One of the things I was worried about when deciding to homeschool Kaia is that she would feel that she missed out on some of the fun things that big schools offer like going to school games, prom, and year books.  Now, I laugh about those things, but back then, they were a huge deal.  I’m lucky to live in an area with a big homeschooling community.  There is a homeschool yearbook, homeschool prom, and homeschool athletic leagues, and if Kaia and Leif chose to participate in those… great.  But in an effort to cover all of my bases, Kaia and I decided to create school t-shirts.  First we had to decide on the school name:  Green Meadow School.  Then we had to create a mascot: a flying unicorn with a shape-shifting mermaid on it’s back.  Once that was done, we knew that the motto had to be “Where flying unicorns and shape-shifting mermaids RULE!”.  The school colors are “blue and rainbow, with a hint of gold” (yes, that is exactly what Kaia said).  We may create a new shirt each year… maybe we’ll change the mascot and colors, too.  We’ll see.  But, now, she can show her school spirit and be proud of her school when people ask her about her shirt!

(Some family and friends have asked for one also, so I created a store. You are welcome to one, too!)

Here is our family school picture:

No, wait, that’s not it….

Here it is:

OY!  It’s so hard to take a picture of all of us being still at the same time in the same place.  Let’s try this one:

Much better

Last week, were were able to enjoy a day at the Biltmore House during their Homeschool Festival.  They put this on twice a year and it’s lots of fun.  Their focus this year was Farms, Flowers, and Food.  We made terrariums, listened to a stories about farming, learned to make peanut butter, made leaf prints, and lots more.  But my absolute favorite part was stomping grapes!  We all got in the grape bucket and tried our turn at making wine, even Leif!  Then we made prints of our feet (the prints are actually made with purple ink).

It also happened to be during the time of their Festival of Flowers, so we were able to enjoy that too!

Kaia and I have been working on the concept of symmetry in math for the last few days.  We’ve looked at the symmetry of shapes, objects, foods, etc.  We talked about how our bodies are symmetrical (one arm on each side, one leg…), but thought it would be fun to see what it would look like if our faces were really completely symmetrical.

I took a picture of Kaia (she hammed it up) and then altered it so that we could see what she would actually look like if the right half of her face was exactly like the left (and vice-versa).

Here is the original picture:

Here is her right side.

Here is her left:

Her favorite part was seeing the design that her hair makes.  It would be neat to make something like this with an object from nature… maybe a tree, and look at the symmetry of the branches.