Throwback Tuesday: Combining Schoolwork with Outside Activities

Originally published May 8,2013 when my boys were 9, 7, & 5. 

Since the boys were so upset that we could not go swimming at my mother's hotel yesterday I promised to take them swimming today.

I warned the boys that I wanted to get some sort of schoolwork done today before we did that.  We often combine  a bit of schoolwork with some fun activity outside the home.

Ian was the first one up and immediately went to check on the caterpillars.  He came right back in to talk to me and I could tell he was upset.  "Mom!  One of the crystallises fell!"  I gently explained that I wasn't sure what that meant but that not all caterpillars make it to turn into butterflies.  Once downstairs I read the pamphlet that came with our butterfly kit and assured Ian that we can gently move it over and it might still hatch. He was greatly relieved.

He then asked if, for science today, they could watch the Wild Kratts video all about butterflies to learn even more about butterflies.  I said sure and put our science book away; hopefully we'll get to our experiment tomorrow.
   
They ate breakfast while they watched the movie and I put away our cursive workbooks too since I found these adorable Mother's day interviews on Pinterest last night and thought the boys would have fun filling them out today for writing/penmanship and spelling.  It was really cute to hear their responses (for the grandma ones anyway, they don't want me to see the answer to the mom ones until Mother's Day). Having multiple grandma's the boys will be filling more of them out tomorrow. 
   
I told them we could leave to go swimming as long as they promised me they'd work when we got home this afternoon.  Ian finished all his work before we left and Alec brought his math workbook with him to work on in the car once he did the section on Tangrams.

We swam, jumped and played in the water for 45 min. before we had to clean up and head home.

By then we were all pretty hungry anyway so we had some lunch and the kids all asked to watch How the States Got Their Shapes.  We watched an episode about how trains, boats, and cars shaped some of the states. Then we watched an episode about natural disasters.   I'm learning a lot and I hope they are too!

Once the movie ended Evan and I worked on his math; another dot to dot to 100 and Alec finished up his mother's day interviews.  Evan made it all the way to 75 before he needed any help this time and mostly he just needed me to help him find the numbers he couldn't find or else help him focus again.

Alec drew pictures of a hummingbird on the back of his grandmother's interview using his How to Draw Birds book he took out of the library.  It came out really nice and I'm hoping to get him to draw one nice and big on some watercolor paper one day so we can make a whole big art project out of it but we'll see.  For now I'm thrilled to see him working so hard on developing his drawing skills.

   
We read another chapter in Ralph S. Mouse and the boys asked if we could make soap blow up in the microwave again and play with the soap flakes.  I said sure and grabbed three bars of Ivory soap.  They played with trucks and animals for at least an hour and had a great time. 

 

Linking up with: