October recap

Yeah, yeah, I have been less than impressive at updating this regularly. Sorry about that! October was a major mixed bag this year, but we're staying the course and after a full month, I'm relieved and happy to report that we're still not scared off by this whole homeschooling thing. We're refining as we go, the kids are thriving, and we're finding our own, weirdly unique routines.

This month, both kids wound up getting a nasty cold virus, and David even wound up in the ER with an allergic reaction to his very first antibiotic, while we were out of town, no less. No more sulfa drugs for him!

We've done lots of science this month, especially.


We grew our own crystals:

          

              We created approximately 975 baking soda and vinegar volcanic reactions:

The tall cylinder worked much better than the wide beaker. We learned about lava tubes, and this made total sense.

We also made bubble paint, and decided that we didn't start with the right kind of paint, but that it was still fun to paint with soapy paint:

                                                 

I got all crafty and made a homemade duct tape Indiana Jones whip for Anderson's Halloween costume:

This is really easy. 1. Stretch out your duct tape in three rows - across chairs works great. 2. Fold each piece in half lenghtwise, all the way down (don't worry too much about air bubbles or exact alignment). 3. Move strips together and braid tightly. 4. Attach a duct-taped wrap handle of your choice 5. (optional) Add a twine "popper" on the end. We didn't do that. 

There were plenty of other activities we did that went unphotographed (oops), but we did wrap things up with a well-documented trip through our neighborhood to gather just an obscene amount of candy:

Check out the cool whip!

Indy insisted on wearing his new snow boots. This made it easy to spot him in the dark, so he must have been thinking ahead.

I'll try very hard to be more diligent with my updates as we move into the Season of Indoor Activities. We do have a couple of fun field trips on the horizon still, though - we're going to visit the Dinsmore Homestead and the Trammel Fossil Park. 

Today we're studying Dia de los Muertos - a fascinating, colorful holiday that Anderson is especially excited about.