Yesterday we went on a field trip to the Historical Museum, again. We love that place. We were going to go with Katie's family, but they were having a Jonah day. We ended up bringing Annie's friend from Friday school with us. Thanks to our new Suburban we were able to fit everyone, plus the groovy new double stroller. Oh, yeah. We bought a Suburban. Its new to us, not really new. The Odyssey was great, but not cutting it, space wise. Annie was squished, and she is tiny, so it would only get worse as everyone gets bigger.

We got started a little late, due to me forgetting how long it takes to load kids in a car, fill up a huge gas tank, and then go back home again for the car insurance stuff I inadvertently tossed out of my bag. Annie has a very patient friend though, so no worries.

We arrived with the rain and thunder so we went and played in the museum. After it stopped we wandered around in the different buildings. There were two different farm houses, a school house, an ice house, a blacksmith shop, two barns and several animal pens. The sheep were out and followed the girls.

The older girls ran ahead and did their thing while I followed behind with Laura and Adam. Laura walked at her own pace, noticing birds and ducks and cows.

I am finding that when kids lead, they learn best. I don't believe Laura has ever heard birds before. Emma noticed that the goose in the water was calling to the goose on top of the gazebo. The peacock was squawking at anyone who would pay attention to it. The chickens were all missing feathers on their backs in the same spot. The cows were hanging out in their shelter away from the rain. And the sheep are not the smartest animals.
It was a good field trip.

We came home and Annie finished her history pocket activity on plantations. Emma is learning the concept of multiplication. She did some butterfly math. If there are 16 wings, how many butterflies are there? She wrote that 4x4= 16 so there must be 4 butterflies. She did 6 of those, then did her regular math sheet. We are going slowly to make sure she masters the concept. We went too fast earlier on other ideas and had issues, so I have been learning too.

We have to give back the curriculum we are finished with this Friday. That means we have until Thursday night to finally correct all those science tests. I am pretty sure they are all A papers, but still, its the principle of the thing.
We are keeping math to do over the summer, and art and Spanish for next year. Everything else is going back.
One of the complications of schooling the way we do is that we have 4 days to fit in 5 days worth of work, because the kids are at school on Fridays. Its not a huge deal, we just don't finish math during the school year. I think it works better in some ways, because we just go at their pace. We also won't have all the loss of learning that can happen over the summer.

Our butterflies are ready to be released today. Thank you so much Nelson Family for a Christmas gift that can be enjoyed so thoroughly.