ABC's and Sweet Tea: Monday's Musings #1 What's been going on at Anchor Academy?

Well I've been wanting to do a post on the things we've been doing here at Anchor Academy, but it's just been crazy this past couple of weeks. We've been going and going, and then I started having back pain. Who has time for that?? Not this mom! Anyway, I needed a few days to just relax and not worry about anything but relaxing. Let's just say I gave it the old college try. It's very hard for me to do considering I hate to be still! Even though my back was hurting, the learning must go on! Here's the highlights of our week last week.

Last Tuesday, June 9th was Leeper Day! Leeper Day is the day Texas celebrates homeschoolers in honor of the Leeper vs. Arlington ISD court ruling back in 1994. This decision gave the parents the right to teach their children at home. I am extremely thankful of this because Texas is one of the most favorable states to homeschool in. We learn year round and I love the fact that we have the freedom and flexibility to do this in our great state!

Here are some of my people on Leeper Day!

We seemed to have a lot of projects and experiments this last week. These are my kids favorite things to do. If it includes glue, coloring, food color, or anything messy in general, they are IN.

In Science, which we are taking Physics and Chemistry this year, we have been learning about molecules. The kids got to do what I call a kitchen table experiment using Cheerios, water, milk, and oil....and food coloring.

So, they started with a bowl full of Cheerios to see how the molecules reacted, when we poured in milk. Of course they scattered, and moved around.

Next, we had to add water colored with food coloring to observe what happened to the molecules, and determine if they changed.

Finally, (their favorite) was adding oil to see the difference. This was definitely the most obvious of the 2 because oil and water do not mix. The water molecules attract water molecules, and the oil molecules attract oil molecules. They really enjoyed seeing the oil "float" on top of the water.

In history, we have been talking about the Pilgrims, and their voyage across the sea on the Mayflower. They are really enjoying this. Last year in history when we were studying ancient history, they were bored out of their minds. They hated it...I loved it. Oh the struggle!! The fact that they are actually enjoying this Early American history has me ecstatic!! I say bring on the Pilgrims!! I wish we were studying this closer to Thanksgiving, but since we school year round, it didn't work out. I think we will definitely do some kind of fun unit study closer to that time. We have been reading a very old book called Pilgrim Stories. I do it as a read aloud, and they love listening to it. They also made forts this week of Jamestown.

There is nothing sweeter than little hands!

Don't ask where he got his black facial hair looking thing, if I had to guess I would say marker, but he's a boy, and well you know how that is.

So, that's a little bit about what we've been doing this last week. We've also been checking on our baby swallows nest on our porch! It's so hard to get pictures of them because of the way they build their nest. We can't even tell how many babies are in there. We do love observing how mama bird and daddy bird protect and take care of them. Hopefully I can make a post about them and give you an update...if they will let me get some pics.

Here's one of mom and dad in the nest at night.