End of School Wrap up 2016

Last week was our official last week of the 2015-2016 school year! All of the kids have done an amazing job this year.  We are so proud of how hard they have worked. We have had a lot of fun too!

It is so hard to believe we will have FOUR school aged students next year. Jacob will be heading into Kindergarten in August. He has done a great job with his Pre-K work, and has decided he wants to read too! He read his first Bob book this month!!!

Gracie has become a reading  maniac! She is reading just about any book she can get her hands on, including chapter books!

 

All of our kids have grown leaps and bounds this year! For the first time in over eight years all six of our kids are facing forward in the car!

 

Jacob has moved up to a twin bed!

 

Which means Caleb moved up to the train toddler bed!

As part of our land animals science study we studied dinosaurs for a few weeks. After learning about the different hip joint stances of the two basic kinds of dinosaurs, Luke and Ben had a little race to see which was fastest! :)

After our study of Russia we enjoyed a meal of Borshct, dark brown bread, tomato cucumber salad, and varenki (ravioli in sour cream)! Thanks to Aunt Kamie for helping us out with the recipes!

We had fun making Faberge eggs to decorate our Russian table.

Learning about surrealism with a study of Joan Miro.

Making a "home" for a spider web during our study of arthropods.

Playing with sand inside to keep busy during school time!

Aboriginal dot art during our study of Australia, while listening to didgeridoo music!

Learning about highlighting, shadows and shading while studying Rembrant van Rijn's windmills.

Preparing for our Australia meal with "shrimp on the barbie" and Pavlova.

I think Pavlova, which is essentially a meringue with a homemade whipped cream and fruit topping, was probably the kids favorite dessert from the entire year. Yummy!!!

On to Antarctica! Experiment with a homemade "iceburg" to test how much of the ice is actually below the water surface.

Trying to walk like a Daddy penguin, protecting its eggs!

Since there are not any traditional foods in Antarctica, we decided to go with "fish" (salmon) for dinner, with ice cream sundaes to remind us of this very cold continent!

Using our sensory tray to play with water and soap! What a mess, but it keeps them happy and busy while we do school with the older boys!

Learning about overlapping flat shapes, and depth with our study of Jacob Lawrence.

At the beginning of the year I had the boys take a pretest of World geography, to see how many countries they could already point out on a map.

Pretest: Luke-8, Ben- 6
Post test" Luke-60, Ben -57!!!

This has been a wonderful year of learning as we have "traveled" all over the globe learning about the land, geography, cultures, and people. It has been an amazing adventure to take as a family as we learn together!

The hospital that I work for celebrated its staff by organizing a family fun day. It happened to fall at the very end of our last week of school! It was a great extra way to help us celebrate the end of our school year! An entire massive arena with bounce houses, lots of food, games, and even a concert by Scotty McCreery. The kids kept asking if this was really all free! :)

 

  

 (Just for the record, this picture makes it look like Isaac is longing for cotton candy....he actually did not want any!)

 

For our final celebration we actually had the chance to celebrate with our Papa from Arizona! We introduced Papa to some of our favorite treats this year, Peruvian Chicken, Pavlova, and Bubble Tea!

The four oldest had show and tell with Papa and Daddy. For each, I had made a notebook of this year's school highlights.

All six kids received a welcome to summer basket, full of summer goodies like bubbles, sidewalk chalk, water guns and swim goggles!

It has been a full and busy year!