This week in immersive learning: Halloween Hodgepodge

Happy Halloween!

We greet this spooky holiday after another good busy week.  As always, there was lots of reading.

Of course it was after bedtime...but who can spoil a party like THIS?

I got an extension cord that works with our bat, so it is now glowing happily!

Finished Bat!

Finished bat viewed from outside!

And of course we had our violin lessons (in mouse ears, because HALLOWEEN)

And everyone worked hard at parkour, working on climbing, balancing, coordination, and all that good stuff.

Cadence has also started taking a homeschool computer class this 'semester'.  They will be covering a variety of topics - photography, filmmaking, and video game design...it is offered via the microsoft store, so I have no doubt that it will be mostly focused on proprietary hardware, but I was encouraged by the intstruction I was privy to, (in this photo the teacher is discussing the rule of thirds in  photography) and am hopeful that the base skills they pick up here will carry over to whatever context they chose to take it to.

Can you even see Cadence in here?  She's so tiny compared to everyone else...

We've also had some practice in creature care this week as Pita, a very spunky little pug belonging to Rob & Alexis, is staying with us while they are in India for a wedding.  It's really great for the kids to learn to care for her (and of course they are loving it) and try a hand at planning around the scheduled needs of another being. (Our cats are pretty laid back and are fine if we are out for an extra hour or two...but they don't need walks to pee!)  We've all been enjoying playtime with the pup.

And of course, it being Halloween week, we had to carve jack-o-lanterns.

James kept Pita safe away from the cutting instruments

I don't have any pics from the carving process as it was messy and, for safety reasons, I was focused on helping, but everyone worked diligently to create the final creations, within their abilities.  Cadence did almost all of it completely solo, though I did help her with a couple of particularly frustrating parts.  Hazel did all of the dots to mark the outline herself, and did as much of the actual carving as she could stand. Calliope did some poking for outlines and then abandoned me to finish it...which was fine, because those blades are so flimsy I'm constantly afraid they are going to snap and hurt someone.

Finished carvings!

I think Hazel is on a raccoon kick, since I have two racoon related shots this week. This one was from our trip to the "log playground."

And as a special, we-won't-have-many-outdoor-days-now cool activity, our friend Acoatzin invited us over to use his brand spankin' new rig!  Aerials outdoors is a special sort of happy place, but you have to be safe about it, so this was a great treat!

Acoatzin helps us with a little mother-daughters Lyra fun!

There was much reading this week, and we did some math worksheets for Cadence.  Hazel still prefers oral math problems, since reading the symbols can be confusing...but she's four, so I just love that she's happy doing the problems at all! (Calliope, meanwhile, stuck to creeping me out by sneaking quietly into the kitchen and then singing Dido's Lament behind my back while I was cooking.)

Happy Halloween, all!