Week 35 ~ The Zoo, Nature and Swan Lake

Swan Lake ~ And so it begins! We are in the midst of our dance studio's production of Swan Lake With a Splash!  The kids work very hard for months, preparing for each of these performances. They are so excited when it finally comes time to get on the stage. They have no stage fright and I love to see them enjoying their passion. This year Goldilocks is a dog, Little Red Riding Hood is seaweed, and Tom Sawyer has two roles -- a police officer as well as seaweed. The girls also have a separate performance for their aerial arts class in the middle of the coming week. One girl will be a bird and the other will be Princess Padme from Star Wars. That totals up to seven shows in the next week. We will be very busy people for the next few days!

The Zoo ~ We had an awesome time at the zoo for Mother's Day. The most exciting part was watching Tom Sawyer and Goldilocks go up in an amazing obstacle course. If you want to read more of our impressions about the Columbia Zoo, go here.

Chimney Rock ~ Since my husband had the week off, we decided to visit a local attraction. We drove out to see Chimney Rock. It is a bit costly for us locals. However, we wanted to visit, since our kids are growing up here and have never seen it. It really is a spectacular sight. We also went on two of the hikes within the state park grounds.

All the Rest ~ We are still in different stages of this cold. However, for the most part we are on the mend. Tom Sawyer and Little Red Riding Hood played lots of education games (multiplication war, Life, and Borderline USA) this week. They also did Teaching Textbooks, Explode the Code, and watched CNN Student News. Their favorite book this week was Math Sentences with Math-terpieces The Art of Problem Solving. This book was great. We read each page and then solved each puzzle by writing down the math sentences. We also enjoyed the latest SQUILT piece from Homegrown Learners's blog. Goldilocks did lots of catching up on Time4Learning, plus spent hours in job training (yard work with Daddy) this week.

Tim Update ~ This week, Tim and I visited a wonderful day program for individuals with brain injuries. This program's goal is to increase life skills and provide lots of social outings to the participants. It attracts the most high functioning brain injured in our area and some of Timothy's friends from his special needs college class attend it. The program writes up goals for each client and helps them achieve their personal goals. It looks like a wonderful program for Tim, and he will be testing it out for a few days next week. If all goes well, he will start going a few days a week in the very near future.  I am very excited to find this great place for him to spread his wings a bit more on his road to more independence. Hopefully, it will enhance his life.

We are one week out from the end of out 2012/2013 school year. The kids are ready for a change. We will still be doing about 1.5 hours of school a day, but with a twist. I will post about it soon. Here is one last picture of my youngest monkey.

Blessings, Dawn