Day 53 / 102 - Pandas

About once every other month, my daughter has a new favorite animal.  The panda is now the new fave thanks in part to our trip last month to the National Zoo.  One component of our CC day is presentations.  Since she is required to give a short presentation each week, the new-favorite-animal theme comes in quite handy. 

Day 52 / 102 - Five Kingdoms of Living Things

Last week our hands-on Classical Conversations Biology experiment was to classify plants and animals first by Kingdom and then by Phylum.  We used a variety of unusual animal and plant photos to illustrate various vocabulary.

My husband has an old set of hundreds (possibly thousands) of Animal Cards from the late '70s.  My children and I spent an entire day sorting through the cards and determining if something was a Vertebrate or an Invertebrate.  Then, after that classification, we'd figure out if something was a fish, bird, mammal, etc., or a sponge, mollusk, arthropod, etc.  These cards have moved with us countless times, and I was skeptical as to if we'd ever use them.  Since my children were so engaged in the cards last week, I pushed all other curriculum aside for the day and we read/sorted/studied Animal Cards.  For 6+ hours.  I love Interest-Based Learning!

Day 51 / 102 - Basketball Hoop

Our previous basketball hoop did not make the move to West Virginia with us.  So, our son received a new one for an early Christmas present.  Of course it came in a box with assembly required.  My husband took one look at the instructions and passed them off to my son.  My son flipped through the pages of the instruction manual, looked at my husband and remarked, 'This is exactly like Legos'.  He found the necessary tools and went to work.  Within 90 minutes, he had assembled his brand new basketball hoop.

Day 50 / 102 - O Christmas Tree

I've written before about my daughter's amazing ability to create (or recreate) just about anything.  Two weeks ago, one of her friends showed her how to fold the pages of a magazine into a Christmas tree pattern.  Once the pages are folded, they are fanned out and secured together in the back in order to form the tree.  I could not tell you step-by-step how she did it, because I don't quite know.  I do know that she enjoyed every minute of it, and she began folding each and every magazine she could get her hands on.

Once the trees were assembled, she decided she wanted to decorate them.  She set up a place to spray-paint them in our garage.  She then attached ribbon, glitter, and other decorations with a hot glue gun.  Again, my involvement was minimal.  I only had to supervise the clean-up.  I look forward to the day when I don't even have to be involved in that!

By the way, if you know her well, there may be a chance you will receive one of these as a Christmas gift.

Day 49 / 102 - West Virginia State Capitol

Two weeks ago, we traveled to Charleston and visited the State Capitol Complex.  We had an informative tour of the capitol building, which included the Governor's office.  Of course, my children's favorite fact from the tour was learning the dome is made from actual 23 1/2 carat gold.  It is an impressive building to tour and well worth the trip.

Also, part of the Capitol Complex includes the West Virginia State Museum.  We spent our afternoon exploring their 26 Discovery Rooms learning more about the diverse culture and historical traditions of West Virginia.