End of School Year…

I’m sure many people probably are going through the end of year busyness with their kids.  You know what I mean…. field trips, field days, projects, testing etc. etc.  You probably wouldn’t think that as homeschoolers we’d have a very busy end of year.  But since we send our kids out to a few classes outside our homeschooling curriculum, (Science, Creative Writing and Art), we are busy indeed!  Way more busy than I would like!
We have spent the last several weeks finishing up a science fair project.  Can I just tell you that I detest this sort of thing? I love getting creative don’t get me wrong… but the whole Science part of it, is so not my cup of tea.  Bleck.  I did enjoy watching as they boys creatively did so much to their projects.  I’m going to post photos below, it’s really cool!
We have also been finishing up our Art Projects.  Oh this has been fun… (Not!)  Let’s just say, it could have been fun.  Tiger Shark made a beautiful clay sculpture a lot like the Willow Tree sculptures that I love so much.  It really was lovely, and then as it dried it started falling apart.  An arm here, a head there…. you get the picture.  The King Fish (aka Mr. Fix It) had to come in with some epoxy to help put the thing back together.  It just wouldn’t stay.  Perhaps it was the clay type.  But that thing has more epoxy on it now than it does clay!  lol!  Hopefully it will all be hidden with some good old paint. 
Jabber Jaw has decided on the theme of his project, but he has not actually sat down and done it yet.  It does not involve clay, so hopefully it will happen tonight.
Thankfully Creative Writing required very little from us, we are finished for the year!  A note about that subject.  At the end of the year, each teacher at the school chooses a student in their class who excels academically and exemplifies a student leader.  Jabber Jaw was chosen by his Creative Writing Teacher to receive this award for the 3rd and 4th grade Creative Writing class.  Woohoo!  I’m proud of him!   If you remember Tiger Shark won the Young Student Writer’s Competition in our area in March.  Jabber Jaw handled it with grace.  So this will be a nice surprise for him. I’m not telling him until the Award Ceremony this Tuesday evening.  Actually, I may not tell him at all and just let him be surprised!  (Gotta get the camera ready though..)
Okay, that’s caught you up on what’s been going on around here.  It has been crazy busy!  Here are some photos of the two Science Fair Projects.  I am so proud of them.  They typed most everything themselves and printed out all the photos.  They each designed their own games to play as a hands on component that was required.  We helped glue things on, type occasionally and we designed borders around certain text displays.  They really did a wonderful job!

Here is Tiger Sharks Project:

His tri-fold board asking the question,

“Do birds prefer a gourmet birdseed or a generic brand birdseed?”

The board game he created.  He painted that tree himself and created

the entire board and concept.  At the end you lift the flap and find out the

answer to our boards’ question.

The Game Directions

The two game pieces

A few of his playing cards- There are about 20 that we laminated.

His actual birdfeeder- he took this photo.  :-)

Jabber Jaw’s Project:

His Display Board that asks the question,

“Do birds prefer different color birdseed? 

His game that he named Bird Seed Land.  I love that!

It’s kind of a cross between Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders.

 

His game directions.  This one he had a little help with the wording from The King Fish.

The large die that he painted.  It’s made of Styrofoam. 

His concept was to roll the die and move to whatever color comes up.

    

His playing pieces.  His favorite bird seems to be the Black Capped Chickadee.

His actual bird feeders before we put them out.  You can see the different color bird seed. 

Finally, some actual photos taken by us of the Wild Turkeys who came to visit our feeders. 

They of course just ate the seed that had fallen on the ground.  Pretty cool huh??