Spring Break Learning

This morning my daughters and I spent a couple of hours working in the 'garden' in our backyard. I say 'garden' because I'm no gardener so it's pretty pathetic. We pulled up lots of weeds and planted a few perennials. I only plant perennials because I only work in the garden once in a blue moon. In those two hours we learned more about plants and bugs than most students do during complete units on those topics. Next week my students will be back working in the 'garden' we are trying to create at school. I won't need to teach units on plants or earthworms if we spend some time each week out there.

Like gardening I don't enjoy cooking. However, after a fabulous banana pudding milkshake at Chick-fil-a last weekend I had the urge to make banana pudding, something I've never done before. The girls and I decided we would make something new each day this week. Sunday we searched for recipes that interested us and yesterday we went grocery shopping. We made Peach Punch and Banana Pudding yesterday. Today we'll be making dinner. We're learning about temperatures, ways foods mix, fractions, cleaning up, and who knows what else.

We also have four little chicks living at our house temporarily. We got them from a farm and they will return to the farm when they become more chicken than chick. The girls have been taking pictures of them and have now created a blog to document our chicks. Most of the work has been done by our oldest, but the little one is pretty excited about it. The first thing our oldest daughter said when she woke up this morning was, "Chickie Chicks. Can I work on it?" I handed her my computer. She's always loved to write but this has been a whole new experience.

We're doing plenty of fluffy stuff for spring break as well. Just yesterday we went to see Gnomeo and Juliet. Tomorrow we're planning to go swimming. I didn't set out for spring break to be a serious learning experience, but it's turning out that way.