The last couple weeks have really centered around a number of field trips we have been taking, and not so much at our sit down school work, which is one thing I love about homeschooling.
Field Trips & Activities-
Thanksgiving Point dinosaur museum has a
NASA exhibit about exploring light and outer space. We had so much fun experimenting with all the exhibits.
Hogle Zoo - for Labor Day we went to the zoo, enjoyed all the animals who were out, rode the carousel and train, and had a fabulous time together.
Hikes - in addition to a few nature walks close to home, we ventured further away to attempt to hike
Ensign Peak. We didn't make it very far but certainly had an adventure.
Ice Skating - A and N had the last couple of lessons and passed level 3. Our whole family goes during their lessons and skates, walks on the track, or plays on the bleachers.
Art Class - The kids had their first art appreciation class - it was simple and short and they loved it.
Book Clubs - N and I finished reading Meet Josephina just in time for her
Liberty Girl club activity. They went to one of the leader's homestead and had lots of fun washing clothes, seeing goats and other animals, made a wrap, climbed trees - N came home beaming! She also did a short presentation on the book. A's
Kinghts of Freedom club meeting went great - he was elected President/King and did a short presentation about a lego masterpiece he was working on.
Baby S's 2 month check up - on this day things just worked out so I needed to take everyone with me to S's doctor appointment. Oh it is amazing how exhausting and long an hour can be!! But they helped me answer the doctor's questions, asked him plenty of their own questions, and skedaddled to the waiting room when it was time for immunizations.
Boys Scouts & Activity Days - in addition to passing off a few things at home, A was able to attend the cub-o-ree for our area and had a great time rock climbing and passing off more things. He is halfway to earning his Bear. N played basketball with the girls in her Activity days group.
School-
Old Testament - We read 4 more chapters from the scripture stories and the kids completed pages 44 -56 in their Discover the Old Testament journals.
Habit Training - Continued with bathroom habits, repentance, and speaking politely. Sometimes it feels like we aren't progressing or even back sliding some, but then somone will astound me and I know we are headed in the right direction.
Math - Completed chapters 8 and 9, and worked on math facts review. These chapters were a lot simpler than the few before it so we were able to keep moving forward and review for N.
Science - We finished chapter 2 on the Sun. Exploring Creation with Astronomy has started to feel horribly like a textbook, which it is, and the journals are getting a little too busy-work for me and the kids, which sometimes they are. Trying to decide how we will continue.
History - We finished watching the Liberty Kids episodes, wrapped up our timeline and history journals as well. We have been reading George Washington by the D'Aulaires and will finish it soon. We will probably jump back into The Story of the World where we left off last year (not sure where that is off the top of my head).
Geography - We read 2 chapters of Minn of the Mississippi and added more information to our maps. We also pulled out the maps a couple times during other subjects such as History, Composer Study and Artist Study.
Nature Study - We have been working on 3 Outdoor Hour Challenges, but haven't found any live examples to study in the wild - frogs, crickets, grasshoppers, katydids, and moths. So we will probably just wrap these up and we will be armed with the information when we come across these creatures in the future.
Literature - Tyger Tyger became a little too much for all of us. Yeah. We will probably revisit it and finish it in the future, but for now we've turned it into the library. To fill in while we wait for the next audiobook we've requested we are reading The Random House Book of Stories from the Ballet stories Tchaikovsky composed music for - Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty.
Artist Study - After finishing Van Gogh we had a week before our art appreciation classes started so we revisited Monet to have A and N copy one of his paintings. We forgot to do this at the end of our Money study. The second week we started Renoir - we did
Mademoiselle Jeanne Durand-Ruel, 1876 - picked by N for the fridge and
On the Terrace at art class.
Composer Study - We have been listening to Tchaikovsky Discovers America, The Story of Swan Lake, and several Naxos CD selections. I love easy subjects.
Preschool - I failed to include this in our last post, mostly because we don't do any specific curriculum for preschool. I alternate my time between my older kids and younger kids. When I'm with the younger kids we do things like getting dress and brushing hair, making beds, playing and cleaning up, reading books, riding bikes outside, etc. Living life!!
A's - 
Outdoor Hour Challenge - Summer Series #10 - Grasshoppers, Crickets, & Katydids
We finally succeeded in finding this grasshopper on our sunflowers. We put him in a jar to take a closer look at him and then let him go. Some of the other bugs we found while we were searching:
Praying Mantis' are everywhere in our neighborhood
During our outside time we have also listened for these insect calls. The kids have been really excited to hear a sound they recognize and follow it to see if they can find the insect making the noise. 
Outdoor Hour Challenge - Summer Series #8 - Moths
A's Journal-
N's journal-
We looked back at a past journal entry where we had discussed the moth's anatomy and life cycle. 
And we spent a couple evenings watching moths outside - flying around lights and flowers in our yard. 
Outdoor Hour Challenge - Summer Series - #6 Frogs
We have been working on several challenges the last few weeks hoping to find some creatures to examine up close. For frogs we spent time discussing them and the kids decided they wanted to draw the frog life cycle in their journals. 
A's-
We didn't have any luck finding some in the great outdoors so we took a trip to the local pet store. The picture below is of fire-bellied toads - all the frogs were hiding. However, the kids did enjoy being to identify the anatomy of the toads - and making the connection that frogs and toads are closely related.
Preschool - I failed to include this in our last post, mostly because we don't do any specific curriculum for preschool. I alternate my time between my older kids and younger kids. When I'm with the younger kids we do things like getting dress and brushing hair, making beds, playing and cleaning up, reading books, riding bikes outside, etc. Living life!!
This is what our main rooms looked like when we took our lunch break today -- scooters, train and tracks, toys, care bears, sleeping bags . . . 
This handsome birthday boy spent his morning eating crayons, snuggling and playing with kids, and patiently waiting for me to turn my back so he could sneak in the kitchen and clean up for me :)