the specimens on slides with a drop of water and slide covers. These are drawings of what we saw:



Let's just say that when we saw what was under her fingernails that we all said a dramatic, "EEEWWWWW" and discussed again the importance of hand washing and not biting our fingernails.

Science...Weather Permitting

10th grade has a science project to look at pond water through the microscope. I knew about this project from the beginning of the school year, but I thought it was later in the school year. If you have seen the pictures from my post, Recess, then you know that getting pond water would be very difficult for us right now. LOL! Luckily, I have a relative that lives "down South." They have promised to send us some, but we shall see.

I told 10th grade that he can always tell his teacher that he tried to do his assignment, but it froze!

Recess

Preschool

My preschooler loves to come to school. In fact, I had only intended for him to do about 1 ½ hours, Monday through Thursday, but when I would tell him he was done, he would cry and beg to stay in “sule.” So while I do not like doing too many worksheets for the little guy, I have had to bump up his table work as he wants to be like the big kids.

This is our preschool program:

Brightly Beaming Steps to Reading Program

My 5th grader loves being the “teacher” for him. She studies her curriculum and finds books in our library that cover the weekly theme. I find other resources and coloring pages using: tlsbooks.com, Enchanted Learning, and BeginningReading.com. I am amazed to watch him learn and sometimes even more amazed watching her “teach”. He has a Spiderman table and chair set, a drawer for his school supplies and loves having a “sule” folder for his “wurhk”.

He uses stacking blocks, play dough (a favorite) math manipulative and lap books from Tot School. Recently he has enjoyed doing nature drawings, listening in on the Rosetta Stone Spanish curriculum and singing karaoke.

The Party Is Over!

We start back to school on Monday as many of you will also. The crew is not very excited about it...but such is life. I hope to post some of our nature pictures from our vacation.

Our Thanksgiving

My immediate family is pretty small... Mom, Dad, 1 younger brother and myself. All of my extended family live out of state and we just don't get together like we used to. About 6 years ago, I asked my then 10 year old what he wanted for thanksgiving dinner and he jokingly said, "grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries" our then favorite meal. We kinda looked at each other and thought, hmmmm. And so our family tradition began. Believe me, I have heard much criticism about it, but it's what we like and it is fun and the kids love it and so do I.

10th grade likes his sandwhiches on the dark side.



I like mine a bit lighter.



The stars of the show.


A carrot and cucumber ribbon salad.


Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was peaceful.

A Shock to the System

We left this...

for this...

all within 48 hours.

My daughter was so happy to have little girls to play with this year. Usually, there are only little boys and I won't even tell you her opinion on little boys. LOL!

Peace