May Photos Part I

the color coding for our plan books:

yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green, brown, gold, silver

we used to have Play as pink but this year I'm categorizing Play as brown, for mental health (giving students plenty of free play and social time is crucial to help them recover from the trauma of COVID isolation)

running stitch on burlap with pearl cotton 

a wonderful fine motor work for Early Childhood

we are so excited to see the tiny seedlings begin to sprout

we discover a mouse in the Art Room, cheerfully nibbling on all of the seeds we so carefully planted in our peat pots!

we observe him for a few hours and then Zac and I take him to Chautauqua Bottoms at noon to release him... 

which was a great surprise to him!

measuring the shrinking of the apple mummies

height and width with a ruler, mass with a scale

yes, you can do Algebra in a camping chair!

the weight of the salt inside and outside the trout flattens the fish

the tail and fins also shrink considerably, and the eye disappears

the peonies are almost ready to bloom!

as the weather gradually warms up, students are much more comfortable working outdoors

and everyone finds different favorite spaces in the yard

carefully weeding out the space below the pallet trellises, so that we can plant our tomatoes

Passing Through the Netherworld (competitive)

Harry Potter Clue (competitive)

Lion in My Way (cooperative)

Sudoku

once you get down below the dry straw exterior, it's amazingly wet inside  

you can just pull the wet straw out with your fingers and pop your plant in

we love watching the peat pellets rehydrate

using glue dots to add finished artwork to the MLBs

Stamp Game Division

younger friends love to ride the dump truck along the sidewalk

time to move our leggy seedlings from the Art Room out into the sunshine!

the "path of things that smell good"

(which we later will discover are all in the Mint Family)

the Pythagorean Theorem

and how the Ancient Egyptians used a knotted rope to form a 3 - 4 - 5 right triangle and establish a perfect 90 degree angle

using the squares from the Short Bead Chain material to try to find another Pythagorean Triple (6, 8, 10)

thank you to my neighbor, Ms. Tracy, for the donation of three more pallets for tomato and cucumber trellises!

students work in teams to lift the pallets out and carry them over to the garden

joyfully jumping up and down on the pile of remaining cardboard to flatten it, so that we can use it for paths in the garden

we cover the cardboard with mulch and it makes a very lovely path, which then decomposes slowly and two years later has gone back into the earth

the little wheelbarrow is perfect for transporting mulch to help with path making!

look, Ms. Renee, I can get into the tree by myself!

this is a huge deal because no one is allowed to be helped up into the magnolia tree, as a safety precaution to keep people from climbing higher than is suitable for them

she carefully shows me her procedure step by step

a baby oak tree is discovered buried in the mulch mountain!

we also discover leaves on the pecan tree (formerly thought to have perished) and everyone joins in promptly to help remove the old bent cage and clear away the mulch and put down a bigger cage

we discover that some of our seeds soaked in salt water CAN still germinate!  

Darwin was right

nice growth on the beetroot as well

one student brings in a baby sugar maple seedling to show to his friends

we plant it in a pot 

(it, and the baby oak tree, are later eaten by the chipmunk)

these apple mummies are looking really distressed

we decide not to do this project again

first baby tomatoes

we mix up a big batch of paper mache paste to cover the glass honey jars

after the paper mache dries, each jar will be painted a color to match the clay lids

each canopic jar holds a different organ and is protected by a different son of Horus

they are also aligned with the four points on the compass

we draw the organ which is "inside" the jar and mod podge the drawing to the interior

since we have the mod podge out, two students help add new illustrations to the Art Room card table, which has decoupaged picture book artwork on it

I finish my knit piggie, Gloria

checking all the herbal remedies on the first aid cart to see if we have any of the herbs included in them growing in our garden

Boo Boo Spray & Herbal Salve from Dayempur Farm
Arnicare Gel by Boiron
PRID Drawing Salve by Hyland's
Res-Q Ointment by Burt's Bees
Poison Ivy Salve by Green Goo
Anti-Bug Balm by Badger

water bead play in the Mud Kitchen

Nefertrouti II is completely dehydrated, after 9 lbs of salt

the burial tomb, which always rests on a high shelf in the corner of the Art Room

it contains previous mummy projects

Cluckopatra, a chicken

Nefertrouti I, a rainbow trout

this is the long scroll Becca carefully made for Cluckopatra back in 2018

we make a scroll for Nefertrouti II using my hieroglyph stamp set from my childhood

it will say, "May your heart be lighter than a feather."

a quiet spot in a shady corner of the yard

perfect for doing Fractions work!

equivalent fractions are useful for Division

if you convert 1/3 to 3/9, you can share it out fairly between three people

tasting a variety of microgreens at Snack

I give each of the Egypt students one of these cool wood scrap pieces

I think they look like Tutankhamen's Mask

we wrap Nefertrouti II carefully in long strips of cotton cloth

mixing a paint color which looks like our self-hardening clay

painting the canopic jars

because we've been spending so much time in the driveway, we realize there's a cardinal nest and a mama bird sitting on it!

watching carefully to see if there are eggs in the nest

there are!  

the day after this photo was taken, we hear faint chirping for the first time

This post contains affiliate links to materials I truly use for homeschooling. Qualifying purchases provide me with revenue. Thank you for your support!