Weekly Highlights, week 5 ECC

I had a very unexpected blessing today as we wrap up our first week studying Mexico and deserts with ECC. I had wanted to buy a little cactus plant for the kids to observe/touch/draw during our desert study. Well, I couldn't find one at the Meijer floral department, so after the kids' art class today I saw a little floral station selling pumpkins and bales of hay. Well, I stopped in there and bought a mum and hay for decoration, of course no cacti, but they directed me to a greenhouse just a few driveways over. Well, this was such a blessing! We pulled up to some really old greenhouses behind a house...I thought...is this right? Anyways...we walk in to a really eclectic looking greenhouse, but my dear daughter spoke from her heart and said "Wow, she really knows her plants!" And this lady did! I told her we were looking for cactus plants, she deduced we were homeschoolers, and proceeded to show us lots of amazing succulent plants!!!!! It was awesome! The kids got to feed her goldfish, saw a fish-hook cactus, bought a moon stone plant, another succulent that reproduces if you just break off a leaf, a mini-Joshua tree...all for $5!!!! This lady was amazing and God led us to her greenhouse today! She also suggested that we go to the Matthai Botanical Gardens, which is just around the corner from us, so I will try that next week! She said they have an amazing cactus room. Although my 2 year old was a bit of a handful on this adventure today, I'm so glad we took the detour and found this gem. We even got a peek at a rainforest "sensitive" plant that closed its leaves when you touched it. I will definitely go back to this diamond in the rough! Especially for pumpkins that were priced so much fairer than at the big orchards/pumpkin patches. Anyway, a great way to end a great school week!

Our ice experiments suggested for this week failed, which I expected, but felt bad just skipping them. They just don't work in a cold, dreary autumn Michigan environment! The ice cube in my cupboard melted faster than the one sitting in the "sun" (in reality it was sitting next to a freezing cold window with absolutely no sun!). And the underground ice cube melted more than the ice cube sitting in the before mentioned "sun". Now we know why the chipmunks around here live under our porch, deck, rocks.... :)

Math and English are going well. Zeke is finishing up the 2B book in Singapore and Abby has just started the Primer book in Math U See. We use bob Jones english for 2nd grade on up, and Abby is finishing up the first grade book in sing, spell, read and write. Eli, my preschooler is doing a mumbled mess of things, but I just saw the letter of the week preparatory curriculum posted on someone's blog and it looked like something I could use for him. He is constantly asking for more school work books to do! I will check it out and maybe implement that in the next couple of weeks!

A few funny things from the mouths of babes:

Micah: "Darn it, Abby!"
Abby on a comment from Eli: "Well, that's just weird!"

We took the kids to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tonight. I looked it up on a Christian review and it had pretty high marks, but I didn't necessarily care for it. My husband tells me that most of the innuendos go right over their heads, but I don't know....I was disappointed.