Finished up Brazil

We’ve had lots of fun over the last few weeks. I’m glad Brazil was given 3 weeks instead of 2 in our curriculum so we could touch on some of the other South American countries and we had some lighter days since we were substitute teaching for 3 days. We spent the fire anniversary discussing fire safety and practicing fire drills and we learned a bit about Veterans Day on the appropriate day. We visited the zoo for Adventurer’s Family Fun Day, saw friends, and earned several patches. With the time change we’ve also had more time for movies and games.

With our Brazil/South America unit we watched “Are We There Yet! Peru”, Jungle Cat and the Emperor’s New Groove which is Ari’s new favorite movie. We learned about the artist Romero Britto and made art in his style. We made carnival masks and costumes. We added South America to our countries game and I’m amazed at how many countries they’ve learned, especially Cas. I’m pretty sure I only knew…like 3 countries if I was lucky at 4 years old. He can consistently identify 5 in North America and 5 in South America. Ari has pretty much all of South America mastered and is still working on the little countries in central America. We tried a Brazilian bonbon box and Fandangos and for our celebratory feast we made Brazilian coconut kisses (beijinhos de coco), pasteis (basically wontons), Pao de quejo (cheese puffs), and mangos. I think it’s the first feast we’ve done where the kids have liked most of the food.

This week we move on to Norway which we will study for the week before and after Thanksgiving and then we’ll make the switch to our annual Christmas school fun.

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On our property, we planted around 100 spring bulbs, so hopefully our property will be full of color in the spring. We also gave our hens 2 evenings out. The enjoyed their freedom and explored and ate a bunch of the fresh grass and dutifully returned to their coop at dusk. It’s actually really funny to see them return to their coop. All of a sudden one will go into the coop and the others will suddenly run to the coop like its a race. One or two always forgets where the door to the run is and will pace back and forth and fly up on top of the run until another hen has pity and comes out to the door and shows the way in.

Has your routine changed at all with the longer evenings? It means a little less outdoor playtime for us but more family board games.