Legoland 2013

Our Journey through LEGOLAND in photo's

 

K and I had the chance to go to LEGOLAND with our homeschool group again.  I kept this a secret until The 6 AM wake up call.  K jumped for joy with the surprise!

Look at this amazing Christmas tree made from Legos.

 K was living up the chance to go on rides with his friends!  Sometimes being an only child is BORING! 

                      
                                                  Merry Christmas from K and Mrs. Moliassa

Nasa Education Night

School on a Saturday!!!! Yes, ma'am we did count this as a school day ;O)

 

We are blessed to have NASA in our backyard and get to enjoy launches a few times a year.  Its Amazing to watch rockets to shuttle(2 yrs ago it retired though) and yet NASA puts on programs such as Education Night.  Truly amazing!

 

We started the night with signing in and getting a treat bag of NASA goodies.

 

As we walked the path to all the fun things they had some great FUN FACTS.  Those where fun to read.

 

 

Here K is starting his Astronaut training.  Building some cardio w/ jump roping, crab walk, squats, bear crawl, push ups and running back.  He was having a great time!

 

Here K was making an airplane with a foam plate and a penny.  Once it was built he had to test it out.

 

Next stop was learning about how the inner ear works in space and how it affects how you work in space with the big gloves.  Tough if you ask K.   K lost his screw and nut in space before he had a chance to work with it.  "Those gloves are too big." said K.

Entering the Asteroid field.  K thought this was going to be so easy.  Yeah, this was more of a challenge then he thought.  He redirected 2 asteroids.

The 3D printer was fascinating to K and his dad.  They sat there watching one printer making a bracelet and the other printer making a rocket thing (Little Black rocket)

Learning about how they are testing in space to be able to grow fresh food in space at the ISS. After we learned about the plants we went to listen and talk with an Astronaut.  Wow, talking to the Astronaut was fun we all learned some neat things.  Once thing we learned about that we thought was neat was how the space shuttle has to speed past the ISS and once the shuttle is pass the ISS the shuttle has to use its boosters to go up an orbit and slow down so that the 2 can connect up.  At the end the kids all got to meet the astronaut if they wanted and get a signed photo of him.  K's favorite part from the talk was the Astronaut told all the kids to "FIND WHAT THEY LOVE to do; AND NEVER GIVE UP." (NO PHOTO was too dark)  

Now we headed in for a treat of make your own comet treat (Marshmallow dipped in chocolate and graham cracker)
Then we went to explore the freezing temperatures of space.  The Marshmallows frozen were really cool.  Isaac and I had the most fun with those.  Take a bite and blow out the vapor when we talked.  Was just fun to see and experience.  K wasn't all that found of the frozen marshmallows.

Building a rocket and Launching it.  This was K's favorite part of the night.

 

 


K's 2nd favorite station was building his own spacecraft from recycled parts.  K ended up making his own ISS.  Loved watching his creative self come alive with this.

Feild Trip: Mason Bees

Cocoa Green Market

Sept 27th 2013

 

We started off with a short educational video of different types of insects that help our gardens and wild plants.

The kids learned mainly about Bees and how they gather Pollen from plant to plant.  Kids also learned some main identifying traits of bees, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, stink bugs etc.

 

 

 

Next we went outside to explore the garden looking at all the different types of bugs in the garden.

 

While outside the kids and adults got to learn about native Florida plants and how to keep our Gardens full of life (Bug life).  As the kids found Insects our guide would come and collect it into a collector so the kids could see the insect up close but the insect was safe. Insect is only inspected for a minute or two and placed back where they were. 

 Found some caterpillars and a few cystitis, stink bugs, bees of different types, lady bugs to name a few.

After the garden we were shown a Mason Bee house and told how to build one.  Now we are in the search of a nice piece of wood to build a house with to put into our garden.

The neat thing is each hole can can fit at least 5 baby bees.  As the babies are ready they come out 1 at a time with the front being the first out (last one in) male bee.  The first egg laid will be the last bee out and the bee will the a SHE.

Did you know that 55% of all insects are female??  So next time your calling a bug a gender say SHE, your more likely to be right.

 

We ended our trip with exploring the farm and looking at the cows, goats, European Honey Bee hive, lots of Chickens  and some fresh Pumpkin Ice cream.

If your in the area this is a great farm to visit and try some yummy treats in the store

Back to School Bash -Coco Key

Back to School Bash

August 30th 2013

 

Last Day to be eight!

 

K had a blast at Coco Key!  Proud moment - K who is scared of most things until he rides something a few times marched up the stairs and rode lots of tube rides by himself and with friends.  He's matured so much in the last year.  So proud of his growth this last year and cant wait to see what the 3rd grade brings.

                                  Hope everyone is off to a great start of the year

Field Trip: Chocolate Kingdom 8/22/2013

Chocolate Kingdom

Orlando, Florida

 

How the Cacao bean turns into the chocolate that we have grown to LOVE

 

Join us with our photos

 

Here we are learning about the cacao bean and how it grows near the equator.  The Pod takes years to be ripe and its heavy when its ready to be picked off the tree.  

 

We got to sample the Cacao bean at its dry stage with a sugar coating.  Didn't get K's face when trying it out but he ended up liking it more than I did.  I have to admit I did spit mine out!  Bitter!

Here we are talking about the process of drying the beans and how they use to make the cacao powder.

Here we are learning about the history behind the Cacao. Cacao used to be used as money.  Umm, that was some yummy money.

Sampling an ancient recipe of hot Chocolate and learning how they use to make the Hot Chocolate to make it all frothy.  Glad we have gadgets that make the job so much easier today!

Chocolate river and a Marshmallow game.  K Love this!

This was my favorite area.  We got to see how the Cacao bean went through a machine to get the Nibs which is what you make the Chocolate with.

Here we are given samples of each type of Chocolate where we get to savor all the different flavors.

K ordered a Milk Chocolate bar with Marshmallows and M&M's, I got Milk Chocolate with Marshmallows and Carmel.  YUM!  Their Chocolate was GOOD!  I am a Chocolate snob liking European Chocolate so much that I am known to Order a good batch once a year for Christmas.  Just saying it's pretty darn good

The Cacao trees growing at Chocolate Kingdom

 

Great Info on Cacao

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Field Trip: Gatorland 8/20/13

Gatorland

8/20/2013

 

Started the day off with a drive to Orlando to enjoy Alligators in a safe place.  A great place to learn about the creatures that live in our back yard (in lakes/canals)

 

Welcome to GATORLAND!

 

When you first walk in you get to enjoy all the young in's sun bathing.  This was by far my favorite pond to watch.  Just watching the cute little guys

                                                                  Gator wrestling!
Not as fun as I thought this was going to be.  However, we learned about how they protect their eye's in the wild from being injured.  Learned that an Gator can stay under water for 2 hours before coming up for air.  Gators top jaw is where they have strength where crocodiles its the bottom jaw.  Glad we started the day with this while the kids were excited to learn about gators.

                                                              An albino Gator!

Albino gators don't live long in the wild because they don't blend in with their surroundings and tend to fall pray to other gators.  When an Albino gator is found places like gatorland take them in so that we can protect them and learn more about them.

The feeding station.  Turkey dogs were on the menu for today! 
Looking at this Picture I have no idea why I wasn't thinking that these guys can propel themselves out of the water.  Guess they had enough hot dogs that they didn't feel like a hand and a camera ;o).  As you can see in the first picture there is a net

These two are the sweetest friends ever.  Just love their friendship! 

A hot day of 97 degrees but a great time with friends made the temperatures bearable.  Already, looking forward to another trip to ride the zipline.

Welcome to our school room

Welcome to

Soleil Academy

 

 Teachers Desk.  Don't mind the pile of papers under the desk that are waiting to be filed away

Favorite photo of son and Hubs with my lotion, hand santi, lip balm  this years field trip planner
Laptop
Camera, pencil container, new planner, curriculum magazines, adoption fund pouch. Sharpies
Turn in box

Under desk
School Ipad, File (Student worksheets) Trash and our family and finance binders

                                                                       ~Our HUB~
                                Top to Bottom left to right
Teacher binders    Teacher books        Teacher helper books      Past year Binders    Current Binder
Student workbooks   EMPTY        His./Soc.S teacher helper books  Math/theme books  Classic books
Mon-Fri work boxes
Animals                   PlayMobil                LEGOS                   Lincoln Logs/Lego books      Puzzles
Play dough    Preschool learning games     LEGOS             Duplo Legos                         Games

                                                                   Music area.

                                                         Black shelf holds our manipulative
                                                            Art Area (For Now)
                                                     White book rack holds books that we are reading this week

 Our morning area.  This is where we do a few minutes of reviewing things and also where I do story  time.
Every morning we go over the date by writing it out.  I also will write a couple short sentences that son has to read and figure out.  Its normally a follow directions picture that he will do in his morning journal.  The Sentences are something that I have him do on his own.  Than have him show me what he got at the end.  Takes 10-15 min's for him to complete.
Clip board is on the floor but that will be hanging on the wall soon.  I use clipboards when son is in this area away from his desk.

Our bulletin board is just FUN!  For the spring I had son make the whole thing without knowing.  Just short lessons every day to the grand finale of the bulletin board.  He was super excited to see how I used his art work.  The Face was another lesson not part of building the bulletin board

Play table is just that a play table ;o)  There is another drawer but it's still in the garage

                                                          Our Library area. 
Had lots of books until I put them on the shelf and realized I didn't have as many as I thought.

                                                    from Left to right
Readers-2nd grade reading level      3rd-4th grade reading level    Holiday books <-- moving="" out="" p="" soon="">Fun hard back stories                         Random books                      Classics
SCIENCE (Space/Dinos)            Science (Animals, Bugs, plants)   Character building


Hope you enjoyed touring our school room.  We sure enjoy having our learning space

Halloween Art Gallery

See all the fun art projects that we did this week

 

 

A spooky forest

leaf art.

 

Paper bag pumpkins

Bats

practicing cutting and working with pastels

We read the book Pumpkin heads and than made some pumpkin face masks

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!