Unusual Junction
I’m sure that in my childhood, we did a few things more often than stop at the Unusual Junction on the way to visit my aunt. For some reason though, the memories of going there really stuck with me. I thought it was the coolest place ever because not only was it a train, but it was a bunch of little stores in each of the boxcars with fun things kids loved to look at and beg their parents to buy.
This year my aunt hosted a Christmas party at her house, so on our way over, I had to take the kids to see the coolest place ever! Part of me was really scared to go though, since it had been such a long time since I had seen it. I didn’t want it to not be how I remembered it and then ruin all my memories of it. But, I wanted to go badly enough that we chanced it.
So, it was almost as cool as I remembered. Sadly, they closed the shops in the train cars, so you couldn’t go in those anymore. However, they moved the train whistle into the main shop and the kids had lots of fun playing with that.
I’m glad we took the time to stop!
Orton Geological Museum
The beginning of January was the end of our earth science section of Blazer’s science curriculum for this year. To celebrate, Papa Bear joined us for an afternoon at the Orton Geological Museum. It’s located at his Alma Mater OSU in the Oval.
The building next door.
Enjoying the spring weather in January.
We finally arrive!
Such a pretty building.
Hello. I'm a giant ground sloth. What's your name?
For as small as it was, they certainly packed in lots of cool stuff to look at.
Meteorites!
After spending some time in the museum, we decided to walk down to the pond. It really was a beautiful day for January!
On our way home, we decided to keep Racer & Miss C up through nap & lay them down for an earlier bedtime. However, once we got home & settled in, they all had other ideas.
We still got an early bedtime out of all of them though. It was a really fun day!
Kid’s Book Club: January
This month’s book club was also a huge hit for the kids. The theme for this month was fairy tales and the mom picked out some really cute, humorous tales to share.
Listening attentively.
Even the moms are enthralled!
Miss C
After the stories, the mom brought some puffy paint for us to mix up & use. It’s made with equal parts glue & shaving cream. Use food coloring to give yourself a wide variety of colors. The kids all painted with Q-tips to make their masterpieces.
Racer mixing the paint.
Blazer with his finished project.
Close up.
Racer's finished project.
Miss C being gentle with the bay-bee.
Being so cute!
Month in Review: December 2011
This month was crazy with the reading! I have been working on putting together a book list for grades pre-K – 3rd pulling from the Core Knowledge Series, The Well-Trained Mind, Ambleside Online, Honey for a Child’s Heart, Books that Build Character and The New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children. As soon as I get it finished, formatted correctly & turned into an easily searchable database by title, author or subject, I promise I will share it! Now, onto our month.
Books read: Big Nate Strikes Again, The Essential Calvin & Hobbes, Jack & the Beanstalk, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, Horray for Amanda & Her Alligator, The Magic of Christmas, Your Pal Mo Willems Pressents Leonardo the Monster, Sally’s Christmas Miracle, Stranger in the Woods, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, The Adventures of Diaper Baby, The Drummer Boy, The Adventures of Shark Girl & Lava Boy, Big Nate & Friends, Garfield Gets Cookin’, The Nutcracker, Reindeer Christmas, Ninja Baseball, Animals in Winter, A Christmas Carol, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, Come Look With Me, Here’s to You, America, The Owl & the Pussycat, Count Your Way Through India, Popeye, Natural Resources & Polar Express
Places We’ve Been: Kids Book Club, Cincinnati Museum of Natural History, Sonlight meetup, Fun Friday with Friends, swim lessons, zoo class, church & zoo Wildlights. We were also all over the place with Christmas family get-togethers, but I didn’t count those toward school hours.
Despite this being December, we still racked in 96 hours of schooling this month, bringing our grand total to 461 for the year!
Zoo Class: Adaptation
Once a month Blazer has been taking a science class for homeschoolers at the zoo. This month’s theme was on Adaptation.
The zoo does such a fantastic job of being interesting & engaging for a wide variety of ages. They use a large screen and remote controls to ask questions and then the kids get to vote on their answer.
Here they are voting on what item the student volunteer should adapt.
After the 30 minute interactive lecture, the instructor brought out some animals for the kids to pet.
First the alligator
Racer went right up to pet it, Blazer wouldn't.
Blazer trying to be camouflaged.
Next, she brought out an armadillo.
Blazer had no problem petting the armadillo.
After the animal visits, we did an exploration on which adaptation birds would need in order to eat. They had set up 8 different table with 3 different tools at each station and then the child would pick the best tool & then see which bird’s beak was most similar to that tool.
Blazer using tweezers to pick rice up off a log.
Once all the activities were done, they went as a class over to visit the rhino’s and elephants. The animals were being cleaned when we first arrived, but we got to see them back in time to eat.
The zookeeper put out the fruit before letting the elephants back in.
The zoo does such a fantastic job on their educational programs! I can’t wait to go to next months.
Preschool: Bodies
Racer has been enjoying having his friend come over once a week & do preschool with him. I’ve also enjoyed getting together consistently with another mom and sharing resources. One week we learned about bodies and had the kids make a life-size model of themselves and their body parts.
Racer thought this was so cool!
His friend was also quite taken with it.
Cincinnati Museum of Natural History
Blazer has been studying Earth Science this semester and to add another dimension to his learning we thought it would be fun to visit a Natural History museum. So, off to Cincinnati we went!
Our COSI membership only allowed us to visit one of the three museum’s in this museum center. But it took the whole day, so it ended up being fine. The first part we explored was the indoor cave replica and the different types of rocks. It was so dark in the cave I couldn’t get any pictures, but Racer became a tour guide for it as he went through seven times. He would warn us to “watch your step here” or “and over here is the waterfall”. Blazer was much more apprehensive and only went through once.
The second part was an Ice Age journey. The exhibits were very interactive with a computer game where visitors could re-create Ice Age animals by matching their bones. This exhibit was also a little old for my kids. Kids 10 and older would probably learn a lot from it! I’m not sure how much the kids learned, but they had a great time. Especially at the dinosaur play table at the end of the exhibit.
The last part of this particular museum was a progress station. They had exhibits on everything from recycling to solar energy to the first steam engine. Blazer enjoyed that exhibit that most. And Racer & Miss C were able to play in the sandbox especially for kids 6 and under.
For all the exhibits the museum sponsored a scavenger hunt with a list of 7 questions we could answer as we walked through the museum. If you answered any correctly you could go to the trading post and buy different items with your points. Blazer was able to get 3 colored rocks with his winnings.
December Book Club
The kids went to a book club with the ECHO group at the beginning of December. We read:
and
After we read “Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep” the hostess had the kids pretend to be hibernating bears. First they had to build the cave:
Then, the had to find their food.
Next, they could take it back to the cave and go to sleep.
The “Lights Out” book was pretty amazing. It’s a pop-up book that you read with the lights out and a flashlight. The shadows made from the pop-ups make the story move. After the book, the hostess had the kids make shadow puppets on the wall.
The book club is tons of fun for the kids and gives them the chance to connect over similar interests with the other kids. Such fun! 
Deck the Halls
I am a horrible blogger. I take a bunch of pictures and have a bunch of blog post ideas and then I leave them all on my phone/in my head until the end of the month when I think “oh no! I have to document all this stuff we did before it’s too outdated!” So, my apologies for my post dumps this week as I catch up!
We had lots of fun decorating for Christmas this year. We got some wall stickers and then kids literally decked the halls with them.
Our tree is decorated with a special ornament I get from Bronner’s in Frankenmuth, MI every year when I go with most of the women in my family. It’s a great time for shopping & I try to get something that reflects an accomplishment or a new hobby that was finished/started within the year. Papa Bear and the boys were a great help in getting the lights fixed.
We turned on Christmas music through Pandora and had a dance party around the tree. It was great fun!
Racer loves playing in front of the tree & watching the lights.
