Our plants have grown a lot in these last few days. The ones in the paper towel are growing MUCH quicker than the ones in dirt. We think it is because they are getting a lot more sun (they've been sitting on the windowsill)
They got big enough that it was time to put them in the dirt so we did that today.
The only thing in our dirt that we can see growing (from the  surface) is the salad mix, but we do see roots in the other plants so they are obviously growing too. :)

 This is a pretty cool magnetic map puzzle I found at the homeschool conference I can't remember off the top of my head who sold it but Aurora LOVES it!! We had been doing geography off a tiny printed map. but now she can see the actual countries better (and hold them and put it all together!) and it shows some of the animals that live in different areas which is awesome because we were looking for something like that!
She knows what country her daddy grew up in (Venezuela) and what country her friend Silas lives in (in the South pacific)  and where she lives and a bunch of other things too. This has made it a lot more fun for her.

     We have a trip to a petting farm planned for very soon to see and pet some of the animals we've been studying. We've been reading a lot of farm fact books and a bunch of goofy farm (and farm animal) stories as well. "Can Hens Give Milk" by Joan Betty Stuchner and Joe Weissmann, and "Princess Pigsty" by Cornelia Funke are two particularly silly ones that Aurora really likes right now. 

       Oh, and we have already visited some chickens already a couple times this week, what funny creatures they are....

Planting seeds

 Here are the pictures of our planting project.
We planted Peas, purple beans, cherry tomatoes, carrots and lettus

more to come. :)

feeling better and farm

The Gidster is feeling much better! He's still not 100% but his antibiotics are working really quickly which is great because taking care of a miserable 7 month old is EXHAUSTING!

Today we started our farm unit which we'll be working on for whole month of April (besides a little break next week to talk about Easter for a couple days) We'll be spending a lot of time on different farm animals (and visiting some to see them in person which she will LOVE) and learning about how plants grow. This is the first time I have really done a real, focused unit so I am excited and nervous about that.

We started our plant part of the farm study today by planting out seeds (last week Aurora picked 5 different plants to grow and we bought the seeds) and picking out some books about farm animals and plants.

We are still working through the alphabet as well but she seems to be really struggling with some of the letters so I think we have to stop pushing forward and go back to spend more time on some of the ones she has trouble with.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring less runny noses, happier kids and lots of fun and learning.