Blog Hop ~ Student Photo Week...and MFW ECC Wk 1

Week #3 of the Blog Hop!  This week is student pictures, so I'm going to work this in with our first week of MFW ECC :).  I already posted our first day of school here, so this just goes on from there.  This first week is all about learning about maps/globes.  We love maps and globes, but there's always fun to learn with them.  For example, I never knew the differences between the quality of a globe vs a map.  If you don't know what I'm talking about...look at the size of Greenland on a world map, vs the size of Greenland on a globe.  HELLO!  So, to see how hard it is to make a round world onto a flat piece of paper, we did our own transformation of sorts.  We drew the earth onto oranges, and then peeled them apart and attempted to put them back together.  All sorts of space in the middle that the mapmakers contort to fill space.  Seems kind of nutty to me, but that's why they're screwed up!  Anyway, here's a few pics from that:

 Also, yesterday was the day that local public schools went back in session.  Last year, as a selling point of sorts, I told the girls that they could go to the beach on the first day of public school.  Well...they would NOT let me forget about it this year again!  Good thing we love the beach and there's never a bad reason to go :).  We were wanting to go a new beach that we've never gone to, but we got a tip from an old friend that our old standard was having whale sightings very near the shore, so we decided to head that direction.  So glad we made this choice!  The weather was perfect (of course...it's the beach LOL) and the wildlife we saw was wonderful!  Apparently there are feeder fish that are migrating through the area and it has brought about some beautiful sights.  We saw whales AND dolphins, about 100 sea lions and HUNDREDS of pelicans going nuts all over the water!  It was so cool!  We spent a good 4 hours doing nothing but hanging out on the sand.  And NO ONE complained about having to go to the bathroom (something that would normally happen as soon as the restrooms are out of view).  Here's some fun pictures from that day:

This was one of about 10 "presents" Mir gave to me.  I had to unwrap them by taking the rocks off the top, then dumping the sand, and that gave me more rocks on the bottom...which I then had to unwrap as well.  I never could quite figure out if I was doing it right, but she seemed happy that I was playing along :)

Mir DESPISED the piers.  She did NOT like being able to see the water underneath her feet and this was at the end of the day, after walking to the end of 2 piers...TWICE.  She was DONE, so her sister gave her a ride :).  Love sisterly love (just wish it showed up more often LOL).

And then one final group of pictures.  At the beginning of the summer, we got a new-to-us trailer for the family.  Very excited about being able to go camping again.  I realized we hadn't been camping since Sav (now 7) was an infant!  That's just too long!  We went up to Frazier Park.  It's only about an hour from us and was such a wonderful weekend!  Auntie and cousin Jade came with us for some of the trip as well.  The girls honestly had no idea what to expect.  Mir didn't want to have a campfire because it meant that we would have to go outside of the trailer, and Aly was going to go nuts without any electricity, but we all survived and had a wonderful time!

Playing a goofy game where they get to guess what it is that's on their head, thanks to clues the other players give them.

Mir LOVING her GIANT s'more!  Who knew how large marshmellows could come!  Next time...normal size please!  These were crazy big!

Counting the rings on the tree to see how old it is.  

As part of our MFW Curriculum, we're supposed to go on a weekly nature walk.  Because of where we live, and the number of hours we have in the day, I'm guaranteeing that we won't get this done every week, HOWEVER, when we do, I wanted a little more of a guide, than just a blank piece of paper.  I'm not good with blank pieces of paper ;).  Anyway, came across this "My Nature Journal" and got one for each of the older girls.  It's WONDERFUL.  It's separated out into different types of nature you may be in and has writing prompts, fun activities, q&a, etc for these areas.  We were in the "Woodlands" section and they got to answer questions like "What do you see that's smaller than your thumb?"  "What is older than you?" etc.  They loved it and I can see how it's going to be a great thing to look back on through time to remember specific trips we've been on and the different things we've seen.  I HIGHLY recommend it.

And here, is true Mir fashion.  Aly just drew the Old Maid card so in all her manner loving self, Mir had to make sure she knew how happy she was for that poor choice. LOL.  Sportsmanship is on our list of studies ;)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!!