Weekly Wrap-Up for the Last Week of June

I'm going to try something new this week and join in the Weekly Wrap-Up on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers (love the name of that blog!). So here are some of things we did this past week. :)

manroot fruit
(picture taken by my 10-year-old daughter)

my middle two children
taking pictures of the manroot

Last Saturday our family went for a walk on a trail we had never visited before in DuPont, WA.   We enjoy visiting DuPont because there are so many trails there, and the town is loaded with history.  This time we went on the DuPont Railroad Trail. The trail used to be an old railroad line that the DuPont Company used to transport workers from the company town to the Powderworks plant.  We saw at least a couple new plants we had never seen before, including a vine with an odd-looking gourd called manroot, and after traveling down a side trail to Sequalitchew Bridge, we reached the spot where the old Fort Nisqually, a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company from back in 1843, used to be before it was moved to its current place at Point Defiance in Tacoma. 

site of the 1843 Fort Nisqually

We went to the library on Sunday.  My three younger children stamped their sheets for the weekly reading program to show how many hours they had read (or reading they had listened to) so far since the program started this summer.  My younger daughter stamped enough for 6 hours, my younger son stamped enough for 5 hours.  My older son marked that he had read 10 hours and 20 minutes, thus finishing the summer weekly reading program in one week!  My oldest is not sure if wants to participate in the teen reading program this year, but it's not for lack of reading!  She reads and reads and reads.

Monday through Thursday each of my children take turns choosing something (usually one thing, but sometimes two) to watch such as a tv show or video.  Each child has a certain day that they have their turn (if they decide to take it).  My 12-year-old son's turn is on Tuesday, and usually he chooses to watch a documentary. This week he chose to watch an episode of the game show Jeopardy! and the documentary Secrets of the Dead: Blackbeard's Lost Ship. We all watched Blackbeard's Lost Ship together, and, though I can't say it was my favorite show (because he wasn't a very nice man!), we learned a lot about Blackbeard, and it was fascinating.

Each child is given a certain day in which they help prepare a meal. They can choose what they want to make, and they have fun with it. Well, this week, on Wednesday, one of the yummy things my youngest wanted to make (and his sister wanted to help) was black bean brownies!  We made a brownie sundae out of it! It was soooo good!

black bean brownie sundae (pic taken by my 10-year-old daughter)

Also on Wednesday, and WARNING: this is something awful to write about below the picture of the sundae, we saw a lovely gift our cat left on the stairs.  The "lovely" is sarcasm.  Really, our cat is very sweet, but he's definitely an instinctual predator.  He left a small mouse for us.  And my kids (of their own accord) decided to take a look at it (with their eyes, they did not touch it), and I thought, well, you know what, that is a learning experience.   I took a picture of it in case we wanted to identify things they saw more carefully later, but I will NOT be posting that picture.  Here is a picture of the predator, though. . .

our cat (pic taken by my 10-year-old daughter)

My younger two children and I went for a walk around our property, also on Wednesday. It had rained, and the slugs were out.  There is a type of slug that, if you touch it, it shortens up into a ball, and rocks from side to side.  The European black slug does that, and it's pretty amazing to watch.  We spent some time on our walk observing the slugs.

European black slug
(picture taken by my 10-year-old daughter)

after being touched, it shrinks up and rocks back and forth
(picture taken by my 10-year-old daughter)

On Thursday evening we went for a walk at Fort Steilacoom Park in Lakewood, WA, with my mom. We looked at the plants and told her the names of those we knew, and my mom is learning the names, too!  One interesting thing that happened on our walk was that a bird flew away as we approached, and, looking down on the ground near where the bird had been, my daughter saw a HUGE earthworm crawling in the grass.  And of course each child wanted to hold it!  Here's the earthworm. . .

(picture taken by my 12-year-old son)

 Later in the walk we reached the old barns and heard the sound of chirping.  My kids said, "Swallows!!" and they were right!   We were excited to see that there are cliff swallows nesting in the barns!   Here is a picture. . .

cliff swallows' nests (picture taken by my 12-year-old son)

Well, that's a little about how things went in our family this past week!  :)