This month’s class was about “The Little House” by Virginia Lee Burton. We loved reading “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel” but we had never read this book by the same author. The kids enjoyed learning to create the rolling hills and the little house, as well as painting the trees to depict a season.
Lil an
d I attended a fall session of Zoo Tots about animal teeth. It followed the usual format, which is a story, craft and getting to meet and touch a few animals. But what was different and cool was getting to see real animal teeth. The elephant molar was enormous and heavy, and the tiger teeth were longer than my fingers. The stingray mouth was interesting, too. After our craft of making beaver masks, we headed to the petting zoo to feed the goats. It was definitely a fun class!
This post is long, long overdue! I actually thought I had already posted it. Lately for some reason, several people have seen my Pinterest pin about Big’s 4th birthday party when we had kids decorate a cardboard box as a car and then we watched “Cars 2” in our cars like a drive-in theater. In March when our cousin was visiting from Illinois, Lil asked if we could do the same thing with “Frozen” to celebrate Hailey’s birthday. Since this was spontaneous, I didn’t have any large boxes on hand and I had to run to Home Depot. I opted to pick up some decorative duct tape, too, which the kids thoroughly enjoyed using. Sadly, the sleighs didn’t last long, but everyone had a lot of fun with the project and watching the movie! (I offered to make runners for the sleighs, but the kids weren’t interested.)
This class has been so much fun! October stories and crafts have included:
I must confess that I was quite bored with the last Disney on Ice show in the spring. Yet the kids love the shows so much (and we get such a great discount on seats as a homeschool group!) that I couldn’t pass it up. I’m so glad we went — this was my favorite show by far! Despite some repeats in terms of appearances of characters, they managed to change the scenery and choreography enough to make the show intriguing and interesting.
It kicked off with an appearance by Woody, Buzz and Jessie for a hoe-down. They tried to get the audience involved, but despite sitting in the first row my kids refused to join in the dance. Still, it was a fun start! Alice, the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts came out for a couple of songs. I found the marching cards to be fascinating to watch. They had two faces: the red side was smiling, and their backsides were frowning because they were the black suits. Dressed as harlequins, the quick weaving of the skaters was mesmerizing! The next act was Peter Pan, the Lost Boys, Tinkerbell, Hook, Smee, and, of course, the crocodile. The kids thought the crocodile on skates was hilarious, but they especially loved the huge blow up crocodile head that swallowed Hook in the end.
By far my favorite act was Aladdin. I’ve seen it before, but this time instead of the scene at the bazaar, they focused on Genie, Abu as an elephant, and the flying carpet. They had a carpet that rose to meet Jasmine and take her on a ride to a Whole New World. It was breath-taking.
The scenes from the Lion King were also new. This time Scar came out with the hyenas, and then even had a stampede of wildebeest, which was amazingly done. And who can resist Pumba and Timon singing Hakuna Matata?
Of course, the seven dwarves were fun to watch, and the kids were singing Heigh-Ho for days afterwards!
I’ve seen The Little Mermaid at three of these shows (or maybe 4?), but they’ve managed to give even that one a new look. This time the coral and costumes were neon. I think it will always be one of our favorites!
Tiana and Naveen came out for a song, too, as did Rapunzel and Flynn (and the floating lanterns were beautiful in the arena).
Of course our hosts were Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Donald! And for the grand finale, all of the princesses and princes were on the ice. I am afraid I didn’t have my phone or camera with me (I got photos from friends who attended with us); I would have loved to capture the look of awe on Lil’s face during this scene. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve been to Disney or seen the ice shows, it’s still magical!
Now we just have to figure out how to see the Frozen On Ice show in the spring!
As part of our homeschool, we attend enrichment classes on Fridays through P.A.C.E. of Miami. Here’s our line-up for this year.
Big
I told Big that if he wanted to do guitar, he had to practice piano daily without fail. For the most part he’s stuck to the bargain. And he’s loving guitar! I can’t say he’ll walk away with a vast knowledge of how to play, but at least he’s getting an introduction. And he loves sitting around home and strumming while Lil dances to his music. I’ll have to try to get that on video!
He’s also thoroughly enjoying chess, and he claims he’s learning a lot more this year. He’s also enjoying the Robotics class since they’ve switched programs.
Lil
I can’t wait to see Lil’s first sewing project. She completed the pin-book, sewing the buttons herself! And then each student chooses a project (usually a stuffed animal). Lil wants to make a unicorn, which she’ll hopefully finish by Thanksgiving. And you can read more about her crafts class here. And if you ask her, she’ll say ballet is her favorite class of all homeschool classes!
Overall, we’re off to a great start at P.A.C.E.!
I was reluctant to sign Lil up for the Pint-sized Crafts class, but I’m so glad I did! It’s quite similar to the “mommy and me book club” we used to do. The teacher has a story each week with a corresponding craft. So far they’ve done
I’m afraid I didn’t get pictures of all of these, but I assure you they were all cute and fun!
As we are on our third year of being annual passholders at Walt Disney World, I didn’t think there was much we hadn’t done (at least that we *wanted* to do). But our “back to school” trip last week proved me wrong. Here are a few of these events.
First, Lil is finally tall enough for some of the rides that Big has been able to go on. The two most important of these are Thunder Mountain Railroad in Magic Kingdom and Mission Space at Epcot. She was super excited, and we celebrated by buying astronaut ice cream.
A silly first happened on the Buzz Lightyear ride at Magic Kindgom. I’m generally a terrible shot and never score very high. I let Lil be in charge of the spacecraft, which meant a few times we were facing the walls with fewer targets. Those must be higher scoring targets because I walked out with 183,500. That only makes the second lowest rank in the final standings, but for me it was a huge accomplishment!
We also moseyed over to Tom Sawyer’s Island for a spell. The kids enjoyed exploring, and the mine and windmill were fun to see.
We have done all of the Phineas and Ferb adventures at Epcot’s World Showcase. The kids love them! But up to now they haven’t been willing to give up any of their Magic Kingdom time to try the Sorcerer’s Quests. This trip marked our first adventures. The kids did 4 quests (one in each area of MK). Sadly, the quests are so popular that we had to stand in line at almost every step. Sometimes the people in front of us would be on the same adventure, other times we got glimpses of future adventures. But I can’t say I’m eager to do it every trip. The concept is fun and engaging, but as it has become more popular, the waiting in line and following the same folks around the park is not nearly as fun.
At the end of our adventures we caught the Dance Party Parade. We’ve seen bits and pieces of it, but we had never stood on Main Street and watched the whole thing. The kids loved it!
We used to stay mostly at condos, but lately we’ve stayed at the economy hotels on property. When you figure in the free parking and transportation, the savings is significant on shorter trips. However, we’re careful not to spend too much on food, which is more difficult without the convenience of the condo kitchen. We’ve managed to find a balance. However, the hotel exposes the kids to fun things like arcades. Since we had several rainy afternoons this trip, we decided to let the kids play. They’ve played a few games at places like Jumparoos, but this was their first arcade experience. I’d say they’re hooked! Big mostly flew missions on the Blazing Angels game (great bang for the buck on that one), while Lil tried her luck at various games. There was a virtual roller coaster that the 3 of us rode a few times — I think that was our favorite!
Another thing we’ve never done before is collect autographs. I picked up a couple of autograph books at Publix, as well as a couple of journals. We didn’t focus on collecting autographs, but at Epcot one of our fastpasses was for the character spot. The kids got their first 3 autographs: Mickey, Goofy and Minnie! (I also threw in a few photos of the aquarium and the dalmations at the hotel.)
Finally, our last first for this trip was playing miniature golf. The Summer/Winter course was only a mile from our hotel. We had no idea what to expect, so when we got there it was fun to see the holes decked out with RVs! We wanted to play the winter course, but there was a large group ahead of us. Rather than wait, we opted for the summer course. I took tons of pictures just for fun. It was a great, fun-filled family evening. However, it was rather pricey – even with our passholders’ discount. I can’t say we’ll do it again any time soon.
That’s quite a few firsts for such regular customers. The Disney magic never ends!
(As a side note, I’ve started using a collage app for the photos. To see any of the collages in more detail, simply click on it and it will open in a new window. I really hope this program works well, as I’ve enjoyed being able to show more photos in a smaller space.)
We continued with art classes sporadically over the summer, with a few guests joining in on the fun.
We read Dr.Seuss’ “Go, Dog, Go” and made our own party hats. The kids even practiced asking each other, “Do you like my hat?”
We learned to draw cars and trucks with a city background.
We read Old King Cole and drew him.
We recited the nursery rhyme “The Queen of Hearts” and illustrated the rhyme in 4 frames.
Finally, we created zoo animals with glue and chalk. This project was technically at the start of the fall session, but I’ll add it here so it isn’t forgotten.
We’ve almost finished our Arts Attack lessons. I need to decide if we should continue with the next level or just take advantage of the many free resources available online. I think we’ll try the latter for a bit and if it doesn’t work for us I can always buy the level II discs. That’s the beauty of homeschooling: we have the flexibility of changing mid-year if needed!
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