A Day in the Life

Wednesdays are a favorite around here. It's the one day a week that we can dedicate time for special projects, activities, additional lessons, reading, etc. since the only planned thing for the day is youth group and that doesn't take place until evening.

Today started out with a leisurely breakfast over which we listened to a podcast from Brave Writer (our favorite new podcast to listen to!) and then we started a new lesson in math which meant we watched Mr. Demme present the topic via video. Zoey got it right away and finished her work in math and then moved on to science. In physical science for the next few weeks she is covering content surrounding the periodic table, and since she loves the periodic table (and has studied it on her own quite a bit already), I thought it would be fun to make it a bit more meaningful. In addition to the Oak Meadow lessons she will be working on and completing an Elemental Journal, watching videos on the elements and even creating little elemental tiles using modeling clay and doing little mini breakout experiments here and there. Ethan helped us hook up my laptop to our TV using a HDMI cord and we now can watch our school videos on a big screen which may sound funny, but is making things even more fun.

After science we took a break for lunch and then Zoey practiced guitar for close to an hour. Her guitar teacher is giving her more and more challenging pieces to tackle which means there is a bit of frustration here and there, but she keeps on working through it and the pay-off has been great. Probably watching her progress in guitar this year has been the most rewarding thing for me to observe as a parent. She went from not even knowing how to read sheet music to playing actual music and chords. So amazing.

The rest of the afternoon will be for free reading, free time and just plain enjoying the afternoon sun that has decided to make an appearance today. Like I said earlier, her youth group meets this evening for three hours so a bit of free time is nice before heading to that.

Thursday and Friday are library days, which means she has work time scheduled in for working on her literature and writing assignments, vocab, etc. This week Thursday also starts her additional dance class which is her Modern/Contemporary class that meets before her Ballet/Pointe class.

Slowly we are getting things finalized for next year's studies and we are so excited! We've already changed some things up from our original pre-planning blog posts. Ha ha! You shouldn't be surprised.

Enjoy your afternoon!

A Fun Fungi Adventure Hike!

We are so lucky to have so many resources available to us here where we live when it comes to life-learning environments. Today there was a foraging fungi hike hosted at Kemp Natural Resources Station with Cora Mollen and Anne Small of Northstate Mycological Club. It was free for anyone interested and you were to bring your own basket and a knife if interested in bringing home any specimens found. I knew we had to go!

We were tickled to discover that some friends were planning on going as well and it worked out perfectly to go together since Zoey had just spent the night at this friend's house the night before (for a back to school party...so, if they look tired, it's because they are!). 

It was a bit of a rainy, soggy and damp day which is actually pretty perfect weather for mushroom hunting!

I really wish that I had thought to bring something to record with, we saw so many specimens and I couldn't recall everything once I was back at the car after hiking and chatting for over two hours. 

It was so neat to have such a range in ages all partaking in this activity. This was our small group...there were two groups of about - 10-12 people and we split up in the woods to see what we could find and then we all met back at the pavilion and shared our finds and talked about what things were, characteristics of different specimens, etc.

I was excited to find the one pictured below which is called, Hygrocybe Conica or the Witch's Hat mushroom! Very fun!

And someone else found what they call Witch's Butter...

These are our finds that we ended up bringing back home.

I honestly cannot think of a better way to spend some free time! Out in the woods, learning, having fun with friends! Life doesn't get much better! 

Berry Picking!

Zoey and I were lucky to have a beautiful afternoon and nothing pressing to do, so we headed out to find some blackberries.

We found a new spot with a ton that are ripe already and there are many more on there way to being ready, so we'll have to be sure to make it back in the near future.

I'm thinking tomorrow I'll bake a sponge cake so we can enjoy it with our freshly picked berries and whip cream!

We also found some new (to us) little spots near the water which we explored a bit.

It was so private and quiet here...loved it! We'll have to go back once we start having fall colors.