This week has been all about swimming.  In my current swimming class I have been working on my crawl and getting stronger every time.  I am very proud that I can pass the swim test at open swim easily now.  And then this week we went to Great Wolf Lodge, the whole Homeschool Group was at GWL, (Great Wolf Lodge) and they had the largest water park in the world!!! They had a certain kind of waterslide that used floaties to go down a long tunnel that went out of the building in a cluster and landed in different pools.  The big ones had a float that was towed up to the top and held 4 people.  One of my favorites was the Howling Tornado.  It is a short ride where it starts with a turn and an almost straight drop and then it goes into a huge, circular room like a funnel on its side.  Then the raft goes up, back down and dives into a short turn into the final pool.  The rafts are a cloverleaf design.  The worst spot to be on the ride is the back, it is like being flung out of a catapult.  We did a really fun Magi Quest with a group of friends.  You run around the whole resort looking for clues and runes and you fight a dragon at the end of the adventure that we did.  I can't wait to go back there again! 

The best parts of this last week were my classes at the community center-most especially marine biology, math games and today's Wilderness Awareness.  I love being outside and today learned about sit spotting.  Sit spots are a place you go regularly-in the woods, on our porch, where you sit and listen and observe.  Today an eagle passed right over me while I was doing this, it was amazing.  I am going to find a spot in my yard to practice this every day.  I love to watch the world around me, there is so much you miss when you are moving but when you are still it comes to you. 

Back to mom.  Wilderness Awareness is a classic example of why we homeschool.  So little true learning happens by textbook or curricula, so much of it stifles the real joy of learning.  Conor's love of learning comes from real experiences, from many teachers not necessarily certified, the best of whom function to inspire and fire him on.  This has been our best year ever with leapfrogs of learning in science and math, and this is the year we have taken full advantage of community center classes and group classes with homeschool friends.  Sure, Conor still soars through fractions in our Singapore math, but I see much more going on with the fraction games he plays with his homeschool friends.  Our curriculum was a lovely springboard, but mainly inspired us to learn more ourselves.  I know now next year that will be our focus more than ever, and oh, it gets even more fun as his interest grows!

In this last week I started Marine Biology class at the community center.  It is very fun and I learn a lot in it. We learned in this first week about plankton and what water is made of.  We got to look at plankton with a microscope after we caught them using a pipette.  The word "plankton" means to drift or wander.  Animal plankton are called zooplankton and they eat smaller plankton called phytoplankton.  My favorite kind of phytoplankton is a chain diatom because it is chained together which to me are like lifelines.  Another favorite was a sandworm or polychaeta, which I also liked because it has spikes with 2 eyes in the front, we acted this out in class and I acted the part of the eyes.  I very much look forward to this class every week! 

My next class that I started is a math class, using games or manipulatives.   We built towers with blocks and used multiplication to count the numbers of blocks on each tower.  After great fun in the open gym games with many friends, we ended the day with a swimming lesson.  It was a long but rewarding day. 

Boeing Future of Flight

Conor starts this up:

Yesterday morning I went to the Future of Flight museum.  The best part was the engine.  It was a fan that pushed air into a 10 part compressor then the compressed air went into a fuel  tank where it explodes.  Then more turbines extract the energy and push it out the back.  Another strange part about the tour was that the building where they build the planes is the largest building in the world.  You could fit all of Disneyland and enough parking into the whole building!  It even has its own weather conditions.  It actually rains inside the building, warm air rises and causes condensation. 

Back in the gallery they had a 42 foot tall tail of a plane.  It was from the "Dream Lifter" which carries half of one whole plane at a time.  The whole back of the plane opens up, then lifts and scaffolds carry the parts inside.  It is taken to the Boeing building center and they assemble by welding the front and the back together.  Then the two wings are built on the side of the place.  There is a huge crane that picks up the wings and take them to the other side where they put on landing gear and other parts.   I also learned that the planes' wings is where the fuel is stored. 

Mom:

Yes, we are definitely on an engineering path right now.  We were very sorry to have our last math class with our fun group of boys, but schedules just could not work out for us.  What we will probably do is add a math manipulative class at the community center-one that focuses more on games and patterns.  We have also still been plugging along in Singapore 3B, I think if we wanted to we could move quickly on up to 4a since this is mainly review, will see how it goes.  Having the added challenge of doing assigned work that others are doing, being able to show off what he knows to someone else has been a huge hit for Conor.  Hopefully we can start up another course like this at a time and place that works. 

This also fits into the practical projects components of a 3rd grade year.  We are getting our workshop area prepared so that we can start some wood projects.  I would like to see this be something both dad and I can do with Conor at different times.  First to get that mess of a carport cleaned up, then to decide what to build!