First school, then the pool

One thing we love about homeschooling, is the freedom we have to plan our day any way we see fit. There are no school schedules defining our time, telling us where we have to be and when. We generally do our schooling first thing in the morning and finish up just after lunch, because it's easier and the kids are more alert in the morning, but sometimes we change things around. Today was one of those days. We did most of our schooling before noon, but when we had to go outside to perform an experiment, the pool was screaming for us to jump in!!! I told the kids that they had to do their math first, then they could go swimming. Tomorrow we will make up the one subject they each missed...no biggie!!!

The experiment I mentioned was for Sweet-Pea. She's learning about the sun in science, and has been looking forward to her first experiment. Today was the day! We had to go outside and use a magnifying glass to literally set fire to a dry leaf. How fun is that!?!?! We all got in on the fun! Mention destruction and fire to kids and they're all over it...why is that?!? ha ha Anyhow, we went outside, grabbed a dry leaf and placed it on the blacktop. It only took seconds for the sun to burn a hole in the leaf - it was hot outside today and the sun was very bright! Of course the leaf wasn't enough to satisfy the kids...we ended up burning sticks, paper and even popcorn! Gotta love it!

Here is the first leaf we burned. You can see the bright yellow spot in the center, that's the flame!


Our attempt at popping popcorn with the sun...


It almost popped, but instead it just caught fire and burned up. It was fun to watch though, and it smelled pretty good!


The kids finished school (quickly!) and then we headed outside to enjoy the pool. Swimming outside will soon come to an end, so the kids try to take every advantage they can to hop in. The water was a 'balmy' (said sarcastically) 70 degrees! YIKES it was COLD!!!!!! Usually the water is in the 80's when we swim, but today it was frigid. We did manage to go in and get totally wet...but it took a while.

Here's Sweet-Pea lying on her favorite raft.


Yeah, I put an UGLY photo of myself here on my blog, and I'll probably regret it as soon as I hit 'publish'. The dolphins are cute though, aren't they? Hmm...who's that in the back?!? Lionel...being silly, as usual!


Edward didn't even think of going in the pool, so he sat outside with Cody...who I bet would have loved to hop in with us!


We've never put him in the pool though because we don't want him to rip the liner. Maybe next summer we'll get him his own kiddie pool. For now he enjoys the nice cool grass.


Edward took this great shot of Cody...notice what the pool tube in front of him says. "Doodles"...Cody is a goldendoodle, which are generally called Doodles. Great shot honey!


Well, tomorrow it's back to school to play catch up. We are almost done with 3 weeks already. WHERE is the time going?!?!? Kids in our neighborhood don't start school for another week and a half. We'll be ready for a break by the time they just get into it.

Have a great day!