Happy Halloween!

Halloween is just too late of a holiday for me....I'm more of a Christmas morning type of girl. Joaquin, Diego, and I came back to the house about an hour earlier that the rest of the crew. It's okay, Isabela will share, right?

Boo anyone?

chippokes plantation farm

Last Thursday, we went to a homeschooler event at Chippokes Plantation Farm. Yes, I bravely drove by myself all the way to Surry County with four kids under age six! (We took our friend Samantha with us.)

So it started off a little slow...the old "this is how you make cotton thread from a cotton plant" routine. We've done that many times now, and we're no better at it than the first time we ever did it. Then they showed us a little about how peanuts are grown. That was interesting to me, but not so much the kids. However, she did make up a batch of fresh peanut butter for them to taste.

Then we took a little break and pet a fake horse while we were waiting for the hayride to come around.


This is an osprey nest that our guide pointed out along the way. It was huge, but no one was home at the time.


Then we learned about sorghum. I'd heard the word before, but never knew what it was. We got to pick our own canes....


...strip off all of the leaves...


...then do the work of a mule....walking in a circle while pushing this board... which pressed them through the machine to get the syrup out of them. We tasted some cookies made with sorghum syrup...the kids were not impressed.


The next station was about corn. We learned how this corn picker machine worked.


Did you know that every ear of corn has an even number of rows on it? And that each silk is connected to one of the little pieces of corn on an ear? And each silk must be pollinated for each little piece of corn to grow on an ear? That's a lot of pollination! They also told us that corn as we know it today does not exist in the wild, and must be planted by humans to grow.


They got to turn the crank to get all the corn off their ears.


Here's Samantha getting her turn.


There were lots of old machines and farm equipment all over the grounds.


At the end, we got to pet some farm animals...donkeys, alpacas, goats, and sheep.



It was great to spend the whole morning outside and trying lots of things we'd never done before. Afterwards, I asked them to tell me something they learned that they didn't know before....Joaquin's answer: I didn't know living on a farm was so much work!

boo in the zoo

This past weekend, we went trick or treating at the National Zoo with Uncle Shep and Aunt Beth. They live close enough to walk! It was cool to be there after dark, although most of the animals were sleeping. The Redskins cheerleader costume went over well there....and I'm still surprised people are pointing at Joaquin's costume (walmart, $12)....I thought everyone was going to be Darth Vader this year.


They had the place decorated with lots of spooky lights.


And look at this haul!


Here it is all sorted. This is way more than we'll get on Halloween. Thank God some of it is healthy, like apples and popcorn.


The kids woke up the next morning wanting to go back in the daytime to see the animals. So since we were up there....I gave in. And it was completely different the second time around in the day. We saw the panda eating, not sprawled out upside down sleeping.


And lots of decorations we couldn't see in the dark.




This monkey came over to say hello...maybe he smelled our chips. But I thought he might pee on us or something so we backed away.


Getting a sip with a tiger.


Head lock on a TRex.


Taking a break in a TRex footprint.


Yes, I had to stop him from climbing the LION wall, if you can believe that.

dia de los muertos

We tried this fun craft yesterday, which helped reinforce the idea of symmetry. Whatever you drew on one half of the skull, you had to draw on the other side as well. I was only going to have them make one, but they didn't want to stop, so we ended up making a string of them to hang in the window. You can read more about this holiday here. They make a great Halloween decoration, too.

monsters and more

So I thought we'd go to the bull riding expo at the Bass Pro Shop for our fun outing Saturday. That was the original plan. Then I remembered the Lowe's build. And as I was cleaning my purse out of junk before we left, I pulled out the library flyer showing the Mad Science Lab was there today. So the day was set.

The kids have gotten really good at these builds. I saw another mom who's kids were a little younger and they were crying. It reminded me of our first time, trying to help two kids hammer nails at the same time. Now they can pretty much do it on their own.



But the Mad Science Lab was definitely the hit of the day! And I've recently discovered that science experiments are one thing that will hold Joaquin's attention for some time. The mad scientist did spooky experiments with fire breathing dragons, crystal balls and spiders.
FYI...if you want to attend a library event but haven't registered, don't worry. Just go anyway. Usually people that have registered don't show up, and they'll let you in. We never register.


And the Bass Pro Shop, which I was SO excited about was pretty much a flop. The activities weren't that organized, the workers could have showed a little more enthusiasm. I thought they'd have one of those fake bulls to ride, but no. There was a lone cowboy signing autographs, but his table was empty. They did get to emboss a leather keychain to take home.
Here they are trying to lasso a bull. Joaquin accidently lassoed himself!


It's a lot harder than it looks.

going batty!

We took a trip to see the bat exhibit at the Science Museum today, since we'd been reading about them.


We yelled into these caves to hear how echos change depending on the distance.


And these ears helped us to hear like a bat.


But check out their buttons!! This was the highlight of the trip. They both ate a chocolate covered cricket...just for a free button! These kids will do anything for a trinket.

a penny earned

But who wants dirty pennies? Yesterday, we did a science experiment to clean them....apparently we've all done this before, even my kids. "Oh, we did this at school last year." Well, I never heard about it.


Sorry, JP, we used your toothbrush!


So I thought I'd try to introduce some new words like hypothesis.

Kids: "Oh, we know hypothesis."
Me: "How?!!!"
Kids: "On Dinosaur Train. They talked about a hypothesis on Dinosaur Train."

I give up. Should I just let them watch tv all day, or what?

But they were pleasantly surprised at how shiny they got with the lemon juice and salt, so we proceeded to clean all our pennies...good as new!

genius?

I sat Diego on a blanket with some toys he'd never played with before. I was busy doing something and the kids were playing army men nearby when he made a little fuss. I turned around to see the toys in a perfect circle around him. I asked if the kids had done that and they said no. So I messed them up and moved them closer to him. And sure enough, in a few minutes he fussed again, and there they were in a circle again. What do you think?

strawberry shortcake

Today we read this cute book about a rooster that makes a strawberry shortcake.


And we had to try it for ourselves. This was our desert tonight. Yes, that's real whipped cream. I might have lost a pound trying to whip it up with my whisk. There are still a few pieces left, but I'll probably finish those off tomorrow.

thou shalt not steal

I saw Joaquin putting something in his pocket at Walmart the other day. I, of course, had him pull it out and put it back...it was chapstick. Well, it turns out that there were really two in his pocket! And through some convoluted story told by both him and Isabela later at home, they were both responsible for it.

Juan Pablo and I talked about the importance of not taking other people's things and paying for what you want and blah, blah, blah....and it was still bothering me later that day. I was having visions of orange jumpsuits in the future.
We've actually been having this problem at home. Joaquin would run into Isabela's room and take something out and hide it in his room. A not so fun game that really leads to the art of stealing. Don't play this at home!

So, I told the kids that evening that I'd been thinking about it, and they would have to write a letter to Walmart apologizing and also we would go back up there and pay for it with money from their piggy banks.
The letter said, "I'm sorry. I must pay for the things that I want." Joaquin wanted to just draw a picture, but I said NO you need to write this letter. And he did. It was almost legible I might add. Isabela wrote the same thing and we drove up to Walmart. We were all nervous...I wasn't sure how the manager would react...would I be carted off to jail anyway?
It turns out the manager was a young woman who seemed to not have kids just by her reaction, or lack there of. After they paid for the chapstick, I told them to say sorry one more time, and she did add, "Don't ever do that again because you could get in a lot of trouble."

I felt much better afterwards. And I think the kids did, too. They were glad I didn't have to go to jail. I hope it will be a lesson they can remember. And I hope we don't get chapped lips this winter!

S is for seal

*sparkler, too!*


We made these neat seal lairs after learning how they build their caves between the ice of the ocean and the snow that's on top.



To go along with this lesson, Joaquin has gotten croup, the barking seal cough. Not what you want to have happen after you've planned a trip out of town, but at least we're learning, right?

temple of doom

The Mid-lothian Mines Park had guided tours last Saturday. It's a really cool park which we'll have to go back to another day. But we came upon these old structures which looked just like Indiana Jones to me.



It is built on an old coal mine. I told them, "You know, where Santa gets the coal for your stocking."


And I always like to take a picture when I use the Baby Bag, since I don't use it that much. Definitely a good choice since the path is mostly gravel. This was our second time on a school bus this year, too, since there was satellite parking.