Ada Lace Kingdom of Wrenly Calpurnia Tate

I haven't done this, but I would certainly look into Citizen Science. Our local nature center & park system is looking for volunteers to monitor area ponds/lakes. Something like that would be fun!

Mine did a trial run of hybrid school this year (4th) and we're pulling her back out at the end of the year. Super excited to do this again! Summer: Primary Math 5, Kilgallon Sentence Composing for Elementary School, and lots of reading (Already doing this now to supplement Hybrid School, will continue some math/English over the summer) English: ELTL E, 180 Days of Spelling, lots of reading Math: Saxon 7/6, Square One (PBS TV show) Science: Physics for the Grammar Stage (LEGO, K'nex, Snap Circuits galore!) History: SOTW 4 and all the supplemental reading, one project per chapter Technology: Scratch E/C: Ninja Warrior, LEGO Robotics, Spanish, 4H Rocket Club

Continuing with my Spanish practice, I've finished Las Brujas and have started El gran gigante bonachón (Roald Dahl's The Witches and The BFG). It's starting to get easier to read in a foreign language! Very exciting! My family bought me the first two Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians series in Spanish for my birthday. Though I enjoy Brandon Sanderson, I haven't read that series in English. I peeked at them, and it'll definitely be trickier not having read those in English before tackling in Spanish. My original plan was to read the Cronicles of Narnia in Spanish next, but we'll see what happens... Kid and I just finished Quark Chronicles: Anatomy and heard about Ernest Devore's passing, so it was very bittersweet. We're halfway through Inside Out and Back Again, which was pulled from my kid's fifth grade curriculum. I wasn't able to get a clear answer on why... it's about a girl whose family has to leave Vietnam for America during the Vietnam War. Because immigration and other cultures are inappropriate for our American kids? That makes me so mad... we are planning on pulling her out and returning to homeschooling in the fall. Kid's Book Clubs... just finished Normal, which is a nonfiction account of a kid who has Treacher Collins disease - the same thing that the kid in Wonder has. Second book club is Esperanza Rising, about a Mexican girl who immigrated to America! It's a lot to keep up with two library book clubs, but I feel a strong need to show support for them, given what the school system is doing!

Two years ago, we got goats. They ate the blackberries and all other thorny weeds to the ground. Yay! Except, I kind of wanted SOME blackberries. So the next spring, I watched the patch. Racing the goats, really. As soon as I saw growth, I dug them up and moved them outside the field. So, transplanted in the spring as soon as they started to grow. That year, they grew and leafed out, but no berries. (Remember, they were eaten to the ground the year before, so they were producing all new canes.) We have farm animals, so their soil was heavily amended. This will be the second year. I'm eagerly hoping for berries this summer!

With that roof, it looks like it could be a gingerbread house!

In January, I read the Spanish versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. I just finished Matilda today. Now I'll start The Witches. The plan is to do BFG next, then I'll switch to the Cronicles of Narnia. Because I've been so focused on Spanish, I haven't read anything in English lately. For myself, anyway. I still have the last Brandon Sanderson secret novel sitting on my nightstand... I'm reading Song for a Whale with dd10. I've been consciously trying to add other cultures to our reading (this one focuses on the deaf community) as the local public school is seriously lacking diversity (For the biography unit, they're reading about Fred Rogers, John Muir, and Theodore Roosevelt. Malala, George Washington Carver, and Ada Lovelace got pulled for "time constraints." Yeah, I don't believe that one bit!) Kid's book club is reading Pie, by Sarah Week's. We're also reading Sophia's War (about the American Revolution) in history. We finished the last Quark Chronicles book in science and started one of the Sassafras Science books... which are SO not as good!

I've been looking for similar. I found the graded readers for Mexico (and some other subjects) here: https://historico.conaliteg.gob.mx/?g=1960&a=1 If you like the Pathway readers, there are similar books here: https://www.milestonebooks.com/list/Espanol_Curriculum/

Do you have a rock quarry/park near you? Rockport State Park (Alpena, MI) is fabulous, Sylvania Rock Park (Sylvania, OH) is pretty good, but the Montour Fossil Pit (Danville, PA) was not worth the trip. I haven't bought mine a rock set, but I have taken her to lots of geology themed classes at a couple of local nature centers, where she has amassed a good rock collection.

My dd is in 5th grade at a hybrid school (noon-4, 2 days per week) and is the only one masked there. At the science center homeschool classes, about 1/3 are masked. At UU church, about 50% (lots of old ladies, but not just them) are masked. Totally depends on the group.

I've been doing Duolingo for... 730 days. It's not fun anymore, but I just can't stop! Last year, I was reading through the Harry Potter series in Spanish, but it was getting to be a slog (I knew about 90% of the words.) I decided that I needed something easier. I read about six Magic Tree House books, but Annie was ridiculously annoying (apologies to Mary Pope Osborne and all her fans) So then I switched to Roald Dahl. I just finished Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate last night and will start James y el melocotón gigante today. After a few Dahl books, I plan to go to Cronicas de Narnia. Apparently, I have the Spanish reading skills of a third grader! I know those are not authentic books by Spanish speaking authors, but I figure that I have to start somewhere. I did contemplate switching to German, as I have a friend from Germany that I could actually practice speaking with. (No Spanish speaking friends, alas.) But the thought of starting over from scratch was just too intimidating!

Just like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - the Oompa-Loompas' songs are much more challenging than the rest of the book!

I just finished Bookshops and Bonedust. This was my first foray into the "cozy fantasy" genre. I think I'll look for more this year. I love reading about magic and dragons and fantastical creatures, but the continuous battles were wearing on me. Kid and I are reading The Marvellers. It's been described as woke Harry Potter, and I would say that is exactly what it is. Verdict is still to be determined... Kid's book club is reading The Serpent's Secret, which we just started today. Hopefully we/she can get that done before the meeting next Wednesday! I'm two thirds of the way through Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate. It's significantly easier than Harry Potter in Spanish. I think I'll work through more Roald Dahl books before trying to tackle more HP. My goal is one Spanish book per month. I'm thinking more Dahl and perhaps some Crónicas de Narnia...

Specialty LEGO pieces (but this is challenging and takes some intense tinkercad modeling to get right) Now we're printing parts to replicate TinkerCrate boxes (as well as making use of the library's Glowforge machine)

I always cut the squash into pieces and roast, leaving the skin on. I serve the pieces. Dd and I scoop the innards out and eat them. Dh eats the whole thing, peel included. I thought he was just weird that way...